A Taste for Love Read online

  For a week the three of them had sat beside their mother’s bedside wondering if Florence could possibly survive such a massive heart attack. But their eighty-year-old mother was made of strong stuff, and a week later was sitting up in her hospital bed sipping a mug of tea, thrilled to see her three children together for once and back in their home town. She’d given them all a right fright, but the doctors and nursing staff made it quite clear that the next time she might not be so lucky, and that in their opinion Florence would no longer be able to live on her own.

  It had come as a shock to them all, as up to now their mother had stubbornly defended her independence. They all knew that it was difficult for her, being a widow and having all her children living overseas, but she had become an intrepid traveller and loved visiting them: spending a few weeks in the US with Donal and his boys, or with Marianne and her young family in their luxurious home in Hong Kong. She loved her regular trips to London, too, and she and Tessa had travelled all over England: from the Lake District to the beautiful Regency town of Bath, from Cornwall to the home town of the Beatles in Liverpool. Florence Sullivan was interested not just in the places around her, but also the people. Now Florence faced two choices: she could go into an old people’s home, or one of the family would have to return home to care for her. Confining their mother to an old people’s home, they all decided, was not an option.

  *

  They had argued and reasoned and weighed up the implications for all of them. Donal had only just been made a professor lecturing in bio-chemistry at Stanford University in California. He couldn’t just go and throw up such a position, as it would be impossible for him to get a similar one back home. Also, since his divorce from Leigh Anne, if he wanted regular access to his two sons he needed to be in the US where he could see them regularly.

  Marianne’s husband had a big job working for Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. They had a great house and lifestyle, and with a thirteen-year-old, a ten-year-old and an eight-year-old there was no question of Marianne being the one that could come home. So it had fallen on Tessa to volunteer to give up her job as a human resources manager at Bridgetown & Murrow and return to Dublin.

  In her late thirties, Tessa was still single and childless and not even in a relationship, so it made utter sense as far as everyone was concerned that she throw her life up in the air and return to Dublin. She had sublet her pretty garden flat in Notting Hill Gate, and loaded up her cream and black Mini Clubman, and taken the car ferry back to Dublin to mind and care for their mother. With no dependants, the onus was on her to be the one to do the decent thing and put her own career and life on the back boiler. That had been almost two years ago, and somehow she had fallen into a dull pattern of routine and caring. She had managed to find a part-time job three mornings a week in a small recruitment company off Baggot Street. Two of those mornings Lilly, their Moldovian home help, came in to do a bit of cleaning and to care for Florence, while on Wednesdays Florence went to the local community centre’s over-seventies club, where there were activities organized and the old people got a three-course lunch. Minding her mother involved a fair bit of juggling but, with kind-hearted Lilly’s help and willingness to do a few extra hours the odd evening, Tessa somehow managed it.

  She loved her mother – but she had sacrificed so much of her career and her freedom and financial independence by moving back to Ireland. She had tried to reconnect with many of her old friends from when she was younger, but most of them were married and busy with families of their own. She knew they pitied her. Some days she ached with regret for all the lost and wasted opportunities.

  ‘Mum, I won’t be long,’ she called, closing out the hall door.

  It was raining slightly, and she put on the windscreen wipers as she reversed the car out of the driveway. She was rather nervous about tonight, and didn’t know why she had signed up for cookery lessons. It was hardly as if she was entertaining madly while living back home in the four-bedroom 1950s home in Mount Merrion where she grew up. Still, cookery had always interested her, and being able to produce good food with a bit of a twist was a skill she would really like to learn.

  In London she had given a few small dinner parties but her repertoire of dishes was very limited, and now she had the chance she really wanted to change that.

  Bored and lonely, Tessa had never imagined that at thirty-nine years old she would be back where she started! Back in Dublin, with no man in her life, no child and very little to show for the past fifteen years of her life except for some savings in the bank, a few designer clothes and shoes and a whole heap of regrets.

  The traffic was awful – any kind of wet seemed to bring out the worst in Irish drivers – and she snailed along the Stillorgan dual carriageway and took the left lane and turned off for Blackrock and the Dun Laoghaire area. Seeing the round Martello Tower on the seafront at Seapoint, she turned immediately right and pulled up a few seconds later in front of the large house on Martello Avenue where the cookery class was being held.

  She sat for a few minutes trying to get her courage up, watching her fellow students arrive … it was not quite as bad as she feared. Then, grabbing her handbag and notepad, Tessa took a deep breath and got out of the car.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alice stood nervously in the kitchen, watching the clock. In fifteen minutes her cookery school would open its door to its first students. The kitchen was gleaming and clean and polished, with all the equipment she needed ready. The ingredients she would be using to demonstrate to the class were already prepared and divided into bowls and plates, and she had gone over and over the recipes for tonight’s class so there would be no mistakes. Her heart was pounding and she had only managed two slices of grilled cheese on toast for tea as she was feeling so stressed.

