to acknowledge why. Because she was a rich girl. Because she was beautiful and probably at least somewhat spoiled—how could she help it? Because she was the daughter of a famous actress and a famous director.
And partly, because Elena knew she’d been in trouble. But here she was, an absolutely adorable, flat-chested, soon-to-be-devastating, princess of fourteen. Elena wanted to sink down beside her and find out what she thought about, let her walk Alvin. She breathed in and scented bananas, chocolate, yeast. A jumble that didn’t quite make sense.
“You’ll have to give me the address and I’ll visit,” Elena said. “It might be a good place for him when we get the restaurant open.”
“Are you the cook?”
“Chef,” Julian said. “Executive chef.”
“Yes,” Elena said, directly.
She only nodded. “I can babysit him sometimes if you want.”
“I’m going to be here next week to cook. Do you want to start then? He obviously loves you.”
“Okay! He can watch movies with me!”
Looking at Portia, Elena realized she was painfully, deeply starved for the company of females. Over the years, she’d grown used to working in such a male-dominated environment, but she had grown up with sisters. She needed other women in her world.
Mia, she thought, where are you?
APPETIZERS AND SMALL PLATES
CARNE EN SU JUGO
steak and bacon swimming in savory citrus and chile broth
CHILE TASTING PLATE
an assortment of roasted chiles, served with fresh flour tortillas and sliced avocados
ROASTED PORK TAQUITOS
on blue corn with tomatillos and onions
AUTHENTIC POSOLE
stew with pork, chiles, and hominy
MANGO AND AVOCADO SALAD
light, zesty, and beautiful
STUFFED ZUCCHINI BLOSSOMS
delicately fried blossoms stuffed with blue corn bread and piñon nut stuffing
ROASTED ONION TART
mildly spicy dish, thinly layered with mild chiles and manchego cheese
CHILE VERDE
very spicy stew with chiles and pork and cheese, served with white tortillas
FOURTEEN
When she worked at her first San Francisco restaurant, Elena had lived above a shop owned by an eccentric black woman, who had traveled to America with a lover from one of the islands when she was a young girl. The lover was long gone, the islands only a memory in her faint accent, but her shop was an explosion of jars and pots and potions, a narcotic blend of scents that went straight to Elena’s head when she walked in. The woman, perhaps sixty, was called Marie, and she had a statue of the Black Madonna surrounded by red flickering candles on an altar at the back of the store. She put fresh flowers and offerings of food out and lit tall candles with the seven saints on the wrapper to the dark carved beauty. The altar comforted Elena, a symbol she could understand in a city that was very unlike any place she had ever been.
Marie shouted out when Elena first arrived in the store, “Get, get!” She waved her dark bony hands toward the door, and, startled, Elena had turned to go.
The woman caught her arm, gently. “Not you, child. The ones you brought with you. We don’t want them here. You can take a break, huh?”
The old woman made cups of strong, exotic teas, sometimes spiked with rum, and told Elena stories of men she had known and the dishes she had cooked for them. She was a sorceress, a snake charmer, a voodoo priestess, perhaps, and she knew the secrets of seasoning in a way Elena instinctively understood was her true magic. Starved for a daughter of her own, Marie adopted Elena for the two years she lived there, and taught her the secret language of spices, the way saffron sparked a dish to life, the cleverness of nutmeg, the sharpness of ginger. Marie taught her how to pinch and taste and measure spices, how to blend hot and sweet, bitter and bright, savory and salty.
Now, Marie was in her mind as Elena and Julian ate a spicy fusion of Indian and Caribbean at an Aspen café. The ReNew Café had been open for more than three years to great success. An organic vegetarian restaurant with an eclectic menu, green practices, and a hip, youthful setting, it had surprised everyone—especially the owners—by taking off. They’d had to move once to accommodate the in-flux of customers, but the owner insisted they wouldn’t move again. They couldn’t handle a hundred covers and still cook the way he wished, with authentic, organic, vegetarian food made to order.
“How you folks doing?” the server asked. He was lanky and dazzlingly young, his upper body twice as long as the lower.
“It’s fantastic,” Elena said of her stew. “Excellent spices.”
“Good,” he said.