Chapter One

For Pete's sake, why was Beef Wellington so ridiculously picky?

Casey poked at the mess on the cutting board with the tip of his dad's chef's knife. Why should it matter if the sirloin was at room temperature before you seared it? As for the whole searing thing, how hot was a hot pan supposed to be, anyway? And then you had to stick it in the fridge again?

"Jeez, meat, make up your mind," Casey muttered.

If the meat wasn't bad enough, there were the mushrooms—oh, excuse me—duxelles, not to mention the whole puff pastry nonsense. Casey had sort of forgotten about the egg wash until the thing had been in the oven for ten minutes already, so the pastry case had split, and things had gone from oops to oopser when Casey lost his grip and half-dropped the pan when he was transferring the sorry result to the cutting board.

"Maybe I can convince Uncle Walt it's deconstructed Beef Wellington."

Except even a deconstructed dish was supposed to be edible. His father had featured enough of them in his Michelin star restaurant over the years, and those had always been beautifully arranged on the plate too, with sculpted vegetable garnishes and artistic smears of colorful sauces.

This thing was less Wellington and more Waterloo.

He sighed and tossed the knife aside. There was no point in cutting into the stupid thing. It would taste just as dreadful as it looked, because apparently Casey sucked just as much at presentation as he did at preparation. But all the fuss and bother just seemed so pointless. All this work for a meal that would be over in an hour—less than an hour, actually, even if the chocolate hazelnut soufflé hadn't fallen and the tomato-basil bisque hadn't curdled.

Well, at least the salad would be edible. Casey reached out to tweak a leaf of butter lettuce into a less precarious position in the bowl and froze.

An unidentifiable insect was waving its antennae at him, a decidedly judgmental expression in its beady little eyes. Casey marched out of the narrow kitchen into his tiny living room and threw open the sash window. Then he returned, and holding the bowl at arms-length, he crept back to the window, careful not to jostle its contents. If Mr. Judgy Antenna swan dived off the salad, Casey would spend all night tracking him down because sharing his apartment with insects? No. Just no.

He dumped the bowl's contents—including Mr. Judgy Antenna—into the window box, where the brilliant green of the lettuce mocked the withered brown remains of the violas Casey had optimistically planted in March.

Because, yeah. Casey wasn't any better at gardening than he was at cooking.

He closed the window and trudged back to the kitchen to wash out the bowl. Uncle Walt would be here in less than thirty minutes, expecting Casey to have recreated one of Chez Donatien's signature menus. Since the last seven times Casey had attempted to do so had been equally unsuccessful, Uncle Walt couldn't possibly be surprised, although he would be disappointed. And Casey hated to disappoint his uncle, who'd been much more devastated at the death of his twin than Casey had been over the loss of his father.

Donald Friel had never been a warm, paternal presence in Casey's life. Uncle Walt had always filled that role—attending school programs, taking Casey to playgrounds and amusement parks, arriving with special treats for every birthday and holiday—while Donald had been busy with the latest in his string of restaurants.

And frankly, Casey had been glad of that, because every meal with his father had been fraught with anxiety. If he didn't eat everything on his plate, if he talked too much, if he talked too little—and heaven forbid he dropped a fork—Donald would lay into him as though Casey had destroyed the Pietà.

Yeah, thanks for that, Dad. Casey had endured years of therapy to overcome an eating disorder, and while he didn't have trouble eating enough to stay healthy now, he still didn't like to eat in front of other people. Just in case.

His therapist and Uncle Walt had never figured out the reason he hated meals. They chalked it up to losing his mother so early. And since Uncle Walt loved Donald's food, and was as proud as any fond parent of his brother's success and notoriety, he'd never realized that Casey's experience had been vastly different.

Uncle Walt had found visits to Chez Donatien's kitchen exciting and inspirational. Casey had merely been terrified, although he had discovered one pertinent fact: His father was as terse, disparaging, and vicious to everyone in his restaurant kitchen as he was at home, so it meant he didn't hate Casey per se.

