London Broil

by Linnet Moss

  LONDON BROIL

  by Linnet Moss

  English professor Laura Livingston has only two loves: old books and delicious food. When she travels to London to research the libraries of British writers and meets a sexy Irishman, Herald crime editor James Whelan, she discovers that meals in London can be sizzling hot. But is James too good to be true?

  LONDON BROIL

  Copyright 2012 by Linnet Moss

  Eudemus Publishing 2012

  LONDON BROIL

  1. Regulars at Roxana

  2. A Long Awaited Encounter

  3. Aristotle and Artichokes

  4. Dinner with a Wolf

  5. The Porteous Library

  6. Ceylon and Cigars

  7. Pappy Channels Socrates

  8. The Honey-Sweet Scroll

  9. Awaiting the Rapture

  10. The Bookshelves of Bethnal Green

  11. Music for Miss Behave

  12. Déjeuner sur l’Herbe

  13. Doubt is not a Pleasant Condition

  14. A Very Satisfactory Transaction

  15. Home Improvements

  16. Sweeney-Pie and the Temple Crew Team

  17. Chardonnay with a Serpent

  18. Nolly’s Vegetarian Pleasures

  19. The Poetry of Flavors

  20. The Superiority of Venchi Gianduja

  21. Vestals and Pontiffs

  22. The Nymph of Belmont Hall

  23. Ale and Fistfights

  24. From Russia, With Love

  25. Menu for a Fireside Picnic

  26. Laura’s Guilty Pleasure

  27. That Which Men Call Death

  28. Ashes in the Mouth

  29. The Consolation of Philosophy

  30. A Truth Universally Acknowledged

  London Broil

  London broil is a North American beef dish made by broiling or grilling marinated flank steak, then cutting it across the grain into thin strips. The origin of the name is obscure; the dish is unknown in London, England. -Wikipedia

  1.

  Regulars at Roxana

  The first time she ate in the restaurant, she noticed James.

  Roxana was an Afghan place only a few blocks from her flat. She ate there every Friday evening, because it was the best local place, and once or twice a week she visited less familiar restaurants in the multicultural, polyglot metropolis of London. The aromatic sabzi, redolent of spinach and cilantro, was her favorite at Roxana, but if she didn’t get that, she usually had the aushak, a vegetable dumpling imbued with the tangy flavors of tomato and yogurt.

  On that first visit, hungry after hiking all over London in the chill of March, she was about to bite through the tender skin of a dumpling when her eyes fell upon the couple seated across the aisle. A tiny restaurant, Roxana had a long narrow dining room with twin rows of two-tops, staggered so that servers would not bump into each other while attending to opposing tables. The male half of the couple was looking intently at a dark-haired young woman whose back was to her. Their hands were clasped on the table. A bottle of wine had been opened, and the woman held hers by the bowl.

  She looked away. She always felt a slight stab of irritation when people did that. The stem of a wine glass was not ornamental. It functioned to keep greasy fingerprints off the bowl and to maintain the wine’s proper temperature by shielding it from body heat. Returning her eyes to her forkful of aushak, she contemplated the features of the man she had just seen. He was in fifties, she judged, but was one of those men who improved with age. His craggy features were relieved by a large pair of dark eyes that gave his face appeal. He had high cheekbones, a longish nose (was it slightly crooked?), a prominent chin, and small ears. His hair was black, but stippled with gray, cut very short around the sides and a bit longer on top. In short, he was a striking and deliciously masculine specimen.

  He was speaking softly to the young woman, and she couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he had a deep, rich voice with a lilting quality. She wondered what part of the UK he was from. She had a good ear for American accents, but in the UK she was at a loss, unable to grasp the fine class and geographical distinctions that seemed so obvious to her English friends.

  The server came to ask if she wanted another glass of wine. She learned later on that his name was Babur, and that he ran the restaurant with his brothers Fahran and George. She never found out why George had an English name, but although he spelled it the English way, he pronounced it the French way: Georges. He was the chef who produced the delectable aushak and the other dishes. She liked both red and white wines, but almost always got whites because they went best with the vegetable dishes she favored, and the spices in the fragrant Afghan food. She ordered a second glass of Pinot Blanc.

  The next week, she returned at the same time, remembering the delicious aushak and debating whether to order it again or try the spinach. She had her reading material as usual, this time a copy of Scott’s novel Ivanhoe. Eating alone at restaurants was an experience few people relished, but she enjoyed it, if the restaurant was receptive to single guests. Many servers and hosts were scornful of singles because the size of the check was always smaller. They tended to seat singles, especially women, at the worst tables in the back, near the kitchen or the restrooms.

  At Roxana, she felt welcome. As before, she was shown to a table in the middle of the long room, on the left-hand side. True, the doors to the cushion-filled booths for larger parties were on that side, making for more traffic, but all things considered, she felt she was receiving the same treatment as any other customer.

