A Deadly Éclair Read online

  Also by Daryl Wood Gerber

  Cookbook Nook Mysteries

  Grilling the Subject

  Fudging the Books

  Stirring the Plot

  Inherit the Word

  Final Sentence

  Cheese Shop Mysteries (writing as Avery Aames)

  For Cheddar or Worse

  As Gouda as Dead

  Days of Wine and Roquefort

  To Brie or Not to Brie

  Clobbered by Camembert

  Lost and Fondue

  The Long Quiche Goodbye

  A Deadly Éclair

  A FRENCH BISTRO MYSTERY

  Daryl Wood Gerber

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2017 by Daryl Wood Gerber

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-68331-341-0

  ISBN (ePub): 978-1-68331-342-7

  ISBN (ePDF): 978-1-68331-344-1

  Cover illustration by Teresa Fasolino

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 11

  First edition: November 2017

  To my family.

  I am so blessed.

  What a wonderful support you have been to me.

  I love you all!

  The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

  ~ Gordon Ramsay

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Recipes Included

  Eggs Benedict

  Balsamic Vinaigrette

  Onion Soup Gratinée

  Gruyère and Mushroom Quiche

  Steak au Poivre

  Mimi’s Seasoning Blend for Poulet Rôti (Rotisserie Chicken)

  Orange Cardamom Madeleines

  Orange Cardamom Madeleines: Gluten-Free Version

  Crème Brûlée

  French Raspberry Sour Cream Tart

  French Raspberry Sour Cream Tart: Gluten-Free Version

  Pastry Dough

  Pastry Dough: Gluten-Free Version

  Chocolate Éclair

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  “Bonjour, Mimi!” Heather Holmes, a lanky blonde in her forties with huge, wide eyes and long, curly tresses, breezed into Bistro Rousseau. She screeched to a halt. “Whoa!”

  I stared at the chaos in the center of my restaurant—well, it was almost mine; it bore my maiden name. I would own it when I paid off my benefactor, knock on wood.

  “What happened?” Heather asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t know we had tornados in Napa Valley.”

  “Very funny.” For the past hour, I had been rearranging the tables. In my haste, I had toppled a few of the cane-backed chairs.

  Heather’s giggles sounded so much like wind chimes, I was pretty sure an angel had just gotten its wings. “Actually, I like the way you’ve set things up.” She shimmied down the hem of her slinky black dress; it must have twisted up on her ten-minute drive to work. “Très intimate.” Heather didn’t have a wide French vocabulary. I didn’t care. She was a wonderful hostess and assistant. “Perfect for a wedding.”

  The wedding was exactly why I was rearranging. We were hosting our very first out-of-towners’ dinner for our very first wedding party. Bistro Rousseau, which was located in Nouvelle Vie—an unincorporated enclave in Napa Valley, north of Yountville and south of St. Helena, which boasted upscale eateries, inns, jazz clubs, and high-end shops—had only been open three months. We were growing in popularity, but my benefactor and mentor, Mr. Baker (Bryan) said that in order to make a splash, we needed to open the restaurant and Maison Rousseau—yes, I almost owned an inn, too—to destination weddings. And he knew just the celebrity who would want to book one. Angelica Barrington, the thirtysomething talk show hostess of Everybody Loves Angelica fame, was his niece. Bryan and Angelica’s father, a winemaker in the county, were half brothers. Same mother, different fathers.

  After Bryan had spent twenty minutes boasting about how wonderful Angelica was, I agreed. Honestly, could I refuse? I had seen her on a celebrity cooking show wielding kitchen utensils like a pro and instantly felt she and I could be kindred spirits.

  The wedding ceremony would be held tomorrow, Saturday, in the inn’s beautiful courtyard. Oh, how I wanted everything to be perfect. Needless to say, my stomach was in knots and my almost restaurant was a mess.

  “Do you want me to set up the wineglasses?” Heather asked as she stowed her purse in the safe that was tucked into the teensy coatroom.

  “That would be great!”

  The restaurant was small, but the many mirrors on the walls gave it a larger feeling and reflected the warm twinkle from the lights in the bronze-finished, candelabra-style chandeliers. The focal point, where Heather would set up the tasting, was a hand-carved pub-style mahogany bar I had imported from France. Bryan said, Go big or don’t go at all. I wasn’t accustomed to going big, but this time, I had, and I was thrilled.

  “Then help me fold the linens and put out the silverware,” I said. “Later, I’ll gather flowers for the crystal table vases and floral arrangements from the garden.”

  “You know,” Heather said, “seeing the chaos, I thought for a second that they had come looking for me.”

  They being aliens. She claimed they had abducted her on numerous occasions. It seemed to happen around this time of year, during June, when the weather in Napa Valley was pitch perfect, not too hot and not too cold, and the thriving vineyards and fertile orchards were at their greenest, preharvest. Glonkirks, Heather called her abductors. I wasn’t sure if she was pulling my leg. I mean, c’mon, I’d watched Star Trek reruns. None of it was true—was it? Heather related her experiences in exotic—and I mean ultraexotic—detail. True confession? I enjoyed the stories. They were fanciful, and I could use a dose of fanciful every once in a while.

