Vegan Baked Alaska (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 9)

by P. D. Workman

  “I think everything is fine,” Erin suggested.

  “It doesn’t feel right. How could they not know where he is?”

  “It’s a big ship.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  They drifted into other conversations. Erin could tell that Terry was still tense, but she ignored it and pretended that they were all enjoying themselves. She was determined to enjoy her holiday, in spite of everything that had happened. She was there to relax. It was up to the crew to sort out anything on the ship that was not kosher.

  Even so, she felt a little tug toward her pocket, where she had the notes on crimes that the crew might be involved in. Someone had made it clear that they could get into the cabins anytime they wanted to. Vic’s door had not been forced. It had to be a crew member who wasn’t happy with the investigation that she and Vic had started. If Terry hadn’t been in Erin’s room, she knew her own cabin would have received the same treatment.

  A crewman moved across the dining room. Not one of the waiters in a serving apron, but somebody else in uniform. Erin watched him make his way across the dining room, not talking to and greeting the guests cheerfully, as they usually went out of their way to do, but moving with deliberation and a fixed, unnatural smile. He stopped at the table of Dr. O’Donoghue, the ship’s white-haired doctor, and bent down to talk to him. Dr. O’Donoghue looked at him sharply. He removed the napkin from his lap and dropped it beside his plate, standing up immediately.

  Erin felt Terry stir beside her. She looked at him as he too rose to his feet.

  “Terry? What is it?”

  “I need to find out what’s going on.”

  The doctor and the crewman were moving at a brisk pace. Terry cut across the room to intercept them at the door. O’Donoghue looked irritated and made a motion to him to go away and not to bother him. The crewman looked up the second the doctor slowed, urgency clear on his face.

  “What do you think is going on?” Erin asked Vic.

  “I don’t know. Something is wrong. A medical emergency, I guess. They needed the doctor, but they didn’t want to make an announcement that anyone else would hear.”

  Terry followed the doctor and the crewman out of the dining room. Erin was surprised that he didn’t just return to the table when they made it clear that they didn’t want to be bothered. Clearly, he wasn’t going to be deterred. Erin wished that the phones worked reliably for texting, but sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn’t. She decided to attempt a text to Terry anyway to see if he could tell her what was going on.

  Willie was considering the situation. “Terry was already concerned about the captain not answering pages.”

  Erin’s mouth went dry. She took a sip of her ice water, but it didn’t seem to help much. “You think something happened to him? That’s who they need the doctor for?”

  “There can’t be very many situations in which the captain would decide not to answer or be unable to.”

  “Oh, dear. I hope nothing happened to him.”

  She expected Willie to come back with something reassuring, but he didn’t. He just shook his head grimly. Erin looked down at her phone, hoping for a response to her text.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  T

  hey still hadn’t heard anything back from Terry when they were finished dinner. Erin looked at Vic and Willie.

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Willie said. “We just need to wait until Terry is finished whatever it is he’s doing. It’s not really any of our business and he hasn’t asked for any help. If there is something wrong with the captain and they need Terry’s help, they don’t need us getting in the way. We’re better off letting him handle whatever it is until we hear back.”

  “What do you want to do?” Vic asked, maybe sensing how lost Erin was feeling without Terry or at least K9 at her side. “I know Terry said he didn’t want any of us alone, so I think you’re stuck with us. There are some really cool acts scheduled for the Mermaid room. Do you want to see what’s on tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” Erin was disgruntled. She didn’t really feel like watching some lounge act or magic show. She knew they were supposed to be really good, but she couldn’t focus on a show. “I’m not really interested right now… I need to be doing something to keep myself busy, not just sitting around.”

  “Well…” Vic cast about for something to suggest. “I’m not really sure what it is you want to do. Do you want to work on some planning for the bakery when we get back? I don’t think there’s any way you can work on your family history, assuming you didn’t bring any of those huge books with you. What is it you feel like doing?”

  “Baking.”

  Vic laughed. “I thought we were supposed to be taking a break from baking. What else do you want to do?”

