Chapter 6
I started with a quick inventory. The pantry had plenty of shelf-stable dry goods and canned foods.
The freezer was stocked like a fallout shelter to feed a village through the apocalypse, with plenty of meat, fish, and bags of pre-diced frozen fruit and veggies.
None of which would make an ideal first impression for a gourmet lunch.
The high water content in frozen veggies meant everything tended to taste flat and bland, like the inside of a plastic bag.
Similarly, frozen meat never achieved the right tenderness again.
It affected the composition of the tissue fiber.
Then there was the refrigerator. The smell that erupted from that walk-in nearly knocked me sideways.
There were pounds of spoiled produce and mold bordering on a full civilization.
Nothing could happen until I cleaned out the fridge, took out the trash, washed, and sterilized the walk-in, all of which took another two hours off my prep time.
When I’d taken stock of what I had to work with, I decided the least offensive ingredients at my disposal were some frozen Yukon Gold potatoes and spinach, chicken thighs, and white rice.
The pantry had panko breadcrumbs and a generous array of nuts and spices.
The best way to redeem a frozen protein was to deep-fry it.
To me, that said one thing: chicken katsu with massaman curry over rice, with spinach and potatoes.
Because when all else fails, throw copious amounts of seasoning at it, blend and pray.
It was a humble dish. Certainly not what I’d envisioned serving to the family for their first meal.
And there was a voice screaming in the back of my head that I might be making a terrible mistake.
But I didn’t have time to hear it. Not over the louder sound of the clock ticking like my heart banging in my chest. There just wasn’t time for second-guessing.
I needed to pick a direction and go with it.
Strangely, as I pulled my ingredients together and got some pans heating on the stove, the apprehension and anxiety started to melt away.
The first thing was to get my coriander and cumin seeds toasting in a pan with some peanuts.
Then I ground the mixture and added it to some red curry paste.
Next, I pounded out my chicken thighs and set them to marinate in a bowl with some gochujang and fish sauce.
In a pan, I combined my curry paste with coconut milk, then added dried lime leaves and set it to simmer.
While that bubbled away, I thought about an appetizer.
Normally, I’d serve a salad or some kind of fresh component to balance the fattiness of the curry, but my only produce came courtesy of the freezer.
Then I saw the frozen peaches and raspberries.
I decided on a tart peach and raspberry sorbet as a sort of palate cleanser.
It was those sorts of pivots, the opportunity for creativity and improvisation, that gave me such a spark of excitement in the kitchen.
It was never mundane when I was able to think on my feet and solve problems. I had stopped seeing this dinner as an emergency, but more like a game.
I even found myself having fun. Because the kitchen really was my happy place.
Turning disparate ingredients into a cohesive meal was my simple joy.
I brought the spinach and potatoes up to temperature in separate pans, then dried as much moisture from the greens as I could before adding them to my curry. I diced the potatoes and threw them in too, then set the rice going in the rice cooker.
Then, because I had time, I made some quick roti before dredging and breading my chicken thighs and frying them off, just as Ali returned to tell me the family had arrived and would be seated for lunch shortly. She was setting four places. I’d prepared enough for eight, just in case.
“Would you care to try some?” I offered. “I can make you a bowl.”
Ali glanced back to the doorway, then lifted her chin. “Yes, alright. Thank you.”
I placed rice in a bowl and ladled on the curry.
Next, I seasoned and sliced the katsu chicken, placed it carefully on top and garnished with a piece of roti on the side.
I handed Ali a fork at the kitchen island where she stood, and she took a tentative bite.
Then another. She mixed the rice further into the sauce and stabbed a piece of chicken to get a little bit of everything in one bite.
“This is quite delicious,” she said stiffly. “Very good.”
I began to second-guess myself. “You don’t think it’s too much starch on starch? Potatoes and rice?”
She shook her head, dabbing at the corner of her mouth to wipe away some stray curry. “Not at all. Good for this sort of weather. And it balances the heat of the sauce.”
I smiled. That had been the idea. Always better to err on the side of caution, when I still didn’t know the family’s tolerance for spicy food.
“I’ll just finish this,” she said, hugging the bowl close to her. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. I’m going to start plating.”
I’d always found food to be the great icebreaker. With any luck, it would work on the Hawthornes as well.
On the kitchen island, I set out four bowls on top of plates, and filled each with the rice, curry, and sliced chicken topping. Then I folded pieces of roti to set on each plate beside the curry. Just as I did so, two more staff members I hadn’t even known were in the house entered the kitchen.
