Recipe for Disaster

by Miriam Morrison

  Use only the best ingredients.

  Rule through terror.

  He walked behind his staff, silent as a peckish panther. They quaked in their clogs.

  Now his gaze came to rest on the pastry chef, who was trying to make exquisitely tiny lemon tarts, but his hand was shaking so much it slipped and the mixture blobbed onto the work surface. Harry slammed his fist on the counter so hard everyone thought their fillings would fall out. 'What's the matter – got Parkinson's disease?' he enquired nastily.

  'Yes, Chef. I mean, no, Chef,' stuttered the poor man.

  A commis was making a sauce to go with that night's fillet steak. The recipe had been scalded into his brain the week before. In this kitchen you followed the boss's orders down to the last peppercorn. There was no room here for hesitation, deviation or imagination.

  Infuriatingly, he was getting it right. Harry's eyes snapped like an angry bull. He knew he would only feel better when he had head-butted someone.

  He picked up a bread roll fresh from the oven and bit into it. He chewed in silence, then grabbed the baker by the scruff of his neck and spat it out, hitting him on the nose. 'This tastes like a dog turd, you tosser – start again.' He tossed the rest of the bread, including the tray, into the bin and stalked out.

  Behind him, everyone stroked their knives lovingly, thinking about where they would like to put them.

  Feeling marginally better, Harry rang for coffee and settled down to the latest edition of Hotel and Caterer. He scanned the jobs column first but no one was prepared to match the extortionate sum he had managed to screw out of Mr Thomas. Then he flicked back to 'Table Talk', the gossip column. There was often something about him there.

  Blah, blah, blah, stuff about yet another chef who was making a television series. His lips curled in scorn at people who were prepared to prostitute their talent like that. What was even more annoying was that no one had approached him with a similar offer. He was far more photogenic than this guy, and a better cook. Harry came to the conclusion that it was just because the man was married to some B-list celebrity who was in that idiotic soap Country Matters. When she got written out, she'd probably never find another job in television.

  His eyes flicked restlessly down the page.

  Word at the stove has it that gastronomes are pulling on their wellies and hiking to the country. The Pied Piper responsible for this exodus is Jake Goldman, who until recently was wowing palates at Brie. Unfortunately, the Jubilee Line doesn't go as far as his new restaurant, Cuisine, which is way up north in a little town called Easedale. Now you've probably not heard of it yet, but we reckon it will soon become as well known as Bray. We ate there last week and have only one thing to say – sublime. Jake has had a very mixed career but . . .

  but Harry couldn't bear to read on.

  There was a bellow of rage so loud the pastry chef quit on the spot.

  Harry flung his cup against the wall, his heart as black and bitter as the tepid coffee dripping down next month's staff rota.

  'The bastard! The slimy piece of shit! The . . .' Expletives failed him. He was so incandescent with fury he could practically feel his hair sizzling.

  Harry only had to hear Jake's name and he was right back at the time of his greatest (well, only) humiliation. So much time had passed, yet he could still remember what it had felt like to come second. It was like a chronic disease – it was never going to get any better. Whatever he did to Jake, the bastard was going to bounce back, like some indestructible jack-in-the-box. Now, to add insult to injury, he had had the bloody nerve to bounce right into Harry's home territory! Harry sucked air deep into his lungs to get over the shock.

  Then another thought struck him, even more teeth-grindingly infuriating than the first. Jake was now his own boss. No more kowtowing to someone else's half-baked ideas about fusion bloody cooking for him! He was bound to be stony broke and on the edge of a nervous breakdown, but he was master of his own fate, king of the kitchen. Harry could feel his veins flooding with corrosive envy. He might be able to make his staff pee in their pants with terror, but he was still at the mercy of his boss's curdled ideas about cooking.

  He sat quietly, forcing himself to let the rage seep away so he could think more clearly. He thought affectionately of his aunt Agnes, not because he loved her, but because the old boot had died last month and left him a wad of money. This had been earmarked for a Porsche, but maybe there were more imaginative uses for it?

  He smiled to himself. What Jake could do, he could certainly do better.

