Chapter 12
The days flew by in a flurry of work and grocery shopping until Thursday arrived, clear and sunny. I slept in late, then had hot chocolate and buttered toast on the balcony as I watched Paris go about its morning. Then it was time to get cooking.
I’d created a minutely-detailed cooking schedule, structured so that I could get most of the work out of the way before Laurent arrived.
It’d been years since I’d gone more than two days without baking something, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d made dinner for another person.
Having most of the meal done beforehand would make me feel more confident.
Slightly more confident.
I started things off easy by making the salad dressing.
I went about it carefully, taste-testing throughout the process to make sure there was a perfect balance between all the ingredients: olive oil, blood orange balsamic vinegar I’d gotten specially, Dijon mustard, honey, minced garlic, and salt and pepper.
It took a bit of effort, but I was pleased with it by the time I decanted it into a glass jar and put it in the fridge.
Next, I prepped the apples for the tarte tatin, peeling, seeding, and quartering them. They got placed in the fridge as well to dry out a bit so the tart wouldn’t get soggy. It was a trick my mother had taught me.
After that, I made the puff pastry. The frozen brands at the store were usually pretty good, but I absolutely could not serve Laurent store-bought pastry after my jibe at his quiche. Plus, I always found the process of pastry-making to be soothing.
Methodically, I went through the steps: grating the slightly-frozen butter, mixing it with flour, adding just the right amount of water, and kneading it into dough.
It was late afternoon by now, and I nervously ran through the recipes again and triple-checked that I had all the ingredients. Once that was sorted, I realized that I should probably put some effort into my appearance, too.
I flailed around my closet for a few minutes before deciding on a burgundy dress that had always served me well on previous dates. (Not that this was a date. Maybe.)
A half hour before Laurent was due to arrive, I brushed my hair, leaving it down since I always wore it up for work, and did my makeup, choosing a subtle mauve lipstick.
Then I put the radio on to my favorite jazz station, lit the unscented candles I had decorating the table, and stood back to survey my work.
“I think this might actually go alright,” I said. I decided that my nerves were due to the rarity of me hosting dinner and not because the dinner was for Laurent Roche in particular.
I’d meant to have the saltfish acras finished just before Laurent arrived, but their prep took me longer than expected.
I’d never actually made acras before, but I’d watched our neighbor in Martinique teach my mother, and then watched my mother make them many times herself.
It had seemed quite straightforward, but I was slow to chop everything.
By the time there was a quiet knock on my door, I had the batter ready and oil heating, but I hadn’t fried any of the fritters yet.
I went to open the door, aware that I was sweating slightly and my hair was likely frizzing about my head. On the other side stood Laurent, wearing slacks and a button-down shirt and looking again like he’d just stepped away from a photoshoot. In his hands were two bottles of wine.
His mouth quirked. “I figured I was safest with both a white and a red.”
I laughed, some of my nervous energy dissipating now that Laurent was actually here. We stepped toward each other to kiss on each cheek. A shiver ran down my back as his warm skin pressed against mine.
I ushered him in with greetings and small talk questions about his day, opened the bottle of red to let it breathe, then opened the white wine and poured us each a glass.
“To store-bought pastry,” Laurent said, and I laughed and clinked my glass against his.
“I meant to have the first course ready,” I admitted, “But I still need a few minutes.”
“Not to worry,” Laurent said, looking into the mixing bowl with professional interest. “What are we having?”
“Saltfish acras. The recipe is from Martinique."
Laurent’s face lit up. “Acras? Wonderful. I had an offer to work in the Caribbean several years ago, but I turned it down to stay in Europe. I read up on the food, though.”
We went to the stove together, where the pan of oil was still heating.
“Do you do a lot of frying?” Laurent asked as I scooped out a mound of batter.
“No. When I lived in the United States, a group of us tried to make Monte Cristos, but I wasn’t in charge of the frying part.” I held a hand over the oil to try to judge the temperature.
“Do you have a deep fryer thermometer?” Laurent now sounded slightly concerned.
“Oh, no,” I said breezily. “It’s been heating for a while, though, so I’m sure it’s hot enough.”
