* * *
“I’m liking this,” Alice says as she walks around the tables we’ve set up in the store. I’m so glad Beatrice isn’t fussy about what we do, and that she hasn’t found a new tenant. There aren’t any tablecloths yet, but I ordered some on one of my quick breaks from work, and they should be here in time for the first night. Lucy’s in the back puttering about, making sure we have enough stock for this evening’s almost soft launch. I’m holding a bag, and Alice has been eyeing it since she came in. I know she’s curious, but it’s a surprise for Lucy.
“It’ll be even better with the tablecloths,” I reply. “It’s just three of you tonight, right?”
“Beatrice will be here shortly,” Alice says. “I think inviting her helps to soften her up, you know? You can get her more interested in the restaurant. And maybe she’ll give you a good deal.”
Beatrice has already given us a good deal, but she also confided in us that she was having a hard time getting anyone to lease the store.
“I’m sure she will.” I glance back, toward the kitchen. “I’d better go find Lucy.”
Alice waves me away. “I’ll get the chairs set up and set the table.”
I head back into the kitchen. Lucy has turned on the oven and the hood vents, and there’s a rushing sound of air that wasn’t there when we were first looking at the place. It brings me back to my days working in restaurants, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Those jobs were hard work, real hard work, not just paperwork. I sniff, and I can pick out the scents of the oven heating up, and of the food Lucy has set on the stainless-steel counter, the green onions and ginger and greens.
Michelle walks in with a grocery bag, and Lucy follows her. They take out chicken and fish and a package of tofu. Michelle smiles at me. “You two will be the best cooks,” she says.
“We will,” I agree, and Lucy nods.
“Now we need some time to work,” Lucy says. She pulls out her phone and reads off our working menu. “You can choose from the soy sauce honey chicken with frisée, or the steamed fish fillet with rice and vegetables, or the tofu with the broccolini.”
“I’ll tell Beatrice and Alice,” Michelle says. “We are more than ready.” She leaves the kitchen, and Lucy turns to me.
“This is so real now,” she confides. “Even though it’s just the three of them. What if we mess this up?”
“We won’t,” I promise, sliding my arm around her back. She leans on me. “Besides, I have something that should make you feel a bit more professional.”
I give her side a gentle squeeze before I withdraw and open the bag. I pull out a substantial folded square of white cloth and hand it to her.
“What’s this?” she asks.
I had something similar when I worked as a cook, and I stopped at one of the kitchen supply stores in the city a few days back, knowing that we’d need real uniforms. Lucy unfolds the chef’s whites, holding them up against herself.
“Do I look like a chef?” she teases, turning from side to side, looking down at the uniform.
“Of course you do.” I pull out a second set of whites for myself, and then I pull out a chef’s hat, a toque blanche, for her. “And with the hat, you can’t be mistaken for anything else.” I set a second toque on my whites on the counter. “We’re professionals.”
Lucy sets the toque on her head. “What do you think?” It presses down her dark hair, and it’s not the most flattering of hats, but she’s grinning and happy, and she looks amazing. I scoop up my whites.
“You look fabulous. Let’s go change—then it’s time to get cracking.”
We head back to the storage room upstairs for a bit of privacy, and I’m holding back my desire as I watch Lucy slip into the whites. We have a job to do. But the euphoria is there, and I’m hopeful that later we’ll be able to celebrate properly, the two of us.
Once dressed, our street clothes folded up and in my bag, we head back to the kitchen. I take a small pad of paper and a pen from the pocket of my whites. “Shall I go take their orders?” I ask.
“Absolutely.” Lucy’s grinning ear to ear as she sorts out the food and pulls out a cutting board. Then she opens the bag of rice, and I notice that she brought her rice cooker from home.
“That will save us so much work.” Thank goodness.
“Of course,” Lucy says. She heads to the prep sink and runs the water as I go out to the front of house.
Alice, Michelle, and Beatrice are sitting around one of the tables in the middle of the restaurant, their place settings all ready and set for dinner.
