The Lost Recipe for Happiness Page 2

  “The others are in fashion.” He tucked his hat in his pocket. “They finance my smaller projects.”

  A man in a white shirt and white tie came hustling forward and seated them at a table by the windows. Elena ordered tea and milk; Mr. Liswood, coffee. In the corner, she saw a cluster of uniformed staff whispering, looking their way. She nodded toward them. “You’ve caused a stir.”

  He skimmed the jacket from his shoulders. “I don’t think it’s me.”

  A woman held up the newspaper and pointed to the picture. She waved, smiling. “Oh,” Elena said, pleased. She waved back.

  “Your first taste of fame?”

  She thought of long ago, the New Mexico newspapers. But that had been more notoriety than fame, so dark and heavy she’d had to flee to escape it. “In a way,” she said, then shifted her attention back to him. “But you’re no stranger to it, are you?”

  “I am not usually recognized for myself,” he said, “but for the wives I have unwisely collected.”

  His rueful straightforwardness disarmed her, and Elena laughed, the sound shaking loose from some rusty place in her chest. His wives were tabloid fodder, starlets who began their careers in the teen slasher flicks that had made him his fortune. Restaurants were a sideline. Celebrity owners were not always the most adept, but Julian Liswood had earned the respect of the press and—harder to capture—his workforce. The Blue Turtle was the third he’d opened to spectacular success.

  Elena said, “They have been rather beautiful wives, as I recall.”

  “Well, you know what they say: never marry a girl prettier than you.”

  She thought, with a pang, of Dmitri. “Been there.”

  “Hard to imagine.”

  “Oh, believe me—” She almost said, there have been so many men, but that would have been too frank. Outside, rain began to splat against the window. She shivered slightly. Pulling her cup toward her, she said, “Now, tell me, Mr. Liswood, what do you have in mind?”

  “Please call me Julian.”

  “I’ll try. Julian.”

  He took his time, stirring a lump of rough brown sugar into his coffee with a tiny spoon. His oval nails were manicured, and she wondered what kind of man had time for something like that. But of course, in his world, the veneer of such details would be required. She envisioned a cocktail party sparkling with beautiful people, manned by obsequious servers. It made her nervous.

  Finally, he put down the spoon and tapped the newspaper on the table beside him. “You have strong views of the restaurant business.”

  “Are you waiting for me to apologize for it?” she asked. “I’ve been in kitchens for nearly twenty years. I’m tired of holding my tongue.”

  Amusement flickered over his mouth. “Not at all. I’m intrigued.”

  She took a breath. “Sorry. I might be a little testy just this minute. It’s never fun to be fired.”

  “No.” He leaned back as the server, a young woman in a tan oxford shirt and black pants, approached. She was dewy and lean, with a smile that could bring in a lot in tips. She was also slightly messy and Elena wanted to brush her off, tell her to tuck her shirt in and iron her blouse next time.

  Instead, she listened as the girl explained the buffet, and exchanged a slight smile with Julian. No one in the restaurant business ate at a buffet if it could be avoided. “I’d like the asparagus omelet,” Elena said. “Fruit instead of potatoes, please, and a glass of grapefruit juice.”

  “I’ll have the mushroom omelet,” he said, handing her the menu. “Potatoes with mine, and a glass of milk instead of grapefruit juice.”

  As she departed, Julian said, “You may know that the Blue Turtle is not my only restaurant.”

  “Of course.” There were three in a line down the west coast. Vancouver, San Francisco, and San Diego. “I worked as a line cook, then was promoted to sous chef at the Yellow Dolphin.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  There was a soft fall, a short pause. “Expensive hobby, restaurants,” Elena said into it.

  “It’s more than a hobby, actually.” The words were mild, but Elena reminded herself that he was a man with considerable power and influence. Who was probably going to offer her a job if she could keep the chip off her shoulder. Or at least hidden.

  “Sorry. That was rude.”

  One side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile. “Don’t apologize. It’s true that I don’t have the background you do, but I didn’t choose restaurants by accident. I love the business—bringing together a chef and a location and a direction and a staff and seeing what happens.”

