A Cookbook Conspiracy (2 page)

“True.” My sisters and I had always been voracious readers, but none of us would read
a book after Savannah was finished with it. Not only did she scribble in the margins,
but she would
mark where she’d left off by dog-earing the page. It was barbaric. She liked to sadistically
crack the spine to keep a book splayed open. If you valued a book, you never lent
it to Savannah.

As a professional lover of books, I felt my stomach clench whenever I had to see her
slapdash bookshelves.

Without bothering to ask, I reached into my cupboard for another wineglass and poured
her some of the 2009 Pinot Noir I’d been sampling.

“This is good,” she said after taking a sip. “Light yet jammy with earthy undertones.”

I smirked. “Much like yourself.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“What are you doing here? I mean, I’m happy to see you, but I can’t remember the last
time you visited.”

“I know it’s been a while.” She perched her butt on one of the barstools at my kitchen
counter. “I came into town for a meeting this afternoon and decided to take a chance
that you’d be home.”

I sat down across from her. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

She barely resisted a sneer. “Only if you’re having takeout.”

“Definitely.”

“Will Derek be here?”

“He should be home any minute.”

She grinned. “Okay, I’ll stay.”

That was an easy decision. I reached for the phone. “Let me call in the order and
then we can talk.”

After ordering enough pizza and salad for a family of eight, I hung up and poured
us both more wine. My cell phone buzzed and I checked the text message. “Derek says
he’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

“Good. That gives me just enough time to ask a favor.”

I watched her dig into her oversized tote bag and retrieve a small, colorful bundle.
I was pretty sure I recognized the wrapping. “Is that a Pucci?”

Her eyes lit up. “Yes. Do you remember when I bought these for everyone?”

“Of course. I still have mine.” The Christmas she’d spent in Paris while attending
Le Cordon Bleu, she had sent each of us girls a wildly vibrant French silk scarf.
We’d all thought she’d been terribly extravagant until I visited her and discovered
that they sold the scarves on every street corner in Paris.

She handed me the bundle. “Can you fix this? It’s pretty old, but maybe you could
clean it up and stick a new cover on it or something? I want to give it as a gift.”

I slowly unwrapped the silky material and found a book inside. Casting a quick frown
at Savannah, I bent to study the book more carefully.

It wasn’t just
old
; it was really, really,
really
old. Its faded red cover was made of a thin, supple French morocco leather, the type
that had been used for centuries to make personal Bibles and religious missals. The
binding style was known as
limp binding
, which made it sound sort of sad and saggy, but in reality, the slim, flexible construction
allowed the book to be left open flat for easy reading without someone having to hold
it.

I examined the spine and found it rippled in some spots and thinning in others. The
gilding, while faded, was still readable.
Obedience Green
, it said.

“Obedience Green?” I rubbed my fingertip over the pale golden letters. Was that the
title of the book or the name of its author? Maybe it was the name of the bindery
that had produced it. I opened the book, taking note of the dappled endpapers before
I turned to the title page—and gasped. “It’s handwritten. In ink.”

“Yeah,” she said, swirling the liquid in her wineglass. “It’s kind of hard to read
in places, but it’s cool, isn’t it?”

I stared at the book’s impressive title.
The Cookbook of Obedience Green: Containing Three Hundred Curious and Uncommon Receipts
and Including Miscellaneous Articles of Useful Domestic Information
and a Brief History of My Life, by Obedience Green, many years Cook and Housekeeper
to the Eminent War General Robt. Blakeslee.

Curious and Uncommon Receipts?
I had no idea what that meant, but if Obedience had been a housekeeper, perhaps she’d
recorded her household grocery receipts or something. I turned a few more pages to
read an introduction in the same fancy handwritten script as the title page. It was
slow going, especially since every
s
looked like an
f.

I had no idea what the author meant when she promised to
offer the most modern receipts presented in the most elegant manner
. It wasn’t until I reached the Table of Contents page that I realized what she meant
by
receipts
. My clue was at the top of the page, where she had written
Herein a bountiful listing of receipts and a practical bill of fare for every season,
every month of the year.

“Recipes!” I looked at Savannah. “Because it’s a cookbook.”

“Duh,” Savannah said, her eyes rolling dramatically as only a sister’s could. “Can
you fix it up or not?”

“Of course I can fix it, but I’m not sure I should.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“The book might be too important.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake.” Clearly annoyed, she stood and folded her arms across her
chest. “It’s just an old cookbook, Brooklyn.”

“It’s not just
old
, Savannah.” I returned to the title page and searched for a date. I finally found
it scrawled at the end of a long, run-on sentence that listed various contributors’
names.
MDCCLXXXII
. I dug back into my grammar school brain and did a quick translation of the Roman
numerals.
M
was one thousand,
D
was five hundred, and
C
was one hundred. So, one thousand five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred. Seventeen
hundred.
L
was the Roman numeral for fifty.
X
was ten, so three
X
’s after the
L
made it eighty. Plus two
I
’s.

1782
. Yikes.

I took a few fortifying breaths until I could finally scowl
sufficiently at her. “It’s
over two hundred and thirty years old
.” I showed her the date, then clutched the book to my breast. “That makes it extremely
valuable just on its surface, never mind its historical or cultural value. And it’s
written by hand! It’s beyond rare. Where did you find it? What are you going to do
with it?”

