The Cook's Secret Ingredient. Meg Maxwell
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had a gift. Supposedly her food changed moods, healed hearts, restored hope.
Come on. Olivia hardly believed that. Comfort food comforted; it was right there in the name. If you were feeling down, a plate of macaroni and cheese did its job. And a chocolate-dipped cannoli with a sprinkling of powdered sugar? How could it not bring about a smile? Nothing magic about that.
Sorry if you don’t like it, but you have a gift, same as I do, same as all the women on my side of the family, her mother had always said. Miranda Mack passed away just over a month ago, and Olivia still couldn’t believe her larger-than-life mother was gone.
“Did you add chocolate chips to one end and crushed pistachios to the other like I asked?” Penny Jergen snapped from the other side of the food-truck window as she inspected the cannoli, her expression holding warring emotions. Olivia could see anger, pain, humiliation and plenty of heartbreak in Penny’s green eyes.
Which had Olivia refraining from rolling her own eyes at Penny’s usual rudeness. “Sure did.” As you can clearly see.
Barely mustering a thank-you, Penny carried the cannoli in its serving wedge over to the wrought iron tables and chairs dotting the town green just steps from the food truck. Olivia watched Penny stare down the young couple at the next table who were darting glances at her, then sit, her shoulders slumping. Olivia felt for Penny. The snooty twenty-six-year-old local beauty pageant champ wasn’t exactly the nicest person in Blue Gulch, but Olivia knew what heartbreak felt like.
Everyone in town had heard through the grapevine that Penny had caught her brand-new fiancé of just one week in bed with her frenemy, who’d apparently wanted to prove she could tempt the guy away from Miss Blue Gulch County. Ever since, Penny had walked around town on the verge of tears, head cast down. A barista at the coffee shop, Penny had handed Olivia her iced mocha that morning with red-rimmed eyes, her usually meticulously made-up face bare and crumpling. Olivia had been hoping Penny would stop by the food truck so Olivia could help a little. This afternoon she had.
As Olivia worked on a pulled-pork po’boy with barbecue sauce for her next customer, a young man with a nervous energy, as though he was waiting for news of some kind, she eyed Penny through the truck’s front window. Penny bit into the cannoli, a satisfied ah emanating from her. She took another bite. As expected, Penny sat up straighter. She took another bite and her teary eyes brightened. Color came back to her cheeks. She slowly ate the rest of the cannoli, sipped from a bottle of water, then stood up, head held high, chin up in the air.
“You know what?” Penny announced to no one in particular, flipping her long blond beachy waves behind her shoulders. “Screw him! I’m Penny Jergen. I mean, look at me.” She ran her hand down her tall, willowy, big-chested frame. “That’s it. Penny Jergen is done moping around over some cheating jerk who didn’t deserve her.” With that she left her balled-up, chocolate-dotted napkin on the table and marched off in her high-heeled sandals.
Olivia smiled. Penny Jergen, like her or not, was back to her old self. Presto-chango—whether Olivia liked her ability or not. The moment Penny had ordered the cannoli, chocolate chips on one end, crushed pistachios on the other, Olivia had instinctively known the extra ingredient the dessert had needed: a dash of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” A person couldn’t get over heartbreak so fast—Olivia knew that from personal experience. But Olivia’s customers’ moods and facial expressions and stories told her what they needed and that telling infused the ingredients of their orders with...not magic, exactly, but something Olivia couldn’t explain.
Her mother used to argue with her over the word magic all the time, going on and on about how there was magic in the world, miracles that couldn’t be explained away, and Olivia would be stumped. All she knew for sure was that she believed in paying attention: watching faces, reading moods, giving a hoot. If you really looked at someone, you could tell so much about them and what they needed. And so Olivia put all her hopes for the person in her food and the power of positive thinking did its thing.
This was how Olivia tried to rationalize it, anyway. Special abilities, gifts, whatever you wanted to call it—she just wasn’t sure she believed in that. Even if sometimes she stayed up late at night, trying to explain to herself her mother’s obvious ability to predict the future. Olivia’s obvious ability to restore through her food. It was one thing for Olivia to fill a chocolate cannoli shell with cream and sprinkle it with powdered sugar while thinking positively about female empowerment and getting over a rotten fiancé. It was another for those thoughts to actually have such a specific effect on the person eating that cannoli.
You have a gift, Olivia’s mother had repeated the day she passed away. My hope is that one day you’ll accept it. Don’t deny who you are. Denial is why—
Her mom had stopped talking then, turning away with a sigh. Olivia knew she’d been thinking about her sister, Olivia’s aunt, who’d estranged herself from Miranda and Olivia five years earlier. If her aunt had a gift, Olivia had never heard mention of it.
She forced thoughts of her family from her mind; she couldn’t risk infusing her current customer’s order with her own worries. She had to focus on him. She turned around and glanced at the guy, early twenties, biting his lower lip. He was waiting for a job offer, Olivia thought. Her fingers filling with good-luck vibes, she added the delicious-smelling barbecue sauce to his pulled-pork po’boy, wrapped it up and handed it to him through the window. She loved knowing that in about fifteen minutes, he’d have a little boost of confidence—whether or not he got the job.
And she wasn’t in denial of who she was. Gift or no gift, Olivia knew exactly who she was: twenty-six, single and struggling to find her place now that her world had shifted. Until a week ago she’d been a caterer and personal chef, making Weight Watchers points-friendly meals for a few clients, gluten-free dishes for two other clients, and creating replicas of favorites that Mr. Crenshaw’s late wife used to cook for him. She would never quit on her clients; she knew the effect her food had on them, but spending so much time alone in the kitchen of her tiny house, after having her heart broken and losing her mother, she’d needed something, something new, something that would get her outside and interacting with people instead of just with her stove.
And then Essie Hurley, who owned the popular restaurant Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, had called, asking if Olivia, who she often hired to help out in the kitchen for big events, had any interest in running Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen’s new business venture—the food truck. Olivia hadn’t hesitated. Two other cooks at Hurley’s would split the shifts, so Olivia was on three days a week from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and two days from 3:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. That left lots of time for her to cook at home for her clients and make her deliveries. The Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen food truck was parked several blocks down from the restaurant and business was bustling, the residents of Blue Gulch coming back time and again. Because—if she said so herself—she was a good cook. She really would like to think that was all there was to it. Good food, comforting food, delicious food, made people happy. End of story.
Olivia glanced out the window, grateful there was no one waiting and that she could take a break and have a po’boy herself. She was deciding between roast beef and grilled chicken when she realized that the stranger who’d been standing across the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop was still there, still watching her. At first she’d thought he was reading the chalkboard of menu items hanging from the outside of the food truck. But for twenty minutes?
And he didn’t look particularly happy. Every time she caught his eye, which was every time she looked at him, he seemed to be glaring at her. But why? Who was he? Blue Gulch was a small town and if a six-two, very attractive man had moved in, Olivia would have heard about it from the grapevine. People chatted at the food-truck window as they passed the time until their orders were ready. Sometimes they talked out loud to her, sometimes she just heard snippets of conversation.
Olivia couldn’t remember ever seeing the guy before. He stood to the side of the door of Blue Gulch Coffee in his dark brown leather jacket and jeans and cowboy boots, his thick brown hair lit by the sun, a large cup of coffee in his hand.
Just as she decided on grilled chicken with pesto-dill