Recipe for Disaster
Page 1
Table of Contents
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Also Available In Arrow The Accidental Wife
Acting Up
Recipe for Disaster
Miriam Morrison used to live in Cumbria, where she was a journalist, teacher and hotelier, though not all at the same time. She now lives in London with her daughter, Emily (a genius in the kitchen) and a cat, Poppy (a genius at getting her own way) and is currently working on her next novel.
Miriam Morrison
Recipe
For
Disaster
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ISBN 9781407014050
Version 1.0
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Published in the United Kingdom by Arrow Books in 2008
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Copyright © Miriam Morrison, 2008
Miriam Morrison has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in the United Kingdom in 2008 by Arrow Books
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ISBN: 9781407014050
Version 1.0
For Emily
Chapter One
'Ready to order?'
Somewhere, buried under the avalanche of newspapers on the floor, was the menu. Kate could distinctly recall giving it the briefest of glances before plunging happily into her favourite column in the Guardian. She smiled apologetically at the hovering waitress, and quickly ducked under the table to retrieve it.
Kate was a tall girl and the table was small. Wedged beneath it, she glanced over and saw that the elderly couple at the next table were furtively holding hands. Very sweet. Celebrating their diamond anniversary? New lovers? A secret affair? Kate smiled as she rooted around the newspapers strewn over the floor. There was a time and place for indulging journalistic curiosity (or 'incorrigible nosiness', as her brother put it) but underneath a table probably wasn't it. Her very bright blue eyes were just inches away from Jonathan's expensive grey socks and immaculately polished shoes. You could tell at a glance that they belonged to an ambitious man who wouldn't dream of holding hands under tables, she decided.
'Jonathan, move over.' She could just see a corner of the errant menu, underneath The Times and Jonathan's foot.
'Um, what?' he said absently, his rather sharp nose deep in a story on page four of the Mail. Kate sighed. His intense interest in anything newsprint-related was one of the reasons she had fallen for him, but it was rather hot under here and she was getting a crick in her neck. Kate tugged, finally pulled the menu out and straightened up rather too quickly, banging her head on the table in the process. She rubbed it with one hand, using the menu as a fan to cool her red face with the other.
The waitress shifted her not inconsiderable weight from one leg to the other and gazed glumly into the middle distance as if she was waiting for a bus she just knew was going to be late. 'So?' she said again, sighing.
'Er, I think we are both going to have the lamb, aren't we?' Kate said.
'Are we? Yeah, OK.' Jonathan rustled the paper in agreement without even looking up, clearly expecting her to make this dull but necessary decision, and to do it quickly if possible.
The waitress frowned. This was an expensive hotel restaurant and it simply wasn't the done thing to be so casual about choosing one's food. She whipped out her pad and wrote busily.
'Two lamb cutlets. Would that be the côtolettes des Ardennes with a reduction of cauliflower jus or the Herdwick spring ewe poached in a mint sauce?'
Kate wanted to giggle. She was reminded suddenly of a maths class – a question to do with logarithms and her absolute certainty that whichever answer she gave would be wrong. But the waitress's pen was tapping in an intimidating way.
'Oh, well, one of each, please.' Then at least they could swap.
'With the green salad of locally grown lettuce or a medley of winter vegetables, sautéed in olive oil, parmesan and fresh rosemary?'
'What a feast we have in store,' said Kate, rather faintly. 'Um, both, I think.'
The waitress said nothing but her eyebrows rose just slightly, as if she was making a mental note of the sarcasm. Kate bristled – after all, they were paying, weren't they? But then she remembered that Jonathan didn't like scenes so she rearranged her mouth back into a smile.
'Do you want the lamb medium or well done?'
'Oh, for goodness' sake!' Jonathan's face popped over the paper. 'I just want lunch, not a game of twenty questions!' He produced that harrumphing noise that Kate hated because it made him sound a lot older than he was.
The waitress's face managed to convey that she couldn't care less what they ate, that serving them was beneath her anyway, but if waiting was what she was paid a pittance to do then she would have to suffer the consequences.
Kate took charge. 'We'll have one rare, the other well done and' – she glanced at her watch – 'as quickly as possible please. Oh, and two more beers.'
The waitress took off at a clip, watched anxiously by Kate. A word in the chef's ear and poaching cutlets would become a very long process. And how many times could someone sneeze in the salad before it reached them? Oh, well, too late to worry about that now.
'So, which of this lot do you think covered that story best?' she asked, peering curiously round Jonathan's arm to look at his tabloid.