  “You’ve been very successful.”

  “By trial and error. The Purple Tuna—are you familiar with it? In San Diego?”

  “Somewhat.”

  “It failed twice.” He grinned. “Luckily, enough cash will hide a multitude of sins.”

  Elena was surprised into a laugh. “Is it successful now?”

  “Yes. I kept changing the dynamic until it worked.”

  “Which dynamics?”

  “Staff. Menu.” He met her eyes. “Chef. The location is brilliant, and the building is beautiful. It took three years to get the rest of it right.”

  Letting go of a long whistle, she said, “That’s a long time to keep a restaurant afloat. Why bother?”

  “It’s a puzzle. I don’t like to give up until it fits together.”

  She thought of the many, many elements that went into the success of a restaurant—menu, food, ordering, cash flow, décor and presentation, and most important, staff, front and back, all those personalities, often very high strung. “Very complicated puzzle.”

  “Exactly.”

  Leaning forward, he shook his hair off his brow and said, “Tell me, Elena, what are your five favorite foods?”

  She tamped down a sense of anxiety. Was this a test? “Hmm. Favorite everyday dishes? Or favorite restaurant dishes? Or what?”

  “Five best things you’ve ever eaten, anywhere.”

  She considered. In the service area, someone loaded hot glasses into a rack. Outside, a breeze coaxed ripples into the satiny surface of the ripening bay. She narrowed her eyes and chose honesty. “My grandmother’s homemade tamales, fresh out of the steamer. A cup of hot chocolate I drank in a restaurant by the Louvre in Paris. A plate of blue-corn cheese enchiladas with green chile in Santa Fe.” That was three. She paused, letting others bubble up. “A bowl of buttered squashes at a museum restaurant. And—” she sucked in a breath and snatched one of the hundreds swirling up, “a roasted garlic soup, in New Orleans.” She brought her focus back to Julian’s face. “I’ve been trying for years to reproduce that soup and still don’t know why it was so spectacular.”

  He nodded.

  She sipped her tea. “Now you.”

  “Of course.” His eyes, she noticed, were not just brown, they were blackest black. It made him seem wise. “A plate of roasted lamb in New Zealand, made by a housewife who put us up when our car broke down.”

  “Oh, I forgot lamb! I love lamb.”

  “That was one. Two was a strudel our next-door neighbor used to make, back when I was a kid.” He held up a third finger. “A bowl of green chile in a greasy spoon in New Mexico. Espanola, as it happens.”

  She raised her eyebrows—she’d mentioned Espanola in the article. “My uncle probably made it.”

  Julian chuckled. “A steak pie in Aspen, and”—he gestured toward her—“a zucchini blossom with blue corn-bread and piñon stuffing.”

  She pressed her hands into namaste position. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “The last three are why we’re here.”

  A ripple of nerves shot through her gut. “Okay.”

  “The steak pie was in a failing restaurant. The chef is a drunk, the owner was a ski bum who had no business sense, and the building is challenged, though in a very good location.”

  Elena hazarded a guess. “And you bought it.”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  The food cam
e, steaming hot, served on heavy white porcelain plates the server set down with no attention whatsoever to presentation. The parsley on Elena’s was at the top—as it should have been—Julian’s at the bottom. She couldn’t be silent. It would have been like letting someone leave the restroom with toilet paper stuck to her shoe. “Miss?”

  The girl turned. “Did I forget something?”

  “No, it looks beautiful—but can I ask you a question?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Are you new to this job?”

  “Yeah. Only three weeks.” She winced. “Does it show? They’re pretty shorthanded and I didn’t get trained that good.”

  Elena gently touched the girl’s wrist. In her smoothest, least threatening voice, she said, “The food here is beautiful. The setting is spectacular. You can make a lot of money if you pay attention to little details.”

  She blinked, fearful as a rabbit. “Yeah? Like what?”

  “Tuck your shirt in better. Stand up straight. Serve the food as if the diner is in for a giant treat.”

  She bit her lip, confused. “Okay.”

  “Parsley at the top, right?”

