Smokey Mountain Breakdown

My house smells of brown sugar and vinegar, spices and fruit. It's an old smell that belongs with crocheted antimacassars, mahogany furniture blackened with tung oil and the back of my great aunt's washstand. It belongs on a table covered in linen--the damask kind with a sheen like oil on water, ghost colors rising to the surface of starched white. It belongs with a silver dish and a uselessly ornate silver server that strains the liquid from mysterious fruit, no longer recognizable.

My house smells of chutney--winter rice dishes, ploughmen's lunches and a colonial past.

I'll need to get some sharp cheese.