Can't Stand The Heat

by Louisa Edwards

  * * *

  PORK BELLY WITH CANDIED WALNUTS

  AND APPLES

  1 pound of pork belly (fresh uncured, unsliced bacon), cut into 4 rectangles

  Apple cider

  1 teaspoon cinnamon

  1 teaspoon nutmeg

  6 whole cloves

  2 Granny Smith apples, cut into matchsticks

  2 cups candied walnuts (see recipe below)

  Place the pork belly, fatty side up, in a lidded sauté pan and pour in enough cider to come halfway up the sides of the meat. Add the spices and bring the pan to a boil, then turn the heat to medium low and simmer, covered, for twenty minutes, until meat is cooked through. Remove the meat from the braising liquid and blot dry on paper towels. Season with salt and pepper, then sear on all sides in a hot, dry pan, starting with the layer of fat on top. Each side will take 1–3 minutes, long enough to give it good color and caramelization.

  Divide the apple sticks between four small plates. Rest a portion of pork belly on each mound of apples, then top with the candied walnuts. Serves four as an appetizer.

  Candied Walnuts

  2 cups halved walnuts

  3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

  2 tablespoons ginger syrup (see recipe p. 346)

  ¼ cup dark brown sugar

  ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper

  1 teaspoon salt

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss the walnuts with the other ingredients, then spread in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet lined with wax paper. Toast in the oven for 10 minutes, tossing when they come out. Don’t worry if they seem sticky or mushy when they first come out! Toss them around on the pan and let them come to room temperature—they’ll crisp up and darken a bit as they cool.

  Read on for a preview of the next book

  in Louisa Edwards’ Recipe for Love series

  ON THE STEAMY SIDE

  Available soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks!

  When Devon walked into Market, he didn’t necessarily expect to be greeted with a red carpet and a phalanx of trumpeting heralds.

  Sure, he’d become used to a certain level of fawning admiration during his meteoric rise to fame and fortune as the darling of the gourmet food world and the Cooking Channel’s biggest star. That, plus his undeniably perfect face, was usually enough to get him the best seats/floor tickets/ungettable reservation. Special attention to his needs and desires was a fact of life.

  Well, most of his life. There were still a few places left in Manhattan he could go to remind himself of what the real world felt like. A certain dive bar on the Lower East Side, for example. And here. At Market, the all-organic hit restaurant owned and run by his former executive chef, Adam Temple.

  Devon deliberately, with the ease of practice, blanked his mind of the spot in New Jersey that could pull him out of the heavens and back down to earth with a single visit.

  Adam Temple was a friend. Or as close to a friend as Devon got these days. And he’d never admit it, but part of why he valued Adam was for exactly that lack of interest in Devon Sparks: Star! When Adam talked to his former boss, Devon felt like . . . Devon Sparks: Talented Chef and Ordinary Guy. Considering he hadn’t been either of those things in a long time, and had worked hard to reach that state of affairs, talking to Adam was oddly restful.

  Which was why he’d come running when Adam called this morning. Normally, Devon’s hectic television shooting schedule wouldn’t allow a last-minute detour, but with the current and final season wrapped last night, Devon was a free man.

  The final season, he thought with satisfaction. The news that the show was cancelled hadn’t hit the public yet, but it was only a matter of time. Until that tabloid explosion, Devon intended to enjoy himself. He could charter a jet to St. Maarten, go out for tapas in San Sebastian, do a London pub crawl, or visit friends in Paris. The world was his fresh, harvested-that-morning-off-the-coast-of-Prince-Edward-Island oyster, with a bonus surprise pearl inside.

  So no trumpets at Market. Fine. No red carpet. Check. But was it too much to ask that when he let himself in the front door at ten o’clock Saturday morning, there’d at least be a peon or two polishing glassware and setting tables? Granted, Devon hated waiters of every size and stripe, but they had their occasional uses. For instance, greeting a visiting chef during off-hours and telling him where the hell everybody was.

  Instead of the busy, bustling front of house Devon expected, however, he got an abandoned dining room, tumbleweeds all but blowing between the tables.

