From the kitchen-book of A. Bar-Sela, Halcyon dock 7-C, with Idit's pencil
Quarter-leather tied with a strip of warming-plate cord. Recipes in ink on the right pages; the left pages were left blank for changes. The blank pages now carry a pencil hand, undated, that is not the cook's. Returned to A. Bar-Sela's estate by Mensah, A., censor's clerk, on standing-instruction following closure of held-mail register entry 4.
Stew for nine, ship's allowance. (ink — A.B.)
Mother taught me this on the burner that did not run hot enough; you can taste the bottom of the pot if you do not stir at the boil. Stock from anything; the ship will give you bones. Two parts dried, one part wet. Salt at the end because the recyclers steal it. Always portion at eight; you can pull a ninth from the bottom of the pot, but only if you served the others first.
— pencil, left page facing —
A., I read this for the first time tonight, three weeks after the routing slips came. I had been afraid of the kitchen because I knew you had been here in it. I cooked your mother's lentil in my own pot. The recyclers stole the salt. I salted at the end. There were two of us at the table. I lit her chair.
Tea, captain's allowance. (ink — A.B.)
Twenty ounces, drawn full at the start of run. Pull the kettle at the first whistle, not the second. A captain who calls for tea twice in a watch wants the company more than the tea. Send up an extra cup with the second.
— pencil, facing —
Mensah came to the door on day 86 with a paper he did not give me. He stood for the length of a kettle's pull. I said, Will you have tea. He said, Idit, I should not. I said, You have spent the year writing letters in your drawer, you have spent six months reading mine, you have come now because you cannot file Form L-7 in any office you serve. You will have tea. He had tea. The kettle pulled once and once only. I did not send him up an extra cup.
Biscuit, two-shift. (ink — A.B.)
Flour, water, salt, fat. Cut into nine when there are nine; the ninth is yours. Eat yours in the galley, not at table. The cook eats with the recyclers, where the air is honest.
— pencil, facing —
A., on the day after the certificate came back, I sat in your galley chair (Mother's chair, where you left it) and I cut a biscuit. The kitchen has no recycler; the corridor's has. The air in the kitchen was honest. I ate at the table. Mother's chair was empty. I left the ninth biscuit on the rail, which I think is what you would have done.
— pencil, foot of the last recipe page (the recipe unfinished) —
Idit Bar-Sela, day ninety-one. The censor's office returned my letter today with no envelope. Mensah came at second-watch with the cookbook. He said he was instructed to return personal effects to next of kin and that he was sorry to have read it. I told him to put it on the kitchen rail beside the biscuit. He did and he left.
The galley book and the captain's book ought to agree. The cookbook and the kitchen ought to agree. The cookbook is here. The kitchen is here. The cook is not. The audit is the silence.
— I. B.