The Kitchen Charmer by Deborah Smith

Author:Deborah Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BelleBooks Inc.
Published: 2017-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

8

I SURVIVED EIGHTEEN years in the Army and multiple tours in combat zones thanks to my kitchen charms. My company has the best send-em-home-in-one-piece record in the battalion. All because I have this secret ability to sense what makes people dangerous—hungry.

So there I was, stirring sliced sweet potatoes in a pot of oil over a campfire. Furthering world peace through the diplomacy of fried southern taters.

Sanchez stood beside me, translating everything I said to the women and children. She wears a big fluttery head scarf tied around her helmet. Looks like a pirate. She can make eye contact with the women, but I’m not allowed. So I look at the kids. The armed men—husbands, brothers, uncles, sons—lounged around the perimeter—and oh, yeah, they’ll let me know I cross a line.

I forked up a slice of fried potato.

“This is called a sweet potato stick,” I told the kids. Explaining the name, “French fry,” was too much for my storytelling ability and Sanchez’s Pashto vocabulary. “But it’s not sweet, and it’s not a stick.”

Sanchez gave me the Stink Eye. Whatever she told them, they laughed anyway.

“Sweet potato sticks are the most important food in my province of America,” I went on, wagging the tater like a long, orange finger. “The home of James Brown and Elvis.”

Blank stares.

“Coke a Cola.”

That got smiles and nods.

I cooled all the fries on a rock, telling stories the whole time. They giggled like crazy. My people and our strange ways. Eating slimy okra pods and alligators’ tails and giant fish with whiskers, and these peanuts we pulled out of the ground. As the fries cooled I started to hand them out to the girls first, but Sanchez shook her head. So I spread my hands and said, “Here’s what we say when it’s time to eat,” I told the kids. “Come and get it, y’all!”

Sanchez translated like a drama queen. Reared back on her boot heels and almost yodeled the words.

They looked startled, then burst out laughing. The women smiled behind their covered mouths, and even some of the men grinned.

A woman nudged one boy forward. Shaggy hair, wide eyes; not more than ten. He stepped out of the group and stopped before the fries. “Bazir,” he said, pointing to himself. “Thank you, y’all.”

While the children and their mothers ate I sat down on a camp stool and perched a stack of small posters on my knee. I pointed to a map of the United States.

“My friend, Luce, drew these pictures for me to show you,” I called out. Sanchez gave me a hard look. “Don’t you mean your wife, Captain?”

Bingo. Men don’t have female friends who aren’t sisters or cousins. Not in the view of these villagers. So, what could I say? “Yes, wife.”

I laid the U.S. map aside and pointed to the next poster, a large drawing of western North Carolina. “This is my home. My sisters and I grew up right here. I pointed to a large star. This is called Asheville. People who live in Asheville are a different tribe from other North Carolinians.

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