On the Mountain (Follow your Bliss #5) (22 page)

She spent the rest of the
afternoon zoning out to cooking websites and blogs, starting with Martha
Stewart and ending with a woman who’d halted the progression of her cancer
mainly through diet and exercise. Baskia blinked in and out of awareness,
reading about food, looking at food, and then dreaming about food when her eyes
drooped, and she dozed off.

She woke, the next day, her mouth
parched. After guzzling a glass of water, she took a steamy shower, and pulled
on a pair of stretch pants. “What do I want?” she asked her reflection in the
mirror, noting her baggy eyes. “To not have a cold would be a good start.”

She wondered what her friends
were doing back in New York, if she was missing any events or opportunities.
She rested on the bed, envisioning Trace laying there beside her. She may not
have been where she wanted to be, especially not sick, but she was exactly
where she needed to be.

Tires crunched across the
driveway. Wes appeared at the door holding a pot. “Do you feel better?” he
asked while heating the soup on the stove.

“Not really.”

“You look better. And this
chicken noodle soup will definitely help.”

“Aw. Did you make me soup?” she
asked.

“I’d like to say yes, but I’m not
so skilled in the kitchen. Patty made it for you. She hopes you feel better
fast.”

Wes sat across the table while
she slowly sipped the broth, letting it soothe her throat.

“Delicious.” It nourished her in
a way that a bowl of soup never had. She imagined Patty making it for her own
children when they had the sniffles.

“She said this is your medicine.
A couple bowls a day, and by the time the pot is empty, you should be well
again. Nurse Patty’s prescription.”

“It tastes better than medicine,
that’s for sure.” Through the haze of fatigue and snot, Baskia had an idea.
“Hey, do you think Patty would teach me how to cook?”

“Sure. I mean you’d have to ask,
but I imagine so. It’s kind of what she does.”

Baskia confessed her trials at
the stove. “I’m starting to think I’m hopeless, destined to live off cereal and
frozen entrees. At least until I go back to the City.”

“My mom was a great cook. She’d
have the slow cooker filled with baked beans that would make the whole cabin
smell like, well, like home and then afterward—” Wes’s cheeks spread in a smile
at the happy memory. A chuckle started in his throat that stretched down to his
belly until he laughed so hard he doubled over.

“What’s so funny?”

“You know what beans make you do,
right?” he asked when he’d caught his breath.

“No. What?” Baskia asked, blowing
her nose again.

“Beans, beans the magical fruit,
the more you eat the more you—” Wes burst out laughing again.

“Toot,” Baskia finished with a
laugh.

Hidden under layers of grief,
Baskia spied the carefree young man Wes had once been; and she faintly
remembered the glossy feeling of being untroubled and liberated, hoping they’d
both get there soon.

Chapter
Twenty-Two

The cold hung onto Baskia for
another week, but by the time the second box of tissues was empty, she’d recovered.
She arranged to go to Patty’s house that afternoon. She sifted through more
cooking blogs and websites, determined not to make a fool of herself.

In the big, warm farmhouse
kitchen, Patty handed Baskia a ruffled apron. “So you want to learn how to cook?”

“And bake.”

“I like that idea,” Patty said.
“Let’s see. Is there anything you want to start with? Any particular dish? My
pantry is well stocked, so we could do a cordon bleu or a roast. I’ve been
dying for a good marinara. What’ll it be?”

“I was hoping to start with the
basics. Maybe scrambled eggs?”

Patty, completely at ease in the
kitchen, eyed Baskia. “Do you know what the signature of a good cook is?”

“Um. No.”

“Fearlessness. Don’t be afraid of
the pan, or the cutting board, and least of all don’t fear your ingredients.
We’ll make your scrambled eggs, but they’ll be the best damn scrambled eggs
this kitchen has ever seen.”

Patty sat her ample behind on a
chair and pulled on a pair of well-worn boots. Then she slipped on her jacket.

“Where are you going?” Baskia
asked, hurrying out the door after her.

“To get the eggs of course.”

They rounded the side of the
farmhouse, away from the driveway, stepping carefully on the icy path. Patty
pulled open the barn door and they stepped onto the dirt floor. Slivers of
light beamed through the planks. Patty flipped on a light switch and dim bulbs
guided them deeper into the building.

“This is the old barn, it used to
seem warm even in the winter, but that was before.” Patty pulled open a door
and ushered Baskia inside. “Hello girls,” she cooed. “And how are you today?
Don’t worry. I’m not making any soup. I just came for some eggs.”

Baskia gulped, recalling the
chicken soup that had indeed fed her soul. She watched as Patty bravely stuck
her hand into the wooden nesting boxes, plucking brown eggs from the straw.

“Go ahead. Don’t be afraid. I’ll
send some home with you so you can do it on your own tomorrow. Don’t worry.
They won’t bite. Well, Poppy over there might peck, but the others are
friendly. Aren’t you girls?” Patty said, doting on the birds.

