Pasta, Pinot & Murder Read online

  After the black coffee, I showed Jacob how to make a latte, or cappuccino, by pumping the foaming hand soap into a shallow bowl, then spooning it on top of the “coffee” before adding a dash of cinnamon. Or no cinnamon, depending on the product.

  “This is so cool.” He took a sip of the decaf coffee he’d made earlier, admiring the fake coffee. “I can’t believe this isn’t real coffee.”

  I took his cup of real coffee and sat it next to the black “coffee” that we hadn’t used for the shoot yet. “The diluted soy works great for tea, too. It holds up better for shooting.”

  “That’s amazing. It looks tastier than my real coffee.”

  “It’s supposed to,” I laughed.

  He looked at the clock. “Wow, it’s already noon? That was the easiest two-plus hours I’ve spent in a kitchen in ages.”

  I looked up at the clock, too.

  When I turned back around, I saw a milk foam mustache on Jacob’s upper lip. “My coffee definitely tastes better, though,” he said, and winked.

  I tossed a towel at him. “Gross.”

  We both laughed as he wiped the soap foam from his upper lip. I liked him: diligent, a fast learner, and a sense of humor.

  My stomach growled, and I realized I hadn’t even eaten breakfast. “Let’s walk over to the bed and breakfast and get some lunch.”

  “Lunch at a bed and breakfast?”

  I grabbed my sweater off the coat rack and waved for him to follow me. “There’s a bistro in that Victorian house across the way.”

  He protested. “I don’t really have any money. I haven’t been working regularly.”

  “It’s one of the perks.” I didn’t even turn around to see if he was following.

  I’d hoped Hattie would be too busy at Hat’s Off Bed and Breakfast when we arrived for lunch, but it was too much to ask. As soon as we walked in the door, she pulled her cell phone from her bra and made a call.

  Hattie now wore a fitted long sleeve black shirt and a black and white plaid mini skirt. I called it a mini because her knees were showing, not because it barely covered her butt cheeks. Hattie was sexy for seventy years old, but tasteful, for the most part. Her hair had been pulled back in a simple bun at the nape of her neck. If one didn’t know better, they’d think she was a respectable senior citizen.

  She finished her phone call just as we were being seated, so she pulled up a chair and sat with us. Waving a hand at the hostess, she said, “Daphne, bring us a bottle of the 2007 Pinot Noir and three glasses.” She looked at Jacob. “You are old enough to drink?”

  Jacob reached for his wallet.

  I stopped him by grabbing his arm. “No need.”

  Hattie looked at me. “What?”

  “He’s old enough, Hattie.” If I wasn’t pleasant, I would never get her to leave the table. I had to watch my tone. “How has your morning gone?”

  She waved me off. “Same old, same old.” She turned to Jacob. “I’d like to know about your morning. How is my daughter-in-law to work for?”

  Jacob looked at me before answering. I shrugged.

  “It’s been a fun and lesson-filled morning.” He cleared his throat and drank from the glass of iced water that had just been placed on the table. “Willa’s a good teacher.”

  Hattie wiggled her brows. “Oh, I’ll just bet she is. You know she’s married to my son, right?”

  Jacob smiled. “Actually, we haven’t talked about anything personal, but I just assumed.”

  “I was married to her son. We’re divorced. Not that it’s any of your concern.”

  Hattie reached out and put her veined hand over mine. “But they now live together in sin.”

  I looked Hattie in the eyes. “Is it sin if you’re not having sex?”

  Poor Jacob.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” he asked.

  Hattie gave him directions as she unfolded the gold linen napkin and put it on her lap.

  Great, she’d settled in.

  “If you run him off, I’ll make you work as my assistant,” I threatened. “Or even better, I’ll make Tommy go to a local school, so she can continue to help me.”

  Hattie cocked her head. “Tomorrow stays right where she is. She’ll learn the viticulture business the right way. I won’t have a man take over this empire when I die.”

  Hattie had set aside a large sum of money to pay for our daughter’s college education. She’d made sure Tommy got into UC Davis’s viticulture program with a sizeable grant to the department. Not to mention, she’d been taking on graduate students and interns for more than a decade. Queen Friday and UC Davis had a nice relationship.

