On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [130]
Line a 9 × 12 inch pan with a layer of almond macaroons. Pour the custard mixture over the top. (If the cookies rise to the surface, push them back down to the bottom of the pan with the back of a spoon.)
Carefully spread the reserved cream and meringue mixture over the top of the custard. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours and preferably longer.
When ready to serve, toast pine nuts in a skillet over low heat, stirring constantly for about two minutes until they are slightly brown. Chop the ginger as fine as you can. Arrange individual portions of pudding in serving dishes or martini glasses. Sprinkle the top of each serving with pine nuts and a little ginger.
Keep reading for a sneak peek at Louisa Edwards’ next novel
JUST ONE TASTE
Coming in September 2010 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks
The classroom door opened, admitting a young woman Wes didn’t recognize. He frowned. Most of the students in his section had been in overlapping rotations together, through the thicks and thins of the grueling culinary arts program, for the past eight months. They’d wrestled with pasta dough together, learned basic hygiene and kitchen safety together, broken down flocks of chicken, fabricated countless fish and brewed up gallons of stock together. He knew most of their secrets, their histories and their hopes, and even if none of them knew Wes’s, this group was still about as close as he’d ever found to a family.
But this woman? Was so brand-new she practically squeaked.
Or wait. That was her shoes.
Wes stared at her feet, realizing all at once what was so strange and different about her.
She was out of uniform.
The Academy of Culinary Arts had a strict dress code. The place was famously well-run and hyper-regulated; there were severe consequences for breaking any of the myriad rules and regulations set forth by the Academy’s president. Some of the worst penalties came from code-of-dress infractions.
Everyone at the Academy wore black pants, a white chef’s jacket, and regulation black-leather kitchen clogs. Every single person, from the chef instructors to the students, on up to President Cornell. No exceptions.
Except, apparently, New Girl.
Who was clad in what looked like regulation geek-wear. Baggy khakis that made her appear even shorter than she was, topped with a beige T-shirt featuring . . . Wes’s feet slipped off the rung of his chair. Whoa. Was that a freaking Wookie?
And on her feet, squeaking against the sterile tile floor with a noise like she was wearing Styrofoam panties, were black Converse sneakers.
Wes stared in silence. In fact, the whole classroom went dead quiet, as one by one, the sleepy culinary students registered the stranger in their midst.
New Girl didn’t appear to notice, at first. Clutching a stack of notepads and papers to her chest, she shuffled quickly, head down and shoulders hunched, up to the front of the classroom. But instead of taking a seat at one of the student tables, she kept going.
Wes watched, fascinated by this tiny stick-figure of a person, all jerky movements and shiny blonde hair twisted into two messy braids down her back.
Until she reached the podium next to the chalkboard, where she paused, appeared to take a deep breath in, and turned to face the class.
And Wes got his first good look at her face.
Wide-set blue-gray eyes, her bottom lip was plumper than the top, giving her a permanent pout. And her nose . . . damn it. Wes had to swallow hard. Her nose was interesting rather than perfect, and it was enough to take her face from merely pretty to knockout striking.
Crap. She was adorable. She looked like the beautiful starlet they cast to play the smart girl, who transforms by the end into the gorgeous woman she always was, with the help of contact lenses and pants that fit.
And obviously, she was the newest addition to the teaching staff.
Crap. Crap. Crap.
Wes really didn’t need this kind of distraction.
“Oh,” she said, her wide eyes going even wider