Weddings and Wasabi (10 page)

“Er …” Jenn’s throat had closed up. “I, uh … I didn’t exactly ask God … yet.”

Mrs. Castillo patted her hand. “Then maybe you should.”

And she left it at that.

“Nice goal, Joshua!” she called to one of her nephews who had just kicked a ball past his much-older cousin.

Jenn stared at the game but only saw a blur of people. What had she done? She’d already quit her job. Had already set the wheels in motion to form her own business. She’d lost the primary source of income of their household besides her mom’s retirement.

Maybe she could withdraw her small business loan application? How could she find another job quickly? Would God help her get employment when she’d already run full-steam ahead on something that wasn’t in His will?

Wait, she didn’t know this wasn’t His will.

Well, you certainly didn’t ask Him, did you?

Could she ask Him now? Would He answer?

Lord … ?

What if it was too late?

Six minutes late. On the wedding day, Aunty Aikiko would probably be clocking them down to the second.

“We’ve got to plate faster,” Jenn said, working alongside her sous-chef, Sarah.

Mika, one of the two assistants, passed a plate laden with a petite filet mignon to Karissa, standing at the stove beside her. “Karissa’s holding us up.” Mika winked and playfully bumped her partner in the hip.

“No, it’s Mika.” Karissa scooped a delicate piece of fish onto the plate and then spooned the herbed shrimp sauce over the fish.

Jenn took a moment from spooning the red and green pasta into the flower-shaped cookie cutter on the plate in front of her—Mimi’s idea, for a prettier presentation—to study their set up for the trial run of the wedding’s entrée plating. It did look like Mika’s station was holding things up because she had to spoon the sauce over the fish. “Mika, let’s take that sauce and move it here to where Sarah’s arranging the vegetable bouquets.”

Mika grabbed the pot of sauce and shifted it next to Sarah.

“We’ll get a hot pot or something to keep it warm on the day,” Jenn said.

“How about a crock pot?” Mimi suggested from where she was doing the last minute clean-up and presentation of each plate.

“Good idea.”

Sarah already had pre-made bundles of carrots and asparagus artfully tied together with tiny braided raw spinach ropes. She plunked the bundle down on the plate and mimicked spooning sauce over the fish. “That’ll work,” she said. “I’ll still be able to keep up.”

“Let’s shift the order, then. Mika and Karissa get the plates first, then Sarah, then me, and lastly to Mimi.”

They practiced another fifteen minutes before Jenn called a halt. “Good job, we’re right on time. We’ll get the entire banquet hall served in less than ten minutes.”

The women exchanged high-fives and whoops of delight. Jenn couldn’t help the starburst of excitement inside her. She loved this—the precision, the time pressure, the feeling of working as a finely-tuned team.

At moments like this, she knew this was what she was made for.

So wouldn’t that mean God wanted her to form her own catering business? She still wasn’t sure. She’d been praying for over a week and hadn’t heard clearly from God. At the back of her mind was a fear that He was mad at her and wasn’t speaking to her.

No, that was silly. God wasn’t a drama-queen teenager.

But how could she know that this path was right for her or not? She needed a sign.

God, please give me a sign. Anything to help me know what Your will is.

Until then, all she could do was prepare for Trish’s wedding as best she could. And hope God wouldn’t strike her down with lightning. Or worse, send a freak hailstorm to destroy all her Malaysian basil plants. That would certainly answer her question about if this was His will or not.

Mimi nabbed a carrot and crunched it. “One day, we’ll all work for you in your own restaurant, Jenn.”

“I wish,” she said.

But Mika, Sarah, and Karissa were nodding as if it were completely possible.

“Why would you want to work in my restaurant? Won’t you all want to run restaurants of your own?”

“I need to learn all your secrets first.” Sarah winked.

“It’s too much work,” Mimi said. “Remember, I’ve seen first-hand how to run a restaurant.”

