The long deal table looked freshly scrubbed. The iron range newly blackleaded. But Venetia was cooking on the gas stove.
“You should knock back the red stuff, Freddie. We’re having fish. Bouillabaisse. So we’ll be switching to white. A tangy Vermentino from Sardinia.”
“Well … I’ll bet you won’t find a recipe for bouillabaisse in Mrs. Beeton.”
“What? You think she was so narrowly English? Au contraire. She has a recipe, although she feels obliged to subtitle it ‘a kind of fish stew’ just in case her readers didn’t get it. And take it from me, it was very fashionable in the day. Thackeray even wrote a hymn to bouillabaisse. Not that I could quote you a word of it.”
“Thackeray? I thought you only read Shakespeare.”
“Well … I was underboasting, wasn’t I? He calls it a hotchpotch … a noble dish. There, I have quoted it.”
She took his glass to the sink and returned with King George and King Edward, freshly stripped of their paint dribbles.
“Take your pick. It’ll taste the same out of either.”
“Oh, I think I’ll stick with Edward and try not to think of the size of his belly.”
“A good choice. A noble choice.”
She poured white wine into each mug.
He sat quietly as she served “fish stew” on saffron rice.
Parsley, thyme, and hints of cayenne wafted upwards.
She sat as quiet as he. Her George V mug in her left hand.
She took her first sip.
He followed. Neither reaching for fork or spoon.
Then:
“It’ll keep,” she said. “Even better the day after.”