Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs Read Free Book Online Page B

the day before and— what was this? A granola bar and a small bag of Cheerios.
    From Aimee, of course.
    From Aimee.
    The Secret to delicious Scrambled eggs was to cook them in a saucepan with bubbling butter and stir them constantly with a wooden spoon. Keep the heat medium-low. Resist the temptation to turn up the gas and cook the damn thing in two seconds. Only patience would allow the eggs to come together soft and fluffy and very, very light, Aimee thought to herself as she made little figure eights through the liquidy mixture, careful not to spill on her work clothes. Her plate, with a small dollop of ketchup, stood ready next to the stove, a fork resting on a folded napkin. A slice of bread browned in the stainless toaster.
    “Stir, stir, stir,” she said aloud, repeating what her mother, Gus, had always said when she insisted Aimee help out with breakfast. "Stir ...”
    “... and you won’t be sorry,” cried out Gus cheerily.
    Aimee whirled around, nearly causing the saucepan to fall off the stove.
    “Mom?”
    Silence.
    Oh, funny how it can sneak up on you: the moment of madness. It was one thing to repeat little phrases but now she was actually hearing her mother’s voice outside her head. What’s the standard procedure for losing one’s mind, anyway? Do you call in sick? Check yourself into a hospital? Aimee waited a second before she continued to stir, reassured that it was just one of those moments when the background noises come together to sound like something familiar. A fluke.
    Then she heard it again. Gus, talking slowly and clearly. Oh, dear God, had Gus died in the night? Was she haunting Aimee? She’d seen that in a movie once, though the parent was trying to convey an important secret that would save the family from a curse.
    “Mom, if that’s you, say something else.”
    “I’d never dream of using ketchup on eggs!” came Gus’s voice in reply. And then a spurt of laughter. From the bedroom.
    Spoon in hand, Aimee left the eggs and walked apprehensively, heart beating, into her bedroom. And that’s when she saw Gus. In a turquoise linen shirt and khaki pants, her signature navy spatula in hand.
    On the TV.
    Gus was on television, cooking breakfast for the hosts of the Today show, who were eating and laughing.
    “So aren’t you the longest-running host on the CookingChannel?” asked Matt Lauer with a grin, knowing the answer already, thanks to his research department.
    Gus smiled wanly.
    “Yes, I just read that you’re considered the grande dame of food televisionwith all those young upstarts coming around,” piped in Ann Curry before changing topics. “This crème brûlée French toast is amazing. Are we putting the recipe on our Web site? Fantastic.”
    And the chatter went on and on and on; Aimee held the remote in her hand, finger on the power button, but didn’t press. Like everyone else, she found the host of Cooking with Gusto! engaging. Watchable. Likable. Unlike everyone else, Gus Simpson was her mother. It was, well, weird. Always had been. Though you had to admire her.
    With no professional culinary education, Gus had managed to turn an interest in food and a knack for timing into a mega career. She could cook, she could throw a damn good party, and she never tired of talking, thought Aimee. Between Gus and Sabrina, it was always rather impossible to get in a word at the Simpson household.
    “You’re so different than I remember,” her mother’s longtime producer, Porter Watson, had said to her at Gus’s holiday party in December, just over two months ago now. The two of them had waded through a standard, awkwardnice-to-see-you commentary at the punch bowl and arrived, thanks to an offhand line about charity, at a discussion of Aimee’s work at the UN. Porter seemed genuinely intrigued and said so.
    “I don’t think we’ve ever really spoken until now,” Aimee replied quietly.
    He’d looked at her with seriousness, as though he wanted to reply, when Gus