“That’s flattering, guys, but I need to crawl before I can walk.” A restaurant of her own—she’d love it. The freedom to create her own dishes, to change the menu anytime she wanted, to experiment. Suddenly, that dream didn’t seem so far-fetched, because she wasn’t chained to Aunty Aikiko’s restaurant. But first she needed to get this catering business off the ground. “Let’s practice the appetizers really quickly.”

“Won’t most of that already be pre-made?” Mimi asked.

“Yes, and we’ll
 
only have to pop them into the oven in timed batches. But I want to practice so Sarah can get the timing and frying temperature down for the Asian popcorn chicken, and so I can see how many of the French savory pastries we can get done for each of her batches.”

“I know the Malaysian basil isn’t quite ready yet,” Sarah said, “and we’ll be practicing with regular basil for today, but can we do a batch or two with a little Malaysian basil? I don’t know if it’ll wilt differently from regular.”

“Good point. I’ll go out and get some.” Jenn took off her apron and headed out the back door.

The sunlight greeted her, but her thoughts were still stormy. What if she was going about this all wrong? What if God wanted her to work for Aunty Aikiko? Really, would it be that bad?

Yes, it would be that bad. She’d be a drudge, and Aunty would be able to treat her that way because Jenn was family. Jenn wouldn’t have any outlet for her creativity, just overseeing the same dishes week after week, month after month, year after year.

One of the goat kids left off playing with his (her?) sibling and approached Jenn. Aw, how cute, it wanted to come to her …

No, it bypassed her completely, instead traveling around the side of the porch toward the gate guarding the basil plants.

It was then that she noticed sounds coming from the side of the house. Suspicious sounds. Like plastic pots being crunched by goat hooves.

The basil!

Jenn bounded off the porch and turned the corner.

The gate to the basil was open. Unlatched.

And Pookie stood in the midst of a chaos of overturned pots, contentedly munching on a Malaysian basil plant.

Aunty Aikiko had gotten her ultimate revenge.

Jenn supposed she deserved it, after attacking Aunty’s home with a stealth infantry armed with water cannons.

“I’m sorry,” Mom moaned, sinking into the living room sofa. “I didn’t see anything wrong with letting Aikiko look at the basil. I watched her very carefully while she was in there.”

“It’s not your fault, Mom.” Jenn dropped onto the sofa next to her parent. “It would have been rude to refuse her.”

They sat there, side by side, in silence. Jenn felt like she had the one time when she discovered the dog really had eaten her homework, a cake for one of her high school home ec classes.

Like a CSI, Jenn had examined the gate. No sign of forced entry. Meaning it had been left unlatched when Aunty Aikiko left.

Jenn had also found a shred of a Snickers bar wrapper caught at the base of the gate frame. Mom had confirmed Aunty had been eating a Snickers bar, but hadn’t paid attention to where she put it. Jenn speculated Aunty had cracked the gate open with the half-eaten candy stuck between the gate and the fencing. It was doubtful Mom would have even noticed.

“I’m sorry, Jenn,” Mom said again. “I know I was shocked and dismayed when you decided not to work for Aunty, but you have been so much happier for the past few weeks.” She sighed. “I can’t tell you to not do something you enjoy and which you’re good at. I know you’d have hated working for Aunty.”

A feeling like an airy Shetland shawl settled on Jenn’s shoulders. She put her arm around her mom and squeezed gently. “Did you have fun with Max last night?”

“It was wonderful. I haven’t been to a sock hop in ages.” She yawned. “We shouldn’t have stayed so late, though.”

“You should get ready for your breakfast meeting with the
Obon
dance planning committee.” Jenn rose from the sofa. She was glad Mom had the meeting at the San Jose Buddhist temple to keep her occupied—otherwise, she’d probably have wandered around the house, worrying and regretting what had happened with Jenn’s basil. “I have to go milk Pookie.”

She was trying really hard not to blame the poor goat. After all, it wasn’t Pookie’s fault that evil Aunty Aikiko had dangled the temptation of a Snickers bar
and
a forbidden Eden of Malaysian basil in front of the poor animal. No goat in her right mind could have resisted.