  Erin shook her head. “Really. That’s all I want to do. My fingers are itching. I want to make something.”

  Vic laughed again. Willie gave a shrug. “Why don’t you send a message to the kitchen, then? Chef Kirschoff was interested in getting your help. Maybe it’s not a good time for him now, but you never know unless you ask. Do you want to see?”

  Erin nodded. She immediately felt a warm, comfortable feeling. She wanted to be baking, and maybe if Chef Kirschoff was free, she could. It felt right.

  Willie gestured to one of the waiters when Erin wasn’t able to catch one’s eye. The young man came over, looking inquiring. They were finished with their after-dinner coffees, so he was probably confused about why they weren’t getting on their way.

  “How can I help you folks?” the waiter asked pleasantly. But Erin got just a hint of a sneer behind his manner. This was someone who had been trained to be polite and courteous, but he was just going through the motions and doing what he’d been taught. He didn’t really feel respect toward the passengers.

  “We’d like to get a message to Chef Kirschoff,” Willie said. He too seemed to be assessing the waiter’s manner, his lips tightening as he considered. “Do you think you could do that for us? Or should I get someone else?”

  “Of course I can pass on a message for you.”

  “Erin is wondering whether the chef has some time for baking. She wanted to lend him a hand in some gluten-free cooking.”

  “It is the dinner hour. I think he’s probably up to his chef’s hat right now. He shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “Maybe you could ask him,” Willie pressed. “He was quite interested in getting some help from Erin. I wouldn’t be so quick to discount it.”

  The waiter barely managed to avoid rolling his eyes. His body language clearly showed that he was barely holding back telling them off. “Of course. I’ll talk to the chef. But you mustn’t be upset if he isn’t available. It’s a very busy time of day and the kitchen will be hectic.”

  Erin nodded. “I know. I run a bakery. But if he has a few minutes, or if he thinks he might have a few minutes later on this evening… I’d love to spend some time with him on his recipes.”

  The waiter nodded, gave a brief bow, and walked away. Even so, Erin could hear him muttering under his breath as he turned away from them.

  “First vegan, and now gluten-free. Before long, they’ll be trying to survive on water.”

  Erin looked at Willie and shook her head in amazement. “Can you believe this guy? Good grief. If I had acted like that at any of the jobs I had, there’s no way I would have lasted. He’ll be lucky if they don’t boot him off at the next stop.”

  Vic giggled. “Some people are so full of themselves.” She took a deep breath and put on a superior expression. “Vegan and gluten-free? What will they think of next?”

  Erin joined in the laughter.

  She looked down at her phone, but there was still no response from Terry. She didn’t want to be watching it all night. Or waiting to find out what had happened to him. She wanted to know right away. If she couldn’t find out, then she needed something to keep her b
usy. She couldn’t stand to sit around with nothing to do. She’d never been interested in crosswords, knitting, or the lounge acts being advertised in the Mermaid room. She needed to get her hands into some dough and figure out something new to make.

  “Try to relax, Erin,” Vic suggested. “Or you’re going to fidget yourself right out of that chair.”

  Erin tried to calm her nervous hands and legs and just sit still, quietly and patiently. But it didn’t work.

  Word came back from the chef that he did, indeed, want to see Erin and would make time for her. The waiter was obviously disgusted by this breach in protocol, but he escorted Erin back to the kitchen as instructed. She said goodbye to Willie and Vic, who were going to go check out some of the shows and maybe do a little shopping, and headed to the back with the waiter. She looked at his name badge. Marvin. Well, Marvin was certainly not going to be getting any tips from her, with the way he was acting toward her. And he wasn’t going to be getting any tips from her friends, either.

  Chef Kirschoff greeted Erin in the kitchen and gave her a whirlwind tour, moving from one preparation area to another, barreling through the people who were busily preparing the dishes to be consumed in the dining room. It was both busier and better organized that Erin had expected. She had expected chaos, but the group worked like a well-oiled machine, prepping the various parts of the dishes, assembling them, plating them for consumption, and lining them up so that they could be taken to the dining room at just the right moment.

