Recipe for Love (13 page)

‘Right,’ said Muriel, ‘we missed the chicken so we’ve got stewing steak. That’ll be a casserole then.’

‘We could put a pastry top on it,’ suggested Shadrach. ‘Pie is better than just stew.’

‘Good point!’ said Muriel. ‘Let’s hope we have time. There was lots of flour and butter to make it and we have butternut squash, so that’s our soup option.’

Zoe had a private groan fearing she would be left cutting up the squashes and that they were very tough. With luck there’d be a potato peeler.

‘So what are we doing for sweet?’ asked Cher.

‘I don’t know. We have some lovely dried apricots so we could do a crumble,’ said Muriel.

‘I heard the others say they were doing crumble,’ said Cher. Perhaps her knack for overhearing things had some good uses, Zoe thought.

Muriel sighed. ‘What else can you do with apricots that isn’t a pie or a crumble or a mousse or a soufflé?’ she added, looking at Shadrach the designated expert, who shrugged.

‘Bread and butter pudding,’ said Zoe. ‘With apricots. I think I saw bread and we’ve loads of butter and eggs.’

‘I don’t like bread and butter pudding,’ said Cher. ‘It’s so carby.’

Muriel speared her with an eye that revealed her past career as a teacher. ‘I think I’ll put you on veg prep, Cher. Now, you have to be quick because if we don’t get the stew on, the meat’ll be chewy.’

‘Shouldn’t we do the soup first, seeing as it’s the first course?’ said Cher, who, in response to Muriel, had turned into a stroppy teenager. ‘The hint is in the name?’

‘No, butternut squash is quick to cook. We need to get the meat on. Shadrach, you chop that, the rest of us will do the veg.’

‘This is quite fun, actually,’ said Cher to Zoe a bit later. She was dicing an onion into perfect cubes. Zoe was in agony watching her, she was being so slow.

‘Just as much fun if you go a bit faster,’ said Zoe, who was taking a cleaver to a butternut squash the size of a loaf of bread.

‘No, it’s only fun if you do it really precisely,’ said Cher and Zoe decided it wasn’t her job to try and make her speed up. The squash fell into two and she raised her cleaver again.

‘Hey, watch what you’re doing with that, you’ll have your fingers off,’ complained Muriel. ‘I can’t afford to have you out of action.’

The judges chose this moment to swing by. Gideon, seeing Zoe with her cleaver, sucked in his breath and took it out of her hand. He picked up her board and tutted. Then he found a cloth, wetted it, spread it out, and put the board back on top. ‘If you were in a professional kitchen and didn’t do that, the chef would slaughter you,’ he growled. ‘I told you before!’

‘Yes, chef,’ muttered Zoe.

‘And the same goes for you too!’ He sent his scorching glance towards Cher, who flapped her hands and her eyelashes.

Zoe experienced an unexpected moment of sisterhood with Cher and cursed Gideon for taking away her cleaver.

It was very stressful watching the ramblers file by since they were going to decide which team won. Every dish was to be tasted by everyone and marked. Then they could fill up on their favourite. They were mostly in late middle age, hale and hearty, but there was the occasional more elderly one, who hadn’t been on the walk but was probably a parent of someone who had.

‘That old woman won’t have eaten butternut squash before,’ muttered Cher, ‘and her teeth won’t manage the stew.’ They hadn’t had time to do a pie in the end.

‘Yes they will, it’s very tender, and tasty,’ said Zoe, who had tried it earlier. ‘I’m more worried about the pudding. They’ll think it’s not proper because it hasn’t got sultanas in it.’

‘It was your idea. We did have sultanas,’ said Cher. Their brief moment of sisterhood hadn’t lasted beyond the time it took for Zoe to get her cleaver back.

‘At least there was no fat on the meat,’ Cher went on. ‘I hate meat in stews with fat on it.’

‘Actually, so do I.’ Zoe hesitated and then added, ‘Cher, I really do think we should try to be friends. I know we’re competing with each other but everyone is; we can still be mates.’

‘Oh Zoe!’ Cher flung up her hands and rolled her eyes. ‘Of course we’re mates!’ She hugged Zoe and kissed the air near her cheek. ‘We’re in this together and if we play our cards right, one of us will win!’