  In her undergraduate years she had been a waitress (as servers were called in those days) at an upscale restaurant in Georgia. One day there appeared a smart-looking woman with a blonde chignon. She was staying at the hotel across the street. Like the restaurant, it was a remodeled antebellum mansion with stately white pillars, and rooms with large fireplaces, rarely used in the Georgia heat. Seated in solitary splendor, the blonde ordered a salad, a lobster, and an expensive bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé. She had brought nothing to read, but took her time with the dinner anyway. Afterward she ordered coffee, black, and took the remainder of the bottle of wine back to her room, leaving a generous tip. It was the only time she ever saw a woman eat in that restaurant alone, and she never forgot it.

  This week, the man arrived a few minutes after she did, dressed in a well-tailored brown suit with a yellow paisley tie, and was seated at a table on the same side of the room as she. She felt a brief disappointment that he sat with his back to her, looking toward the entrance, so that she only got a brief glimpse of his face. Soon his dinner companion joined him, a woman about his age who reminded her of the long-ago blonde with the Pouilly-Fuissé. She had a chignon and was wearing an elegant suit with a knee-length hem. Navy, perhaps, or charcoal; it was difficult to tell in the lower light of the restaurant. Her legs were good, with shapely calves and delicate ankles. The blonde’s shoes were heels, of a dark patent leather, with straps across the instep.

  She decided to start with a plate of boulanee, described in the menu as sweet potato and scallion turnovers with yogurt sauce, before choosing her entrée. Perhaps I’ll have dessert, too, she thought. I want to see what happens when they leave. She turned to Ivanhoe and quickly became absorbed in the story of the cynical, apostate Templar knight Bois Guilbert, whose passion for the Jewess Rebecca made Ivanhoe look anemic by comparison. Something is wrong, she thought. Why does Scott make the sexy villain more appealing than the virtuous hero? She glanced up to check on the progress of the couple’s meal, and at that moment, the man rose and turned to visit the restroom. He looked down and his eyes met hers for a brief instant before he strode past. By the time Babur had removed her dinner plate, now polished clean of sabzi, and was ta
king her order for coffee and rice pudding, the couple had finished eating. As they walked to the door, the man put a hand out as though to guide his companion along, skimming not the small of her back, but the area just below.

  In the weeks that followed, he came to Roxana regularly, always around the same time, and always with a dinner companion. There were three, perhaps four young women, one of whom she had seen that first evening. A male friend or co-worker also appeared, as did the older woman. Once she caught a glimpse of him in the tiny bar at the front of the restaurant; he waited until a bag of food was brought out from the back and then left with it under his arm.

  Encountering one another so often, they had exchanged a few more looks, and once a brief nod. He always wore a suit, and she always made an effort to dress attractively, or at least professionally, before venturing out. The prices in London seemed to justify it. She began inviting her few London friends to dine with her, feeling guilty at the idea of taking a table to herself on Friday evenings when the restaurant was full, and wondering self-consciously whether he had noticed that she was usually alone. He might even think she was watching him, which would be embarrassing, though of course it was true. But, she told herself, I come here because I like the food, not because of him. He’s only the entertainment.

  He preferred to sit facing the entrance. Babur and Fahran seemed aware of this and always tried to show his companions to the other seat, but sometimes they chose to face the front door, and he had to face the kitchen. When this happened, he seemed to grow restless, tapping his foot impatiently, or casting occasional glances back toward the front. Probably worried about what might happen if one of his other girlfriends stops in without warning, she thought dryly.

  There were other regulars, though none of them seemed as faithful to Roxana as she and the man she liked to watch. There was a married couple who came about every other week, and two of her own neighbors. Cassie and Leila were both divorced women who liked a girls’ night out. When they stopped in, she would wave, or get up to exchange greetings if they were seated nearby, but they were close friends anxious to exchange confidences, and they never invited her to join them. She didn’t mind. Spending time alone came naturally to her.

  By this point she had gotten to know Babur, Fahran and George, as well as various other members of their extended family who tended bar and seated guests, poured water, served bread, and performed all the other jobs that go unnoticed by diners. Because she always cleaned her plate, she became a favorite of George, who would send out samples of new dishes for her to try. George liked French food, and he experimented with Afghan-French combinations from time to time, making a salad of cucumbers, crème fraîche and a mixture of herbs, or concocting pastry puffs redolent of sharp Swiss cheese and seasoned with black pepper and coriander, which he sent out to the diners at the start of the meal. Served warm, these were very popular and eventually appeared on the menu. George even invited her back to the kitchen once, when she asked about the preparation of sabzi and said she wanted to try to cook it in her flat. He was about her height and well-fed, with sparkling dark brown eyes and beautiful, strong white teeth, something she did not often see in England. His smile was infectious, and sometimes, when she ended up seated toward the back, she could hear him laughing or (during busy periods) shouting in the kitchen.

  About two months into her stay, she noticed a drop in the number of diners. Her neighbor laughingly told her that one Saturday evening, a huge rat had put in an appearance in the dining room, to the horror of the customers. Babur had run after it with a towel, disrupting the entire restaurant, until it managed to escape out the front door and down a sewer drain. Remembering George’s spotless kitchen, she knew that it was a fluke and that the rat had come from elsewhere in the building, or perhaps from outside. She continued to visit at her usual day and time, and the man she liked to watch did as well. After a few weeks, things picked up again.

