Preheat the oven to 190°C.
In a food mixer, pulse to combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and butter. Add the whole egg and egg yolk and process until a soft dough forms. Turn the mixture onto the work surface and knead enough to bring the dough together. Press the dough evenly over the bottom and up the sides of a 10.5-inch fluted tart tin with a removable base. It’s a forgiving dough – don’t mess it around too much if you want it to rise to its utmost best.
Spread a decent layer of the jam over the base of the dough and arrange the peach wedges in concentric circles on top. Bake in the lower third of the oven for 20 minutes, until the peaches are barely tender, and the crust is still pale. Brush more jam over the peaches and bake for about another 30 minutes, until the peaches are tender, and the crust is golden. Dust with icing sugar and allow to cool for at least another half hour before cutting into slices and serving with some decent vanilla ice cream.
Tad says this tart can be kept at room temperature overnight but is best eaten within twenty-four hours – if it lasts that long!
4
It was strange how cookery kept seeping its way back into Amy’s life. The fact she worked for a food critic made her proximity to great food a bit of a given. But it ran deeper than her job, or the fact that she ate three meals a day and so how far away from food could she ever realistically expect to get?
Somehow, it wasn’t about the food itself – which seemed a complete contradiction – and she wasn’t sure she could formulate an adequate explanation if asked to talk it through. It made sense in her own head, when she reasoned it was about the preparation of the finished dish, the joy of taking basic ingredients and combining them to create something that exploded on your taste buds. Having a bit of fun with the alchemy of cookery, rather than simply munching on the finished result.
Her nanna had understood – her best creations held within the battered old book Amy had managed to lose with the rest of her luggage. And Amy had never felt happier than when she’d been in her nan’s kitchen, the two of them working on some recipe or another. Sharing time and food together – neither thing something that had ever registered as important to the rest of Amy’s family.
Tad understood, too, because that peach tart had been a sensational pudding to accompany the lightness of the main course – a fillet of citrus pepper cod, accompanied by tiny roasted new potatoes and pea shoots with the lightest drizzle of olive oil. Well, of course he did, Amy scolded herself – he was a chef.
But the peach tart could have been stodgy, and yet it was surprisingly light. With a scoop of seed-rich vanilla ice cream it had been delicious. So wonderful that after she’d eaten her meal in the elegant dining room, she’d taken a portion up to Billie’s room. Billie wolfed it down with little in the way of comment except to say that perhaps the fact that Tad was Scottish, and not Italian, wouldn’t be the end of the world after all – which was as good as a gold seal, or a royal warrant, as far as a taste of peach tart was concerned.
Heading into the kitchen with Billie’s scraped plate, Amy rapped her knuckles on the doorframe as she wandered into the chef’s inner sanctum, then had to grin as her arrival made Tad startle for the second time in a matter of hours. His spoon clattered back into his bowl as he turned, looking simultaneously guilty at having been caught in a private moment with a slice of his peach tart, and surprised at the unexpected intrusion. It took him a couple of moments to regain his composure and level his expression. That momentary vulnerability, alongside the trace of peach jam, stubborn on the corner of his upper lip, did something unexpected to the base of Amy’s stomach, had it twisting in a way she hadn’t felt in a long while.
‘Sorry to intrude, I… I wanted to let you know how much Billie enjoyed it,’ she said, finding herself stumbling over her words as she slid the empty bowl onto the work surface.
‘I’m glad,’ Tad said. ‘And it’s no bother, you’re welcome to go wherever you please while you’re here. We don’t have any off-limit areas at Casa del Cibo.’
Not even your bedroom?Amy felt her cheeks spike with heat even though she’d only thought the words, and managed to supress them before they took flight from her lips. Felt shocked enough by the way the thought had slid so easily into her mind.
‘So, what did you think? Can I tempt you to something more?’ he said, sounding confused when her reactions didn’t match up with his words as she stared at him.
‘More?’
‘Another slice of the tart,’ he added to clarify, gesturing to the remaining wedge under a fly cover.
‘Oh. You’re talking about food.’
‘What else would I be talking about?’ Tad ran a finger across his lip, aware at last of the jam Amy was struggling to ignore, licking at it with the very corner of his tongue to be sure it was erased, an action that did nothing to settle Amy’s thoughts. A swipe with the back of his hand as a double-check and a fleeting frown, and Tad regained his composure, a professional smile replacing a moment of vulnerability.
‘No. Absolutely. I don’t know what I was thinking about. It must be jet lag or something confusing me,’ she added, doing her best to stop her gaze from remaining frozen on his lips. ‘All the travelling is catching up with me.’
‘Jet lag? How long was the flight?’
Amy shrugged, then grinned. ‘I don’t know. Three hours or so.’
Tad laughed. ‘Aye. Add that to the transfer time to get here and you’re talking a good three and a half hours. Maybe almost four. It’s no wonder you’re all exhausted.’
Her grin increased its intensity at his joke, then dropped as she remembered her lost luggage. ‘Plus, I did have to wait a while to discover my suitcase has gone off on a jolly somewhere.’
He grimaced. ‘I’d forgotten about that. Sorry.’
‘It’s hardly your fault, is it? It’s a shame though. I stupidly put my grandmother’s recipe book in it. I hope at least I get that back.’ She brightened again. ‘Maybe it will have some stories to tell – my luggage will probably have more jet lag than me, if it ever gets here. I wonder where it’s gone?’
‘Timbuktu…?’
‘Yeah, or maybe Rio. The South Pole?’
Tad grinned. ‘Or maybe it got left behind at Heathrow. I’m sure it will arrive soon. You might even get it tomorrow.’
‘Let’s hope so. Otherwise I’ll be sleeping in that lemon T-shirt for the rest of the week,’ she said, smoothing at the dress that had replaced her earlier casual clothes, watching with interest as some of the paleness of his skin was replaced by a bloom of colour as his gaze skimmed across her. She had to admit that even though the dress she’d borrowed from Billie was slightly too big for her, it was cut with an elegance only serious money could buy.