  It was such a different experience, standing in an empty restaurant without the distraction of customers. After designing and opening five fine dining establishments in the last ten years, Devon was a veteran of the decor wars. He could pick out fabrics and choose between leather seat coverings with the best of them.

  With a critical eye, he scanned the still, dim Market dining room with its soft moss-green walls and hammered bronze light fixtures with their swirls of vines and leaves. The tables were blond wood, bright and glossy with clean, minimalist lines. Devon liked the banquettes, too, straight-backed and private, in some sort of velvety material that looked very inviting. Striding toward the horseshoe-shaped antique zinc bar that connected the smaller back dining room to the larger front room.

  Hoping to find a sous-chef barking orders, a pastry chef kneading dough, a freaking dishwasher, for Chrissakes, Devon pushed through the swinging doors that led into the kitchen.

  There were signs of life back there; Devon heard the familiar, comforting clang of a stainless steel pan hitting a cast-iron cooking range, followed by a breathy rasp of sound, almost like a moan.

  Devon quirked a brow. The restaurant wasn’t as abandoned as it seemed. He paused, suddenly struck by the fear that he was about to come upon his friend, Adam, in a state of nature with the woman Devon had played Cupid to set him up with.

  Well, sort of. Invading his friend’s kitchen with an uninvited camera crew and filming the very private confessions of Adam’s lady love, Miranda Wake, might not go down in history as the all-time most romantic matchmaking scheme. In fact, Adam had been beyond ticked about it, as Devon recalled. Still, Devon stood by the results. Adam and Miranda were disgustingly happy together; every time Devon saw them, he expected to hear the faint twittering of cartoon lovebirds swirling overhead.

  Familiar with the aphrodisiacal effects of an empty restaurant on a newlywed, or even just newly-in-lust couple, Devon cracked open the kitchen door with a measure of caution. He could stand to go his whole life without viewing Adam’s unmentionables doing the naked mambo with Miranda’s.

  Not that he’d be opposed to seeing Miranda’s unmentionables—he’d be willing to bet she stripped down pretty well, for an obnoxious, snarky, red-headed firecracker.

  But the sight that greeted Devon sent images of Miranda’s potential hotness flying out of his head.

  A woman stood on the gleaming work counter running down the center of the kitchen, balanced precariously on the tips of her black leather clogs to reach the top shelf of stacked pots and pans. She was taller than Miranda, he registered instantly, and sported a halo of untamed dark curls obscuring her profile from view. The breathy moan he’d heard before sounded again. It rose and fell in a gentle, swelling rhythm that suddenly resolved itself into a tune, a snatch of song that tickled Devon’s memory.

  He had a mere five seconds to admire the delectable roundness of the backside presented very conveniently near eye level before the woman’s ankle wobbled dangerously, causing a lightning-fast chain reaction of shriek, flail, slip, and hey, presto! Devon’s arms were full of warm, wriggling womanhood.

  “Well, hello,” Devon said, amused.

  The woman stopped squirming and peeked out from behind her mass of sable curls. Devon got a brief glimpse of bright green eyes and round, pink cheeks before she swept the curls back and revealed a fresh-scrubbed, pink-cheeked face, more interesting than strictly beautiful. Her chin was too pointed, her dark brows a touch too hea
vy for her face, and her skin was too pale, making her brilliant green eyes appear almost startling. This woman spent zero time at the spa getting buffed, plucked, and tanned. She looked nothing like the perfect, sophisticated women he usually dated, models and socialites and actresses, but there was something compelling about her, some mysterious allure in her sweet, wide-eyed gaze that kept Devon’s attention.

  Even when he knew, instinctively and immediately, that she was way too nice for him.

  “Hey there,” she said, the molasses-slow greeting drawled out low and husky, making him think of tobacco and bourbon. Devon blinked. It was a surprisingly sexy voice coming from a woman who clearly bathed in eau de innocence every morning.

  She had the face of a nun and the voice of a phone sex operator.

