Ragù Pasta, Let's Eat First and Think Later (2)
No sooner had Catherine and Gordon started eating than Karem casually slid one of the empty plates in front of himself, heaped it with pasta, and ladled meat sauce over the top.
Ordinarily he would have waited until Catherine and her guest finished before sitting down with Mary.
The only times he shared a table with Catherine were when she wandered into the kitchen herself or when they were out and circumstances left no other choice.
In other words, on any normal day he would have stood there watching Catherine and Gordon eat, quietly savoring a chef’s satisfaction.
With solemn reverence he scooped the meat sauce high—three ladles, the same amount he had given everyone else—then, because he could not help himself, a fourth.
He pressed the pasta down to make room and packed that fourth ladle in.
This once, even Karem could not restrain himself.
A sauce so heavy with meat it was closer to a meat porridge than a sauce.
A symbol of time and resolve poured into a single dish.
The true meat sauce that could stir a man’s soul.
Ragù had always been a romance for Karem as well.
He had tasted it once in his previous life—exactly once.
He had wanted it often, but circumstances never allowed it.
And even then, the portion of ragù crowning the pasta had been a single ladle.
Of course Karem understood why they only ever gave one ladle.
By driving off every last drop of moisture, the salt had concentrated; any more and the dish would have tasted of nothing but salt.
It was a sauce, after all—not something you were meant to shovel by the mountainful.
Gulping ketchup or mayonnaise by the spoonful was already strange enough.
Beyond that lay the cold realities of unit cost, profit margins, and labor.
His head understood. His heart refused to.
So he had made it himself.
A ragù with more meat than sauce.
Seasoned so you could eat as much as you wanted.
And, for good measure, a generous snowfall of finely grated cheese on top.
In his heart of hearts he had wanted to dig into the sauce alone the way one attacks a bowl of chili, but the best part always comes last.
That single extra ladle was the pitiful, furtive desire of a chef who had only just managed to keep his reason from slipping away.
First he had to eat the pasta the same way he had served it to Catherine and Gordon, who were still savoring theirs. It felt a little awkward otherwise.
“Hooo… My heart’s actually pounding.”
He muttered it while chewing, so no one saw the look of pure rapture on his face. More accurately, no one was paying attention.
Catherine was busy conquering the gap between excellent flavor and unfortunate appearance. Mary was attending her. Gordon, sharing the exact same feeling as Karem, was eating with soft little sounds of wonder—mm, oh, ah, oh.
Karem turned his gaze back to his plate, expectation trembling through the fork as he split the mountain of snow-white cheese in half.
The pure white snowfield parted, revealing the lava-red ragù beneath—like a snow-capped volcano that somehow refused to melt even in a volcanic zone.
But the snowfield collapsed without resistance before appetite.
Careful not to let the overflowing cheese and sauce spill, he mixed them together.
The ragù that had looked like magma between geological strata tangled with pasta and cheese, rapidly losing its moisture while the cheese itself began to blush red.
The bright yellow pasta drank the sauce through the cheese and turned the deep orange of evening twilight.
The original appearance vanished completely; what remained was a glorious mess.
Between the broad ribbons of pappardelle, meat packed so densely it filled every gap.
Karem could wait no longer.
He wrapped the pasta tight around a load of ragù and took it all in one bite.
The first thing that hit him was the savory, concentrated flavor of beef whose moisture had been driven off to the limit, carried on the salty ragù’s bright acidity and sweetness.
It was not the crude sweetness of honey and sugar simply stirred in.
Carrots and onions had been sautéed and then simmered until they dissolved completely into the sauce.
Thanks to that, no matter how much he ate, it never grew cloying; instead a soft, refined flavor danced across his tongue, lifting the sauce’s taste and aroma higher still.
Sour, sweet, salty.
Around those three pillars, the subtle flavors of many vegetables wove together, while a gentle, warm wheat fragrance and the faint perfume of mushrooms soaked his mouth.
His teeth moved of their own accord, and the intense wheat scent trapped inside the pasta burst through its delicate curtain to mingle with the sauce—exactly when the most important part, the meat of the ragù, arrived to be chewed.
Of course the meat held no juice.
It had already been sautéed once until every drop of moisture was gone.
Whatever juices and moisture remained had long since melted into the sauce.
