Chapter Twenty-Three #2
The dough in his hands has been somewhat mangled in the last few moments of arm ogling, and he pats it back into a more acceptable blob shape.
He’s always worried about overworking it, going past the point of activating the gluten into mashing it all up into a tired mess.
It’s possible he’s arriving at the point where one turns into the other.
Still, there’s magic to the whole process that Christopher is glad he’s not lost, even after making his hobby his job. It’s truly a wonder to take all these individual ingredients and, in combining them, create joy and full tummies.
Despite the distraction, Tegan does a really good job following his instructions, and even asks questions when she’s unsure.
Why hasn’t he asked her for help before?
He always thought that working with other people would destroy the sense of calm, but with Nash and Tegan, he can still tap into that feeling, even when they’re all singing along to a song that features Mariah Carey alongside a few other singers .
. . which he’s pretty sure is also from a Christmas movie.
‘Hang on, is this playlist made exclusively of songs from Christmas films?’ he asks with a laugh.
Nash shrugs awkwardly, clearly embarrassed to have been caught out in something so obviously self-referential. ‘They’re all bops!’ he cries, kneading the dough a little harder.
‘Don’t take it out on the bread,’ scolds Tegan.
Nash pretends to look chastened. ‘Yes, chef. Sorry, chef.’
‘Damn right,’ she laughs. ‘This is actually kind of fun.’
‘Thank you for coming to help,’ Christopher says. ‘It was really thoughtful of you.’
‘Means I get to be away from my little siblings. I have done way too much babysitting this week. There’s only so much Bluey I can watch.’
‘Don’t go slandering Bluey’s name in front of me,’ says Nash, flipping the dough round. ‘Bingo is an angel.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve seen all of it. Three times at least. And they just want to keep watching the sad ones, because they’re little demons.
’ She sighs with the kind of world weariness that you can only associate with being a teenager.
No one could pay him to be a teenager again.
‘Plus, Grandma is driving my mum nuts, which makes the whole thing much worse.’
‘How’s your mum doing?’ Christopher says, remembering suddenly that Tegan had mentioned her mum had been under the weather.
‘Better,’ she says, and he decides not to pry into what she might have been recovering from.
Tegan is flagging as she kneads, but she keeps going, eventually patting the dough into round loaves.
She’s a little powerhouse of fury and eyeliner.
He makes a note to have a proper conversation with her about what she would like to learn – after all, that’s the point of her being here, isn’t it?
She should get to learn how to do any part of the business she’s interested in so it’ll be on her CV for wherever she goes next.
Eventually, they have ten proving baskets with dough quietly rising, and a timer set to check back on them in a few hours.
‘What’s next on your plan?’ Christopher asks Nash.
‘We’re going to slow-roast the lamb legs. The oven upstairs is little but if we use that, then we can leave them in low and slow for the next few hours.’
‘Good plan.’
‘Also, Dai and Thelma gave us these hams but I’m not sure I’ve ever cooked one. Usually, it’s just like a thin steak of ham that tastes of despair. The internet says to boil it in water, which for some reason sounds disgusting to me.’
‘Boil it in Coke,’ says Tegan sagely. ‘That’s what Nigella does. I’ve seen it on TikTok. I’ll ask Danny from the shop to bring some up now.’
‘That sounds somehow worse, so I’m going to leave you to it,’ Nash says, hoisting the lamb legs under his arms, and a bagful of herbs in the other.
It doesn’t take Christopher long to find the recipe online, so he takes over the hams, scoring the skin and studding them with cloves plus a coating of brown sugar and some ancient mustard powder he finds upstairs, squeezing around Nash’s intense lamb preparation.
If Christopher was sceptical that an Angeleno would know how to handle two whole legs of lamb, he shouldn’t have been.
In Christopher’s trusty and huge casserole dishes, he makes a trivet of the saddest-looking supermarket vegetables for the lamb to sit on.
The lamb legs have been rubbed and studded with garlic and rosemary and salt.
‘Worked in a lot of kitchens too?’ he asks, peering over as Nash breaks up the sprigs of herbs.
‘Not in real life. I played a chef in—’
‘What Christmas Means to Leigh,’ Christopher finishes and, realising he said it out loud, the heat creeps up his face.
To his relief, Nash just cackles. ‘All right, Ingrid Goes West. You don’t need to recite my IMDb back to me.’
‘I just think it’s quite a good one,’ he huffs, walking down the stairs.