“Are they seated?” Ali asked.
A young man, barely in his twenties, nodded, so I went ahead and prepared a quenelle of sorbet on a porcelain soup spoon for each diner.
“For regular service, the waitstaff will run the plates,” Ali explained to me.
“In that case, these go out first,” I told the guy and girl, pointing them to the sorbet spoons.
They each took two and left the kitchen.
“I’ll have you join us with the main course to briefly explain the dish,” Ali said to me.
“Is there time to freshen up before I meet them?” I glanced at my reflection in the stainless steel door of the freezer. “I look hideous.”
My hair was a frizzy mess and I had curry splatters on my jeans. Not the best first impression to make on my new employers.
Ali gave me an appraising glance and barely concealed her grimace. “You’ll be fine. Keep your words brief and to the point. Mrs. Hawthorne hates rambling. And speak up. No muttering. Other than that . . .” She grabbed a napkin and wiped a spot of bright orange curry from my cheek. “You’ll be fine.”
Every time she said fine , I felt my knees buckle.
A couple of minutes later, the waitstaff returned with the empty sorbet spoons. That was our cue.
Ali set her bowl aside and quickly dabbed her face with a paper towel, straightening her posture as she took two bowls of curry.
I followed her with the other two, back through the staff corridor to the formal dining room, where the rustic decor continued.
The main feature of the room was a solid oak table that might’ve come from the brother of the tree that gave up the front door.
At the far end of the table, an older man with graying hair, who I took to be Mr. Hawthorne, sat at the head in a green quarter-zip sweater over an Oxford shirt.
He had a friendly smile that lit up at the arrival of the main course.
“Well, doesn’t that smell great!” he said, watching us enter.
Ali set a bowl in front of Mr. Hawthorne as I placed one in front of his wife at the opposite end of the table.
“Curry?” Mrs. Hawthorne was in her early sixties, an immaculately polished, blonde woman in a black turtleneck with piercing blue eyes and an angular face. She glanced down her nose at the food and sniffed.
I wasn’t sure how to interpret the reaction, except that a bubble formed in my throat and I suddenly had the uncontrollable urge to cough. Which is just about the worst first impression you can make at a meal service.
“Remember that lamb curry we had in Amsterdam last year,” Mr. Hawthorne said. “Incredible.”
“I remember you spent the whole trip in the hotel room with a terrible flu,” his wife remarked flatly.
“Yes, but the lamb curry made the trip worth it,” he answered with a laugh.
I held my breath as I set a plate in front of the younger blonde at the table, perhaps in her thirties, with her hair in perfect ski-bunny curls.
Their daughter, if the family features were any tell.
She wore a white, long-sleeved cashmere crop top with matching leggings and had her face buried in her phone, thumbs moving furiously over the screen.
“Dad always gets sick when we travel,” she said. “I told you to drink more green juice.”
Relieved to have delivered their food safely, I glanced quickly at the fourth member of the party and nearly passed out then and there.
The bowl wobbled loudly on the plate as I let go.
Because seated directly across from the daughter was a thirty-something man with dark blond hair and two dimples that froze mid-smile and faltered as our eyes met across the dinner table.
“Why does the color have anything to do with it?” Mr. Hawthorne joked, earning an eyeroll from his daughter.
Finally, Ali’s eyes sought mine and widened, urging me to get on with it.
“Y-you have a massaman curry,” I told the table, voice trembling. I cleared my throat, but nothing would dislodge the boulder that was growing larger just behind my tongue.
Charles’s eyes locked with mine in a brief moment of mutual horror before we both quickly looked away. I felt the blood drain from my face. My vision went blurry and a loud ringing filled my ears.
“Um . . . served over white rice with, uh, spinach and potato,” I fumbled to continue nervously. “On top is gochujang-marinated chicken katsu.”
“Please enjoy,” Ali said, her expression urging me to back the hell away from the table so the daughter could pick up her utensils without me practically standing in her curry.
As delicately as possible, I bolted out of the dining room and practically sprinted to the kitchen. Ali entered a moment later, her face puzzled.
“What’s wrong? I thought everything turned out quite well, considering.”
“Who is that other man in there?” I asked very quietly, like they might have the kitchen bugged.
Her brow furrowed. “Charles Hawthorne. Why do you ask?”
Because I was utter toast.