'The Mail was too short, the Telegraph was too long and the Guardian missed the point completely,' he said promptly, and sh
e had to laugh, her good humour restored. As features editor of the Easedale Gazette Jonathan never thought anyone could write a news story as well as he and, annoyingly, he was mostly right. Kate had been in the business for a few years, and at the Easedale Gazette for the last two, but when Jonathan talked shop it was always worth making mental notes.
He glanced up at her now with that intense, fiery, slightly haughty look that used to make her stomach flip. She smiled back automatically, but her stomach somehow refused to perform any kind of acrobatics. Disconcerted, she grabbed her beer bottle and took a heartening swig from it just as the waitress returned with fresh supplies. She made a point of pouring both into glasses, and Kate scowled at her retreating back, glad of a diversion.
'Honestly, anyone would think this was the Ritz,' she said crossly. 'I wouldn't mind drinking out of the glass if it was clean. They should sack the person who wrote the menu and employ another washer-upper.'
'Why? What's wrong with the menu?' Jonathan reluctantly looked up from the Mail's sports section.
'Well, for example – listen to this – pan-fried trout with peanut butter sauce. How can you fry anything other than in a pan?' she grumbled. Kate had become a journalist because she was obsessed with words. If asked, she would have picked her love affair with writing over one with a man any day. Even Jonathan.
He put down his paper, his attention caught. 'Is it actually possible to combine fish and peanuts in the same dish?' he asked doubtfully.
'You can, but I really don't think you should,' she said, twisting one red curl round her finger as she read on. Kate was a complete stranger to straighteners, and her hair, on most days, gave new meaning to the phrase 'standing on end'.
'Oh, yeah, here it is – fillet of ostrich steak served with wild mushrooms and organic chocolate. I think I would rather go hungry. Mind you, judging by the look in our waitress's eye, I probably will.'
'And they are illiterate as well – they've spelled "trifle" with two fs,' Jonathan tutted, having scanned the whole menu. He looked round the dining room. 'I don't know what's happened to this place – they used to serve real food, decent, simple stuff like sausage and mash, and then the new management decided that if they put something on the menu that no one even knew was edible they could charge an extra tenner for it. Every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks they're blooming Jamie Oliver now, or that one who shouts a lot.'
'Gordon Ramsay?'
'That's the one – used to be a footballer – how did he become a chef?'
'Quite easily, apparently – he's got three Michelin stars,' said Kate, who secretly thought Mr Ramsay was as sexy as hell. He could tell her off any day.
Jonathan was warming to his subject. He even put down his newspaper and brandished the menu. 'This seems all the rage now, complicated concoctions of flavours with huge price tags attached. No wonder some chefs are rich enough to drive around in Porsches.' Jonathan secretly coveted a Porsche.
Kate's motoring needs were fully met as long as her car actually worked. She looked about. 'It's so quiet in here our cook can probably only afford to come to work on a bicycle.'
'He's certainly not driven by any sense of urgency,' grumbled Jonathan, glancing at his watch.
'Shall I complain?'
'We should, but he will be rather better equipped with knives than we are.'
'I could take him,' she bragged. 'Don't forget I cut my working teeth in a newsroom populated by tough, hardbitten, cynical hacks – and that was just the women.'
When he laughed, she was secretly pleased. She loved it when they chatted and argued and generally got on.
When their food arrived, finally, Kate looked down at her plate in trepidation. Surely 'raw' and 'rare' weren't interchangeable, even in today's gastronomic climate?
'Well, I can ask Chef to put them back under the grill,' said the waitress doubtfully, when she saw Kate's look of horror.
'If that's not too much bother,' said Kate desperately. The waitress trudged off, dragging her feet in an attitude of long-suffering acceptance.
'How difficult is it to grill a couple of chops?' Kate said, scowling at the artfully arranged salad on Jonathan's plate. 'I bet the chef's not even doing the cooking himself. He'll have some minion doing all the dirty work, while he prowls around sharpening the odd knife and checking his reflection in the mirror.'
But Jonathan had already moved on from the possible culinary crisis in Britain and was back in the newspapers, grinning at a cartoon in the Mirror.
The waitress returned with Kate's plate and set it down defiantly. Kate smiled briefly and pulled it towards her, then yelped with shock and quickly shoved her scorched fingers into her beer to cool them down. 'Ow! Can you believe it? They've just shoved the whole plate back under the grill. My julienne of vegetables has been completely cremated.'
Jonathan flicked open his napkin, hissing impatiently, 'For God's sake, Kate, do take your finger out of the glass.'
