In the big, warm farmhouse kitchen, Patty handed Baskia a ruffled apron. “So you want to learn how to cook?”
“And bake.”
“I like that idea,” Patty said. “Let’s see. Is there anything you want to start with? Any particular dish? My pantry is well stocked, so we could do a cordon bleu or a roast. I’ve been dying for a good marinara. What’ll it be?”
“I was hoping to start with the basics. Maybe scrambled eggs?”
Patty, completely at ease in the kitchen, eyed Baskia. “Do you know what the signature of a good cook is?”
“Um. No.”
“Fearlessness. Don’t be afraid of the pan, or the cutting board, and least of all don’t fear your ingredients. We’ll make your scrambled eggs, but they’ll be the best damn scrambled eggs this kitchen has ever seen.”
Patty sat her ample behind on a chair and pulled on a pair of well-worn boots. Then she slipped on her jacket.
“Where are you going?” Baskia asked, hurrying out the door after her.
“To get the eggs of course.”
They rounded the side of the farmhouse, away from the driveway, stepping carefully on the icy path. Patty pulled open the barn door and they stepped onto the dirt floor. Slivers of light beamed through the planks. Patty flipped on a light switch and dim bulbs guided them deeper into the building.
“This is the old barn, it used to seem warm even in the winter, but that was before.” Patty pulled open a door and ushered Baskia inside. “Hello girls,” she cooed. “And how are you today? Don’t worry. I’m not making any soup. I just came for some eggs.”
Baskia gulped, recalling the chicken soup that had indeed fed her soul. She watched as Patty bravely stuck her hand into the wooden nesting boxes, plucking brown eggs from the straw.
“Go ahead. Don’t be afraid. I’ll send some home with you so you can do it on your own tomorrow. Don’t worry. They won’t bite. Well, Poppy over there might peck, but the others are friendly. Aren’t you girls?” Patty said, doting on the birds.
Baskia hesitantly reached her hand toward a dark box, hoping it landed on an egg and not a beak or anything slimy and wet
“What’s the signature of a good cook?” Patty asked, continuing to collect eggs.
“Fearlessness.” Baskia’s fingers found a warm, round object. She carefully pulled it out, admiring its speckled surface. “Wow.”
Patty smiled, and they went back to the farmhouse. “Now we get to work.”
Patty instructed Baskia in cracking, whisking, and scrambling. “Now, I don’t know about you, but my scrambled eggs require cheese and fresh pepper.” She grated a brick of cheddar and then sprinkled it on top followed by pepper. “And how about some homemade whole wheat? I churned the butter myself. Don’t look so surprised,” she said, catching Baskia’s dubious expression. “This is a farm, and I am a farmer.”
“I didn’t know people still baked bread and churned butter.”
“Not enough people do, but I say if you’re going to do it right, do it yourself. So what do you think? I say we couldn’t have done any better. These eggs are perfect,” she said, taking a bite.
Baskia agreed. “So tomorrow—”
Patty handed her a carton of eggs. “Tomorrow, you do it on your own: practice, practice, practice. Wednesday, come back, and we’ll make another dish, anything you want.”
“How about the bread?”
“Now that’s the spirit.”
Baskia returned to Patty’s house and while they waited for the bread to rise, they went through old photo albums, pictures of the farm in its heyday, Patty’s large family, and of course all the birthday cakes.
“When’s your birthday?” Patty asked.
“March twenty-first.”
“The first day of spring, right? Auspicious.”
As the bread baked and Patty rested her feet, Baskia thought about spring and new beginnings, wondering just where she’d find herself in a few months. She was happy exactly where she was, but the future pulled on her, duteously, in the exact pitch of her mother’s voice. Baskia glanced over at Patty, her eyes closed, hands resting on her belly. She was fearless in the kitchen and on the farm. She was a mother who wasn’t afraid to love her children; whatever their futures might be and however far away from her that might take them.
