A Cookbook Conspiracy (5 page)

Obedience spent two months crossing the Atlantic. Several days after the storm that
took the cook, Lord Blakeslee called
Obedience into his stateroom and promoted her to the job of head cook, thinking she
knew what she was doing. But she didn’t! And she was petrified at the thought of being
banished from his service once they reached America. So she worked up the nerve to
ask Cletus, the ship’s cook, for advice and recipes.

I was impressed with her bravery and persistence and decided that if she could sail
to a wild new land all by herself, I could manage to whip up a stupid dessert, couldn’t
I?

Apparently I couldn’t.

The following night, instead of dessert, Derek and I took our wineglasses into the
living room and I read him passages from the cookbook.

“So in lieu of actually eating dessert,” he said, “we’ll read about it.”

“Yes, and you should thank me for it,” I said, thinking of the curdled mess I’d tossed
out earlier. I cozied up next to him, opened the book to a random page, and showed
it to him. “Can you believe she wrote this entire book in longhand? Isn’t it cool?”

He studied the page, then handed it back to me. “It’s remarkable. What are you going
to read me?”

I flipped to the next page. “This is one of her medicinal recipes. ‘A Cure for Convulsions.’”

“Never know when you’ll need that.”

I read the first line and started to laugh. “Ew, I hope not. She says, ‘Collect a
half dozen live mole rats; tap them with a knife in the throat until they are dead.
Open and remove the entrails. Arrange these in a large flat pan and dry in the oven
for three or four days until they have turned to soft stone. Place them in a cloth
bag and pound them to powder. Sift through a sieve. Mix powder with ginger water and
feed by droplets thrice an hour throughout the night.’”

“Sounds more likely to
cause
convulsions than
cure
them,” Derek said.

As I read a few more medicinal cures and laughed with Derek, I mentally forgave Obedience
for causing me to throw out yet another dessert. And I grew more and more resistant
to the thought of giving the book back to Baxter.

But it wasn’t my choice to make. My only job was to refurbish the book and build a
storage box for it. That was what I did best, unlike cooking.

The next day, I began work on Obedience’s fragile cookbook. I was hoping that once
I tightened the joints and resewed the pages, the book would have new life and be
able to hold itself together for another few hundred years. I also wanted to regild
the spine to make Obedience’s name shine. I considered it a small thank-you for giving
me hours of reading enjoyment, even if some of her recipes were downright scary.

I grabbed another cup of coffee and my trusty bag of malted milk balls and headed
for my studio. At my worktable, I laid the book out on the clean surface and took
care of the preliminaries. I measured it, recording the figures in a notebook, and
then I snapped a bunch of photographs of the book from all sorts of angles. With a
book like this, it was important to make sure everything I did was cataloged. Even
if Baxter shoved it into a drawer, the cookbook itself was still historically significant
and deserved some attention to detail.

I brushed it clean of any dirt particles, then slowly, carefully, removed the leather
cover from the text block and began the process of snipping and picking out the old
threads, restacking the pages as I went before sewing them back together.

After the leather cover was reaffixed, I debated on what sort of dressing to apply
to clean and revitalize the faded red leather. The one I chose was a mixture recommended
by conservationists, basically a blend of neat’s-foot oil, lanolin, and odorless kerosene.
The oils were animal-based natural lubricants. The kerosene helped the leather absorb
the oils and would evaporate over several days.
I’d created my own concoctions back in school, but nowadays I simply ordered it through
an online bookbinding supply company and had it delivered in a handy jar.

Before applying the oil, I wrapped the text block in heavy butcher paper to protect
it. Then I rubbed the dressing into the leather and watched the discolored surface
soak it up. After waiting an hour or so, I buffed it until it was a rich dark red.
I was certain Obedience would’ve been happy with the results. I certainly was. The
book cover was lustrous and supple again and would hold on to its beauty, thanks to
the book box I planned to design.

*   *   *

T
he following week, Derek and I walked into BAX for our eight o’clock reservation.
As Derek gave the maître d’ our names, I glanced around. Most of the tables for the
second seating were filling up quickly. The spacious room pulsated with energy and
laughter. And as much as I hated to admit it, Baxter Cromwell’s new restaurant was
flat-out gorgeous.

