The new year has brought a slowing down. A lull before the return to a faster paced normality. Christmas, uncelebrated for various reasons, sits as a date in the calendar, long passed. An event suspended in my mind like parsleyed ham in aspic. The morning has the house shrouded in cloud, stopping me in my tracks. I cannot see the gates. I cannot make out the road. I cannot go out. Even the dog seems reluctant to venture out beyond his paw´s length. I am as static as the nebulous situation I find myself in. The grey whiteness like dusty icing sugar seems to hang, waiting for the strong winds that will blow it away. They will come. And so, I wait.
A dust like cloud. Icing. The slow motion of January weather. And now, the arrival of the Three Kings seems as eternally slow as their Biblical journey. Epiphany. I have been gifted time, however. I must prepare.
Caspar
I step back inside and close the kitchen door. I have citrus fruits. Gnarled, dimpled and pithy. Orange, lemon and pomelo. The skin thick, the flesh juicy. They must be separated. I get my knife. Cutting into the first, the lemon, I cut it in half lengthways, then half again. Liquid acid leaks onto the board, my mouth leaks at the citric thought. Holding the end of the skin with the tips of my fingers I tilt my blade and ease the cellular, grainy flesh away from the pith, working away from me. The quarters I slice again, into strips. I put them aside and work on the other quarters. The cuttings I put into a colander. The pomelo is next. It is bigger. I cut in half, in half again, then two more slices. A lot more easing, persuading, a lot more knife work. The strips join the lemon peel. My orange is last. Its sweet juice does not make me salivate in the same way. Though a glass of freshly squeezed juice appeals to the senses. I perform my knife skills with a perfunctoriness bordering on nonchalance. The peel is done. The flesh, I have in a bowl ready for a breakfast fruit salad tomorrow. A not-perfect fruit salad but an enjoyable shot of vitamins, nonetheless.
A large pan has been filled with water, heated. A rolling boil, volcanic in its activity, makes it rattle on the hob. I fill the kettle on the other side of the kitchen, turning it on. Peeking out of the window, I check for any change in weather. There. Is. None. My eyes roll. I toss the contents of the colander, the peel, into the tumbling water and turn the heat down. A gentle simmer is all that is needed. Enough to soften the leathery strips. But softening is not enough.
Araignée du matin, chagrin… But I regret nothing, it is the wrong kind of spider. Catching the pithy pieces in the spider, a thoroughly phobic name for the webbed tool, I return them to the colander and change the water. The kettle´s searing contents are poured into the pan, the fruity strips returned, and the simmering begins again. The kettle is restarted, the spider poised again. The water rechanged, boiled, changed once more. The sour skin-tainted liquid is discarded at each stage. Shedding a bitter year for a sweeter, new one, maybe. That´s irony for you. The slices slowly become glassy. Translucent.
I measure out equal amounts of sugar and water, placing them in the pot. It. Is. Sweet. Very sweet. The hob´s grumbling bass brings blue flamed heat. I cannot add the strips until the sugar crystals have disappeared. I use the handle of a wooden spoon to make small eddies in the bottom of the pan. The subtlest of moves to help the sugar dissolve without leaving burnt tears on the side. Something that could ruin the flavour. In go the skins. I raise the temperature and boil for a short time before turning off the heat, leaving the unctuous concoction to slowly cool. I cover the top with a clean linen towel to prevent moths, flies, nature itself from conjoining with my silky syrup. I walk away.
This act, this repetitive simmering, covering, and setting aside. The act of doing and walking away. I perform three more times. A whole twelve hours between each heating and cooling. A whole day, a whole night, where a few minutes of pure concentration, mine and the sugar, takes precedence over everything else. The occasional adding of a tablespoon or two of water to stop it from becoming a boiled sweet. A fruity lozenge. The occasional gentle stirring with the handle of my wooden spoon. But in those few focused minutes I barely noticed the winds howling louder than the furies as they hurl down the mountains and through the garden; the trees bending almost double. I barely notice the all-enveloping clouds are missing, pushed seawards and outwards, replaced by a flawless blue sky and a pure icy cold. Just barely. Outdoor activities have resumed for the previously weather reluctant dog. My face is flushed from either the kitchen´s heat or fearsome cold. Regardless, it is flushed. And everything is normal again.
