Blowback by Peter May Read Free Book Online Page B

dripping from his mussel shell.
    “You’re kidding? How can anyone know what they will be doing or where they will be in six months’ time.”
    Guy said, “People who reserve with us know exactly where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing. They’ll be eating here.”
    Enzo nodded thoughtfully. “You spoke earlier about trainees being with you for a ‘season’. What length is a season?”
    “April to November,” Madame Fraysse said. “When Marc was alive he insisted we stay open all year round. But it was hopeless in the winter. When the weather was reasonable we could still only half-fill one of the dining rooms, even with three stars. When the weather was unreasonable, we would have cancellations. We get a lot of snow here in the winter months.”
    Guy said, “After Marc died we took the decision to close from the end of October to the beginning of April. And we still make more money than most other restaurants do in a whole year.”
    “We’re closing for the winter at the end of next week,” Madame Fraysse said, almost pointedly. As if warning him that his time there would be limited.
    Enzo found himself momentarily distracted as he met the eye of an attractive young woman working behind the nearest stainless steel counter, where she was squeezing swirls of cream from a dispenser on to the tops of hollowed-out round courgettes filled with a steaming savoury stuffing. She had beautiful brown eyes and long blond hair piled up beneath her tall chef’s hat, accentuating fine cheekbones and the elegant line of a delicate jaw. The hint of a smile played around full lips, and Enzo felt his heart leap. Then her eyes dipped again to the courgettes.
    “Shutting down in the winter also means that we stay true to the philosophy of Marc’s cuisine,” Elisabeth Fraysse was saying. “Perhaps even more than he did himself. Because, you see, out of season it was impossible to acquire the fresh herbs and vegetables that he insisted on using. Of course, he had evolved winter menus, but they were never quite the same.”
    Guy said, “He only ever wanted the freshest of vegetables, prepared in the simplest of ways, so that they retained the essence of their true flavours. Which, of course, he enhanced with the herbs and wild flowers that only grow in these parts. The vegetable sauces and reductions and
purées
with which he decorated his plates were not just for presentation. They brought unique flavours to the plate to complement the meat or the fish. Of course, he was inspired by others, like Michel Guérard and the brilliant Michel Bras down in the Aveyron, but his
cuisine
was very much his own, developed from that wonderful palate of his.”
    “And the herbs and flowers from his
potager
,” Marc’s widow added. “We’ve developed and expanded the kitchen garden that Marc started all those years ago. He would have loved what we’ve made of it. We have a gardener who looks after it full time now.”
    “But, of course,” Guy said, “most of what it produces is not available in the winter. Which is one reason we never opened a restaurant in Paris. It would have required too great a compromise to the
style Fraysse
.”
    Following a selection of local cheeses, washed down with the last of the DRC, desserts freshly prepared by the chefs of the
patisserie
arrived at the table. Wisps of steam rose from a cylinder of
fondant chocolat
placed in front of Enzo. A
boule
of creamy home-made vanilla ice cream sent rivers of molten heaven down its sides to marble the hot chocolate that oozed from its interior as Enzo broke into it with his spoon.
    As he savoured its understated sweetness, he once more caught the eye of the blond girl behind the stainless steel. This time she was plating up perfect moulds of steamed
chou fleur
on pools of a syrupy mushroom and herb reduction. The evening service was in full flow, and Enzo was struck by how smoothly it was all going, each of the chefs contributing his or her own part to the