He was just a really unpleasant person.

If only Uncle Walt wasn't determined to re-open the restaurant.

But Uncle Walt had decided, in his fraternal zeal, that the best way to honor his twin—who'd collapsed with a heart attack in the middle of dinner service—was to stage a grand reopening of Chez Donatien.

With Donald Friel's only child as the chef.

This closeto an MBA, Casey could admit that it was a solid idea from a promotional perspective. However, promotional gold would only go so far, because a restaurant couldn't exist purely on hype.

People might come once, as an homage to Donald and perhaps because they were nostalgic about his food and the Chez Donatien experience. But once they tasted Casey's attempts at his dad's signature dishes? They'd certainly never come back.

Glumly, he scraped the singed and flattened soufflé into the garbage pail, stuck the dish into the sink, and turned on the tap. Maybe if he let it soak for about four hours, he could chip the petrified chocolate off its fluted edges.

"Or maybe I should just toss the dish. It's not like I'll ever use it again. After all, three strikes and you're out."

That wasn't really fair, though. Today's trio of soufflé fails weren't the dish's fault, and it was really rather lovely, the porcelain a delicate rose shading to peach, like a tequila sunrise. Once he sandblasted the remains of the last choco-catastrophe off it, maybe he could use it as a planter or something.

He remembered the viola corpses. Or maybe not.

A key rattled in the front door lock, and Casey's belly plummeted. Uncle Walt.

He glanced wildly around the kitchen, but there was really nothing he could do to salvage the situation. Maybe if he made a quick call to the falafel restaurant downstairs—but no. Donald had always looked down on anything he labeled street food, and Uncle Walt, while he wasn't averse to taking Casey to a food cart or hot dog stand when Donald was alive, was fully embracing his brother's culinary biases now that Donald was gone.

"Casey?" Uncle Walt called, his voice cheerful as ever. "I've brought the wine."

Crap. He bundled Beef Waterloo back in the oven, curdled soup behind the cleaning supplies under the sink, salad bowl on top of the fridge. If only this place had more hiding places—aka storage. But what Casey's Chelsea apartment lacked in space and amenities it made up for in location and convenience. He shoved the soufflé dish into the fridge—managing to slop half the brown-tinged water onto the shelf—just as Uncle Walt appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Although they hadn't been identical, Uncle Walt had the same silver-shot brown hair as his twin, the same gray eyes, the same pointed chin that Casey shared with both of them. But unlike Donald, Walt wore a perpetual smile, and instead of chef's whites, he favored suits like tonight's charcoal gray number, tailored to camouflage a middle softened by years of enthusiastic consumption of his brother's cooking.

Casey closed the fridge and plastered his back against the door. "Hi, Uncle."

"Something smells…" Uncle Walt's smile faded as he took a tentative sniff. "Did something burn?"

Uncle Walt was always careful to avoid assigning blame to Casey personally, unlike Donald, who was as quick with a spatula to Casey's backside as he was with a cutting remark, even if Casey was only making a peanut butter sandwich. With Uncle Walt, though, it was as though the food and the oven and the stove were sentient entities with their own agendas, who were responsible for the latest carnage rather than Casey himself.

It was kind of Uncle Walt to make the effort, but his there are no bad cooks, only unfortunate circumstances attitude was a little divorced from reality, at least where Casey was concerned.

"A few things." Make that all the things, and seriously? Casey could never quite figure out how something could be both burned and raw at the same time.

Uncle Walt gazed at the dirty pans and utensils still littering the kitchen, and whereas Donald would have been furious, Uncle Walt just looked sad as he set the wine bottle on the counter. "Oh, Casey."

"How about this? Let's head over to La Trattoria Rosa for some pasta. We'll have a nice dinner and some conversation, and I'll clean up when I get home."

