A Cooking Lesson

No, no, I have no recipes to offer but thanks to the advent of electronic communications, Sheila could leave for England to see the grandchildren knowing I could reach her if I had problems in the kitchen. I acknowledge that I could not reach her by email in time to solve my cooking dilemma, but at least I could send her a report afterward. Cleo, a young woman who was with us for a few weeks, was looking forward to my preparing a liver dish that I unwisely said I could make.

Here’s my email report:

Monday, June 11, 2012

So today was the day I finally planned to make the liver dish. Gord stayed painting until about 6:45 and I was sort of waiting for him to finish - half consciously - to have a beer with him - you know the routine. Cleo was hungry, but she's a sport, so she came to see how she could help. Her arrival in the kitchen coincided with my return from the freezer carrying a half pound of lamb liver. A whole pound, I concluded, would have been too much. She must have thought I had gone outside again or something because it took me about 15 full minutes to empty out the lamb basket before it dawned on me that you would not have put lamb's liver with the rest of the lamb. Liver, you would reason, is not lamb. I thought, 'this is not a good start' and was imagining sitting down to dinner very late - Gord doesn't even think about supper until the hour hand starts travelling up towards 10:00 PM.

I have learned good practices from you, of course, so I put the lamb on the counter and proceeded to select the rest of the items on the recipe's list. First: vegetable oil. It wasn't in the usual place. I looked downstairs. Having no vegetable oil in the house feels a little bit like having the water off. "Why don't we use olive oil?" Cleo suggested. It wouldn't have the right taste I told her knowledgeably. We just won't have liver tonight. But of course, neither of us wanted chicken again. How about crab flavoured pollock? I offered, but I could see Cleo, who was cleaning the huge amount of potato parts that survived having been planted with the potato crop, was coveting the potatoes. Clearly, potatoes are as important to her as rice is to me, I thought as I put rice on. I just couldn't see how to square crab-flavoured pollock with potatoes. I went back downstairs to the freezer thinking I could do some lamb chops but also how you could do them so much better that I would really waste them. Let's see - look, some sausages. They should go well with potatoes. Chinese sausages. Sounds like sausages. [I didn’t know that a Chinese sausage is for seasoning, not for a meal.] I spirited them up to the kitchen.

Cleo thought sausages sounded good, so I thawed them out throwing the wrapper into the garbage. She set the table. ‘Sharp knives?’ she asked. For sausages? I thought. Sure, why not?

A bit later, with everything else coming along (including Cleo's potatoes) I dug through the garbage again looking for some direction, but there was none. Well, I thought, it's like the expression 'if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it'. I should just do them the best way I could think of.

When the onions, scallions, mushrooms and soy sauce was just right, I tossed in four sausages. Gord arrived for his beer. We talked. I added water. Gord talked. I talked. I added water. Cleo didn't talk. The water, I thought, could steam the asparagus. I threw them in. I had a whisky going and was feeling on top of my game. Cleo began to believe the potatoes were cooked and I had to admit there was less water.

Anyway, Gord left and we carried everything over to the table. I was looking at those sausages and was wondering if my idea of not doing the lamb chops justice might apply to the sausages. They did seem odd. Cleo cut into one. "It looks different inside," she remarked. I cut into one and put it in my mouth. Delicious, I thought, but they were red inside. Perhaps they weren't cooked enough. I shared this concern with Cleo who was clearly having trouble keeping the same idea to herself. Maybe, we concluded, we should nuke them for a short time.

I collected them up and put them in a casserole in the microwave. Not more than two minutes, I thought, as if I did this every day for clients.

Something's missing, we both agreed as we ate potatoes and rice with a bit of onion and scallion sauce trying to flavour some steamed asparagus. No. Not something; someone’s missing. “I warned you Sheila wouldn't be here the second week,” I reminded Cleo, but our thoughts were interrupted by a scream from the microwave as generations of Chinese chefs rolled over in their graves. I ran over, opened the door and checked. Maybe the casserole needs its top, Cleo suggested helpfully. Well, at least with it, the screaming was muffled.

When the microwave dinged I got the sausages and asked Cleo if she remembered which were hers. Somehow she could still make a positive identification. I took her word for it.

“Hmm. It’s a good thing you set sharp knives.” There was a certain candyish texture to them. Dry candy. I thought about how good they had looked when they were red in the middle. I began to chew a piece. Wow, was it good. It’s amazing how good gristle tastes when you really have to chew it. All kinds of unique flavours come out.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you what I should do with the rest of the sausages. Freeze them?

Love, me…please!