Rosemary grows in a pot in my kitchen window. Tonight I am making roast eggplant and will add some of this pungent herb. The sharp aroma, the tender prickliness of the leaves will let me remember a long-ago meal. The last one I had with you, when we lived in Parma.
I had a small garden outside our apartment where I grew zucchini and rosemary. This city was not the best place for a vegan like you. It is famous for Parma ham and parmesan cheese, not to mention horse meat tartare. Yes, raw horse meat seasoned with black pepper and garlic and herbs.
I created this last meal as my apology to you. You were angry with me because the night before I had eaten the tartare in a restaurant on Strada Republica. You had asked me how I could have even thought of ordering such a meal when I was with you. You had pasta with tomato sauce – no cheese. I refused to be intimidated either by you or the horse meat tartare. It was wonderful.
Still annoyed with me the next day, you isolated yourself in a corner of the living room. That space had become your art studio and therefore off limits to me. You were constructing a photo collage of Parma. Your mind was on your work and my presence irritated you. I tried to be quiet and read, but you were fascinating. I just had to creep close to watch. So precise. So particular. You were observant of light, shade, color. Your talent amazed me.
You caught Parma’s quiet dignity in your pictures. You encapsulated tranquility in your mounting of Parma Cathedral and the Baptistry, dating from the 11th century. You brought us into the peaceful courtyards and close to the fountains and the ancient wooden doors.
Feeling both guilty and shunned, I resolved to follow your example and be attentive in my own work. I decided to roast the eggplants I had bought that morning to try to pacify you. But without red sauce. Would you like it? I hoped so. I picked two ripe zucchini from my little garden. While you were busy attaching, joining, bonding, I started to cook.
I sliced the vegetables into thick rounds. They were very fresh. As I cut they released their moisture.
I mingled the watery vegetables with the other elements:
For earth, I minced garlic. Its acrid odor is deep. Like the good soil, it clings and nurtures.
For fire, I heated olive oil over a medium flame until its fruitiness exploded and it shimmered in the pan. I added the garlic and salt.
For air, I snipped tall sprigs of rosemary. This herb makes all the difference. Rosemary is a dweller of the air rather than of the earth from which it springs. Its singular fragrance rises filling the kitchen with a piquancy that reaches upward.
Earth smells and air smells from the fiery oil I laid then on a flat baking sheet. I put them in the oven and hoped that they would be done within an hour. I didn’t understand the centigrade thermometer. I had to keep checking.
An aroma from the kitchen aroused me from my meditation on you. The vegetables called me. The elements had combined to make an enticing dinner. But, as I remember, you were not prepared to forsake your project to share my creation. I ate dinner alone.
The next day you left.
Antoinette Carone
Antoinette Carone’s latest book is Hotel of the Siren (Scantic Books), succeeding her memoir, Ciao Napoli. Her work has appeared in Ovunque Siamo, Foxglove Journal, Ellipsis ‘Zine, Fudoki Magazine, Real Women Write: Living on COVID Time, The Thieving Magpie, and Kitchen Table Stories.