Zoe wasn’t so sure. She was confident in her abilities but there was tough competition. A couple of the others might one day become Michelin starred chefs. She was much more of an all rounder. But still, she was going to do her utmost to win!

The tasting took for ever, and the continual sound of the rain drip, dripping on to the tent didn’t help. The food was going cold and the people seemed to eat agonisingly slowly.

‘If only they could get on with it!’ said Muriel. ‘This is driving me mad.’

‘What do the other team’s dishes look like?’ said Cher.

‘They did Queen of Puddings,’ said Muriel. ‘We have to hope the meringue goes soggy.’

‘Oh, we could have done crumble after all,’ said Zoe, doubting the apricot bread and butter pudding now.

At last the tasting was over and the testers, who must have been starving by now, having walked for miles and then only been allowed tiny amounts of the food on offer, really tucked in.

‘I feel like I’m working in a school canteen!’ said Cher.

‘I like feeding people,’ said Zoe. ‘I just don’t like getting marks out of ten.’

‘Tell you what,’ said Muriel, ‘I’m going to walk up and
down
among them, and see if I can find out if they liked ours.’

She came back a few minutes later. ‘Mixed opinions. Some thought the soup and the stew were both too spicy. I suppose we shouldn’t have had two spicy things.’

‘Old people can’t cope with spicy food,’ said Cher.

‘These people are not old!’ said Muriel. ‘Some of them are my age!’

‘Sorry,’ muttered Cher.

‘What about the pudding?’ asked Zoe, feeling responsible.

Muriel made a face, ‘“What’s wrong with sultanas?”’

‘We did have sultanas,’ said Cher, glaring at Zoe.

‘I know! You said!’ Zoe sighed and wiped her perfectly clean station again. She couldn’t remember now why she’d insisted on leaving them out. She just hoped it hadn’t cost her a place.

At last the diners were ferried away, many of them taking the trouble to tell the contestants how much they’d enjoyed their lunch.

‘At least we had some happy campers,’ said Muriel.

‘Ergh! Don’t say the “C” word! Can’t imagine anything worse,’ said Cher.

‘So what do you do when you go to a festival?’ asked Zoe, curious.

Cher shuddered. ‘I don’t. Pyramids of poo first thing in the morning … puhleese! This is the nearest to camping I intend to get.’

Zoe chuckled. ‘At least you’ve cooked under canvas now.’

Cher made a face at her.

Mike came up. ‘OK, guys, if you’d like to make your way to the dining area, we’ll give you the results and I’m afraid one of you will be going home.’

The mud had got a lot worse now the ground had been churned up by the walkers. They slid a bit as they made their way to the judging.

‘God, I hate this!’ said Cher, clutching on to Zoe and nearly pulling her over.

‘The mud is the easy part,’ said Zoe.

‘Right,’ said Mike when everyone was assembled. ‘We had some very satisfied customers there, so well done everyone. It’s a shame there has to be a losing team really, when both teams have done well. Isn’t that so, judges?’

‘Up to a point,’ said Anna Fortune. ‘Some of you have appalling knife skills – or rather no knife skills – to the extent that the judges would be considering giving lessons if time weren’t so short.’ She paused ominously. ‘Gideon and I were just saying we’ll be lucky if we get through this competition without anyone losing a finger.’

The director came and joined them. ‘Not sure that’s exactly what we’d want televised to the world. Could we be a bit more upbeat?’

‘No,’ said Gideon. ‘Anna is right and it’s important that the viewing public knows how important knife skills are.’

The director sighed. ‘OK, have it your own way, but I warn you, that bit may be cut.’

‘Can we get on?’ said Mike. ‘The minibus people have another appointment and we don’t want anyone having to walk home.’

Anna Fortune shrugged in a way that reminded Zoe that she was half Italian.

‘Shall we do this now?’ said Gideon. ‘We don’t need all the fake waiting when we’ve made our decision, do we?’

‘This is television,’ Fred reminded him.

Gideon made a growling sound and turned away.

