Zimmer: The Making of Fond Friends & Nonna's Honey Cake

9

For all her steadied nerves the day before, Amelia woke that morning with an uneasiness. Unable to face the prospect of breakfast, black coffee would have to do. Would the pierogi suffice for her dinner party? She couldn’t help but obsess over coffee. Especially for a dinner guest as worldly as Renate.

Amelia found the sudden onslaught of anxiety had left her craving a cigarette. She fought the impulse, while her emergency box of Malboroughs and ashtray were still in their hiding place under the kitchen sink.

She turned instead to Bellamy’s book. Perhaps a dessert was in order. Her mother had hardly been the domestic sort and as such, dessert loomed ever larger as completely unchartered territory for the poor Amelia. But she reassured herself. Hadn’t her latest attempts in the kitchen fortified her? In the slow and reassuring act of following a recipe to its final conclusions, it was almost meditative somehow. So perhaps this was exactly what she needed, although she had to admit she couldn’t face anything too elaborate so for today, she would embrace some simplicity.

As if she had wavering doubt, Bellamy yet again had just the thing for her.

Nonna’s Moist Honey Cake

My Italian maternal grandmother, or Nonna as we affectionately knew her, always spoilt us throughout our childhood with her scrumptious honey cake for all seasons and any time of day. Sticky and spicy, this cake can keep in an airtight container for as long as a week, although we seldom tested it so! An effortless cake you can prepare with a few basic essentials in any kitchen, I do so hope you will enjoy this delight from my Nonna’s heart and hearth and home.

Amelia scanned the ingredients and found that she had everything she would need at hand in the far recesses of the larder. Thank goodness the previous renter must have been a baker. To keep the cigarette cravings at bay, there was nothing for it but to begin baking.

This time, baking being a more exact science, she would have to get the measurements just right, getting her scale and newly acquired measuring cups out. She lined and lightly greased her nana’s old oblong cake tin and then melted 175g of butter in a pan next, with 130g of brown sugar and 175g of the honey.

She made certain the mixture did not boil, as per Bellamy’s warning. In a large bowl, she sifted 275g of self-raising flour, half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and the two teaspoons of mixed spice and one teaspoon of cinnamon. Making a well in the centre, she poured in the melted butter and sugar and honey mixture, stirring until it was beginning to resemble cake batter. Beating two eggs and 150ml of milk together, she next added this to the batter.

It was now all ready to be poured into the tin and placed in the oven at 180C for an hour.

She used the residual hour to shower and get ready for the day for she would have to go to the wine merchant in town later. Out of the oven, the fragrant cake was ready for the final stage. Poking holes in the cake, Amelia spread the remaining 75g of clear honey over the cake, allowing it to seep in and truly moisten her virgin attempt at dessert. There, that was better. She felt her worries lifting, comforted by the scent of cinnamon wafting in her kitchen, forgetting that cigarette altogether.

***

Dressed in her new high-waisted denims and vintage cardigan and a pair of old plimsolls, Amelia couldn’t help but feel something was missing. She pondered long and hard, staring herself up and down in her wardrobe mirror. What would her nana have done?

Opening the drawer that hid her prized possessions she decided if any occasion warranted a spritz of her nana’s signature fragrance it was this. Her very first dinner party.

Already, as its fragrance began to warm on her skin, she sensed something in her change. A quiet kind of confidence. She liked this new sensation. And before she could worry or agonise over any more details for the eve ahead, the doorbell rang. A little early, she prayed desperately that it was the professor first.

As luck would have it, it was indeed the professor, beaming as usual. This time he had brought around some gardening goodies for her maidenhead fern, which was still thriving, perhaps in spite of her Amelia was pleased to find.

As the professor leant in to kiss Amelia on her cheek, he paused then looked quizzically at her.

“That scent... It’s so very familiar. But it has been many, many years. All the same a gardener always has the nose for a fine bouquet I like to think. Is it perhaps Après l’Ondée? It was a gift for my Valerie on our 20th wedding anniversary and to commemorate our trip to France. Oh it is so lovely but a little bittersweet, to remember that trip.”

Amelia felt she should say something but was interrupted to see that Renate had been waiting in the doorway while she and the professor exchanged greetings. In her hands, Renate held a terracotta pot with a glorious white flower. Not wanting to cut short the professor’s sudden onslaught of nostalgia either, or so Amelia assumed, she wondered how long Renate had been standing there and just how much she had heard.

“Oh, Renate. I’m so sorry! Please do come in.” The professor blushed a little in embarrassment before resuming his brand of exuberance. “Professor... Jack... This is Renate. Renate, my botanist friend, Jack.”