  One night she invited Simon, who often worked beside her in the British Library, to eat with her at Roxana. He was interested in new, inexpensive places to eat, and she was anxious to discover whether he would share her view that Roxana was a hidden gem. Simon was a few years younger, and neither of them had a romantic interest in the other, although he was quite good looking, a tall Nordic type with professorial spectacles and sandy, receding hair. As they were being seated, she noticed that the man she liked to watch was at the closest table on the other side of the aisle, already halfway through a meal. He turned deliberately and gave Simon a long assessing look before letting his dark eyes pass neutrally over hers and back to those of his companion.

  He was seated with a woman she hadn’t seen before— thirtyish, with thick, short red hair, and a round face. Small and full-figured, she wore a dark pantsuit and a white shirt. Not his usual type, she thought with amusement, but it appears he is… catholic in his tastes. Could he possibly be sleeping with all these women? Was he a journalist who arranged to meet people for interviews here? It was a poor hypothesis, because he never had a notebook or recording device.

  She shook off the idea, turning to Simon with a recommendation that they begin with George’s cheese puffs and a good bottle of Chardonnay. Her side of the conversation felt stilted and constrained until the couple opposite was ready to leave. She watched them make their way to the front. Instead of walking to one side of the redhead, he walked on ahead, though he did help her on with her coat before they went out the door. Glancing at the remains of their meal as Fahran came to clear it, she noticed that there was no wine, and that he had ordered a cocktail of some kind in a lowball glass, while his companion had drunk only water.

  2.

  A Long Awaited Encounter

  The next week, she arrived at her usual time with a copy of Rob Roy, having decided that it was time to try a new dish. She ordered the badenjan borani, a dip of eggplant and yogurt. Even though she normally disliked eggplant, she thought that she ought to allow George and the vegetable the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps in his hands it would become a thing of beauty. She hesitated over the choice of wine, not having had much experience of eggplant. A red this time? When Babur greeted her, she asked his opinion and he shook his head doubtfully.

  “But you always get white wine.”

  “Well, ask George what he thinks would go with aubergine, and if he says red, please bring me a glass of the Cabernet Sauvignon. And if he says white, then the Chardonnay.”

  As they conferred, the man she liked to watch was being shown to the next table on her side of the aisle; his companion was the elegant woman with the chignon, again in a suit and heels. Even in heels, she was not as tall as he. He must be a few inches over six feet, she decided. They sat down, and the woman’s back was to her. She turned her attention to her book and her meal. The peppery eggplant was delicious, blended with yogurt to a creamy consistency, and garnished with toasted walnuts. She concluded that the Cabernet was a good match for the dish, and pondered an entrée. She ought to continue with another red, but what other vegetable dish would be a good match? As she tried to recall the possibilities from the menu, she heard the woman at the next table say in an irritated voice, “James, you know I can’t do that. Why do you keep asking me?”

  A cellphone went off and she quickly averted her eyes as the woman leaned over to retrieve it from her bag.

  “Hello? What? Right, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I can cut my dinner short. I’m sorry, James, but I don’t have time for this, and frankly, I don’t have time for you. I have to go.”

  As a few of the other diners glanced over, the blonde picked up her bag and stalked off. He made a pretense of getting up when she did, then sank back into his chair. His first look of surprise had given way to an expression of almost comical resignation. Now they were facing each other, with only the two empty seats between them. His eyes fell on hers, and without any thought or hesitation, she smiled wryly and raised her glass to him, then put it to her lips and took a generous mouthful.

/>   After a moment, he rose and stepped over to the chair opposite her. He was wearing a dressier suit than usual, dark navy with a white shirt and a burgundy-colored paisley tie. He had that slight paunch that fit men of a certain age get unless they are very athletic, or fastidious dieters. He is neither of those, she thought. It’s a silverback thing, a sign of maturity. How unfair that older men can look attractive even with fat, whereas older women cannot. In order to maintain her figure, she had to limit her intake of food on the non-restaurant days of the week.

  “Perhaps it’s time we met,” he said. “Since you’re drinking a red tonight, I wonder if you’d like to share the rest of my bottle. It’s barely been touched— an Australian GSM blend.” Something in his tone told her that he had observed her habitual preference for white wines.

  “I’d be delighted,” she said. “Thank you. It’s true I don’t often drink reds. GSM’s… aren’t those similar to the Rhône reds?” Be careful, she said to herself. You’ve already had one glass. Let him drink most of it.

  As he leaned over to retrieve the bottle and his glass, she rose and pointing to the seat he was about to take, said, “I’ll sit there. You sit facing the front.” She quickly slid into the chair, brushing past him and inhaling his scent, which was warm spice mingled with tobacco. She pulled her plate and flatware across the table toward herself, and then leaned over to draw her purse from under the table and slip her book and reading glasses into it. As she looked up at him, still standing beside her chair, he raised one brow slightly, and then nodded. After arranging the wine, he settled in the chair opposite and put one hand up to loosen his tie. He refilled his glass, took a drink (holding the glass by the stem, she noted with approval), and there was a moment of silence while they assessed one another.