Free Vanilla Salt by Ada Parellada

gets out all the ingredients, ready to make her cake.
    In a large bowl she beats two eggs with brown sugar until the mixture expands. She adds the half-melted butter, two grated carrots, a handful of walnuts, a generous spoonful of cinnamon and finally the flour and baking powder. The trick is to fold in the flour, not ill-treat it with beaters.
    Half an hour, an oven on low temperature, and the fragrance is floating in the kitchen. “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” she sings to Ella Fitzgerald. She can’t help it. She’s singing and crying at the same time. “Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high.”
    Sitting on a stool and using the shelf of the serving hatch as her table, legs swinging, she eats the cake hot from the oven, breaking off little morsels with her fingers, just like she did as a little girl at afternoon tea time, when her mother made her sit at the kitchen table under her watchful eye. “One of these mornings you’re going to rise up singing.” She keeps a hefty slice for Òscar.
    Àlex and Annette meet up in the kitchen early next morning. He isn’t at all pleased to discover she’s made a carrot cake on her day off. He doesn’t even say hello.
    “The day off is for everyone, right? Agreed? Is that clear?”
    “Yes, that clear,” Annette answers automatically.
    She’s fed up with Àlex’s tongue-lashings. He seems to revel in conflict and is always looking for a fight. Annette’s had a couple of rows with him, but now she prefers to roll with the punches. He’ll soon get tired of trying to provoke her.
    “The oven has a day off too,” he raves on. “On Monday the restaurant equipment has a rest. On Monday you have to get out and clear your head, my girl, and I don’t want you messing around in my kitchen.”
    She’d love to point out to Àlex that, without a cent to her name, her choices are very limited. She hasn’t been paid her first salary yet and has no idea of what her monthly wage is going to be, because the boss hasn’t deemed it worthy of mention. But she merely says, “OK. I go out the Monday.”
    Àlex can’t stand the fact that she doesn’t answer back, that she’s so conciliatory, that she’s always trying to keep the peace. He believes that the kitchen needs shouting and arguments to whip up adrenalin and strengthen bonds, because when the thunder and lightning have passed a soothing sun appears. Flowers and violins are what you get in wishy-washy kitchens. This must be a female thing, he tells himself, because all the kitchen hands he’s had so far have been males who’ve responded to his yelling and insults with even louder yelling and more offensive insults. That’s how it’s supposed to be.
    Resigned, he focuses his efforts on making the spinach-and-walnut filling for some cannelloni he’s going to cook. He fills the sink with water and tips a big bunch of fresh spinach leaves into it. He pounces on them mercilessly, shoving them well under the water and shaking them around vigorously.
    “Look at the way I’m doing this. You’ve got to get them right under the water. They’re full of this bloody soil stuck to the leaves. If you don’t wash them properly, the customers are sure to bite on the dirt and all your work goes into the rubbish bin.”
    “Why you make so many cannelloni?”
    “This is a restaurant, in case you haven’t worked it out yet. We’ve got to be prepared for whatever comes up.”
    “Tuesday it is quiet day,” Annette comments, because she hates to see such large amounts of food thrown away at Antic Món. There haveeven been dishes that have not sold as much as a single serving and been tipped intact into the bin.
    “What the fuck would you know? Get on with your work unless you want to run out of here screaming.”
    “Yesterday I lunch with Carol,” she suddenly remarks.
    “What! What’s this you’re saying? I don’t think I heard you rightly.”
    “I yesterday lunch with Carol in Granollers. We talk about you