The next day, Baskia attempted to replicate the bread, but pulled a brick out of the oven at the end of an hour. She rolled up her sleeves and tried again, recalling exactly what Patty had showed her, how she drew the heel of her hand back as she’d kneaded, how she left it covered with a damp cloth to rise, and then punched it down before setting it on the stone in the center of the oven. “Be fearless, Baskia,” she told herself.
While she left the second loaf to rise and then bake, she browsed cooking blogs, trying to figure out what their next dish would be; she wasn’t interested in churning butter. When the oven timer dinged, a perfectly shaped loaf came out of the oven. The crust was golden, and after letting it cool, the inner dough bounced back, springy.
Baskia cheered at her success, dancing around the kitchen, clutching the loaf to her chest. Instead of taking a photo with her phone, she pulled out her digital camera, arranged the bread artfully on the table, and snapped away. She laughed at her own role as a model and now behind the camera, with the loaf of bread as her subject.
That night, multitasking, as she dipped a slice of her successful baking attempt into the canned soup she’d warmed, and browsing food photos, she waffled between learning how to make pesto or brownies. Then Baskia had a flash of an idea: what if she documented her attempt to learn how to cook on her own blog? She had her first fails recorded on her phone, and then the successful eggs and bread. She clicked the keys on the computer, searching for how to start a blog. She’d read so many, she reasoned it couldn’t be that difficult.
As the evening turned into night, Baskia referenced how-to guides, figured out how to upload photos, write posts, and publish.
Bubbling with excitement, she toted her laptop to Patty’s the next day. She explained her idea, showing Patty what a blog was. The first post on Feed Me: A Model’s Kitchen Education, was scrambled eggs.
“Most people know how to make scrambled eggs. It’s simple.”
Baskia gave her a look. “It’s not that simple. And considering I’m part of the collective ‘most people,’ I’d argue that no, not everyone knows how to scramble an egg. Plus, those eggs came from your birds, my outstanding whisking ability, and woman, they were indeed, damn good.”
Patty clapped her hands together and laughed. “I suppose you have a point. Do you think anyone will actually look at, what did you call it, a blob?”
“Blog. With a G. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads it or not. I want to do it to hold myself accountable. By keeping an online log of the dishes I make, including the recipes—if you allow me to share them—and the photos, I can keep a record of my progress. I’ll basically have my own cookbook to refer to whenever I want to make something.”
Patty wrung her hands together, asking a dozen questions, but finally agreed. They spent the next weeks preparing everything from savory tarts, to pizza, from soup to salsa, and cookies, cake, and pies. Baskia ordered a treadmill and had it assembled in the basement, to keep from losing her model form with all the delicious food she’d been enjoying. Exercising outside, in the cold, was out of the question.
One afternoon, while they rolled out sheets for making homemade tagliatelle pasta, Patty asked, “Do you know what the signature of a good cook is?”
“Being fearless,” Baskia answered proudly.
“Yes, but what else?” She left Baskia to think, while she plucked basil leaves from the container of herbs on the windowsill. “Chiffonade,” she instructed, passing Baskia the basil and taking up the sheet of pasta dough.
“Chiffa-what?”
Patty showed her how to fold the leaves and slice them into ribbons. “The signature of a good cook is making sure to add love to ev
ery dish. It’s in the small things, the details, that we show our affections. I could have just told you to tear the basil into chunks and toss it in. But the chiffonade adds that extra special something.”
Baskia nodded, stirring the basil into the sauce. Wearing the ruffled apron, dusted with white flour, the smell of garlic and tomatoes wafting up to her nose, and in the cheerful company of Patty, nostalgia for something she’d never had with her own mother, bubbled to the corners of her eyes. She looked away, through the window, and spotted Wes pull up. “Looks like we have company.”
“Perfect. There’s plenty to share.”
The three of them dug into the pasta with homemade sauce that night. Patty insisted they sprinkle fresh parmesan on top. Over a bottle of sparkling cider, which Patty had produced from the back of her pantry, they laughed over stories of pranks her sons used to pull when it was time to do the dishes. “This housed used to be so full of—” She broke into a smile. “I suppose it still is.”
