The Proof is in the Pudding (16 page)

“Good,” I said. “Let’s unpack both our bags and Quinn can walk us through what we’ll be doing on camera.”

The first item my guest took out of his bag wasn’t an ingredient for making pudding. “This is for you,” he said, handing me a hardcover book. “My latest.”

“
The Terror Master
. Thank you. I’d planned to buy a copy.”

“You must not have read my reviews.” His tone was wry.

“I don’t pay attention to them,” I said. “When I was teaching I wanted my students to learn how to survive the harsh criticism that we face in life, so I brought in a collection of terrible reviews for some books that later became great classics. A reviewer at Russia’s
Odessa Courier
said that Vronsky in
Anna Karenina
showed more passion for his horse than he did for Anna. A British critic said about
Moby Dick
that it was full of the biggest collection of dolts to be found in all of ‘marine literature.’ And a critic in Boston called
Leaves of Grass
obscene. He said Walt Whitman should be publicly flogged for writing it.”

Gray laughed. “At least none of my reviewers have suggested that.”

“Haven’t you noticed that very popular authors are resented by some critics because their books sell so well? It’s as though the elitists think that if millions of people like a novel then it can’t be any good.”

“Thank you for cheering me up,” he said with a rueful smile.

Quinn saw me holding the book and came over to us. “Isn’t Roland marvelous?” she said. “This afternoon he telephoned the studio to find out how many people would be in the audience. When he arrived, it was with a case of his novels, enough for everyone who’ll come to our broadcast, and for all of us here at the channel.”

“That was a very generous thing to do.”

“I’m unscrupulous in my pursuit of readers,” he said with a smile that seemed almost embarrassed. I had the feeling that with all of his success he was shy in the face of compliments.

Quinn held her hands out. “Let me have your jacket. I’ll hang it up for you in my director’s booth.”

“How nice of you,” he said, slipping out of the navy blue cashmere blazer that was almost the same shade as his Rolls.

Beneath it, he wore a pale blue silk shirt and steel gray slacks, secured by a black belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a badge with the raised monogram “MI 9.” The department Gray called MI 9 was the fictional antiterrorist division of British Intelligence for which his series hero, Roger Wilde, was the top secret agent.

Quinn removed a clean dishtowel from one of my equipment drawers and tucked it carefully into his belt.
Very
carefully.

“This is to protect your trousers from kitchen splatters,” Quinn said.

In my opinion, Gray was in more danger from Quinn Tanner than from getting stains on his clothing.

Quinn was supposed to be married, but no one at the channel had met her husband. Camera operator Ernie Ramirez once voiced the theory that Quinn’s husband, the never-seen Mr. Tanner, had been killed and stuffed, like Norman Bates’s mother in
Psycho
.

After the bit with the dishtowel, Quinn took her teapot and strainer and Gray’s blazer and went up to the director’s booth. She usually held her body in a posture stiff as a fire-place poker, but today there was a definite sway to Quinn’s narrow hips.

In my earpiece, I heard Quinn start her countdown to air-time. The show’s theme music began, Camera One’s red light flashed on, and we were broadcasting.

I smiled into the lens and said, “Hi, everybody. Welcome to
In the Kitchen with Della
. Tonight I have a special treat for you at home, and for you here in the studio audience.”

Camera Two swung around to take a shot of the audience in the studio. There were lights above the seats because I’d learned that people liked to see themselves on TV and programmed their sets to tape the shows they attended.

More than half of the members of the audience were women, their ages ranging from early twenties into the seventies. The men appeared to be in their late sixties, and older. I had often wondered if they were widowers, or for other reasons needed to learn how to cook. John O’Hara, at fifty, was the “kid” among the men. I’d seen him arrive just a minute or two before we began broadcasting and pointed to the only empty seat: on the aisle in the last row, nearest the entrance. I’d saved it for him by putting a cardboard “Reserved” sign on it.

I told the audience, “A famous guest cooker is here with us, a man who has kept me awake many a night—long before I met him. Let’s give a warm welcome to one of the world’s most popular novelists, Roland Gray.”

As the audience applauded, Camera One drew back from its close-up on me into a two-shot that included Gray, standing on my left, relaxed and smiling.

Facing the camera, I held up my copy of
The Terror Master
. “This is Roland Gray’s latest spy thriller.” Turning to Gray, I said, “I think it’s been on the
New York Times
best seller list for a month now.”

“Six weeks, actually,” he said. “But who’s counting?”

Twenty-nine out of the thirty people in the audience chuckled appreciatively. The one grim face belonged to John O’Hara.

Speaking to the audience again, I said, “If those of you here in the studio will look underneath your seats, you’ll each find a copy of
The Terror Master
. They’re a gift from Roland.”

Everyone, including John, bent down to retrieve the books. Most people smiled or made sounds of delight at the surprise.

“Don’t start reading now,” I joked. “We’ve only got an hour together, soooo let’s get cooking.” I smiled at Gray again. “What are you going to make for us tonight?”

“Spotted Dick,” he said.

I heard a few giggles.

Playfully, I chided the audience. “Now, now. Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Turning to Gray, I said, “You’re talking about a classic steamed pudding.”