His designers had brought the lush, vibrant Hispanic influence of San Francisco’s
Mission District into the large, open space. The decor was wildly colorful, with massive
flower arrangements and exotic, lively murals on three walls.

But it was the fourth wall that drew my gaze.

“Now that’s different,” I said, staring at the long wall, which was covered completely
in rough slabs of brown and black slate. Thin streams of water trickled and bubbled
from the ceiling down the jagged slate surface, finally collecting in a narrow, shiny
copper pool that ran the length of the wall. It was so cool and unique, I was mesmerized.
I had to force myself to look away in order to follow the hostess to our table.

Despite the many visual distractions, Baxter’s main room was elegant and sophisticated
with its vaulted ceiling and soft lighting.

“Brooklyn! You made it!”

I thought it might be Savannah calling to me, but when I turned, I saw a familiar
dark-haired beauty speed-walking around the tangle of tables in order to greet me.

Did you ever meet someone and instantly want to be their friend? That’s how it was
for me when I first met Kevin Moore in Paris. She was smart and funny and self-deprecating
and so warm and generous I wanted to move to Paris just to hang out with her. That
never happened, of course. She had visited Savannah a few times over the years, so
I’d seen her every so often. But she owned a restaurant in London now, so unless I
was willing to relocate, we would never be as close as I’d once hoped.

“Oh, Kevin,” I said, as I was pulled into her enthusiastic embrace. “It’s great to
see you.”

She held me at arm’s length. “Good lord, how long has it been? You look freaking fantastic.
I hate you for that. What happened to your hair? I love it.”

I fluffed my hair. “Same as it always was.”

“No, no, it used to be short and feathery. Now it’s longer and—oh, never mind. You
blondes just piss me off.”

She laughed and gave me another exuberant hug before I could say one more word. Her
voice was exactly as I remembered: posh British accent dripping with dry wit. But
in other ways she’d changed dramatically. She’d been little more than a gangly teenager
in Paris, a string bean, all legs and arms. Now she was lovely and lithe and all grown-up.

“You look beautiful,” I said, and meant it.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “I’m stained and sweaty.”

Her white chef’s coat was indeed a mélange of nasty splotches and mysterious smears.

I gave her an innocent smile. “But it looks great on you.”

“And you’re full of it,” she said with a grin.

I’d once asked Kevin how she got her boyish name and she
told me her parents had met while waiting at the same bus stop on Kevin Street in
Dublin. It wasn’t far from the National Archives, where her father had been giving
a lecture. They fell in love at first sight and vowed to name their first child Kevin.

“They were probably counting on a boy,” Kevin had quipped.

If she’d had my wacky parents, who’d named all of us kids after the city in which
we were conceived or born, poor Kevin would’ve ended up with the name Dublin. I liked
Kevin better. It had a poetic charm that suited her.

Savannah had told me later that Kevin’s father had been a famous English writer who’d
given up his worldly goods to become a missionary in Africa.

Kevin’s dark ponytail swished back and forth as she scanned her stained jacket. “This
is all Baxter’s fault. Your sister is supposed to be in charge tonight, but he’s the
one ruling the roost. He’s run me ragged and we’ve only just started the second seating.
I’m cooking tomorrow night, so I’m concerned, but I’m hoping he’ll back off once he
sees that we all know what we’re doing.”

“I hope so, too.” I tugged Derek forward and introduced him to Kevin.

“He’s a Brit? You hooked a Brit?” Kevin stared at me. “How in the world did you manage
it from all the way over here in the States?”

“I have no idea,” I said, speaking the truth. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Derek grabbed my hand and kissed it. “I’m the lucky one. Can’t believe I snagged her.”

“Aw, that’s sweet, isn’t it?” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at Derek. “Let me
guess. Sussex?”

“Oxford.”

“Damn!” she said. “Not even close.”

Derek studied her. “And you? Cornwall?”

“Closer guess than mine, but no cigar. Devon.” Kevin laughed and glanced at me. “Sorry,
Brooklyn. All Brits seem to play this
game when they meet on neutral territory. We try to guess where we’re from based on
our accents.”