‘That’s the one with Khloé Kardashian in it isn’t it?’ Tegan calls, presumably so they can both hear.
‘It is,’ Nash calls back down, clearly amused by his little burgeoning fan base. ‘I didn’t realise I was so popular in this corner of North Wales.’
‘With him and my stepmum, sure. Maybe the dinner will turn into a meet and greet.’
Christopher realises he really doesn’t know much about Tegan’s family, other than that she has tyrant little siblings. Perhaps her father is remarried? It seems kind of a weird thing to ask her about, though, as her employer.
In record time, Danny from the shop arrives with two carrier bags straining under the weight of many large bottles of Coke. Christopher instructs him to pour it right into the big saucepan on the stove, which houses the hams and some onion halves, but this is met with a very confused look.
‘I’ll show you,’ says Tegan, dragging him over to the hob. Christopher feels a swell of pride at everyone working hard in his little kitchen.
Once the hams are on the go, Tegan takes a few pictures of the food prepping, before going back through the café to let Danny out and to finish cleaning.
Soon the lamb is roasting, loaves are proving, hams are cooking, and Christopher gets a start on making a mountain of chopped and prepped potatoes and vegetables ready to be roasted, boiled, even sautéed, depending on what pans they have left.
Nash also returns and gets started on his mysterious vegetarian Wellington, and, seeing quite how much puff pastry he needs, Christopher is glad that they opted for raiding freezers rather than it being yet another thing they had to make themselves.
Christopher’s little greenhouse of herbs has been stripped bare, but now they have a glut of mint sauce for the lamb, and the start of both a vegetarian gravy and a meaty one made with some stock cubes from his cupboard upstairs.
The hours roll by quickly as they tick off each step on Nash’s list, taking things in and out of ovens, and wrapping hot things up in foil to keep warm for serving time.
He didn’t see her arrive, but eventually Shaz walks into the kitchen and surveys the large amount of food already laid out ready. ‘It’s a Christmas miracle!’
‘Christ, are people arriving already?’ Christopher asks nervously.
‘Relax, we rounded up everyone nice and early, and they’re at the village hall being topped up on hot drinks. Tamara even managed to get some proper salt for the road so everyone could get across without going arse over tit. And have you seen what my girl has done out here?’
They follow her out to the café side and Christopher gasps.
The tables have been aligned into a couple of long ones, covered with various tablecloths that do not match but that are all along the same holiday colour palette of red, green and gold.
Each setting has cutlery and something to drink out of – along with café supplies, Christopher recognises some of his glasses from upstairs, plus some of the ancient plastic juice cups from the village hall.
He’s not quite sure where she got all the salt and pepper sets, but they’re dotted along the table, along with jars of horseradish, redcurrant jelly and mustard.
Also on the tables are small centrepieces of piled-up Christmas decorations that must have been stolen from someone’s tree, balanced on a few of the fake present boxes from the window.
The counter is clean and clear ready for the buffet, with a huge stack of plates at one end, and large serving spoons ready.
Finally, instrumental Christmas music softly plays from a speaker in the corner.
It’s everything they could have dreamed of.
‘Wow, this looks amazing in here,’ says Nash.
‘Tegan, this is . . . this is just magical,’ Christopher says, his voice quiet with awe. ‘Thank you so much.’
She smiles down at her shoes. ‘Danny from the shop helped too.’
‘Everyone who is coming today brought a bag of useful bits with them, and we’ve used everything we can,’ Shaz explains.
‘I took photos of everything so I think I can match it all up at the end too.’
‘Great thinking,’ Nash smiles, yielding another beam from Tegan.
‘How long do you have left on the great Christmas master plan?’ Shaz asks.
Christopher does some quick maths. ‘Maybe ready to dish up in an hour if we have a couple of hands to help with serving?’
Nash snorts. ‘You can probably divide that time estimate by how long his legs are. Takes you half the time to whip round as the rest of us.’
‘I’d be quicker if I didn’t have imps like you underfoot,’ he sniffs.
Shaz stares at them in disbelief. ‘What are you on about? There’s like two inches of height difference between you both. Maximum.’
‘It has to be more than that,’ Nash murmurs.
‘Nope,’ agrees Tegan from across the room where she holds up a hand presumably to match up their heads. ‘Basically, the same height as each other.’
‘Well. Now I feel a bit ridiculous,’ murmurs Christopher.
‘Why don’t we move this along?’ Nash says, clearly just as embarrassed.