London Broil
Authors: Linnet Moss
| London Broil |
| Linnet Moss |
| Eudemus Publishing (2012) |
Fortysomething Laura Livingston, an expert on the libraries of British authors, has two loves: old books and delicious food. Reared by her philosopher father on the maxims of Epicurus, Laura believes in self-control and moderation, but when she travels to London on a research leave, sexy tabloid editor James Whelan has a banquet of erotic delights on the menu. Never-married Laura, a strict vegetarian, falls hard for carnivorous James, a notorious ladies' man whose seduction techniques involve an exquisite meal at Le Loup ("The Wolf"), a French restaurant where the seating arrangements are designed for lovers, and a sensuous lesson on how to smoke a cigar.
Laura's research on Alexander Pope leads her to the posh Knightsbridge library of the Porteous family, and to Belmont Hall in Yorkshire during the grouse shooting. But when someone in the Porteous family is murdered and James goes after the story, Laura learns that summer love can burn as well as sizzle.London Broil will appeal to anyone who appreciates antiquarian books, gourmandise, and delicious sex. Not necessarily in that order.
LONDON
BROIL
by Linnet
Moss
English professor Laura
Livingston has only two loves: old books and delicious food.
When she travels to London to research the libraries of
British writers and meets a sexy Irishman,
Herald
crime editor
James Whelan, she discovers that meals in London can be
sizzling hot. But is James too good to be true?
LONDON
BROIL
Copyright
2012 by Linnet Moss
Eudemus
Publishing 2012
LONDON
BROIL
10.
The Bookshelves of
Bethnal Green
13.
Doubt is not a
Pleasant Condition
14.
A Very Satisfactory
Transaction
16.
Sweeney-Pie and
the Temple Crew Team
18.
Nolly's Vegetarian
Pleasures
20.
The Superiority
of Venchi Gianduja
London Broil
London broil is a North
American beef dish made by broiling or grilling marinated
flank steak, then cutting it across the grain into thin
strips. The origin of the name is obscure; the dish is unknown
in London, England. -
Wikipedia
1.
Regulars at Roxana
The first time
she ate in the restaurant, she noticed James.
Roxana was an
Afghan place only a few blocks from her flat. She ate there
every Friday evening, because it was the best local place, and
once or twice a week she visited less familiar restaurants in
the multicultural, polyglot metropolis of London. The aromatic
sabzi
, redolent of
spinach and cilantro, was her favorite at Roxana, but if she
didn't get that, she usually had the
aushak
, a vegetable
dumpling imbued with the tangy flavors of tomato and yogurt.
On that first
visit, hungry after hiking all over London in the chill of
March, she was about to bite through the tender skin of a
dumpling when her eyes fell upon the couple seated across the
aisle. A tiny restaurant, Roxana had a long narrow dining room
with twin rows of two-tops, staggered so that servers would not
bump into each other while attending to opposing tables. The
male half of the couple was looking intently at a dark-haired
young woman whose back was to her. Their hands were clasped on
the table. A bottle of wine had been opened, and the woman held
hers by the bowl.
She looked away.
She always felt a slight stab of irritation when people did
that. The stem of a wine glass was not ornamental. It functioned
to keep greasy fingerprints off the bowl and to maintain the
wine's proper temperature by shielding it from body heat.
Returning her eyes to her forkful of
aushak
, she
contemplated the features of the man she had just seen. He was
in fifties, she judged, but was one of those men who improved
with age. His craggy features were relieved by a large pair of
dark eyes that gave his face appeal. He had high cheekbones, a
longish nose (was it slightly crooked?), a prominent chin, and
small ears. His hair was black, but stippled with gray, cut very
short around the sides and a bit longer on top. In short, he was
a striking and deliciously masculine specimen.
He was speaking
softly to the young woman, and she couldn't hear what he was
saying, but he had a deep, rich voice with a lilting quality.
She wondered what part of the UK he was from. She had a good ear
for American accents, but in the UK she was at a loss, unable to
grasp the fine class and geographical distinctions that seemed
so obvious to her English friends.
The server came
to ask if she wanted another glass of wine. She learned later on
that his name was Babur, and that he ran the restaurant with his
brothers Fahran and George. She never found out why George had
an English name, but although he spelled it the English way, he
pronounced it the French way: Georges. He was the chef who
produced the delectable
aushak
and the other dishes. She liked both red and white wines, but
almost always got whites because they went best with the
vegetable dishes she favored, and the spices in the fragrant
Afghan food. She ordered a second glass of Pinot Blanc.