“Oh, we Yanks do that, too,” I said. “I’m tough to figure out since I have no discernible
accent.”

The two Brits exchanged glances, and Kevin burst into laughter. “Right. You just keep
on believing that.” She patted Derek on the shoulder, then turned to me. “I’ll let
you get to your table. Promise me we’ll catch up later? I’ll be in town for two whole
weeks.”

She rushed off without waiting for a response and our attentive yet discreet hostess
continued to lead us to our table as though we hadn’t stopped to talk.

Once we were seated, she handed us our menus and an extensive wine list and said,
“Chef Baxter has listed a few of his own specials, but he hopes you’ll choose to enjoy
the offerings of his featured chef tonight, the wonderfully talented Savannah Wainwright,
whose expertise is haute vegetarian cuisine.”

“We will,” Derek murmured.

I nodded. “Thank you.”

The hostess smiled and walked away.

“Everything is perfect,” I said, admiring the gold-rimmed white chargers and Riedel
stemware. “Positively haute.”

Derek’s lips twisted sardonically. “It’s intolerable, isn’t it?”

“Yes, damn it.” I didn’t want to like the place. I tried to scowl, but my heart wasn’t
in it.

He reached for the wine list while I glanced at my menu. But I couldn’t concentrate.
How in the heck had Baxter managed something so swank? So fabulous? Toads like him
shouldn’t be this talented. “I guess I’m happy everything looks beautiful and of course
I’m happy that Savannah’s cooking tonight. But part of me wishes Baxter wasn’t so
popular and didn’t have such excellent taste in everything.”

Derek scanned the room and admitted, “It really is a phenomenal space.”

“I know,” I muttered. “That waterfall is amazing. And his staff seems competent and
friendly, so I suppose he’s trained them well.”

“Bastard.”

I chuckled. Why did swearwords sound so refined when spoken by Derek?

“I guess it’s silly not to enjoy the evening,” I said.

“Yes,” Derek said, nodding. “We’ll order champagne to improve our mood—what do you
say?”

Once the bottle was opened and our glasses were filled, we raised them in a toast
to new experiences. As I sipped, I noticed the place was filled to capacity and a
number of guests had begun table-hopping. Most of the people here seemed to know someone
else in the room.

It made sense that many of the first week’s guests would be friends or business acquaintances
of Baxter’s or the other chefs. Either that or serious foodies. I hoped that indicated
that everyone would be extra appreciative of the food, for Savannah’s sake. I knew
from firsthand experience that if they gave her strictly vegetarian menu a chance,
they would fall in love with it.

It probably didn’t hurt that Savannah had been receiving rave reviews from every food
critic in the Bay Area since she first opened Arugula. Some of these customers had
to be here because of her, right? Not just because Baxter Cromwell had opened a new
hot spot.

As I lifted my champagne glass for another sip, I saw another white-jacketed chef
crossing the room and heading directly for me. I recognized him instantly and cried,
“Peter!”

“Hello, you,” he said, spreading his arms to greet me.

Scooting out from the booth, I hugged him hard. “It’s so good to see you. How are
you?”

“I’m marvelous,” he said. His Devonshire accent was as distinctive as I remembered
and he was even more adorable, if that
was possible. “Kevin said you were out here, so I had to come see for myself.” He
hugged me again and then twirled me around before setting me back on my feet. “This
night can’t get any better.”

Over Peter’s shoulder I could see Derek’s eyebrows shooting up. I wondered if his
reaction was due to his hearing yet another British accent or to the way Peter continued
to cling to me.

I eased back from Peter, eager to introduce him to Derek. As they shook hands, I said
to Derek, “Peter attended Le Cordon Bleu with Savannah and Kevin. And Baxter, of course.”

“Of course,” Peter said dryly. “Can’t forget Baxter now, can we?”

“Apparently not,” Derek muttered.

“Peter and Kevin shared a flat with Baxter and Savannah,” I explained. “They let me
invade their living room for two long weeks that summer. I was such a pain.”

“You were sweet,” Peter said, nudging me gently. “We all got to be great friends.”

“Well, most of us did,” I said, reminded of the ugly sleeping bag incident with Baxter.