“I brought a bottle of wine,” Beatrice says, lifting a bottle and a corkscrew from a bag by her chair. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” I assure her. “What a nice treat to have with your meals. Now, what can I get everyone?”
Alice starts. “I have a hankering for that tofu dish you have,” she says. “I’m trying to eat healthier, so I think I need the veggies.”
I write down her order.
“And you?” I ask Michelle.
“The steamed fish,” she says immediately. “It’s my favorite.”
I turn to Beatrice, who smiles. “I’ve heard such great things about the honey and soy sauce chicken that I can’t turn that one down. You’ll have one of each to make.”
I write down her order. “That’ll be perfect,” I say. “Please, enjoy yourselves and we will bring your meals out soon.”
I check my watch. We should have everything out within fifteen minutes or less if we want to make it in this business. It’s not fast food, or fast casual, so we do have a bit of leeway, but not that much time. Hungry customers are never that patient.
I hurry back into the kitchen.
“One of each,” I tell Lucy, and we whip into action. I grab the chicken and everything I need for the soy sauce and honey marinade, then collect a metal bowl and a cutting board. Lucy checks on her wok, turns on the burner. She takes out all the ingredients for the vegetarian dish, the crisp tofu with broccolini. She marinated the tofu the night before, and it’s in a large plastic container, ready to go. The red light signals the rice cooker is on, and we are on our way.
“Chop some green onions and ginger for the steamed fish,” Lucy says when I finish mixing the marinade and chopping up the chicken, tossing it in the bowl before putting it into a baking dish. I pull out the second cutting board and chef’s knife, prepping enough for the single dish. When I’ve done that, I get the frying pan and its lid ready.
“Eight minutes for the fish?” I confirm with Lucy.
She nods as she brings the vegetables over to the now heated wok. I pass her the vegetable oil, and she readies her chopsticks. I’d love to watch her cook with the wok—it always amazes me the way the vegetables cook in the wok, the way things are sautéed, crisp yet soft, flavorful with the sesame oil. I turn on the burner under the frying pan, my heart beating a little faster, feeling that anticipation, that excitement about cooking for others. And this time, it’s cooking professionally, not just in my own kitchen. In a real commercial kitchen. I look over at Lucy, and she looks back at me, and she’s grinning as much as I am.
A pair of grinning fools, my father would say. But it’s brilliant, and I don’t want to be anywhere else. I put the ginger and onions into the heated pan, listen to the sizzle, smell the delicious, sharp scent of the ginger, the freshness of the onions. I stir briefly, watching the pan closely to make sure I don’t scorch the onions. This is the dish’s flavor, right here. When it’s done, I empty the pan into a small bowl, leaving the hot ginger and onions to steam on the counter. Then I put the pan on the burner once more, putting in a touch more oil. I toss the fish fillets onto the pan and hear them pop in the oil. I set up a mental count, knowing that I only need about a minute and a half before I can flip the fillets.
I flip them. Another minute or so, and they’re ready for the ginger and onions. I take up the soy sauce and the sake, and I eyeball the amount. There’s a whoosh of s
team, and I grab up the lid and put it over the pan. I turn off the burner and set my watch for eight minutes.
Lucy’s got the vegetables under control. I lean in and kiss her cheek. “Looks delicious.”
“Go check the chicken,” Lucy says. “That oven is so hot—we have to be careful.”
I take a cloth and pull open the oven door’s handle. The chicken is merrily bubbling away and looks like it’s cooking quickly. We will make our time goal after all. I think.
I find the frisée and pull down another bowl. There’s going to be a lot of dishes to wash, even though we’re only making three meals.
“Truffle oil?” I ask Lucy, not spotting the tiny glass bottle.
Lucy points with her chopsticks. “In the bag there.” There’s a small plastic bag by the entrance to the kitchen. I hurry over and find the truffle oil. Perfect. Along with a bit of olive oil, also in the bag, I mix together a basic dressing for the frisée. Then I set it aside. The frisée is already cleaned, but I make sure it’s free of its roots and trimmed.
