Once she’d finished the demonstration, they all returned to their own workstations to make the chicken and leek filling. At least this didn’t require much skill, thought Hannah in relief as she carefully chopped her leeks. Behind her, Jason was demonstrating admirable knife skills as he sliced his vegetables at top speed.
‘Impressive,’ she said, watching in envy.
‘Misspent youth,’ he said with a grin, lifting the knife and spinning it with dextrous fingers.
‘Careful. You’ll chop your fingers off.’ She winced in alarm.
‘Nah, got to live dangerously.’ Jason flipped the knife, caught it, and began chopping again.
‘This isn’t a circus.’ Adrienne’s reproving voice had Jason giving her a cheeky grin. ‘But excellent knife skills, Jason.’
To Hannah’s surprise he blushed with pleasure and ducked his head shyly. It was rather sweet and the opposite to his usual cocksure confidence.
‘Idiot,’ said Fliss, who was chopping with neat and speedy precision at the bench in front of him.
For once he ignored her and carried on working.
‘Hannah,’ Adrienne grabbed her hand, ‘you want to slice through vegetables with a good hard thrust, slicing down and forwards. It’s all in the wrist movement and the way you handle it.’
She heard Jason sniggering again and even Fliss glanced up with a smirk, but once again Adrienne appeared completely oblivious to her double entendres.
By the time it came to the morning break, they’d all made chicken pies of varying standards. Meredith’s was decorated with pastry leaves, Jason’s had beautiful, fluted edges, Alan and Fliss’s were both neat and workmanlike, Izzy’s a bit wonky and Hannah’s… well, the less said the better. She’d worked hard but her pastry had been a bit slippery and shiny and she certainly didn’t have any decorating skill. When it had cooked, the pastry had shrunk away from the edges and sunk onto the top of the filling. It wasn’t quite a disaster but it didn’t compare to the others. Thank goodness it wasn’t like theBake Off, otherwise she’d definitely be going home.
When Adrienne looked at her pie, she smiled kindly. ‘I think you know where you went wrong.’
No, Hannah didn’t. She’d followed the recipe, the same as everyone else. Thankfully Adrienne moved on down along the line. ‘How long have you been cooking, Jason?’ she asked. The others had obviously been cooking for a long time.
‘About a month. I… er… I got a job in a restaurant. This geezer… well it’s a long story but basically I ended up cooking. I quite like it. He decided to send me here. Fu— knows why.’ He looked over at Adrienne whose lips twitched ever so slightly. He dug his hand in his pocket and held up a euro and waved it at her. ‘Anyway, here I am, might as well give it a go. Not like I’ve got anything else to do.’ Adrienne gave a regal nod and moved on to Meredith.
Jason glanced down at Hannah’s pie. ‘Why are you here?’ To be fair, he made an effort not to laugh, pressing his lips together.
Hannah sighed. ‘I’m not very good at cooking.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Thanks, Jason.’
‘Sorry, just joking. It looks edible.’
‘That’s about all you can say.’ She sighed. ‘I came because I wanted to learn to cook properly.’
‘What do you mean properly?’ Jason drew his brows together, intrigued.
‘You know in those cookery programmes when they use words like braise, broil, sauté, dauphinois, bain marie, or they talk about a shoulder of meat or a knuckle, I just want to know what it all is.’
Now he stared at her. ‘Why?’
That was a good question but Hannah shrugged, almost too embarrassed to admit the real reason. She wasn’t about to admit that she didn’t like not being good at something so basic, especially when Jason clearly had some kind of natural talent. It went a bit deeper than that. She knew she was good at her job; everyone at work knew her as dynamic and brilliant and that had kept her going until the arrival of Sadie Burns-Coutts at work. Blonde, beautiful, a first from Oxford, and a brilliant cook. There was just something about her that brought Hannah’s deeply buried insecurities to the surface. Sadie was posh, had a plum-in-the-mouth voice, dressed like a model, and had flair, style, and charisma. Hannah knew that intellectually she was Sadie’s equal, but Sadie was immediately super popular, a bit like Mina had always been. Hannah had friends, but it took her longer to make them; she liked to be sure of them before she committed. If she was honest she had always been a little envious of Mina’s ability to make friends so easily and bring them all together.
Hannah might have got over her initial feelings had Sadie not suggested a company-wide bake off for Comic Relief. When Hannah produced her Victoria sponge, made to a recipe her aunt had taught her when she was thirteen, she had been proud of the rise of the sponge, the even shape, and the perfectly sprinkled icing sugar on top. It looked professional and competent… until she saw Sadie’s magnificent three-tiered raspberry mousse and chocolate cake that looked as if it could have been served at The Ritz for tea. For some reason it made Hannah feel safe and dull. She was still plodding the same safe furrow that had guided her since childhood. Still using the same recipe. Still working for the same company. Still the same, sensible person. Stupid that something like a cake had brought her up short, but it had. She’d always stuck to the easy things, never made herself do things out of her comfort zone. When she’d seen the article in the Sunday supplement about Adrienne, something inside her had taken it as a sign. That competitive part of her didn’t like being bad at something.
Jason was still looking at her and she realised he was still expecting an answer. ‘I saw an article about Adrienne and the school. I thought it would be a good thing to learn to cook properly.’
Jason snorted.
‘What about you? What did you do before you worked in the restaurant?’
‘Bit o’ this, bit o’ that. You know. What do you do?’
