“You actually have three Griswold skillets?”
I smiled at the three cast-iron pans hanging over the counter.
“Actually we have five Griswolds. The other two we use for cooking, not decorations.”
“Tiffany lamps, Persian prayer rugs, a Chippendale dining room, that lyre-backed chair…I can see why you love this place. It’s a real treasure.”
“A cozy treasure,” I said as I hung a white apron around my neck to protect my cream-colored cashmere blend sweater, and tied the strings around the waist of my pressed black slacks. I lifted my arm, straining to bring down a hanging copper-bottomed pot.
“Here, let me reach that,” said Bruce. He smiled at me as he easily stretched his long arm high and pulled down the cooking pot.
“Thanks. That’s one of the drawbacks of being five-two.”
“No problem. It does my ego good to come in handy.”
I laughed. It actually felt a little strange to have a man in my kitchen. Well, strange to have a man other than my ex-husband.
Matteo and I were occasionally forced to share this kitchen during his mercifully infrequent layovers in New York, but the relationship wasn’t one I’d call cordial. Even when we were married and generally getting along, the kitchen was never a place where we felt comfortable together — it was more like a cramped ship with two captains constantly arguing over navigation.
“What can I do next, Clare?” Bruce asked. He draped his camel hair blazer over a chair and rolled up his sleeves.
“Well…” I blinked, trying not to openly admire the nicely muscled forearms. “Um…how about uncorking that amazing wine you brought?”
“Sure, but it’s nothing.”
Nothing to a millionaire, maybe, but a 1995 La Romanée-Conti wasn’t something I saw everyday. “You’re kidding, right?” I told him. “The last time I saw a Grand Cru Burgundy, it was at a function of Madame’s and royalty was present.”
Bruce laughed as he turned the corkscrew at the small kitchen table, the muscles of his forearm flexing very nicely indeed. “I have a case at home.”
“Oh, well,” I said, working at the sink, “if you have a case, then one bottle of a wildly extravagant wine is nothing…sure!”
He laughed again. “Give me a wine glass.”
I did, and he poured out a small amount.
“Taste,” he commanded, holding the glass out to me.
I did and nearly swooned. “Whoa, that’s good wine.”
“It’s an Echezeaux. There’s layer after layer of complexity. Close your eyes and take another sip.”
I did.
“Tell me what you taste.”
“Blackberries?”
“Yes,” he said. “What else?”
“Violets…and there’s an oakiness…and something else…ohmygod…coffee!”
“Yes.”
“It’s really amazing, Bruce.”
“I’m glad you like it.” He came up behind me at the sink. “Okay, the wine’s uncorked — and tasted. Now what?”
He stood so close the heat from his body was truly distracting. I felt my hands becoming moist, the paring knife in my fingers slipping.
“I think its safe to give you a knife,” I said, clearing my suddenly dry throat. “What do you say, sailor? Peel these potatoes?”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
I handed him five plump Yukon golds. He peeled while I knocked five cloves of garlic from a large head and stripped the dry white skin. Then I helped Bruce cut up his peeled potatoes into manageable cubes.
“I talked to your daughter downstairs before I came up,” he mentioned in passing. “She’s a good kid.”
“Very. She’s actually watching over the part-timers for me while we have dinner.”
“Oh, so she gets a reprieve as soon as I leave?”
“Something like that.”
“And what if I don’t leave…right away?”
“That’s a loaded question, Mr. Bowman. Keep your mind on the cooking, please.”
He laughed. “She’s a lot like you.”
“She’s stubborn like her father.”
“She’s got your features — the chestnut hair, the green eyes. You two look a lot alike.”
I stopped cutting and looked up at him. “Don’t say like sisters. I’m not that gullible.”
Holding my gaze, he smiled. “No, I can see you’re not.”
When we finished cutting the potatoes, we both tossed them into boiling water, adding one smashed clove of garlic per spud. Then I pulled a pan from the stainless steel Sub Zero and removed the foil from the marinating meat. A powerful aroma filled the kitchen.
“What’s that smell? Coffee?” Bruce asked, surprised. “You marinated the meat in coffee?”
I nodded. “One bite and all doubts will be dispelled.”
“Okay, I’m game. I think.”
“You better be — your wine has coffee overtones.”
“True.” He looked closer. “So what exactly have you got there?”
“Four thick, gorgeously marbled T-bones, courtesy of Ron, our local butcher. They’ve been marinating overnight in enough brewed and cooled coffee to cover them completely.”
“Nothing else?” Bruce raised his eyebrow.
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
He laughed. “It’s just that I’ve never seen it done before.”
“Actually, a chef who specializes in Southwestern cuisine told me he believed coffee was a fairly common ingredient in frontier cooking. There was a limited amount of spices available on the plains, and some of the gamier meats like horse and boar needed both flavoring and tenderizing.”
“I’ve heard of using beer as a tenderizer.”
“You’re thinking of Kobe beef. In Japan they ply live cattle with malt liquor daily. It results in fatty, well-marbled meat. This is different.”
“Okay, but I’m sure I remember hearing the Japanese do something odd with coffee.”
“There’s a Japanese beauty treatment that uses coffee grounds fermented with pineapple pulp. The citric acid from the pineapple cleanses, and the caffeine firms and tightens the skin — smoothes out wrinkles.”
“Oh, I see…” His brown eyes fixed on me. With the backs of his slightly callused fingers he gently touched my cheek. “Is that your secret?”
I blushed. “What am I supposed to say to that?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“I’m cooking,” I said, determined to keep my head.
We barely knew each other, and even though the man’s proximity was having an embarrassingly unnerving effect on my state of mind, I resolved to maintain control of this situation. A public restaurant may have been a better bet for that reason — but it was too late now.
Disregarding his irresistible smile, I pressed on.
Using a cool, professional, pre-trial Martha Stewart tone, I explained that a carefully chosen coffee brewed strong not only imparts a nutty, earthy flavor to the meat, but tenderizes it as well. “You want an acidic bean, because it’s the acidity that does the tenderizing. Most Latin American beans will give you enough acidity for this recipe, but I usually go with a Kenya AA.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I’m not yet convinced,” he teased.
“The only way these steaks could be better is if I grilled them over mesquite — though I do love them with eggs in the morning. Nothing like a coffee-marinated steak to really jolt you awake. You’ll see.”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Is that an invitation for tomorrow morning?”
Oh, god. What did he think I was implying?
Bruce took in my expression and laughed. “I’m kidding.”
“Right.”
I hastily refocused my attention on browning the T-bones in the cast-iron skillet, trying like hell to forget about the incredibly charming man leaning casually against the sink a few feet away — and watching my every move.
“Smell that?” I asked. The aroma of roasted coffee and sizzling beef filled the apartment.
“Mmmmm. I see what you mean. Nice combination…”
After both sides of the thick steaks were properly seared, I placed them on a rack in the broiler and deglazed the pan with a splash of beef consomme.
“There’s actually another way of getting the coffee flavor into the meat. I wrote a piece on it last year. Restaurants in Seattle, San Francisco, and Colorado rub the steak with coarsely ground coffee. But I’m not a fan of the crunch, you know? So I prefer to get the flavor through the marinating process — it’s more intense this way anyway.”