Chapter Fifteen

"Casey, my dear." Sylvia settled onto the stool at the end of Casey's station. "You seem more than usually distracted today. Is there something the matter?"

Casey surveyed the carnage on his bench, the poor duck that was somehow burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. "Other than this, you mean?" And how did anybody curdle chutney?

Sylvia chuckled. "I suspect you would have made a better job of the chutney if you'd actually been paying attention to preparing it."

She had a point. He'd been so focused on cornering Dev in the middle of the afternoon that he'd rushed through the recipe. Apparently, you couldn't get duck to roast faster by glaring at it or upping the oven temperature every five minutes.

Who knew?

"Sorry, Sylvia. I'll try harder next time." He glanced at the clock. Nearly three. It had taken over six hours to get this far. If he had to start this stupid recipe all over again, he wouldn't get out of here until after nine if he was lucky. Sylvia was being incredibly patient with him, considering he was taking up all her time too, and learning how to cook these recipes was the reason he was here. He needed to put his own wishes on the back burner. So to speak.

She pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. "I wonder if there should be a next time."

The bottom dropped out of Casey's belly. Was he about to be expelled from another cooking school, one Uncle Walt had paid a mint for, one where he was the only freaking student? "I promise I'll pay closer attention. Please don't kick me out."

"What?" She slid off the stool and hurried over to him to enfold him in a hug. "Of course I'm not kicking you out. Not if you truly want to stay."

He sagged within her embrace, returning the hug carefully. She was nearly seventy, after all, and her bones seemed as fragile as a sparrow's.

"I'm not sure why I can't get this." He patted her gently on the back and released her. "I mean, billions of people cook every day, right?"

"That's a safe assumption, since people do have to eat if they expect to survive. But not everyone attempts this level of complexity, at least not on a daily basis." She flicked a finger at the canister that held the sourdough starter, which they'd named Carl. "Take Carl, for instance. Tomorrow we can use a bit of him to make a rustic sourdough loaf. Considering your success with those tarts—"

"I had help with those." Casey dropped his gaze to the floor, scuffing the toe of his trainer through a scatter of flour. "I can't claim credit for how they turned out."

"Nonsense." She gestured to the pitiful duck. "You had help with this too, with all the recipes we've tried so far, and yet those rustic tarts are the only things that… that…"

"Didn't either destroy the summer kitchen or make you want to hurl?"

She chuckled. "I was going to say the only things that you were pleased with. You know, simple food isn't shameful, neither eating it nor preparing it. In my book, a perfectly grilled cheese sandwich, browned nicely and served with a nice, crisp pickle, is just as admirable as roast duck. They both feed the body, but touch different parts of the soul."

Casey picked up a bench knife and scraped chutney detritus off the cutting board. "Somehow, I can't see Uncle Walt agreeing to change the Chez Donatien menu to offer grilled cheese and rustic tarts instead of Beef Wellington and Marjolaine."

"Perhaps not. But Casey, my dear, perhaps he should offer those dishes with another chef at the helm?"

"But I promised him." Casey's voice shook. "He never once broke a promise to me"—unlike my father—"so how can I renege? He's so set on this, on continuing the family legacy—"

"Piffle," she said. "What legacy? Donald was the first chef in your family. If I recall, Walter is in finance. Yes, Donald opened a string of restaurants, all of which were successful for a time. But of those, only Chez Donatien was in operation at his death. And frankly? I suspect he would have moved on to another project before long if his blood pressure, temper, and refusal to moderate his diet hadn't gotten to him. That's the danger in believing in your own omnipotence." She smiled wryly. "Humility in the face of our own mortality is a lesson we all have to learn. Unfortunately Donald's came too late."

Casey blinked at her. Nobody, not his father's sous chef, his line cooks, the food critics—and certainly not Uncle Walt—had ever spoken about his father like that. Like he wasn't the patron saint of haute cuisine. Guilt niggled at Casey because he found it such a relief that he wasn't the only person in the world who didn't worship at his father's altar.