  “Oh!” She smiled. “Right. I forgot. Anything else?”

  “Grapefruit juice and milk.”

  “Be right back.”

  Julian picked up his fork. “You say exactly what’s on your mind, don’t you?”

  “Did I embarrass you?”

  “Not at all. It was compassionate.”

  “Good.” She picked up her fork, admired the omelet, and took a bite. “Mmm. Very nice. You were saying?”

  He took a moment to turn his plate slightly, chose a spot, cut a small triangle and sampled it, then a cube of potato, then another small bite of omelet. Paying attention. “I was about to say, those three things came together. The Aspen restaurant. The bowl of green chile in Espanola, and your zucchini blossom appetizer.”

  “And?”

  He lifted a brow. “I would like you to come to Aspen and be my executive chef.”

  TWO

  STANDING UP TO THE HEAT

  Blue Turtle Chef Says Life as a Female in the Kitchen Is Not Easy, but Worth It

  BY JACQUELINE GREER

  Wade into the kitchen at local favorite the Blue Turtle, overlooking English Bay, and the air is as laden with testosterone as it is spices.

  Men—of all ages and races and nationalities—fill the narrow aisles between stoves and ovens. There are boys who’ve yet to grow a beard cutting chickens and peeling onions on the prep line; a sturdy man of sixty with a potbelly and the uneven gait of bad feet who shouts out orders in Spanish. The executive chef himself, Dmitri Nadirov, is a smolderingly handsome Russian of the Mick Jagger school of beauty. Men everywhere.

  And then there is sous chef Elena Alvarez, a study in contrasts. A woman in a man’s world. A blue-eyed blonde who shouts orders to the saucier in an archaic Spanish, her slight frame and faint limp belying the power in her arms that can haul heavy iron skillets. She orders the line cooks to get more potatoes under way, answers a question from a waiter, fields a challenge from another line cook, all the while shaking a pan filled with aromatic meat and thoughtfully answering this reporter’s questions.

  Alvarez is cagey about her background, though she admits to growing up in El Paso and Espanola, which is not far from Santa Fe, where she began to cook after a car accident that broke her back when she was seventeen. Also not a subject she wished to discuss.

  Trained in the emerging Santa Fe style as a young woman, Alvarez was chosen from a field of thousands to study in Paris under star chef Alexander Moreau. She spent four years in Europe, three in Paris and one in London, before coming back to the U.S. to work in top-end kitchens in New York City and San Francisco….

  THREE

  Despite her hope that Julian was going to offer her a job, Elena felt a splash of surprise. “Executive.”

  “Yes.” He ate. Waited patiently. Took a sip of coffee.

  “I’d kill to have my own kitchen. Of course.” It was Elena’s turn to measure him. “What are you looking for?”

  “I want you to create a menu, get the restaurant moving, see if you can turn it around.”

  “How long would I have?”

  “One year.”

  “Fair enough.” She cut a bite of egg. “What kind of menu?”

  “Elena’s menu. It’s Aspen. It’s a moneyed crowd. They’re choosy but willing to be adventurous. Use all that moxie and give me a menu that’s western or southwestern, but also definitely upscale and gourmet.”

  “What, like the Coyote Cafe?”

  “Your call.” He lifted his coffee cup. “I am more fond of Cafe Pasqual’s, though it’s not as high end. Both are very good.”

  “I haven’t been to Cafe Pasqual’s.” She rarely visited New Mexico. It seemed shameful suddenly. She tried to take a bite of omelet, but it sat on her fork, taunting her. “And if it doesn’t work in a year?”

  He shrugged. “I’ll let you go, and try something else.”

  Airlessness moved through her lungs. He said it so easily, the challenge, the promise and consequences. For him, it was a business gamble. For Elena, it was her career. Her life.

  And yet, hadn’t she been working toward this for nearly two decades? “When would you need me?”

  A slight lift of one shoulder. “As soon as possible. I’m moving my daughter to Aspen to get her out of LA for a while, and we’re planning to be there by August 1. I’d like to get started shortly after that, get the new menu in place and work out the bugs before the ski slopes open.”