  Chapter Eight

  Kate, lying in bubbles, thought about her story. She had been mulling over it for several weeks, but now, with Jonathan backing her that she was on to something, she could feel the excitement welling up inside her. The first thing to do was get a job as a waitress. Well, that wouldn't be difficult. This town was full of restaurants and it wasn't exactly something you would need a qualification for.

  Eventually hunger forced her out of the bath. Padding into the kitchen of her light airy flat, she peered hopefully into her fridge. Oh dear. A lot of research would be necessary to convince someone that she knew anything about food. Inside there was a mushroom that had been there so long it had welded itself for ever to the back panel. Next to that was a pack of bacon. Was it the fridge light or was it really giving off a greenish glow? And how long had those eggs been there? Kate was sure there was a method for determining whether eggs were fresh, but she was vague on the details. If they floated in water, were they rotten, or was it the other way round? Really, the only culinary knowledge she possessed was a nodding acquaintance with salmonella.

  Kate toyed with the idea of ordering a pizza, but judging by the stack of takeaway boxes piled up by the bin, she'd had a few too many of those recently. Basically, they were just bread and cheese, weren't they? Surely one needed to supplement one's diet with other food groups occasionally? While flinging on a T-shirt and a skirt, she realised she wanted company as well as dinner, so she rang Lydia.

  Lydia was the editor's secretary and her best friend. Five foot ten inches tall, sometimes blonde and sometimes not, as the mood took her, she drank mostly by the pint and smoked Marlboro Lights by the carton. Lydia often claimed that the only thing she was ever prepared to give up was the belief that men could act like decent human beings. Kate called it tough love, as men tended to swarm to Lydia like lustful lemmings, regardless of how she treated them.

  They had been friends ever since one excruciatingly awful office party, when they got blindingly drunk and discovered a mutual contempt for people who photocopied their own bottoms because they thought it was funny.

  Lydia was also the newspaper's agony aunt, a job no one else in the office was prepared to take on, on the grounds that it wasn't proper journalism and therefore beneath them. Lydia said this wasn't a problem: 'If being a proper journalist means I have to look like you, you scruffy lot, then I'm delighted to be counted out.' She wrote extremely well, with great imagination and verve, which was because she made up most of the queries.

  'Honestly, darling, what would you rather read over your morning cuppa – boring crap about how to get a stain out of a tea towel or the really thrilling life history of a transvestite farmer who insists on feeding the cows while wearing his wife's knickers?'

  'Put like that . . .' giggled Kate, then became serious. 'Honestly, I know you think us hacks are a scruffy bunch, but with your talent you should really think about giving up being a secretary and taking up writing for a living.'

  'What, and have to go to work at weekends? You must be joking,' retorted Lydia, who maintained she needed regular days off to have her nails done and indulge in some abuse of men.

  Now Lydia picked up the phone on the third ring.

  'I'm not disturbing you doing anything important, like housework, for instance?' asked Kate, and they both snorted with laughter. Lydia was always stunningly turned out, while her flat looked like the scene of a burglary. Kate maintained that if som
eone ever did break in, it would take them so long to find anything, there would be ample time to call the police.

  'How the hell do you live like this?' she asked, the first time she had gone back there.

  'Well, if it gets too bad I just take out my contact lenses.'

  Half an hour later Lydia knocked at Kate's door. She went to answer it with a grin – Lydia's dress sense was always something else.

  Today she was six-inch heels, black footless tights and a top from Topshop that was meant to be knee length but on Lydia skimmed her thighs in a jaw-dropping manner. It was also shocking pink.

  'You are going to clash horribly with my hair,' complained Kate as Lydia followed her through to the sitting room.

  'Oh, for goodness' sake, I keep telling you, life is not about being co-ordinated,' said Lydia, marching in and looking round with great disapproval.

  To anyone else, the flat would seem perfectly pleasant. It had cheerful light blue walls, warm wooden floors and was completely uncluttered, apart from the shelves full of books. Lydia thought it was monastic and that it showed Kate was repressing something vital in her emotional life. 'I see things haven't changed round here. You should really see someone about that. I think you've got issues.'

