K.Esquivel-LWFC

of the others, obviously the captain of the
troop. Their eyes met and
what she saw in his made her tremble. She
saw all the nights he'd
spent staring into the fire and longing to have
a woman beside him, a
woman he could kiss, a woman he could
hold in his arms, a woman like
her. She got out her handkerchief and tried
to wipe these sinful
thoughts from her mind as she wiped away
the sweat.
But it was no use, something strange had
happened to her. She turned
to Tita for help, but Tita wasn't there, even
though her body was
sitting up quite properly in her chair; there
wasn't the slightest sign
of life in her eyes. It was as if a strange
alchemical process had
dissolved her entire being in the rose petal
sauce, in the tender flesh
of the quails, in the wine, in every one of the
meal's aromas.
That was the way she entered Pedro's body,
hot, voluptuous, perfumed,
totally sensuous.
With that meal it seemed they had
discovered a new system of
communication, in which Tita was the
transmitter, Pedro the receiver,
and poor Gertrudis the medium, the
conducting body through which the
singular sexual message was passed.
Pedro didn't offer any resistance. He let Tita
penetrate to the
farthest corners of his being, and all the while
they couldn't take
their eyes off each other. He said: "Thank
you, I have never had
anything so exquisite."
It truly is a delicious dish. The roses give it
an extremely delicate
flavor.
After the petals are removed from the roses,
they are ground with the
anise in a mortar. Separately, brown the
chestnuts in a pan, remove
the peels, and cook them in water. Then,
puree them. Mince the garlic
and brown slightly in butter; when it is
transparent, add it to the
chestnut puree, along with the honey, the
ground pitaya, and the rose
petals, and salt to taste. To thicken the
sauce slightly, you may add
two teaspoons of cornstarch.
Last, strain through a fine sieve and add no
more than two drops of
attar of roses, since otherwise it might have
too strong a flavor and
smell. As soon as the seasoning has been
added, remove the sauce from
the heat. The quail should be immersed in
this sauce for ten minutes
to infuse them with the flavor, and then
removed.
The smell of attar of roses is so penetrating
that the mortar used to
grind the petals will smell like roses for
several days.
The job of washing that and all the other
kitchen utensils fell to
Gertrudis. She washed them after each
meal, out on the patio, so she
could throw the scraps left in the pans to the
animals. Since some of
the utensils were large, it was also easier to
wash them in the wash
basin. But the day they had the quail, she
asked Tita to do the
washing up for her. Gertrudis was really
stricken; her whole body was