Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [16]
Nothing soothed Miranda’s frazzled nerves like having a clear, step-by-step plan laid out.
She took another bite of cinnamon roll, and this time it went down easily, sugary icing and dark spice bursting over her tongue.
Yes, she thought with deep satisfaction. Everything is coming together.
FIVE
Nothing is coming together!” Adam yelled.
The skeleton kitchen crew dashed around him. It was just section leaders today, the main guys from grill, sauté, garde-manger, and pastry, plus Adam and Frankie, all cooking feverishly side by side as they attempted to finalize the menu for opening night.
And nothing was working. The custom-made, heinously expensive wood-burning grill was turning out fillet that tasted like the charred ends of cigarettes, the sauce for the rabbit rillettes kept separating, the vinaigrette for the endive salad was boring and flat, while the rosemary and olive oil flatbread wasn’t flat enough.
Adam gritted his teeth. He had to bear down and get through this day, put everything out of his head but the food. He couldn’t be one of those temperamental chefs who fell apart over every little thing.
It was just . . . having a damn critic in his kitchen, scrutinizing his every move, judging his food and his crew and his methods. That was not a little thing. He might even feel justified about this freak-out, if he hadn’t invited the woman himself.
Self-recrimination boiled up in his belly, bitter and acid. Not only had Adam lost his head and beckoned a viper into their midst, now he was screwing up the kitchen dynamic and taking his aggravation out on the crew.
Unacceptable. He had to pull himself together. And he knew just how to do it, too.
Adam was going to make pâté.
Two hours, a deep clean and re-seasoning of the grill, one perfect sauce moutarde, vinaigrette, and flatbread dough later, and Adam was up to his elbows in duck fat. It was the best way he’d found to get calm and collected: make something with a lot of steps, in intricate layers that all had to harmonize together.
He was finally starting to breathe normally again, and, not coincidentally, so was his crew. Everyone was back to focusing on specific tasks, refining the details of every dish until it could be achieved perfectly, night after night.
Adam looked down and contemplated the work he was doing. There was a bowl of duck’s liver, sautéed, diced and whipped together with foie gras, minced shallots, and port, sitting in an ice bath to his left. Another small bowl sat beside his right hand, filled with prunes steeped in veal stock and more port. There was duck confit in a bin, and the long, narrow cast-iron terrine pan was ready to be lined with duck fat, which would seal in the moisture and flavor of the pâté as it cooked. He was still trying to come up with one last element, something surprising to cut through the richness of the confit and the liver mixture. Lemon zest?
And then Grant hung up the kitchen phone with a long-suffering sigh.
“She’s on her way.”
Adam’s fingers stiffened against the urge to clench. He held still, with effort. He refused to tear this beautiful piece of fat he’d just painstakingly skinned from a whole free-range duckling.
“Couldn’t you hold her off?” he said around the tic in his jaw.
“You want me to tell the newest member of our staff that she’s not welcome?”
Adam’s stomach rolled. “She’s not on staff. She’s vacationing here. She’s a fucking tourist.”
“With pen and paper in hand,” Frankie grumbled. Adam shot Frankie a quelling look. He didn’t want the rest of the