Golden light infuses the morning kitchen. My tea steeps in a small yellow pot, and I remove the cloth from over the pan. Lifting out the strips with my trusty spider and placing them to one side. I pour out the syrup into a storage jar to save for later. The peel, now sugar saturated, are carefully spread out over a rack, over a tray, to dry out. The tray lifted beyond temptation levels, up to a shelf that I also have difficulty reaching. High. A day or two should suffice. And again, I wait.
Balthazar
Flour flurries from a sieve, falling onto a folded chute. A sheet of parchment shaped into a dart. Creased, then uncreased. Practically a paper plane. But not quite. The nose, the tip, will be used to channel a farinaceous freefall accurately. But wait. You. Will. See.
Carefully measured water fills the wide pan. Butter. Holding a block in my hand and a small knife in the other, I cut some butter, pale and unsalted. Cube it. Dice it. Chunk it. Each piece dropped into the water. I strike a match against the dotted strip on the side of the small box. Hissing to life, I lower it to the hob and let the flame sparkle. Blue, light blue, a small crown of burning butane. I move the pan sideways onto the heat and start the next stage.
I have a plate. It is wide and patternless, and as dull as it is useful. Taken from the dresser in the hallway, it is cool. Cool enough. I have a wooden spoon. Old, age stained, and for some reason with an ancient char mark on the back. The equipment, that is all there is, is ready.
The water in the pan is starting to come to a boil. The butter has melted leaving a pale-yellow slick on the surface. The smaller simmering bubbles become a more energetic rolling boil as I deftly take the chute and slide in the flour. I turn the gas off, remove the pan, and with the wooden spoon I beat. An arm aching beat. The flour, the butter, the water. Three elements reluctant at first to combine take the vigorous beating, becoming a paste. Pulling away from the sides of the pan, it is ready to pour. I spread out the tacky mixture onto the plain plate to cool.
Cooking is a form of choreographed movement. I step back from the hob, turning the oven on, step towards the fridge, collect some eggs, and then step back again. Ballet? I think not.
I crack the eggs into a jug and beat them to a light daffodil froth. More parchment is torn from the roll to line a baking sheet. I take a pinch of the panade, the cooling floury mix, and dab a sticky finger at each of the four corners to ensure the sheet adheres, remains in place, during the cooking process. The pinch gives me the chance to gauge the temperature doughy base. It has cooled enough.
I return the panade to the pan. In my right hand I take the same burnt back, blunted old wooden spoon ready to beat again. The pan handle awaits my left. A solitary breath, deep and calming, I tip in some of the beaten egg I proceed to stir, to mix, to emulsify. From a curdled mess, a momentary thought that it will never absorb, the momentum turns it into a glossy paste. But. It. Is. Not. Enough. More egg goes in, and the process starts again. More curdling. More beating. More smoothing. I have emptied the contents of the jug. I have transformed it to silken dough. It holds onto the underside of the spoon as I hang it over the pan. I count to five. It releases itself, dropping on cue. It is done.
I take a measuring spoon, lightly oiling it with my forefinger. A digital tool from a pre-digital age. Scooping out a rounded portion of the mixture, I drop it onto the lined baking tray. I delve in again. Each time lifting out a similar sized ball to the last one. Each time imagining each ball has a number, like a lottery, a tombola, as if there is a prize at the end. There is. But. You. Will. Have. To. Wait. The parchment is filled with uniform shaped dough, evenly spaced. A glass sits at the side of my workspace filled with water. My forefinger, still useful, dips through the surface then dabs the top of the balls to smooth out any lumps, spikes. Any irregularities. Dip. Dab. Dip. Dab. I open the oven door and slide in the tray. The dough will puff up. Inflate. Balloon.
