Recipe for Love (38 page)

‘It’s edible,’ said the snippiest food critic, ‘but I still think it’s too simple for the standard of this competition. We’re looking for Michelin standard.’

‘Don’t be so bloody ridiculous,’ growled Gideon. ‘It’s a competition for amateurs, not chefs who’ve worked at their skills for years.’

Cher leant into Zoe. ‘They’ll cut that bit out.’

Zoe didn’t reply.

‘We do have a very high standard of cooking here,’ said the chef. ‘I’m very impressed.’

‘The next course is going to be interesting,’ said the snippy food critic. ‘Three ways with fillet. I can’t see that working. Pastry for the Wellington and a bun for the burger. It’s bound to be very heavy.’

‘Wait till you try it,’ said one of the chefs. ‘I think it’s a fun idea. The pastry and the bun have been made from scratch. This girl has a good set of skills.’

Zoe was very pleased with how her main course looked on the plate. Of course she’d seen it on the pass, and had spent some moments arranging it and putting on the salad leaves, but somehow seeing it in front of a diner gave it a different dimension. But she dreaded seeing them eat it.

They all started with different bits. Gideon attacked his mini beef Wellington. ‘I’m never quite sure about this “three ways with” thing,’ he said. ‘I feel it says more about the chef showing off than it does about producing a good meal.’

Zoe felt a bit deflated, forgetting for a minute that he mustn’t like her food.

‘This pastry is delicious,’ said the first chef. ‘Real melt-in-the-mouth stuff.’

‘The steak is tender enough but very over-seasoned,’ said the other chef, chewing with surprising enthusiasm.

‘Never a fan of micro herbs,’ said a food critic, ‘but I admit they look pretty.’ He took a chip. ‘Excellent chips!’

‘So why,’ said the other food critic, ‘by all that’s holy, is the steak so damn salty?’

‘And the burger,’ said the woman. ‘Otherwise it’s perfect!’

Gideon was frowning. He looked up and it was if he was looking directly at her. He must know she’d oversalted the beef deliberately. She winced.

‘Chips, excellent …’ said the first food critic, making Zoe glad she’d supplied eight of them and not just six.

‘Let’s see what the pudding’s like,’ said the first chef.

‘Oh wow!’ said the judges when the croquembouche was brought in. There were some ‘oh wow’s from the audience too.

‘Very clever,’ muttered Cher to Zoe. ‘But rather old school.’

Someone from behind shushed her, and Cher sat back in her chair with an angry wriggle.

‘Well, this looks very beautiful,’ said the blonde woman, ‘but if those choux buns are soggy, the whole thing is just a big pile of nothing.’

‘Croquembouche means “crack in the mouth”,’ said Gideon.

‘I think we knew that,’ said one of the food critics, frowning. Zoe wondered if they were rivals.

‘I said it for the benefit of the audience,’ said Gideon.

‘Oh. Sorry, mate.’

‘Well, this certainly cracks in the mouth,’ said one of the chefs. ‘This is some of the best choux pastry I’ve eaten.’

‘And I love those little golden fruits,’ said the woman. ‘Flamboyant but completely appropriate.’

‘This girl does have a flair for pastry,’ said a chef.

‘Hmm, pity about her totally unreliable palate,’ said the other.

‘Tell us, Gideon,’ said the blonde, ‘you’ve eaten all the food this girl has produced throughout the competition—’

‘Her name is Zoe,’ said Gideon and then paused. ‘Audience!’

‘Oh, sorry,’ said the woman, who was really beginning
to
irritate Zoe now. ‘I forgot. So tell us, does she have an unreliable palate?’

Cher’s nails bit into Zoe’s arm. It was hard to tell which of the two were most on edge.

‘I have to say that up until now her palate has been fine,’ said Gideon with emphasis. He knew she’d done it on purpose.

There was a silence, during which one of the food critics had another portion of croquembouche.

