But that wasn’t even counting all the salads, muffins, scones, soups, and breads they had to make for their regular customers. Libby shook her head. It looked as if she and Bernie were going to be working through the night.
They’d have to finish up everything that needed to be done, because Amber and Googie certainly weren’t going to, although Amber had promised she’d get a head start on tomorrow’s soups. Maybe she could pay Amber and Googie to stay up and help her. Or maybe she could cajole Marvin into helping, even though the thought of Marvin in the kitchen was enough to make her shudder. I must have been nuts to agree to this, Libby told herself. Her mother never would have. She would have just faced Bree down.
So what if they lost Bree’s business? Big deal. So they’d tighten their belts a little. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t done before. At least she wouldn’t be making a fool of herself for everyone in the country to see.
Which included her dad. And Clyde. And Rob. And Brandon and the guys down in R.J.'s. And Marvin. Probably even Marvin’s dad was watching. She’d never be able to show her face again. Then Libby realized that Eric was talking. It would probably be good if she listened, she decided as she tried to focus on what he was saying.
She watched Eric rub his hands together as he stood in the center of the room in front of one of the Viking stoves.
“Okay, all you people out there,” he said. “Welcome to the Hortense Calabash Show. Today, in fact all this week, we have something special planned for you. Unfortunately, Hortense can’t be with you this week. She wanted to; in fact, she was dying to, but an unforeseen medical emergency has arisen that she’s been forced to contend with.”
That’s one way of putting it, Libby thought again as Eric repeated the same line that he had earlier in the day.
Eric kept rubbing his hands. “So I guess you’ll have to put up with me and my cohosts instead,” he continued.
As Libby watched him, she realized that Eric looked different somehow. It wasn’t the clothes, although that helped. Or the new haircut and glasses. So what was it? A moment later, Libby had the answer.
It was Eric’s posture. Eric was standing up straighter. He looked more self-assured. As if removing Hortense from his life had given him his confidence back, Libby mused. Judging from what she’d seen of Eric and Hortense together, it probably had had that effect, Libby decided. Was that reason enough to kill someone? Sounded like it could be to her.
Eric smiled.
Libby decided he needed to get his teeth whitened.
“But don’t worry,” he intoned. “Hortense made out the list herself and I’m checking it twice.” He stopped for a moment. “Get it. Checking it twice. Naughty or nice? No? Just a little Christmas humor, folks. But be assured I am following Hortense’s list to the letter.”
The list, Libby thought. She’d forgotten about the list. As far as she knew, no one had found it yet. Then she noticed that Estes was frantically drawing the flat of his hand against his throat. Libby looked at the teleprompter. Nope. Eric’s last comments weren’t there.
Obviously, Estes wanted Eric to keep to the script. Or maybe he just didn’t like what he was saying. She brought her attention back to Eric. She could tell from the way he was standing that he’d gone back to reading from the teleprompter again.
Eric smoothed down his tie.
“I bet all of you out there in TVland want to know what our special ingredient is.” He paused for a moment for dramatic effect. “Well, our special ingredient for today is”—another long pause—"venison.”
“Venison?” Libby repeated out loud.
Eric shot her a dirty look. “That’s what I just said,” he told her.
“Oh my god,” Libby mumbled as Eric continued reading off the teleprompter. “I am so screwed.”
Chapter 20
Libby tried to focus on Eric as she found herself wondering what Hortense would think of Eric’s performance. Not much, she was willing to wager. Whatever you could say about Hortense, she’d had presence. Which Eric did not. She turned her attention back to him.
“Venison was a staple of our forebears,” Eric was saying. “Many people still make use of it today in this world of prepackaged food. It is also known as deer meat, although the term is sometimes applied to elk, moose, buffalo, and caribou as well.
“The game we are using comes from the white-tailed or Virginian deer, the species most commonly hunted in the United States.” Eric drew a breath and continued. “Deer has always played an important role in the human diet, as archaeological evidence shows. In fact, in many societies it has been the primary protein source.”
Libby looked at Eric. He was still reading off the teleprompter, still giving everyone a lecture on deer as a food source. The lecture sounded just like one of Bernie’s, Libby couldn’t help thinking. The way he was talking made it sound as if everyone ate the stuff. But she’d never cooked venison in her life, let alone eaten it, and she was willing to wager her sister hadn’t either.
Eating Bambi just wasn’t an appetizing idea to either one of them. She remembered when her father had gotten some venison steaks from Clyde, and her mother had refused to let him bring them in the house.
“It’s barbaric,” her mother had said.
“It’s life,” her father had replied.
“Not in my kitchen it isn’t,” her mother had retorted, and that had been that.
Libby’s only consolation was that Reginald Palmer wasn’t looking too happy at this moment. Maybe he didn’t know much about cooking game either. That gave her a little hope. Not much, but a little.
She’d thought that Eric would choose something like partridge or quail or wild turkey or even that old chestnut, a goose. She thought he’d choose something Christmasy. Or literary like Hortense would have done. Maybe something out of The Twelve Days of Christmas. Something like a partridge for a partridge in a pear tree. Or a goose out of Dickens’ Christmas Carol. She’d been ready for those. She wasn’t ready for Little House on the Prairie.