But the remembered scene of destruction still gave Jenn a pang in her heart.

Well, she’d wanted a sign. This was as good a sign as any, wasn’t it? She should just go groveling to Aunty Aikiko today, begging for her to give her a job at the restaurant. Or maybe God wanted Jenn to try to get another job as a software programmer?

Either way, it looked like God had closed the door on her catering business. She could do Trish’s marinated popcorn chicken with regular basil, but it wouldn’t taste the same. The Malaysian basil gave it a very distinct, delicious flavor. The demolition of all the special basil she’d spent weeks cultivating—and that stuff didn’t grow easily in Silicon Valley, that was for sure—seemed like a banner in the sky from God.

Or a punishment for Jenn stepping out of God’s will.

But a part of her knew God didn’t punish people that way. She wasn’t thinking clearly. She had to get back to her daily Bible reading, to her prayer time, to find out what God really wanted for her life. Better late than never, right?

Pookie seemed a bit remorseful as she stood at tether for Jenn to milk her.

“I guess it’s okay,” Jenn groused to her goat as she began to milk. “It’s not your fault you were born as a
bottomless pit.”

Pookie bleated softly and chomped on her bucket of goat feed.

A strong smell wafted up to her. Not unpleasant, just … different.

Jenn scanned the area around her and goat. What was that smell? Where was it coming from? It was a very strong, nutty scent. Almost like a Snickers bar.

Snickers.

She stopped milking, picked up the bucket and sniffed. It was definitely the milk.

But Pookie had only eaten one Snickers bar, and probably only part of it since Mom had said Aunty had been eating it.

Was it the basil?

She couldn’t think of what else could make the goat milk smell so strongly different.

She sniffed again. Yes, definitely nutty, with herbal overtones and maybe even a hint of hot pepper.

She finished milking and brought the milk inside the house. She didn’t particularly like the taste of raw goat milk, but she poured a little into a glass to taste it.

It reminded her of hazelnuts. But not quite hazelnut milk or almond milk. There was an exotic herbal flavor underlying the nuttiness that would pair really well with fish. Maybe salmon …

Salmon?
She
was the nutty one. It was just a weird tasting batch of goat milk.

That was unlike anything she’d ever tasted before.

A rising rumbling in her chest, like an ocean wave about to crash magnificently on the shore.

She was a chef now. And she’d just discovered a completely new flavor.

“Oh. My. Goodness.” Venus actually dropped her fork onto the plate, she was so stunned by Jenn’s new dish.

Jenn stared anxiously at Venus. “That means it’s good, right? Not that it’s so bad you want to puke?”

Jenn knew that Venus, who had dined at all the top star restaurants in San Francisco because of her job as Chief Technology Officer at her company, knew good food.

Her reaction must mean it was
really
good food.

Right?

Venus took another bite of the salmon, dressed in a light cream tomato sauce using goat’s milk, with hazelnuts and almonds and slivers of (regular) basil on top. Her eyes closed blissfully as she chewed. “Jenn, that is the best thing you’ve ever made. And that includes the peanut butter cups.”

Wow. Even the Grand Marnier lava cake hadn’t gotten that kind of endorsement. “Edward?” she asked shyly. She had asked him over ostensibly to ask if Pookie would be okay after eating all that basil, and had casually asked him to taste her new dish, too. The truth was, even as a friend, she had wanted to see him, and Pookie was as good an excuse as any without making her look too desperate.

He chewed thoughtfully. “You did a good job using just enough goat milk for the sauce to bring out the flavor, but not too much to overpower it. If you had more goats, more time, and more basil, you could make cheese to crumble over it, too.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Jenn leaned close in excitement and caught a whiff of his musk and that hint of thyme. “I can’t do it for the wedding, but I can offer this dish for future events. I’d have to alter the sauce a bit if I use cheese, too, though.”