maudthinks:

If, prior to the age of 25, I have already met the single worst person I will ever meet in my entire life (no, I don’t mean him) I should count myself lucky, because that means every single—EVERY SINGLE—person I meet from here on out will be better. Every single person I meet from now on will not be the single worst person I have ever met, because I have already met her. 

I should count myself lucky. And if there’s a single person who turns out to be one iota worse, I would be surprised.

I read this twice in a row, Maud. 

TOMATO SOUP

Last night my mother called as I was approaching the final few pages of Joan Didion’s Blue Nights in my bed.

It was my turn to prepare dinner, a rare occurrence since I live with a picky eater who finds comfort and solace (I think they are the same) in preparing and sharing food. I, on the contrary, am a functional eater, a trait I inherited from my mother. I’m not entirely proud of this. I do love food, but mostly for the sense of belonging it allows me to feel when enjoyed with others. And since I have not quite yet learned to belong to myself (there may be other reasons), I seldom cook a real meal when I am alone. I am only ever tasked to cook dinner if Eduardo is, for whichever reason, unable to. 

My mother. I’m convinced she called because she could sense I was reading about her. About us. About mothers and daughters who are at once fiercely protective and frightened to death of each other. 

Joan Didion writes, ‘when we talk about mortality we are talking about our children.’ 

And our parents, Mrs. Dunne. 

My mother worked full-time throughout my childhood, and began a part-time Masters course when I was in middle school. She never came to sports events or plays. She was a mother who ‘worked in an office,’ and came home only to supervise meals and make sure our school shoes were polished on weekdays. She was the MD. My dad was HR. 

Before I was old enough to go to school (my mother was convinced I was ready to start a year before the other children in my neighbourhood and stubbornly took me pre-school. I wet my pants and was told to wait a year) I would chase her car up the street as she drove away to work. Although I was used to seeing her walk away and return to lead our family Status Meeting (dinner), there was a part of me, the persistent pessimistic part, that feared she wouldn’t come back. That part of me desperately chased her car up the street and collapsed on the gravel in defeat when she finally took a left turn and disappeared completely.

My dad was asleep on the couch when she called.

“The thing about having children young is that they leave before you’re ready,” she said. She was probably drinking red wine and watching the news on mute.

I laughed. And then walked up to the mirror to look a grown child in the eye.

It’s funny how she didn’t consider the inverse of her statement. What about the children themselves? The ones who leave before their parents are ready? We talked about my job (‘I’m not at all bored’) and her new project (she’s started a garment business; she’s not at all bored either) before I told her I had to start cooking or the picky eater who finds comfort and solace in food would be disappointed, as usual, at my poor sense of timing.

I got up from my bed, with only forty minutes left until Eduardo was due back. Roasted tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches. In choked panic (35 minutes now), I poured too much olive oil on the tomatoes, and they wilted instead of roasting. Eduardo arrived with twenty-odd minutes of roasting time left. We ate an hour later. Me, functional, him, solace and comfort. 

‘What did you do this night, Nomfundo?” he asked.

“I read that book. And then I talked to my mom.” 

ON VINAIGRETTE

Pascale, 

While I was in Barcelona this past month, a city I gravitated towards on your word, I consumed the remaining portion of the delicious memoir you sent the first chapter of a few months ago. I turned back to page one, and read it in two sittings on a balcony south of your old neighbourhood, Gracia, each time with a meal and a chilled bottle of beer. Since then, as the author of that book tactfully intended I’m sure, I’ve been particularly cognizant of the things I eat out of habit, the dishes and ingredients I approach without thinking.

Earlier today, when you asked me what my “favourite food” was, I was both startled by the question itself, and by my bumbling inability to answer it. Have we ever discussed our favourite foods? Immediately I thought of your love of pasta, and recalled images of you making your own in a Brooklyn kitchen I will likely never step foot in. I then tried to locate my own favourite dish, but my plate was empty. Not a sliver of pork belly or a cup of Tom Yum. However, the harder I focused on the tastes your question summoned, the clearer it became: a striped, red and white bone china bowl I use every day, dome-filled with mixed greens dressed in vinaigrette. Could that be my favourite food? An hour or so later I responded, “salad,” an absolute truth that absolutely embarrasses me. The connotations are obvious; in this day and age salad is a pathetic standalone response, but I’m afraid my favourite food has been some form of roughage tossed in acid for more than two decades.

When I was a child, I loved nothing more than green apples and I learned early on to spot the rock-hard, sour ones from the sort that disintegrate when you bite into them. My mother would buy Economy packs of Granny Smiths from the supermarket, which my brother and I were always ordered to savour. And we did! They’d come in clear, jumbo plastic bags sealed with wire ties, convenient for pre-distinguishing the tart ones from the duds. She was adamant on keeping them in the fridge. It never agreed with my sensitive teeth, but I respected and feared her too much to confess. Instead, I’d wash them under hot water until their waxy skins felt like they’d been blanched. Thereafter, I’d dip them in vinegar and salt them. Spirit vinegar. We didn’t buy any other sort at home, not even when I began to toy with my own vinaigrette recipes at age 10. My mother would buy it in bulk, just like the apples, and for years it was all I knew. Any sort of acid would have done the trick, as long as it accompanied a Granny Smith. I also enjoyed lemons with salt, and as most Durbanites do, I’d dust pineapples and mango in a curry power and salt mixture after stirring them in a shallow bowl of vinegar. Once my father told me it was my Indian roots that made me so fond of spicy, salty foods. “This is why you like mango pickle.” Although very little is known of my father’s family, a handful of photographs and a lifetime of secrets indicate that my grandmother, Sarah, was of mixed Black African and Indian ancestry. She gave birth to five spice-loving children during her short life, one of whom later fathered a daughter with a taste for all things acidic. 

Gabrielle Hamilton moved me when she spoke of truly feeling one’s hunger in Bread, Bones and Butter; of pinpointing the tastes and textures one craves when they are at their hungriest. Having moved around as often as I have, it would be inaccurate to root the flavours that soothe me to a physical home. Rather they are a sensation in my cheeks, a sour sting that stirs up the humid climate of my native Kwazulu-Natal, and each place that followed it.

Every day I furiously mix a bowl of vinaigrette to serve over a salad, most often in a single serving. I don’t measure the ingredients, and I barely ever have a particular taste in mind when I start chopping and drizzling. These days I have the luxury of choosing a good quality, nutty olive oil for my standard foundation. In fact, Eduardo taught me to tilt the bottle back and forth in the shop to test for body and resistance if I don’t have a bottle of homemade Italian on the shelf. It’s been ages since I last saw a one litre bottle of spirit vinegar, but I am still brought to my knees and resurrected again by all things sour. Dressed salad is my favourite food — because of the acid that coats the ingredients, because I can hear each bite and taste the tension, and because I am intimately familiar with the right ratio of salt to vinegar. 

I long to make you a bowl, and to hear about where your mind wonders when your stomach is empty. 

All my love,

Nomfundo