Salt and Love

You sit in the van on the way home from the beach. The window is open, wind buffeting your face with that flap-flap-flap rhythm you only get when you are going faster than thirty. Bob Marley is playing through the tinny car stereo, Buffalo Soldier. Most of your friends are dozing, except for Morten, with his pilot sunglasses on, who is driving and loving it. The warm wind plays through the sun-bleached hairs on your forearm, tiny grains of sand and salt reflecting the afternoon light as it strobes through the coastal pine forest. You can taste the salt on your lips from too many times the waves got the better of you in your heroic attempts to teach yourself surfing. You are tired, and happy, and your stomach is growling.

Just before you get back to the rental chalet, you stop at the food truck at the edge of the parking lot, the one selling ice cream and crepes. You are served by the most beautiful girl you have ever seen, then, when you are aged somewhere between driver’s licence and full-time job. She smiles, and hands you perfectly delicious soft crepes, and you don’t speak French, so you can’t ask her out, which you definitely would, otherwise. Definitely. A gust carries the smell of salt, and it mingles with the pancake and the powdered sugar, and the hot tarmac. It tastes like youth, and freedom, and summer, and love.

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You step on the patio carrying a tray full of plates, the nice porcelain ones with the blue motif, all of the same set. You put out cutlery for the summer gratin, enough for eight of you, and small forks for the tart that will come after, the one with fresh currants from the garden. A small crystal bowl with freshly whipped cream just fits in between the dishes crowding the table. The smell of ham, potatoes, and cheese lets your stomach forget a breakfast that only ended an hour or two ago, a lazy breakfast chatting the morning away with your cousins.

The potato gratin comes in a deep dish, and is still steaming. Hints of ham and roasted potato peek through the surface of golden cheese. The first bite is too hot, but so very good, creamy and crunchy, savoury and sweet, the perfect balance of flavours and texture. A little bit too salty, your grandma says, because the cook is in love. Hard not to be, with food like that, on the sun dappled lawn under the birch tree. She is the cook, and she has found a wonderful partner, an old school friend, a decade after losing your grandpa. You take another helping of gratin, and it tastes like family, and summer, and love.

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You sit on the narrow porch of the self-catering studio flat, at a small round garden table. The towel is drying on the railing, and your gorgeous girlfriend has her feet up. She is wearing a black summer dress, held up by the tan lines running down from her perfect clavicles, and she looks radiant. She has a book open in her left hand, and the light breeze carries her summer scent to you. She has cooked pasta, with fresh tomatoes from the market in a butter sauce, with a bit of salt, and it will be your favourite kind of pasta from now until forever.

You eat, and drink red wine, and read, and it takes hours, and no time at all. You quickly wash up the two plates when you are finished, and slip on some flip-flops to wander down to the beach. The sun has just set, and the sky is exploding in colour. Down at the beach, a breeze picks up, and she shivers. You wrap her in your hoodie (all your hoodies, jumpers, and pullovers will forever be hers), and she pulls you in for a kiss. Her eyes are full of mischief and her face smells like summer. Her lips carry a hint of salt, they taste like summer, and love.