"A word after a word after a word is power" - Margaret Atwood

BRIDGET WHELAN

A blog for readers and writers

A blog about the stories we tell each other and how we tell them...

Sunday 16 January 2011

A Small Stone Number 16

Whenever I cook roast potatoes and I do often, two or  three times a month, I think of my mother's Sunday dinners...lamb a soft lavender grey with fat the colour of cream, the rich nearly-burnt brown of the beef joint and the pallid chicken, served up in chunky slices with a watery gravy that tasted of disappointment. But it is my mother's potatoes that I remember most vividly. They really should have been crisper: they failed every acceptable culinary standard, but oh, how they tasted. Cooked in fat from roasting the Sunday's  joint, under my mother's gaze the par boiled King Edward's would turn a gentle butterscotch in an oven that wasn't quite hot enough. She would turn them out and shrug: not much good again while I would try to steal a golden mouthful when she wasn't looking.

8 comments:

Eliza said...

She was obviously very modest about her cooking, which you enjoyed so much. :)

My mum's yorkshire puddings were like cricket balls - the dog got most of them to keep him occupied. :D

Laura Wilkinson said...

This resonates so much with me - my mother is a lousy cook - and it is exquisitely shown. Personal favourite bits - butterstock potatoes, the shrug... Gorgeous. I'm a writer and I live in Brighton (Portslade, ACTUALLY!). I think I recognise your picture Bridget... Did you ever work at the ghastly ptf? I wrote scripts and follwo up materials for them for a while and I recall your face, and indeed your book. Great read. Anyway, hello.

Laura Wilkinson said...

Hello again,
Fear hideous spelling error in last post - apologies if so. Also, just read another stone - love the word mizzle. Perfect for that light, but ever so wet, rain.

BRIDGET said...

Hello Laura --- yes I think we might have a certain work place in common, although I didn't realise it until now but I wonder if we were also both on the same residential writing weekend years ago in Oxford (where there was almost a mutiny....)

BRIDGET said...

Hi Eliza love your description of your mother's Yorkshire pudding. My own two sons have similar stories about me I suspect...

Laura Wilkinson said...

Re. the residential... No, it wasn't me, though it certainly sounds interesting! Sadly, I've never been on one; my kids are still very young. I'd love to one day. Do you teach adults at PCC? A friend of mine does a beginners' course there and her description of her tutor matches your pic. Stay in touch x

BRIDGET said...

Oh isn't that funny - I was so sure the Laura I met there was you! Yes, I do teach at PCC (and many other places) and have met some lovely, talented people in the classes -- a real mix some starting out and others already producing interesting, exciting work...Has your friend signed up for the new term?

Laura Wilkinson said...

I'll check in with her and ask. Talk again soon. Like your last stone. Glad I'm not the only one that loses things if I don't jot them down!