Cook's story adds more depth to this quiet, plain spoken woman. Authors of writing books suggest that writing these sorts of in depth stories may not be in a finished book or novel, however the added dimension will inform and further story.
Lily and I were the best of friends. We did everything together, until she married and moved away. And that’s really where my story started. If anyone had told me I’d be a cook on an estate on an Island in Canada, I would have told them they were telling me a lot of nonsense. When I was a girl, I wanted to be a teacher, just like my favourite aunt. My parents were thrilled when I was accepted to a small Teachers College in the south of England. Before I could even get started, I fell ill and missed the entire first year. The doctors called it an endocarditis. I only knew it was an infection in my heart with a long recovery. My dream of being a teacher just disappeared. While I was recovering at home, I started cooking for my parents. They both worked, Lily had married and lived in another town. Cooking was all I could do. At first it was only supper, but as my energy and health improved, my cooking improved. Reading all my mother’s old cook books, I was excited when I saw my grandmother’s notes. Cutting a recipe in half, or adding different ingredients, noting which wood kept the steadiest oven temperature. I got quite an education from those old cookbooks. I started cooking lunch, baking pies, and learning how to preserve foods. I read everything I could get my hands on, especially if it had anything to do with food and cooking - magazines, newspapers and cookbooks
How did I get to Canada? Why, on a boat of course. Not just any boat. You know all those magazines, newspapers and cookbooks I read? Well there, on the inside back page of one of the cooking magazines was a little ad for chefs on a fancy luxury liner. In a fit of silliness, I sent in my application. I knew they wouldn’t hire me. I wasn’t a chef and my employer was my mother. It was just a bit of fantasy. I didn’t see how it could hurt anything. But when I saw my mother’s tears and heard my father’s voice tremble, I knew I had been wrong. The job on that ship was mine and I was ready for adventure. I'd been tied down to my bed and then my home for too long for a young girl. Not a chef but as an apprentice chef. That was the fancy name for the dishwasher and the general dogsbody. I had the time of my life, seeing all the women in their diamonds and rubies, satin dresses and furs; the men in tuxedos and tails. Learning things like knife skills and making hollandaise sauce. I had never heard the word ‘plating’ before. Oh, I’d seen it when I was reading but didn’t understand what it really meant. Seeing the chef bending over each plate, tenderly placing each item in careful order was like watching an artist.
Sadly, the luxury liner was held up in dry dock. Most of the staff lost their jobs. Being from out of country, I had only the money I had saved while on the ocean. Young and ready for adventure, I decided to work my way across this great country. When I reached the west coast, I would fly back to England. What a story I would have to tell? I did write Lily everyday, but letters don’t tell all the details. The charming Quebecois that wooed me with his brown curls and French Canadian accent. The handsome young man in Niagara Falls that swept me off my feet for at least a week. Learning to hitchhike, landing in Winnipeg just as winter was showing me what cold really was. Remaining there until spring thawed the prairies, I worked in restaurants and hotels to earn enough for a cheap boarding house. Mandy and her shy brother, Will, taught me the sport of ‘curling’ and I wobbled on skates on the Red River. A bonfire on the banks warmed us, cooked our supper and burned our marshmallows. Going on through Saskatchewan and Alberta, I thought the land would never end. The prairies, with the patchwork of fields green, yellow and blue, filled me with awe. Regina was a windblown city on the flat plain with a lake right in the middle of it. On the prairies I saw animals and birds I’d never seen before. Coming through Alberta, leaving Calgary and another new friend, I was unprepared for more grand sights. The Rocky Mountains. I had no words to describe them to Lily. They were truly grand and magnificent. In Vancouver, restaurants needing sous chefs or just plain cooks, lined the busy streets. I thought I had learned all there was to know about cooking, but my head was filled with so much more.
My plan to return to England from Vancouver was derailed when I was asked “Have you been to over to the Island?” His blue eyes sparkled. “We could go together and I could take you to my home town. Stay at my parent’s house in Hartley and I’ll take you around the Island.” That relationship lasted about as long as all the rest of the Canadian boys, but it got me to this job. Still reading magazines and cookbooks, another ad intrigued me. “Wanted. A Cook for a small family. There will be occasional large dinners that will be included in this employment. Contact Digby, Sr. at the Beaufort Estate.” Another adventure called my young self. When Digby, Sr. interviewed me, I was a bit intimated by him and by the Estate, but I got the job. Planning to stay only for four years and return to England, that four years is long gone. No one calls me a chef or a dogsbody here. I’m Cook to most everyone. I live alone in a little house on the grounds and am content. By the way, his blue eyes still sparkle.
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost,
to reach out eagerly and without fear for new and richer experience.,”
~ Eleanor Roosevelt
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