  What if nobody showed up for her class? Maybe they’d all changed their minds about coming along to cookery classes. She considered a whole heap of possible disasters, and prayed that nothing would go wrong. She had opted to wear a simple pair of grey trousers and white top with her apron on to protect her clothes. Conor and Lisa had sent her a big bunch of brightly coloured flowers to wish her well, and she had placed these in a glass vase on the sideboard, as she wanted to keep the island and table free. All day she had been getting texts and messages and cards wishing her good luck from her friends and family.

  Sean had surprised her by making her breakfast and carrying it up on a tray to the bedroom.

  ‘What a treat!’ She had laughed and kissed him.

  ‘It’s a special day for you, Mum, I know that,’ he had said. ‘I won’t be back till later tonight, but I’ll be dying to hear how it all went.’

  ‘Fingers crossed.’ She had laughed again.

  She had put on the oven to heat and was just checking it when the doorbell went and her first student arrived. She ushered the stylish young woman into the kitchen.

  ‘Wow! What a kitchen!’ Kerrie O’Neill said, taking in the top-of-the-range Prochef cooker and massive Aga. A few minutes later a young couple called Gemma and Paul Elliot had joined them and were equally impressed by Alice’s kitchen.

  ‘Our apartment is a bit of a dive, and the gas cooker is absolutely ancient, but it seems to work OK.’

  Within minutes the rest of the group had all arrived and taken their seats around the kitchen table as Alice introduced herself.

  ‘I love cooking … making food that is good and great and delicious, meals that you remember! Cooking has been my career, my life, my passion, I suppose, and over the next sixteen weeks I hope to pass on some of my knowledge and expertise and passion to you. Every night we will be using the freshest and best ingredients available to us to create some pretty interesting dishes. I’m so pleased that you are willing to give up your time and come along to my school here on Martello Avenue and learn about cooking and food!’

  The group clapped, and looking around the eager faces and the ten very different people listening to her Alice began to relax.

 
‘Now will you all please introduce yourselves, and just tell us a bit about why you are here and what you are hoping for.’

  The young couple, Gemma and Paul, had got married the previous year and ‘wanted to share everything, and that includes learning to cook together’.

  Tessa Sullivan told everyone that she loved cooking and welcomed the opportunity to perhaps expand her range of dishes. She had returned from living in London and was settling back into life in Dublin, and it was nice to become part of a group with similar interests.

  Emmet Ryan, an architect, admitted that the last thing he had thought of doing was cookery classes, but even though he was only in his mid-thirties his cholesterol level was through the roof, and his stress levels were equally high. He couldn’t face the thought of another session in the gym or doing yoga, and had opted instead to join Alice’s class, as ever since he was a kid he’d enjoyed cooking. It relaxed him.

  ‘I’m temporarily out of work and unemployed,’ Lucy Brennan explained, to sympathetic noises from everyone. ‘So I decided to improve my skills and learn something new.’

  Sisters Rachel and Leah said they both were mad on cooking and entertaining but were fed up cooking the same boring old things for their husbands and families.

  ‘Everyone on the road knows Alice is an amazing cook,’ praised Rachel, who lived at the top end. ‘So when I heard about these classes, I persuaded Leah to come along, too.’

  ‘Every year I sign on for an evening class,’ admitted sixty-four-year-old Kitty Connolly, her cheeks reddening. ‘Gets me out of the house … gets me trying out something new. Last year I did furniture upholstery, and the year before that flower arranging. I thought cooking classes might be a bit of a change. I’m fed up cooking the same food day in, day out. A person needs a bit of a change.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Alice, secretly wondering how on earth she was going to balance out the needs of such a diverse group. She turned towards the exquisitely dressed young blonde woman with the false nails.

  ‘Well, I came along because basically I just need to improve my cooking skills,’ Kerrie said calmly, ‘and I need to brush up a bit as I’m getting married in September.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ murmured everyone.

  The tall distinguished-looking man with the grey hair went last. He seemed ill at ease. ‘My name is Rob. I’m a bit older than most of you here. I signed up for this because I need to learn how to cook, plain and simple … My wife Kate died about seven months ago and it’s been pretty tough without her. She was a great cook, and I guess I always took her … took food and meals for granted, but of late I’ve learned that man cannot live by takeaways alone, so I’m here because I basically need to learn how to cook …’

  Alice felt such a rush of sympathy for him. The poor man! She wasn’t at all surprised when Lucy stroked his shoulder and Rachel, Leah and Kitty all clucked over him like a clutch of motherly hens.

  ‘Well, we have a wide range of skill-levels here, I suspect.’ Alice smiled. ‘But it doesn’t matter if you are a beginner like Rob, or a more experienced hand like Tessa, as you are all here to learn. Each night we will cook something a bit different from a range of recipes that are well tried out and tested and can be relied on not only to be tasty and delicious, but also to be part of a very good, wholesome healthy diet, and fairly easy no matter what level you are. The ingredients we will be using are mostly readily available from your local supermarket and a good butcher and vegetable supplier. I prefer if possible to use local produce.’

  They were all listening to her intently, and she realized that they were a great group, a group she could really work with.

  ‘I would like to give you each a small gift from the Martello Cookery School. She passed each of them a striped cotton apron, and as they all pulled them on and tied them she suddenly felt that this group were her students, her class.

