The Knife Sharpener (37)

37.

Her menu was laid out on the desk. Complete, now. Ready, for the first time. Tattooed onto cured wild boar skin, it had a crisp leathery edge, a few stray unplucked hairs, and Matilda thought the texture would compliment the melange of earthy, toned, wild flavours that defined her style. That were at the heart of her cooking. The stars of her dishes. A 10-course degustation menu that traversed all she knew of cooking. That anyone could know of the intricacies of Melbournian – no, all dining.

ChefComp Dinner

Matilda Olinda

oysters & the ocean they were born in

pearl tapioca, black cod roe, orange

*

goanna broth served chilled

Phillip Island ice, wattle seed

*

the salad

iceberg lettuce

*

red rose potato as fondant

truffles, pig crackling

*

foie gras from trained geese

corn, red wine, bush pepper

*

penguin egg confit in its nest

noodle, butter, warrigal greens

*

medley of deep sea fish on smoke

sequoia chips, frites

*

flamingo shanks & sex seasoned carrots

yams, condiments, radish

*

pavlova floating on air

coconut, sugar

*

selection of antelope & mountain goat cheese

quince, crackers

            She read it over again. Double checking. The air in her apartment tasted crisp. A dash of salt. Citrus. Matilda deliberately adjusted all the environmental factors that altered the bitterness, sweetness, saltiness, sourness, and umami around her. Tried to ensure that at least in her home, that she had control of flavour. Outside, Matilda had to deal with enough average and shit. Fucking under seasoned, overdone, mismatched. Gross, in a word. She used a mixture of air purifiers. Scented smoke. Cleaning products. Even the fabrics of her couches and the materials of her furniture were carefully selected. All of it amounted to a delicious atmosphere. One she savoured whenever at home. She wondered again why she had to deal the actual public. Food was perfect until someone had an opinion. Hers was all that mattered, really. The curse of her profession.

            This was finally going to be the year of her ascension. Matilda had tweaked and played and made it perfect. Well, as perfect as it could be. There was still the missing element. Her birthright. But, either way, no longer would they disparage her for being too creative. Too strangely aloof in her food. This menu wouldn’t go over their heads like it had in years past.

No more raw nuts and seafood, served in a Ferntree Gully cave by topless waiters wearing fedoras, to the strains of Enya being played backwards at maximum volume, watched by pickled octopuses, spiked on pikes, dressed as matadors.

She was done with serving braises out of ceramic pots to guests seated in hot tubs smartly adorned with linen and candles, filled with vacuum sealed bags slowly cooking their next course.

There would never again be dinners framed entirely around the systematic destruction of the white risotto, where each element was drawn to existential question, challenged in a series of progressively more challenging questions of self in regards to time and space, then absentmindedly tossed into an enormous cauldron full of dropbear stock, shown to be nothing more than a meaningless part to an overhyped whole.

No more critics like Jeremy Goldwaters who wrote beguilingly, but over critically of her genius. Never understanding what she attempted and what she sought. Never comprehending the possibility of the ecstasy of Plato’s bite.

Matilda was done with the showmanship. The meta-commentary on herself in the dishes she prepared. Never again would she skewer a fairy. Stuff a pig into a baby elephant. Serve dinner in an abandoned western suburbs factory dressed in nothing but blood pudding, while singing the Rage theme song over and again until she was hoarse and winded, her guests full and covered in the grits she had thrown at them throughout their meal.

She realised that her god would never be found in such ornate gestures and grand meaning. In her expression of her consciousness on a plate – an expression, she learned, that would always pale as nothing more than a ghostly remnant in its finish. For Apicius was a simple god, who treasured the eloquence found in the simplicity of cooking basic ingredients well. Much more than a deity of food, restaurants, and chefs; Apicius was a god of technique and process. To serve him well, arise to his level, and surpass all other mere cooks, Matilda’s dinner did not only need to be scrumptious, but sublimely, transcendentally executed. It was not what she cooked and how she presented herself – her food on a plate, or in a bowl, or aside a wooden log burning a deep ember. No. Her truest being, the one closest to Apicius, was found in the act of cooking itself. In formulating the recipe, measuring the ingredients, adjusting temperature, stirring, and, all the other fine performances of preparing anything from breakfast, to a snack, to a grand dinner party for the Premier of Melbourne.

But it was one skill he preferred above all others. That revealed the most about a chef’s true spirit.

It was the dance of the knife. Dicing, slicing, and chopping. The exactness of this most fundamental and raw of chef’s skill, and its impact on the meal’s final aesthetic and flavoured form, was what Apicius preferred most. It was what he believed made any produce genuinely great. It was the essence of the true chef most finely expressed.

She read over her menu again. Then leaned over to look at her phone. No messages. Her sous chef and disciple, Nicko, had been silent since telling her he was onto the knife. Still chasing hospo connections back to the knife sharpener and the girl thief. She wondered if they even knew what sort of hierogram they had in their possession.

The air was getting a little stale. Overdone. Matilda squeezed a nearby lemon into a spray bottle and spritzed lightly. Better. Pressed a button to control the flow of air from her wall mounted heater.

It was close. She knew it. Nicko had never let her down. Had always supported her in every service. Adorned her plates with micro herbs and careful smears. Cooked the meat to the perfect temperature. Tempered chocolate and whipped egg whites to gravity defying consistency.

She would have the knife of Apicius. ChefComp would be hers and Matilda Olinda the only culinary name that matters.

The customers and critics and fools who didn’t get it, who sought satisfaction in tasteless grease and farmer's sandwiches, stodgy carbs and bland heavy sauces, corporeal creatures under seasoned – their voices will finally be silenced before the majesty of her offering. Before the divine comedy of her preparation, mise en place, and cooking.