Any time the conversation turned to food, Alla Ivanovna would talk loudly about “My recipes”, “My cuisine”. She had never learned to cook, and hardly ever worn an apron. Accordingly, she had nothing in common with her mother, and could not help looking down on her, depriving herself of a grateful memory. Only her student days obliged her to think about food, and she had learned to cook the kind of food she was used to eating, in canteens, of course. But when she spoke so significantly, with a capital letter, about her Recipes, she seemed to be talking about some religious observance. Meatballs, goulache, pea soup, and another, inedible, word was never far away: “varied”. Every time it jarred with him as he heard the litany which had accompanied him through life, as if it were the only thin
