Page 22 of The Wandering Season

Later that afternoon, I began the process of infusing the farm-fresh butter with the truffle oil and the cream with the vanilla pods so the flavors would have time to mature. Niall lounged contentedly in the living room with a travel guide a previous guest had left behind. We wouldn’t be hungry for hours, and I was glad to have plenty of time to coax out flavors and to indulge that culinary muse, whom I could visualize shaking the dust off her apron and picking the cobwebs out of her hair.

How long had it been since I cooked a meal that called for real creativity and stretched my skills? Two years? Three? My shoulders relaxed, and I gave in to the magic of the kitchen. Chopping, trimming, sprinkling herbs and spices. It was a choreographed dance, and I lost myself in the music of simmering sauces and sizzling oil. Time was irrelevant, and so were the rest of my troubles. My young business, Jonathan’s antics, rebuilding trust with my parents . . . While I let the muse have me, none of it really mattered.

I puréed and piped the duchesse potatoes into perfect swirls, and they browned in the lower oven. The Brussels sprouts were a vibrant green as I sautéed them in a bit of bacon fat. The wine was uncorked, letting the tannins mellow. I’d seared the steaks and placed them in cast iron in the upper oven at a low temperature to cook slowly.

I had the infused truffle butter at the ready, and there was nothing left but to prepare the truffle. I sliced it paper thin and warmed the slices one at a time for just a few seconds, reserving four slices for later use.

I was almost sad when my futzing about the kitchen came to an end. Like Christmas morning, the buildup to the event was almost more fun than the moment itself. I called Niall in from the living room, and his eyes nearly fell from their sockets.

“You’re no woman, Veronica Stratton. You’re a kitchen witch through and through.”

“I must have forgotten to give you my business card. I, sir, am a kitchen muse. Giving inspiration to great chefs and letting them create masterpieces for the masses. I just happened to use that inspiration for my own benefit tonight.”

For once the stars aligned and I happened to have a card in my wallet, which was still residing in the ample pockets of the utilitarian-yet-sleek travel pants Avery had sent me.

Niall examined the card, navy blue embossed with gold stars, with The Kitchen Muse in a whimsical font and the rest of my contact information in a more readable style. Straight out of the twentieth century, but I still found them useful.

“I stand corrected, but this meal is still incredible.”

He pocketed the card and took his seat, and I placed the platter with the steaks before him. I spooned on the infused butter and arranged the slices of truffle decoratively before he took his portion. We helped ourselves to the lot of it. The duchesse potatoes were perfectly browned pinwheels of cheesy, buttery purée that had been piped onto parchment and baked in the oven until a crisp shell had formed. A labor of love but worth the extra effort.

For one of the first times ever, I snapped Instagram-worthy photos of the dishes in various stages of completion and decided I’d send them to Fairbanks with a breezy note expressing how nice it would be to chat when I got back. It was more direct than I was used to, but the cooking adrenaline had me feeling bold.

A breath caught in my throat as Niall took a bite of his filet. His eyes closed, shutting off one sense to heighten the others.

“This is an utter marvel, Veronica. I’ve never met your equal in the kitchen. You’ve outstripped me by an order of magnitude.”

“I disagree. Your omelets are far better than mine. And your bread skills probably outdo my own too. We just have different talents.”

Niall took another bite, looking pensive as he chewed. “Perhaps. I’ve always enjoyed the precision of baking. Not a wide margin for error.”

I cut into my own filet and took in the swirling flavors of the earthy truffle with the tender meat, each lifting the other. I lost myself in the sensation so thoroughly, I had to fight my way back to the present to rejoin my conversation with Niall. “Maybe that’s it. Cooking provides a bit more scope for the imagination while baking requires focus and balance.”

He cocked his head in contemplation. “Right. The creativity with baking is in finding the flavors and coming up with a way to shoehorn them into a workable recipe. I enjoy the challenge of it.”

The tingling in my scalp returned as I considered his words. It was rare that I got to speak with someone who viewed the process from a similar light, and it was exhilarating in a way I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe. “I get that. Finding a way to introduce fresh cherries into a cake recipe that’s already liquid heavy. It’s like a battle of the wills to make it work. Given the elevation in Denver, I’m surprised more of our bakers don’t end up in the psych ward.”