The next week,
she returned at the same time, remembering the delicious
aushak
and debating
whether to order it again or try the spinach. She had her
reading material as usual, this time a copy of Scott's novel
Ivanhoe
. Eating alone
at restaurants was an experience few people relished, but she
enjoyed it, if the restaurant was receptive to single guests.
Many servers and hosts were scornful of singles because the size
of the check was always smaller. They tended to seat singles,
especially women, at the worst tables in the back, near the
kitchen or the restrooms.
At Roxana, she
felt welcome. As before, she was shown to a table in the middle
of the long room, on the left-hand side. True, the doors to the
cushion-filled booths for larger parties were on that side,
making for more traffic, but all things considered, she felt she
was receiving the same treatment as any other customer.
In her
undergraduate years she had been a waitress (as servers were
called in those days) at an upscale restaurant in Georgia. One
day there appeared a smart-looking woman with a blonde chignon.
She was staying at the hotel across the street. Like the
restaurant, it was a remodeled antebellum mansion with stately
white pillars, and rooms with large fireplaces, rarely used in
the Georgia heat. Seated in solitary splendor, the blonde
ordered a salad, a lobster, and an expensive bottle of
Pouilly-Fuissé. She had brought nothing to read, but took her
time with the dinner anyway. Afterward she ordered coffee,
black, and took the remainder of the bottle of wine back to her
room, leaving a generous tip. It was the only time she ever saw
a woman eat in that restaurant alone, and she never forgot it.
This week, the
man arrived a few minutes after she did, dressed in a
well-tailored brown suit with a yellow paisley tie, and was
seated at a table on the same side of the room as she. She felt
a brief disappointment that he sat with his back to her, looking
toward the entrance, so that she only got a brief glimpse of his
face. Soon his dinner companion joined him, a woman about his
age who reminded her of the long-ago blonde with the
Pouilly-Fuissé. She had a chignon and was wearing an elegant
suit with a knee-length hem. Navy, perhaps, or charcoal; it was
difficult to tell in the lower light of the restaurant. Her legs
were good, with shapely calves and delicate ankles. The blonde's
shoes were heels, of a dark patent leather, with straps across
the instep.
She decided to
start with a plate of
boulanee
,
described in the menu as sweet potato and scallion turnovers
with yogurt sauce, before choosing her entrée. Perhaps I'll have
dessert, too, she thought. I want to see what happens when they
leave. She turned to
Ivanhoe
and quickly became absorbed in the story of the cynical,
apostate Templar knight Bois Guilbert, whose passion for the
Jewess Rebecca made Ivanhoe look anemic by comparison. Something
is wrong, she thought. Why does Scott make the sexy villain more
appealing than the virtuous hero? She glanced up to check on the
progress of the couple's meal, and at that moment, the man rose
and turned to visit the restroom. He looked down and his eyes
met hers for a brief instant before he strode past. By the time
Babur had removed her dinner plate, now polished clean of
sabzi
, and was taking
her order for coffee and rice pudding, the couple had finished
eating. As they walked to the door, the man put a hand out as
though to guide his companion along, skimming not the small of
her back, but the area just below.
In the weeks that
followed, he came to Roxana regularly, always around the same
time, and always with a dinner companion. There were three,
perhaps four young women, one of whom she had seen that first
evening. A male friend or co-worker also appeared, as did the
older woman. Once she caught a glimpse of him in the tiny bar at
the front of the restaurant; he waited until a bag of food was
brought out from the back and then left with it under his arm.
Encountering one
another so often, they had exchanged a few more looks, and once
a brief nod. He always wore a suit, and she always made an
effort to dress attractively, or at least professionally, before
venturing out. The prices in London seemed to justify it. She
began inviting her few London friends to dine with her, feeling
guilty at the idea of taking a table to herself on Friday
evenings when the restaurant was full, and wondering
self-consciously whether he had noticed that she was usually
alone. He might even think she was watching him, which would be
embarrassing, though of course it was true. But, she told
herself, I come here because I like the food, not because of
him. He's only the entertainment.