But when you lose one thing, you gain another.
Juice or no juice, meat was still meat.
Every time it broke apart under his teeth, each tiny particle released the quiet fragrance of well-seared beef riding the perfume of Akusare mushrooms, endlessly pouring out meaty aroma, depth, and umami.
The distinctive scent of Parmigiano-Reggiano that seeped in here and there, and the pleasant bitterness that settled lightly underneath, rinsed his tongue clean so that the peak moment of pasta and sauce could begin all over again.
A taste he could have chewed forever.
But every story has to end sometime.
Karem felt a deep pang of regret, yet swallowed with a light heart.
Flash—chomp-chomp, munch-munch!
“Whoa. I was wondering how long you were going to keep chewing.”
Gordon, who had come back to himself with only a few strands of pasta left, stared at Karem—who had suddenly gone into a frenzy of eating—with genuine concern. Karem was devouring the dish with pure passion.
“Hey, hey. You’re gonna choke at that rate.”
“It seems he concentrated so hard he can’t hear anything around him.”
“Has Karem always been like this?”
“Even I have never seen him eat with quite this much fervor. Honestly… he could at least eat a little more neatly and slowly. What is the rush?”
Catherine, still receiving forkfuls of pasta, shot Mary a look that clearly said, And you’re one to talk? The same Mary who turned into a ravenous beast at the mere sight of milk, cream, butter, or bread?
Mary let the pointed stare slide off her usual deadpan expression and pulled over the untouched bowl of turnip pickles.
“Would anyone care for pickles?”
Catherine’s index finger shot up as if she had been waiting for the offer.
“Perfect timing. My mouth was getting greasy and heavy. The taste is good, but there’s just too much meat. And with no moisture left it’s a bit dry.”
“Excuse me? What did you just say?”
Gordon looked at Catherine as though she had grown a second head.
“Lady Mage. Are you telling me that this near-perfect pasta—which is basically countless tiny steaks packed together—is greasy and heavy?”
“No, the taste is good. The taste is definitely good. Hey! Why are you looking at me like that!?”
Mary snapped her head away at Catherine’s sharp rebuke, but even her blank face could not hide her shock.
Her contractor had just called her junior’s cooking greasy and heavy?
Mary clenched a fist as if she had just scored a secret victory and muttered under her breath,
“The moment Karem Hubae comes back to his senses, I am absolutely going to—”
“Hey! You are my familiar! A familiar listens when her master speaks!”
“I apologize. I was so overcome by that not-at-all delightful news that I got a little excited. Yes. After all, I am a perfect house brownie.”
“What country are you a house brownie of that you keep twisting your master’s words!?”
“I shall serve the pickles.”
“Are you just ignoring me!?”
“I shall serve the pickles.”
The master-servant spat ended when Catherine, pickle clenched between her teeth in fury, chased Mary out with orders to bring wine.
“You’re not seriously saying it’s bad, are you?”
“No, the taste is definitely there. The harmony of all those ingredients, the flavor of the well-seared meat, the way it works with the pasta. But there’s simply too much meat. And it’s greasy.”
“I actually thought this amount was perfect. Hmm.”
“The mushrooms smell wonderful but don’t really taste of themselves, and the noodles aren’t waterlogged and still have a nice sheen—so you must have tossed them in Akusare mushroom oil.”
“The stuff that grows on Lady Mage’s estate, right?”
“Well, strictly speaking it belongs to the tower’s estate, not mine.”
Catherine waved the distinction away as unimportant.
“The point is, an already rich and greasy sauce gets even greasier once oil is added.”
At that, Gordon finally snorted out loud.
“Coming from the person who can sit down and polish off an entire cake that contains as much butter as flour, plus several egg tarts for dessert… I don’t think you have much room to talk.”
“There’s a clear difference between the greasiness of a main dish and the greasiness of dessert eaten after a meal.”
“They’re both greasy.”
“Men simply cannot understand this.”
Gordon was speechless, but Catherine folded her arms and turned her head as if further debate would not be entertained.
It sounded like pure excuse to him, yet as a guest Gordon decided not to push his host any further. As proof, he raised both hands in a gesture of surrender toward Catherine.
Knock-knock-knock—
“Pardon the interruption.”