As she and Bernie moved to their cooking station, Libby’s mind was whirling, trying to remember what she knew about venison. Libby turned to her sister. She was about to say, “Tell me you’ve cooked this before,” when she remembered they were miked. She coughed instead.
Bernie looked at her and raised an eyebrow. Libby nodded toward the mike. Bernie covered hers up. Libby did the same.
“What do you know about venison?” she whispered.
“It has no fat,” Bernie told her.
Libby noticed she was being careful to keep her voice down too.
“Which means it gets tough.”
Libby was just about to add something about the meat getting dry when she realized that Eric was walking in their direction. Great, she thought as he reached them. The next thing she knew, he was standing between them.
“Well,” he said as he, in Libby’s opinion, shamelessly mugged for the camera. “Here we have the two Simmons sisters, the movers behind A Little Taste of Heaven.”
Libby forced herself to smile.
“What are you gals planning?” Eric boomed. “Can you give us a hint?”
Libby froze. Hortense had never done anything like this. Libby felt as if she was on one of those pregame spots, the kind before the football game, where the announcer goes, “So, coach, what’s the game plan?” and sticks the mike in his face.
Eric leaned in closer to Libby.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “Give us a hint.”
What should she say? She didn’t have a game plan. She didn’t have anything. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words were coming out of her mouth. This was even worse than she thought it would be. She could feel her stomach clenching. Everyone there, all the guys in the camera crew were watching her. Those cameras were like big eyes, staring at her. She looked at the clock on the studio wall. It felt as if a half hour had gone by. She couldn’t believe it was only thirty seconds. She felt as if she wanted to sink through the floor.
/> Libby, focus, she told herself.
She was just about to say something when Bernie stepped in.
“Well, Eric,” she said, using her best TV voice, “as you know, venison tends to be on the dry side, so the usual preparation for this kind of meat is to grind it up and make it into sausage or marinate it or braise it.”
Eric nodded. “But both of those take time,” he pointed out.
Libby almost expected him to say, “Back to you, Chet.”
“Yes, they do, Eric,” Bernie replied.
From the tone of her voice, Libby wouldn’t have been surprised if her sister slapped Eric on the back.
“I guess that’s a problem my sister and I will have to solve,” she said.
Eric raised his eyebrows. “And how are you going to do that?”
Bernie gave out a girlish little chuckle. “Now that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” And she reached over and chucked him under the chin.
Libby started to smile as she watched Eric freeze. He obviously hadn’t expected Bernie to do that. But a moment later he had himself in hand.
“Well, good luck,” Eric said to both of them, and he moved off to talk to Reginald.
“You okay?” Bernie mouthed.
Libby nodded. She’d regained her equilibrium. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
“I know how we can marinate the meat if we need to.” The idea had come to her while Bernie and Eric had been talking.
“How?” Bernie asked.
“We can heat it in the marinade and let it sit. That’ll speed up the process.”
She’d done it last week with coq au vin, when she’d forgotten to marinate the chicken. She had to say, the dish had turned out pretty well.
“Very good,” Bernie said. “We’re going to kick ass,” she whispered in Libby ear.
“I hope so,” Libby replied while she looked down to see what else they’d been given to work with.
In no particular order they had cranberries, dried chestnuts, leeks, potatoes, red wine, walnuts, endive, fennel, chicken broth, three oranges, eggs, sugar, butter, fresh thyme, oregano, sage, salt and pepper, pork fat, a bar of dark chocolate, and a pint of milk.
Libby half listened as Eric went through and named each ingredient for the audience. He pointed to the clock on the wall.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he read off the prompter, “our contestants have one hour to make a three-or four-course Christmas dinner. The special ingredient must be used in at least two of those dishes.” He turned to Libby, Bernie, and Reginald. “Are you ready?”
Reginald and Bernie nodded.
Eric nodded back.
Libby could feel her heart thumping in her chest.
“Good,” Eric said. “On your mark, get set, go.”
Libby took a deep breath and focused on the ingredients on the table.
“What do you think?” Bernie said.
“I think we should shoot ourselves now.”
“Besides that,” Bernie said.
Libby closed her eyes and opened them.
“Okay.” Suddenly, her mind wasn’t blank anymore. She didn’t know how or where the ideas were coming from, but they were there. “How about we do a composed salad. We’ll oven roast the endive and fennel and use that as a base; then we’ll layer it with thin quick-seared slices of venison, and finish it off with a sprinkling of chopped glazed walnuts and a drizzle of a red wine reduction.”
Bernie bit her lip.
“I’m a little worried about the rare venison part. It might be a little gamey if it’s rare.”
Libby realized she was picking on her nails again and stopped. “So what would you suggest?”
“That we grind up the meat with the pork fat and make it into sausage instead.”
“We don’t have any casings.”
“We could use endive leaves.”
Libby thought it over. “I like the idea, but I don’t think the presentation is going to look very nice,” she concluded. “And in this case, presentation is half the battle.”
