The Undomestic Goddess - Sophie Kinsella

“It’s salty and meaty…” I say slowly, without opening my eyes. “And sweet… and… and almost fruity? Like cherries?”

I open my eyes, feeling a bit disoriented. There is Iris, smiling. Behind her I suddenly notice Nathaniel, scrutinizing me intently. I feel a tad flustered. Tasting gravy with your eyes closed is a fairly intimate thing to do, it turns out. I’m not sure I want anyone watching me.

Iris seems to understand. “Nathaniel,” she says briskly. “We’re going to need ingredients for all these dishes.” She scribbles a long list and hands it to him. “Run down and get these for us, love.”

As he leaves the room, she looks at me with kindness. “That was much better.”

“By George, she’s got it?” I say hopefully, and Iris throws back her head in laughter.

“Not yet, sweetie, by a long chalk. Here, get a pinny on.” She hands me a red-and- white striped apron and I tie it around my waist, feeling self-conscious.

“It’s so good of you to help me,” I venture. Iris is pulling onions and some orange vegetable I don’t recognize out from a bin by the door. “I’m really grateful.”

“I like a challenge.” She takes a knife from a block on the counter. “I get bored. Nathaniel does everything for me. Too much sometimes.”

“But still. You’d never even met me—”

“I liked the sound of you.” Iris draws down a heavy wooden chopping board from a shelf above. “Nathaniel told me how you got yourself out of your mess the other night. That took some spirit.”

“I had to do something,” I say ruefully.

“And they offered you a pay rise as a result. Wonderful.” As she smiles, fine lines appear round her eyes like starbursts. “Trish Geiger is a very foolish woman.”

“I like Trish,” I say, feeling a stab of loyalty.

“So do I.” Iris nods. “She’s been very supportive to Nathaniel. But I do sometimes wonder—” She pauses, her hand resting on an onion.

“What?” I say tentatively.

Why she needs quite so much help. Why the full-time housekeeper? What does she do with her time?“ She looks genuinely interested.

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully. “I haven’t quite worked it out.”

“Intriguing.” Iris seems lost in thought for a moment. Then she focuses on me again. “So you’ve taken the Geigers in completely.”

“Yes.” I smile. “They have no idea who I am.”

“And who are you?”

Her question takes me completely by surprise.

“Is your name really Samantha?”

“Yes!” I say in shock.

“That was a little blunt,” Iris acknowledges. “But a girl arrives in the middle of the countryside out of nowhere and takes a job she can’t do…” She pauses, clearly choosing her words with care. “Nathaniel tells me you’ve just got out of a bad relationship?”

“Yes,” I mumble, my head bowed, hoping she won’t start probing for details.

“You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

“Not really. No. I don’t.”

As I look up there’s a thread of understanding in her eyes.

“That’s fine by me.” She picks up a knife. “Now let’s start. Roll up your sleeves, tie back your hair, and wash your hands. I’m going to teach you to chop an onion.”

We spend all weekend cooking.

I learn to slice an onion finely, turn it the other way, and produce tiny dice. As I first watch Iris wielding her knife I can’t imagine doing the same without chopping off a finger—but after two ruined onions I just about crack it. I learn to chop herbs with a rounded blade. I learn how to rub flour and ground ginger into chunks of meat, then drop them into a spitting hot, cast-iron pan. I learn that pastry has to be made with quick, cold hands, by an open window. I learn the trick of blanching French beans in

boiling water before sauteing them in butter.

A week ago I didn’t know what blanching even meant.

In between cooking I sit on the back step with Iris. We watch the chickens scratch in the dirt, and sip freshly brewed coffee accompanied by a pumpkin muffin or salty, crumbly cheese sandwiched with lettuce in homemade bread.

“Eat and enjoy,” Iris says each time, handing me my share. My impulse is to gobble down my food—but Iris always shakes her head in dismay. “Not so fast. Take your time! Taste the food!”

As we’re stirring risotto on Saturday afternoon, Iris puts on a CD of Puccini and tells me how she spent a year in Italy

at the age of twenty, learning to cook and speak the language. She tells me how she came home for a holiday, intending to return to Italy after a month. She’d been offered a cooking job there. But she met Benjamin, Nathaniel’s father—and never took the job.

“He must have been an extraordinary person for you to do that.” I look up from the risotto.

“Yes, he was,” says Iris, her face softening. “He was funny and warm… and full of life. And kind. Most of all, kind.” Then she notices my stationary spoon. “Keep stirring!”

On Sunday afternoon, under Iris’s calm guidance, I make roast chicken with sage and onion stuffing, steamed broccoli,

cumin-scented carrots, and roast potatoes. As I heave the huge roasting tin out of the oven, I pause for a moment and let the warm, chicken-scented air rise over me. I have never smelled a more homey smell in my life. The chicken is golden, its crisp, crackly skin speckled with the pepper I ground on earlier, the juices still sizzling in the tin.

“Gravy time,” Iris calls from the other side of the kitchen. “Take the chicken out and put it on the dish—and cover it

I up. We need to keep it warm. Now tilt the roasting tin. Can I you see those globules of fat floating on the surface? You need : to spoon those out.“

She’s finishing the topping on a plum crumble as she speaks. She dots it with

butter and pops it into the oven, then seamlessly reaches for a cloth and wipes down the surface. I’ve watched her all day, moving swiftly and precisely around the kitchen, tasting as she goes, fully in control.

“That’s right.” She’s by my side, watching as I whisk the gravy. “Keep going… it’ll thicken in a minute…”

I cannot believe I’m making gravy.

Making gravy.

And—like everything I’ve learned to make in this amazing kitchen—it’s working. The ingredients are obeying. The mishmash of chicken juices, stock, and flour is somehow turning into a smooth, fragrant broth.