29.9.23-1.10.23
in the soil
Whenever we are here I always tease, what a stupid place to build a city, but really I love it here, this portion of the earth, the way the islands here slump out of the water and in again, unwilling to decide whether they are swamp or soil; everywhere you look are bright stars of Michaelmas daisies, fleshy leaves of mallow, a few russeted grapes still hang on salt-washed vines. The island of Saint Erasmus is famous for its market gardens, you see it noted S. Erasmo on baskets of plump cherry peppers, tomatoes, the last traces surely of the summer, still-flowering courgettes.
in the kitchen
Back home there is a pan of venison ragu on a heat diffuser on one corner of the stove spiced with mountain caraway and smoked paprika and pork fat that has been cured in more paprika. I can’t be bothered to sear the meat (the Italians don’t, I tell myself) and I have no red wine and so it is a gentle homely brown, not the rich deep brown I might be looking for if I was cooking it in a restaurant. It sits on a heat diffuser in the corner of the stove because it is for tomorrow or the next day, to have with polenta perhaps or spaetzle if I can be bothered to make them or mashed potato if I can be bothered to go shopping, today although October is warm enough still to want to eat a bit of grilled meat, tepid vegetables on the side, a little spritz bianco.
on the page
Just the other day I was saying in regards I think to the Earthsea books how sometimes a fictional world is so well-built that really you don’t want any plot to happen in it but rather to wander around it gently taking advantage of what hospitality it has to offer. Jan Morris’ Hav is not exactly that – plot has to happen to everyone sooner or later – but it is for the most part a meander around an ideal because entirely fictional peninsula city of the eastern Mediterranean that has been Venetian, British, Russian, Ottoman and now – well, that’s the bit of plot that happens. The book leaves me with an odd longing to try the cuisine of the city, which is unusually rich in sea urchin.