“Ah! The famed Renate of Buschle’s Boutique... My late wife was a great fan. Your reputation precedes you. An utter pleasure! And I must say, a white amaryllis is truly the mark of elegance for a gift. Beautiful specimen.” In a moment of tenderness, Renate kissed the professor on each cheek after handing over the pot plant to Amelia.

Amelia regarded the boutique owner out of her natural habitat with some curiosity.

A light blue raincoat over her arm, she had a clean but accomplished shine to her, dressed as she was in a white cotton blouse and boyfriend jeans with green Doc Martins.

Amelia noted the watch from before.

Meanwhile, Renate’s silken grey hair was this time parted in the middle and pulled back in a slick low ponytail, a pair of black pearl earrings matching the string around her neck.

It was timeless.

And although it was low-key and unpretentious, it was faultless all the same, like its wearer.

She reminded Amelia of the women from the black and whites she loved so much, women from a time when they broke the mould.

Also, intriguingly, Amelia realised that the professor seemed a little undone by her presence, though somewhat recovered, a blush still to his cheeks where she had kissed them and unable to entirely look Renate in the eyes.

Amelia held up the pot plant, turning it in her hands. “It’s wonderful. Thank you,” she enthused, truly touched.

“Be sure to plant that where it can enjoy a good deal of warmth,” the professor advised. “Other than that, they are marvellously generous bulbs that will never fail to amaze each summer with their bold blossoms! They were my Valerie’s pride and joy each summer in our own garden. Shop bought they flower, but will return to their natural rhythm once returned to a garden. Something to look forward to with the changing of seasons, as in life.”

The professor blushed again and smiled a shy smile, almost boyish. Amelia had never noticed before but he had such lovely lashes. A handsome devil in his younger days she was sure but she couldn’t picture him as a heartbreaker. More the hopeless romantic. Again he had a kind of awkward charm to him in a paisley white and blue shirt and crumpled white linen slacks. His mercurial eyes seemed all the bluer for the shirt.

“They remind me too of my Fritz,” Renate spoke candidly, surprising Amelia. “He was such an avid gardener and our summer garden was always the envy of the neighbourhood, if I may boast some. I have since tried to maintain it like he would’ve liked but I do not share in his uh, how do you say, green hands...?”

“Um, thumb.” Amelia held up her thumb by way of show and Renate laughed at her mistake.

“Mmm... Sometimes my English gives me away. Ah, how my Fritz used to tease me! When we first moved, we went shopping for the house and I asked the assistant where I might find a ‘spatoolah.’ How Fritz laughed and laughed at that! It is a good thing to have a home bright with laughter.” Her dark eyes, though smiling, were a little sad.

“There is an old Irish proverb, that laughter is brightest where the food is,” the professor chimed in chivalrously, lifting his gaze for the first time to make eye contact with Renate. “So we must be ever grateful to our kind hostess for what I’m sure will be an evening bright indeed.” He turned to bow in Amelia’s direction. And just like that the professor seemed to be a little more himself.

However, Amelia couldn’t help but notice then that they were still gathered in the entrance and though there had been some chatter her guests had not been seated or offered the Blanc de Blanc chilling exclusively for the evening ahead.

Making a somewhat uncomfortable show of things, Amelia haphazardly gestured them through to the makeshift dining table and chairs she’d made of her patio set. Though the rain had held off for now, and it wasn’t as chilly as it had been forecast, Amelia hadn’t wanted to take the chance.

She apologised that the seating was so shabby, but Renate held her hand up.

“No, no, no. It is the role of a hostess to be gracious, yes. But equally, a guest should be so. An unthankful guest is an ingrate. This is it. Put your mind at rest, dahling. We are humbled by your hospitality. Now, I do believe you mentioned a Blanc de Blanc?” She grinned cheekily, letting Amelia know that the lesson was now over and the invitation to relax generously extended.

“Ooh, hello!” Ailuros had surfaced stealthily. She was rubbing up against Renate’s legs, as yet another arena upon which to mark her scent.

“Oh I’m so sorry!” Amelia was about to shoo Ailuros away but Renate stopped her.

“It is quite alright. Fritz and I had a cat for many years. A grey cat. Our Sophie. We used to tease my husband that he loved that cat more than our own children.” She stroked Ailuros and gave her an affectionate scratch beneath the feline’s chin, the animal completely in her element and at once taking to Renate as if they were long acquainted.

