As the ingredients were cooking in the pan, and he was careful to use the correct risotto method of adding the liquid over time instead of at the beginning as he usually did when cooking just for himself, perhaps seeking to impress, he busied himself with the minor tasks involved in entertaining guests. Wide pasta bowls were set in the oven to warm through; he baked a baguette in the oven, an aroma almost as enticing as fresh coffee and filled a small basket with slices of the bread; the gate-leg table was fetched from its home in the cupboard and was set by the French doors looking out onto the garden, its usual place in the spring and summer when the sun was not so late in rising, for his early morning chai; he switched on the lights dotted all over the lawn, perhaps one of 'his' badgers might venture outside the set in search of earthworms on his lawn even in January; the table was laid with a crisp, white tablecloth, the serviettes were rolled and placed inside their chromed steel rings, cutlery was set to the side of place mats and serving spoons laid on the table beside an iron trivet for the hot pan; two glasses of iced mineral water and the Pinot in a wine cooler completed the exercise. He toyed with the idea of candles but it was already looking too much like a romantic dinner for two as it was, without needlessly piling Ossa upon Pelion, he considered.
Chani had spent the previous twenty minutes or so in vain requests to allow her to help and subsequently watching with rapt attention as he shuttled back and forth, alternating his setting of the table with pouring more stock and stirring the risotto a few times with each new addition of stock. Finally, he decided that the risotto was now cooked and he asked Chani to take her wine and go sit at the table for dinner was indeed now served. Switching the oven and the hob to 'Off', and wearing an oven mitt on each hand, he removed the bowls from the oven with one hand and the paella pan with the other and walked briskly to the table. The pan was placed on the trivet and the bowls set on their mats; only then did he sit down and discard the oven mitts onto the floor.
No sooner had he sat down than he remembered the wine glass; his wine glass that he had used to decant the wine into the risotto. With mock humility and profuse apologies he raced to his empty wine glass, retrieved it and raced back. He sat down again.
"Bon Appetit," he said, while rapidly filling his glass with wine and raising it towards the centre of the table. "Help yourself! I am afraid that I draw the line at actually serving my guests." He smiled and took a large mouthful of wine, swilling it around his mouth and over his tongue as soundlessly as he could. Swallowing, he exhaled. "Not bad, not bad at all; it will serve."
Chani had stood to serve herself the risotto; she was unable to reach from a sitting position and the pan was too hot to touch. She was careful to only take half of the langoustine tails and the tiger prawns but spooned the rice, clams and crayfish in steaming piles onto her plate.
As she sat down, he started to spoon what was left of the risotto onto his own plate.
"This is really rather good," she said after the first mouthful. "I particularly like the saffron, it really adds something to the rice. Now I will shut up and concentrate on the food."
They continued, as she had promised, to eat the meal in silence except for a brief exchange about where he had bought the bread and how cooking from a half prepared state made it so much more fresh-tasting, light as a feather on the inside, crisp and crunchy on the outside; the way French, or for that matter, English bread should be. They shared the final slice, broken in two, mopping up the final residue of the creamy starch, so typical of Arborio rice and so different from Basmati.
Pushing their bowls to one side, they both leaned back in the chairs, wicker in an armchair style, but still suitable as a dining chair.
"We're not very blessed with Michelin starred restaurants in Wolverhampton, I blame the sour climate, but I do not think that I have ever had a risotto which was better than that; texture, creaminess, the taste were delish and you were under so much pressure, all that running about!" She laughed. "I would have been happy to sit on the stool and eat from the counter; you didn't have to go to all that trouble, tablecloths, serviettes, place mats. For a brief moment there, I was thinking that the candelabrum was coming out!" She laughed again. "It's been a while since I have been spoilt so rotten, so generously treated. Thank you."
"It's a pleasure," he said. "And, truth be told, the pleasure is all mine. I am inclined to agree a little with André Gide, who said, I think, that the less you do something, the longer you wait for something, the more pleasure that you gain from it. Of course, he was likely talking about small Arab boys and forbidden pleasures but nonetheless. What would you like with your coffee; I am assuming that espresso is now the order of the day. As much as I keep denting my image as a restrained, moderate consumer of alcohol, I can offer you: straight up Stolichnaya or Kauffmann Signature; Amaretto; Remy Martin Cognac; Grappa di barolo and Grappa di Barbera; Sambuca and finally, Sliwowica, Polish plum brandy, which dear Ania brought back as a gift from a visit to her parents in Wroclaw earlier this month and remains, I repeat, remains unopened."
"Some Amaretto would be nice," she said. "I don't suppose that you have any of those biscuits, you know, the one where the wrappers drift upwards when you set light to them."
"Regretably, no," he said "I haven't actually seen them around much, even before I stopped going to restaurants. Maybe their heyday is gone."
As he refilled the water reservoir and set the Gaggia to produce 'doppios', he poured Chani a glass of Amaretto into one of his distinctive grappa glasses; most people, and Chani was to be no exception, were prone to comment on the odd shape, much like a conventional tulip glass but with a distinctive 'bulge' at the bottom.
"What a pretty and unusual glass," she said as he handed her coffee to her. "I've never seen one quite like that."
"They're grappa glasses," he replied. "Strangely, I picked them up in, of all places, Berlin, which is not renowned for its vast consumption of grappa."
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