"Um…"

"Oh, Casey, I'm so sorry." She grabbed his hand and squeezed. "I lack the least modicum of tact. That's one of the things that got me in trouble before. I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't." He smiled at her as he returned the squeeze. "I was just surprised that somebody finally saw a different side of my father." One closer to the one I knew.

She chuckled. "Well, I was his rival, not his employee, friend, or family, so perhaps I had a different perspective. I remember once when—" Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. "Drat. I thought I silenced that for our lesson. I do beg your pardon."

Casey picked up the bench knife again and waggled it in a shooing motion. "Go ahead and answer it. I'll be cleaning up this mess for a while anyway, before I can start again."

She held up one finger as she pulled out the phone. "Hold that thought. We haven't finished this conversation." She connected the call and paced toward the end of the room and the door to her tiny office. "Hello?"

Casey turned back to his cleanup, with Sylvia's low-voiced conversation as a soundtrack. He poked at the duck's charred skin. If only he hadn't gotten so impatient. If he'd just let it roast at the right temperature for that stupidly long time, he'd be finished by now and on his way to confront Dev. Instead, he had the whole mess to do over, probably to fail again, and the idea of all the waste made his stomach cramp.

Hmmm…

Val had told Casey that some of the food they used for the animals at the shelter was duck-based. He had no idea whether that meant duck-based kibble or actual duck, but it wouldn't hurt to check. This could be just the ticket for obligate carnivores.

If Casey couldn't manage edible people food, maybe he could serve up treats to Home's animal population. After all, somebody should benefit from all this effort.

As he was packing the duck for transport, Sylvia's voice rose.

"Nazariy, you guaranteed I'd have those black truffles by tomorrow. My lesson depends on them."

The combination of that name—Nazariy—and black truffles caught Casey's ear. Sylvia had to be talking to Nazariy Sobol, who ran Sobol Food Traders in New Jersey. Casey left the half-wrapped duck and inched closer. Yeah, maybe it was rude to eavesdrop on Sylvia's conversation, but the seed of an idea was taking root.

He peeked into the office. Sylvia was squinting up at the ceiling, phone pressed to her ear with one hand and the other hand gripping her hair so tightly it had to be painful.

"This is insupportable. I pay your ridiculous surcharges specifically so I can get the ingredients I require. How you can sell my order out from under me—"

Casey could hear Nazariy's harsh squawks, although they were noise, not actual words. Judging by the way Sylvia's brows snapped down, whatever he was saying wasn't welcome news.

"No, I will not pay extra. I'm already paying extra." Her expression turned bleak as the squawking went on, and she let the phone drift down to her lap.

Casey reached out and took it gently, cutting off Nazariy mid-squawk. "That was the guy from Sobol Food Traders, wasn't it?"

She nodded. "It's days like this that make me wish I hadn't quit drinking. Which, according to Nazariy, nobody in the industry believes, anyway."

"My dad had trouble with him all the time." He took her elbow and led her back to his pristine station. "Sit down and I'll make you a cup of that cardamom tea you like."

"Thank you, dear, but you needn't go to the trouble."

"It's no trouble to help a friend." He switched on the electric kettle and retrieved two very large mugs from Peach's cupboard. As the water boiled, he sat down facing her. "Was he very horrible to you?"

She laughed weakly. "Other than selling those black truffles for your Beef Wellington to that new bistro in Soho and insinuating that I wouldn't be hiding out in the backwoods of Vermont if I were sober, nothing out of the ordinary."

"What a dickhead." He winced. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. He is, without a doubt, a huge dickhead."

Even though the water hadn't boiled, Casey rose and shuffled to the counter. He stared down at the blue lights on the kettle's power base. "It's my fault."

"How did you reach that astonishing conclusion?"

He bit his lip as he filled two tea balls with the cardamom tea and dropped them in the mugs. "How can it not be?"

