Chapter Text
Recipe: wild rice soup:
1 1/2 3/4 cup wild rice (it grows like hell)
salt & pepper
butter
3 celery or so
mushrooms that don’t kill you
leek
onion
some garlic
1/2 cup sherry
1/4 cup flour
6 cups chicken stock (leave that to Charles) (remember to ask him how to make that)
3/4 cup heavy cream
bay leaves?
some chicken
The most important part of this recipe is also the trickiest damn part: having all this crap. Maybe in another 30 years I’ll be lucky enough to stumble upon a take like this. If I’m still around by then. So probably not.
This estate was hell of a “find”. Too far north to make it home within a day, too many food items that would spoil. Can’t carry everything – and will Pearson make good use of this stuff? We laughed at the idea. Might as well make use of it. Some of it.
Apparently you have to rinse rice. So do that. The rice needs some 1 1/2 cups of water – about twice the rice. Put it all in a pot. Also needs salt, apparently. Shows what I know. This needs to simmer. Then cover and try to reduce the heat. Needs steaming for some 20 or 25 minutes. When it’s done, boy does it look different. It’s gone from thin and dark to all sorts of red-ish colors. Damn pretty food.
This is when the veg needs chopping. Chop leek, celery, mushrooms, garlic, save the onion for last. If I were a vegetable, I’d be an onion. No doubt about that. But the really tricky part is chopping all this crap while watching Charles butcher the rest of that chicken. My knifework looks like Jack’s compared to him his. It’s methodical and not quite slow, but almost. Watching his arms and back work is like… I don’t know, seeing a knight from one of those dime novels swing his trusty blade. Did not get through this part without slicing my damn fingers.
Now that’s when you actually add some butter and the onions and celery to another pot. And some pepper and more salt. This needs cooking until the onions are all transparent. Then it’s the mushrooms, leek, and garlic’s turn. The mushrooms need to do something with their liquid, which I only sort of understood, but basically they get all floppy. That’s fine. Then you add the flour and stir. Now my muscles are getting a work-out – it needs to be completely incorporated. Seems like a right con that that’s supposed to be possible.
Finally, sherry! Pour it into the pot and make it boil, but not before pouring a drink for myself. Charles glared at me, so I just took a sip. Then handed it to him. He still accepted it. He thinks I don’t notice that little smile of his, but joke’s on him.
When we’ve shared the glass, in goes his chicken stock, some more water (2 cups), the heavy cream, those leaves, and of course the chicken bits. It has to simmer, so I really had to keep my eye on it. Besides that, the second most important part (really the most important part anywhere, anytime) is this: when he takes a seat beside me to whittle while the soup is minding its own business, I have to try to sneak a kiss onto his cheek. Right next to the scar is usually a good spot. Of course, he’ll notice and turn his head just in time. See, I may not be an elegant onion, most of the time, but when it counts… Then his cheeks turn that deep red color. Like one of those dark red gems set in a big gold ring. For once, I wouldn’t rather have the ring.
The third most important part is sharing the left-over sherry between us. Livens up the wait more than anything. Well… that’s not true. But my cheeks are getting red hot if I even think about how to write that down. That’ll stay in my mind while I’ve still got it.
When that’s all done simmering for half an hour, add that rice. Then it just needs five more minutes. When those five minutes are up, those leaves have to be removed again. Then we eat.
Unlike most things, this was worth the wait. It’s not often I get to say that these days. Despite everything, I think I was happy in that moment. Real happy. Can’t remember when that happened last. Nowhere in this journal. Soup was fine, too.