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Bread
“I can put the raisins in now, huh?” Neal asked for the fourth time. His mouth was already stuffed with the dried fruit, and his mother wondered if there’d be enough left for the recipe. They were making soda bread for the annual St. Patrick’s Day dinner at her mother’s house in Weehawken.
Kathleen Caffrey smiled indulgently at her five-year-old as she added the buttermilk to the large bowl and stirred the dough with a wooden spoon. “Yes, now you can put the raisins in,” she said in her lilting Irish brogue. She pushed the bowl toward him and he added the raisins by the fistful.
“Say when, Mammy.”
“When, my darling,” she said after the fifth addition. “Would you like to stir them in?”
He nodded enthusiastically and she helped him push up the sleeves on his sweater and handed him the spoon. He got up on his knees in the chair at their kitchen table, and grabbed the spoon with his right hand. He struggled to push the spoon through the thick dough, and if it occasionally skittered across the top of the bowl, splattering dough on the table, Kathleen didn’t criticize.
“You know, your Gran says that we must always use the best tool for the job.”
“What’s the best tool?” he asked, looking at her solemnly with the large blue eyes so like his father's it almost hurt.
She wiggled the fingers on both her hands and plunged them into the bowl. Laughing, Neal followed suit and together they were able to incorporate the raisins easily into the dough.
“OK, time to turn it out,” Kathleen sang, removing the bowl from the table. She expertly formed the dough into a round loaf on the sheet pan that lay on the stove top. Turning back to her son, she pressed her forehead against his and smiled. “We are both of us very messy. What will we do?”
He raised his doughy hands and placed them on her cheeks and kissed her on the lips. “You villain!” she cried, throwing her arms around him and spinning him around, both of them laughing. She bent at the waist and deposited him on the floor, where he looked up at her, eyes twinkling. “You’ve got a bit of the devil in you, haven’t you, Neal Eoghan Caffrey?”
“Only a little bit, Mammy,” he said with a grin and marched to the sink to wash his hands.
Pu-Pu Platter
Kate padded back across the loft to the bed, the sheet she’d wrapped around her naked body trailing behind her, the large bag of Chinese food that had just been delivered in her hands. Neal sat naked on the bed in the lotus position. “Look at you,” she said admiringly, “like some kind of debauched Buddha.”
She plopped the bag into his lap and went back to the kitchen to fetch some wine. Sitting across from him, she unpacked the food and laid it out between them like a picnic, peeking inside each package and announcing its contents with a flourish, like a naked spokes-model.
Neal just liked to watch her mouth while she talked. She could make anything sexy. “Say that again,” he urged.
“Scallion. Pancakes,” she said, enunciating each word carefully. She leaned forward, letting the sheet fall open.
“Mmmm.”
“Shrimp toast.”
“Ohhhhh.” He leaned forward and kissed her, reaching out a hand to caress her face. She pulled back and looked at him, eyes dark with desire. He reached down to cup her breast with his hand and she leaned in to him, grasping his face in her hands and kissing him back, tugging gently at his lower lip with her teeth.
Dinner was soon forgotten as their bodies joined together for the fourth time that afternoon, Kate finding increasingly clever uses for duck sauce.
And for years afterward, Neal couldn’t hear the words “pu-pu platter” without getting a raging hard-on.
Eggs Benedict
When Neal returned to the mansion on Riverside Drive after leaving the note for Peter at the no-tell motel, he heard the sound of a blender in the kitchen. Entering, he found June pouring some golden liquid from a small saucepan into the feeder hole in the blender’s lid. “Hi,” he said tentatively, not wishing to startle her.
She looked at him with a smile and switched off the blender. “Hollandaise,” she said, holding it up for emphasis and setting it next to the stove. “I’m making Eggs Benedict, have you eaten dinner?’
“I haven’t. Can I help?”
“Why don’t you set the table?” June showed Neal where to find plates, cutlery and napkins (no paper napkins in June's house), and he laid place settings atop the utility table in the middle of the spacious kitchen.
June set a pan of water to simmer for poaching the eggs and fetched the Canadian bacon from the counter. She laid it in the pan she had preheating on the stove and it made a loud hiss. “Too hot,” she commented and moved the pan off the flame so the meat wouldn’t char. She turned to face Neal and found him sitting at the table with his knees together, his hands folded between them and his shoulders hunched, staring at the floor. She recognized that posture – the manner of a man imprisoned, not wanting to draw attention to himself, not wanting trouble – but she didn’t comment.
Turning back to the stove, she added a bit of vinegar to the poaching liquid. “How do you like the room, Neal?”
Neal looked up and his face opened up. “Oh, it’s very nice. You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m sure that hotel was very, um, acceptable…”
June laughed. “Don’t kid a kidder, my dear. Ah – the water’s ready.” She took a spoon and used its handle to create a little vortex in the water, cracking an egg one-handed and expertly dropping it at its center. She then carefully moved the bowl of the spoon around the egg white as it solidified, ensuring it formed a solid structure around the yolk within. She repeated the process three more times.
“How do you like your eggs, Neal?”
“Runny.”
“Good boy,” she said approvingly. She assembled the bacon and eggs atop some English muffins she had warming in the oven, spooned sauce over each and served up the food. “Oh sugar, I forgot the garnish. Visualize some parsley or something, will you?”
Neal smiled as she took her seat. She took a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice and poured them each a glass, taking note of the manner in which Neal was wolfing down his food, hunched over the table, barely taking time to chew. She reached out her right hand and placed it gently over his left. “You’re not inside anymore, Neal,” she said, looking into his eyes.
He swallowed and wiped his mouth with his napkin. Taking a shuddering breath, he visibly made an attempt to relax himself, easing the tension in his frame and slumping against the back of the chair slightly. “I keep forgetting I’m safe,” he said quietly.