‘Well, we’d better write down our marks,’ said the woman. ‘Have you all got your score cards?’

There was a short lull between cooks, for technical reasons, and so there was time for the other contestants to congratulate Zoe. ‘You did brilliantly!’ said Becca. ‘I do hope you win!’

‘Don’t you hope you win?’ Shadrach asked her, surprised.

‘Oh, I don’t expect to win,’ said Becca. ‘I didn’t do nearly as well.’

Cher was the next cook up. Gideon was exchanged for Fred, the cheery judge they had all loved. The other judges were the same.

‘They’re all going to discuss who wins at the end,’ Mike explained to the room, ‘but our original judges make the final decision.’

Cher’s starter included foie gras, a sorbet and an almond emulsion. It all seemed desperately complicated to Zoe but Cher seemed confident and efficient.

The judges said nothing for an agonisingly long time.

‘Very ambitious,’ said one of the chefs.

The woman, who Zoe now knew to be Laura Matheson, the owner of a famous mini-chain of restaurants, speared some foie gras on her fork, inspected it
and
then put it in her mouth. She ate it but didn’t speak for a long time.

The food critic threw down his fork. ‘Well, I don’t know about you lot but I think that sorbet tastes of slightly sweetened phlegm.’

‘Gross!’ said Laura. ‘Did you have to say that?’

‘How do you even know what phlegm tastes of?’ said one of the chefs. ‘There are real skills here!’

The argument went on but there was no consensus.

‘Let’s have the main course,’ said Fred.

‘Stripe me pink! A foam!’ declared the food critic who’d said the sorbet tasted of phlegm. ‘I thought the danger of foams was past. Apparently not.’

‘You see foams on Michelin-starred menus!’ hissed Cher.

It dawned on Zoe that perhaps Cher had copied her menu from a Michelin-starred restaurant. It was cheating in a way, but if she could pull it off, it would make her an awesome chef. And she couldn’t help feeling sorry for her after the phlegm remark – it would be on national television.

‘The calamari is well cooked,’ said Laura, ‘but the stuffing doesn’t taste of much.’

‘Hard to cook squid well,’ said a chef. ‘Got to congratulate her on that.’

‘I’ve met him,’ Cher whispered to Zoe, her mood improving. ‘He’s so sweet!’

Zoe didn’t comment. She was the one being blackmailed and it seemed as if Cher was perfectly capable of sleeping her way to the top!

‘Let’s move on. We have time constraints,’ said Fred after a nod from Laura.

‘I know wood pigeon should be pink,’ said the food critic, who obviously wasn’t a fan of Cher’s style of cooking,
‘but
a good surgeon should be able to bring this one back to life.’

‘Oh come on! You’re supposed to be a food expert! This is quality cooking!’ said the chef Cher had met.

‘The Brussels sprouts are very good,’ said Laura.

‘Yet more foie gras,’ said one of the chefs. ‘Has she got shares in a goose farm?’

‘I want pudding,’ said the food critic. ‘And I hope it’s a bloody good apple pie, or a crumble, something to counteract all this namby pampy half-raw food.’

It was a quartet of puddings. There was panna cotta, jelly, sorbet and a granita, all flavoured with either pear or lemon grass.

‘Very delicate flavours,’ said Laura.

‘Too effing delicate, in my opinion,’ said the food critic with nursery pudding tastes.

Cher was muttering loudly beside her as the judges moved on to the other two contestants. Becca and Shadrach watched in agony as their meals were judged. Zoe was in agony too. She had deliberately made a mistake but Becca and Shadrach – two very good cooks – both had little disasters. She might yet win!

Cher, obviously thinking the same thing, looked at her through narrowed eyes, her Botox preventing her from giving a nasty sneer.

There was a long, anguished hiatus after all the meals were eaten while the judges judged. Only the last part of this would be viewed tonight, when they gave their result. No one knew how long it would be before there was news. Cher yanked Zoe’s arm and pulled her off to the Ladies.