  'Do you mean that pile of old copies of the Guardian? Seriously, I think you are talking rubbish. I cannot bear mess around me and I certainly can't work in it.'

  'Yes, but life shouldn't be like that, not at our age. There should always be something slightly out of control and dangerous about it,' said Lydia, her eyes gleaming.

  Kate sat down to pull on a pair of boots. Then she checked her freckled nose in the mirror, decided it wasn't too shiny and that she was ready to go out.

  'You know your tights are laddered, don't you?'

  Kate craned her neck to look round and nearly fell over. 'Oh, bother! Well, I can't see it so I'm going to pretend it isn't there. I need a large drink and some food more urgently than a change of clothes.'

  Lydia sighed. 'What really annoys me is the fact that this "I couldn't care less" attitude really suits you. You are far too low-maintenance.'

  'I prefer to maintain myself, actually,' said Kate.

  They walked down the street and into the first bar they found.

  Kate took a huge slug of her wine and said: 'So, whose lives are you interfering with now?'

  Lydia took an envelope and a pair of glasses from her bag.

  'Since when did you opt for glasses over contact lenses?'

  'I haven't. I just like the way these make me look sometimes.'

  'You look like you're getting ready to spank someone.'

  'I know,' said Lydia smugly. 'Anyway, to business. I am thinking about inventing a woman who is having affairs simultaneously with three men. There are so many problems associated with this that I think it could run and run.'

  'How will it end?'

  'Oh, the poor woman will be so drained by what I am going to put her through, she will probably decide she's gay.'

  'And does any reality ever filter through to your problem page?'

  'Funny you should ask. I am just about to reply to a woman who's been having an affair with a married colleague.'

  'Save your ink – it's completely over,' said Kate.

  'I'm thrilled for you, honestly I am. It's not that I don't like Jonathan – actually, I don't really like him, but that's irrelevant – I just think you weren't doing each other any good. How do you feel?'

  Cautiously, Kate prodded her feelings. 'Actually, I feel free,' she said slowly. 'A bit lonely, but not in a bad way. And I think I've got a new project to take my mind off things so that will help.' She told Lydia about the idea for the 'Chefs Uncovered' story, as she was now thinking of it.

  'Brilliant. Chefs are supposed to be very good with their hands, aren't they?' Lydia winked knowingly.

  'Going to bed with a chef is the last thing on my mind at the moment, Lydia,' Kate sighed.

  'Well, it shouldn't be the last thing. Obviously for a career woman and a feminist it shouldn't be the first thing either, but it should always be there, a sort of permanent memo to self – you know, number four on a to-do list: must have a shag.'

  'I'll bear that in mind.'

  'Aim higher this time. Jonathan is a clever man, but you are brighter.'

  'It was a bit of a turn-off to discover that the sole topic of his post-coital conversation was the endlessly fascinating subject of himself,' said Kate ruefully. 'The thing was, I think I was drawn to him because we are both obsessed by our careers. But maybe that was the only thing we had in common.'

  Lydia ordered tequila shots. 'A toast – to a new start!'

  'Toast! That reminds me, I'm starving!'

  'Shut up and drink up. We can eat later.'

  'Come on – let's find somewhere with a menu.'

  Unfortunately the next bar didn't serve food. While Kate was finding this out, Lydia had spotted a karaoke machine and insisted they waited for her turn.

  'But no more shots. I shall stick to wine, so much more sensible,' said Kate.

  They ran into some friends and spent a pleasant hour chatting. Then Lydia got up, put on her glasses, peered down at the microphone and gave the bar her unique interpretation of two Shirley Bassey numbers.

  'That was word perfect!' said Kate when she had sat down to huge applause. 'Not really note perfect, but with your legs, I don't think anyone cared.' For some reason she found this very funny and laughed so hard she started choking.

  'That wasn't your glass of water you've just downed in one, that was wine,' said Lydia.

  'I know!' said Kate, now very drunk. 'Come on, time for a change of scene.'

