Dinner with Andrew by Martha Williamson

Author:Martha Williamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-06-07T04:00:00+00:00

Tess was happy in the kitchen. She was dressed in chef’s whites with a giant toque perched on her head, and she sang as she moved from pot to pot as they bubbled on top of a big, professional range.

“I’m cooking, I’m cooking,” she sang, “with a blessing, with a blessing for evvvverrry-one! ”

The pheasant was slow-roasting in the oven, the salade nicoise with ahi had already been arranged in the vertical heap that a lot of New York restaurants affected with appetizers. The reduction was reducing. All in all, considering the haste with which Chez Tess had been assembled, things could not have been going better in the kitchen.

As Monica swept into the kitchen, Tess handed her a basket of crusty, fragrant, fresh-baked bread that had just come out of the oven.

“How’s it going out there?” Tess asked as she put curls of sweet butter on a small plate. She paused a moment and looked at the butter. “Should we serve butter or be really chic and trendy and send out a dish of extra virgin olive oil instead?”

“How about both?” suggested Monica.

“Sure, why not?” said Tess. “They’re both good. So, how is it going out there? Angel Boy doing his job?”

“Andrew is doing fine,” Monica replied evenly. Then she took a deep breath, finally able to give Tess the bad news. “However, . . .”

Tess looked up. “However? However, what? I never like sentences that begin with ‘however.’”

“However, there have been a couple of substitution requests,” Monica said, hoping she sounded nonchalant. “Nothing to be worried about, really.”

Tess’ eyebrows arched, and she gazed balefully at Monica. “Oh, really,” she said. “Substitutions? And who, may I ask, told Kate and Andrew that substitutions were allowed?” The question was purely rhetorical, of course; Tess knew that Monica was prone to giving in to her own enthusiasm in the excitement of the moment.

“Well,” said Monica gingerly, “purely in the spirit of hospitality . . . I did. It seemed like the right thing to do. And that Dr. Calder knows her own mind.”

“You did?” said Tess, a little miffed that her well-run kitchen was being disturbed. “And just how hospitable are we going to be?”

Consulting her order pad, Monica replied, “They would like veal instead of the pheasant, no sage in the lemon reduction,” she announced. “And tea instead of coffee.” She held up two fingers. “And that would be twice.”

“I haven’t added the sage to the reduction yet,” grumbled Tess. “And tea instead of coffee is easy. But no pheasant? The pheasant is . . . it’s a masterpiece, Monica. A masterpiece. I do all this cooking, and no one is going to have it?”

Monica shook her head slowly. “No pheasant, Tess. Well, at least, not at table one . . .” She took the basket of bread and made her escape, returning to the relative peace of the dining room. Monica was very relieved. Tess had handled the news of the substitutions much better than she had expected.

Tess gaped as Monica swept out.

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