Wes walked Baskia out to her car. She cautiously picked her way over the icy driveway with the pasta-making machine in her arms.
“Thanks for dinner. You’re turning into quite the foodie,” he said.
“It’s all thanks to Patty. I get to do again tomorrow.” She explained her trials at home, fretting over how she was possibly going to remember how to work the pasta machine. “But I’m holding myself to it.” She told him about the blog. And how in just the few short weeks she’d been keeping it, she’d received positive comments and encouragement from a host of readers.
“Anytime you need a taste tester, I’m your man. Sometimes I wish I could cook.”
He parted his lips as if to say something more, but then he closed them again.
“Everyone should have one dish they do well. My house tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be the same thing as tonight, but we’ll start from scratch. I’ll teach you.”
^^^
The next day, while updating her blog, answering comments, and editing pictures, Baskia reflected on how her life as a fashion model and interest in photography had turned into a passion for photos of food. Her mouth watered over a juicy burger, the crisp lettuce, the plump bun, and the homemade French fries on the side. She burst out laughing at how the “food porn,” got her excited. Then she thought of Trace, the memory of him lingering, somehow still fresh, in the cabin. She hoped he’d show up any day; it’d been almost a month.
When Wes arrived the next day, they started with the pasta dough. “So, tell me, what got you suddenly interested in cooking. I mean, I saw your cart at the market, you were a yogurt and cereal kind of gal.”
“It was New Year’s,” she started and then blanched, worried about what that might mean to him since they hadn’t even discussed that dreadfully eventful night.
“Yeah, about that.”
“I’m sorry if I said more than I should have. My friend Mellie, she lost her mom recently too and…”
Wes nodded as if he understood, as if he wasn’t mad.
“And Patty, her daughter. You…” Baskia spoke carefully, not sure how to, delicately, explain the commonalities of their losses.
“I talked with Mellie later that night. Gigi was dancing with your brother, and we slipped outside.”
Baskia raised an eyebrow.
“We just talked. She’s really nice.”
“Yeah,” she said vaguely as jealousy, like a napping dragon, woke within her. “Go back to sleep.”
“Huh?” Wes asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Baskia said, realizing she’d spoken aloud. She liked Wes, they were friends, but the old competitiveness for guys reared up, as if they were limited commodities. As far as she was concerned, there was Trace and only Trace. She’d know if they had a future together after she was sure of her future. And of course, if he returned.
After the pasta and sauce had been prepared, Baskia arranged shots, getting good angles, and snapping photos. “Just one more,” she said, when Wes looked like he might faint if he didn’t take a bite. She rushed downstairs and pulled out a bottle of wine then grabbed the late Christmas present she’d been meaning to give him.
“I know you don’t typically drink, but a pasta dish like this is incomplete without a good glass of wine. You’re welcome to sleep on the couch if you don’t want to drive. Also, this is for you.” She passed him the book on architecture that she’d wished she had at Christmastime. She used red paper with jingle bells. “Better late than never. I hope you don’t already have it.”
After he unwrapped it, his eyes lit up at the glossy images on the page as he leafed through. “This is perfect, thank you.”
Wes sipped his wine while Baskia polished off her glass. She laughed at her newly acquired interest in food photography. They laughed easily and Baskia hardly remembered the awkwardness present the first few times they’d hung out.
“Pretty damn good,” Wes said, between bites, twirling the noodles onto his fork.
“Not too shabby. And now, whenever you need to impress, you can whip up some homemade pasta and red sauce.”
“I might let the box at the store make the pasta for me, but I’m officially qualified in the marinara department. So, uh, does Mellie like pasta dishes?”
Baskia’s lips parted in a smile. “Yes, but Mexican is her favorite.”
Later, she flipped open the laptop showing Wes some of the previous dishes Patty had her prepare.
“Oh and see this, chili and guacamole, as delicate and polite as Mellie looks, she’d rob your grandmother to get her hands on this. But she’d never admit it.” Baskia laughed.