Uncle Walt shook his head and shrugged out of his Burberry raincoat. "Nonsense. I'll help tidy up and then you can whip up something from what you have on hand, just like your father used to do." He ducked out of the kitchen and returned without the coat. "I have faith in you, my boy."

"You shouldn't."

"What?"

Casey took a deep breath. "It's time to face the truth, Uncle Walt. I'm not a chef. I'll never be a chef. I'm barely even a cook."

"Don't be so down on yourself," he said heartily. "You just need more practice. Once you've mastered one of your father's signature dishes, you'll have the confidence to tackle the rest of them and they'll fall like dominos."

"Oh, they'll fall, all right, but maybe not the way you think." Casey linked elbows with Uncle Walt and led him into the living room to the love seat that was the largest sofa that would fit in the space. He sat down beside him. "How many menus does this make?"

Walt's brows drew together and he turned away, his throat working. "I don't know what you mean."

"You do. Every week, you've presented me with a menu from Chez Donatien, along with Dad's recipes. Have I ever succeeded in turning out anything remotely edible?"

"You've made valiant efforts, my boy. I'm sure with more practice—"

"Uncle, have you ever looked at one of Dad's recipes? The technical challenges on The Great British Bake Off have more detail."

"But—"

"I think it's time to admit that if you don't want Chez Donatien to close the day after it reopens, you need a different person running the kitchen. What about Dad's sous chef, Charity? She was with him for nearly twenty years."

Walt screwed up his face. "She's a competent craftsperson, but she's not an artist. Not the creative genius your father was."

"But I'm not either." Casey took one of his uncle's hands in both of his. "Furthermore, I'm not a competent craftsperson. Not even close."

"You could be, Casey. I know you could."

"Uncle Walt. I flunked out of two culinary schools, and a third one rejected me so fast I think they must have had a special email rule set up just for me. I'm not cut out for this. Call Charity and beg her to come back. It's your only hope."

"Nonsense. You were practically raised in the kitchen of your father's many restaurants. It's in your blood."

Maybe that's why I hate being in kitchens now. "Uncle Walt. Listen to me, please. I hate to cook."

Uncle Walt laughed, the deep, rolling chuckle that had accompanied every announcement Casey had ever made, from the time he was four and wanted to be a ballet dancer, to his eight-year-old firefighter ambition, to his intention to get an art history degree. "The only reason you hate it is because you haven't mastered your father's signature dishes."

"Exactly. Not only do I hate to cook, but I'm bad at it." Or maybe I'm bad at it because I hate it. Was he wrestling with some kind of passive-aggressive relationship with cooking? Casey sighed. It wasn't totally outside the realm of possibility.

Walt's face brightened, and he patted Casey's hand. "Ah, but you mustn't lose heart. I have some wonderful news."

Casey narrowed his eyes. Walt's wonderful news usually involved something else to do with this cockamamie idea of making Casey into a knock-off copy of his father. "Really?"

"Yes. Bradley Pillsbury has signed on as the silent partner. Furthermore, he's pitching the idea to a number of other investors. He thinks the whole package—the kitchen and front of house upgrades, the curated prix fixe menus, and the story of how Donald Friel's son is carrying on his father's legacy will net us more than enough capital to complete the renovations and open a bistro at a second site in the Village." He beamed at Casey. "What do you think?"

Casey stared at him, horror pooling like ice in his belly. "You didn't invest money in this scheme, did you?"

"Of course I did. I'm completely confident of our success. And anyway, I was able to get a very favorable rate on the refinance of my Westchester house."

Casey propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. "Uncle Walt. When it comes to money, you're shrewder than this, way too shrewd to bet on something this chancy. You need to stop this. Now. Before it's too late."

"Don't you worry. Things are already well on their way. Chez Donatien was always booked out weeks in advance, and its renaissance won't be any different. You'll see." He got a faraway look in his eyes. "It will be like he never left, like he's still with us, every day."

Oh, god, I hope not."What I'll see is you losing your money and your home if you don't get a different chef."

