Dinner, flames, wine, guitar
(Listen to the music while reading blog post.)
– Girls, what are you going to eat this evening
– Well, probably nothing.
– I am going to cook, you are supposed to wash the plates. Deal?
And of course, it is a deal, because Andreia is an excellent cook. But wait, before continuing, I have to tell you about this situation a little bit more. In case you missed the former blogposts, this is about the everyday life of a guesthouse where I volunteer. Andreia is the owner, manager and soul of Maktub Moradia, and she is our chef for this evening (and some more).
She excuses, that she just cook something very quickly for dinner, but I know what this means for sure. A carefully composed fine dinner, harmonizing in each and every flavour.
But, you know, in this place time is not measured as at home in Hungary. Here it is impossible or at least not very likely to eat something in a hurry and just to everybody emerges to do their businesses afterwards. No. Here we are prepairing the kitchen and ourselves for the evening. First, we light some fire in the fireplace, because we are a little cold, as outside a fierce wind is blowing, and it feels quite good to get warm by the fire. To race up the heating process, Paolo opens a bottle of good quality wine and for a while we are just listening to the promising sounds coming from the cooker, holding our glasses, humming, contented.
Then, at the exact moment when we start to feel hungry, irresistible smells are filling the little kitchen. A small amount of decent beans are partying together with some mushroom, a little onion and garlic, in a wok in deep conjunction. In the meantime, in the neighbouring pan cheerful pasta are sitting in a burning jakuzzi. Some slices of chorizo (tipical salami), different types of cheese and the ever-present spices are also ready for action.
Andreia collects all the participans into a dish and put them to the oven just to get used to each other. We are sipping our wines expectantly, with wider and wider smiles and staring at the happily crackling fire. Perfect autumn idyll.
Then suddenly the door of the oven opens up, the pasta finds itself in the middle of the big table and we rush at it with fierce cries and hardly say anything before the dish is totally cleaned.
Magically, our glasses fill themselves again, and out of the blue a guitar appears. Then it turns out that Paolo actually plays the guitar very well, so we ask him to make some music for us. He plays and we just sitting there aroung the big table, listening to great music, sometimes singing along, sometimes just dancing a little and it feels good. I don’t know if it is because of the company, the wine, the crackling of the fire, the music or all, but I don’t care. What is the most important that we are totally living in the moment. And of course that we are finally full.
