Back when we rented our house out for summer weeks, we’d drive away with trepidation. There were problems — nothing terrible, but we knew we hadn’t plugged enough of the mice’s hidey holes, the tiles kept falling off the bathroom wall, and the plumbing could be touch and go. And the renters knew this, but did they really comprehend it: there was no cable on our road in Wellfleet. (Almost 30 years later, there still isn’t.)
We braced for the annoyed phone calls. But mostly, they didn’t come. I’m pretty sure that’s because of something I learned about from my more business-minded friends: “surprise and delight features.” Cupholders, someone told me, were the things that sold cars. We put brand-new bars of expensive French soap in the bathroom, let the renters use the good knives, and pointed them to the blueberry patch. Enough of these little things and they might not notice our defects.
I used to know a Catalonian innkeeper, Inés Puigdevall, who ran her small hotel in Olot on that same theory. I was working as a guide. I’d get there with a bunch of tired-out travelers and there’d be nobody home to greet us. But the table in the entry would be set with a luscious still life of food. At this time of year, there’d be platters overflowing with grapes, baskets of boletes, a thick-ribbed pumpkin with a wedge carved out, hunks of cheese resting under a screened dome, a big round loaf of bread.
We’d lug our bags up to our rooms and somehow, before we’d get back downstairs, Inés would have arrived, gotten the fireplaces lit, set out the wine, and be grilling mushrooms and toasting slabs of crusty bread over the coals and rubbing it with garlic and tomato. We sat by the fire, and there would be soup.
The one I remember best was rosemary soup. Its warm aroma is just this side of medicinal — the trick to getting that right is in gently steeping the rosemary in the chicken stock. Boiling it can make the stock bitter. Cornmeal, whisked in, gives the soup a silky body and a sunny color.
In remembrance of those times in Catalonia, five years ago I planted a rosemary in the corner of the vegetable garden. Every fall I say goodbye to it because I know it might not make it through the New England winter. It has sometimes gotten a little frost-burned, but the rosemary seems to like it here. So far so good, anyway.
Why don’t we cook more with rosemary? In magazine stories, people do things like skewer cubes of seared tuna on its sturdy stems for dinner parties. I find it’s mainly good for brushing against as you walk by. On a warm day, the air around it smells like Inés’s place. And it’s a reminder to make this soup.
I remember that the rooms at Inés’s could be cold on October nights: terracotta tiles, old single-pane windows, no central heat. But on the way upstairs, she would hand you a little fabric-clad bundle: Pretty. Oh, warm, too. What? Your very own hot water bottle.
ROSEMARY SOUP
Serves 4 as a first course
1 quart good chicken stock
4 small branches fresh rosemary (each about 4 inches long)
½ cup stone-ground cornmeal
Kosher or sea salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste
- Bring the chicken stock to a rapid boil in a saucepan. Infuse the stock with the rosemary: turn off the fire, drop the rosemary into the broth, giving it a stir to submerge the stems thoroughly, cover the saucepan tightly, and let the rosemary steep for about 20 minutes.
- Remove the rosemary and discard it, taste the broth and season well with salt. Bring the broth to a boil again and stir in the cornmeal. Simmer and whisk for about 5 minutes. Finish with a grind or two of black pepper.