Bernie was silent for a moment. Then she said, “You’re probably right. How about if we scatter a few strips of orange zest over the venison? That should help balance off the taste.”
Libby nodded. That would work.
Bernie moved her ring up and down her finger. “The salad reminds me of a seared duck breast salad.”
“Exactly,” Libby said. She looked at the clock. Two minutes had already gone by since Eric had announced they were starting. They couldn’t afford to waste much more time planning. “And then for the main course,” she said, thinking out loud, “we could cut the venison up into small chunks, lard the cubes with the pork fat, and marinate them in the red wine, sage, oregano, and thyme.
“After which we could sauté them quickly and let them finish cooking with the presoaked chestnuts in the wine and the chicken broth.”
“Chestnuts usually take an hour and a half of soaking to soften,” Bernie said.
“Not if we presoak them in hot water and break them into smaller pieces. Then we’ll cook down the liquid almost to a glaze consistency.”
Bernie was nodding her head. Libby could tell she was liking her ideas.
“Let’s add some small rounds of sautéed potatoes and some braised leeks to finish the dish,” Bernie added.
Libby drummed her fingers on the table. They needed something for color contrast. They’d already used the orange zest, so that was a no-go.
“How about we fry some sage leaves and use that as a topping?”
After all, the Thai used fried cinnamon leaves as a topping on their food all the time.
“I like it,” Bernie said. “I like it a lot. We could use chestnuts for dessert.”
“Except we’ve already used them in the venison,” Libby reminded her.
“So what? We can use ingredients more than once.”
“True, but let’s do this instead.” And Libby explained what she had in mind. “I’m thinking we should do something with the cranberries. We can make a compote with the cranberries, oranges, and sugar and serve that over a custard flavored with fennel seeds and—”
“Chocolate.”
“Chocolate curls,” Libby said “Large chocolate curls. We’ll use them the way we’d use rolled cookies.”
Bernie nodded her approval.
Another good thing about the chocolate rolls, from Libby’s point of view, was that they didn’t take long to make, and they always impressed people. Suddenly Libby realized that she wasn’t nervous anymore. She was too busy thinking about what order she and Bernie had to do things in, or as Julia would have put it, she was busy planning her order of battle.
Okay. First they had to cut up the venison, lard it, and get it in its marinade and heat it up, after which they had to break up the chestnuts and put them to soak. Then they had to prep the leeks and the fennel and pop them in the oven.
After that, they had to peel the potatoes and make the custard, because the custard had to cool. Next they’d do the cranberries, then they’d melt the chocolate and spread it out on a layer of wax paper to harden. Then she’d use a vegetable peeler to make it into curls.
Libby closed her eyes and rested her fingers on her temples as she tried to picture how everything fit together. She just hoped they had enough burners. She thought for a moment.
Yes, they did. Of course, she could always bake the custard. But that would mean they’d have to go in the oven now, and she wanted the temperature on high, high for roasting the fennel and the leeks. No, she decided, she’d do better sticking to her original plan and make the custard on top of the stove. It was safer that way.
Libby turned on the oven.
“Do you think we need a fourth dish?” Bernie asked as she started cutting up the venison into cubes and slices.
“No,” Libby said. “I think we’ll be fine with what we’ve got.”
And she meant it too. For the first time since she’d stepped into the studio, she f
elt like she was in control.
Chapter 21
Sean looked around R.J.'s before settling back between Rob, Marvin, and Clyde. Originally the three of them had suggested sitting in a booth. Even though they denied it, he knew it was because they thought it would be easier on him.
But he was damned if he wasn’t going to hunker down at the bar like he used to, damned if he wouldn’t walk in here under his own power instead of in a wheelchair. Even if he did walk slow, even if it did take him a while to get where he was going. Otherwise, what was the point?
This was the first time he’d set foot in the bar since he’d gotten sick, and it felt good. It felt real good. It felt good to be out of his room. It felt good to be back. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the place.
How he’d missed the peanut shells on the floor and the dart games and the pool table and the tacky holiday decorations and the people chatting each other up and the smells of frying food and beer. He’d spent many a Friday night happy hour here talking with his buddies when he got off duty. He’d even tried to get Rose to come join them, but she’d always refused. Called it his time with the guys. Said she wasn’t going to interfere with that. He shook his head. That woman had a lot of good sense. It would be hard to find another one like her. In fact, he was fairly certain he couldn’t. Not that he was interested. Not that he was looking. He had his girls and that was enough for him.
Sean decided he was glad Clyde had prevailed. Clyde had been right. Clyde was right about a lot of things. Heaven knows, if he’d listened to him a little more closely he might still have his job. Or maybe not. With political firestorms you never knew which way the flames were going to go.
But this one thing he was sure about. It was definitely better watching the Hortense Calabash Show on a big, high-def screen with a group of guys than it was watching it at home alone. Normally the TV at R.J.'s would be set on a sports or news channel, but not tonight. Tonight everyone was watching his daughters, Libby and Bernie, cooking. It was an amazing world they were living in.
It was too bad Rose couldn’t see it as well, Sean thought as he watched Rob take a sip of his beer.
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