‘Ah, that was kind.’
‘Well,’ he pulled a guilty face, ‘yes and no. I’m giving Rebecca and Ryan a month to buy me out. So it’s in my interests to help it succeed.’
‘So you’re really putting the restaurant behind you?’ I held my breath, willing him to say he wanted to stay in Plumberry.
He nodded. ‘While I still part-own it, it’s like she has permission to come running every time they get into trouble. And I don’t want that. It’s time to move on. I actually came away feeling a bit sorry for Ryan, if I’m honest. He has big shoes to fill.’
He waggled his eyebrows self-deprecatingly and we shared a smile.
I felt a weight lift off my shoulders and with it, the remains of the black mood I’d been carrying round with me ever since he’d left with Rebecca on Saturday. I knew that at some point Tom would still want his own restaurant, and he deserved to reach his own goal, but right now the cookery school needed him. Oh, who was I kidding? I was just grateful that he hadn’t got back together with Rebecca.
‘You’re all heart,’ I said, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
‘You leave my heart out of it,’ he said drily. ‘It’s taken a battering this weekend.’
Instead of stepping away from me, Tom moved his hands until they were resting lightly on the tops of my arms and I felt my heart leap.
‘I’m proud of you, you know,’ I said, looking into his eyes, the colour of espresso. ‘When you said on Saturday that you wouldn’t pee on Salinger’s even if it was on fire, it made me sad to see you so bitter. But you’re a bit like crème brûlée: a tough shell to crack on the outside, but underneath you’re a sweetie.’
‘Shush, don’t let that get out.’ He grinned. ‘Anyway, as much as I hate to admit it, Ryan is a talented chef. I think he just got out of his depth; he realized running a professional kitchen wasn’t as easy as I made it look. And Rebecca . . . she knows which side her bread’s buttered. She’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants. She’ll never change, but I have.’
‘I can see that; I’m impressed,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘I know, I blame you, you’ve mellowed me.’ He laughed as I raised my eyebrows in surprise. ‘You managed in only four weeks what Rebecca failed to do in years. So I’m rid of her.’
‘And I’m rid of Liam,’ I added.
‘So . . .’ Tom began.
‘So?’
‘We were going to do something on Saturday after Challenge Chester until I behaved appallingly and left you in the lurch.’
‘I did do something,’ I laughed. ‘I cleaned up after the world’s biggest barbecue.’
He cringed. ‘Sorry. Again. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’
His watch started beeping and he turned off the alarm.
‘That’s my cue to go back up. Come on, let’s go and see how the contestants are doing. You can tell me who you fancy to win.’
‘I might even offer them a few pointers,’ I said, tickled pink that he seemed to value my opinion.
He scratched his head. ‘Er, I don’t think any of them are doing fish finger sandwiches.’
Upstairs in the teaching kitchen the air was tight with adrenalin and activity, and a mêlée of sweet and savoury aromas, of caramelized sugar and roast meat combined to give an almost fairground atmosphere.
‘How’s it going?’ Tom asked Pixie.
She was standing at the teaching station at the front of the room, holding a stopwatch.
‘So so,’ she said. ‘Jack the butcher and that bloke Brian with the bandana nearly came to blows at one point, and she might need a motivational chat.’ She pointed to the woman who’d requested the blast chiller earlier.
Tom chuckled. ‘Leave it with me.’
We walked up to the first aisle where Jack was looking very professional, a small frying pan tipped to one side while he basted meat with butter. He was an athletic-looking man in his early forties with a broad chest and huge sausagey fingers; the frying pan looked like a child’s toy in his hands.
‘I’ve only used the loin of the rabbit,’ said Jack, grinning at Tom. ‘You can keep the rest if you like. Very fresh? Free?’
Tom threw his head back and laughed. ‘Thanks, although it won’t get you any extra marks.’
Jack shrugged sheepishly. ‘Worth a try.’
‘And have you and Brian sorted out your differences?’ I asked.
The butcher rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah, it was something and nothing. He’d never seen anyone skin a rabbit before. Told me I was a barbarian.’
