Yes Chef, No Chef - By Susan Willis Page 0,84
to houses in the area. He looked around forty she guessed, and when Katie told him about her new business he suggested she should come out to his garden plots one day to see if she wanted to place a weekly order.
Agreeing and thanking him, she went inside and started immediately in the kitchen, placing bowls, tins and scales onto the island, weighing out flour and salt into a large bowl and then mixing the dried yeast in a small pot with a little warm water and sugar, and watched it begin to bubble. Instead of using the electric dough-hook on her mixer she decided to knead the dough by hand. The white flour was fine and cool as it ran through her fingers and when she made small additions of tepid water the mixture got stickier and stickier. The dough was finally stiff enough to lift half the amount out onto the floured board. Coating her hands with flour she worked the dough into a round and began to firmly knead and pummel it into shape. She pushed her hand into it, stretched it away from herself, and then lifted and threw it back down onto the board.
Strawberry blonde, eh, she thought. Blue eyes, and size eight is she? She ranted and drove her clenched knuckles into the dough. Boy-oh-boy, that felt so good. She was consumed with jealousy about this blonde and for the first time since the week she’d walked out, she began to question her actions.
She knew she could be stubborn and one of the charges Michael always levelled against her in family arguments was that she was too proud for her own good.
Wiping her damp forehead with the back of her hand she reckoned, in hindsight, that she could have handled the break-up better. At the time though she’d felt he hadn’t left her any choice by being so abrupt and impersonal on his emails but maybe she should have taken Sarah’s advice and at least gone to talk to him. Lifting the dough up from the board she slapped it back down again but her energy was spent and she slumped down onto a stool.
She remembered being a teenager and having a conversation with her dad because she’d stubbornly refused to make up with a friend at school.
“It’s always easier to be stubborn and proud, Katie,” he’d said. “And not giving in might make you feel stronger at the time but in the long run it doesn’t work out.” He’d draped his big strong arm around her and squeezed her tightly. “And you might even think swallowing your pride and losing control is a weakness but the other person sees it as forgiveness and it’s not lacking in any way”.
Oh God, she wailed, there was that bloody ‘control’ word again and a lump of grief came into her throat remembering his wise words. She knew if he’d been alive he would have agreed with Sarah and told her to go and talk to him.
She’d been so certain at the time that she was right and he was wrong but now maybe it was time to accept that some issues in life were more ambiguous and complicated. Was this what people called grey areas she wondered? Deciding unhappily that it was far too late now, she knew she had to accept some of the blame for the fact that he’d obviously met someone else. Feeling flat and deflated she poked a finger into the dough and remembered her mum’s words when she’d been staying in Claire’s flat about giving up a talented guy with a good job and a lovely apartment, and furthermore the comment that men like Tim didn’t grow on trees. She sighed heavily; if only she could have thought like this during that first week then maybe they could have sorted something out but now he’d been snapped up by a younger model and she’d no one to blame but herself.
Suddenly there were three loud raps on the front door and dusting some of the flour from her hands she hurried along the hall. Opening the door she gasped in shock – it was Tim. Oh my God, her mind screamed, it’s him! Her heart was thumping so hard she felt sure he must be able to see it through her thin silk shirt. The sight of his big arms and shoulder muscles in a T-shirt tucked into tight blue jeans made her stomach churn and flip with excitement.
There was a delicious