Real food.
Steven’s Christmas dinner is a pilgrimage of Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. The Holy Trinity of British-acquired aromatics spills from the thurible-turkey in the monastic hours of the morning, spreading their message through the house; its congregation having not yet arisen. By the time Steven has slammed closed the door on at least three boys trying to dish-wash their way into an early sacrament, myself included, the adults are up and tending their flocks.
“You aren’t opening anything until you’ve brushed your teeth!”
“I don’t care if everyone else got to open one last night; they aren’t us. You can wait.”
The world is full of magic, broad and varied. But for those who use it to conjure their food and can’t understand, which is damned near everyone these days, cooking a bird this big for midday begins at an ungodly hour. Steven plays the long game, though; it’s more than just cooking. His turkey is always delicious; I love his turkey, but I am in love with his roast potatoes.
Their journey begins in the dirt. Steven cultivates his own vegetables, king among them the potato. He doesn’t use any of that artificial garbage or arcane mumbo-jumbo in his gardening. Oh, he talks to his crops, in fact he preaches to them. He never uses the old languages. No Latin enters his garden. Phoenician is way out. He is very careful to tell his sermons in plain English. Well, he is Gloucester born and bred, so I use the term English loosely. Engerlish?
“While the erf remainef, seedtoime an' 'arvest, an' cold an' 'eat, and sum'er and win'er, and day and noight shall not cease.”
Steven doesn’t care for magic. He says he isn’t religious, either. Says he just likes The Bible. He doesn’t notice the irony in its translation. Steven grows real vegetables, right in the dirt. Each year, he ordains five boys as helpers in his garden.
“Foive thick spades for foive thick boys.” He jokes, but nobody in this priesthood protests, because we all know that our work is sacred.
One year, young Brother Brant complained, “But Uncle, there are easier ways to do this,” throwing his arms up with a childish pout, not for the first time that day.
Steven didn’t respond except to approach the boy, reach out his hand, and receive the shovel from a penitent child. That year, Steven’s niece, Emma, to Brant’s shame and his niece’s delight, replaced Brant in the garden.
That Christmas, they conjured Brant’s meal for him at great financial cost to the family, and a greater spiritual cost to Brant. As a child, he had not understood the cost of a conjuring on Christmas. The greater cost to his soul and taste buds hit Brant harder, though. Almost nobody whose eaten Steven’s Christmas dinner would jeopardise their chances like that. Nobody ever did it twice.
Steven grows Maris Piper potatoes. Preaches sermons on starch content and low moisture varieties. He parboils the spuds with their skin on. Letting them drain and cool before peeling it away and quartering them. He shakes them, roughening them up and coating their edges in a fluffy white jacket, then he baptizes them in hot beef drippings.
He turns them in their baptismal font, giving each one its own space, and fully anointing them as they sizzle and spit in the hot fat. He seasons them with large salt crystals taken from his left palm, and finally, drops in a few peeled cloves of garlic, and a sprig of rosemary, before sliding the tray in the oven, turning them only once before they are done.
When I say his roasties are out of this world, I lie. I mean that you will never feel as connected to the dirt as when you crunch through that buttery golden mantle, into the soft, fluffy core, and taste everything that goes into making that roasted spud. I don’t mean love. I mean that it carries the natural richness of the soil with it, as a subtle, earthy undertone that makes each roast potato whole. The love you feel in each bite is primal. It’s simply because Steven knows not to taint the spud with spells or boil away its earthly soul. He knows what a roastie should be and takes the time to make it proper.