With the end of summer comes the end of the cherry harvest.
As a way to give thanks to the migrant pickers and the local workers, Papi and Margo host a harvest dinner at Villa des Fleurs. Margo asked me to be in charge of the menu, with the condition I make that chicken in wine and butter sauce she loves. These days she can’t get enough of my food.
As head of Villa des Fleurs’s kitchen for this special occasion, I assembled the best team of cooks I know.
“Consider this my last meal,” Legrand (i.e. Snakes Eyes) says as he frets over a broken piece of steamed cabbage. He’s assembling a tray of golabkis—Polish stuffed-cabbage rolls—one of the main entrees on our dinner menu.
After Legrand lost the apprenticeship, he shocked us all with the announcement he was done with cooking. He had one too many shots of tequila when most of our class decided to go out to celebrate our final exam results and went full-on confessional, admitting he almost had a mental breakdown over the peas. “I see them everywhere, those green monsters!”
He decided to take a break from the kitchen and head to Paris to pursue a philosophy degree instead.
“I plan to win a Nobel Prize.” He actually said this. And without even a hint of sarcasm.
“Maybe you can start a new food philosophy movement,” Lucia tells him. She is expertly piping mashed potatoes onto a dish so that they resemble flower petals. “I read there’s a group trying to get people to grow their own food.” She decorates the center of each potato flower with dots of green sauce. I shiver at the memory of the swamp creature we once created in Grattard’s kitchen. This girl just can’t get enough.
She won the apprenticeship at La Table de Lyon and, as expected, has been working crazy hours since. But she loves it. While the rest of us hated who we became in that kitchen, Lucia thrived on it. The more Hugo and Grattard throw at her, the sharper she becomes.
“Sorry I’m late,” Pippa says, walking into the kitchen. “But look what I brought.” She lifts both hands to reveal bags full of fresh bread. “They just came out of the oven.”
“Did you make these?” I ask, grabbing a dinner roll from one of the bags.
“I did,” she says, passing everyone a roll. “I’m experimenting with flavors a bit. These are sweet potato with rosemary and sea salt. They have a hint of brown sugar too.”
I take a bite. It’s the taste of heaven, if heaven were made of carbs—which, let’s face it, it should be.
“These are incredible,” I say. Everyone else nods in agreement, their mouths too full to speak.
“It’s only my third batch. I’m still getting the hang of it,” Pippa says. “But I love it there. I feel I can be creative and try new things. Do you have a basket for these?”
I find a big basket in the pantry and hand it to her. Pippa covers the bottom with a pretty red cloth and arranges her rolls along with some baguettes and a fougasse, flatbread sculpted to look like an ear of wheat.
“How’s Chef Troissant doing with the big opening?” she asks.
“You can ask her yourself,” I say. “She’s outside.” I glance out the window, where I see Troissant talking to Papi, merrily holding a glass of wine in one hand and a canapé in the other. Papi must say something funny or stupid because Troissant laughs, her head falling back in pure delight. She looks like a completely different person than she was in Grattard’s kitchen. Younger, even.
“I can’t believe she left Grattard to open her own place. I heard he lost it when she told him, even stormed out of the restaurant. What an ass! Why can’t he just be happy for her?”
I shrug. “She didn’t seem to care much,” I say. “We’ve been super busy preparing for the opening. I think we’ve both moved on from Grattard.”
“He’s a selfish prick,” Troissant told me soon after she left him. “A creative genius, yes, but a prick nonetheless.”
I mean, who wants to give their best working years of their life to a selfish prick? Not me, that’s for sure.
“Where do you want these?” Diego walks in with a bowl full of cherries. I make room on the kitchen counter for him to set them down.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.
“Everyone loves a good flambé,” I say, taking a cherry from the bowl and putting it into my mouth. They’re perfectly ripe and so sweet. Without a doubt, they will caramelize on the pan when we add the liqueur and set them on fire for the cherries jubilee.
“I have a fire extinguisher ready, just in case.” He plants a kiss on my cheek. “And the garden hose. And a water bucket.”
“We have a room full of experts. What could possibly go wrong?”
He opens his mouth to respond but I pop a cherry in before he can say anything.