"Now, now." He patted Casey's shoulder. "You've got plenty of time to bring yourself up to speed. We don't open until after Labor Day."

"Labor Day?" Casey felt as though he were sinking through the sofa. "But it's nearly June. That's only three months."

"Exactly! As I said, plenty of time."

"Uncle, I really don't think—"

"More on that in a moment." He gave Casey a reproachful look. "I have a small bone to pick with you first."

"As long as the bone isn't in something I have to cook—since I'd be sure to incinerate it—hit me."

Walt laughed again. "Nothing too dire. But Bradley told me you haven't responded to his messages. You really should make time to go out with him, my boy." He nudged Casey with an elbow. "You'd make a lovely couple."

Casey blinked. Was that why Bradley kept calling and asking Casey to meet him at various upscale restaurants around town? Casey had assumed it was just to show him the competition in a misguided attempt to inspire him to work harder. "Are you trying to set me up?"

"Why not? I only want you to be happy. Settled. Secure. Bradley's handsome. Maybe a bit older than you, but six years is nothing these days. He's got money, influence, connections."

Yeah, and he never lets anyone forget it. The one time Casey had met Bradley without Uncle Walt in tow, he'd seemed more focused on displaying his wealth and power than in anything Casey had to say—which was why Casey assumed it was a business-related snow job. If Bradley was trying to hit on him, he had to seriously work on his seduction technique.

"I don't think we're really that compatible."

"Nonsense, nonsense. You just need to get to know him a little better. The two of you could be the next power couple to conquer the international food scene."

"International?" Casey squeaked. "I can't even conquer my own kitchen."

Walt's indulgent smile was tinged with triumph. "And that's my other news." He leaned over and snagged his raincoat from the ladder-back chair next to Casey's drop-leaf table—which was easy for him to do, since nothing in Casey's living room was more than an arms-length from anything else. "Those culinary schools were obviously not a good fit for you. Your goal is to recapture the magic of your father's food, and to do that, you need one-on-one attention and a curriculum that's centered around the Chez Donatien menu." He extracted a glossy brochure out of the coat's inner pocket. "Do you remember Sylvia Grande?"

Casey frowned, racking his brain. "Oh, yeah. I think I met her at one of Dad's birthday bashes when I was a kid. She had that cooking show, Grande Style, right? It went off the air when I was still in high school. Some kind of scandal, wasn't there?"

Walt cleared his throat. "Nothing criminal. She had a small problem with alcohol. But that's all in the past. She runs her own cooking school up in Vermont now." He handed Casey the brochure, which featured a white clapboard building nestled amid a stand of leafy trees. The words splashed across the top read Summer Kitchen, and along the bottom, Culinary instruction by legendary chef Sylvia Grande.

Numbly, Casey unfolded the brochure, revealing a photo spread of the kitchen-slash-classroom, a street view of a picturesque town, and—the most terrifying part—pictures of exactly the kind of elaborate food that Casey had spent the last few months failing to master.

"Uncle Walt, I'm not sure—"

"It's a summer program, so it's perfect for our timeline. The students all reside in a big house right next to the classroom."

Casey bit his lip, glancing down at the brochure again. A summer spent in—he squinted at the fine print—Home, Vermont? Summer Kitchen's surroundings looked lovely, and while Casey would be spending most of his time in the classroom, it had to be better than sweltering in his own kitchen until September, right?

Sylvia Grande had been a wonderful chef, by all Casey had ever heard. Even his father had praised her. Maybe she really could whip him into shape, if only so he could supervise the restaurant—he was almost an MBA, after all; he had management skills, just zero cooking ability—and leave the actual food preparation to the sous chef and line cooks.

He owed it to Uncle Walt to at least give it a try, since he was betting everything—including his home—on Casey coming up to scratch. Plus, bonus: Bradley wouldn't be there, so he'd have at least three months free of Walt's clumsy matchmaking attempts.

"When do I leave?"