He preferred to
sit facing the entrance. Babur and Fahran seemed aware of this
and always tried to show his companions to the other seat, but
sometimes they chose to face the front door, and he had to face
the kitchen. When this happened, he seemed to grow restless,
tapping his foot impatiently, or casting occasional glances back
toward the front. Probably worried about what might happen if
one of his other girlfriends stops in without warning, she
thought dryly.
There were other
regulars, though none of them seemed as faithful to Roxana as
she and the man she liked to watch. There was a married couple
who came about every other week, and two of her own neighbors.
Cassie and Leila were both divorced women who liked a girls'
night out. When they stopped in, she would wave, or get up to
exchange greetings if they were seated nearby, but they were
close friends anxious to exchange confidences, and they never
invited her to join them. She didn't mind. Spending time alone
came naturally to her.
By this point she
had gotten to know Babur, Fahran and George, as well as various
other members of their extended family who tended bar and seated
guests, poured water, served bread, and performed all the other
jobs that go unnoticed by diners. Because she always cleaned her
plate, she became a favorite of George, who would send out
samples of new dishes for her to try. George liked French food,
and he experimented with Afghan-French combinations from time to
time, making a salad of cucumbers,
crème fraîche
and a
mixture of herbs, or concocting
pastry puffs redolent of sharp Swiss cheese and seasoned
with black pepper and coriander, which he sent out to the diners
at the start of the meal. Served warm, these were very popular
and eventually appeared on the menu. George even invited her
back to the kitchen once, when she asked about the preparation
of
sabzi
and said she
wanted to try to cook it in her flat. He was about her height
and well-fed, with sparkling dark brown eyes and beautiful,
strong white teeth, something she did not often see in England.
His smile was infectious, and sometimes, when she ended up
seated toward the back, she could hear him laughing or (during
busy periods) shouting in the kitchen.
About two months
into her stay, she noticed a drop in the number of diners. Her
neighbor laughingly told her that one Saturday evening, a huge
rat had put in an appearance in the dining room, to the horror
of the customers. Babur had run after it with a towel,
disrupting the entire restaurant, until it managed to escape out
the front door and down a sewer drain. Remembering George's
spotless kitchen, she knew that it was a fluke and that the rat
had come from elsewhere in the building, or perhaps from
outside. She continued to visit at her usual day and time, and
the man she liked to watch did as well. After a few weeks,
things picked up again.
One night she
invited Simon, who often worked beside her in the British
Library, to eat with her at Roxana. He was interested in new,
inexpensive places to eat, and she was anxious to discover
whether he would share her view that Roxana was a hidden gem.
Simon was a few years younger, and neither of them had a
romantic interest in the other, although he was quite good
looking, a tall Nordic type with professorial spectacles and
sandy, receding hair. As they were being seated, she noticed
that the man she liked to watch was at the closest table on the
other side of the aisle, already halfway through a meal. He
turned deliberately and gave Simon a long assessing look before
letting his dark eyes pass neutrally over hers and back to those
of his companion.
He was seated
with a woman she hadn't seen before-- thirtyish, with thick,
short red hair, and a round face. Small and full-figured, she
wore a dark pantsuit and a white shirt. Not his usual type, she
thought with amusement, but it appears he is... catholic in his
tastes. Could he possibly be sleeping with all these women? Was
he a journalist who arranged to meet people for interviews here?
It was a poor hypothesis, because he never had a notebook or
recording device.
She shook off the
idea, turning to Simon with a recommendation that they begin
with George's cheese puffs and a good bottle of Chardonnay. Her
side of the conversation felt stilted and constrained until the
couple opposite was ready to leave. She watched them make their
way to the front. Instead of walking to one side of the redhead,
he walked on ahead, though he did help her on with her coat
before they went out the door. Glancing at the remains of their
meal as Fahran came to clear it, she noticed that there was no
wine, and that he had ordered a cocktail of some kind in a
lowball glass, while his companion had drunk only water.
2.
A Long Awaited Encounter
The next week,
she arrived at her usual time with a copy of
Rob Roy
, having decided
that it was time to try a new dish. She ordered the
badenjan borani
, a dip
of eggplant and yogurt. Even though she normally disliked
eggplant, she thought that she ought to allow George and the
vegetable the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps in his hands it
would become a thing of beauty. She hesitated over the choice of
wine, not having had much experience of eggplant. A red this
time? When Babur greeted her, she asked his opinion and he shook
his head doubtfully.