  I knew the threat would get under her skin. As it was, Tommy came home almost every weekend. She wasn’t acclimating as well as I’d hoped to college life. She’d gladly go to a local junior college for a few years and then transfer.

  Thank goodness Jacob hadn’t fled out the back door. He came back and sat down, picking up the menu.

  The server came and opened the bottle of wine, pouring a sample for tasting into Hattie’s glass. Hattie swirled and sniffed before downing the sample in one gulp. Making a show of the swirling and sniffing, the swig had been the final bow. She didn’t need to taste this bottle of wine; she knew exactly how delicious it was.

  I waited for her to bloviate on the subtle flavors and aroma, but she just nodded her head for the server to pour for everyone.

  When she finished pouring, I ordered the Vendredi Salad, a recipe I developed. Mixed baby greens with candied pecans, dried cranberries, toasted pumpkin seeds, crumbled feta cheese and pomegranate dressing, topped with a baked, sliced boneless chicken breast. Jacob ordered the roasted portabella omelet, and Hattie waved the server away.

  Just as I was expecting Hattie to start up another awkward conversation, something even worse happened. Peter walked in the door.

  I looked up and heat rose up through my face. My ears felt as if they were on fire. Hattie had called Peter when she saw us arrive. I leaned over and whispered to her, “Troublemaker.”

  Hattie wiped her mouth with her napkin, even though she had no reason to. She stood and walked over to give her son a hug.

  Admittedly, even though I’d been married to Peter for almost two decades, the sight of him still took my breath away almost every time he walked into a room. Standing six-two, he had an athletic build and tanned skin. His blue eyes smiled even when he was pissed off, and his smile could melt even Hattie’s heart. When he didn’t have a toque on, his salt and pepper hair was eternally ruffled, and it made his sideburns look grayer.

  The smile in his eyes dimmed a bit when Jacob turned to see what was going on.

  Hattie, being the graceful dame she pretended to be, introduced Peter. “Jacob, this is Willa’s husband, Peter.”

  In stereo, Peter and I looked at Hattie and said, “Ex-husband.”

  Quick to catch on, Jacob said, “But you two still live together in sin.”

  I stifled a laugh and said, “Sit, Peter, join us.”

  He pulled out his mother’s chair first, and helped her get reseated, then leaned against the chair closest to me. “A new assistant?” He had yet to address Jacob directly.

  It wasn’t like Peter to be jealous. But then again, I hadn’t even considered dating since we signed the papers, so he hadn’t had the chance to be jealous. If he’d been dating, he kept that to himself. If Hattie was my mother, I’d keep it a secret, too. As for me, when I did finally start dating, I’d never bring a man onto this property.

  The server arrived at the table. Lunch was served, and my stomach growled at the thought of food. Even though I worked with food all day some days, I still enjoyed eating. A little too much.

  I answered Peter’s question. “Tommy can only work weekends. I thought I could get by, but the blog is doing very well, and I need the help if I’m going to keep up this pace.”

  Peter looked directly at Jacob for the first time. “You’re a blogger?”

  Jacob finished the la
st of his glass of water. “No, sir, I’m a professionally trained chef.”

  I saw a glint in Hattie’s eye that seemed to bounce from her to Peter. Oh, no, they were not going to poach my assistant.

  “What brings you here? I thought you needed my car today.” I didn’t want to start talking about food, recipes, and how much fun it was to run a kitchen.

  “Mom needed help with something and asked me to come right away.” He looked at Hattie. “What was the emergency? You were vague on the phone.”

  The closed lip grin told me she’d fibbed to her son. “Oh,” she waved him off, “I guess it wasn’t that urgent. And then I saw Willa and this handsome young man, and I completely forgot I called you.”

  Liar, liar, pants on fire. I felt like sticking my tongue out at her.

  “I’m sure it will come to you as soon as I leave,” Peter said with heavy sarcasm. He wasn’t blind to his mother’s ways. “I’ve got a busy day, and I still haven’t purchased the produce for tonight’s menu.”

