I’M STILL STANDING…

I’ve got a curry leaf tree in my back garden which I smuggled from my sister’s house in Malaysia all the way to this sunny isle of Crete. She had wrapped up this small fledgling of a plant and tucked it into my suitcase some ten years ago and now it’s stretched its limbs and grown into a tree. There was one winter when it actually snowed in Chania and its slim boughs were weighed down by the flurries that settled on them like layers of fluffy cotton wool and then turned to ice and burnt its leaves. But come spring, though endemic to tropical climes, it sprouted new leaves and it’s still standing. Just like my curry leaf, I’m still standing after our `adventurous’ holidays, so very different from carefree getaways of the past.

The overture to our summer vacation was when Annie and Laurent came to visit. In the beginning she threatened to bring her cat, this big fat creature, a tortoiseshell short-haired Persian with goldfish eyes. They intended to fly it all the way from Belgium and leave it with us while they went away on a trip around Crete…`What about the litter tray?’ I asked. The litter tray has been the bane of my life ever since I’ve had cats in the house. Some of them did their jobs in the tray and others decided to drop it around the place. Even Miu has begun to develop some peculiar habits. Whenever she needs to do her big jobs, she throws her bottom out of the tray and deposits it on the floor. There’s no retraining her now, she’s an old cat, her electrical signals, conveying remedial skills, let alone new ones, are not travelling as fast as they should along the spindly arms of her neurons…`But don’t worry about all that. Romance [the short-haired Persian] knows how to use the litter tray,’ said Annie breezily.…`But whose tray?’ I asked aghast. I had visions of both cats struggling for dominance in that cramped tray and pelting out the contents. Thank goodness nothing came of that. Romance was packed off to a cat sitter.

They had made plans to rent a car and explore the island. But the number of Covid cases started ramping up and they remained in Chania. The days whizzed past with lots of news to catch up on and food shopping and cooking. In a single day I would nip out of the house several times to the greengrocer’s to get something I had forgotten. On one of my hurried visits I saw this relative, normally calm and composed, all flustered, frantically filling her basket with vegetables and her husband sitting in the cool interior of the shop, one leg stretched out and a cane resting by the chair. He had hurt his leg but decided to hobble along to provide moral support. He kept shouting out…`Don’t forget the courgette flowers and get two bunches of parsley…’ and on and on he went…`Why did he come?’ she was muttering under her breath…`Hey, what’s wrong?’ I asked…`What do you think!’ she snapped back, as if I was the culprit. Apparently her two girls and their families had come to stay for the summer holidays and they needed to be fed and their babies looked after. As I hurried away with my shopping, she threw what sounded like a warning in my direction camouflaged in a snort of a laugh…`Wait till you get grandchildren!’

 Well, for me, there was no more cooking the last minute or making hasty improvisations. Our visitors …oops…my daughter and her husband were serious about healthy meals and eating on time. Where did she pick up such habits? Don’t look at me. But I must say that for once I was grateful for all that produce from the garden; courgettes, aubergines and string beans that went into the pot every day and tomatoes and cucumbers hastily chopped up and thrown into a deep salad bowl with a handful of basil chucked in. Was I churning out the same food every day? Yes…more or less… I kept asking them what they’d like to eat and they kept throwing the ball in my court…`Cook whatever you want.’…So I whipped up curries and stir fries and stir fries and curries and the odd courgette pie and the same salad and I believe they got a little weary. So one day Annie announced she was going to make a risotto for dinner.

It was a Wednesday with shades of evening stealing into our kitchen when she asked…`Shall we start the risotto? Have you got the ingredients?’…I didn’t know I was supposed to get the ingredients. I didn’t have fresh mushrooms but had lots of dried ones and rummaged further into the cupboard and retrieved this packet of plump starchy rice which met with her approval, thank goodness, and the rest were easy peasy; butter, salty cheese, stock and herbs from the garden and courgettes. Ah yes, what about white wine? I was a willing dogsbody. I rushed down to the basement and fished out a bottle of Riesling from Alsace, from Laurent’s neck of the woods.

I watched her work, focused and methodical; chopping up the onions, dicing the crunchy courgettes freshly picked from the garden, soaking the mushrooms in boiling water, extracting the stock and so on and everything was so orderly. She certainly didn’t pick it up from me. I wondered whether she had made a quick dash to Venice and did a crash course at Mama Isa’s Cooking School or was it just Gordon Ramsey on TV. In the background Easy Channel was playing some old songs, some evening medleys like Summertime and Touch Me In The Morning, all drowsy and husky. I poured myself a glass of that Riesling, fresh and cold and cut a piece of that salty cheese that I was supposed to grate and sat back, sipping and nibbling and letting the music wrap itself around me. She kept darting glances at me, wondering if there would be any wine or cheese left for her risotto.

`Can you get me some basil?’…Her voice jolted me out of my reverie. I was about to get up and go into the garden when I saw Laurent pop his head into the kitchen. He volunteered to get the basil leaves. Then before I could sink back into my former state of sheer bliss, she asked me if I could stir the risotto while she nipped out of the kitchen for a minute. She passed the wooden spoon to me with very clear instructions…`Stir very gently while ladling out the stock slowly into the mixture.’ And off she went. In a few minutes Laurent came in, deposited the leaves on the chopping board and asked if I wanted him to do the stirring. I let him and went back to my wine and cheese. She then appeared out of nowhere, rushed towards him, shouting and startling me once again…` Not so fast! You’ll ruin it!’ I saw him stirring the mixture with great gusto, picking up speed as he went along. She tried to grab the spoon from him but he wouldn’t let go. A tussle followed and she glared at me…`Did you have to delegate it to him!!!’ He finally let go, calling her…`Gordon Ramsey!’ I laughed because she had appeared to have metamorphosed into that notorious chef that sent novices scurrying away to cower in corners and to nibble on their nails.

While she was putting in the final touches, I stepped out to pick some more basil for my salad. The stars were glittering like a million diamonds in the night sky. I breathed in the cool night air spiked with the aroma of herbs; oregano, thyme and basil. I reached out to the bushy basil plant to break off a sprig when I stopped short, fingers frozen in the air. I remembered when we were kids on the estate in Malaysia, when dusk furrowed its brow in the evening sky, my dad would say that it was the hour when petals and leaves turned into cradles for slumbering fairies. I actually considered turning back and doing without the basil, but finally shrugged off my childhood superstition. I blew on the leaves gently so that the winged creatures wouldn’t be awakened rudely, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then murmured an apology and plucked the leaves cautiously. No worries, I was still standing, no spells of retribution were cast on me.

When I returned to the steaming kitchen, the risotto, creamy and aromatic was being ladled out into dishes and the chef beaming from ear to ear. It was scrumptious. Cheers to Gordon Ramsey…oops…I mean the family chef.