Chapter 6

Sandra's cheeks were burning bright red while everyone else around the table, with one exception, was laughing. The only one not laughing was Eddie. He looked puzzled and asked, "How is a person supposed to know that someone loves them if they don't tell them?"

Lucy reached over and patted Eddie on the hand. Having seen teenage girls falling over themselves to be close to him, she answered, "In your case, you can assume that ninety percent of the women your age love you."

"That's ridiculous," Eddie said looking down at his plate disturbed by the statement. His parents were always telling him things like that, but he didn't understand why.

Ed raised an eyebrow and smiled at Eddie's discomfort. The girls in town were throwing themselves at Eddie and he wasn't even aware of it. He turned to Amanda and asked, "So what did he say?"

"I shut the door behind me," Amanda answered with a giggle.

Lucy was silent. She would never have thought to send Amanda to talk to William, but recognized that if anyone was able to break through the shell that he had constructed to keep everyone away that she was the perfect person. She sighed and asked, "So why isn't he here?"

When no one answered, Eddie asked, "Did anyone tell him that dinner was ready?"

A stunned silence settled over the table. For a full minute no one said a word. Finally, Lucy stood up and said, "Excuse me. I'll be back in a minute."

The discussion around the dinner table while waiting for dinner to be served was stilted and awkward at times. William tried to participate, but kept finding that he was at a loss in terms of the direction the discussion was heading. It was frustrating, but he did his best to muddle through. The conversation would have died except the new chef, Peter, had come to announce the beginning of the meal.

Peter had created a masterpiece of cuisine from Italy and could hardly wait to see the reaction to it. This was the first meal that he was cooking for his new employers and he wanted to really impress them with his culinary skills. Once he had everyone's attention, he said, "Tonight we are going to have a seven course meal from the land of Italy."

The entire table laughed when Eddie, in a very good imitation of Ed, interrupted Peter's prepared speech and said, "Well I'll be, I think we're gonna have a salad with 'eye-talian' dressing on it."

Shaking his head, Ed said, "Everyone knows that a salad is supposed to be prepared by cutting a head of lettuce into quarters and drowning it in Thousand Island Dressing."

"And we want the good stuff, too. We'll want the kind that comes in a bottle. We won't settle for any of that cheap homemade stuff either," Eddie said winking at his father.

Listening to the exchange, Lisa initially thought they were serious, but the smiles on their faces were too broad. Glancing at Eddie, she said, "I know we have a big bottle of dressing in the refrigerator."

William laughed at the expression on Peter's face. It was one of resignation to the inevitable. It looked like the time the man had spent as an assistant to Marguerite had not fully prepared him for dealing with Ed and Eddie.

Taking a sigh, Peter said, "Yes, I found all of the bottles of that stuff some people call salad dressing. I put them all in a separate refrigerator along with other items that are only fit for barbarians. If you are ever in need of them, they are in the refrigerator we use for storing toxic waste."

Lisa would have been hurt by his comment except she had caught his wink. After all, she had stocked the kitchen with those items. She had turned the kitchen over to him convinced that she was going to miss homemade pot roasts, spaghetti and meatballs, and other basic meals that she had grown up eating and had made for her family. That thought reminded her that she considered William and Lucy like her own children.

Sitting back in his chair, Ed grinned and asked, "Did you use that fancy sign from the hospitals, the skull and crossbones, or the green yucky face?"

"I used all three and a handwritten sign," Peter answered. Looking at Ed, he said, "Marguerite warned me that some of you are illiterate and require pictures."

Grinning at the chef, Eddie quipped, "Just like at home."

William laughed at the exchange taking delight in what to him were surprising twists and turns. It dawned on him that many of the conversations he had participated in had been somewhat flat because he had known what was going to be said before they even started.

The first course was Antipasto with baby scallops, shrimp, calamari, artichokes, hearts of palm, roasted tomatoes and peas with a light vinaigrette. Peter didn't seem to mind when Tim picked all of the peas out of the dish, but did frown when Ken did the same thing. Almost half of the people around the table did the same with the calamari. Peter sighed and returned to the kitchen to make notes about what people liked and didn't like. Marguerite had warned him not to get too fancy until he learned the individual tastes of the people in the house.

The second course was a cream of corn soup with mascarpone cheese. Nearly everyone at the table studied the soup intently before trying it. Much to Peter's relief, it looked like everyone enjoyed the soup, but the reactions were not overwhelming. He sighed and wondered how Marguerite had managed to develop into such a great chef feeding people who weren't comfortable with exotic cuisine. Eddie and Ed though seemed to enjoy it a lot.

