The Love Goddess' Cooking School (8 page)

Tears came to Holly’s eyes. “I remember that, Juliet. I remember when you and your mom drove away in her blue car, and I was so sad, and my grandmother told me that when I missed you and wanted to feel you with me, I should make chocolate milk. Whole milk and one heaping tablespoon of sweetened cocoa. It worked. And now I remember her telling me that day you left that one day you’d be back. I miss her so much.”

Juliet stiffened. “Miss her? Oh, no, Holly. Don’t tell me.”

“Three weeks now. I came here a month ago, crying over a breakup, and she passed away in her sleep. I’m glad I was here, though. I’m glad I spent those days with her before she died.”

Juliet sucked in a breath and stared out the window.

“I’ll understand if you want to drop out of the class, Juliet. I did call and leave two messages on your answering machine, to let you know my grandmother wouldn’t be teaching the class, but I didn’t connect your married name to you, of course. You clearly need my grandmother. I can see that. Please don’t feel
that you need to stay just because I’m teaching the course.”

“Thanks for understanding,” Juliet said, and turned around and walked out.

But I didn’t mean it,
Holly wanted to call after her. She wanted to run after her, tell her to come back, that Camilla’s recipes were still magic, even if Camilla weren’t there.
The magic is in the wishing, is in the remembering. . . .

Go after her,
Holly told herself.
She needs someone to go after her.

Holly ran outside, the October air chilly against her thin black sweater. “Juliet!” she called, glancing around. There was a man walking down the road, coming toward the house. And a car with its signal on, turning into Holly’s driveway. But no sign of Juliet.

Holly glanced around, and there she was, sitting on the swing her grandmother had made for Holly’s mother when they’d first moved to Blue Crab Island. Juliet faced away from the house, toward the wooded edge of pines. She managed to appear both stiff and slumped at the same time.

“Juliet, please come back in,” Holly said. “Whatever it was you needed from my grandmother, it’s in the kitchen. It’s in her recipes.”

Juliet said nothing, and then a wail escaped her, so sad that Holly covered her hand with her mouth. What should she say? Do? She moved to the side of the swing, so as not to get in Juliet’s face.

“The air here is just like I remember,” Juliet said, staring ahead. “I couldn’t breathe in Chicago, Holly. I couldn’t
breathe.
There was just no air. I wonder if it was always like that and I just never noticed. It had to have been, though.”

“What do you mean?”

Juliet stared at the ground and said nothing, and Holly had no choice but to let it go for the moment since the other students began arriving. A man walked up the cobblestone path. A woman got out of a car that she’d parked in the driveway and was heading up the three porch steps.

Holly held out her hand, unsure if Juliet would take it or if she’d run off, get into her car, and disappear.

She slipped her hand into Holly’s. “Okay,” she said.

Okay,
Holly seconded silently.

The small group stood in the entryway. “Hi, everyone,” Holly said. “I’m Holly Maguire, granddaughter of Camilla Constantina, who began this cooking class in 1962. I don’t claim to be as good a cook as my grandmother, but I grew up cooking at her hip every summer, watching her every move, listening and absorbing. And I’m the keeper of her famed recipes, Camilla’s Cucinotta recipes.”

She’d practiced that monologue last night. It was amazing how you could sound confident, like you knew what you were talking about, like you
believed,
when you felt like you might fall over any second.

The other woman, who by reasons of deduction must be one Tamara Bean, was in her early thirties, Holly guessed, with long, wildly curly brown hair, narrow brown eyes the color of
peppermint bark, and a long nose that made her look both regal and Eastern European. Tamara raised an eyebrow and glanced around. “Is it just us three—two women and
one
guy?” she asked. “My mother gave this class to me as gift certificate to meet men. She’d heard this course attracts men.”

That would explain the fitted sweater, pencil skirt, and high-heeled, knee-high black leather boots.
You can’t leave,
Holly sent telepathically.
No one is allowed to leave!
“There’s one more student, my apprentice, but—”

“Oh, thank God,” Tamara said, pulling her hair into a low ponytail like Juliet’s. She set her tote bag on the tasting bench and took off her boots, exchanging them for a pair of black ballet flats. “I’m willing to try, you know? The cutesy outfit, showing up. But I am so sick of my mother throwing men at me. My sister is getting married—my
youngest
sister. The middle one is already married and pregnant, of course. I’m so sick of meeting men.” She turned to the man standing across from her. “No offense, of course.”

