Recipe for Love (34 page)

She examined the paper again. It was from a hotel. Gideon hadn’t given her his email address, his mobile number or anything. Perhaps he didn’t want her to get in touch? Perhaps this was a ‘keep at arms’ length’ letter?

She descended into gloom for a few moments and then reread the letter once more for luck. He’d gone to some trouble to find out her address. He didn’t need to write at all. No, she decided to be happy. Being happy or unhappy was quite often just a decision, she realised, glad that she’d made it.

She got up and went downstairs. It was time to scour the culinary world for recipes.

Planning the menu was fun. Zoe’s mother had a lot of cookery books, Zoe had even more, and then there was the internet. Her mother threw herself into the whole thing with enthusiasm and her father obligingly ate samples as they appeared.

‘You’re not a bad cook, Zoe,’ he said, snarfing up a tiny tart full of finely chopped mushrooms and topped with a poached quail’s egg.

Zoe was frowning. ‘Thank you. We liked that too but I’m not sure. It’s too small for a starter really.’

‘Give them two, then!’ Her father seemed to think this was the blindingly obvious solution.

Zoe shook her head. ‘Two would look wrong, and three would be too much. I’ll have to think of something else.’

‘Oh, shame,’ said her father.

‘Don’t worry, there’s mixture over. We’re having it for supper.’

Thinking up the different courses with someone who really wanted you to win was so much more fun than doing everything on your own. Her mother was a very
good
cook herself although she didn’t fully understand about cooking in a competition.

‘I know there is nothing more delicious than a perfect little cup of soup but it won’t be enough at this stage of the competition,’ Zoe explained.

Her mother sighed. ‘I suppose I’m just thinking of lovely food that isn’t too stressful to serve.’

Zoe thought back to some of the best restaurants she’d eaten at. They sometimes served a tiny portion of soup which was almost the best part of the meal. ‘I suppose out of four courses I could have one simple thing.’

‘As long as it was perfect?’

‘And presented beautifully.’

‘You can have my wedding coffee cups if you like. I haven’t used them for years,’ said her mother.

Zoe didn’t speak for a few seconds. Her mother’s coffee cups were antique, Spode, decorated with pea pods and tendrils in the palest green with gold edges. Zoe had always loved them. ‘But Mum!’ She had to clear her throat, she was so touched by the offer. ‘Supposing they got broken!’

‘I don’t expect they will. And at least they’d go in a good cause. I never use them, after all.’

‘But they’re so special!’

‘I know. So it’s right that you have them for this special occasion.’

Zoe could picture a pea soup, exactly the same colour as the cups, and how wonderful it would look. She hugged her mother. ‘If you’re really sure …’

‘Of course! Now what are you going to do next? A starter? Or fish?’

‘Fish, I think. They’re looking for technique. They want fiddly and time-consuming. Anything remotely easy and I could get marked down. That said, I do think I’ll risk it
and
do a simple fish – perhaps a John Dory, which would be two simple courses.’

‘Well, you’ve got the choux pastry for the buns, that’s quite technical.’

‘Yes, and I’ve practised it loads.’

‘I know!’ said her mother. ‘My book club adored those éclairs.’

‘But I should maybe have another go at the caramel and spun sugar.’

Her mother chuckled. ‘What other skills do you have to show off? Juggling?’

Zoe giggled. ‘Boning, stuffing, something or other “three ways” – possibly something you wouldn’t normally eat.’

‘Like dormouse for instance?’

‘That’s it, only probably something that’s not endangered. Rabbit, perhaps?’

‘Do you like rabbit?’ Zoe’s mother seemed all set to enthuse about Miffy as food if she had to.

‘Not really. I could do some sort of fowl – or game.’ Zoe ran through every creature she could think of in her head but didn’t come up with anything that inspired her.

‘Or steak.’

Zoe regarded her mother as if she were mad for a few seconds and then her expression changed. ‘Three ways with steak would be fairly unusual. I could do a miniature beef Wellington, a perfect pan-fried steak with Jenga chips – you know, when you stack them in a little tower like the game? – and may be steak tartare?’

Her mother nodded. ‘But what about cold food on a hot plate?’

Zoe considered. Her mother had a thing about hot plates that no one else in the family understood at all. But she might have a point. ‘Or a tiny, perfect burger? Deep fried crispy onions? Some perfect relish? I could probably make
that
beforehand. They say we can have six ingredients we haven’t made ourselves, or made earlier.’

Planning the perfect menu took several days, sheets of paper, the internet, trips to the library and agonies of indecision. But it was fun, and when she wasn’t thinking and wondering about Gideon, it occupied Zoe’s mind completely.

At last she was happy with her menu and threw herself into developing the perfect relish and the best and lightest sauce for the fish. She spent quite a lot of money on edible gold leaf and physalises too.

When they weren’t thinking about food, Zoe and her mother thought about what Zoe should wear for the party and the photo shoot. Zoe’s mother didn’t think she was paying the matter enough attention.

‘But it’s a food comp, Mum! Not
Britain’s Next Top Model
!’

‘Trust me, darling, if you don’t make an effort you’ll regret it for ever. And I bet that Cher will be going to town.’

Jenny, who had come over for lunch, mostly to weigh in on Zoe’s mother’s side, nodded. ‘You need to look shit hot.’

Zoe’s mother raised her eyebrows but nodded. ‘What about that boy you’re keen on? Isn’t he going to be there?’

Zoe laughed at the thought of Gideon being described as a boy. ‘I just thought I’d look more earnest and committed if I didn’t try to compete with Cher for looks.’