"Casey—"

"Those black truffles were for me, just like all the other rare ingredients you've had to buy." The kettle beeped, and he poured water over the tea. "If it weren't for my lessons, for Dad's stupidly fancy recipes, you wouldn't have to deal with Nazariy."

She sighed as he passed her the steaming cup. "If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. None of my old suppliers are quite as eager to keep me happy as they were when I still had influence."

Casey leaned against Peach's counter and took a sip of his tea. "So why keep using them?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why not source your ingredients locally?"

She lifted an eyebrow. "Do you really think I could waltz into the Market and pick up black truffles?"

"Well. Yes. Her stock is pretty eclectic."

She stared at him. "Again I say, I beg your pardon? Kat Hathaway wouldn't cross the street with a fire extinguisher if I was in flames."

"Did you ever think the reason for that is that you don't buy your supplies from her?" He pushed off the counter and sat on the stool opposite Sylvia. "I've talked to her. She's got connections. Yeah, it might add an extra layer of middlepersons between you and the growers, but I bet it would still be cheaper than shipping everything in from New Jersey."

"I don't know." Sylvia gazed down at her cup, tilting it so that the tea ball tinkled against its sides. "Kat and I haven't seen eye to eye since my first days with Summer Kitchen. I doubt she'll be anxious to cooperate with me at this late date."

"I'll lay you odds I'll get Kat on board and connect with local growers to boot." He held out his hand, palm up. "Let me try anyway. Let me do it for you."

She studied him somberly for a moment before she took his hand. "Thank you, my dear. I'm more than happy for you to step into the breach." She let go of him and took another sip of her tea. "You know, Casey, in this world, there are process people and product people."

He raised his eyebrows. "Are we changing the subject now? Which one is better? Are you about to tell me I'm the worst kind?"

She shook her head, laughing. "There's no best and worst. It has more to do with what brings you satisfaction. Process people derive joy and fulfillment from the making. Product people from the made. For process people, the work, the project, the process, is where they want to stay. Often, it doesn't matter if they ever complete a particular task. If the joy of working on it fades?" She shrugged. "They'll leave it unfinished and move on. Product people are focused on results. To them, the point of starting anything is in getting done, usually in the most efficient manner. Consequently, process people can be a little flighty and leave a trail of unfinished tasks in their wake. Product people can cut corners in their haste to reach the finish line. It's the difference between done is good and done is irrelevant as long as we enjoy the journey."

"Okaaay." He glanced sidelong at the half-wrapped duck.

"To produce the kind of food your father did, you have to be a process person. You have to enjoy the making, because these dishes are complex and time-consuming." She peered at him over her glasses. "Do you enjoy making these dishes?"

"N-no." Casey squirmed on the stool, making it wobble. "But only because I'm bad at it."

"I think it's the other way around. You're bad at it because you don't enjoy it. And my dear…" She reached out and gripped his wrist with her surprisingly callused hand. "Spending your life doing something you don't enjoy is no way to live."

"But… but I enjoyed it when Dev and I made those tarts," he said, a little desperately.

"That's because you got to the result—your product—quickly and without a lot of fuss." She winked. "Or perhaps because of the company."

Casey's cheeks burned. "Uh…"

"Even a product person can enjoy the process if the journey is pleasant. And even a process person can anticipate the result when they know their work will be appreciated. You, Casey"—she saluted him with her cup—"are most definitely a product person. You absolutely lit up when you offered to intercede with Kat because of the result you want to attain."

"So you're saying I'll never be able to cook like my father?"

"I'm saying it will be unlikely to give you the same satisfaction it gave him. And perhaps you should consider that going forward."

Casey glanced at the recipe pinned to the corkboard on his fridge door. Not a process I want to slog through again. He checked the clock. Three fifteen. "Sylvia, do you mind if we cut out early today?"

"Actually, my dear, I would be most grateful." She set her cup down. "I feel in dire need of a meeting."

"Then if you'll excuse me?" Casey took off his apron and tossed it in the laundry basket next to the pantry. "I've got a product to achieve."

And Dev Harrison was going to face up to that process whether he liked it or not.