Niall chuckled as he started in on his potatoes. “One advantage to Ireland: It’s far easier to get dough to rise properly at sea level.”

“No doubt.”

I took a sip of the young Chateauneuf-du-Pape and sighed with delight. Seeing my reaction, Niall followed suit.

“A lovely choice, this.”

He held the glass up to observe the golden hue of the kitchen lights playing off the velvety purple-red wine.

I took another sip and allowed it to linger on my tongue. “Isn’t it? Just the right notes of black cherry and a spicy finish. I thought it would pair well without competing with the truffle.”

He took a sniff at his glass. “I don’t think you could have done better. Let me guess, sommelier school too?”

“No, just on-the-job training. Chateauneuf is a special one. It’s a blend, which I don’t usually love, but in this case, the varietals tend to cancel out the harshest characteristics of the others. The blend works together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.”

“Sounds a lot like people,”

Niall mused. “They can bring out the best in one another.”

I paused, considering. “If it’s the right combination. In some cases one varietal will completely dominate the other. In other cases the flavors are a discordant mess. Finding the right blend is tricky.”

“So . . . exactly like people, then?”

“More or less,”

I finally agreed.

“You were born to do this,”

Niall said after a pause. “It’s not just the cooking. Anyone with patience and a brain can make a decent filet. It’s knowing how the flavors pair together and how to tie them all together into a cohesive meal.”

“Loads of practice, I suppose.”

“No, it’s skill and talent, Veronica. Honed and developed to be sure, but the seeds of it were in you all along. You should be running your own kitchen.”

I felt the blood slowly draining from my face. Like everyone else, he spoke as if opening a restaurant were as small an undertaking as, say, picking up tennis. He was trying to urge me into taking a life path, just as others had done for Aoife and Imogène, and I further bristled at the idea. I sought a reply, but a feeble “um, thanks,”

was the best I could muster.

“I’m sorry. It isn’t my place to say such things. I just marvel that you haven’t tried, is all,”

he pressed gently.

I cleared my throat. “Enough about me. What about you? What is it that you would have done if your dad hadn’t fallen ill and you hadn’t been needed at Blackthorn? What was the plan in Dublin—college?”

He took another bite of the potatoes, a subtle technique to buy him a few more moments to ponder. “Pastry school. Da had wanted me to go off and study hotel management so I could do right by Blackthorn, but I was sure it would be dull and I wanted no part of it. But all the plans went out the window, so all our arguments were for naught.”

“So you dreamed of opening your own bakery? You fancied getting up at three in the morning to make bread and cakes?”

“I don’t know. I guess I figured I’d improve and expand the menu at the castle and maybe sell to some of the restaurants in Westport. The kitchen at the castle is as well-equipped as any commercial kitchen in Mayo, and it seemed a good way to shore up our finances if the castle had a bad year.”

He was due a bit of prodding after the dose he had given me. “Very pragmatic, but is that the whole and unvarnished version of what you wanted to do with your life?”

He took another sip of wine before meeting my gaze. “I always expected to become caretaker of Blackthorn, but I dreamed of a couple decades off on my own first. Having a café in Dublin where, in the morning, folks could come get pastries and a good cup of coffee that weren’t mass produced. A sandwich on fresh-baked bread with ingredients you could pronounce. Not the grandest of ambitions, I know, but it would have been a fun interim project before I went back to Westport for good.”

“It’s a shame you didn’t have that opportunity. Your devotion to Blackthorn and your family is wonderful, but it didn’t leave you with a lot of breathing room for yourself.”

“No, I suppose it didn’t. Caitlin always likens it to the crown prince ascending the throne. And as you might expect, she’s no sort of monarchist and speaks of it with the same disdain.”

I laughed, well able to imagine Caitlin on a tirade. “How does she make that connection?”

