They walked back to the house and she was happy to finally be in the midst of the other competitors. There was a tension in the house probably because those in the bottom three would be cooking tomorrow to stay in the competition. She was glad that the only thing she had to think about tonight was Remy and not going home after the first week of competition.
She found Jack and asked him if they could make a trip to Johnnie’s. Twenty minutes later he confirmed they could and seven of them headed to the Escalades. She was surprised that Quinn came with them. Thinking he’d want to stay behind and work on his knife skills like Christian and Frances who were also in the bottom three.
She was squeezed in the back seat between Remy and Quinn. She tried not to notice that she still loved the scent of Remy’s aftershave. “Have either of you been to Johnnie’s before?”
“Not me,” Remy said. “This is my first time in Los Angeles.”
“I’ve been here before but I tend to frequent the high-end restaurants,” Quinn said. “I’m not surprised you like a walk-up diner.”
“What’s your problem with me?” she asked Quinn.
He shrugged. “I just don’t see how someone with your tastes could beat me in the kitchen.”
“My tastes? Quinn food isn’t for the epicureans out there all the time. Today’s challenge was to cook for college students. Do you really not get where you went wrong? It doesn’t matter how obscure your ingredients are if the customer doesn’t like it...that’s cooking 101.”
“She’s got a point,” Remy said. “I tried to introduce a new dish at my last restaurant and the clientele revolted. They wanted the dishes they’d come there expecting.”
Quinn nodded. “I guess I wasn’t seeing the big picture.”
Staci smiled.
“I said I was wrong,” he admitted.
“I don’t want you to be wrong, just to stop blaming me because you didn’t win.”
He didn’t say anything else on the drive and when they pulled up to the roadside diner on Sepulveda and everyone piled out of the vehicles, Remy took her hand and stopped her.
“What?”
“I just wanted us to be together when we go up there. What is it about this place that speaks to you?”
“The tradition of it,” she said. “And it reminds me of a trip I took with my mom and grandmother to New York City. We ate in a diner there...it was a good trip. The only real vacation I had with my mom since she was working all the time. When I take a bite of the pastrami sandwich here I remember that day and her laughter.”
Staci feared she’d said too much but Remy just nodded. “For me it’s beignets at Café du Monde. My dad and I used to walk down there every Sunday morning and I’d sit while he read the paper. It was just the two of us...”
“Food should do that every time,” Staci said. “I can’t always capture it but that’s why the traditional recipes areimportant. Finding that familiar flavor and taking it some place new.”
“Yes,” he said.
But Staci could tell that he was lost in his own thoughts. She wondered if she’d given away too much by bringing him here but then she had learned over the years that most people only saw what they wanted to in her and in themselves. Remy wouldn’t realize how important food was to her and her past or that it was the key to all her secrets. He’d have to have been listening to what she hadn’t said to figure that out. And he was after all just a man.
Chapter Seven
REMYKEPTHISDISTANCE from Staci as they both returned to the house. He did some shopping in the pantry and started cooking. The contest seemed a little more real to everyone when faced with the fact that tomorrow one of them would be leaving.
That knowledge that any one of them could leave in a moment made Remy determined to make the most of his time with Staci. So he cooked for her remembering what she’d said about her mother and New York City. While he’d never been to Los Angeles before, New York and he went way back. One of his uncles owned an exclusive cooking school there and Remy had spent three weeks every summer in the meatpacking district honing his chef skills.
There were others with him working in the kitchen now but none of the jovial talking of the night before. The competition had gotten serious today. Christian, one of the chefs in the bottom three, was tirelessly going over the same sauce he’d made earlier in the day. The sauce that had netted him horrible reviews.
Christian had a carefully trimmed beard and dark browneyes that seemed to view the world wearily. He was tall but not as tall as Remy’s six-foot-three frame and a little bit stocky. He moved almost awkwardly when he wasn’t at his station. But once he had a knife in his hands his skills came to the fore.
“Have you figured it out yet?” Remy asked, when he noticed the chef had stopped scribbling in his notebook.
“Just about. I have no idea what they are going to throw at me tomorrow but sauces have long been my weak point. I can muster a beurre blanc but that’s about it. I should have known better than to try one today.”
“You did what you had to in order to win.”
“Did I?”
