SepSceneWriMo #6.9
9. A struggling chef discovers her grandmother’s cookbook contains recipes that summon interdimensional beings (Culinary fantasy)
[This one needed setup; a bit lengthy I’m afraid.]
“Maybe I should get rid of this old thing. I’ve been hauling it around thinking it’ll be useful someday.”
“Isn’t that Great Grandma Bunni’s trunk?” Haylen began to peel off a faded sticker. “Is this Greek or?”
Talyssa playfully slapped her daughter’s hand away. “Leave those. They’re part of the patina.”
Nonplussed, Haylen, home between semesters, began to explore the leather straps and brass studs that encrusted the steamer trunk. “I’ll bet this thing has seen the sights. This one looks African. And this one, that’s Shiva, right?”
Another sticker, one of the Eiffel Tower, gave Talyssa pause as her fingers tried to smooth its lifted corners. “The gall of that prick telling me I had no flair for food. ‘You just don’t have the knack.’ he said.”
Haylen one-arm hugged her mother. “I never liked your boss. And that restaurant sucked.”
“The classics have certainly lost their charm.” Talyssa smiled weakly and gave her daughter’s cheek a pat. “Like this old chest.” She hefted one end and let it accidentally drop on the way to the moving truck. They both heard a click, and Talyssa saw a thin drawer open a few inches above the bottom. “Haylen, what’s this?”
“Whoa, trippy,” Haylen said bending to get a better look. “It’s a false bottom, I bet.” She slid it out further revealing a tightly packed display of leather-bound manuscripts and cloth wrapped bundles.
Talyssa cautiously lifted one of the books and opened to the first page. “‘Earth, Air, & Water, the ingredients for life’, yeah, that sounds like Grandma Bunni, from what little I remember.”
“Are these cookbooks?” Haylen asked, thumbing a small red one.
“I’d say they’re more like spellbooks.”
~~~
The town of Chilliwack proved a cold transition for Talyssa who eventually settled into a job as a cook at a diner to make ends meet. Leaving Abbotsford felt right, given the ruckus she’d raised leaving The Verve. “Probably not my best moment,” she’d remind herself when slinging out another lackluster meal for six. “‘No knack’, my ass. I’ll show you knack.” At home, despite the limited kitchen, she exercised her skills as best she could.
“Mom,” Haylen began one Saturday morning, “what about Grandma Bunni’s old recipes. There was some weird stuff in those books. Maybe there’s some inspiration inside?” She continued to poke indifferently at her mother’s Salmon Benedict.
“You don’t like breakfast?”
“It’s fine. I mean, good,” Haylen corrected, “but I can tell you’re all stuffed up. You need to get your mojo back.”
“My mojo, eh?” Talyssa slid her own portion onto a plate. “OK, yeah, why not. Go get one of those dusty things and we’ll see if there are any espíritus to be found.”
Minutes later Haylen returned, her Hollandaise now congealed and cold. She waggled “Earth, Air, & Water” at her mother, opened it randomly and began to read. “What did I tell you, some weird shit.”
“Stuff, you mean,” Talyssa said around a mouthful of salmon, one she herself found unappetizing.
“Yeah, stuff. Like this, ‘silphium’ and this one, ‘asafoetida’, what the hell are those?”
“They are weird, aren’t they. Those are spices. Ancient ones.”
“Would we need those to make one of Bunni’s recipes?”
Talyssa rinsed her mouth with a sip of coffee. “Well, if we’re to find my mojo, we’d want to follow the spirit of her instructions, if not the letter.”
“Yeah, I get that. Well, I’ll go online and see if I can order some of this stuff, if that’s OK?”
“Don’t go nuts. I’m sure those ingredients can get expensive.”
~~~
Talyssa plated the grilled lamb and fennel, spooned the elixir that she’d concocted exactly from Grandma Bunni’s recipe, cryptic ingredients and all, and waited, arms crossed. “This is number three, if this doesn’t taste right… I don’t know, maybe I really have lost my mojo.”
“Is this the one with Grains of Paradise?”
“Mm, hmm.”
“And pearl millet with okra?”
“Quit stalling and taste it.”
