We sliced up the beets and roasted them, making the entire apartment smell sweet and rustic as we worked on the chicken. He showed me how to tenderize the chicken and then dredge it for pan frying. He taught me how to prep the beans and how to make a sauce. It was fun to watch the recipe slowly come together from random ingredients to something that resembled a meal.
With every step, he took the time to explain what we were doing. He let me do most of the work so that I could truly feel like I learned how to do this. It was the mark of a good teacher.
When the oven beeped that the beets were finished, the chicken was cooked through, the sauce complete, and the beans tender, I felt like I had done it all on my own. It was empowering and fun.
Plus, my house smelled absolutely amazing. I knew it could smell good when I brought takeout home, but this was even better. It smelled good because I had cooked something nutritious and delicious.
“There is one downside to this cooking method,” I told Henry as he checked the chicken to make sure it was cooked through.
He frowned slightly, his brows coming together at a point. “What?”
“We’ll have to use plates,” I replied with a grin. He laughed and slid my perfectly cooked, crisp chicken onto a clean white plate. I set the table and helped bring the chicken with sauce, the green beans, and the bowl full of roasted beets to the table.
I lit a candle and placed it in the center. For the first time since moving here, my table looked like something out of a magazine.
“Hold on, I need to take a picture,” I told him, pulling out my burner phone and snapping a quick picture. “There needs to be proof in the world that I cooked a meal that wasn’t out of a box.”
Henry chuckled and waited until I finished before taking his seat.
Carefully, we both put the steaming food on our plates and Henry poured us each a glass of wine.
“To you,” he said, holding up his glass. I grinned.
“To us,” I replied, tapping my glass against his and making him smile.
Then I picked up my fork and took a bite of the meal I had prepared.
To my amazement, it was actually good. Better than good, even. Delicious.
“Just sign me up for chef school now,” I told Henry, taking a bigger bite this time. “I’m practically Gordon Ramsay.”
Henry laughed. “What about me?”
“You were an excellent teacher,” I told him. “I’ll recommend you to everyone. You can continue to be my sow chef.”
“Sow chef?” Henry’s eyes bugged out a little and he choked on his food. “You mean sous chef.”
“Sous chef?” That sounded more like what they were always saying on those cooking shows. “It’s sous?”
“Yes, it’s French.” Henry coughed and pounded on his chest. His face turned red with laughter. “A sow is a female pig.”
“You definitely aren’t one of those,” I conceded with a grin.
“I think I need more wine,” Henry replied. He stood up and went to his bag in the kitchen. I tried to focus on my food, but I watched him open the bag. He reached inside and paused before moving his hand and pulling out something else. He brought out a second bottle of wine, which he opened and brought to the table.
We had used most of the first bottle for the lemon wine sauce on the chicken, so I didn’t feel like too much of a lush. Yet another perk of cooking my own food: more wine.
He filled up both our glasses before taking a long sip of his.
I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He wiped at his mouth with a napkin, reminding me that some people did have manners. He used his fork and knife like I imagined people would when dining with the queen of England.
I was just glad my father had taught me some basic table manners, like which fork to use for salad and how to tell which wine glass and water glass belonged to me at a table. We weren’t using any of those at our dinner, but I was glad I could at least pretend to be well-bred while I sat with Henry.
“Thank you for this,” I said softly, watching him in the soft candlelight. “I’m having a lot of fun.”
I loved the way he smiled. I loved the way the candlelight caught the reds and golds in his hair and made them sparkle.