Mary returned through the study door carrying a bottle of wine and three glasses.
“I brought a red that will stand up to the bold flavor and the meat.”
“Where’s it from?”
“Berseingeto.”
Pop—
The sharp, bitter scent of grapes strong enough to cut through the fog finally dragged Karem’s soul back from the pasta.
“Oh, you’re back with us?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“How much did you like it that you ate with such focus I was almost afraid to ask for seconds?”
Gordon accepted a glass from Mary and poured while he spoke.
“You even ignored your employer saying ‘let’s eat together’ and the fact that you’re supposed to eat after everyone else.”
“Well… if there was a raspberry-jam doughnut filled with whipped cream right in front of you, what would you do?”
“Is that even a question? I would beg my contractor on my knees if I had to.”
“You’d beg?”
Gordon looked appalled, but Mary was completely serious.
Catherine simply nodded as if to say that was just how Mary was.
“In my case I simply failed to endure and gave in to temptation before I could even beg.”
“Isn’t that just a lack of self-control?”
“But I’m only eleven.”
“No matter how I look at you, you don’t seem eleven.”
“Gordon. Another plate?”
Obviously. Having neatly changed the subject, Karem loaded Gordon’s plate with pasta, drowned it in meat sauce, finished it with a blizzard of cheese, and then did the exact same thing for himself.
While Karem had been busy eating, the room had been lively; once the wine began to flow and the pasta revealed a new side of itself, the study filled again with nothing but the quiet clink of utensils.
Once Gordon’s stomach started to fill, other thoughts crept in.
Still… I need to do something before spring arrives.
Several days had already passed since he had taken refuge under Catherine’s roof.
In all that time Gordon had never felt so physically at ease.
He had no need to tidy or clean his own room, and thanks to his friendship with Catherine and Karem every meal was a delight.
True, if one judged only by the luxury of the chambers and the extravagance of the cooking, he had occasionally been treated even better on the continent.
But never once had his heart felt this completely at rest.
And yet, as the rest stretched on, a small, nameless restlessness and anxiety began to rise in a corner of his mind.
Gordon recognized the long-forgotten feeling.
It was a sense of debt.
He had once taken a sabbatical when his growth stalled, yet a mere few days here and he already felt indebted? Did he truly feel that comfortable with these two? Regardless, what was happening inside him was real.
“Did you forget something?”
“Huh? Out of nowhere?”
“Don’t just sit there looking guilty and tapping your plate. Spit it out.”
Ah, damn. He had gotten lost in thought and given himself away.
“After lying around without moving for days, my whole body feels stiff.”
Saying it outright would have been embarrassing, so Gordon mumbled something vague.
Catherine nodded as if she understood perfectly.
He had spoken in circles, but the meaning was clear: he was getting antsy.
“Well, for a Sword Master with a body like that, staying quiet for so long would make anyone restless.”
“In that case, is there anything I can do around here?”
“Hmm. Asking me…?”
Karem scratched his head without thinking.
Right now his own work consisted of cooking and placing warehouse orders for the main estate. What job could there possibly be for a Sword Master-level baron?
“Well, these days you could always try teaching Young Master Godwin swordsmanship.”
Catherine rinsed the grease from her mouth with wine as she made the suggestion.
“He keeps saying he wants to lose weight faster so he can eat whatever he likes, and apparently he’s looking into all sorts of extra exercise.”
“Sword lessons? Young Master Godwin is…?”
“Yes. Our lord’s eldest son. Heir to the duchy.”
“Mmm. They haven’t even asked. Just showing up out of the blue feels a bit—”
“Ha, who? You’re not seriously thinking of proposing it yourself?”
Catherine waved both hands as if the idea were absurd.
“Just be honest with the young master. Tell him you’re restless and ask if he’d like you to look over his sword work.”
“Just because I’m restless, casually poking around like that still feels a little—”
“You think a young master is going to refuse when a Sword Master volunteers?”
“Well… no.”
Karem, who had been quietly listening while scraping his plate clean, spoke up.
“Before any of that, shouldn’t we first find out whether the eldest young master already has a sparring partner?”
Ah.
The two of them had forgotten the most important fact and let out small sighs.
“Well, we can finish eating first and then look into it.”
“Shall I give you another plate?”
Gordon answered by holding out his bowl.