One Small Thing: Liz Fenwick
This time out of time is an interesting period for a writer.
My world hasn’t altered greatly except I have more people around. My husband
used to work away during the week and now two of my adult children are home. I
normally think of the kitchen as my domain. I love cooking and watching the
ensuing pleasure that follows a good meal. But for the first half of lockdown I was
on deadline. I surrendered the kitchen but consulted on menus. In my absence my
daughter and husband pulled off his mother’s old cook book/notebook. In it my
mother-in-law had detailed her recipes and her dinner party plans. It is
stuffed with old newspaper cuttings of recipes and her notes on what worked and
what didn’t.
This notebook spurred the idea for The Path to the Sea
because it is a window into another world where a good hostess would never
serve the same dish twice. She would plan the table’s seating arrangements with
care. Reading the old notebook in the evening with my daughter has been like
having her with us.
We have wondered what she would make of now? This was a
woman who was a WRN telegraphist during the war and had such a fierce
intelligence and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Had it not been for the war I
think she would have headed to university. And yet after the war she married
and became the perfect wife as evidenced by her notebook.
By the time I knew her she had left the world of several
dinner parties a week behind. Gardening was her passion. She was deeply
involved in recording historic gardens for the Cornwall Garden Trust which
seemed to be a natural follow on from her involvement with the Arts Society, in
her day called NADFAS and her role in setting up young NADFAS.
So during lockdown (and now that my book is delivered and
I’m allowed back in the kitchen) we have explored her recipes including one for
Simnel cake and brought her to our table. I can almost hear her wise words. We
may not know when it will end, but it will. Until then make the best of what
you have.
I hope we keep diving into the notebook and continue to keep
her memory with us at the table when my families gathers. I think she would
rather approve.
Stay well, stay safe, stay home.