Tom winced. ‘It can be a bit of an eye-opener if you’re used to buying your meat wrapped in cling film ready to cook.’
‘And how do you skin a rabbit?’ I asked.
‘You hook its ears over the taps and tug its coat off,’ Jack said matter-of-factly.
I swallowed. ‘Oh.’ I wished I hadn’t asked. Poor Brian would probably never get rid of that image.
We left Jack making his sauce and moved along to blast-chiller woman, whose name was Michelle. She was a few years older than me and had looked quite smart when she walked in but now her hair had gone limp from the steam and was hanging in damp curls around her face and she had flecks of purple all over her face. In fact, now that I looked closer, everything around her was flecked with purple too.
‘Gosh, you look . . . busy!’ I said brightly. ‘And what a lovely colour.’
‘It’s supposed to be a coulis to go with my espresso crème brûlée. But nothing’s going right. Nothing,’ Michelle said in a wobbly voice as she tried to jam the top on the food processor. Her hands were dripping with juice.
I pressed my lips together to hide a smile; not five minutes ago I’d compared Tom to a crème brûlée. Her signature dish was effectively Tom in edible form. She might well be my winner.
Tom took over and screwed the lid on for her.
‘What do you love about cooking, Michelle?’ he asked, reaching for a paper towel.
She took a deep breath and looked like she was swallowing a large lump in her throat before she spoke. ‘It’s a good way to unwind. I get in the kitchen and lose myself for an hour.’
‘And are you unwinding now?’
‘No,’ she said in a small, high-pitched voice.
‘Then try and calm down,’ said Tom in a kind voice that I’d never heard him use at work before. ‘Who do you normally cook for?’
‘My two lovely boys.’ Her face softened. ‘They are such good kids. I’m a single working mum, but I always cook from scratch for them every night. I think it’s much better than feeding them processed rubbish.’
Tom nodded with approval and I half expected him to give me a pointed look. But he rested a hand on Michelle’s shoulder. ‘Then imagine you’re cooking for them rather than me. I’m sure if your food is good enough for two demanding kids then it’ll do for me. Relax, have fun with it.’
We walked away from her and I pressed a hand to his forehead. ‘Relax and have fun? Should I be worried?’
He smiled sheepishly.
‘I lost touch with what mattered for a while. And that is heart. There has to be heart in cooking.’ He stared at me so intently that I felt guilty for teasing him.
‘So from now on,’ he continued, ‘I’m focusing on that.’
Heart. Something inside me pinged.
‘Suits me,’ I murmured.
We continued round the room, offering encouragement and in Tom’s case dipping spoons in every pan until we came to the youngest contestant, Aaron, who looked about sixteen and whose ears had gone red under pressure.
‘What made you enter today, Aaron?’ Tom picked up a teaspoon and tasted some sort of cheesy mix.
‘Two reasons.’ Aaron looked up briefly from his task of placing small mounds of filling on to circles of fresh pasta. ‘I like doing magic. Take the simple sweet potato – a boring, lumpy everyday thing. But with a bit of magic it turns into something special. In this case sweet potato and goat’s cheese ravioli.’
Tom grinned at him with approval. ‘Why vegetarian?’
‘Because we could never afford much meat growing up so the veggies became the star of the show. My mum has always made the most of what we had. She’s shown me that cooking is about making the best of things. Just like life.’
I changed my mind; he was my new favourite. Aaron blushed furiously and stared at his chopping board.
‘And what is your other reason?’ I asked, barely holding myself back from giving the boy a hug.
‘I need a job and I thought if I could win this, it would be good to go on my CV.’
‘Good man.’ Tom clapped him on the back. ‘Good luck.’
‘Oh my God, I love him so much,’ I muttered under my breath as we walked on.
‘He’s got grit; I like him,’ Tom agreed. ‘If I was to open a restaurant, he’s exactly the sort of lad I’d want on my team.’
I shot him a panicky look.
‘But I’m not.’ He laughed and checked his watch. ‘You carry on round handing out words of wisdom, I just need to make a quick call.’