  “Not from around here, are you?” Devon asked. Of all the many and varied accents heard around New York City, one of the rarest was a real Southern drawl. Grant Holloway, Market’s incomparable manager and maitre d’, was the only Southerner Devon could think of among his acquaintances.

  “What was your first clue, sugar?” she countered with a toss of that messy head. “And not that I don’t appreciate the White Knight routine, but do you think you might be willing to let a lady stand on her own two feet?”

  “I don’t know,” Devon said, curiously unwilling to surrender his burden. That drawl was killing him. “You didn’t seem to be doing such a good job of that up on the bar.”

  She shrugged cheerfully, not a hint of blush or embarrassment darkening her cheeks. “I’m better on good ol’ Terra Firma. Well, not tons better, I’m still pretty much Queen of the Klutzes, but at least there’s not as far to fall and therefore less chance of a broken ankle.” She twisted in his arms, eyeing the distance from her perch to the ground. “Speaking of broken ankles—be careful when you put me down. I just got this job; I can’t afford to be limping around the restaurant.”

  “Adam hired you?” He’d never seen her before, he was certain, although that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He was a frequent flyer at Market, but hardly a regular. And while he didn’t like to venture far from the kitchen—too much chance of being recognized and mobbed if he hit the front of house rooms—he didn’t pay much attention to the lower level line cooks. Although women were a rare enough feature of professional kitchens that Devon was surprised he’d never noticed her.

  He’d never seen her at Chapel, either, the after-hours dive bar Devon and his chef friends, including Adam, frequented on nights when they needed to blow off steam after a difficult dinner service.

  He looked at the woman more closely. He couldn’t quite picture her against the grimy, punk-rock backdrop of Chapel. And she had yet to betray any evidence of knowing who Devon was. Somehow, he doubted she was playing it cool.

  It was weird. Devon couldn’t remember the last time he had any interaction that didn’t somehow involve or reference his celebrity status. His chef friends ribbed him mercilessly for selling out and becoming successful, all the while wishing they could find some sucker to sell their shtick to. Women mostly tended to fawn and gush, all with an eye toward getting into his Ferrari, bed, and wallet. Not necessarily in that order.

  “Yup,” she said, answering his disbelief about her job status. Then she temporized with: “Sort of. It’s complicated.” She was starting to squirm again, which felt outrageously good, so Devon put her down before he got distracted and dropped her, thereby fulfilling her broken-ankle fear.

  “Hmm. Seems like a yes or no situation to me,” Devon said.

  Curly Sue wobbled slightly when her feet hit the gleaming hardwood, but she righted herself quickly and ran a careless hand over her shirt. It was pink with embroidered blue flowers on the collar, and it hung on her, as if she’d bought the wrong size. The cut of her baggy brown pants did very little to showcase the assets he’d noticed when he first caught sight of her swaying on the bar like a drunken co-ed. If he’d seen her across a crowded gallery opening, or at an opera gala, he might not have given her a second glance.

  She turned back to the counter for a moment, swiping her palm across the shiny metal surface as if checking for incriminating evidence. Devon eyed the way the curve of her waist flowed into her hips.

  Maybe he would have given her that second glance, regardless.

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, my life doesn’t really seem to work like that. I exist in a constant state of maybe, almost, and who knows. Hey, you’re not a customer, are you? Because we’re closed. I think. You’d have to ask someone who’s been working here longer than five minutes, and they’re all downstairs, havin’ a meeting about something top secret.”

  Apparently satisfied with the state of the bar top, she turned back and looked at Devon expectantly. He followed the slightly meandering thread of conversation backwards in search of her question.

  “No, I’m not a customer.”

  “Huh. Then you must work here. Sorry, I’m so new the tags are still on me; haven’t met everyone yet.” Grabbing a large spoon from the counter, she bustled around him to check a large pot of something, bubbling away on the stove. For the first time, Devon noticed the hot, slightly bitter scent of hot oil—was she frying something? Ugh. He wrinkled his nose and tried not to cough. Maybe it was shallow, but Devon hadn’t been able to bring himself to enjoy anything resembling fast food in weeks.