The third course was sautèed zucchini blossoms, stuffed with lobster and fine herbs, with Italian truffles and a truffle hollandaise sauce. After Peter had described the dish, Tim said, "I don't like zucchini."

Embarrassed, Lisa said, "He didn't say it was made of zucchini. It is zucchini blossoms that have been stuffed."

"We're eating flowers?" Tim asked with an expression of disgust on his face.

Eddie nodded his head and said, "I've had them before. They aren't all that bad."

Tim eyed the plate when it was set in front of him and poked the food with his fork. He asked, "What's a truffle?"

"It is an expensive mushroom," Lucy answered. She was eyeing her dish with more than a little suspicion as well.

"No need to use expensive mushrooms for me," Ken said. He took a bite of the dish and looked around with a grin. Surprised at the burst of flavors in his mouth, he said, "Hey, this is pretty good."

Looking over at his father, Tim worked up his courage to try eating the strange dish. He took a bite and chewed it. Nodding his head, he said, "I kind of like it."

Peter returned to the kitchen feeling very depressed. He knew that Ed and Eddie was very familiar with dishes like this, but he had assumed that William, Lucy, and their staff would have had some exposure to food. He wondered what kind of dishes Lisa had been cooking for them over the past few years.

The fourth course was duck raviolis flavored with fine herbs, topped with shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, with a truffle herb butter sauce, garnished with basil. It was one of the dishes that had won Peter acclaim early in his culinary career. The reaction to his presentation was almost crushing.

Seeing the bowl with four raviolis in it, Tim said, "They sure don't look like the stuff from the can."

"No they don't," agreed Cathy. The zucchini blossoms hadn't thrown her since her mother had a Native American dish that included squash blossoms, but this raviolis had only a superficial resemblance to the stuff her mother heated out of the can. She hadn't ever had anything like this dish at home.

Barbara said, "Well, some people say that the stuff out of the can isn't really ravioli. Just like the spaghetti sauce from the jar isn't really spaghetti sauce."

"I can understand that about the spaghetti sauce. My mom's spaghetti sauce is a whole lot better than the stuff from the jar," Tim said still eyeing the raviolis. He sighed and cut one of them into quarters. They were a lot bigger than the canned version.

Laughing, Barbara took a bite of food and nodded her head appreciatively. Others around the table approached the dish with varying degrees of hesitation. Ed and Eddie immediately dug in and enjoyed it a lot. William liked it and said, "This is good."

Tim shook his head and said, "I don't like it. It's too dry."

Looking over at Peter with an apologetic look, Lisa said, "You don't have to eat it if you don't like it."

"Okay," Tim said pushing the dish away. He noticed that Cathy had done the same thing and gave her a grateful smile. It was good to know that he wasn't the only one who didn't care for the dish.

Peter watched the tepid reactions to his dish for a full minute before heading out to the kitchen. His depression was intensifying and he wondered why he hadn't listened better to the warnings given him by Marguerite. Turning to Alicia, one of the two assistant chefs, he said, "They don't like it."

"You're kidding," she replied finding it difficult to keep from peeking through the kitchen door to verify what he had said. Peter made the finest raviolis that she had ever tasted.

"No, a couple of them even pushed their plates away," Peter said sinking into his chair. He looked over at the plates that Terri, his other assistant, was putting together. He hoped they would like the veal dish, but he doubted it.

Soon it was time to serve the next dish. Peter went out and said, "The next dish is a roast tenderloin of veal served over an herb and truffle risotto, topped with vegetables, and sauced with a Sangiovese reduction sauce."

Tim was about to ask a question, but a glance from his mother stopped him. He sat back in his chair and wondered what a Sangiovese was. The others around the table looked interested in the dish so he chose to bid his time.

Terri and Alicia removed the plates of ravioli noticing that half of them hadn't been finished. The two exchanged glances and then served the veal dish. The reactions to the dish were positive. So far the dinner had lasted an hour and fifteen minutes. Peter felt like the evening would never come to an end.

With a satisfied sigh, Rudy said, "It's not quite a steak cooked medium well, but this looks a little better than English food."

Staring at the man with huge ears that stuck straight out from his head, Peter looked sick at the comment. This dish looked only a little better than English food? Not once while training to be a chef did he ever think that the food he lovingly prepared would be compared to English cooking. It was impossible. Even the English didn't like their cooking. He nodded his head and said, "I would have had to boil the meat to prepare it English style."

Smiling at the pained tone in Peter's voice, Rudy said, "Still learning how to boil water, huh?"

Cathy hit him gently on the arm and said, "That was mean."

"I was just kidding," Rudy said turning to look at Cathy surprised by her attack. He looked at the plate in front of him and said, "It does look pretty good, though. You've got no idea how much I missed real food while I was in England."