“I’ll be here to remind you,” June said, patting his hand. She moved one of her eggs onto his plate. “Here, you need this more than me. I need to fatten you up. Now, how about some vodka for that juice?”
Neal smiled. He was going to like it here.
Jewish Penicillin
Neal sat dozing with his legs under him on his couch, a throw flung over his shoulders and a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow sitting untouched on his lap. He rose when he heard a knock at the door, padded over to open it. Elizabeth came breezing in, a small cooler slung over her shoulder and a tote bag full of groceries in her hand. She took one look at his red nose and pale face and made a tsk-tsking sound. “My poor baby,” she said, and patted him on the cheek. She moved to the kitchenette and unloaded her packages, took off her coat.
“Sdob. Id’s jusd a code,” Neal protested, his voice rough and scratchy.
“Well, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to mother you, sweetie. It’s what I live for.”
“Beder warned be,” Neal said before launching into a coughing fit that hurt his throat a shocking amount. El poured him a glass of orange juice and made him sit back down on the couch. She leaned over him, pushed his hair off his forehead and pressed her lips against it, as her mother had done for her and her sister when they were young.
“What’s the brognosis?”
“No fever,” she told him, straightening up. “I brought you some soup.”
“Isn’t id sdarve a code, veed a feber?”
“Feed a beaver?” she kidded.
“Feber, ” he corrected her.
“Bieber?”
“Fe-ver,” he said carefully, his laughter causing another coughing fit.
“Oh,” she cooed sympathetically, and put the kettle on for some tea.
A few minutes later, Elizabeth handed Neal a steaming cup of tea loaded with honey and lemon. It was the perfect soothing brew for his throat. “Thanks for coming, El,” he said, leaning his head against the back of the couch. “It means a lot.”
She stirred the homemade chicken soup on the stove and smiled back at him. “I take care of my men,” she said simply.
Despite the misery of his cold, Neal suddenly felt warm and happy. It was nice to be taken care of.
Oysters mignonette; skate with beurre noisette and braised endive; lemon sabayon with fresh berries
CR-ACK. Neal blinked as he shucked the last oyster, its shell giving a satisfying crunchy sound as it split. He deftly used the small blade in his hand to loosen the oyster from its shell and placed it beside its fellows on a platter laid with sea salt. Thinking again, he removed it from the arrangement, tipped the morsel into his mouth and savored its briny sweetness. “Mmm!” he exclaimed, once again thanking El’s fish monger for the advice on which variety to buy. He rearranged the oysters so the twelfth’s absence wouldn’t be quite so noticeable, and placed them in the refrigerator.
Next he checked on the endive, poking at it gently and decided it was done. He removed them to a warm plate and put them in the oven. He went over the checklist in his head. Aside from the last minute cooking, everything was ready. He heard the key in the lock in the front of the house – Peter and El were home.
He grabbed the champagne and glasses and walked through to the living room. “Hey! Welcome home,” he greeted with a smile.
Elizabeth looked at him with happy surprise. “Champagne?” She kissed him. “Lovely!”
“How was the movie?” Neal said, pouring the wine.
“Meh,” El said with a dismissive gesture. “Peter liked the special effects.”
Neal smiled broadly, handing them their glasses. “Should we toast?” Peter asked.
“What should we toast?”
Neal’s eyes sparkled. “You could toast the new Director of Acquisitions for the Lampton Gallery,” he said, bowing with a flourish.
“Hey, that’s terrific!” Peter exclaimed, and threw his arm around Neal’s shoulders.
“Oh, sweetie, that’s wonderful,” Elizabeth said, her eyes bright with happy tears. She stepped into their little circle and stood on tiptoe to give Neal a proper kiss. “I’m so proud of you.”
“So I guess that means you won’t be taking Hughes up on his offer to stay with the bureau once the anklet comes off?” Peter said, not entirely successful in hiding the disappointment in his voice.
“No, I decided I really would prefer to work in a place where there are no guns being waved in my face every other week. Besides, then we can be a bit more open about our relationship and not worry about office gossip. I gave it a lot of serious thought.”
“I’m sure you did, babe,” Peter said, nodding.
“Something smells good,” Elizabeth said, deftly changing the subject.
Neal brightened and ran to the kitchen, returning a minute later with the platter of oysters and the sauce he’d prepared as accompaniment.
“Oh, yummy,” El said and grabbed one right away. She slurped it down, but some of the oyster’s liquor dripped down her chin. Neal grabbed a cocktail napkin and dabbed it away.
“God, that’s sexy,” Peter said and emptied his glass. “You know, Neal, you didn’t need the oysters and champagne – we’re a sure thing here.”
Neal poured him a refill. “Oh, I was counting on that,” he said, grabbing Peter by the lapel of his jacket and pulling him in for a kiss. They drew El into their embrace, and Peter leaned over to kiss her as Neal ran his hand down her back to her ass.
“Hey, hey, break it up,” Elizabeth said. “This happens almost every weekend. For once I’d like to eat my romantic dinner with my clothes on.”
Neal laughed and looked up at Peter. “If the lady insists.”
“The lady insists,” El replied.
“The lady is a buzz kill,” Peter chided.
“Cowboy up, Burke,” Neal said with a mischievous smirk. “There’ll be parts of you buzzing later.”
Peter swallowed and El giggled. “Oh, he’s got the devil in him tonight!” she said to Peter.
“Only a little bit,” Neal smiled and went into the kitchen to finish making dinner.
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Thank you for your time.
Oh, and here are links to recipes for skate with beurre noisette and capers , braised endive , and lemon sabayon with fresh berries