Each Food Fight kitchen was a stainless steel symphony. Side-by-side mirror images, they took up one end of the Rebeccaville plantation’s old ballroom.
Gina trailed her fingertips across the polished countertops. Large wooden cutting boards had been dropped flush with the stainless steel countertop work surfaces. Each station held a commercial-size Viking stove with six burners and a built-in grill. There were double ovens on each side, and separating the workstations was a glass-doored walk-in refrigerator. All the comforts of home—if your home happened to be a state-of-the art commercial kitchen.
Propped at eye level above each stove was a foot-high digital time clock, each set at 6:00. The red LED display light was blinking on and off.
Before Tate Moody could establish a beachhead, Gina quickly chose the station on the right-hand side of the set and began unrolling the case that held her knives.
“Good idea,” Scott said, his lips close to her ears. “Be aggressive from the get-go. Let him know you won’t be pushed around.”
“You’re sure you want to wear that color top?” Deborah asked, fussing with the strap of Gina’s tank top. “I really think red, rather than pink, is your power color.”
“I’m sure,” Gina said firmly.
On the short walk over to the ballroom, Scott and Deborah had peppered her with a barrage of suggestions and questions. Was she sure of the menu she’d dreamed up? Yes, but she might have to make substitutions on the fly. Could she gather ingredients, cook, and style the final dishes in the allotted time period? Absolutely. What did she think Tate Moody had up his sleeve? She had absolutely no idea, but she did have a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
One thing she didn’t share with Scott was her unfortunate history with Beau Stapleton. There was no point in it, she decided. Maybe he’d forgotten all about her.
And maybe, if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its butt every time it hopped around.
While the TCC crew fiddled with lights and cameras and boom mikes, D’John flitted back and forth between Gina and Tate, powdering noses, combing hair, and reapplying Tate’s smudged makeup.
“Hey, Reggie,” Tate called over, as D’John was reapplying her lip liner. “Looking pretty good over there. You want me to come over, give you some cooking tips?”
“Bite me,” she said, without moving her lips.
Neither of them dared look over at the panel of judges, who were in a small set off to the side of the kitchen, all of them seated in sleek swivel chairs behind an electric blue console with the Food Fight! logo emblazoned across it.
“What’s with that Beau guy?” D’John asked. “He keeps staring at us. He looks familiar, but I can’t figure out how I know him.”
“Maybe you saw him in one of his restaurants,” she suggested.
“Hmm,” D’John said.
“Is he gay?” she asked.
“He’s giving off mixed signals,” D’John said. “I can’t tell whose team he plays on. But I’ll tell you one thing—he’s definitely a player.”
“One minute,” the floor director called, sending D’John scurrying off set. “Barry, can I have you over here on the kitchen set?”
Barry Adelman strode onto the set. “C’mere, you guys,” he said.
He put one arm around Tate’s shoulder, the other around Gina’s. “Before we start shooting, I just want to say you kids look fantastic. The network is behind this in a major way. Everything is golden. Now, cook your fuckin’ brains out!”
He moved smoothly into place.
“Ready?” the director asked.
“All set,” Barry said.
“Good evening, everybody, I’m Barry Adelman, and welcome to beautiful Eutaw Island, Georgia, and The Cooking Channel’s first ever Food Fight!”
Gina blinked a little in the glare of the camera lights, and then smiled her brightest smile.
Tate glanced over at Deidre Delaney. She caught his look, winked, and licked her lips.
He looked away, groaning inwardly.
“After an extensive talent search across the entire South for the region’s best chef, TCC’s talent scouts narrowed the field to two contestants,” Barry said. “Join me now in welcoming Regina Foxton and Tate Moody!”
Barry extended both hands, and, on cue, Gina and Tate walked over from their respective stoves to join their host–slash–master of ceremonies.
“Are you ready to rumble?” Adelman asked, laughing at his own joke.
“Ready,” Gina said.
“Bring it on,” Tate agreed.
“All right then,” Adelman said. Reaching behind him, he brought out a massive iron dinner bell. “Listen carefully, as I detail the first of your three challenges. You’ll have exactly six hours from starting time, till I ring the dinner bell, which signifies time is up. During that time, you’ll be expected to gather, prepare, style, and plate a southern supper—using only the staples you’ll find in your pantries, and whatever foodstuffs you can gather right here in and around Eutaw Island. Is that understood?”
The two nodded in unison.
“For you viewers at home—Tate and Gina’s task will be especially challenging, because there are no stores and no restaurants on the island. There are also no automobiles and no paved roads. However, each of them has had an opportunity to roam the island and study its amazing bounty of natural resources. Each will have a golf cart for transportation and, on that golf cart, some very basic equipment to help them gather ingredients.”
“A cast net,” Gina prayed silently. “Please let them give me a cast net.”
She glanced over at Tate, who looked supremely, annoyingly confident.
“To your kitchens,” Barry said. A buzzer brayed from somewhere off set, and the next thing she knew, she was sprinting over to her kitchen.
She poked her head inside the glass-doored cooler and surveyed its contents. Milk, cream, eggs, butter. No cheeses, she noted, disappointed. On the wire shelving unit, she found glass jars marked FLOUR, SUGAR, CORNMEAL, GRITS, BAKING SODA, and BAKING POWDER. She found salt, pepper, paprika, red pepper, and half a dozen spices and herbs you would encounter in any halfway well-equipped home kitchen. No seafood seasoning mixes, but that was fine; she could concoct her own, as long as she had salt and red pepper. There were bottles of olive oil, vegetable oil, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, and vinegar.
In baskets lined up on the countertop she was relieved to find onions, carrots, celery, and green and red peppers. Another basket held lemons and limes.
Under the counter, she found an empty basket and a small six-pack-size cooler.
She grabbed both and, making a mental list of what she’d need to gather, glanced at the clock on the counter. Five minutes gone. She glanced over at Tate’s kitchen. Empty. He had another head start on her. She ran for the door.