The kitchen is filled with the aroma of coffee, the nutty, chocolaty aroma permeates the room, its potency has been far more electrifying than my morning Earl Grey. I have been in need. The choux have turned a sandy shade. A caramel colour. I stoop down and quickly take out the baking tray, setting it down on the work surface. In the drawer below I have a skewer, a meat skewer, the metal is twisted giving it an ergonomically pleasing look. Perfect for kebabs. For brochettes. For light dining. Perfect also, for the purposes of the next part. I put a linen towel in my left hand to save burning fingers and lift up a pastry ball. Turning it upside down, I take the skewer and pierce a hole in the flat bottom. Delving it deep into its centre. A spear to the heart. Turning it around so that the tip releases any wet strands inside the small globe. The hole will help dry out the inside, it has also created an opening for the piping to come. I return the choux puff back to the tray, leaving it upside down. The inside must be rid of any moisture. The outside must colour more. I repeat the process, piercing, wiggling, until they are all neatly holed. All lying bottoms up on the baking tray. I return them to the oven and, timer on, still use the glass door as my safeguard. They are done when they are done.
I distract myself for that short period when, peeking aside, I decide the time is right. When my will is broken. When I can bear the wait no longer. I turn off the oven and remove the baking tray. The choux has darkened to a tan colour. The inside has dried. No light cracks or crevices on the surface. They have a delicate firmness. Putting them aside, I am happy. For the moment.
Melchior
I have a pan. It is filled with milk, full fat milk, ready to be scalded. Some strands of orange peel, stripped of its white, skin-like pith, are dropped in. The oils will infuse into the milk changing the flavour. Lifting it. I take a bowl from the cupboard. I place a folded cloth under it to stop it sliding when the task begins. Caster sugar. A finer grain of sweet crystal. Poured into the bowl, I turn to the fridge. Eggs. There is a French style coffee cup to my side. Wide. Shallow. A small bowl for the morning café au lait that I never have. I am a first thing tea person. The brittle snap and chime, a discordant harmony of shell meeting rim, as I break a seam into the first egg on the ridge of the large bowl-cup. Pulling apart each half of the shell, I pour the yolk into the left, then right half. Then left and right again. The albumen falling neatly into the wide whiteness that is the cup. The yolk joins the sugar. I repeat the juggling act, again, and again, the countertop becoming a reliquary of calcific crusts. The whites will join more sugar at another time to make an individual meringue. Until then, I cover them in plastic and refrigerate. Shut away. Forgotten.
Before I start in earnest, I open the cupboard door and search for my flours. The ordinary and the abominable. I measure the plain flour and, giving an involuntary shudder, do the same with the cornflour. My skin puckers. Bobbles. Goosebumps. Outside I smile, but inside I am screaming, a pitch that can be heard by the neighbourhood dogs. I. Cannot. Stand. Cornflour. I turn on the milk.
A Whisk. A multi-looped one. A large tool for a simple task. I hold it up, tempted to sing into it. I am no Sinatra. Then lower it into the sugar and yolks. The first bursting beat of the whisk spills bright yellow into the bowl. The yellow, the white, slowly, very slowly, they turn to a light beige. Beige is good. The arm is not. I persist. Beating over a Bain Marie helps but this is not the day. Once I am able to write my name on the surface, I check the milk. A small ring of bubbles around the pan´s wall tell me the milk is ready. The gas I leave for a moment as I lift the pan towards the bowl. I pour in a drop to loosen up the mixture. A drop to heat the egg yolks enough that they will not shock, not cook instantly, not scramble. Slowly I pour in more milk, more, beating vigorously, round and round. The bowl, restrained from sliding by the cloth, juddering at my speed. My arms, stomach and chin, we are all juddering at the speed. The last lactose drops fall.