  “This is really amazing,” Erin marveled. “It’s just a couple of us in the bakery kitchen, so we’re working on a lot of different things at once, and have specific routines to keep us on track, but this is really taking it to the next level.”

  “We have several thousand people to feed each day,” Kirschoff pointed out. “Not everyone eats here, and the staff have their own kitchens, but we still have to be ready to prepare several thousand plates a day. If we weren’t well-organized, there’s no way we could carry on.”

  Erin nodded. “It really is amazing the way you have everyone working here.”

  She saw a couple of kitchen workers who were not in the crew kitchen uniforms carrying in supplies. Bags of potatoes, flour, and other ingredients that were obviously in high demand in the kitchen. They were dressed in what looked like linen pajamas and had Asian or Polynesian features. Filipinos, perhaps?

  They smiled at Erin and bowed to the chef, and went quickly about their work, hauling ingredients up from storage areas to the kitchen and distributing them to the proper prep areas. Erin smiled and nodded back. The workers dropped their eyes and continued to work. Looking around, Erin found them not only carrying ingredients in, but also working over the steaming sinks and garbages, cleaning up any spills, and doing all of the chores that didn’t require training.

  “Wow. So where do you want to work? Is there space for us somewhere? I didn’t mean to interrupt you from your work.”

  “Everybody knows what they need to do. The chef can take some time away from the food preparation for a while. Sometimes it seems like I’m a kindergarten teacher rather than a cook. Keeping the children from their petty squabbles, redirecting them, seeing that spills get cleaned up and everything gets put away in their proper cubbies.” Kirschoff laughed. “The amount of cooking that I actually do myself is trivial.”

  “That’s too bad. I wouldn’t want to give up my cooking for a supervisory position. I really need to be able to get my hands into things. It’s… therapeutic.”

  “Yes,” Kirschoff nodded and pointed at her. “You are absolutely right. And when you don’t get enough time with your hands in the ingredients… it’s like you go into withdrawal. When you are a runner and start getting irritable, your family tells you it’s time to go out for a run. When you’re a cook and everyone starts getting on your nerves, you know it’s time to get cooking!”

  Erin smiled. She loved to work out her anxieties in the kitchen. She loved to create and come up with dishes that were brand new, something that was just her. Something that had never existed before and would not exist if she hadn’t spent the time on it. The fact that it also gave her pleasure to eat and to give to someone else was just an added bonus.

  “Come over here. We have plenty of space.” Kirschoff took her to a quieter area of the kitchen where there was a clear food prep counter. “Have you been thinking about my Baked Alaska?”

  “Yes. I don’t think it’s anything that’s too difficult. The ice cream part is already gluten-free, or can be pretty easily. It’s the cake part that you need a gluten-free recipe for, and cake isn’t that hard to do.” She paused, frowning. “How do you do a vegan meringue? Do you use tofu?”

  “No,” he smiled. “The meringue is a secret. Although if you look it up online, it’s not that much of a secret…”

  “Hmm…” Erin considered. “I remember when I was trying to make something for Bertie, I was looking at chickpea brine as an egg replacer in some baking. And it seems to me that it can be whipped up into meringues just like eggs.”

  “Not just like eggs,” Kirschoff said, “but pretty close! The miracle of aquafaba!”

  “And it really works? I looked at the pictures online, but I just couldn’t imagine that it would actually work. Like maybe it was all just some elaborate conspiracy to fool people into making a big mess…”

  “It works. Trust me. I’ll show you later, when we make the Baked Alaska. It is the cake that I am wrestling with. I want something that is not too dense or moist when placed next to the ice cream, but that holds up well to slicing.”

  Erin nodded.

  “And some of the Baked Alaskas also have a crust, like a cookie crumb crust. That’s a bit of a question as well. Though I was thinking of maybe doing a pecan crumb crust… if that would work…”

  “I never use nuts at the bakery, because they are so allergenic. But I would think that would work. Pecans, sugar, some butter—er, coconut oil?”