Zoe’s mother and Jenny exchanged despairing looks.

‘OK! I want to look gorgeous. As far as I can, seeing as I’m quite short.’

‘Petite, darling,’

‘And thanks to Jimmy Choo, Louboutin etc., you don’t have to be short any more,’ said Jenny.

‘For someone who mostly thinks about horses, you’re very into shoe designers,’ muttered Zoe.

‘I don’t live in a cave!’ said Jenny.

‘I rather like Emma Hope,’ said Zoe’s mother wistfully, possibly thinking of her youth.

‘Maybe I should do something about my hair?’ said Zoe, who was now quite keen on the idea of getting glammed up.

Jenny inspected Zoe’s mop, which was as usual a bit on the wild side. ‘I like it a bit longer but I do see you might want a good cut.’

Zoe took hold of a handful of curls. ‘I wonder what I’d look like with it straightened?’

‘Very high maintenance,’ said Jenny.

‘Why don’t you go along and see Debbie,’ her mother said. ‘She’s the best hairdresser in the county. All my friends go there.’

Zoe bit her lip, not sure the statement that ‘all my friends go there’ was quite the recommendation for her, seeing as she was a different generation.

‘Oh yes,’ said Jenny. ‘She’s really good. She did the hair for a friend’s wedding. She’ll sort you out.’ She looked longingly at the last cream puff. ‘Can I eat that? I know I’ve had two already but they are delish.’

Zoe pushed the plate towards her. ‘Please! No one in the house can face any more choux pastry at the moment. I’ve been making it blindfold.’

‘Really?’ Jenny almost seemed to believe this.

Zoe tutted. ‘No, not really! But I have made it a lot so it’s one less thing to worry about for the competition.’

Debbie was brilliant. For a start, she was only a bit older than Zoe so knew exactly what was on trend and what would suit Zoe best. She came home with her head a mass
of
curls that she could pin back, or wear with a hair band, or just have tousled.

She couldn’t help wondering how Gideon would react to it. He liked her unstructured look and he would probably like this. Or at least, she hoped so. She was so longing to see him again.

Her mother made and paid for an appointment to have her nails done. While she was there she had her eyebrows shaped. She briefly considered having her eyelashes extended but the girl said, ‘Honestly, you don’t need it. Your eyelashes are fine as they are.’

She shimmied home and twirled for her mother and later for her father who said, ‘I think you look the same as you did before you spent all that money, but what do I know?’

He was pushed affectionately and dispatched to the sitting room with the paper.

‘You look stunning, darling. You
do
look the same as you did this morning but sleeker, more groomed. Gamine, and sort of French. You’ll give that Cher a run for her money.’

‘Mum! It isn’t a competition for looks, you know!’

‘Oh yes it is,’ said her mother. ‘It always is.’

Two weeks later, with a case full of emergency changes of mind, esoteric ingredients that the TV company might not be able to source, and her mother’s antique coffee cups to bring her luck, Zoe took the train to London.

‘Just as well you don’t have to change at Swindon,’ said her father, as he helped her haul her luggage to the platform.

‘No, and I only have to climb into a taxi at Paddington.’

‘It’s like when you went to uni only almost worse!’ said her mother. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to take my Rescue Remedy? Just in case you get really nervous?’

‘I’ll be fine, Mum. Really. Or at least, as fine as I can be.’

‘You just do your best. Dad and I are so proud of you!’

‘Are you sure you and Dad can’t come to the final judging and the wrap party afterwards?’

‘Honey! In some ways I’d love to but your dad’s got to be away for work and I’d hate being there on my own, even if I didn’t have a whole lot of stuff it would be difficult to get out of.’

Zoe sighed. ‘You wouldn’t be on your own. I’d be there.’

‘You’ll be busy and I’d get terribly nervous for you. I’d just be miserable, and you’d worry about me.’

There was no denying the truth of this. Her mother was great with people she knew but she was shy deep down. She also suffered dreadfully with nerves on her daughter’s behalf. Zoe didn’t want to force her to come to something she wouldn’t enjoy. ‘OK, if you really don’t want to.’

‘Thank you, darling. It’s honestly better this way.’

Zoe hugged her parents, hoping that either the train would come or her mother would go before she started to cry. ‘If you want to do a bit of shopping you’d better not waste all your parking ticket on saying goodbye to me.’

‘OK, OK, I can take a hint.’ Her mother hugged her again hard. ‘Keep in touch!’

Just as she settled into her seat her phone beeped. It was a text from Jenny. ‘Good luck, can’t wait to see it when it airs’. Zoe hadn’t given much thought to the actual programme. Now she was forced to, she felt she might have to hide when that time came. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to watch it. Although perhaps if she was watching it snuggled up next to Gideon it would be bearable. Then, chiding herself for daydreaming, she opened her folder and forced herself to think about three ways with steak.

JUST AS ZOE’S
taxi pulled up at the London hotel where they were staying she spotted Cher getting out of another one. She too had a lot of luggage, which took some time to get on to the pavement. When they’d both emptied their taxis Zoe looked up. Cher saw her and smiled.

‘Hiya!’ she said, unusually friendly. She was looking slightly odd. Zoe wondered if she’d done something to herself while they’d been at home but couldn’t work out what.

‘Hello! How are you?’

‘Great, thanks.’ She flicked her hair back over her shoulders; it was even longer, blonder and more streaked than ever. Then Zoe realised what was odd about her. Cher had had Botox. Her forehead, revealed by her new style, was smooth as paper.