  “Be a dear and come to the kitchen with me,” Hattie cooed.

  “Mom…” Peter knew she was up to something, and so did I. “I told you, I’m crazy busy, and Willa will need her car back.”

  Hattie shrugged. “I’m sure her new assistant would be happy to give her a ride. That’s what assistants do, right?”

  She glared at me.

  Not taking the bait, I said, “He’s not that kind of assistant, but as soon as I can afford that kind, I’ll have him run your errands too, Peter.”

  Peter winked at me. “I’ll be home late tonight. I’m closing the kitchen.”

  I smiled and said, “I might stop by for a nightcap.”

  Jacob sat quietly, looking back and forth at us like a tennis match.

  Hattie stomped off like a child who didn’t get her way, and Peter waved as he walked out.

  “He tells you when he’s coming home?” Jacob said after they’d left.

  “It’s a courtesy since we live together. And until our daughter left for college, we raised a kid together.”

  Jacob’s lips disappeared and his brows furrowed.

  “It’s a strange arrangement, but it works for us.” I took a long sip of wine.

  “So what was all of that about with Mrs. Friday and your hus…ex-husband?”

  I nearly choked on the wine. I coughed to clear my throat and said, “Hattie was snitching on me for having lunch with you.”

  Now Jacob choked. “Why?”

  “She wanted Peter to see I had a new male assistant who is handsome.”

  Jacob looked down at the napkin in his lap.

  “Sorry if that embarrassed you, but you must know how good looking you are.”

  When he looked up, his cheeks seemed to be painted with a dusting of pink. “I don’t know about that. But I didn’t mean to cause any rift with you and Mrs. Friday.”

  I laughed. “Please, just call her Hattie. If you say Mrs. Friday, I might mistake it as me. Hattie and I have a queer relationship. I love her, and I’m pretty sure she loves me too, but she makes sure I know who the matriarch of the family is. Almost daily.”

  We had settled in to eat when Hattie came back to the table. “Don’t be late for your meeting with Alice. You know how she gets.”

  Didn’t everyone know how Alice gets?

  Chapter Three

  Back at my studio, we finished with the coffee styling session, and I had Jacob doing dishes while I pulled up the recipe for a tomato basil pesto I’d been working on. I thought it would go well with fettuccine.

  “Have you ever plated a meal for photography?” I asked.

  Jacob dried his hands with paper towels. “Only for my iPhone. I always took pictures of the meals I made in school. Restaurants are another matter. Many have rules against photos in the kitchen.”

  “Not in Peter’s kitchen. They’re always using Snapchat and other social media to share what goes on in the kitchen. It’s sort of how I got the idea to do my food blog.” I pulled the sun-dried tomatoes from the refrigerator. I should have taken them out before we left for lunch, so they’d be room temperature.

  “We’re working on a pasta this afternoon?” he asked.

  “Yes, can you grab the fresh fettuccine from that fridge over there?” I pointed to the industrial sized refrigerator across the studio. “And I’ll need some fresh basil from the window garden.”

  I didn’t have to point out the window garden, as it was obvious. I grew my own herbs in a one foot by six-foot window box. The amount of sunshine in the window worked perfectly for most of the herbs I used. I preferred it to growing them outside, because the vineyard’s Bengal cat, Lucy, loved whatever I happened to plant. She loved digging them up and pooping in the dirt. Lucy, already eight years old, had been a gift to my mother-in-law, but she was allergic, so Lucy came to live with us. In hindsight, I think Hattie wanted us to have the cat all along. Lucy didn’t care that Hattie had allergies; she helped herself to Hattie’s house regularly. I stopped counting the number of times we’d gotten a call to come and get her.

  We tried to keep her in the house during the busiest times of the year, like now, when everyone was preparing for harvest. Sometimes I think she hated it, other times I was sure she would never go outside again. And I couldn’t wait until she was outside because I hated that darned litter box, even though we had the most up-to-date litter you could get to mask the odors. Someone still had to clean the darned thing, and guess who got that job now that Tommy was in college?