I toss the frisée into a large bowl and go check on the chicken one more time. From behind me, I hear the rice cooker click.
“Rice is done,” Lucy says. “Chicken should be shortly too. The tofu dish is nearly there.”
I take three plates and head to the rice cooker, scooping out rice for each of the dishes. The ice-cream scoop works well; the rice is just sticky enough to hold together. Then I’m back to the counter, and I toss the dressing with the frisée and plate it for the chicken dish. The pale, gleaming leaves look appealing on the plate, and my mouth waters.
Lucy takes one plate and brings it to the wok. She pulls out pieces of tofu and vegetables and arranges them just so. And then my timer goes for the steamed fish. I lift the pan from the stove and bring it to the plate, carefully arranging the fish on the scoop of rice, now slightly flattened.
“Use a bit of the sauce over it,” Lucy suggests. “And we can put some frisée with it tonight as well as the leftover veggies from the tofu. I’m not sure yet if I want to cook more veggies for this dish for our opening or not. We’ll have to figure out what works.”
“We could, but it might be more work,” I say. Not that I mind.
“We’ll see what I have ready at the farm,” Lucy replies. She takes the oven mitts, opens the oven door, and pulls out the pan of chicken. It’s bubbling away and smells amazing. Something about the savory of the soy sauce and the sweetness of the honey makes for an appetizing combination. Now my stomach growls. Lucy chuckles.
“We will have leftovers,” she says. “We can eat while we do all the dishes.”
“And we’ll have a lot,” I remark, looking at the range of bowls, utensils, and other dishes spread over the kitchen.
I take a pair of tongs and arrange the chicken on the plate next to the rice. “Should we put some sauce on the side?”
“That’ll work. Let me see what I have.” Lucy finds a small white ramekin on a shelf and rinses it out and dries it hastily. I take the pan and pour some of the sauce into it. It steams and bubbles a bit as I place it on the plate.
Lucy straightens her chef’s whites and apron. “Ready?”
“Totally.” Lucy grins at me, and I know I’m grinning back at her. We pick up the plates and, with great ceremony, take them out into the restaurant.
Alice, Michelle, and Beatrice are chatting animatedly when we appear, but they go silent, watching us approach, gazes eager as they take in the plates heaped with food.
“This looks amazing,” Beatrice gushes as I put down her soy sauce and honey chicken. Alice doesn’t even wait on ceremony; she lifts her fork and takes a bite only a second after Lucy sets down her plate.
“Soooo delicious,” she says through her mouthful. “O-M-G, as the kids would say.”
Michelle tastes the dish, taking a bite of tofu with vegetables. She nods as she savors it. “This is just right, crisp and the right flavor,” she says. Then she looks at her daughter. “Your father would be very proud.”
I can see Lucy starting to tear up, and I hook my arm around her waist. “We’ll let you eat,” I say, and Lucy nods. We leave them to their meals, and once we’re back in the kitchen, Lucy wipes at her eyes.
“I wish he was here,” she says. “It’d make everything that much more perfect.”
“We could put out some photos on the walls, including him,” I suggest. “And if we do this more often, we could have a special family wall.”
“And maybe a little shrine,” Lucy says. “Every Chinese restaurant has one, and we could have a bit of incense and photos of family.”
She wraps her arms around me and I hug her back, feeling snug and safe and content, more than I ever felt possible.
But it only lasts a moment or two. We break apart.
“Dishes,” we say in unison.
The work isn’t yet done.
Chapter Twenty-two
Kitty texts me a confirmed list of invitees as I’m just finishing up the loading of produce for the day, and my stomach flip-flops at the names of two food critics on the list. I’ve read their work, and I know they are tough customers. I know we need them to get the word out, to gain us some market share, but it still makes me nervous to know we’re going to be carefully judged. The day of the opening is getting so close. My mind goes to the what-ifs, but I try to push them out. We can only do the best we can do. After the other night, I really think we can do it. We’ll just have larger amounts of food. I would think that’d even be easier.