“Absolutely. It’s a timeless staple of British comfort cuisine. I’m going to make my mother’s recipe, which was taught to her by
her
mother. In fact, I’ve learned that the earliest recipe of Spotted Dick dates from 1847. And as an aside, regarding the name of this dish: Some years ago, in Gloucestershire, England, certain hospital authorities, fearing that patients would be too embarrassed to ask for Spotted Dick, changed the name to Spotted Richard. British comedians had a great time with this, until administrators restored the original name.”

As Gray talked, I helped him by organizing his ingredients in the order he would use them. We had rehearsed this bit, to have physical action during his explanation to the audience. I knew how to make pudding, but he’d briefed me on the particulars of his family recipe.

“The ‘spots’ in Spotted Dick come from the fact that it’s studded with currants and raisins,” he said. “Also, it can be made in the shape of a log and then sliced after it’s cooked, but I like to make it in what’s called a ‘pudding basin.’ ” Gray held up a round mold, about half the size of a Bundt pan.

“We start by sifting a cup of self-rising flour into a bowl, then we add the salt and half a cup of suet . . .”

Although I knew the answer, I asked Gray, “Where can people get suet?”

“Funnily enough, I buy my little tins on the Internet, but one can find it in British shops. You could even have a friendly butcher shred some up for you.”

“Suet is fat,” I said to the audience. “It performs the function of butter or solid Crisco. Roland, if people at home can’t write down your instructions, may I put the recipe on my Web site,
www.DellaCooks.com?
”

“I would be honored,” he said with an elegant bow.

I ran water into the Dutch oven Gray would use to steam his pudding, put it on the stove, and lighted the fire beneath it. It was another piece of business we’d preplanned.

Gray smiled at me in appreciation. “Thank you for the help,” he said. “You’re very gracious to this amateur.”

In my earpiece, I heard Quinn’s voice. “Ten seconds to commercial, Della . . . nine . . .”

“We have to take a little break now,” I told the audience. “Roland will keep working on his pudding and when we come back he’ll show you how to steam it.”

In the audience, a fifty-something woman in a bright pink pantsuit called out, “Yes!” Several other people laughed and clapped.

The camera lights went off.

I told Gray, “It sounds like you’re a hit.”

“Free books make friends,” he said with a wry smile.

As commercials began going out over the air, the audience in the studio could watch them on the large TV monitors, which were placed on either side of my kitchen set. Their purpose was to allow those on the premises to see close-up shots of the cooking in progress, which otherwise only the viewers at home could watch.

Gray strolled to the refrigerator on the back wall of the set and beckoned for me to join him. Puzzled, I moved over to where he was standing.

Gray leaned close to me and whispered, “I know that the plan was for me to be on the first half, and then watch the rest of the show from your director’s booth, but do you suppose you could let me stay down here, to help you prepare your stew?”

“Yes, of course.” I was happy to have him continue on camera, but he must have seen the question in my eyes.

“To be frank,” he said, answering the unspoken query, “I’m not entirely comfortable around your Ms. Tanner.”

I wasn’t going to say anything negative about Quinn, but I felt a sympathetic smile twitching the corner of my mouth.

“I’m happy to have your company,” I said. “This isn’t a scripted show, and we’re only shooting in one small set, so there’s no technical problem if you’re here. Stay near me and I’ll give you things to do.”

“Consider me your
sous
chef. Or your scullery maid.”

“Deal. I have a favor to ask of you, too.”

“Anything.”

“After the show, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. John O’Hara. He’s here tonight.”

“Ah, the man with the flying fist. Certainly. I recognized his face in the audience, but it took a few minutes for me to recall where I’d seen him before.”

I used the intercom microphone beneath the prep counter to contact Quinn.

“Little change of plans,” I said. “The audience likes Roland so much he’s going to stay down here for the rest of the show. I’m putting him to work.”

I half expected to hear Quinn object, but after a moment of silence, she said in an icy tone, “Take your place. Ten seconds.” She hissed the S in
seconds
, sounding like a snake whose nest had been disturbed.

When we were broadcasting again, I told the audience, “As soon as Roland’s pudding is steaming, he’s going to help me make our main dish, Italian Chicken Stew. It’s one of those meals you can prepare one day and keep reheating for the next two or three nights, and it just tastes better and better because the flavors soak in.”

The show went off without a glitch. I didn’t burn the chicken pieces I sautéed for the Italian stew, and Gray didn’t cut himself while he was chopping prosciutto ham and slicing red, yellow, and orange bell peppers for me. The show had been timed so that I could have done the chopping myself, but to make Gray look necessary, I wiped the stove top clean of grease spots from the sautéing, and brought the Dutch oven full of my completed Italian Chicken Stew I’d brought from home in my tote bag up to the counter.

“Here’s what our Italian Chicken Stew looks like when it’s finished,” I told the audience. Camera Two moved in for a close-up “beauty shot” of the stew.

In the show’s final segment, Roland and I chatted about pudding while we made the custard sauce for his Spotted Dick. Because what he’d demonstrated on the show was still steaming, Roland placed on the prep counter the Spotted Dick he’d made at home.

“That looks delicious,” I said sincerely.