"I tried to, but nobody... They've started to..."
He grunted, shook his head, and whacked his wooden spoon on a plate. Then he gave me the full benefit of his heart-shaped face with its button nose and sharp, dimpled chin. "Do you think I came out of retirement to fail? Are you going to doom me to playing checkers and visiting the cardiologist? To making small talk with my wife's nurse?"
I sighed. "Andr‚, I'm sorry - "
"Close the door," he ordered sternly. "Four people have already interrupted me this morning. Looking for cups of soup!" His silver eyebrows climbed his forehead. "Does this look like a deli?" His forehead wrinkled in disgust as he lovingly swirled a spoon through the steaming pot of his thick, herb-scented mushroom soup. "Now. My cake. It needs to be served warm, with cream." He paused and considered the pan on the front burner. "Ah, Goldy, I'm not certain I taught you to make this syrup. You must be very quick...." Andr‚ touched the scar on my arm where I'd accidentally burned myself years ago retrieving a batch of Cornish hens from his restaurant oven. He'd never forgiven himself for not showing me how to handle his oversized roasting pan.
"Andr‚, listen, you're not supposed to make a cake in an off-site kitchen - "
"Phh-t." His chin trembled dismissively. "This must be fresh. And do you want to hear about the first boy? A very juicy story - "
"Well - "
"I had to listen to him. He is extremely immature, cannot even cook for himself." He glanced at his row of utensils, then commanded: "Please put away the first stirrers and hand me my candy thermometer." I did as directed. "His name is Bobby Whitaker, and he is the young half-brother to Leah Smythe, who feels sorry for him. But not sorry enough to teach him to make low-fat turkey loaf" Andr‚ dramatically poured sugar into a cast-iron pan and set it aside. "Bobby has started to peddle real estate. He must attend many fattening luncheons, he says. He finally had his first sale last night and celebrated. He was hung over, he wanted to go back to bed. But he claims his true love is modeling, not being the salesman." Andr‚ checked his recipe in his notebook, then pushed his thumb into wrapped butter sticks to make sure they were soft. "All this I had to hear while Bobby drank cup after cup of my coffee. He asked me if I'd been to Milan. He said he did his book there. I told him I was the pastry chef for a huge celebration outside the cathedral. At another cathedral, I made my crŠme br–l‚e for a hundred clergy. Where was that, he asked. In my town of Clermont-Ferrand, I told him, where, when I was eleven, I helped smuggle a Milanese Jewish woman and her French husband, also Jewish, out of the town. They went to Switzerland and then America. Do you think Bobby cared about my stories? No. He asked me if it was hard to make pastry and custards for so many people, and had I ever catered a lunch for top producers. I said, what is that? A meal for hens?"
"I care." I smiled. "I love your stories." Early on, I had learned the habit of nodding seriously while appearing to listen to Andr‚'s tales of his culinary history, his dessert-making ability, the many well-heeled clients he'd had, or even his childhood capers during the war. I was convinced these tales were all exaggerated. But if you ignored Andr‚, you had a short career in Andr‚'s kitchen. I asked thoughtfully, "What book did Bobby have made in Milan?"
Andr‚ sniffed. "His portfolio. All the models have them. Hanna and Leah have to look at it first to see if they like the look of the model in different clothes." I tapped the counter and shook my head. "Goldy. Remember when I taught you to inspect meat? It is the same.
Assessing cuts of steak was like judging people's bodies? Was that where they got the term beefcake? I asked, "If Bobby is Leah's half-brother, why didn't she stick up for him out there?"
Models' Mushroom Soup
5 tablespoons butter, divided
1 large carrot, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 cups homemade chicken stock (preferably the low-fat chicken stock made from the recipe in Killer Pancake)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
2 tablespoons whipping cream
6 tablespoons dry white wine salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and cook the carrot, onion, and celery, covered, over medium-low heat for 15 to 25 minutes, until the vegetables soften. Set aside to cool.
In a small skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and saute the mushrooms briefly until they are cooked through and begin to yield some juice. This takes less than 5 minutes. Set the mushrooms aside.
