Monday 26 December 2016

Risotto Finire

   I lost something today. My sister.

   That's not a statement that will of necessity be followed by an obituary, because she's as far as I know in rude health.  Instead it's a statement of sad fact, that I don't think I want to associate with having more than one sister any more.

    I've not really talked about it here, there's an air of washing your dirty linen in public. But over the last few years my relationship with my eldest sister has not been easy. A ramping up of hostility and a series of incidents best described as outright slander, in which she has tried very hard to discredit me in very nasty ways to family members and other people. I'm not prepared to say it's as a result of my transition, but it's definitely been a feature of these last few years.

    This last weekend over Christmas has seen some particularly bizarre manifestations of it as she's gone out of her way to be verbally nasty to me, instantly rubbishing things I've said, and coming out with more than her usual quota of spiteful remarks. All in front of other family members, so at least they're now seeing something's amiss. Funnily enough though it was a risotto that pushed me over the edge into seeing that it's no longer worth my while acknowledging a relationship.

    It's a family tradition of ours, to make a risotto with left-over turkey. I did ours today, the slow way. Caramelised onion with lots of oil, add the turkey and then fry the risotto rice with it all for a while to cover it with the oil, then add some cider (Italians use wine, I didn't have any but since I make cider it makes sense!), then hot stock bit by bit over about twenty minutes. Finally some cream and cheese, soya cream and feta here because of a cow's milk allergy, and you're done. An amazing risotto, though I sez it myself.

    So I had a big pot of risotto with a ladle poking out of it, and I brought it to the table to serve. As I am lifting the ladle, my sister wrests it from my hand, barges in and pushes me out of the way. In front of the rest of the family, so rather obviously. Perhaps it was wrong of me to ask if she'd like to seize the piece of bogroll from me to perform the task when I wanted to wipe my bum, but I felt something appropriate was called for.

    It's not every family that is cloven in two by a ladle covered in sticky rice, but there has to come a moment at which a point of no return has been reached.

5 comments:

  1. sometimes it is best to make a break!
    To continue a cold war is pointless, life is too short.

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  2. Its the silliest things that end up pushing us over the edge so that we snap. Mine was a large, black, rubbish bin.

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  3. Coline took the words out of my mouth. Sad, but I do fear the trans thing might have a bit to do with this. She's now a non-person. Go have some cider and be done with her.

    By the way, although I'm Italian, that English version is making my mouth water!

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  4. Your risotto sounds fantastic, a shame that it seems to have been the trigger the ending a bad year badly. It certainly seems that you have had more than your share of strife this year and this is a sad ending.

    However from what you say it also has a feeling of inevitability to it, sometimes it is simply not possible to rub along with somebody where there is serious disrespect, juts because you happen to be related.

    Lets just hope that 2017 brings you positive new relationships, and lots of good things.

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  5. Thanks for the praise for my risotto :)

    I have no idea how it will all pan out. Right now there's an air of frostiness about the family.

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