Taste Test (15 page)

He grins as he opens the arena door.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

To:
 Billy Watkins
[email protected]

From:
 Nora Henderson
[email protected]

Subject: Re:
 Where’d ya go?

Billy—I’m so sorry. I’ve been totally swamped with classes and the challenges and all this strategizing. It’s like the only way to win is by being ruthless—which I can do, I guess, but it just feels like a whole lotta BS.

What did you guys think of the first episode? Live up to your expectations? What did Dad say?

Miss you!

Nora

Contestant Interview

Christian Van Lorton

Producer (P):
     Christian, Christian, Christian. What a battle tonight! I could practically cut the tension in that room with a butter knife.

Christian Van Lorton (CVL):
     Yeah, I guess it was a little intense.

P:
     A little? Hell, I thought Nora Henderson was going to blow a gasket when she saw your dish.

CVL:
     [shrugging] It’s not my fault she didn’t think of something a little more impressive than butternut squash ravioli.

P:
     Well, the judges still seemed to like it—she got second place.

CVL:
     [scoffs] A distant second. It was nothing compared to a cassoulet. That girl couldn’t cook French cuisine if she
tried—besides the obvious—French fries, French toast, stuff like that.

P:
     So tell me—is it true what they say?

CVL:
     What are you talking about?

P:
     That you only hate the ones you love?

CVL:
     [shaking his head] Are you crazy? That girl is a
psycho
. You saw her when she went off on Svincek tonight. I’m surprised you guys are letting her near the knives at this point.

P:
     I’m pretty sure she’s harmless, Christian. And it seems like you guys have some pretty obvious feelings for each other.

CVL:
     Feelings of dislike, maybe. [leans back in chair] Nora Henderson is trying her hardest to be a force in this game. What she doesn’t get is that I’m just getting warmed up.

P:
     So that’s all this is to you? A game?

CVL:
     Of course. I’d be stupid to think it’s anything else. In the end, there will only be one person left. And that person is going to be me.

Chapter Nine

And Your Enemies Closer

“Too much pepper?”

I take another bite of Gigi’s sautéed bok choy and shake my head.

“No, it’s not that—I think it needs another layer of flavor. Have you thought about adding sesame oil? Or saffron?”

“Ooh, sesame oil!”

She rummages through the refrigerator and finds the small glass bottle. Shaking some on, she looks at me. “So, you’re
sure
Christian doesn’t mind that we’re in here?”

I shrug. “Just because he found this kitchen doesn’t mean it belongs to him. It’s as much ours as it is his, right?”

“I guess.” Gigi props herself up on the counter. “I just sort of feel bad, you know? I mean, he bought all the ingredients we’re using …”

“Since when to you care about how Christian feels? Besides, we can replace everything we use.”

I turn away and chop my spinach, ignoring Gigi’s reproachful look.

“I still can’t believe last night,” she says a few minutes later. “I mean, it’s like someone lit a fire under you or something.”

“I guess the whole pressure thing is getting to me, too,” I say, starting on my garlic. I haven’t told her about my argument with Christian before the challenge and I’m not planning on it.

“It wasn’t just you—did you see Christian last night? He was a like a tornado up in that kitchen—and, holy crap, a cassoulet? In
three hours
? How is that even humanly possible?”

I just grunt and break apart a head of garlic.

“I mean,” Gigi continues, “what’s in one of those, anyway? Goose? Sausage? Dry beans? Sounds kind of gross.”

“He used duck confit. And he soaked the beans for two days,” I grumble, crushing the garlic with an unnecessary amount of force. “When they said we could prep ahead of time for this challenge, I thought it meant an hour before the competition. Otherwise, I would have pulled something like that weeks ago. I still maintain the rules weren’t clear.”

“Yeah,” Gigi smirks, brushing past me to grab a hand towel, “I think everyone’s
real
clear on how you feel about that whole situation.”

I color slightly. I may have overreacted a little when I saw what Christian was doing. I may have even taken it too far—it’s not like I’m proud of that. I wince as I remember demanding that the producers clarify the rules and regulations in our handbooks.

The worst part, though, was turning away from Benny to see the cameras hovering behind me. Why,
why
do I keep forgetting they are there? And, of course, I chose that exact moment to look at Christian on the other side of the arena. He was grinning from ear to ear.

So, screw it. Now we’re in his beloved secret kitchen and I’ll be damned if he kicks me out of it. Like I said, it isn’t his to grant permission to use. We’ll stay here as long as we want. In fact, I’ve been in here for hours, just so that I can tell him that to his face.

Of course, he hasn’t shown up yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

I purse my lips, thinking about Christian’s cassoulet again. Everyone oohed and ahhed over his skill, his execution. I may have gotten second place, but the complexities of my sage butter sauce were hardly as impressive. It really frosts my cookies that he’s so good. I didn’t even know what a cassoulet
was
when I got here. For all I know, he was making them in preschool.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Has-Been Henderson and her ever-present sidekick.”

Gigi and I spin around to see Christian and Pierce standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Both of them have their arms crossed.

“What do you think you’re doing in here?” Christian asks, walking toward us. He peers into Gigi’s sauté pan. “Besides burning bok choy?”

Gigi narrows her eyes as he passes by, but I can see her looking back at her pan doubtfully.

“What do you want, Christian?” I ask, crossing my arms, too.

“I’m here to work.”

“So are we.”

“Uh, no. Not down here you’re not.”