In a blender, puree the carrot, onion, and celery. In a large skillet, melt the last 2 tablespoons of butter, stir in the flour, and cook this paste, stirring constantly, over low heat until the flour bubbles. Slowly whisk in the stock. Cook and stir over medium heat until hot and thickened, about 10 minutes. Stir in the thyme, marjoram, whipping cream, mushrooms, wine, and pureed vegetables until hot and bubbly, about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to tatte. Serve immediately.
Makes 6 servings.
He paused over a cardboard box of eggs and grinned. "She tries, I think. Leah is the longtime lover of Ian," Andr‚ announced. This tidbit I already knew - from Marla, of course. "Although," Andr‚ continued thoughtfully, "those two don't seem to be getting along very well." The kitchen door opened; he scowled. "What pig wants something now?"
"Help me," pleaded a female whisper from the doorway.
"Pah!" howled Andr‚, without pity. He slid the sugar-filled iron pan to an unlit burner. "Go away!"
"What do you need?" I said quietly to a russet-haired woman whose large brown eyes glowed from within a gaunt, high-cheekboned face. She was stunning as well as very thin and tall. Despite the season, she was dressed in an oak-brown cashmere sweater, a long clingy brown wool skirt, and gleaming brown leather boots. She teetered precariously on the boots' stiletto heels.
Her cocoa-colored lower lip trembled. She drew her haunting face into an expression of intense pain. "Please - "
I said, "Are you okay?"
"Coffee," she whispered. She grinned uncertainly, affording a glimpse of brilliant teeth. "I just need a tiny sip. If you don't mind," she added.
Andr‚ hrnmphed and shrugged. I reached for the glass pot, but it held only an inch of metallic-smelling brew. My next job after heating the savory cheesecakes, laying out the spring rolls, mixing the vinaigrette, and arranging the buffet, would be to brew a fresh pot of coffee. I wondered vaguely how Andr‚ would have managed if I hadn't agreed to help today.
"Do you have powdered nondairy? Nonfat, that is?" the young woman inquired. Under the thick makeup, I figured she was about nineteen.
"Well, Andr‚ keeps cream in his cooler - "
"No! Just give me that." She wobbled across the uneven floor toward me, eyes fixed greedily on the coffeepot. I sighed and poured the viscous liquid into a foam cup, which the model immediately grabbed, along with a jar of powdered creamer from a wooden shelf abutting the plywood over the sink. Andr‚ frowned. The model ignored him, shook a dusty layer of creamer across the surface of the murky liquid, swirled it with a polished green fingernail, and took a noisy slurp.
"I'm Goldy." I kept my voice low in the hope that Andr‚ would go on with his work and ignore us. "And you're - ?"
"Rustine," she whispered over her shoulder as she clutched her cup and swayed toward the wooden door. She turned and gave me a vaguely flirtatious look. "Goldy? You're the famous caterer, right?"
"Uh," I said, mindful of Andr‚'s ego, "not exactly."
Rustine mock-kissed the air. "I can't wait for lunch."
She raised the coffee cup in salute. The door swooshed shut behind her.
Great, I thought as I turned back to Andr‚. Instead of continuing with the burnt sugar cake, however, he was penning another sign: DO NOT DISTURB OR YOU WILL NOT EAT! "Put this on the door!" He thrust the sign at me. "Then we will make our syrup!"
I reluctantly thumb tacked the sign to the outside of the heavy kitchen door. In the cabin's small foyer, a dozen handsome young people huddled mutely, waiting to be called. Rustine put her cup to her lips and avoided my eyes. In the bright sunlight, her hair shone like an orange-gold cloud around her face. I nodded at the models and quietly shut the door.
"All right, we are ready. You must watch." Andr‚ moved the iron pan back to the burner and adjusted the flame. "Sugar can kill you," he warned in a low voice. His very blue eyes, slightly bulbous above reddening cheeks, concentrated on the heating pan. He clutched the padded handle in a death grip. I stepped up beside the cabin's ancient stove and dutifully watched. Andr‚'s wooden spoon moved rhythmically through the white crystals as they turned to slush.