I pour out the bowl into the pan and move it onto the hob. Slowly the heat increases. Slowly it takes effect. A gentle paddle action by my spatula helps stir, ensuring nothing sticks to the base. The eggs and flour create a thickness to the milky sauce, becoming joyously creamy. Thicker still it becomes, my spatula caressing the sauce, teasing the mixture, until the moment I lift it off the heat. I take a sieve from a hook near the hob and pour through the contents over another bowl, capturing the orange peels, capturing any lumps, leaving only the smooth custard. The cooling process begins. I reach for the roll of plastic wrap. Tearing off a large enough sheet, I dip the centre onto the surface and, holding the edge with one hand, ease it outwards and over the sides of the bowl with the other. Turning the bowl, I do the same on the other side. The clinging nature of the wrap will prevent any air getting in, any skin forming while it cools. We have got this far. We must wait.
My waiting does not mean I have nothing to do. I have other tasks to perform elsewhere. Beyond this space. In another dimension. But the kitchen pulls me back like an addiction. And so, I go for another hit. I drop a spoon of apricot conserve into a small milk pan found in the furthest corner of the cupboard. The pouting lips on each side hint at its function. With the kettle, just boiled, I pour a splash, not much more than the spoonful of jam. Lemon juice, the smallest squeeze, from a discarded half that has been squandering time amongst the eggs in the fridge door. I return it quickly and shut the door. No one will ever know. I grab a box. The whispering shh of the match lights the hob, and it starts to heat up. It bubbles quickly. Stirring it. Mixing it. Melded to a light syrupy consistency. A drop more water to ensure it is a glaze not a glue. A rapid stir. The pan is placed on a trivet away from any more heat. I place a sieve on a small enamel dish. Blue lipped and white based. It is dented and chipped in various places, the marks determining the small bowl´s age, like the rings of a tree. The liquid runs through the sieve, filtering out the fibres of the apricot, leaving me with a lightly flavoured, light coloured glaze. Golden. As bright and sweet as the morning sun.
On the draining board, inside out and freshly washed, I have an old piping bag. The aged nylon triangle has tainted from an ivory to a flesh colour from years of use and age. I dry it. I smell it. Just in case. It is fine. From the drawer filled with a random multiplicity of gadgets and useful things that should be joined together but are not, I eventually find a couple of conical tubes. The smaller, its aperture narrow. It is perfect for the task in hand. The larger, I set aside. A jug is lifted to the countertop. The small tube is force fed into the narrow gullet of the bag, now turned washed side in. The stunted triangular tip, a hole that allows for a perfect fit with the steely nozzle.
The process of piping is a technical one. No art. Just cunning. I curl the wider end of the bag over the lip of the jug to hold it in place. The custard is cooled and skin free as I lift off the plastic film. I take a spoon and ladle some of the confectioner´s cream into the bag. Enough to fill it generously, but not to overfill. I pinch and twist the top, lifting the nozzle end, placing a finger of one hand over the tip to avoid spillage, and hold the twisted knot between my forefinger and middle finger, the rosette lilts on the back of my piping hand, the bag sitting in my palm. I am ready.
I hold a pastry ball and insert the nozzle tip inside the hole I made earlier. A squeeze with the ball of my palm and it is filled, the weight doubling as the custard goes in. I pull the tube away and inspect. No dogs in kennels here. Something I see too often and despair at: choux buns, meat pies, pasties. I. Despair. I lift another ball and repeat the process. Then the next. Then the next one. I refill the bag and continue, a mechanical and meditatory action. Until the last one is done. This one, this partially filled one, I pop into my mouth, relishing the sugar hit and wishing I had more coffee to accompany it. All the choux are filled with custard. But this is not the end.
From the high up place. The shelf beyond temptation. I lower the candied fruit. The dried out, crystalised, strips. I shake the rack, scattering the pieces onto a wooden board. My equipment out. The other, wider, round tipped piping head I found earlier. You will see. And a small knife, its sharpness in direct contrast to its size, which I pull out of the wooden knife block in front of me. I begin my cutting work. Squares. Triangles. Rounds. The nozzle´s nose is used to press into the slice, I push down hard until it gives, and pop out the circular sweet shape with the tip of a skewer. I separate them into groups. Three shapes. Three colours. Three Kings.
