The Chef's Apprentice: A Novel by Elle Newmark Read Free Book Online

delicacy, its color and texture, like translucent shavings of copper and gold.”
    “Gold! Now, there’s a motive for murder.” The rash words seemed to leap from my mouth before I could stop them. “I understand punishing a thief. But why pour drink down a dead man’s throat?”
    The chef rolled his eyes. Without looking at me, he pushed the papery skin into a little pile at the edge of the cutting board, and when I moved to gather it up he stayed my hand. “Leave the onion skins, Luciano. They provide inspiration.”
    “Inspiration.” I nodded slowly and, with abashed persistence, asked, “I wonder what might inspire the doge—”
    “Look at the naked onion, Luciano. She’s newly stripped, and no one but you has ever seen her before. Her colors are virgin white tinged with spring green. Handle her gently. For the first cut, slice cleanly down the center and behold what you’ve exposed.” He parted the onion to show me its concentric design and smiled. “Lay open the intimate center and admire the perfect nests within nests.” He mused over the onion’s structure and murmured, “There was a Greek teacher named Euclid who made some interesting observations about the geometry of circles …” He must have noticed the confusion on my face and he added, “That’s not important right now.”
    He picked up the onion and his voice turned brusque. “Inhale the aroma, the soul, but take your time. The art of cooking, like the art of living, must be savored for its own sake.” He wafted the onion under his nose and inhaled deeply. “No matter that the food we prepare will be eaten in minutes; the act of creation is everything.”
    He laid half of the onion flat on its cut surface and sliced it across, cocking one ear to the board. “Listen to the crisp sound of each cut, Luciano. Hear the music of freshness.”
    My eyes watered from the onion fumes, and the stinging tears diverted my curiosity. I asked, “Why do onions make us cry?”
    Chef Ferrero shrugged as a tear slid down his cheek. “You may as well ask why one cries in the presence of great art, or at the birth of a child. Tears of awe, Luciano. Let them flow.”
    I wiped my eyes, but the chef let tears roll freely down his face. A tear dripped from his chin as he scooped up the diced onion for the stockpot. His awe would season the soup.
    “But the doge—”
    “Basta!” The chef slammed the knife into the cutting board and turned on me with arched eyebrows. “Leave it alone, Luciano. Everything comes in its own time, and your time has not yet come. Your lesson is over. Back to work, and not another word.”
    I backed away twisting my fingertips at my lips as if turning a key in a lock. Stupido . I’d forgotten how easily I could be sent back to the streets. I grabbed my broom and busied myself sweeping goose feathers into a corner where I would stuff them into sacks for the maids. The goose itself was already browning nicely on the spit, and I planned to fish the neck and gizzard out of the stockpot the next morning when they’d be nice and tender—a special treat for Marco and Domingo.
    The chef’s outburst had been loud and uncharacteristic. I glanced around the kitchen to check the reaction of the cooks, but no one acknowledged me, and I assumed that I’d temporarily become persona non grata. Only Giuseppe caught my eye in order to shoot me one of his poisonous looks. My phenomenal luck as the street urchin turned into a chef’s apprentice had indeed made me the object of his brooding, implacable hatred.
    My busy young mind jumped from Giuseppe to the chef to the doge and the dead peasant and back again. I jammed fistfulsof goose feathers into coarse sacks, readying them for the maids who would sort out the fluffy down for pillows. Preoccupied with my thoughts, I allowed too many feathers to float over my head and drift into the fire, where they winked away with a quick sizzle. While the feathers flew around me in a soft blizzard, I