He smiled. “None taken.”

“You’re Tamara Bean, right?” Holly said, glancing at her roster.

Tamara nodded. “At least here I can actually learn to cook, something I enjoy doing. I’m thirty-two—so what? All my relatives do is throw men at me and make me feel like a loser for not being in a relationship. And they’re full of reasons for why my relationships don’t work out.”

“It’s never the reasons anyone thinks,” the man said, then seemed to realize he’d spoken out loud. Simon March was tall
and lanky and quite attractive, with sandy-streaked blond hair and dark blue eyes. “I mean, it’s never the things you can do something about, really. It’s always about who you are, intrinsically. Simon March, by the way.”

“Well, that’s depressing, Simon March,” Tamara said.

Juliet stared at her gray-clad feet.

“Not really,” Simon said, “If you think about it.”

Was this good? Student conversation? Tangents? The meaning of life? It had to be good. It was certainly better than awkward silence. If they kept it up, perhaps they wouldn’t notice that Holly often had to look up ingredients or certain pans and utensils on Google. She would have them do the same, though, if they didn’t know the difference between a cast iron pan and a ravioli pot.

“Welcome, Simon, Tamara, and Juliet,” Holly said with a nod at each of them. “Mia, my young apprentice, should be along soon.” Holly glanced at her watch. It was five minutes after six. Time to get cooking.

You can do this,
she told herself.
It’s not like anyone here is a home cook or a chef who’ll make everyone realize you’re totally unqualified.

“Okay,” Holly said. “Let’s move into the kitchen and get started. Let’s all stand around the island, the perfect size for five. If your feet get tired, feel free to grab a stool and bring it over.”

“Sorry I’m late!” a girl’s voice called as Mia came rushing in, out of breath, in jeans and, Holly counted, at least three layers of slim-fitting T-shirts. Her hair was in a loose braid that
had come partially undone from her run over. “My dad insisted I finish my book report on
Island of the Blue Dolphins.
Isn’t it crazy there’s a book called that when we live on Blue Crab Island?”

“You’re right on time, Mia,” Holly said with a smile. “Everyone, this is Mia Geller. Mia is almost twelve years old and will be my helper for the class. First, let’s all put on our Camilla’s Cucinotta aprons.” Her grandmother had twelve made up, in all different sizes. They were a pale yellow with a white enameled pot with
Camilla’s Cucinotta
written across it in blue.

Juliet seemed about to say something but gnawed her lip and glanced around, her gaze settling on a photograph of Camilla and Holly on the counter next to a huge bowl of green apples. “I’m so sorry about your grandmother, Holly.”

“Me too,” Tamara said. “I didn’t know her personally, but my sister speaks about her in hushed tones. Camilla Constantina had quite a reputation as a cook and a fortune-teller.”

“Maybe Holly inherited her grandmother’s abilities,” Mia said, tying the apron behind her back. “What am I thinking, Holly?”

“That it’s time to start class?” Holly said, trying to sound authoritative but warm. Her grandmother use to tell her how sometimes the students would get to talking to the point that some recipes never got made. She moved behind the island, her four students gathering around, eyeing the empty surface. There was nothing to indicate any cooking would be going on. “If you’re wondering why you don’t see the ingredients for
tonight’s menu crowding the work area, it’s because my grandmother believed that part of learning how to cook involves learning about the ingredients and where they’re kept, as well as what types of bowls, pots and pans and utensils you’ll need. So, as we need our ingredients, we’ll fetch them and anything else.”

So far, so good,
Holly thought. She’d sat in on a couple of her grandmother’s cooking courses as a teenager and was surprised at how much she remembered of her grandmother’s lectures. About how collecting the ingredients for the recipes was part of the cooking process. How the gentle sautéing of onions and garlic in olive oil was the base of almost every Italian dish, how the final ingredient of each dish—whether a fervent wish or a sad memory—was as essential as the first.