Epiphany
I turn the kettle on and wait for the water to boil. While it grumbles, bubbles, roars, I find a pastry brush and put it in the jug. I pour a drop of steaming liquid into the jug, wetting the brush sufficiently. The enamel bowl full of glaze I pull towards me and dip the hot, wet brush in the sugary solution. Yes. You noticed. I made the glaze a little too soon. But the wet brush will loosen an over syrupy solution. And with the deftness of an artist, I lift one pastry, brush on the apricot and return it to the work surface. Taking the crystalised fruit pieces, I stick one of each shape onto the side of the ball in a triangular pattern. The glaze will bind the sweet segments with the will of newlyweds. I put the first of many down and raise the next choux. I do this one by one by one. Occasionally washing my fingers as they get quagmired in stickiness.
The choux puffs are done. The jewels looking upward, outwards as if eying the stars. The heavens. But there is one final act in this marathon of sugar. I have a crown. No. Not real. It is made from card. The inside, white. The outside, a gold that shines manufactured brilliance in the kitchen´s light. Its narrowness would barely fit a cat, certainly not a king, nor the Infant Child. I take the pastry brush and stir the glaze in the bowl. Holding the crown at the spiked head, careful not to crease, dent, crush the pointed tips, I lift the brush and paint two stripes around the base. One at the very bottom. The next slightly higher.
I have a display setting for cakes. A silvered disc that raises any cake a finger´s width or so above any feastly setting. The crown is placed dead centre. A little up. A little down. Right a bit. Left a bit more. It. Is. Centred. Taking a choux-roll, I lay it against the card. Holding the card on the inside and pushing both together lightly to set it in place. Again, and again, I repeat the process. Turning the disc as I work around the crown´s base. I breathe. That was the easy bit. I start again. This time around they will sit on top of the first layer, a pastry above straddling two below. Carefully, I begin. I apply a light pressure from behind the card but also on top of each roll to help them stick. It may have been better to use cocktail sticks, but I have started and there is no going back. The trick is trying not to press too hard, or a gooey mess will ensue. I turn the base again, a little at a time. More tentatively, otherwise, balls will fall. Until all the puffs are positioned. One above two. Triangles of sweet-filled pastry that mirror the crown´s points above. A showcase desert for a festive night.
It is evening. Outside the night sky is diamond studded. No guiding star here, though. While it may look beautiful, it means a chilly night. The fire is roaring. Its orange glow throwing an enveloping warmth. Candles light the darkened part of the room where the meal will be eaten. Intimacy. Whispered conversations. The table has been laid out with celebratory settings: crystal, plates, silverware and good wines. However, I have left a large space in the table´s centre. I normally bring a dessert into the room at the end of the meal, sometimes plated, portioned. Sometimes more casually brought in a bowl for guests to help themselves. Tonight, however, Epiphany, the crown will sit centrepiece. A glowing, golden temptation throughout dinner until the diners are able to succumb to temptation over coffee and digestifs without having their fingers smacked.
Me? I have absorbed aromas, smells, olfactory odours, preparing this dish. I have consumed them. And. I. Am. Already. Full. Coffee and maybe a small measure of something strong is enough. Maybe a large measure of something. But I am happy.
But for my friends, those choux rolls, a nod to the Roscon de Reyes served in Spain at this time of year. Those pastry cases. Those light bites filled with an enriched and infused cream will tease and revive their end-of-meal palates. One ball will surely not harm. But I know my guests well. They will talk, absently take another one, consume one, drink, take one more, eat more, chat more and, with any luck, enjoy them all. Quickly. Suddenly. Stripping the crown bare. And just like Epiphany, the choux are there one minute, and the next minute, gone. And they will hopefully not even notice.
A deliciously glittering start to the new year.
Thank you for such a beautiful piece.