4
" It’s like milking a cow. The table gets antsy if it goes too long without feeding people. And we’ll have to touch it anyway, to clean it.” Anjali lifted the lid of a dish. A savory smell, heavy on cabbage, filled the room. “Want to start with the sausages or the potatoes?”
“Sausages, definitely,” said Marc.
“Okay . . .” She lifted more lids and poked around with a fork. “You can have blutwurst, zervelatwurst, bockwurst, plockwurst, leberwurst, knackwurst, and, of course, bratwurst. And what’s this? Weisswurst, I think.”
“Some of each, please,” said Marc.
Anjali handed him a plate piled with wursts. “What about you, Elizabeth?”
“Um, I’m not crazy about sausage—maybe just some potatoes?”
“Okay,” said Anjali. “Kartoffelbällchen, kartoffeltopf, kartoffelkroketten, kartoffelbrei, kartoffelknödel, kartoffelkrusteln, kartoffelnocken, kartoffelpuffer, kartoffelklösse, or kartoffelschnitz? Or maybe some schmorkartoffeln? Or just plain fries?”
“I don’t know—surprise me.”
“Here. Überbackene käsekartoffeln, my favorite. It has cheese.”
“Thanks.” It was delicious and very rich—tender potato slices, with a creamy cheese sauce. “How do you know all those names?” I asked.
“I looked them up. I wanted to know what we were eating.” Anjali peered under more lids.
“You know Anjali—she loves to look things up. Any spätzle?” asked Marc.
“What’s spätzle?”
“Sort of a cross between homemade pasta and dumplings,” said Anjali. “Oh, here’s hasenpfeffer! I love hasenpfeffer!”
“What’s hasenpfeffer?”
“Stewed rabbit with black pepper.” She dished herself a plate. “Mmmm! Don’t tell my parents—we’re vegetarians at home. "
― Polly Shulman , The Grimm Legacy (The Grimm Legacy, #1)
12
" We sipped in silence for a while, watching the lights across the river.
“So what did you really leave as a deposit?”
“My ambition.”
“You? Never.”
“My sense of t-t-timing?”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh.”
“My most precious memory—of the moment I met you?”
“Fine, don’t tell me.”
He put down his cocoa mug, took the empty mug out of my hand, and put it down. He leaned forward—much too far forward—and fell, taking me down with him. “My sense of balance,” he whispered into my hair.
I pushed at him. “Ow, get off, you’re on my arm.”
He shifted his weight but didn’t move away. “My inhibitions,” he whispered into the other ear.
Then he kissed me.
He tasted of chocolate and ginger and apples. Spring air, books. New grass. Magic. "
― Polly Shulman , The Grimm Legacy (The Grimm Legacy, #1)
13
" Ms. Callender was nodding her round face in agreement. “Even the stuff that sounds safe is dangerous,” she said. “Like the pot in ‘Sweet Porridge.’ When you say, ‘Cook, little pot, cook,’ it makes sweet millet porridge. Sounds harmless, right?”
“Yes, I remember the story,” I said. Nobody told the pot to stop cooking until it had filled half the houses in town with porridge. The householders had to eat their way out. The story didn’t say whether anybody drowned. "
― Polly Shulman , The Grimm Legacy (The Grimm Legacy, #1)
