The Plumberry School of Comfort Food by Cathy Bramley

Author:Cathy Bramley
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473526662
Publisher: Transworld

Chapter 23

Ten minutes later I joined Tom in the office. He dropped the phone in its cradle immediately and stretched his arms above his head.

‘Who was that?’ I asked, slipping into the chair behind my desk.

He grinned and tapped his nose. ‘A surprise.’

‘Suit yourself.’ I shrugged, pretending not to be bothered. I scooped my hair up into a pony tail and turned my computer on. ‘By the way, have you ever done any team building?’

I told him about Dave’s idea for running cookery days for corporate clients and how it might be a way to make this sort of competition profitable for the cookery school.

‘Hmm.’ Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

‘You don’t sound convinced.’ I turned to look at him. He was close enough for me to see purple shadows under his eyes. He looked weary; he’d probably not had a moment to himself since leaving Plumberry on Saturday.

‘Forget it,’ I said with a smile. ‘We can do this another time. Have you eaten today?’

He wrinkled his nose. ‘Er, only what I’ve tasted in there.’

‘Right, sit down; I’ll go foraging.’

I returned a few minutes later with a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ he said.

We were quiet for a few moments, each engrossed with our task: he ploughed his way through his food and I responded to my emails.

‘I took over service on Saturday night at Salinger’s,’ said Tom eventually, brushing the crumbs from his hands over the plate. ‘Ryan went back to being my underling.’

I winced. ‘That must have been awkward.’

‘I can’t deny feeling a certain satisfaction.’ He grinned, leaned back and propped his feet up on Gloria’s desk. ‘But it was strange being back in that heated environment; all that bent double over food nonsense, making every vegetable look perfect. I see it in there today.’ He nodded to the teaching kitchen through the glass panel. ‘I can feel their passion, and I admire them for it, their skills, the techniques, and the commitment to making the very best plate of food possible.’

‘They are certainly going for gold,’ I said with a laugh, catching sight of Annabel whisking something in a copper bowl as if her life depended on it.

‘But I can’t help feeling . . .’ He hesitated.

‘What?’ I prompted.

‘That I’m a bit over it.’

‘What?’ I said again.

‘I realized on Saturday that I got more satisfaction from teaching you to make bread last week than serving intricate dishes to discerning diners in Manchester.’

‘Do I know you?’ I cocked an eyebrow at him.

What had happened to the pretentious chef who’d insisted we taught students how to confit eggs and make the perfect fondant potato?

‘To tell the truth, I hardly recognize myself,’ he said with bewilderment. ‘But now I get it. I get why Gloria has invested in this cookery school to pass her love of food on to others. I think that for the moment, being in Plumberry where food is about taste and enjoyment and sharing is right for me; it’s somewhere to take stock and plan my next move.

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