“Ready to go?” Alice asks as she pops into the house. I grab my binder and point-of-sale terminal. Today is the farmers’ market down in inner-city Calgary, and I know we’ll do a brisk business. It’s an area with a lot of affluent customers, ones who are quite particular about their food and about where it comes from. I love that we have such success there, but I wonder about making the food more accessible. If we could do a discount day, or make more donations. I make a note in my phone. We’ve helped out charities before, but I’m starting to wonder about being more consistent. And what if we attached some of that work to the pop-up restaurant? There are so many possibilities, but right now, Alice and I need to get moving. I head out with her to the van, and we get on the road.
“You two are really going to make it,” Alice says as we turn on to the highway. “The meal was right about perfect.”
“Right about?” I tease.
Alice chuckles. “More people would give the place some ambiance,” she says. “It was pretty echoey with just the three of us in there.”
“We have a good list happening,” I reply. I hand her my phone. “Check out Kitty’s text.” Alice flips to the message.
“Wowzers. We’re going to have a full house, aren’t we? She’s so organized.”
“I sure hope so. Cindy has a Facebook event scheduled and started up a page for us. Between the two of them, everything is sorted. It blows me away how much they get done. I feel like I don’t do near as much.”
“Oh, you do plenty, Lucy. It’s just different.” Alice pats my arm. “Just think—you might have to turn people away.”
“If only,” I say. “But we’ll see. I think we’ll be able to manage it. I’m so glad you’re helping us with the opening night. I don’t think we could cook and be servers at the same time.”
Alice nods. “It’d be like a chicken with its head cut off. Running around all over the place, all panicky. I’ve seen it before. My first job was working at a little café in the town where I was raised in northern Alberta. Lunchtime rush with all the rig workers…” She shakes her head. “Insanity. Even as a hostess, and with a server and two cooks, we couldn’t keep up. Those guys eat big, all the time.” She looks at the list again. “What’s Kitty’s parents’ names?”
Kitty told me once, but I’m having trouble remembering. “Last name is Kerr,” I say. Alice skims the list.
“There are no other Kerr folks on here,” she says. “Are Kitty’s parents still alive?”
“Positive,” Alice says. “That’s a bit odd, don’t you think?”
I frown. I thought Kitty had planned to invite her parents. Heck, I’m inviting Mama and several other townsfolk on top of that.
“You should talk to Kitty,” Alice says. “We don’t want to forget them.” She pauses. “Have you met them?”
I haven’t. And Kitty’s never offered. That is a bit odd, but I didn’t really want to pry after what Kitty had explained about her parents. But I really should ask.
* * *
The farmers’ market does a brisk business, and I barely have time to talk in between ringing up orders and packaging up vegetables and fruit for our clients. But Alice chats up everyone, and instead of her usual casual banter, she’s all about the restaurant, gushing and hyping it. She’s a one-woman advertisement, and we couldn’t have better.
“When’s the next pop-up?” one woman asks me. “This sounds so brilliant—I know my husband and I would love to go.”
I find a piece of paper and write up a quick heading. “If you want a notification, give me your name and email, and I’ll put you on our list.”
“Fantastic!”
Soon I have a small but growing list of names, and I know we’ll have to have more and more nights. Maybe every weekend, at this rate.
When the afternoon ends, and we pack up our empty boxes and bins, Alice is grinning. “You and Kitty are going to have the best restaurant ever,” she says. “I can’t believe we’ve had so much interest.” She holds up the list of emails. “There’s over fifty here.”
“I should tell Kitty.”
“I’ll drive us home,” Alice says. “You call Kitty.”
* * *
I’ve just closed the door on my last client of the afternoon when my cell phone rings. I hurry over to my desk to grab it, feeling the twinge in my feet as I do. I wish I could wear flats at work. I pick up the phone.
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