"The sugar melts." The red folds on his neck trembled. "It is molten lead. It is lava. The burns to the skin are deep. Instantaneous." He shook the pan and glanced again at my scar, then at the lid and towel that lay on the wooden countertop. There was a knock at the closed door.
"Not now!" I called, ignoring Andr‚'s scowl. The knocker went away.
The thick mass of muddy brown crystals melted under Andr‚'s determined stirring. He reached for the beaker of water he had poured before starting the caramel.
"Of course you must never use water from the hot water heater." His small nose wrinkled. "Minerals in the filtering process." He shuddered, as if the minerals were radioactive. His eyebrows quirked upward as he poured the water onto the pan's molten mass. A nimbus of mist erupted as the pan's contents hissed. "The steam, mind!" he cried, and I made a great show of pulling back. Andr‚'s free hand slapped the lid onto the pan.
"Very impressive," I said, with genuine admiration.
"My sirop caramel," he announced triumphantly. The dimple in his chin deepened as he smiled. "Now I will make my burnt sugar cake." The beater on his electric mixer hummed and twirled through the softened butter. "You will tell me about your fight at the Soir‚e tasting party with this horrible competitor, Litchfield," he ordered. He pronounced it leachfield.
I sighed. For the last five years, my business - Goldilocks' Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! - had been the only professional food service in the mountain area. And for each of those years, I'd been the caterer of record for the September Soir‚e, the annual fund-raiser for Ian Hood and Leah Smythe's charitable enterprise, Merciful Migrations. But now there was Upscale Appetite, and its proprietor, Craig Litchfield, was working diligently to steal the Soir‚e from me. Worse yet, Litchfield was cute. He always submitted a head shot.
"Dark brown hair, drop-dead gorgeous. That's Craig Litchfield," I began, as Andr‚ showered sugar into the bowl. "Women love him. He started the caterers' version of a food fight in June. Ads, promotions, underbidding. He went after my customers with a vengeance. How he got my client list with all my schedules and prices, I don't know."
Andr‚ shook his head and dropped an egg into the batter. "I should have come to the tasting party at the Homestead. My doctor is an idiot." Another egg plopped beside the whirling beater.
"We were in the Homestead kitchen when Litchfield lost his temper with Arch."
Andr‚ poured cake flour into his mixture. "How can a chef lose his temper with a fourteen-year-old while he's cooking?" Teenagers, in Andr‚'s view, did not figure in the world of food preparation.
I shrugged. "Litchfield's no chef He was heating frozen hors d'oeuvre when Arch asked who his supplier was for phyllo triangles. Litchfield said Arch was being disrespectful, implying the food wasn't fresh. Arch argued, Litchfield yelled at him, then grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the kitchen. I calmed Arch down, told him to wait in the van. Then I marched back and told Litchfield to back off: But when Arch came in later for a snack, Litchfield shoved him out the back door so hard that he actually fell to the ground. I was so mad I banged my marble cake plate over Litchfield's head. Didn't hurt him. Broke my plate."
I groaned, remembering. Craig Litchfield had been unharmed; my son had recovered; the tasting party had been postponed. Litchfield, calling me an "unattractive, overweight harpy," had reported the incident to the Furman County Sheriff's Department. The investigating officer had told me I'd used undue force, even if I had been concerned about my son. The cop said I was lucky Litchfield hadn't pressed charges.
"Poor Goldy," murmured Andr‚, as he dribbled the burnt sugar syrup into the batter. Tom, too, had sympathized with my plight. Even Arch had felt bad.
Andr‚ poured the batter into parchment-lined pans. Another knock, this one sharper, reverberated through the decrepit kitchen. "No!" Andr‚ roared.
The door banged open. I stepped back. Andr‚ grimaced and thrust his pans into the oven. "What in the world is going on in here?" Leah Smythe demanded, her voice managing to be hurt, upset, and indignant all at once. Her shredded black-and-gold hair quivered as she regarded us. Stunned, neither Andr‚ nor I answered her. She blew the bangs off her forehead and crossed her arms. Short and slender, she was dressed in faded blue jeans and a black cotton sweater.