  They said goodbye to the girls and, as Kate weaved her way between the tables, it occurred to her that she hadn't actually managed to eat anything yet. As an eating companion Lydia was a useless choice. Her idea of a healthy diet was coming home to three gin and tonics and a packet of Twiglets. When she went out for a meal she spent most of her time smoking and eyeing up the waiters. Really, for her, a good restaurant was an ashtray and a man who wore an apron well.

  'I'm in charge of this evening now,' said Kate, staggering as the fresh air collided with her large intake of wine and tequila. 'Now we really have to find a mule . . . I mean, a meal.' Bloody hell! How much had she drunk? She began counting on her fingers, but kept forgetting which drink she was up to. Rather blurrily she began scanning the street. 'Restaurant at ten o'clock – look!' and she grabbed Lydia, who was trying to reapply her lipstick.

  'Oops, sorry. Don't think it's meant to go down your chin.'

  Lydia looked at her sternly. 'Honestly, you are such a lightweight.'

  'I've drunk about half a barrel of grapes on a empty stomach, that's why. Do you think that counts for my five fruit and veg a day? she said, tripping over the kerb. Her boots suddenly felt too big and she started to giggle again.

  The menu outside the restaurant, which was called Cuisine, seemed to be written in a language she wasn't familiar with and the letters just wouldn't stay put on the page.

  'Yum. Dover shole baked with spinach. No, that can't be right, I mean – spole – no . . . oh hell, let's just go in.' They sat down at the bar, or, in Kate's case, tried to. Eventually Lydia managed to hoist her up.

  'Where's the manager? I'd like to make a complaint – his stools are too slippery!'

  The young guy behind the bar said his name was Hans and could he help, but Kate had lost interest and was trying to focus on the menu.

  'My God, it's expensive here!'

  'That's because you are seeing everything, including the prices, in triplicate,' explained Lydia patiently. Her diet of gin and Twiglets had made her fairly resistant to getting drunk.

  Completely cross-eyed now, Kate was trying to read a notice pinned up behind the bar.

  'Giraffe wanted,' she read out laboriously. 'What do they want a giraffe for? They'd have a hell of a job fitting it in the oven, y'know.'

  'Staff. Not giraff
e.' Lydia was becoming aware that Kate, like all drunks, was talking far too loudly and people were glancing their way.

  Kate nodded solemnly. Leaning over the bar, she said in what she clearly thought was a quiet tone: 'Hello, Hansel . . . Gretel . . . oh, whatever. Do you know that your eyes are tiny little pinpricks in your face? I think you had a whopping great joint before coming to work. But why? Is your boss a beast? Does he maintain discipline through the use of a rolling pin? Does he make your life hell?' Automatically, she felt in her pocket for her notebook.

  'No. I save all that for idiotic customers,' said an icy voice behind her.

  Kate swivelled round, a bad move. A glass skittered onto the floor and she lost her balance. But just before the ground rushed up to make contact with her nose, the man grabbed her and hoisted her upright. For a minute, their faces were so close she could have kissed him. Wanted to, she decided. OK, his eyes were looking absolutely furious at this moment, but they were very nice eyes, even though they were shadowed with tiredness. Furious, but gorgeous – a dazzling combination. Oh God, she hadn't said that out loud, had she?

  'Are you going to go quietly, or do I have to shove you?' said the man, looking as if he would much prefer to do the latter.

  Kate grabbed Lydia's arm and said, 'Please.'

  'Absolutely,' said Lydia, who completely understood this to mean, roughly: I am as drunk as a skunk – get me out of here, now!

  'Thank you so much . . . delightful menu . . . wonderful ambience . . . will certainly be back. Or not, whichever you prefer . . . I mean, it's absolutely up to you,' she mumbled as she was dragged out.

  Lydia's arm wasn't enough, so she clasped the nearest lamppost with fervour. 'I feel sick. Too much drink and lusht – sorry, mean lust. He was stern but sexy. I like men like that. Don't you agree? Why is that, then?'

  'Tell you what, I'll come round and tell you tomorrow. It will take your mind off the fact that you've got your head down the loo.'

  Chapter Nine