  “Is this for a magazine or a restaurant?” Jacob asked as he placed the pasta and a small bunch of fresh picked basil on my cutting board.

  “I’ll need a little more basil, and I’ll also need at least five perfect leaves for the photo,” I said. “This is for my blog. I usually try to make three or four recipes a day and photograph them, but today, I have too much on my plate.” I laughed at my unintended pun. “Of course, not every day is a recipe day. I have marketing, social media, and education days too. Oh, and ad days. Writing ad copy is the bane of my existence, but I’m getting better at it.”

  “So we’ll be busy tomorrow then?” He brought back just the right amount of basil.

  “We’ll see how today goes. My meeting later may make me want to stay in bed tomorrow.” I dreaded meeting with Alice, but it was a necessary evil if we wanted the two most powerful women in the county to be happy.

  “Ah, okay. Would you like me to chop the basil?”

  I nodded, then added, “Except the half-dozen perfect leaves.”

  “I didn’t cut those yet, so they’d be fresh for the hero shot.”

  Already using the industry jargon. I liked this guy. I hoped he stayed on top of things.

  I went to gather the rest of the ingredients for my recipe.

  In my head, I wondered what story I would tell with this post. Would I explain I’d made with it with my handsome new assistant? Or maybe talk about it being the first recipe for the blog that didn’t have Tomorrow’s input? I missed my little girl. All of my readers knew Tomorrow, mostly they knew her as Tommy, but she’d been mentioned in a few posts here and there, and she’d even written a few recipes herself. I think she’d had her dad’s help, but that was fine by me.

  “When I interviewed you, you said you had photography experience,” I said.

  He continued to chop basil, then grabbed the cloves of garlic. “Minced?”

  I nodded.

  He pulled out three cloves of garlic and smashed them with the side of the knife blade. As he peeled the skin, he said, “I took classes in high school, but I never took it seriously. I’m good with placement and lighting, though.”

  “I’ll do most of the lighting myself, but it’s good to have a trained eye helping me.” I unwrapped the fettuccine and put it next to the pot as I waited for the water to boil.

  “I wouldn’t call myself a trained eye, but I think I know what looks good when it comes to food. Besides, you can fix the color in post, can’t you?”
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  I handed him the onion. “A fine dice, please.” I placed the pasta in the boiling water. “Like I said, I prefer to get it right in production, so I don’t have to spend so much time in post. It’s so much easier to get it right the first time.”

  I picked a couple of Roma tomatoes to blanch after I pulled the pasta from the water and explained the recipe to Jacob, handing him the handwritten card I’d made.

  “You write all of your recipes by hand?” He seemed amazed.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” We continued prep while we chatted.

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s easier to type into a tablet, and then you won’t lose the card.”

  I nodded to myself. “Good idea, but I don’t keep a tablet in the kitchen. I might start, though. I’d still write up the card, since I sometimes photograph it with the meal.”

  Jacob had the ingredients in the food processor before I finished peeling and seeding the tomatoes. He leaned against the counter and grabbed the last tomato.

  “Once the recipe is ready we have enough here to make four plates,” I said, “That’s because mistakes will get made and we’ll have to start from scratch.”

  “And what if it’s perfect the first time?” he asked.

  “Then we thank our lucky stars, and we have leftovers to take home for dinner.”

  He grinned.

  “Let’s both make a plate.” I explained the look I wanted.

  I plated the fettuccine onto a matte black plate and twirled it into a swirl design. Then I spooned my tomato basil pesto over it, and arranged the plate on a wooden mini table with a white linen napkin and a glass of “wine.”

  The wine was yet another stylist concoction: colored water with clear soap bubbles for a realistic look.

  We had two delicious looking plates of pasta. But pasta dries out fast when sitting on a plate under lights, so I took a small brush and painted olive oil on the noodles to give them a fresh look. Once the noodles appeared picture perfect, I spooned more tomato basil pesto over the top. Yes, it looked delicious.

  I glanced over at Jacob’s plate and it looked similar to mine, except he’d drizzled a bit of sauce over the side, and he’d already grated the Parmesan cheese over the top. It looked beyond delicious.