“Tonight, for our first class, we’re starting with a simple, classic Italian meal, a perfect meal for fall’s chill. Chicken alla Milanese with a side of gnocchi and a salad. We’ll start with the chicken cutlets, since the gnocchi takes no time at all, as we’ll be using gnocchi I made from scratch yesterday. My grandmother often made her own pasta, but she also used boxed pastas whenever she was short on time or wanted a quick dinner. I’ve made you all copies of tonight’s recipes from the Camilla’s Cucinotta recipe binder. Mia, will you hand out the recipes?”

Mia took the stapled sheets and handed three to each person. The chicken Milanese, the gnocchi in a cheese sauce, the salad.

Simon flipped through the pages. “Looks quite achievable. Ah, and there it is, the famous last ingredients. For the chicken,
a wish. For the gnocchi, a happy memory. And the salad, a sad memory.”

Holly noticed Juliet stiffen. “You can add the final ingredients silently or aloud. Whichever feels right to you.”

“So for the wish,” Mia said, “we just wish for something like when we’re blowing out birthday candles?”

Holly smiled and nodded. “Exactly like that. Anything you want.”

“How many wishes go into the chicken?” Mia asked. “Just one? Or do we all put wishes in?”

“We all do,” Holly said. “The recipe calls for one wish from the person making it. As we’re all making it, we all put our wishes in. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, Mia, will you get the packages of chicken breast from the refrigerator?”

Mia retrieved the two packages and set them on the island counter.

“My grandmother always told me that you can buy meat fresh from a butcher or look for fresh from the supermarket, the best you can afford,” Holly said, opening the packages of chicken and setting them on the large wooden cutting board. “Tamara, can you find out from the recipe how long the chicken will take to cook?”

Everyone glanced at their copy of the recipe, and Tamara said. “Six to eight minutes, depending on thickness.”

“All right then, that’s pretty fast,” Holly said. “So we might as well start the water boiling for the gnocchi, since that will take several minutes in itself. Simon, we’ll need a large pot to boil fifty pieces of gnocchi, big enough so that the gnocchi isn’t
too crowded, as when they’re done they float.”

“Like fish,” Mia said. “That’s how you know your goldfish is dead. Floats.”

Simon laughed and reached for the largest pasta pot on the shelf of pots running the length of wall above the stove. “I never could keep a goldfish very long.”

Holly asked him to fill the pot half with water and to set it on a middle burner to boil. That done, she asked Mia to read the first two steps for the chicken.

Mia scanned the sheet for where to begin. “Pound the chicken breasts between two sheets of plastic. Season with salt and pepper, then dredge in flour, then beaten egg, then polenta. What’s polenta?”

“Polenta is a cornmeal, an alternative to bread crumbs. My grandmother loved the flavor it added.”

Holly directed Juliet to get three large, flat plates from the cabinet marked
Plates
(her grandmother had long ago labeled everything to make it easier for her students to feel at home in her kitchen) and to fill one plate with flour, one with the polenta and cheese, and one with egg beaten with a splash of water. Once the plates were arranged, Holly handed each student a small can of tomatoes and asked them to each pound on a chicken breast until it was a quarter of an inch thick.

“Take that!” Mia said, slamming down the can on the poor plastic-wrap-covered breast. She laughed. “Cooking is more fun than I thought.”

Even Juliet smiled at that.

“Now everyone take your piece of chicken and move
through each plate,” Holly said, “coating it in the flour, then in the egg, then in the polenta cheese, and then you can lay them on a cooking tray. Tamara, can you find a large cooking sheet in the cabinet marked
Cooking Trays
?”

As her students moved from plate to plate, Holly watched them, unable to hold back her burst of glee. She was teaching. Really teaching. The students were following her steps and clearly enjoying themselves. Juliet seemed absorbed in her task as she dredged the chicken in the flour and then the egg, carefully laying it on the polenta cheese.

“When do we add our wishes?” Tamara asked as they moved on to the next step of selecting a frying pan, pouring in oil, and turning the burner on to medium-high. “I know what I want.”

“What?” Mia asked.

“For my family to lay off and stop making me feel like a loser for not being married when my younger sisters are.”

Simon nodded, his blue eyes on Tamara. “I think we all want our families to lay off.” He seemed about to say something else, but he clamped his mouth shut and handed Holly a stick of butter.