He strode across to the office and shut the door. I wandered over to Annabel from the wine merchants who had a pile of discarded honeycomb pieces that looked in need of sampling.
It was a tough job, I sighed contentedly to myself, crunching into golden pieces of honeycomb a few seconds later, but someone had to do it . . .
Chapter 23
Ten minutes later I joined Tom in the office. He dropped the phone in its cradle immediately and stretched his arms above his head.
‘Who was that?’ I asked, slipping into the chair behind my desk.
He grinned and tapped his nose. ‘A surprise.’
‘Suit yourself.’ I shrugged, pretending not to be bothered. I scooped my hair up into a pony tail and turned my computer on. ‘By the way, have you ever done any team building?’
I told him about Dave’s idea for running cookery days for corporate clients and how it might be a way to make this sort of competition profitable for the cookery school.
‘Hmm.’ Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
‘You don’t sound convinced.’ I turned to look at him. He was close enough for me to see purple shadows under his eyes. He looked weary; he’d probably not had a moment to himself since leaving Plumberry on Saturday.
‘Forget it,’ I said with a smile. ‘We can do this another time. Have you eaten today?’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Er, only what I’ve tasted in there.’
‘Right, sit down; I’ll go foraging.’
I returned a few minutes later with a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said.
We were quiet for a few moments, each engrossed with our task: he ploughed his way through his food and I responded to my emails.
‘I took over service on Saturday night at Salinger’s,’ said Tom eventually, brushing the crumbs from his hands over the plate. ‘Ryan went back to being my underling.’
I winced. ‘That must have been awkward.’
‘I can’t deny feeling a certain satisfaction.’ He grinned, leaned back and propped his feet up on Gloria’s desk. ‘But it was strange being back in that heated environment; all that bent double over food nonsense, making every vegetable look perfect. I see it in there today.’ He nodded to the teaching kitchen through the glass panel. ‘I can feel their passion, and I admire them for it, their skills, the techniques, and the commitment to making the very best plate of food possible.’
‘They are certainly going for gold,’ I said with a laugh, catching sight of Annabel whisking something in a copper bowl as if her life depended on it.
‘But I can’t help feeling . . .’ He hesitated.
‘What?’ I prompted.
‘That I’m a bit over it.’
‘What?’ I said again.
‘I realized on Saturday that I got more satisfaction from teaching you to make bread last week than serving intricate dishes to discerning diners in Manchester.’
‘Do I know you?’ I cocked an eyebrow at him.
What had happened to the pretentious chef who’d insisted we taught students how to confit eggs and make the perfect fondant potato?
‘To tell the truth, I hardly recognize myself,’ he said with bewilderment. ‘But now I get it. I get why Gloria has invested in this cookery school to pass her love of food on to others. I think that for the moment, being in Plumberry where food is about taste and enjoyment and sharing is right for me; it’s somewhere to take stock and plan my next move.’
I studied his face; his strong jaw with its dark beard contrasting starkly with his pale Irish complexion, those brooding eyes that mirrored every emotion so clearly, and I felt my heart flutter. He looked up and caught me staring, but rather than look away I held his gaze.
‘That’s exactly how I feel too,’ I said. ‘Like I’m taking stock and that Plumberry and the cookery school are giving me the time and space to do it.’
‘So basically we feel the same way.’ He grinned.
Little bubbles of happiness fizzed and popped inside me.
‘We do,’ I laughed.
He leaned forward, reaching his fingertips towards my desk. I did the same until quite suddenly we were holding hands.
‘Time’s up,’ Pixie yelled, appearing in the doorway.
We leapt back in our seats, me red-faced and Tom finding the floor of the office very interesting.
‘I didn’t mean you two,’ she sniggered. ‘Although you might want to go somewhere more private. The contestants have had their two hours and I think most of them are looking this way. Can I dismiss them?’
‘Of course,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘Mags will be putting drinks out in the Aga kitchen while Tom does the judging.’
‘OK.’ She turned back into the room. ‘Please make your way downstairs for—’
There was a stampede as the contestants made a bid for freedom.