“Why?”
“It’s complicated, money is involved, family legacies…Mexican food, pizza, mac-n-cheese, don’t fit into the equation.”
Wes’s forehead furrowed with confusion.
“Never mind. We should just like what we like, right? I miss her sometimes.”
“Back on New Year’s Eve, I told her about my sister,” Wes said suddenly. “Mellie said she’d visit, we could go see her together. But she hasn’t called. It just gets harder and harder to go there. I believed, for sure, she’d wake up by now. She doesn’t even know—” Wes’s voice cracked.
Baskia longed to make it easier for him, to turn back the hands of time and make it so tragedy never happened, so he wouldn’t have to endure so much pain, so he could be free again.
“She doesn’t even know they’re gone.” He shuddered.
Baskia didn’t know what to say other than, “I’ll go with you. This weekend, we’ll visit her together.”
Wes downed his glass of wine. “Has Mellie said anything about me?”
“To tell you the truth, I haven’t spoken to her. I haven’t been a very good friend. I got caught up in my modeling career and—” She confessed about how she’d checked out when Mellie needed her most and resented that she’d sought out comfort in Anne. “I’ve been selfish, and I’m so sorry.”
“Maybe you should tell her that.”
Baskia nodded, wanting more than anything to make it right. “And then there’s London. She’s just so confused, lost, and not only because her mom died. It’s like she hasn’t even noticed that she’s still alive. We were good friends, and now that I’ve been away from all the drama, I’ve gained perspective. It’s not like I’m trying to tell anyone how to run their life, but I just don’t want to see anything bad happen.”
After they discussed London, he poured another glass of wine. “I have a confession.”
Though her body was tired and full from all the pasta, and her mind floated on a red cloud of Merlot, she sat up to listen, he had, after all, counseled her on her mucked up friendships.
A shy smile quirked on his lips. “I’m a virgin.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Choking on the sip of wine was the only thing that saved Baskia from bursting with laughter. “That was the last thing I expected you say. I thought you were going to tell me how you have a crush on Mellie.”
“That too.�
� He nodded at the glass of wine. “Liquid courage.” He looked closely at her then. “When we first met, I thought you were so pretty. This town and everyone in it, me included, had never seen anyone like you, Baskia. I could hardly speak, never mind think straight, when we were together. And then I realized I’m just this kid, broken by experience, but not experienced enough.”
His choice of words brought Trace to mind. She worried he might appear, how would she explain their lavish Italian dinner and the wine? It was jumbling up her feelings, calling forth loneliness, and telling her the solution sat in front of her. But no, there wasn’t that kind of chemistry between her and Wes. They were friends. Nevertheless, she leaned in, studying him, double-checking for that spark she felt with Trace, the electricity buzzing just under her skin when they were near each other. All she felt was quiet.
Wes’s voice brought her back into focus. “—I realized some people are better off as friends. I know you have a thing with that Trace guy. It was confusing when he was here and we went out to dinner. I thought maybe you were using me to make him jealous—” He coughed. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” He stopped then and broke out into a laugh. “I probably shouldn’t drink anymore.” He pushed the wine away.
“No, it wasn’t like that. Not really. I can’t explain him and me. It’s like balsamic vinegar and oil. We don’t go together and yet we match perfectly. But I didn’t sequester myself here in Siberia to mess around with guys. I’ve—” She was going to say that she’d done enough of that back in Manhattan, to last a lifetime. Instead, she saw how the strands of her purpose in the north were interwoven, maybe part of her mission was as much to figure out herself as an independent woman, as it was to figure out herself in relationship, both with friends and romantically. “Never mind. About you and Mellie…”
They chatted a while longer, Wes shyly asking questions about Mellie, some Baskia could answer, others, she realized, she didn’t know, especially after they’d drifted apart.
“I better crash. I have to get up early,” he said when the fire was nothing more than embers.
On the Mountain (Follow your Bliss #5) Page 19