Splitting and Holding

Wild flowers blowing in the gardens at the top of the hill in Sidmouth  where we walked yesterday after my husband's EFT session. He said he felt more positive afterwards.....about coming out of his safe tortoise shell of dementia....opening an alternative door into a world where he could find a way to still make  a difference.....make a contribution....even with no idea how. I think he's being a contribution and a challenge to all of us....the way he's living with, struggling with, this disease....but he doesn't see it like that.

We celebrate with tea in a the cafe at the top of Jacob's Ladder. He can't finish his huge crumbly dry rock-cake and I wrap it up in a blue napkin and put in my bag to take home for later.

Tonight's supper for three of us......

I want to make something simple and classic with the big piece of fresh haddock I bought this morning....let the flavours of the ingredients speak for themselves..... and decide on a Hollandaise sauce to go with it.  I hardly ever make it now - all that butter...those egg yolks. Usually I  use the fool proof recipe I learnt when I trained at Leith's School of Food and Wine using a wine vinegar/ shallot/ bay leaf/peppercorn reduction.  I find an easier version in Delia Smith's fish book....

Trying to save time turns out to be a false economy....the whole process is a disaster from start to finish. When the egg yolks don't blend with the vinegar in my too big food processor I transfer them to a mini blender....pour in the melted butter... but I can tell it's not going to thicken into the good looking, smooth, golden sauce in the photograph in Delia's book.

It splits into a curdled watery mess. I try and remember rescue remedies....add a splash of boiling water and whisk violently....then iced water and whisk violently....then I heat it till it boils and splits again and whisk violently....then I add flour and more hot water and more butter and heat and whisk at the same time. It looks like it'll hold.......I season violently with lemon juice and sea salt and black pepper and leave it gingerly on the hob.

It's no longer a Hollandaise sauce but when my brother-in-law arrives, at the last minute I re-heat it, whisk it violently and get it on the table before it can even think about splitting again. It looks awful but he seems to like it anyway. I save a plate of food for my husband who has gone to his ceramics class on Dartmoor. This afternoon he came back early, after half an hour, from his walk with a friend....said he didn't want to walk....they had a cup of tea and cake instead. 

After my brother-in-law has gone to his meeting the phone rings. It's my husband's ceramics teacher....she says he hasn't arrived.....he left over an hour ago and it only takes 40  minutes....and he's never late.

I imagine him in a ditch....in an accident.... I knew he didn't really want to go so maybe he's just driving around somewhere.....but he would have rung.....I leave a message on his mobile but it's switched off.

Fifteen minutes later he rings....there was a diversion on the road.....he had to find another way...

Forty minutes later he's home again. I sit with him while he eats his plate of supper drenched in split not-Hollandise sauce  - to which he adds several large dollops of Apple and Cider Chutney - a gift from our allotment neighbour. He says he didn't feel inspired to make anything tonight and he won't go back to the class unless he does feels inspired at some point in the future.....

I feel a bit like my Hollandaise sauce.....trying not to split....holding my centre ......as my husband creeps back into the safe haven of his dementia shell.