‘And the winner is … the Blue Team!’ cried Mike.

Cher squeaked, Zoe sighed with relief and Muriel smiled ‘Oh, that’s us!’ she said. ‘Well done, team!’

‘So someone from the Red Team—’

‘We know!’ said Cher, embarrassingly loudly. ‘One of those losers goes.’

It was nervy Shona who had to leave. She cried, but as apparently she’d been crying during most of the challenge this wasn’t much of a surprise.

‘Right now, dinner in the pub again tonight but the buses are leaving at nine thirty sharp so if you miss them, you walk, OK!’ Mike’s initial jolliness seemed to have worn thin.

‘If we miss it we can get a lift,’ said Cher with the confidence of a pretty girl who didn’t mind using her looks to get her through life.

Zoe considered not going to the pub. She wasn’t really in the mood for group jollity. But on the other hand there was nothing to eat in their accommodation and she didn’t want to scrounge from Fenella and Rupert.

‘Oh come on, Zoe!’ said Cher, sounding genuinely friendly. ‘It won’t be half as much fun without you!’

Hunger and this encouragement, with nods from the others, convinced Zoe and she went with them all. She’d wondered if they might mix with the camera and production crew but the powers that be obviously wanted to keep them all separate.

Cher continued to be so pleasant throughout the evening that Zoe was beginning to wonder if her early hostility had been nerves. The winning team were all in a good mood and did their best to encourage the losers so it was a cheerful evening. Zoe did wonder if she should have drunk so much cider. That, and the water she felt obliged to drink with it, meant constant trips to the loo which was across an alleyway and each journey made her a little wetter from the rain, which refused to let up.

‘At least you won’t get a hangover,’ said Muriel, ‘which is the main thing. There’s something awful about the self-inflicted wound.’ She sighed. ‘I’m far too sensible to get them now, of course!’

‘That sounds like a challenge, Muriel!’ said Shadrach, who’d really shone for his team and had become bumptious.

‘Oh no, not tonight,’ said Muriel. She looked at her watch. ‘It’s time to get in the minibus. They won’t wait.’

‘We’ll stay for another one,’ said Cher, including Zoe in her statement. ‘We’ll get a lift.’

‘Cher? I’d rather get back! I don’t want to get a lift with a stranger.’

‘Don’t be a piker, Zoe! I just want a shot. Maybe two.’

‘What, in the head?’ said Shadrach.

Cher gave him a look. ‘Come on, Zoe, let’s go into the other bar and see who’s there.’

Although her every instinct was telling her she was mad, Zoe followed Cher in the hope that maybe some girlish foolishness together would make living with her easier. Of course, she might not have to do that for too much longer, she thought gloomily, following Cher’s bright hair through the passages to the Snug, where, she gathered from Cher, the friendly locals did their drinking. Tiredness, the weather and witnessing just how good Becca and Shadrach in particular were had dampened her usual optimistic spirits. The competition was definitely hotting up.

They staggered out a bit later in the wake of a cheerful member of the Young Farmers’ Association. As there were two of them and only one of him, Zoe felt reasonably safe, and as he was in training for some sort of event that involved hurling oneself over hedges and ditches, he
hadn’t
been drinking. He dropped them by the gate and they linked arms as they made their way to their cowshed. Zoe had enjoyed the evening in the end, amused by Cher’s blatant flirting and the high spirits of the other punters. Just before they reached their front door, Cher slipped in the mud, pulling Zoe over on top of her.

‘Sorree!’ she said. ‘You can have the shower first!’

Zoe was not entirely sober, and she did feel she and Cher were friends now, yet something didn’t seem quite right about this generous offer. But as they giggled their way along she decided she was being unnecessarily suspicious.

Taking off their wellingtons seemed to take a long time. They sat on the step, pulling at them ineffectually as they slipped out of their hands. Eventually they were free of them and made their way into their little home.

‘I’ll make tea. You have a nice long shower,’ said Cher.

Again Zoe felt a prickle of suspicion, but as the thought of a long hot shower was too tempting to resist she took herself in the bathroom.

‘Your turn!’ she said as she came out. ‘I hope I haven’t left too much of a mess.’