“Yes, but—” Laurent started. At the same time, I dropped a spoonful of batter into the oil, and the very wise warning he was probably about to give was cut off as my kitchen exploded.
Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking.
That the oil would reach the optimum temperature and just stay there, despite being over a burning flame?
That deep fry thermometers were a quaint extravagance and not a deeply-essential tool when cooking in oil?
That frying wasn’t at all as finicky as baking?
The pan of oil had sat, half-forgotten, on the stove, getting hotter and hotter until it was roughly comparable to the surface of the sun.
At least Laurent and I had the intelligence to drop to the ground. That spared us from the worst effects of hot oil splattering in every direction, although some of it still got in my hair.
There was an unholy sizzling sound, and a billow of smoke rose from the pan. That set the fire alarm wailing.
Gallantly, with one hand shielding his face from the jets of burning oil still rocketing across my kitchen, Laurent stood and quickly moved the pan to the back burner before turning off the stove.
He then sprinted across the room to open the window and began opening closets, presumably to find a broom to turn off the alarm.
I remained crouched on the kitchen floor, shell-shocked by how quickly this meal had devolved into a disaster/potential arson event. By some miracle, I was still clutching my wine glass. I took a gulp.
A knock at my door roused me from my stupor. There was Madame Blanchet, an utterly terrified Bijou whimpering at her side.
“Any problems, Margot?” she asked, smiling benevolently.
“Not at all,” I said, speaking loudly to be heard above the fire alarm. I smiled, trying to look as though I hadn’t just nearly burned the building down. “Just a little kitchen mishap.”
The alarm suddenly cut out, and a wave of black smoke rolled over us. I did my best to stifle a cough. Like the tiny traitor he was, Bijou sneezed three times in succession.
“Well, you enjoy yourself, ma chérie,” Madame Blanchet said, politely suppressing a cough of her own.
“Oh, is Monsieur Roche here too?” she asked, as a frazzled-looking Laurent appeared, clutching a broom in a death grip.
“Are you two having dinner together? How lovely,” she said as another black cloud of smoke briefly enveloped her head.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone what’s been going on,” she added as she left.
Which meant the entire building would know about it by tomorrow.
I closed the door behind Madame Blanchet and turned to face Laurent.
The sudden silence, now that the fire alarm had stopped blaring, felt oppressive. I was acutely aware that my dress was crumpled, my face was flushed, and my hair was dripping with cooking oil. Laurent looked hardly better with his clothes greasy and wrinkled.
We stared at each other, both panting slightly.
Laurent cleared his throat. “I think the oil might have been just slightly too hot.”
Just then, a glop of oil plopped from my hair to my shoulder, and the absurdity of it all was too much.
I looked around my formerly-pristine kitchen and started laughing to cover my embarrassment.
I kept on laughing as my stomach ached and I gasped for breath, until I had to lean against the counter to prevent myself from toppling over.
It must have been obvious to Laurent how close my laughter was to turning into tears because he came over and patted my shoulder awkwardly.
“Don’t worry, it all turned out alright,” he said.
“We haven’t even started dinner!” I wailed.
“Well…yes, that’s true,” Laurent conceded. “How about this: I’ll get my deep fry thermometer, uh, and maybe take a quick shower. Then we can resume.” Laurent smiled bracingly. “It’s just a slight delay.”
After checking that oil was no longer exploding across the kitchen, he left. I half-expected to never see him again.
Nevertheless, as soon as the door closed behind Laurent, I sprang into action, quickly wiping down the kitchen and blowing out the candles (I wasn’t risking any more fire-related mishaps this evening).
I checked the photo of my mother that hung over the counter and heaved a sigh when I saw it was unscathed. I pressed the glass briefly with my fingertips, then went to take a shower. That got rid of my nicely-styled hair and makeup, but at least I wasn’t dripping cooking oil anymore.
I put on a new dress and combed my wet hair but didn’t have time to do anything else before I heard Laurent’s knock.
Greeting him was even more awkward than it had been the first time. We appraised each other, damp and fresh-faced, until Laurent raised his hand, showing the thermometer he held. “Want to give it another try?”