'Who cares?' She glanced up. Jonathan clearly did, even though no one was watching them. His sense of self-worth would always outweigh his sense of humour. She dried her finger on her jeans, sneaking a thoughtful glance at his face. They'd been together for only three months and theirs was one of those office romances that was probably fairly ill-fated anyway, especially given that he was separated but still married, but it was becoming more and more apparent that they weren't really destined to last. Outside work and their fervent interest in journalism, what did they really have to talk about? She prodded her lamb, which was now so hard it would make a better missile than a meal.
'Eat up – I'm due back for that meeting soon,' he reminded her briskly.
'Yes, and I really want to return to the dig for another couple of hours.' Kate was nearly at the end of a long piece about an archaeological find on the fells outside Easedale. 'I'm almost done with the Roman settlement. I need to get my teeth into another good story.'
'I think I've left some of mine in that bloody chop,' grumbled Jonathan. He took out his wallet and threw some notes on the table. 'Come on, let's get out of here.'
With relief Kate put her knife and fork down on her almost untouched meal. Following him outside, she heard her stomach rumbling loudly. 'I'm still hungry, dammit!'
Chapter Two
Several streets away, in front of a dilapidated building, Jake Goldman stood with his nose twitching. It was barely noticeable, but he was definitely getting a whiff of ancient cooking fat. Jake wished he had been blessed with a less keen sense of smell. Or that he was rich. Unfortunately he wasn't, so was stuck with making the best of things, which meant this place. It was hard now to conjure up the excitement he had felt when he first saw the advert in Hotel and Caterer. The writer had taken much care to describe the enormous potential. With judicious juggling of tables, there would be enough room for about sixty covers – easily big enough for a young chef running his first restaurant. There was a flat upstairs and even a little courtyard out the back where he could plant herbs, maybe even grow tomatoes. The night before, he'd hardly slept, his brain too busy planning menus, organising his kitchen, hiring staff . . .
But then, when he arrived for the viewing, the estate agent looked nervous, which was always worrying.
'Now, it has suffered a certain amount of neglect over the years, but as you can see, it's in a prime position.' He waved his arm away from the peeling paint, hoping Jake would take in the rolling green fells peering over the rooftops of Easedale like nosy neighbours, instead of looking too closely at the roof. But Jake wasn't having any of it.
'The person who wrote the advert obviously suffers from an excess of imagination,' he said severely.
The agent, who was called Eric, was new to his job. He still suffered from an excess of enthusiasm. 'I think this is a place with possibilities,' he began bravely.
'Oh, shut up,' snapped Jake, who never took any nonsense.
Eric clamped his mouth shut and they both gazed at the building in silence.
A faded sign ann
ounced that this had once been Joe's Eatery, except that some bright spark with a pen had renamed it Joe's Artery. Fittingly, Joe himself had popped his chef's clogs a year ago, no doubt due entirely to the consequences of eating his own food.
Eric opened the door gingerly. A waft of stale air greeted them. The dingy interior was painted mustard brown, to which at least ten years of grease had stuck. Ditto the floor. Jake's shoes made an obscene sucking noise every time he lifted his feet, as if the yellow lino could spot a mug when it saw one and was determined not to let him go.
Also stuck to the floor was an ancient menu, speckled with blobs of brown sauce, like liver spots. The choice was wide – but everything was fried, even the puddings.
Eric cleared his throat, prepared to throw some more, admittedly puny, muscle behind the sell.
'Don't even start,' Jake warned him. 'Even if you had Wordsworth's power with poetry you could not make this place look any better than it really is. Are you a poet?'
Eric shook his head, his Adam's apple bobbing nervously.
'OK then. Just take me to the kitchen,' said Jake.
For a chef, a kitchen is home – a place to cook, obviously, but also a melting pot of hopes, dreams and ambitions. Jake knew his kitchen would witness all he had to offer, from agony to ecstasy. Oh God. He couldn't work here, surely? The walls continued the mustard theme, but only because no one had bothered to clean them for years. In one corner was a dangerous-looking contraption that might well have been the first microwave ever made. Welded to the opposite wall was a deep-fat fryer – a fryer so nasty it must have been chucked straight out of hell. Jake peered in and shuddered. It was still full of something – possibly engine oil, from the colour. The cooker next to it was so old, it looked like it needed a bus pass and was obviously a complete stranger to Flash, and the few kitchen cupboards were each precariously clinging onto the wall by one nail. There was a scurrying of tiny feet on lino when Jake opened the door to the dry goods larder. On the floor was a giant sack of powdered soup mix. Jake hissed in horror. He was almost more disgusted by this than by the mice.