I move my hands to my hips. “What ever happened to ‘
we
need a place to practice’?”

He shrugs. “You forfeited that privilege.”

“Why, because I stood you—”

“Hey, Pierce,” Christian interrupts. “Go ahead and grab that stock pot up there, okay? We can use it to start the base for the crab bisque.”

“Um, excuse me.” I glare at him. “I don’t know if you noticed, but the burners are being used here. You’re gonna have to come back.”

Christian laughs. It’s a brittle sound.

“Like I said, there’s no ‘we’ anymore. You guys need to get out of here.”

“This isn’t your kitchen to control.”

“But these are
my
ingredients. No food, no cooking.”

“How about this, then,” I try, moving my cutting board aside to lean against the counter. “How about we have a cook-off? Whoever wins gets rights to the kitchen.”

“Why would I want to do that when I can just kick you out?”

I hesitate. “Uh …”

“Because,” Gigi pipes up, “if you do, we’ll tell everyone about this place and it won’t belong to any of us anymore.”

“Whatever. It’s your time to waste. But I’m picking the dish.”

“Fine. And we need to get someone to judge. Someone … impartial.”

“Pierce is nothing if not a fair, unbiased person,” Christian smirks, looking at his friend.

“Absolutely.” Pierce nods, grinning. I shake my head.

“No way. It needs to be someone who won’t win or lose anything by us having extra practice time. Like maybe Benny. Or another producer.”

“So when are we doing this?”

I glance at my watch. It’s almost noon. “How about tonight?”

“Great—the sooner I win, the more time I’ll have to practice.”

“You know, your overblown sense of personal ability continues to astound me.”

“Well, if you have any intention of beating me, let alone anyone else, you might want to start believing in yourself a little bit more.”

“Whatever. I don’t need to pump myself full of affirmations the way you do—I’m here to cook, not to blow smoke up my own ass.”

But, by the time dinner rolls around, I’m pacing the floor of my dorm room feeling completely inept. Gigi’s lying on my bed, watching as I move from one side of the room to the other.

“Nora, you’ve gotta stop, you’re making me dizzy.”

I flop down in a chair and put my head in my hands.

“Why did I agree to this?” I moan.

“Because you’re going to win!” Gigi sounds far more sure than I feel. She gets up and walks over to the table.

“Seriously, why are you suddenly such a wreck? You’ve competed against Christian before.”

“Not one-on-one, though.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “It shouldn’t make any difference, but it does.”

Christian and Pierce are already in the kitchen when Gigi and I walk in minutes later. Christian’s pulling various utensils out of an undercounter drawer. I come around the center island and lean up against the stainless-steel surface.

“So, go ahead—what’s the plan?”

“What plan?”

Christian’s voice is muffled as he digs through a cabinet. He comes out holding a cast-iron skillet in each hand.

“Um, the ‘what we’re cooking tonight’ plan?”

“Don’t be nasty.” He sets both pans on the counter and turns for the fridge.

“So, could you maybe tell me so that I can start prepping, too?” I ask his back.

He turns and looks at me. “Pancakes.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“You can’t be serious.” We’ve got hundreds of dollars worth of seafood and meat, the best ingredients money can buy, and he wants us to make
breakfast
?

“Why not?” he asks, coming toward me holding eggs and milk. “It’s simple and easy to screw up. You make a good
pancake, it shows that you know about cooking and baking, about temperature and timing. Pancakes show a lot of skill.”

I shrug, fingering the cardboard carton he’s put in front of me.

“Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”

“My, my, why so negative? Realizing you’ve lost before you’ve even started?”

Bristling, I grab one of the skillets. “Not a chance. I’m the one with the advantage. I imagine the last time
you
had pancakes anywhere near you, it was from room service.”

Gigi and Pierce, our moderators, decide that we should have twenty minutes to prep our batter and ten to cook our pancakes. Pierce stands in front of us like that token girl at a drag strip who starts a race by waving a scarf. He’s got a serious expression that looks odd—I’ve never seen him without a smirk on his face.

“All right. You know the rules. Thirty minutes for a complete dish. No funny business.”

I roll my eyes as he waves a dish towel in the air.

At first, the kitchen is pretty quiet—the only sounds are the cracking of eggs against the lips of bowls or whisking dry ingredients into wet ones. As five minutes pass us by, though, the sense of urgency seems to increase. I watch Christian out of the corner of my eye. He’s thrown a few slices of bacon in his skillet.

“What the hell is that? I thought we were just doing pancakes.” I reach to grab his skillet off the stove and he swats my hand away.

“How else do you expect me to get bacon grease, genius?”
he shoots back. “I’ll throw the meat away when I’m through with it.”

“You’re so full of crap,” I grumble, turning back to my bowl. After the whole “cassoulet” nonsense, I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. He’s one of those contestants with a perpetual strategy up his sleeve.

Or, in his case, in his girly diary thing.

I decide to make my butterscotch banana pancakes, which are practically a food group at home. I grab a bottle of white vinegar and pour a couple teaspoons into a pint of milk. Christian gives me a funny look but I just ignore him. When you’re out of buttermilk, sour milk is just as good. A
real
cook would know that.

I try not to watch him, but, since we’re sharing the stove, it’s hard not to pay attention to Christian as he cooks. Up until now, our competitions have required us to be about fifty feet apart. Now we’re actually sort of working together. There’s something to be said about the chemistry of a kitchen—it can be clockwork and it can be a disorganized nightmare, depending on who’s working in it.