The Lost Recipe for Happiness - By Barbara O'Neal Page 0,32

a menu together, shall we?”

TWELVE

JUAN’S CARNE EN SU JUGO

1 lb. thinly sliced bacon

1 lb. round steak or other lean cut of beef, cut into 1-2 inch strips

2 medium onions—1 chopped, 1 sliced and grilled

3–4 fresh jalapeños, washed and sliced into wheels (leave the seeds in)

4 cups fresh beef broth

2 cups pinto beans, cooked and drained

1 small head of cabbage, shredded

1/2 cup cilantro

1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced

Juice of 1 large lemon

Lemons, quartered

In a heavy pot, brown the bacon and then drain it on paper towels. Put the steak and chopped onions into the pot, cooking them in the hot bacon fat and stirring for about 2–3 minutes. Put the chopped bacon back into the pot, add the jalapeños, beef broth, and beans, and let simmer for 1 hour. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper if needed. Add the cabbage and let the soup simmer again just until the cabbage is tender. Add cilantro, scallions, and lemon juice. Serve with grilled onions and lemon wedges on the side.

THIRTEEN

Elena dreamed of a stag, running in a field. The light was the silver gray that could signal dawn or dusk. It was a powerful creature with points she could not count and it was in danger. As it leapt over a ravine and hung—far too long—in midair, she held her breath, wanting to cry out, and she could not.

With a gasp, she startled awake into her brightly lit bedroom, her body nestled between piles of open cookbooks and scattered notes, both her own and those of her cooks. For a moment, she could not decide what had awakened her. The television played some shopping program narrated by a man with a nasally Texas twang. Rustling through the notes and cookbooks, she found the remote control and clicked the television off. The clock on the nightstand read 2:48 a.m.

Wiping the weariness from her face, she sat up and scraped the scattered notes into a pile, closed the cookbooks, and stripped her clothes off. Alvin snored in the corner, oblivious. Elena plumped up the pillows and turned off the light, taking a long breath to settle herself.

But sleep slithered away. She lay in the dark going over the lists and tasks still to be accomplished in the next four weeks. The soft opening was slated for November 2, with a grand opening to follow on the first day of ski season. They’d been working their asses off for five weeks and had four left.

Four weeks.

She turned over, dislodging with a toe a cookbook she’d left on the bed. It fell on the floor with a bang. Alvin woke up and barked a warning. “It’s okay, honey. It was me.”

He woofed softly, but licked his lips and fell back asleep.

Elena stared up at the skylights. Stars twinkled, and a wash of pale light came through the rectangles. The middle-of-the-night quiet made her feel absolutely alone. Banished.

She hated to sleep alone. As a little girl, she slept with her grandmother Iris, and felt utterly bereft in the big bed alone after she died. That period happily only lasted a few weeks, and Elena was plopped down in New Mexico, sleeping with Isobel and Margaret in a double bed where they fought over the covers and tangled up together on cold nights. She had slept alone in the hospital, with the sound of machines and beeps and cold loudspeakers, and wept nearly every night with loneliness for almost a year.

Get over it. Think of the restaurant. Focus on the positives.

It was coming along very well. Patrick and Alan and Julian tucked their heads together over selections of chairs and tables, tablecloths and settings. Elena insisted that the plates be plain white porcelain, the better to show off the food. Patrick pushed for glass chargers with a slight greenish cast that knocked Elena out. Alan liked bare tables for lunch, and at first wanted snowy white tablecloths for dinner, but was overruled by both Patrick and Julian, who ordered linens from Ecuador—gorgeous wovens in clear, unpolluted shades—turquoise and green and pink.

Elena, Ivan, and Juan, together with the three line cooks already in place, worked on the back of the house. A good menu had to meet several standards. The first was the demands of the customer: who would be eating this food? Sitting over endless cups of coffee, white and pink and blue sugar packets scattered over the table, they hammered out their ideal customer with Julian—an upscale skier or vacationer, mostly sophisticated and well educated about food,