‘They’re all desperate for the loo,’ Pixie laughed.
‘It smells heavenly up here,’ Mags announced, appearing at the top of the stairs. ‘Hey, do we get to taste this food like on MasterChef?’
‘We do.’ Tom switched immediately into professional mode. ‘I’ll get each of them to come and present their dishes. Then they can relax while we select the top three between us and then I’ll choose the overall winner. Does that sound good?’
The three of us leapt to attention army-style. ‘Yes, Chef.’
Tom went out to examine the entries while Mags went to deliver the instructions to the contestants. I gestured to the chair recently vacated by Tom and Pixie dropped into it.
Pixie was last seen disappearing off to her granddad’s house on Saturday with Cheryl from the Challenge Chester team. Her bike was too bent to ride, so Mags had called her a taxi while I’d gone inside the cookery school to rustle up some lunch for her granddad. I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Pixie properly about it.
‘Good weekend?’ I asked casually.
Pixie went pink and nodded. ‘Cheryl came over to mine on Sunday and we just, you know, hung out.’
I was surprised; she always talked about her home as if it was stuffed full to the rafters with siblings. I didn’t think there would be room to hang out comfortably.
‘You seemed to get on well.’ I was surprised about that too, if I was honest. Pixie was such a happy-go-lucky character whereas Cheryl seemed to give off an air of permanent boredom.
‘I really like her.’ She began worrying a loose piece of fingernail and shrugged. ‘We swapped numbers and she says she’s going to invite me to London, so . . .’
I blinked at her as the penny dropped. ‘Pixie, am I being extremely dense? Are you gay?’
She exhaled and her lips twitched. ‘I’ve kept quiet because, well, you know, you’re so conservative.’
My jaw dropped. ‘Me? I’m far from that. You’d be amazed at some of the things I’ve done in my time.’
Her eyes held mine and she g
rinned broadly. ‘Go on then, amaze me.’
I pressed my lips together. It would be tempting to bust her image of me as conservative, but my past wasn’t something I should bandy about just to win points in the ‘how broad-minded is Verity Bloom’ competition.
Instead, I got up and pulled her in for a hug. ‘You can think I’m boring if you like, I don’t mind. And I’m happy for you both.’
‘She’s so cool.’
‘You certainly seemed to bring out the fun side in her,’ I said diplomatically.
‘Now we need to get you hooked up.’ Pixie folded her arms and tapped her chin. ‘What about Jack the butcher? He’s good with his hands.’
I nudged her. ‘Stop it.’
‘OK, OK.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Please don’t say you’re one of those annoying types who, as soon as they’ve got a date, think that everyone else needs fixing up?’
‘Ooh, touchy.’
‘No, seriously,’ I said, holding my palms up. ‘I’ve only just managed to get myself unhooked from my ex in Nottingham.’
‘Pity.’ She pressed her lips into a smug smile.
‘How so?’
‘Because Mags just took a phone call confirming Tom’s reservation for a table for two this Friday night at Platform Six. I was hoping the lucky lady might be you.’
Platform Six was probably the swishest restaurant in the area, set in a converted Victorian railway station. I’d never been but I’d heard the food was amazing.
‘Really?’ I said in a squeaky voice, mulling over the phone call I’d walked in on a few minutes earlier.
Hmm, I was sort of hoping it might be me too . . .
‘I like this one,’ said Pixie stubbornly, tapping a large dish of spaghetti flecked with tinned crab and some unidentifiable green herb.
‘Only because he’d set himself a five-pound budget,’ Tom retorted. ‘It looks like a dog’s dinner.’
‘I have to agree,’ said Mags. ‘It’s not the most attractive plate of food.’
‘I think setting a budget is a brilliant idea.’ Pixie grimaced under her heavy fringe. ‘And it’s the sort of thing people can make at home.’
‘You’re right, we should encourage people to make the most of cheaper ingredients,’ I said diplomatically, squeezing Pixie’s arm. ‘But in this case, I think other contestants have done a more inventive job. This is their signature dish, after all.’
The Plumberry School of Comfort Food Page 22
