The Monday Night Cooking School - By Erica Bauermeister Page 0,28

said, shaking his head gently. “For a moment there, you reminded me of someone.”

“Is that bad?” Antonia asked, concerned.

“No,” said Tom, his face clearing. “It’s a good thing.”

“Are we ready?” asked Lillian, holding open the door to the dining room. They entered like a parade, bowls and platters held aloft.

“HOW DO YOU like our dinner guests?” Lillian asked the class after the first exclamations had succumbed to quiet sighs of pleasure. The pace was leisurely, as each person at the table took slow, contemplative bites. The turkey lay in slices on their plates, palest pink, with spirals of herb and pancetta ribbons running through it. The polenta was a bright dash of color, the crisp tang of the green beans and lemon a contrast in taste to the soft, luxuriant texture of the warm cornmeal.

“This isn’t eating,” said Ian. “It needs its own word.”

They had agreed that no one would pour their own wine, so they took turns walking around the table, filling glasses, stopping for a low-voiced moment of conversation with one person or another. Even Chloe was given some wine, although she wasn’t yet twenty-one.

“I don’t know, Chloe,” Ian joked, “we could get in a lot of trouble because of you.”

Isabelle leaned over the table to Chloe. “When I was young, we didn’t worry about such things. But then again,” she said with a wink, “maybe that is why I don’t remember so much now.”

They would have forgotten about the biscotti, except that Chloe was so proud of them she dragged Lillian off to the kitchen to make espresso, brought to the table in tiny white cups, a crisp oval of chocolate biscotto on the plate underneath.

“Now that was a wonderful Thanksgiving,” Carl said, leaning back luxuriantly in his chair as he put down his empty espresso cup.

“You know, I always think a holiday is a lot like a kitchen,” Lillian noted. “What’s important is what comes out of it.”

Antonia thought for a moment, then smiled. “But of course,” she said quietly to herself.

IT WAS well past eleven when they left the restaurant—the wine, the food, the conversations of the evening warming them even as they entered the cold, dark air.

“She didn’t ask us what we learned about Thanksgiving,” Ian commented.

“Did you want her to?” Helen asked.

Chloe tucked her arm companionably through Ian’s.

“I bet you really liked to take tests in school,” she teased him.

“I just want to know if I have to wait until Thanksgiving to eat like that again. Or if I don’t, will Thanksgiving still be special?”

Antonia came up to him on his other side.

“No. And yes.” Her eyes met his briefly, happily. They all reached the gate and Antonia turned and walked to the left, toward her car.

“Buona notte, Antonia,” Isabelle called into the night.

“Sogni d’oro,” sweet dreams, came Antonia’s voice in reply.

ANTONIA HEARD Susan and Jeff on the porch before they entered the house.

“I can’t wait to see the plans,” Susan was saying as she opened the door. “She… Oh, my God, what is that incredible smell?”

Susan and Jeff reached the kitchen and stopped, wordless. The linoleum in the room in front of them had been ripped up, revealing a fir floor underneath, splotched with glue, but a warm red-gold all the same. A small table covered with a yellow Provençal tablecloth was set like a secret in the bay window; an iron pot full of water boiled cheerfully on the huge black stove. In the center of the room the wooden prep table was covered with a snowstorm of flour and a series of red ceramic bowls, and in the fireplace, on a grill set over a glowing bed of fragrant sticks, marinated chicken and eggplant sizzled and cooked.

“You’re just in time,” Antonia said. “Throw on an apron and you can help me finish the ravioli.”

SUSAN WIPED the last of the meat juices from her plate with a piece of bread. Her normally sleek blond hair curled about her face in the humidity of the kitchen. Flour smudged the side of her black skirt and she had utterly forgotten to take off her apron when she sat down at the table.

“That was amazing,” she moaned. Jeff looked at her and smiled, reaching across the table for her hand.

“Will you cook like this for us, always?” Susan asked Antonia.

“I think you will cook for each other, in this kitchen.”

“Yes,” Jeff agreed.

“Okay,” Susan responded amiably. She took a leisurely, reflective sip of her red wine. “We can change the cabinets, though, right? Please? Oh,