He’s looking at my recipe quietly. I streamlined it and switched up a few ingredients. I feel myself getting nervous. Now I really don’t have time to fix it. I worked on it and thought about it for a long time. If I can’t do this, I don’t know if I can make the other one down the road. He nods slowly as if to agree and puts down the paper. The scent is going to be too strong. If you can get your hands on it you should use green pepper, not black. I nod. Black and white pepper are harvested when the fruit is completely ripe, but green pepper is plucked just before it’s ready, doused in salt water or vinegar, and flash frozen. It has a fresher, fruity scent, like a fig, so it works well in duck or beef dishes. This time, Chef doesn’t ask whether I would use ox tongue. Instead he asks, Do you really want to make this dish? It’s got such a persistent taste. I nod again. I think it’s enough that the recipe is completed. I shake my head and ask to borrow his knife. Because mine’s so dull, I need a sharper and more flexible knife, Chef. I feel him staring ferociously at my forehead.
Take it.
Chef takes a white envelope out of his pocket, much like the one I gave him, and sticks it out toward me. I look down at the airline logo that resembles the profile of a bird printed on the corner of the envelope and ask, Is there anything you’d like to eat? I don’t have anything to give him or leave for him but I can make warm mushroom soup or spinach porridge in minutes. He laughs silently but it’s loud in my head. I hang my head. I don’t think you can make it for me. What I want to eat is something made by the person who loves me. I can’t make him that. But if he wants something humble and simple like Grandmother’s food, I can do that for him. But I don’t say that. I don’t say I’ll make it for him next time, either. Because I may not be able to keep that promise. Instead I say, with a hint of annoyance in my voice, Chef, you always want dishes that don’t exist. As if it’s the biggest problem between us. When it’s hot like this it’s time to make a more sensual dish, he says. I ask him why the name of the restaurant is the number nine. Chef smiles ruefully. Because it seems incomplete and complete at the same time.
We sit across from each other silently for another ten minutes.
Chef gets up first. He’s ready to part ways. I push my chair back and stand up too. If I were older I think I would want to be with a man who makes decisions for me. But now I can do it on my own. I hold out my hand. He doesn’t take it. He comes around behind me and lifts his hand as if he would pat my shoulder but places it gently on the back of my neck. Is it his pointer or middle finger? It feels like a sun-warmed pebble is touching the bones of my neck. He runs that finger down my spine. I stand still. As he does that he’s mumbling something. I don’t really hear it but I keep nodding.
One minute. Or maybe twenty or thirty seconds. A short time, but it feels longer than any time we spent together and it’s as if we’re saying a long farewell. We say a farewell that isn’t dotted with tears or laughter, that holds no wistful feelings. He turns around and goes into the kitchen and I push through the front doors and leave.
I wake up from my sleep. I hear through the smell of grass a thin and faint song, like weeping.
CHAPTER 34
TONGUE WITH TRUFFLES
Serves one
Ingredients:
150 grams fresh red tongue
Leek
Onion
Carrots
Celery
Radish
Thyme
White wine
Water
Pinch of salt
Two spears asparagus
Truffles
For the sauce:
100 grams watercress
Garlic
Truffle oil
Lemon juice to taste
Whole green peppercorns
Directions:
1. In a large pot, boil leeks, onion, carrots, celery, radish, thyme, white wine, water, salt, and tongue for 30 minutes. The tongue will shrink when it is dropped in the boiling water.
2. Remove the tongue from the stock. When the tongue cools, cut off the membranes.
3. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
4. Place the tongue in the oven and bake for 15 minutes.
5. Cut the tongue into half-inch slices.
6. Snap off the ends of the asparagus and steam or sauté in olive oil in a hot pan.
7. In a bowl, mix together the ingredients for the sauce. Finely grind whole green peppercorns.
8. Pour the sauce on a plate and arrange the slices of tongue on top. Garnish with sliced truffles. Place the asparagus on the side.
Suggestions:
• Instead of baking the tongue in the oven, try pan-frying it in olive oil.
• If the scent of the sauce is too intense, you can replace the watercress with finely minced Italian parsley and garlic in a 3:2 ratio.
• If the tongue is not the freshest, you can add nutmeg to enhance its flavor.
CHAPTER 35
I NO LONGER BELIEVE that the truffle symbolizes love. Love shatters with the rumbling of thunder, but thunder causes truffles to grow. Sure, both are hard to find. You harvest truffles, which can’t be seen by the human eye, by following a trained sow with an excellent sense of smell. So it’s closer to hunting. Truffles are black and round like a forgotten, burnt potato. Among food lovers, the truffle is considered precious, along with caviar and foie gras, exciting them with a whiff and giving them joy. The black diamond of the earth shatters more easily than glass, and it’s hard to handle. Too much of it works as an aphrodisiac, like nutmeg or cloves. Even expert harvesters exercise extreme caution when harvesting, sliding a finger carefully into the ground. The truffle is difficult to work with unless you’re an experienced, skilled cook; it is the subject of worship. Even though you can’t see them and you can’t tell for sure, you pile branches over the spots where you think they may grow to maintain the right humidity. You harvest them in October and November and they are reborn in the next autumn rain. Every time I have a chance to eat truffles I wonder whether they are so treasured not because of their unique taste and scent of aged mud, but because you can’t find them easily and they’re impossible to farm. Truffles are always a part of the priciest dishes. I take out the truffle I obtained through Chef in May, which I sealed in a bottle in olive oil. Perfection is the key to sublime taste.
The touched expression on his face is probably because of the truffle. His eyes sparkle and his skin—the scalpel’s first point of contact if he were to be dissected—is taut and excited, anticipating the feast. And he asks again, as if to be reassured, “So this dinner is really the last time, right?”
I tell him that I won’t be contacting him again. After seven persistent calls he finally agreed and came to the house today. I put down the truffle and turn toward him. He used to be the person to whom I wanted to give my best. He used to be the person who made me feel as if I were looking at a better version of myself. The last thing I can give him is tonight’s feast.
I turn up the corners of my mouth and smile. “Of course. I won’t even call anymore. I keep my promises.”
“Okay… thanks.”
“You’re thanking me already before you’ve eaten? But what’s happened with Se-yeon?”
“Hmm?”
“I heard from Mun-ju. Se-yeon disappeared without a word?”