  To distract himself, he studied the woman before him. There was a smudge of floor along one high, pretty cheekbone. She didn’t move like any line cook Devon had ever worked with. There was no economy of motion to her, no swift moves at all. She was all elbows and leaning, taking her sweet time, as casual about whatever she was cooking as Devon was about choosing a tie. It was disconcerting; nothing about cooking had ever been casual for Devon.

  “No,” he replied absently, most of his attention now centered on the pot. “What the hell are you doing with all that oil?”

  She looked down as if surprised to see her hand circling the slotted spoon through the frothing, spitting oil. “Cooking lunch,” she replied, a touch uncertainly. “What’s it look like?”

  “It looks like you’re performing some sort of science experiment,” Devon told her bluntly. “What are you frying? It smells . . . odd.”

  “I found some chicken livers way at the back of that fridge over there. Didn’t look like anyone was gonna use ’em for any fancy dish anytime soon, so I appropriated them.”

  “Good God,” Devon said, revolted, as she began lifting golden brown nuggets of fried liver from the oil and setting them on folded paper towels to drain. “You’re not actually planning to serve that to anyone.”

  “Hey, now,” she bristled. “This is my Aunt Gertrude’s recipe. It won first prize at the county fair four years running.”

  “I don’t care if it won an Emmy, it looks sickening and it smells worse.” Devon had nothing against organ meats, in general; they’d been en vogue among New York chefs for years now. But these humble balls of artery-clogging noxiousness were a far cry from sautéed sweetbreads with butter and sage, or seared foie gras with quince jelly. There was something so . . . peasant about chicken liver. It seemed trashy, in the sense of being destined for the garbage bin. Or possibly a dog biscuit.

  “Well, you don’t have to eat it,” the girl said crossly. “Grant asked me to fix up a quick lunch while he talked to his boss, so that’s what I’m doing. It wasn’t easy to find anything to make in that larder, either, let me tell you.”

  “I find that supremely difficult to believe.” Market had one of the most varied, interesting menus in the city—Adam stocked his pantry and walk-in with the freshest, most beautiful produce the local farmers’ markets had to offer.

  “Are you s’posed to be in that meeting?” the girl asked, switching gears abruptly. “I swear, you look familiar. Did Grant introduce us when he brought me by Market yesterday? I know we didn’t spend a lot of time here, and everyone was working in the kitchen and out front, getting ready for
dinner and all. Dang, that’s embarrassing. I’m bad with names. Not faces, usually; I can almost always place people. You’re stumping me, though, I hafta say. Wanna give me a hint?”

  Devon tucked his tongue in his cheek and tried not to smirk. She didn’t recognize him. She obviously hadn’t been in the game very long; it was no exaggeration that every young line cook and chef wannabe in Manhattan knew Devon’s name.

  Not this girl, though. In spite of her egregious assault on Adam’s hapless kitchen, Devon found himself more intrigued by this odd conversation than he had been by anything in a long while. A pleasantly reckless feeling overtook him, and it made him stupid. That was the only way he could account for the words that flew out of his mouth.

  “We did meet yesterday. I’m devastated you don’t remember—does this mean you also don’t remember agreeing to have a drink with me tonight?”

  Had he lost his mind? This babbling, too-nice woman with no makeup and no cooking skills was completely and entirely not his type. Far from it. But it had been a while for Devon, what with shooting and the restaurant openings and getting that bad review of Sparks Vegas—he hadn’t really been in the mood lately. That had to be it.

  Meanwhile, Shirley Temple, over there, looked about as taken aback by Devon’s smooth lie as he felt.

  “R-really?” For the first time since she tumbled off the counter and into his arms, she looked flustered. “Wow, now I’m real embarrassed. And a little afraid I might have a brain tumor or something, because I have no memory of any spectacularly good-looking, unfortunately rude guys randomly asking me out yesterday. And you’d think after the dry spell I’ve had, that would be something I’d recall.”

  Devon spread his hands innocently and made an attempt at a winsome smile, but it must’ve fallen flat because those pretty green eyes narrowed slightly.