“Not a word,” I say, kissing him. He laughs, grabs another cherry, and puts it into my mouth. It’s a quick, playful movement, but the soft touch of his fingers on my lips sends a warm electric current running through the length of my entire body. My cheeks flush red. They probably match the color of the fruit.
“All right, you two.” Pippa throws a bread roll in Diego’s direction. He catches it after it bounces off his chest. “We have work to do—save the smoochfest for later.”
A timer dings, and I know it’s time to get my pies out. I open the oven door and the entire kitchen fills with the aromatic smells of melted sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I take out the pies one by one and rest them on the counter. Everyone gathers around as I open the paper bags. I watch their faces soften with a childish grin, the hallmark of a memorable dessert.
“They look amazing,” Lucia says, smothering her finger in syrup that spilled over onto the bag. She tastes her finger and closes her eyes with a pleased hum.
The others follow her lead.
“I’ll be damned,” Pippa says. “You need to give me this recipe.”
“A proper tart is more refined,” Legrand says, going in for his second taste of the syrup. I had warned him that if he said one bad thing about Lala’s pie, I would kick his butt all the way to his philosophy school in Paris.
“But I guess it’s good for a rustic dessert,” he adds. I shake my head and chuckle to myself. In Legrand’s world, that is the highest form of praise.
“These are county fair royalty pies, I’ll have you know,” Diego tells him.
This time I laugh out loud. Legrand stares at him with a What the hell is county fair royalty? expression that is both mildly irritating and highly amusing.
“I think these are ready to go out,” I say to Diego. “Can you put them on the dessert table?”
“They may or may not be missing a piece by the time they arrive at the dessert table,” he says, moving the pies onto a tray. “I can’t make any promises.”
“I’m right behind you,” I say, picking up the chicken platter. “You really think I’m going to trust you with a tray of pies? It’s like having a wolf watch over sheep.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
We walk onto the patio, where one of the Polish migrant families has improvised a polka band. I catch Jakub dancing next to his dad, who’s playing the trumpet. An older man squeezes an accordion, while his two sons play the violin and the clarinet. Someone even built a dance floor made of wooden boards on the lawn.
Long, family-style tables have been arranged on the patio for the occasion. Diego and I strung a few lines of lights from the trees, like we saw Clara had done for the dinner club.
We place our dishes on the table and take a step back to admire our work. Before us, a collection of multicultural dishes is spread in a flawless array of flavors and smells.
“Good job, everyone,” I say. “Now let’s eat.”
We pat each other on the back or arm. Then move to the dinner table, where Papi is seated next to Margo, with Flora on her lap. Troissant is seated across from them, talking to a very handsome farmhand. When she sees me, she raises her wine glass in my direction and smiles. I smile back and nod. Sometimes you don’t need words to convey the depths of gratitude between two people.
Food platters are passed from hand to hand. Plates overflow with delicious food. Drink glasses are refilled with lemonade and wine. There is the echo of laughter and multiple conversations in different languages all across the table. But above all, there is friendship, there is joy, and there is love. Lots of love.
Tonight, we not only share a meal, we share our lives.
After the main course, Pippa and Lucia clear the dinner plates off the table. The conversation quickly turns to dessert.
Diego cuts the pies in slices as Legrand scoops ice cream and a dollop of whipped cream onto each plate. I deliver them to the table, enjoying every bit of excitement on our guests’ faces.
I don’t need a translator to know they’re a big crowd pleaser. Not even the crumbs are left.
Diego and I walk our pie plates to a garden wall overlooking the cherry fields. The sun is quickly setting over the horizon, tinting everything in shades of orange and pink.
We eat our pie and ice cream in silence, smiling at the harvest banquet we helped create. It couldn’t have gone any better.
“Your Lala would be proud,” Diego says, leaning his shoulder against mine.
Our gaze meets, and in his eyes I see the same kindness he showed me the night my sister Flora was born, when we were cooking together in the kitchen. My heart overflows with love for him.
“I wish you could’ve known her.”
“But I do!” he says to my surprise. “She’s here.”
As I look around the garden and see the joy of people sharing a meal made from the heart, I realize this is Lala’s legado—my legado.
“To my Lala,” I say, raising a spoonful of pie in front of me. When I take it to my mouth, I can only taste love.
Yes, Lala would be very proud of her morenita.