“Well, the crown prince spends a fair amount of time waiting for his turn, yes? But in the interim he goes to university and lives a bit, you know? Now consider our neighbors to the east. The poor sod had to wait almost three-quarters of a century to get his chance, but his mam was hauled into the job in her midtwenties . . . like I was. He probably feels like he got shortchanged, but she had an awfully long time to wear the crown. Her neck was bound to get sore from the weight of it.”

“I see Caitlin’s point. You don’t want to spend your life in the waiting room. You wanted the chance to make your mark on Blackthorn and run it as you saw fit, but you didn’t expect to jump in so early.”

“Right. A life is meant to have seasons, and I seem to have jumped to the autumn of mine with only the barest hint of summer, if that makes any sense at all.”

“It makes a lot of sense. You’ve had some choices taken from you, and it’s natural to harbor a bit of resentment.”

Niall set down his knife and fork, pausing before he spoke again. “What about you, Veronica? You’ve had all the choices in the world, and you refuse to make the leap of faith to do what you really want to.”

“I never said I wanted to open a restaurant. Just because someone enjoys something doesn’t mean they want to make a living from it. A person may love acting and enjoy doing regional theater, but they’d be miserable if their hobby became their profession and they lost their escape from the tedium of daily life. It might be the same for me.”

“Veronica Stratton, that is a load of malarkey, and you know it. You’ve said yourself you don’t even cook all that often these days. You’ve been telling yourself excuses to protect yourself from failing. It’s not like the profession you’ve chosen for yourself is some ultrapractical field. You’re not a doctor or a primary schoolteacher. You’re in the restaurant business without really being in the restaurant business.”

I gripped the edge of the table to keep my hands from shaking. I’d heard variations of this from every member of my family a dozen times over. I wanted to cast it back at him, to refute his words with the eloquence of an Ivy League debate captain, but I couldn’t. I leaned back in my chair, exhaling slowly and staring at the wall, searching for a proper response, but I found no answers in the mottled beige plaster.

He let out a low groan. “God above, I shouldn’t have pressed the matter. After you made this glorious meal for us and all. I am a proper horse’s arse.”

I took a sip from my wineglass, not meeting his gaze. “No, don’t worry about it. I just don’t understand why everyone just assumes that running a restaurant is my burning desire. Like everyone knows me better than I know myself.”

“I suppose that’s fair. It’s presumptuous of me to push. Forgive me?”

I waved a hand dismissively. “There’s nothing to forgive, Niall. Let’s just drop it for tonight.”

“Agreed. I don’t want to spoil the evening more than I have. And God knows I’ve had my share of my family making presumptions about what’s best for me and my career. And for added drama, my sister and my father have diametrically opposed ideas for the course of my life, and my poor mam is caught in the middle.”

I softened. “That has to be extra hard. At least my friends and family all have a unified front to turn me into Chef Veronica.”

“A unified front is harder to defend against. I’m not sure you haven’t got the worse bargain there.”

“Maybe so. I know they care, but it is maddening to be surrounded by people who are entirely convinced they know what’s best for you.”

“And I’m truly sorry to be one of them. I’ll do better.”

He laid his hand on mine, and my chest constricted as if caught in a vise. I couldn’t remember ever having such a visceral reaction to Jonathan, and it just added to the list of reasons I should have known better than to let the relationship drag on as long as it had. But why in creation did I have to feel this way about a man who lived half a world away from Denver? I wanted to take my free hand and run it through his thick hair. I wanted it as profoundly as I wanted my next breath, but to do so would only lead to more heartache.

“Dessert,”

I said abruptly. “If you’re not too stuffed. We can wait until you’ve had time to digest first if you want.”

“No, I’m sure you’ve crafted it to fit with the meal. Let’s have it now.”

I bounded to the refrigerator, feeling reinvigorated at the prospect of showing off my creation. I’d been flummoxed as to how to create a capstone that would live up to such a meal. I decided simplicity should reign and opted for a classic crème br?lée I’d baked before I began the rest of the meal and chilled it while we ate. Only in France would a vacation rental come complete with a set of ramekins for the custard and a kitchen blowtorch for the topping. I sprinkled on a layer of coarse sugar and fired up the blowtorch to create the signature layer of crisp caramel on top of the fluffy vanilla custard.