Baskia hesitantly reached her
hand toward a dark box, hoping it landed on an egg and not a beak or anything
slimy and wet

“What’s the signature of a good
cook?” Patty asked, continuing to collect eggs.

“Fearlessness.” Baskia’s fingers
found a warm, round object. She carefully pulled it out, admiring its speckled
surface. “Wow.”

Patty smiled, and they went back
to the farmhouse. “Now we get to work.”

Patty instructed Baskia in
cracking, whisking, and scrambling. “Now, I don’t know about you, but my
scrambled eggs require cheese and fresh pepper.” She grated a brick of cheddar
and then sprinkled it on top followed by pepper. “And how about some homemade
whole wheat? I churned the butter myself. Don’t look so surprised,” she said,
catching Baskia’s dubious expression. “This is a farm, and I am a farmer.”

“I didn’t know people still baked
bread and churned butter.”

“Not enough people do, but I say
if you’re going to do it right, do it yourself. So what do you think? I say we
couldn’t have done any better. These eggs are perfect,” she said, taking a
bite.

Baskia agreed. “So tomorrow—”

Patty handed her a carton of
eggs. “Tomorrow, you do it on your own: practice, practice, practice.
Wednesday, come back, and we’ll make another dish, anything you want.”

“How about the bread?”

“Now that’s the spirit.”

Baskia returned to Patty’s house
and while they waited for the bread to rise, they went through old photo
albums, pictures of the farm in its heyday, Patty’s large family, and of course
all the birthday cakes.

“When’s your birthday?” Patty
asked.

“March twenty-first.”

“The first day of spring, right?
Auspicious.”

As the bread baked and Patty
rested her feet, Baskia thought about spring and new beginnings, wondering just
where she’d find herself in a few months. She was happy exactly where she was,
but the future pulled on her, duteously, in the exact pitch of her mother’s
voice. Baskia glanced over at Patty, her eyes closed, hands resting on her
belly. She was fearless in the kitchen and on the farm. She was a mother who
wasn’t afraid to love her children; whatever their futures might be and however
far away from her that might take them.

The next day, Baskia attempted to
replicate the bread, but pulled a brick out of the oven at the end of an hour.
She rolled up her sleeves and tried again, recalling exactly what Patty had
showed her, how she drew the heel of her hand back as she’d kneaded, how she
left it covered with a damp cloth to rise, and then punched it down before setting
it on the stone in the center of the oven. “Be fearless, Baskia,” she told
herself.

While she left the second loaf to
rise and then bake, she browsed cooking blogs, trying to figure out what their
next dish would be; she wasn’t interested in churning butter. When the oven
timer dinged, a perfectly shaped loaf came out of the oven. The crust was
golden, and after letting it cool, the inner dough bounced back, springy.

Baskia cheered at her success,
dancing around the kitchen, clutching the loaf to her chest. Instead of taking
a photo with her phone, she pulled out her digital camera, arranged the bread
artfully on the table, and snapped away. She laughed at her own role as a model
and now behind the camera, with the loaf of bread as her subject.

That night, multitasking, as she
dipped a slice of her successful baking attempt into the canned soup she’d
warmed, and browsing food photos, she waffled between learning how to make
pesto or brownies. Then Baskia had a flash of an idea: what if she documented her
attempt to learn how to cook on her own blog? She had her first fails recorded
on her phone, and then the successful eggs and bread. She clicked the keys on
the computer, searching for how to start a blog. She’d read so many, she
reasoned it couldn’t be that difficult.

As the evening turned into night,
Baskia referenced how-to guides, figured out how to upload photos, write posts,
and publish.

Bubbling with excitement, she
toted her laptop to Patty’s the next day. She explained her idea, showing Patty
what a blog was. The first post on
Feed Me: A Model’s Kitchen Education
,
was scrambled eggs.

“Most people know how to make
scrambled eggs. It’s simple.”

Baskia gave her a look. “It’s not
that simple. And considering I’m part of the collective ‘most people,’ I’d
argue that no, not everyone knows how to scramble an egg. Plus, those eggs came
from your birds, my outstanding whisking ability, and woman, they were indeed,
damn good.”

Patty clapped her hands together
and laughed. “I suppose you have a point. Do you think anyone will actually
look at, what did you call it, a blob?”

“Blog. With a G. It doesn’t
matter if anyone reads it or not. I want to do it to hold myself accountable.
By keeping an online log of the dishes I make, including the recipes—if you
allow me to share them—and the photos, I can keep a record of my progress. I’ll
basically have my own cookbook to refer to whenever I want to make something.”

