He had apologised to her, charmingly, when she had seen him the next week at the market. Dom had still been in hospital, and she hadn’t wanted to not turn up to man her stall. Dom was in good hands, after all.
‘I was totally inappropriate,’ said Herbie. ‘I blame the Sazeracs. Though, of course, it’s your fault for being so irresistible.’
‘It’s fine,’ said Laura, not wanting to admit even to herself how near she had come to giving in to his charms. She would blame the Violette Femmes.
Today they were doing a big Sunday lunch at Number 11. She’d kept it simple. Smoked mackerel pâté which she would pass round on fingers of toasted soda bread while everyone arrived and had a glass of champagne. Then roast pork followed by floating islands – all recipes from her little box. Nothing fancy and gourmet, just plain home cooking with nothing that needed last-minute attention. And, of course, a huge cheese board – she’d bought lots at the market yesterday.
They were eating at the dining table rather than the island as there were so many of them. She’d laid it properly and it looked stunning, the silver and glass shining in the mid-morning sunshine that streamed through the windows. She counted up the places one last time.
Her and Dom.
Jaz and Willow, who had arrived back from uni and were probably upstairs fighting over the bathroom.
Sadie and Gino – who were inseparable. He had been back to Bath twice since they’d met. He had stayed at Sadie’s the second time, even though he had booked in to stay at Number 11. He had insisted on paying his bill anyway.
And Kanga and Rufus. Kanga had come to tell her the story of Catherine’s father, and they had both agreed that Rufus should be welcomed into the family. He wasn’t intruding on Jocelyn’s memory; it was part of their history, and there was no suggestion that he and Kanga were romantically involved. Today was his introduction: everyone had been briefed and Laura felt certain that he would fit in perfectly.
Half an hour later the kitchen was filled with guests. As she turned the roast potatoes over for the final time and slid them back into the Aga, Laura looked around the room.
Her heart squeezed with love as she watched Dom handing a glass of champagne to Rufus and raise his own glass of cranberry juice in a toast. Dom was on a fitness regime, and still tired easily after his operation. She kept a strict eye on him, but he was filled with resolve about the changes he was going to make to his lifestyle and how he worked.
Kanga was talking to Gino, obviously utterly beguiled by his charms. It was almost as if he had been part of the family all along, and he was good for Sadie. He kept her wilder streak at bay and made her feel secure, but it was also obvious that their relationship had the vital spark of mutual attraction.
The girls were both helping her, handing round the mackerel toasts, filling up glasses, chattering to everyone. Willow had a confidence about her she had lacked previously, and Laura was pleased that university had made her a little more independent. Jaz was talking to Rufus, making him feel welcome. It must be odd for him, being thrown into a cluster of people who were his blood relatives yet whom he hadn’t known until now.
But he was lucky. Bloody lucky, thought Laura, to have ended up with all of them. She walked over to the table and lit the three beeswax candles in the middle, looking at the places that would soon be filled with all these people she loved. Of course, some people who should be there were missing, and the hole they had left would never quite be filled. But the other unexpected additions – Rufus and Gino – added a layer of richness.
It was unique, this gathering of people who meant so much to her and made her who she was. They made her, and each other, so happy.
It was the perfect family recipe.
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Veronica Henry’s own family
recipe box
MY RECIPE BOX
Ever since I can remember there has been a small lidded box in the kitchen of whichever house we lived in (many, for my father was in the army) holding yellowing recipe cards.
It is a treasure trove: a diary, a family tree and a memory box all in one. Some cards are handwritten by my grandmothers, my mother or my dad; others I carefully typed out in a fit of efficiency when I was teaching myself secretarial skills aged about fourteen! Each card evokes a different time, a different place and a different set of people, but all of them bring me comfort.
I was the archetypal bookworm, but cooking was my other escape. On a Saturday morning I would beg to bake a cake or scones or flapjacks, and out would come the box. I still turn to these recipes now when I need to feel grounded and safe.
I have used the original weights and measures for authenticity.
