"They're perfectly happy with the microwave stuff," she continued. "Did you ever hear the expression `if it ain't broke, don't fix it?' And what's that?" she demanded, pouncing on a
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cellophane bag of fresh basil leaves and poking them suspiciously.
"That's basil, Mum," I said, swishing past her to pack some pine nuts away in the cupboard.
"And what does that do?" she asked, staring at it as if it were radioactive.
"It's an herb," I replied patiently. Poor Mum, I understood how insecure and threatened she was feeling.
"Well, it can't be much of an herb if they couldn't even put it in a jar," she declared triumphantly.
She might be feeling insecure and threatened, but she had still better watch her step, I thought grimly.
And immediately I regretted it. I was feeling, hell, almost happy. No need to be mean to anyone. No need to get cross with anyone.
"Don't worry, Mum," I told her apologetically. "I'm not making anything special. They probably won't even notice the difference between this and the frozen stuff."
"Maybe today you won't make it as nice as you usually do," she said hopefully.
"Maybe I won't," I agreed kindly.
I started opening and shutting cupboards, searching for utensils for making the pesto sauce. It soon became apparent that despite our refriger- ator-freezer and our microwave, in all other respects our kitchen was the Kitchen That Time Forgot. In one of the cupboards there was an enormous heavy beige ceramic mixing bowl with about an inch of dust on it. It was probably a wedding present when Mum got married nearly thirty years ago. And it looked as if it had yet to be used. There was a charming artifact of a hand whisk that could have been from the Bronze Age or could be even older. It was in marvelous condition, considering its great age.
There was even a cookbook that was printed in 1952 with recipes that included powdered egg in the list of ingredients and faded sepia-tinted pictures of heavily decorated Victorian sandwiches.
Positively prehistoric.
It wouldn't have surprised me in the slightest if a couple of dinosaurs lumbered through the kitchen door, had a slice of bread and butter and a glass of milk while standing at the
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counter, put their plates and glasses in the dishwasher, nodded civilly to me and lumbered out again.
I thought with a pang of loss of my well-stocked kitchen in London. My blender, my food processor that could do everything except tell funny stories, my juice extractor--not just a citrus fruit one, mind, but a proper juicer. I could certainly have done with them now.
"Haven't you got anything at all that I could use for chopping?" I asked Mum in exasperation.
"Well," she aid doubtfully, "how about this? Would this be any good?" she said anxiously, offering me an egg mandolin, still in its box.
"Thanks, Mum, but no." I sighed. "What am I going to use to chop the basil?"
"In the past I've usually found that one of these works quite well," she said, now in a slightly sarcastic tone, obviously a little bit fed up with my pretentious antics. "It's called a knife. I'm sure that if we ring around we could find a shop in Dublin that stocks them."
Suitably humbled, I accepted the knife and started to chop the basil.
"And what exactly are you making?" asked Mum, who sat watching me looking half resentful, half fascinated, as if she couldn't believe something as outlandish as cooking was going on in her kitchen.
"A sauce to go with the pasta," I told her as I stood chopping. "It's called pesto."
She sat there silently, just looking at me as I worked.
"And what's in that?" she asked after a while, obviously hating herself for asking.
"Basil, olive oil, pine nuts, Parmesan cheese and garlic," I told her calmly and matter-of-factly.
I didn't want to panic her.
"Oh yes," she murmured, nodding sagely, knowingly, as if she en- countered such ingredients every day of her life.
"First of all I chop the basil very finely," I told her, in the same manner that a surgeon uses to explain to his prospective patient how he will perform the triple bypass.
Gently, thoroughly, dispelling any mystique.
("First of all, I break your sternum.")
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"Then I add the olive oil," I continued.
("Then I open up your rib cage.")
"Then I crush the pine nuts, from the bag here," I told her, rustling the bag.
("Then I borrow some veins from your leg--have a look on the chart here.")
"Finally I add the crushed garlic and the Parmesan cheese," I finished. "Simple!"
("Then we sew you back up and in a month's time you'll be walking two miles a day!")
Mum seemed to take all this information calmly in her stride. I must say, I was proud of her.
"Well, go easy on the garlic," she told me. "It's hard enough to get Anna to come home as it is. We don't want the poor little vampire to think we're picking on her."
"Anna's not a vampire." I laughed.
"How do you know?" asked Mum. "She certainly looks like one a lot of the time, all that hair and those awful long purple dresses and that desperate makeup. Would you not have a word with her and try to get her to smarten herself up a bit?"
"But the way she looks is the way she is," I told Mum as I put the chopped basil into a saucepan. "It's Anna. She wouldn't be Anna if she looked dif- ferent."
"I know," sighed Mum. "But I'm sure the neighbors think we don't clothe the child at all. And those boots! I've a good mind to just throw them out on her."
"Oh no, Mum, please don't do that," I said anxiously, thinking that Anna would break her heart without the Doc Martens she had so lovingly painted with sunrises and flowers.
I must admit that I was also slightly concerned about whose shoes Anna would wear if hers were thrown out. I feared for mine.
"I'll have to see," threatened Mum darkly. "And now what are you do- ing?"
"I'm adding the olive oil," I told her.
"What did you buy oil for?" she demanded, obviously thinking that she had a bunch of idiots for daughters. "There's a bottle of oil that I use to fry french fries. You could have used that and saved yourself the money."