The Way to a Woman's Heart by Christina Jones

Author:Christina Jones [Jones, Christina]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781445858388
Google: dN3f_9K-NSYC
Amazon: 144585838X
Publisher: Windsor
Published: 2010-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-three

‘Shit!’ Ash jumped around Hideaway’s kitchen sucking his fingers.

‘Oh, dear, you need dock leaves,’ Poll advised from the other end of the table as she peeled artichokes. ‘But as you haven’t got any and we’ve got no time allowed to pick them, maybe running it under cold water would help? I knew there’d be a problem with nettle soup.’

‘I didn’t get stung once when I was picking them.’ Ash, eyes watering, continued to shake his hand as he ran it under the cold tap.

‘Probably,’ Ella said as she vigorously beat butter in a basin with a wooden spoon and fought the urge to offer to kiss the injured fingers better, ‘because you were wearing gloves then.’

‘Yeah, OK,’ Ash said wincing, ‘but I can’t cook in gloves, can I?’

Billy, who was sifting cream of tartar and flour at the far end of the table, motioned towards the wall clock. ‘If we’re doing this to time, then stung or not, Ash, you’re just going to have to get on with it. We’ve already had five minutes.’

The rehearsal was in full swing. Just in case…

The kitchen was stiflingly hot despite several fans whirring monotonously, and all the doors and windows being open. The evening sun streamed in, maliciously dancing across the cooking chaos.

Ella started to beat two large eggs together with a wire whisk. She looked across at Ash. ‘OK now?’

‘Oh, yeah. Just got three fingers blowing up like balloons and another ton of nettles to prepare.’

She giggled. ‘No gain without pain.’

‘Cliché alert,’ Poll snuffled, peering into a small bowl of vinegar. ‘Does anyone think I’ve over-soaked these artichokes?’

‘And that sounds like the start of a bad poem,’ Ella giggled, tucking her hair behind her ears again before resuming her whisking.

Maybe, she thought, one eye on the clock and the other on her adding beaten eggs slowly to beaten butter, this extremely retro menu hadn’t been the best one to choose. However, that was the whole point of the rehearsal. The dishes they’d picked were ones they were happy to make and should be cooked to perfection after three-quarters of an hour. And they’d rehearsed the choreography of all working together, moving from table to cooker and back without getting in each other’s way, many times – without the actual cooking.

Now it just remained to be seen if it all worked. Just in case…

As there was clearly going to be no time for Billy to bake bread in Dewberrys’ Dinners’ allotted forty-five minutes of airtime, he was making 1930s Ballater scones to compliment Ash’s wartime recipe of nettle soup; Poll was cooking a main of Jerusalem artichoke pudding – a popular dish from the 1950s – with baby vegetables from the garden; and her own dessert was an ancient Athole pudding – one of her gran’s favourites – with a wine sauce.

‘Ten minutes!’ Billy shouted, dissolving baking soda into a saucepan of milk. ‘We’ve had ten minutes!’

Everyone looked panicky and worked even quicker.

Ella, still stirring, watched Ash, urticaria forgotten, as he chopped onions and garlic with rapid movements.

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