I’d decided to take a twist on the traditional crème br?lée and added a light garnish of truffle pearls I’d purchased with the truffle oil. They were like small beads of caviar that burst in the mouth with an explosion of truffle flavor. I added the last two slices of truffle atop the dessert and presented it to Niall.

“Truffle in a pudding?”

he asked. “Bold of you.”

“It’s an experiment, but I think it will work. Just trust me.”

Slowly, almost reverently, he took his spoon and cracked through the garnish and caramel into the custard below. He made sure to get a bit of everything in one bite. Like an experienced food critic, he took his time to take in the flavors and give it an honest try.

His eyes locked with mine, but he said nothing.

“Is it that bad? We can scrape off the truffle bits. The custard should be fine on its own.”

“Take a bite as it is,”

he said at length.

I obliged, feeling the satisfying crack of the caramel as my spoon pierced through. I carefully took a bit of everything in one spoonful as Niall had done, hoping I hadn’t embarrassed myself too thoroughly. The earthy umami of the truffle, the intense burst of flavor from the truffle pearls, the sweet creaminess of the custard, and the bittersweetness of the toasted caramel didn’t war for attention in my mouth, but they worked together as harmoniously as woodwinds, brass, and strings to form a symphony of flavor.

I set my spoon down as I let the flavors come to rest on my tongue. “Wow.”

“You can say that again. It’s incredible.”

I took up my spoon again, hoping the next bite would live up to the first. If anything, the flavors grew more complex as they had time to bloom.

“I think your muse has been held captive for a bit too long. She gave you this as a reminder to let her out a bit more often.”

“Maybe you’re right. I should cook more. If only for friends and family. It would be a good outlet. And good for market research for my clients.”

Niall opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. Dutifully swallowing back his arguments as he’d promised he would. But even unspoken, they permeated the air, heavy and acrid like traces of scorched sugar.

We finished the crème br?lée and decided to brave the cold January air for a walk to help us digest the rich food.

He took my hand in his like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I reveled in the feeling of his fingers interlaced with mine. We wandered without direction, just enjoying the quaint village houses bathed in moonlight and the soft glow of streetlights.

“I hope you aren’t mad at me for overstepping. I just hate to see your talent go unappreciated.”

“People do appreciate it. I just choose to use it in an unconventional way. I get to have my fingers in dozens of pies. I don’t have to choose if I want my restaurant to serve Italian food or French food . . . or if I want to specialize in something more niche like Colorado wild game. Bison steaks, elk sausage, and all that.”

Niall stared off at the starry horizon. “There is a lot of fun in what you do, I’m sure. I just hope in thirty years’ time you won’t come to regret your decision. I’d hate to see you look back and wonder what might have been.”

I took in his chiseled profile. “What about you and your café? Do you think you’ll look back with regret when you’re seventy and wish you’d done it when you’d had the chance?”

“I think the person who can look back on life without some measure of regret is either blessed with never having to make hard decisions, or else they resigned themselves to always making the easy ones. I’m sure I’ll have a twinge of sorrow for the café that never was, but I don’t think it’s a regret that will haunt me like some.”

I was on the point of asking him what regrets would be that serious, but it was far too nosy a query. Though the question went unasked, he could sense it on the tip of my tongue. “There aren’t too many regrets in my life, but not doing this would be the worst of them.”

He dipped his head and kissed me, hesitating just a moment before his lips met mine in a silent plea for permission. I felt myself melt against his hard chest as his breath mingled with mine and his fingers threaded into my hair, pulling me closer. I didn’t care that we were on a public street where anyone could see. The only thing that mattered was Niall, and how I’d longed for this moment since he tucked me into bed back at Blackthorn. How desperately I’d wished, for just a few beats of my heart, that he wasn’t raised to be such a gentleman.

But he was, and I couldn’t deny that it was one of the many reasons I’d grown to care for him. And I couldn’t deny those feelings any longer. I lost myself in the warmth of his arms, his heady cologne of sandalwood and pine, and allowed myself—just this once—to linger in something beautiful.