The Colors of All the Cattle (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #19)

by Alexander McCall Smith

Fanwell was much more gentle. At a very early stage in his training he had grasped the need to listen to what a vehicle was saying. He understood that at heart engines wanted to oblige us; it was their destiny to fire properly and to run sweetly for as long as their owner wished. Engines knew that, and, if only you treated them correctly, they would do your bidding. But hit an engine, or subject it to any of the other cruelties that thoughtless owners could devise, and the engine would become as stubborn as a mule. It was the same, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought, with cooking. If you were gentle, if you blended ingredients together gently, folding them in with all the delicate care of a mother tucking a child into bed, then they would co-operate. If you took the trouble to understand what temperature cooking oil liked, then it would seal the beef perfectly or soften the onions to just the right consistency. If you tasted a soup regularly, adding salt and pepper pinch by pinch rather than all at once, then the result would be perfectly seasoned rather than too salty or too hot. This was an art, he was convinced, and it was one to which Mma Ramotswe seemed to have been born.

He is a JLB Matekoni in the making.