Patty wrung her hands together,
asking a dozen questions, but finally agreed. They spent the next weeks
preparing everything from savory tarts, to pizza, from soup to salsa, and
cookies, cake, and pies. Baskia ordered a treadmill and had it assembled in the
basement, to keep from losing her model form with all the delicious food she’d
been enjoying. Exercising outside, in the cold, was out of the question.

One afternoon, while they rolled
out sheets for making homemade tagliatelle pasta, Patty asked, “Do you know
what the signature of a good cook is?”

“Being fearless,” Baskia answered
proudly.

“Yes, but what else?” She left
Baskia to think, while she plucked basil leaves from the container of herbs on
the windowsill. “Chiffonade,” she instructed, passing Baskia the basil and
taking up the sheet of pasta dough.

“Chiffa-what?”

Patty showed her how to fold the
leaves and slice them into ribbons. “The signature of a good cook is making
sure to add love to every dish. It’s in the small things, the details, that we
show our affections. I could have just told you to tear the basil into chunks
and toss it in. But the chiffonade adds that extra special something.”

Baskia nodded, stirring the basil
into the sauce. Wearing the ruffled apron, dusted with white flour, the smell
of garlic and tomatoes wafting up to her nose, and in the cheerful company of
Patty, nostalgia for something she’d never had with her own mother, bubbled to
the corners of her eyes. She looked away, through the window, and spotted Wes
pull up. “Looks like we have company.”

“Perfect. There’s plenty to
share.”

The three of them dug into the
pasta with homemade sauce that night. Patty insisted they sprinkle fresh
parmesan on top. Over a bottle of sparkling cider, which Patty had produced
from the back of her pantry, they laughed over stories of pranks her sons used
to pull when it was time to do the dishes. “This housed used to be so full of—”
She broke into a smile. “I suppose it still is.”

Wes walked Baskia out to her car.
She cautiously picked her way over the icy driveway with the pasta-making
machine in her arms.

“Thanks for dinner. You’re turning
into quite the foodie,” he said.

“It’s all thanks to Patty. I get
to do again tomorrow.” She explained her trials at home, fretting over how she
was possibly going to remember how to work the pasta machine. “But I’m holding
myself to it.” She told him about the blog. And how in just the few short weeks
she’d been keeping it, she’d received positive comments and encouragement from
a host of readers.

“Anytime you need a taste tester,
I’m your man. Sometimes I wish I could cook.”

He parted his lips as if to say
something more, but then he closed them again.

“Everyone should have one dish
they do well. My house tomorrow afternoon. It’ll be the same thing as tonight,
but we’ll start from scratch. I’ll teach you.”

^^^

The next day, while updating her
blog, answering comments, and editing pictures, Baskia reflected on how her
life as a fashion model and interest in photography had turned into a passion
for photos of food. Her mouth watered over a juicy burger, the crisp lettuce,
the plump bun, and the homemade French fries on the side. She burst out
laughing at how the “food porn,” got her excited. Then she thought of Trace,
the memory of him lingering, somehow still fresh, in the cabin. She hoped he’d
show up any day; it’d been almost a month.

When Wes arrived the next day,
they started with the pasta dough. “So, tell me, what got you suddenly
interested in cooking. I mean, I saw your cart at the market, you were a yogurt
and cereal kind of gal.”

“It was New Year’s,” she started
and then blanched, worried about what that might mean to him since they hadn’t
even discussed that dreadfully eventful night.

“Yeah, about that.”

“I’m sorry if I said more than I
should have. My friend Mellie, she lost her mom recently too and…”

Wes nodded as if he understood,
as if he wasn’t mad.

“And Patty, her daughter. You…”
Baskia spoke carefully, not sure how to, delicately, explain the commonalities
of their losses.

“I talked with Mellie later that
night. Gigi was dancing with your brother, and we slipped outside.”

Baskia raised an eyebrow.

“We just talked. She’s really
nice.”

“Yeah,” she said vaguely as
jealousy, like a napping dragon, woke within her. “Go back to sleep.”

“Huh?” Wes asked.

“Oh, nothing,” Baskia said,
realizing she’d spoken aloud. She liked Wes, they were friends, but the old
competitiveness for guys reared up, as if they were limited commodities. As far
as she was concerned, there was Trace and only Trace. She’d know if they had a
future together after she was sure of her future. And of course, if he
returned.

After the pasta and sauce had
been prepared, Baskia arranged shots, getting good angles, and snapping photos.
“Just one more,” she said, when Wes looked like he might faint if he didn’t
take a bite. She rushed downstairs and pulled out a bottle of wine then grabbed
the late Christmas present she’d been meaning to give him.

“I know you don’t typically
drink, but a pasta dish like this is incomplete without a good glass of wine.
You’re welcome to sleep on the couch if you don’t want to drive. Also, this is for
you.” She passed him the book on architecture that she’d wished she had at
Christmastime. She used red paper with jingle bells. “Better late than never. I
hope you don’t already have it.”