Too Many Cooks by Dana Bate Page B

Natasha
    11:43–1:00 Shop for ingredients, draw up blueprint for Cornish Hen Attempt #1, set out eggs for banana bread
    1:00–3:00 p.m. Navigate Natasha’s kitchen, cut my finger with her chef’s knife, bleed all over her marble counter (and onto her alligator-skin floor, and onto my pants), wrap my finger with a paper towel and rubber band (which lasts only five minutes until I bleed through the towel and Olga gets me a bandage from upstairs), set a tea towel on fire as I attempt to light her La Cornue range, extinguish fire, finish preparing the stuffing, stuff the Cornish hens, lift massive roasting pan into oven, realize I have sweat through my shirt, consider making myself a gin and tonic, don’t.
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    And that’s pretty much where I am at the moment.
    Around four o’clock, the timer goes off and I remove the roasting pan from the oven. The hen’s skin crackles as I lay the pan on a trivet, the rich smell of mushrooms and sage filling the air. The scent is even more intoxicating than the one I remember from last night, but I know better than to think I’ve mastered a recipe on the first try. Even if it tastes perfect to me, I need to call upon my recipe tester friends from home to see if they—and I—can repeat the recipe as I’ve written it. If not? Back to the drawing board.
    I let the pan cool briefly, and then I transfer one of the hens to a plate and slice into a piece of the breast meat.
    Heaven.
    The meat is tender and juicy, perfumed with garlic and paprika and a hint of sage from the stuffing. It could use a bit more salt, so I’ll have to try it again with that adjustment, and the stuffing could be a bit tighter (An egg, maybe? Less butter?). But otherwise, I think I’ve almost nailed it. I hope the rest of the recipe testing goes this smoothly. If it does, I’ll finish this book faster than expected.
    I tidy up the remaining mess around the kitchen, leaving the pan of hens at the far end of the island for Natasha to try later. Then I grab the butter and flour and start on the banana bread, a recipe I’ve made so many times I know it by heart. I’ve made numerous variations over the years—sometimes adding chocolate chips and crystallized ginger, at others drizzling a lime-coconut glaze over the top—but no matter what tweaks I make, licking the streaks of golden batter left in the bowl is pretty much mandatory.
    Once I’ve poured the batter into the pan and stuck it in the oven, I finish cleaning up the kitchen, dusting the bits of flour off the counter and washing the bowls and spatulas. The caramel-laced scent of banana bread wafts across the kitchen, filling the room with its sweet perfume. If I had to draw up a list of the best baking smells in the world, banana bread would, without question, rank in the top five. Possibly the top two. I’m not sure why its smell is so intoxicating, but one whiff and I’m ready to attack that baking pan like a cheetah on a fresh kill.
    While the banana bread bakes, I creep along the hallway toward the stairway, hoping to hear some indication that Natasha has returned from her facial. The only sound I hear is Olga vacuuming the front hall. I linger for a few minutes, checking my phone and sending off a quick e-mail to Meg, when I hear the clickety-clack of Natasha’s heels coming down the marble staircase.
    â€œHow did the testing go today?” she asks, her formerly made-up face now bare and dewy, swathed in some sort of shiny serum. She wears a leopard-print bomber jacket over her black top and carries a purse the size of my torso over her shoulder.
    â€œPretty well, actually. I think I got really close on the Cornish hen recipe. They’ve been cooling in the kitchen—I’d love to hear what you think.”
    Natasha brushes past me and marches toward the kitchen, but comes to an abrupt halt as soon as she walks through the doorway. She whirls around, her eyes