Chapter 6 #2
Scout was quiet. The server returned with our iced tea, set the glasses down without interrupting, and slipped away.
"Love is an active thing," I said. "It requires tending.
Both Sybil and I failed to tend it. We got busy with other things, we stopped paying attention, we assumed the tree would keep standing on its own.
And then one day we looked up and realized we were living in the shade of something that had been dead for years. "
Scout reached for her tea and took a slow sip. Her face was thoughtful.
"My father never talks about my mother," she said. "I don't know if he loved her."
"You could ask him."
"I've tried. He changes the subject." She set her glass down. "Maybe some trees die in ways that are too painful to describe."
"Maybe."
We sat together, lost in our thoughts. The night deepened outside.
The food arrived. The server set the plates down with practiced care.
Scout's braised short rib sat in a shallow pool of reduced wine, dark and glossy, surrounded by chunks of carrot and celery root and small onions that had gone soft and sweet.
My duck confit gleamed with rendered fat, the skin crisped golden, a small mound of dressed greens beside it.
Scout looked at her plate. She picked up her fork and knife, cut a small piece of the meat, and brought it to her mouth.
She went quiet.
She tasted it again, slower. Her eyes closed briefly. When they opened, she was looking at the plate with an expression I couldn't quite read.
Then she looked at me.
"This is what I do with raccoons."
I smiled. "I know."
She looked back at the plate. At the reduced wine. At the vegetables that had braised alongside the meat, absorbing its flavors. At the way everything on the plate worked together, each element supporting the others.
"You knew." Her voice was soft. "You brought me here because you knew."
"I've been paying attention. That braised raccoon you made, with the wild herbs and the root vegetables you'd dug yourself, was one of the best things I've ever eaten. So when I saw this place's menu online and read 'braised short rib with root vegetables,' I thought of you."
"But... how did they reduce the stock this far? It would take hours."
"I don't know."
"And the wine. It's not just any wine, is it? What kind did they use?"
She was full of questions now and I didn't have the answers. I caught our server's eye and waved her over.
"My friend has some questions about the preparation. Is there any chance the chef might have a moment?"
The server looked at Scout, at the intensity in her face, at the way she was studying the plate.
"Let me check."
She disappeared through the kitchen door. A few minutes later she returned, followed by an older woman in a colorful apron and matching pillbox hat. The chef was perhaps sixty, with silver hair pulled back in a practical knot.
"I understand you have questions about the short rib." Her accent was faintly French, softened by years in America.
Scout straightened in her chair. "The reduction. How long did it take?"
"Six hours for the braise. The stock was reduced separately overnight, then combined."
"And the wine?"
"A young red. Nothing expensive. The tannins soften during the braise and the fruit comes forward."
Scout nodded, absorbing this. "Did you sear the meat first? Before braising?"
"Of course. High heat, very fast, just enough to develop the crust. The Maillard reaction. It changes the flavor profile of everything that follows."
"I do that with game," Scout said. "Raccoon. Sometimes venison. But I never knew what it was called."
The chef's eyes sharpened. She pulled out an empty chair and sat down.
"You cook game? Where?"
"In the woods above Port Chasten. I have a Dutch oven and a fire pit."
"Tell me." The chef gestured at the plate. "Tell me how you would have done this."
Scout looked at the short rib. Her hands moved as she talked, demonstrating.
"I would have cut the meat into smaller pieces for faster cooking.
Built the fire hot first, seared the meat in the fat I'd rendered from the last animal.
Then I'd add the vegetables, whatever I had, wild onions and potatoes and carrots and camas root and whatever else I could find.
Pour in water or stock if I had it, cover the pot, and bury it in coals. Leave it overnight."
"Overnight." The chef nodded slowly. "Yes. The old way. Before anyone knew the science. You bury it and you trust it."
"I didn't know there was another way until tonight."
"There isn't another way. There is just this way, with different tools." The chef leaned forward. "What you are doing in the woods with a Dutch oven is exactly what my grandmother did in Provence with a clay pot and a bread oven. The technique is the same."
Scout was very still. It was that same focused stillness as before, the one that meant she was taking something in at a level deeper than words.
"The acid," the chef continued. "You use acid? Wine, vinegar, citrus?"
"Wood sorrel. Sometimes wild grape."
"Wild grape." The chef laughed, delighted. "Yes. Of course. The tartness cuts the fat, opens the palate. You know this without being told."
"I know what tastes right. I don't always know why."
"That is the difference between a cook and a technician. A technician knows why. A cook knows what." The chef stood, brushing her apron. "You are a cook. Come back sometime when we are not so busy. I will show you things."
She returned to the kitchen. Scout watched her go, then turned back to me.
The candlelight caught her face. She said nothing for a long moment. Then she reached across the table and took my hand.
Her fingers were warm. Her grip was firm. She was smiling, and the smile reached all the way to her eyes as she looked at me in the dim light.
We sat there like that, her hand in mine, the candle burning between us, the murmur of the restaurant wrapping around us as evening fell outside.