  He nodded. “Yes, that was what I was thinking. How about your cake recipes, do you have some that might work?”

  “Sure. What flavor are you looking for? Chocolate? Vanilla? Or something more unusual?”

  “Let me show you what I was thinking of.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  E

  rin was soon immersed in discussions and experimentation with Chef Kirschoff, able to put her worries aside for the moment to focus on her love of baking for special diets. Chef Kirschoff was ebullient, always enthusiastic about her suggestions and writing copious notes on index cards that she hoped were all going to be collated somewhere after they finished. He gave orders a few times for the kitchen workers to go pull something out of storage or to see if he had something else. He didn’t have a lot of specialty gluten-free ingredients on hand, but they worked with what they had and Kirschoff said he would be able to order anything else for delivery in a few days.

  It was a long time before Erin looked at the clock on the wall and realized how late it was getting.

  “Oh, I was so wrapped up in this, I wasn’t watching the time.” She thought first about bed, and then about Terry. She still hadn’t heard anything back from him as to what had happened after he left the dining room. She wiggled her phone out of her pocket and looked at it. There was a text from Terry, which had been received almost an hour before. He wanted to know where she was. “Look at that. I didn’t even feel it vibrate.”

  Kirschoff laughed. “You are like me, lost in the world of cooking.”

  “I definitely was.” She tapped out a reply to Terry, wondering whether he would receive it or if it would just be sent to dead air like so many of her texts on the ship had been.

  In the kitchen. Are you done?

  She waited for a few minutes to see whether it would be delivered or return an error. There was a delay, but eventually it was marked as delivered. Erin was putting her phone back in her pocket, figuring it would probably be another half hour before she heard back from Terry again, or
else he would come looking for her rather than bothering to text back, when it vibrated in her hand. She pulled it back out and looked at the screen.

  I’m done for now. Ready for bed?

  I’ll meet you at the cabin, Erin texted back.

  There was an almost immediate response. No walking alone. I’ll come get you.

  Erin rolled her eyes. She texted him a thumbs-up and looked around. “He’s going to come here to get me. I’ll help you with clean-up.” She hadn’t realized how quiet the kitchen had gotten. They weren’t alone by any means, but the dinner rush was over and many of the prep areas that had previously been occupied had been cleaned up and were now vacant. The clink of dishes being washed was like a lullaby.

  “Oh, you don’t need to help with that. I have people.”

  “I don’t like leaving a mess!” Erin started to pick up the mixing bowls and measuring cups she had used.

  “No, no, no. Guests do not do clean-up. You leave everything where it is. I will clean up and my staff will help. You do not clean up.”

  He took a bowl out of her hands. Erin laughed and shrugged. “Alright,” she conceded. “Fine, I’ll leave it to you.”

  He put it back down on the counter and leaned back, considering her. “You are very good at what you do. What has been your biggest gluten-free baking challenge?”

  Erin frowned, thinking about it. She had been able to overcome many different obstacles in her baking career, short though it had been. Once she decided what she wanted to make, she thought and researched and worked it out, trying numerous different recipes and solutions until she could make it work. So far, it had stood her in good stead.

  “It’s hard to say. Probably the pickiest is phyllo type pastries. Turnovers and pastry shells and puff pastries. It can be done, but it takes a lot of fiddling and making sure that everything is just right. As far as the hardest… that would probably be developing recipes that Bertie Braceling could eat. He’s not around anymore…” She swallowed a hot lump in her throat, trying not to think about it. “He was a friend who had a lot of allergies and intolerances, and finding ingredients that I could use and making them work together was really a challenge. Just when I would think that I had the right solution, he’d shake his head and tell me that he couldn’t have this or that. I think half the time he was just making up bizarre excuses to see how creative I could be. It was a lot of fun, and I developed a couple of recipes that he could eat, but nothing fancy.”