On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [56]
There was a pause while Lilah and Tucker considered this. Lilah broke it by asking, “You know what? Do you have any flour?”
Devon blinked. “I think so.”
“Baking powder? Salt? Buttermilk? Never mind, don’t worry, I can find it. Why don’t you have a seat and visit with Tucker?”
She started bustling purposefully around the kitchen, keeping a weather eye on Devon’s face. Lilah hadn’t had a lot of truck with professional chefs, but she knew all about the politics and potential drama involved with cooking in someone else’s kitchen. Hopefully Devon wasn’t too territorial.
Evidently not, because he watched her in silence for a minute before saying, “Help yourself. But I’ve got to go shower before I head over to the restaurant.”
“This early?” Lilah asked, sniffing a gleaming, stainless-steel canister of white powder. Did all-purpose flour smell different from self-rising? Why was nothing labeled?
“There’s always work to be done,” Devon replied. “The prep cooks are probably arriving at the restaurant now, starting work on the stocks for the sauces. Deliveries come in from vendors all morning, from fresh fish to specialty items like foie gras. Adam,” he snorted, “likes to pretend he’s saving the world, one menu special at a time. He only orders from within a hundred-mile radius of Manhattan. Reducing his carbon footprint or some similar nonsense.”
“Yeah, I think Grant mentioned something about that. Market’s all about promoting local, sustainable food and cooking with seasonal ingredients. I grew up on a farm, so all that sounds kind of ‘duh’ to me. You don’t think it makes sense?”
Devon leaned one hip indolently against the counter. “I don’t think it’s a smart way to run a restaurant,” he clarified. “This is New York, not California. The growing season here is fairly limited. From October to April, the Union Square greenmarket Adam is so fond of doesn’t offer much in the way of fresh produce beyond root vegetables.”
He shrugged, drawing Lilah’s eye to his lean chest and broad shoulders under the fitted black T-shirt he was wearing. “Call me crazy, but if I want to do a passion fruit dessert in January, I’m going to fly a shipment in from Brazil and not think twice about it.”
To Lilah, it sounded like a well-worn debate, an argument Devon had trotted out for his friend, Adam, many times. She wondered how much of it Devon really believed in and how much was a put-on part of his famous bastard persona.
Then again, maybe it was naïve to continue on in this dogged assumption that there was more to Devon Sparks than the jaded, arrogant mask he presented to the world.
“Back home in Spotswood County, we cooked with seasonal, local ingredients because that’s all we had,” she said. “And I won’t say there was never a day when I wished for a big supermarket in town that would carry exotic fruits and cheeses and things I’ve probably never even heard of, but there was something wonderful about following the rhythm of the seasons. You could tell the date by what was on my Aunt Bertie’s table: collards and kale braised with a ham hock in the winter, sweet baby turnips roasted with molasses in the spring. And nothing says summer like Silver Queen corn, barely boiled, dripping with butter and salt. You could look at any meal and know your place in the world, where you came from and where you were going.” Even Lilah was surprised at the depth of longing that colored her voice.
“But that wasn’t enough for you,” Devon said.
“What?” Lilah said, startled.
“You left the idyllic pastoral paradise and made your way to the big, bad city. There must’ve been a reason.” He smiled, challenge clear in his eyes. “Love affair gone wrong?”
Lilah laughed. “That sounds awfully soap opera, as if I had a grand passion that blew up, leaving me nursing a broken heart.”
Devon gave her a searing look, as if he’d noticed her distinct lack of actual denial, but all