‘You did tell Gideon you couldn’t win?’ she demanded, having checked that none of the cubicles were occupied.

‘Yes! And I oversalted my steak and my burger.’

‘Oh, that was on purpose, was it?’

‘Of course!’

‘Not that you’re likely to win anyway, your menu was so naïve and retro.’ Cher checked her reflection in the mirror but made no changes.

‘Then what are you worried about?’ Zoe pulled at her curls and readjusted her chef’s hat.

‘It’s you who should be worried. If they make the wrong decision …’

Zoe couldn’t tell if Cher wanted to win more than she wanted to blackmail her. And as she still had the photographs, even if Zoe didn’t win, it made her very anxious.

It seemed to take for ever. Everyone left their seats and wandered around, chatting, drinking and getting in a state.

‘I don’t know why I’m even thinking about winning,’ said Becca as she started her second glass of champagne. ‘I won’t. You others were brilliant!’

‘If you overlook the “slightly sweetened phlegm” thing,’ said Shadrach.

‘We’d all rather overlook that,’ said Zoe. ‘It makes me feel sick to think about it.’

‘And you didn’t have to eat it!’ said Shadrach.

‘Oh shut up! They didn’t much like your collapsed soufflé. Why you even thought about putting a scoop of ice cream inside a hot soufflé, I don’t know!’ said Cher, her claws out.

‘But it obviously tasted great!’ said Zoe.

‘It looked like sick,’ said Cher, not to be outdone by a food critic on the cutting-remark front.

At last they were all called back to their seats to watch the final bit of judging. The celebrity chefs, restaurant owner and food critics were no longer there. It was just the judges they had come to know (and in some cases) love.

‘I just think her whole menu was well balanced and nearly perfect,’ Fred was saying, but no one knew whom he was talking about.

‘There was some very good food there,’ said Gideon. ‘I thought the soufflé was fantastic.’

This gave Zoe a hiccup. Was she pleased he wasn’t saying good things about her food? Or did she feel betrayed?

The discussion went back and forward until the end, when, wonderfully and horribly, it looked like Zoe was the front runner.

‘I’ve always liked her food and she’s always done brilliantly in very difficult circumstances,’ said Fred.

There was a pause long enough to read
War and Peace
in. Then Gideon said, ‘Can we forgive that horrendous over-seasoning on her steak?’ He looked defiantly at the camera at this point and once more Zoe felt his gaze was really directed at her. She desperately wanted it all to be over so that she could explain to him she really didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t bear him to think badly of her.

Another pause, as long as the first, ‘No,’ said Fred. ‘I don’t suppose we can.’

‘So our winner is Becca?’ asked Gideon.

The other judges nodded.

There was uproar in the cinema. Cher gasped, ‘No … no!’ Becca disappeared under a crowd of friends and family, fighting to be the first to congratulate her. Zoe hardly managed, ‘Well done! I knew you could do it!’ before Becca was whisked away to be interviewed about how it all felt.

Cher regarded Zoe, her expression tight. She had herself under control now. ‘You must be very relieved.’

Zoe nodded. ‘And you must be very disappointed. You tried to blackmail the wrong contestant.’

Cher shook her head. ‘Oh no. You’ve really upped your game, even with your totally old-fashioned menu. You’d have won if you hadn’t oversalted the beef.’ She smiled but it did not reach her eyes. ‘I’ve still got the pictures, you know.’ Her voice dripped with venom.

Zoe looked at her for a moment but didn’t bother to protest and demand she deleted them from her phone in front of her eyes. She didn’t want to give Cher any excuse to cause a commotion. So she turned and walked towards Mike, who was beckoning them.

‘Back to the hotel to change and then on to the party!’ he said.

‘Do we get our make-up done?’ asked Cher.

‘No,’ said Mike firmly. ‘It’s not being televised. Your make-up is down to you.’

Cher shook back her golden hair and shrugged.