In the meantime, Amelia had retrieved the first of the bottles of sparkling Blanc de Blanc and popped the cork. There was just something about that, the sound of a cork popping, that had such a celebratory ring to it. Her dinner guests clapped their applause while she filled their flutes.

“To new friends,” Renate upheld her flute and saluted Amelia and Jack.

In no time at all, Amelia had laid the plates on the table, the pierogi’s garnished with chopped parsley and caramelised onions and bacon bits and served with sour cream on the side.

Renate removed a handkerchief from her shirt pocket and wiped a tear from her eye.

“Amelia, Jack, please do excuse me, but these remind me so of my great grandmother’s dumplings as a child. She was Ukrainian you see, and always, always in the kitchen, cooking up something for us. She’d grown up in such uh, how do you say, poverty, that for her, to feed her family was a source of great pride. A revolt against starvation and the poverty she had known, growing up. That first bite, it was like magic. It was like I was right there.

"As a child. At her kitchen table. It made my eyes wet with tears, remembering so.

"She always gave me the first ones to try. Even for breakfast, with some homemade jam and sour cream. Or with homemade sauerkraut for lunch.

"Such a wise woman she was.

"We would plate up our dumplings and there would be a fire and we would sit around her by the warmth of the fire, with her telling stories, always stories of adventure and wise young women. She would tell me I would grow up to be just like the young women of her stories. Thank you, Amelia. This is such a treat.”

“I am the same with a boiled egg and toast,” Jack spoke, evermore chivalrous. “Such a simple meal. But my beloved grandmother made them for me for breakfast, lunch or dinner. She knew in the way only grandmothers know that they were my very favourite. And ever since I lost her, a soft boiled egg, with the toast cut into neat toast soldiers for dunking, well, it makes me miss her so... But to think on fond old times, too. Isn’t it just that? How a smell or a taste or a song, can render us so very heart struck and transport us to times so very long ago it sometimes feels.”

Renate and Jack regarded each other briefly in a shared and indebted silence before Renate burst suddenly into a fit of laughter, this time using her handkerchief to dry her eyes from sheer hysterics.

“Oh, Amelia! You truly have two sentimental old fools at your table if you’ll forgive me saying, Jack!” Hardly insulted, Jack similarly burst into laughter, Amelia soon following in suit.

“How about some music?” Amelia interjected, realising this was perhaps yet another oversight on her part in the general guide book to hosting a dinner party. “Any requests?”

“Mmm...” Renate threw her a curious glance with a mischievous smile. “How about a little uh, American jazz... Ella Fitzgerald? Yes?”

“Ella Fitzgerald it is!”

“So, you’re a jazz gal?” The professor beamed at Renate and catching himself, blushed again almost instantly. Renate in turn – perchance because of the bubbly flowing, or that elusive something else – turned a brighter shade of pink. Meanwhile, Amelia smiled the knowing smile of someone who can see what others cannot, yet... That smile of the watchful and unobtrusive observer. There was certainly a brewing camaraderie between the two, Amelia was delighted to gamble.

Plates cleaned and not one pierogi left, Amelia topped up their flutes. There was no rush for dessert. If her guests felt anything like her, it was well satiated and contented. At least they had the professor to regale them with tales of natural phenomena. His mind was a wonder in and of itself, Amelia thought. He had just turned to the subject of mosses.

“Schistostega pennata, or Goblin’s gold, is a miraculous specimen indeed. Found in dark caves and gleaning so little sunlight throughout each day, its only response is to glitter and shine for any who may find it. I take heart in so many lessons from our benevolent natural world. That really, even the smallest of kindnesses can resound, even in our own lives as human beings on this earth. We need so very little, just some light, air, water and compassion here and there, to know that we are immense in spirit, don’t you think?

"I dare say, Amelia, you are not unlike Goblin’s gold. This evening has been a gift indeed. Thank you.” Again, as last time, he took her hand and squeezed it in a show of sincere gratitude. Renate sat back and looked on with her kind, dark eyes.

Theirs was maybe a peculiar kind of friendship. But a true friendship it was proving to be all the same. And that’s what really mattered to Amelia, thinking back on her to-do list and Point number 5.

The eve continued in merriment, with her after-dinner honey cake and more than one espresso, into the late hours, conversation comfortably abounding, and Ailuros making her way from one guest to the other and back to Amelia for affection. Eventually it was time for goodbyes.

Her guests finally gone, a newfound boldness to her, Amelia retrieved the wrapped parcel from her mother and sat it on the coffee table staring at it, daring herself long and hard to open it, until sleepy she curled up on the sofa and gave in to the night.

Honey Jar by Jon Peters