  ‘As I’ve told you when I’ve talked to you previously when you phoned and joined up, the structure of the class will be a demonstration from me of one main course and either a starter or a dessert from the list I am giving you. Then you will work with a fellow classmate and cook these yourselves, with me there to advise and support you and answer any questions and deal with any problems that arise along the way. The menus I’ve chosen over the sixteen weeks are not set in stone, and if any of you have a special dish you really would like to try I’m sure we can accommodate you.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ said Kitty approvingly.

  ‘Now, tonight we are going to start off with a basic … something most of you will cook at some stage or want to know how to cook: a tender fillet of beef with roast vegetables and fondant potatoes. For dessert I am making a pear and almond tart. Good food, restaurant quality, but suitable for any decent cook to make. So I’ll start you off, and then you’ll all have a chance to try it yourself.’

  *

  Alice stood at the island, showing them how to tell a really good fillet of beef from one that was less perfect. She trimmed eight large potatoes to an oval shape, browned them in a heavy-based pan with oil, adding a splash of vinegar, some garlic, herbs and rock salt and two hundred millilitres of chicken stock, and then transferred the potatoes with their sauce into the oven to let them cook for about forty minutes. She kept turning them so the potatoes developed a lovely glaze from the stock. As they were cooking she showed her students how to season the meat and turn the large piece of fillet on all sides to brown it before letting it rest, and then putting it in the pan and into the oven for anything between twelve and twenty-five minutes to finish cooking through.

  ‘Keep an eye on your oven temperature,’ she advised, ‘and remember all ovens are different, so get to know your own. Forget exactly what it says in books, as you could have a very hot oven or a cool one.’

  ‘Mine’s got a mind of its own,’ joked Rob, ‘it just burns everything.’

  ‘Turn it down, then,’ she advised. For the vegetables she did a mixture of carrots and parsnips and turnips seasoned and tossed in a little oil and popped in the oven.

  ‘Smells gorgeous,’ echoed Paul and Gemma approvingly.

  The tart was a light pastry base using a mixture of flour and ground almonds, which she baked blind and then filled with the pear and custard mixture, sprinkled with some more almonds and popped back in the oven.

  ‘This is a very useful pastry base for everyone,’ she explained, ‘and the fillings can be changed. Apricots, cherries, rhubarb, apple, and, of course, in the summer raspberries and even blackberries. Serve it with whipped cream or ice cream, or even plain yogurt.’

  They all gathered around when she took the tender fillet of beef and the vegetables out of the oven.

  ‘I wish mine would turn out like that,’ said Kerrie wistfully as she took another taste of the almost melting potatoes that had absorbed all the liquid stock.

  The pear and almond tart was cooked to golden perfection, and Alice served it with a little cream, giving Rob an extra-large slice to sample.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ she cajoled. She had sorted them into pairs, and was going to see how they all worked together. Gemma and Paul were obviously a couple, as well as Rachel and her sister. She had hesitated about who to put Rob with, and after much deliberation had paired him with Kitty, who, being a bit older, would probably be more patient with him than the rest of the group. Tessa and Kerrie seemed about on the same level experience-wise, and that left Lucy and that guy Emmet. Anyone would get on with Lucy; she really was an asset to the group with her easy smile and ways.

  Alice tried not to smile as they all produced their ingredients from the list for tonight’s menu that she had sent them last week. She knew that it was one thing to watch someone give a demonstration and a totally different matter to shop and buy the right ingredients and then prepare them and cook a dish yourself … this was where they would learn. Two groups were on the long kitchen table, two at the island and Gemma and Paul were happy to use what she called her spare table, which is w
here she mostly preferred to sit and relax and read.

  She walked around answering questions, noticing that some of the class had opted to buy less expensive cuts of beef than fillet. Good fillet of beef was expensive but usually worth it for the taste, or a piece of sirloin or strip loin would work well too. Kitty was patiently showing Rob how to peel his potatoes properly and explaining to him how to crumble up a stock cube.

  Kerrie looked white in the face as she browned her beef, and Alice couldn’t help noticing that her vegetables were cut far too thick and would take too long to cook.

  ‘Kerrie, if you slice them a bit thinner they will cook easier,’ she said, showing her how to do it. Tessa, on the other hand, seemed to have got well organized, and was already popping her tart base in the oven to bake. Emmet was taking an age, and she could see that Lucy was trying to give him a gentle hint that he needed more liquid with his potatoes. Rachel and Leah were working in tandem and seemed to have everything under control.

  A sigh of relief went around the class as the food finally went into the ovens, and Alice was able to brief them on the next week’s dish, which was to be a chicken breast cooked with mozzarella and wrapped in Parma ham, served with baby spinach and potatoes, with Maryland crab cakes to start.

  ‘Wow! That sounds great,’ cheered Rachel and Leah together.

  Tessa’s fillet came out first, and was cooked to absolute perfection, the meat almost melting and her potatoes and vegetables exactly right. She certainly had a natural ability to cook. Lucy’s sirloin was also cooked perfectly but there was a difference.