Canadian Flapjacks
My maternal grandmother had a stash of post-war recipes, and this was one of the first things I learned to bake, along with the apple snow and peppermint creams from the My Learn to Cook Book (just looking at that cover even now throws up a mixture of emotions: nostalgia, excitement, comfort and a strong urge to cry). I could make these flapjacks almost unsupervised, standing on a chair with a wooden spoon. The biggest challenge was waiting for them to cool. I still make them today, when we need a stash of stodge, and they are very forgiving and accepting of whatever spin I want to put on them (usually dried apricots and pumpkin seeds which I kid myself makes them healthy). The recipe calls for margarine but I use butter: margarine seems like a relic from another age. I have no idea what makes these Canadian but that’s what it says on the card!
Soda Bread
My paternal grandparents were Irish, and I have nothing but the happiest of memories spent at The Shack – the dilapidated, ramshackle house they once owned on the coast of Kerry, overlooking the wild Atlantic. We slept in bunk beds, the inevitable damp from the endless rain dispelled by a peat fire that smelled sharp and earthy. My grandmother produced hearty meals three times a day for the ebb and flow of constant visitors: freshly-picked mushrooms, freshly-caught salmon, freshly-dug potatoes. And every day she would make a loaf of soda bread. Dense and cakey, it was a meal in itself, and if I could choose only one type of bread to have for the rest of my life, this would be it. I make it at Christmas to serve with smoked salmon, but it’s also perfect with raspberry jam. Or just cold butter. Or dipped into soup.
Mezze
My parents met on a training course at Greenwich – my father was in the Army, my mother in the WRNS – and not long after they got engaged my father was posted to Cyprus. My mother went there to marry him. They had a tiny white house and she learned to cook, tentatively at first, from a copy of Elizabeth David. Their life revolved around tennis and drinks parties and bombing around the island in a Sunbeam Alpine (which they had to get rid of when I arrived …) They loved to sit outside the tiny restaurants by the harbour drinking liver-damaging glasses of brandy. This careful list of what to include in a mezze was written in my father’s slanting hand, and I love to think of them laying it out on a table to eat in the sunshine with their dashing friends. It’s redolent of a novel – Lawrence Durrell or Victoria Hislop – the glamorous young things in their Mediterranean paradise.
This is more of a list than a recipe, but I would get a huge big white plate and use the list as inspiration – it’s quite old school and heavy on the offal and I have no idea what garlic meal paste is! The instructions are to serve on individual platters with brandy or wine, both with water – through I’m not sure if the water goes in the glass or is served separately. You decide!
Chocolate Chip Cake
When I was 11 years old, my father was posted to Washington DC. We left our dreary army patch on a rainy day and arrived in a land of sunshine. It was 1974 and we had a house with an intercom, a telephone on the wall with a ten-foot wiggly cord and a fridge that made ice. We were open-mouthed: it was like living in a high-tech paradise. We spent the summer at the swimming pool, unable to believe that each day dawned with a bright sun. We played John Denver and Neil You
ng and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. But there was homesickness too. Some Army friends made us welcome and reminded us of home, and their mother made this amazing chocolate chip cake in a bundt tin. It became my go-to recipe at the weekends, with its mysterious ingredient of sour cream, and has been a family favourite ever since.
Marie Biscuit Chocolate Pudding
This no-bake pudding involving biscuits drenched with coffee was a dinner party staple during the 70s – very Abigail’s Party! – and I lit upon it when I first started doing dinner parties as a teenager. My friends would come round dressed to the nines bearing bottles of Paul Masson and St Moritz, and I would produce my signature Hungarian goulash followed by this. There was nobody who didn’t love its sickly chocolatey-ness – it’s the original crowd pleaser. By the end of the night there were countless empty bottles and cigarettes stubbed out in the pudding plates. Decadence at its height!
Also by Veronica Henry
Wild Oats
An Eligible Bachelor
Love on the Rocks
Marriage and Other Games
The Beach Hut
The Birthday Party
The Long Weekend
A Night on the Orient Express
The Beach Hut Next Door
High Tide
How to Find Love in a Book Shop
The Forever House
THE HONEYCOTE NOVELS
A Country Christmas (previously published as Honeycote)
A Country Life (previously published as Making Hay)
A Country Wedding (previously published as
Just a Family Affair)
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2018 by Orion Books
Copyright © Veronica Henry 2018
The right of Veronica Henry to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 6661 0
Typeset at The Spartan Press Ltd,
Lymington, Hants
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Carmelite House, 50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK company
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Title Page
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Recipe Box
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