  “Is there a firm date for the slopes, or does it depend on snow?”

  “It’s December 9 in Aspen. So”—he narrowed his eyes, gazed in the distance—“we’ll aim for a soft opening by late October, early November, aim for a grand opening mid-December.”

  Dismayed, she said, “So, you’ll be on-site?”

  “Yes. Does that bother you?”

  Yes, she wanted to say. His presence would be distracting, in so many ways. That urbane intelligence. The still gaze. Those sensual curls. Aloud, she said, “Not if you don’t get in my way. If you tell me it’s my kitchen, I’ll take that pretty literally.”

  “Understood.” He’d neatly finished his breakfast while they spoke, invisibly eating while Elena thought and talked. The server whisked away his empty plate. Elena noticed the girl had tucked in her blouse. She smiled. The girl smiled back.

  Julian said, “There are a couple of conditions.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I get final approval of the menu, and I want to hire someone to professionally write the descriptions.”

  “No problem.”

  “You’ll have control of the kitchen staff, naturally, but the current manager stays, and—uh—I’m pretty sure we need to keep the chef.”

  “The drunk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Interesting choice,” she said, inclining her head. “Why do you want to keep him?”

  “The steak pie. The fact that the place has made some money in spite of the fact that there are so many problems. He’s a James Beard award winner. Obviously a lot of talent there.” He pursed his lips, peered at something in the distance, a vision of what might be, perhaps. “But, basically, it’s a gut feeling. Could be right, could be wrong.”

  Elena speared a vivid red strawberry, a fruit at its prime, and fell into admiring it. The smooth red flesh, quilted with the tiniest seeds. It tasted slightly grainy, imbued with the sunlight of a summer morning. “Mmm.” She stabbed another and held it out to Julian. “Have a taste.”

  He bent in without hesitation and took it from her fork. She glimpsed his tongue. “Excellent.”

  She handed him another one, which he took with his fingers. “The chef in Aspen—he’s executive now, right?”

  Julian nodded. He knew exactly what she was asking. The chef would be demoted—he’d hate her the minute she showed up.

  “That might be a
little volatile,” she said.

  “A challenge, I’m sure,” he said, but there was no apology in it.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Ivan Santino.”

  She wrote it down and stuck it in her pocket. If she had to deal with him, she’d want to go in armed. Someone in the community would know something about him, surely.

  Then for a moment, she said nothing, trying not to let anticipation or fear rush her into anything. Without hurry, she ate some more of her omelet, savoring the sharpness of Swiss cheese, the smoothness of asparagus. She broke a corner of her toast and ate it.

  Across the table, Julian was a column of still energy. She liked his face, his black eyes, that tumble of curls, but more than anything, she liked that he could sit there with his hands clasped unmoving around a coffee cup and wait for her to think.

  She also liked that he would make a big move for the sake of a child. “May I ask about your daughter?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “She’s fourteen—running with a crowd I think is too fast.”

  “And Aspen is slower than LA?”

  “No. It’s a lot smaller, however, and I can keep an eye on her more easily.”

  “Good for you,” Elena said, and meant it. Finished with her meal, she put her napkin aside and picked up her tea. “What will you pay me?”

  He named a figure that was a third more than she currently earned. “And because accommodation is so difficult in Aspen, we’ll see to it that you have living space. A condo, probably.”

  “I have a dog,” Elena said. “I have to have some space for him. Yard space.”

  “Bring him. Everyone in Aspen has a dog.”

  She thought of her two-year-old rescue mutt, a fluffy chow-Lab mix with a head like a Saint Bernard. “Probably not like Alvin.”

  Julian grinned, showing teeth for the first time. The eye-teeth were a little crooked, and she liked him for not fixing them, even with all of his millions. “Alvin?”

  “From Alvin and the Chipmunks, remember them?”

  He laughed. “I’ll have to see this dog.”

  The sound of his laughter was weirdly familiar, a song she remembered from long ago. Scowling, Elena took a breath. “I’m very excited and flattered by your offer, Mr. Liswood. But my policy is to never say yes to anything without thinking about it on my own. I need to take a walk.”