Her shoulders slumped and I felt mine sinking, too. My sister could be so clueless
sometimes. And right then, it was obvious that she thought the same of me. “What does
it matter to you? Why do you always have to ask so many questions? Can’t you just
do as I ask? Just—” She fluttered her hand at me. “You know, do that thing you do.
Dust it off and put a pretty cover on it.”

I glared at her. “Do I tell you how to make a soufflé?”

She laughed a little as she held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. But if you
could…I don’t know. Just fix it. I’ll pay you whatever it costs if that’s what you’re
worried about.”

“You know I don’t care about the money,” I muttered, still too fascinated by the book
to get completely riled up at her. I was used to people undervaluing books, especially
these days when you could download a classic novel onto your phone for free. But it
was frustrating to know that my own sister couldn’t recognize the book’s value. Savannah
was many things: chef extraordinaire, bald as a baby, free spirit, vegetarian. But
book lover? Nope, not Savannah. Not in this lifetime.

Ignoring her, I inspected the book’s Table of Contents and couldn’t help smiling at
some of the old-fashioned terms used for the various chapters:

I thumbed carefully through the pages, but stopped abruptly when I saw the words
I delivered a baby today. My first experience and possibly the only time I’ll ever
do such a thing, for it was frightening and messy
.

“Hey, looks like part of the book is a journal.” I paged to the beginning of the section.

“Oh, no!” I closed the book reluctantly. “This is amazing.” Skimming my hand across
the aged leather cover, I felt a sense of the author’s trepidation. She didn’t know
how to cook! I could relate to that, but not to the fear and awe she must have experienced
traveling across the ocean to live and work in a strange land in the middle of a revolution.
I couldn’t wait to read more.

And I wondered again how Savannah had come into possession of this odd, intriguing
cookbook. On the spot, I decided I would swing by the Covington Library tomorrow and
show the book to Ian McCullough, my old friend and the Covington’s chief curator.
I so enjoyed making him drool with envy.

“Earth to Brooklyn.”

“What? Oh, sorry.” I set the book on top of the Pucci scarf. “Okay, look, I’ll clean
and repair it and I’ll tighten these joints and hinges that have come loose, but I
won’t give it a pretty new cover.” I held up my hand to stop her from saying something
more snotty than she already had. “It wouldn’t be ethical. This book is bound to be
historically significant, which makes it extremely valuable in its present state.”

She made a pouty face, but it was mostly for my benefit. “I suppose you’re right.”

I patted my heart. “Hearing those words? It never gets old.”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass.”

“Look, why don’t I make a pretty leather storage box for it? I can design a matching
suede or leather pouch, too, for extra protection. It’ll be cool.”

“Really?” The storm clouds disappeared from her eyes and she relaxed a little. “Okay.
Good. But can you make it sort of manly-looking? Nothing frilly.”

“Sure. I’ve got a fabulous piece of dark red leather I can use, and Derek brought
me back some amazing endpapers from Brussels. They’re beautiful.”

“How romantic of him.”

“Hey, he knows me.”

She gave me a warm smile. “That’s nice. Really it is.”

“So when do you need it done?” I asked.

“Two weeks from tomorrow.”

I wrapped the book in the scarf and tied the ends protectively. “Who are you giving
it to?”

“Do you remember Baxter Cromwell?”

“Of course.” I frowned. “Wait. There’s no way you’re giving this book to Baxter. Why
in the world would you do that?”

“Why not?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Because he’s a scumbag jerk?”

Baxter Cromwell was an old friend of Savannah’s from her time in Paris. They had attended
Le Cordon Bleu together and they’d dated for a few months. I knew that because I had
visited Savannah while she was living in Paris, in a flat with three other students,
one of whom was Baxter.

I had begged for a place to stay for two weeks and Savannah had offered to let me
sleep on her floor. I had seized the opportunity because even though I would be sleeping
on the floor, at least I would be sleeping on the floor
in Paris
. With the money I saved on a hotel room, I could buy more baguettes, croissants,
cheese, wine, and chocolate. It was a no-brainer.

But one night while there, I awoke to find someone crawling into my sleeping bag.
He already had his hands on me by the time I started screaming. It was my sister’s
so-called boyfriend, Baxter Cromwell. What a pig!

Despite my outrage, Savannah didn’t take Baxter’s betrayal very hard. Oh, there were
a few rough days, but she finally brushed it off, admitting that she should’ve expected
it. “That’s what I get for hooking up with a charming scoundrel,” she’d said. And
yet she had remained a loyal friend to him? It was a mystery to me.

After graduating, Baxter had taken his Le Cordon Bleu education and charmed a few
money people into backing him so he could open a small café in London. He parlayed
that into a chain of upscale restaurants around the city, quickly gaining a reputation
as a raging jackass. No big surprise. But instead of ruining his career, his outlandish
personality helped turn him into a reality show star. A female producer for one of
the food networks met him and declared his food better than Gordon Ramsay’s—and
Baxter was so much cuter! Not a particularly high bar to surpass, according to my
best friend, Robin, who was an unabashed reality show junkie.

Over the next few years, in addition to the television shows, Baxter worked relentlessly
to expand his restaurant empire, opening new bistros and grand food palaces all over
the world. Now the aforementioned scumbag was a household name. It wasn’t fair.

I looked at Savannah curiously. “Are you traveling to London to see him?”

“No, he’s coming here. He’s opening up a place in the Mission District.”

“Really?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. The Mission was the latest San Francisco
neighborhood to be dragged into gentrification. Don’t get me wrong; much of the area
was still seedy and it wasn’t giving up its gritty underbelly without a fight. I always
held on to my purse when I went walking around there.