Haylen swallowed and pursed her lips. “Can I read the recipe again? There must be something, I don’t know, fundamental we’re missing.”
“That bad, huh? Here.” Talyssa flopped the musty-smelling leather-bound on the table. “I give up.” She returned to the kitchen and began to clean, banging pans in the sink, tearing yards of paper towels from the roll.
“What about the other stuff, those implements and things wrapped in cloth? Are there clues there?” Haylen waited for an answer. With the continued noise from the kitchen, none came. “Fine, I’ll go see what else is in there.” After clunks and scrapes from the other room she called out, “Found ’em. Ooh, and there’s some sort of magnifying glass.”
Back at the table Haylen began scanning the title page of the manuscript. “I knew it.” She held out the brass-ringed, blue-colored lens to her mother. “Come look, there’s something about a trinity. It says, ‘To honor the spirits, all offerings must be prepared in contact with earth, air and water.'”
“Grandma Bunni was such a card. I’m sure she was being theatrical.”
“But why hide it like it was a secret? Like it’s supposed to be some magical shit.”
“Stuff.”
“Whatever.” Haylen declared they needed an outing. “The Fraser River is just down Young Road, left on Cartmell. Shane and I went down there last week with his Golden. It’s cool. You can even drive on the beach. We’ll have earth, air and water.”
“Who’s Shane?”
~~~
Talyssa stirred the pot simmering on the propane stove situated on the beige-colored folding table, its legs buried solidly in the river sand.
Their drive had been fraught with invasive questions regarding just who Shane was and what his intentions might be. They concluded with “as yet to be determined” when Talyssa angled down the steep incline to the river.
Behind her, reclining in the back of their open-hatch SUV, Haylen read aloud the recipe for Aloo Tikki Rasam, a Indian recipe with lentils and chickpeas.
“So, did you grind the asafoetida, sumac and long pepper with salt?”
“It’s all ready, dear.” Talyssa was a tidy chef. All her utensils and ingredients were arrayed in order. “Just keep reading.”
“OK, OK. Now, while you sprinkle in that final mixture, you have to speak the words.”
“What words?”
Haylen sat up. “I’ll tell you the words, but you have to speak them in Hindi.”
“What?”
“We went through this, Mom. I’ll recite them, then you recite them and we’ll get this recipe finished. OK?”
“OK. Go.”
“This is what Grandma Bunni says is the English part: ‘With these spices I do summon thee’.”
“Summon?”
“Just start sprinkling and say it, Mom.”
Talyssa held the Pyrex dish over the pot. She began sprinkling the spices and speaking the words.
“Here comes the Hindi part: ‘In masalon ke saath main tumhe bulata hoon‘”
In went the remainder of the spices as Talyssa repeated her daughter’s words.
Around them the thick forest, with its fir and spruce trees, bore witness to the ritual. Talyssa continued to stir. The pot continued to simmer. A pair of bald eagles sailed past, gave the spectacle the eye and winged onward. The aroma wafted up and over the waters of the Fraser River. The tantalizing smell drifted into mother and daughter’s noses. They closed their eyes and were taken away to a land of verdant valleys, exotic creatures and tropical plants and foliage.
“Wow, that’s something. Is that it?” Talyssa asked.
Haylen held the glass before the page, moving it up and down. “Yep, looks like. Boy, does that smell good.”
“I guess we should give it a t…”
Before them the river began to boil. A rising shape shed bright green water as it lifted from the water. It rose higher and higher; the vast forehead and wide flapping ears of an elephant emerged. Festooned with jewelry, ribbons and fantastical garments, the beast shook and great sheets of water flew from its back. It stepped to the river’s edge and spoke,
मैं गणेश हूँ। मुझे भूख लगी है। कृपया मुझे भोजन दें।
The women gaped, stricken to silence.
The demon repeated its words, this time in another language.
Talyssa and Haylen remained rooted in their shock.
The beast breathed out a great breath, water spraying from its trunk. It stepped one massive foot on the beach.
“I am the Great God Ganesha. I have been summoned. I am hungry. Please feed me.”
#chef #Culinary #SepSceneWriMo #summon