  “When do they arrive?” she asked.

  They, this time, meaning the wedding party.

  “Around four PM,” I said. “Jo w
ill greet them, get them set up in their rooms, and direct them here around six.”

  Jorianne James, a.k.a. Jo, my best friend from childhood, was the reason I knew Bryan Baker. Long story short, a year ago I left San Francisco, where I had worked as a sous chef and then chef for nearly fourteen years and returned home with my tail between my legs to live with my mother. Quickly I landed a job as a Monday–Tuesday chef at a decent restaurant, but I blew that off when Jo introduced me to Bryan Baker, a longtime friend of her father’s. Bryan was a local entrepreneur in his midsixties who loved to help young people with promise. His many success stories included an art gallery owner, a vintner, a cheesemaker, and a dress designer. Somehow I qualified!

  A few days after our first meeting, Bryan informed me that he had purchased a bistro and the bed-and-breakfast next to the bistro. For me! Both places were in desperate need of repair—the front and rear patios begged for inspiration—but he would help me get the properties on their feet. Afterward, it was up to me to make them soar. I was terrified, but Bryan set me straight: Big risks reap big rewards.

  With his backing, I hired a staff, including a full-time chef, and we got to work. Nine months later, voilà! We had a restaurant and inn built in the style of Giverny. Monet was not only my favorite artist but Bryan’s, as well. Each building boasted a pink crushed-rock facade with green windowsills and shutters. Maison Rousseau featured a number of relaxing garden areas, all of which we named after Claude Monet’s family or his artistic friends: Renoir, Sisley, Bazille. In addition, behind the inn was an idyllic walkway covered by archways of climbing plants and flanked by colorful shrubs. Beyond that, a lily pond. Bryan grandly donated two of Monet’s lesser works, ones he had purchased from private collections, to hang in the inn’s foyer.

  Three months after we opened, thanks to savvy marketing—I was learning the value of social media—we now had a steady clientele, mostly locals. In fact, we had become quite the go-to place to chat about food, the community, and, yes, each other—otherwise known as gossip. At the inn, we dished up breakfast and brunch; at the bistro, we served hearty lunches and elegant yet affordable dinners. We weren’t quite ready for the Michelin review crew to come calling, but I was optimistic.

  “I hope everything goes according to plan,” Heather said. “What if—”

  “Stop!” I shouted. A flutter flitted through my stomach. I had a horrifying fear of the words what if. What if the bride hated the whole affair and panned us on television? What if, gulp, she bad-mouthed me to Bryan and he withdrew all of his funds? What if they found out I was a fraud through and through? No culinary school degree. No college degree. No—

  “Mimi, you look pale.” Heather ran to me and clutched my shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  I bobbed my head. Liar.

  “Listen to me,” Heather continued. “You are a talented chef, and you are an intelligent, creative being. Breathe! Remember when your dream started.”

  My love affair with food began when I was a preteen, twenty-three years ago. Prior to that, I was your typical picky eater. Carrots, ew. Pickles, ugh. Squiggly things like calamari, ick. My mother would coax me: Mimi, try this; Mimi, taste that. I refused. I squirmed. I made a stink. I went from thin, to thinner, to looking up the term anorexia and wondering whether I was a borderline case.

  “Mimi, are you breathing?” Heather whispered.

  I bobbed my head again. Liar. Fraud.

  “Repeat after me—‘I am an excellent chef.’” On occasion, Heather worked with a hypnotherapist, which might explain why she believed aliens had abducted her. My guess was that her doctor had implanted a false memory. I could be wrong. “C’mon,” she urged. “‘I am an excellent chef and a terrific, caring manager.’ Say it.”

  “I am” was all that popped out of my mouth because the rest of the memory was hurtling at me full force. At the beginning of seventh grade, something happened, and I began to see food in a whole new light. Maybe it was because my mother insisted that I learn how to make the five mother sauces that every girl of French origin needed to know—I was second-generation French. Whatever it was, the magic that happened when you put effort into something happened, and all of a sudden, food and cooking became fun. Flavors and textures came alive for me. Pow! I adored the aromas of fresh-baked bread and sweets and grilled anything. I couldn’t wait to handle a fresh fish or pie dough or cookie batter. And chopping vegetables rapidly? Let me tell you, it was a real turn-on. By the tender age of thirteen, I knew my destiny was to become a chef. As for property owner, restaurant manager, and wedding planner? My heart did a jittery jig.

  “Mimi!”

  “I’m breathing. I’m fine. Let me go.”

  Heather released me and twirled a finger in my direction. “Other than that wild gleam in your eyes, you look good. I like the ponytail.”

  I fingered my toffee-colored hair, remembering when I used to cut it myself to help make ends meet. See, at eighteen I desperately wanted to go to culinary school, but my family couldn’t afford it, so I watched cooking shows, pored over every French cookbook that existed, and went to work at a local diner. At twenty, on a wing and a prayer and with stars in my eyes, I moved to San Francisco. The first job I landed was as a sous chef at a second-rate restaurant. Next, I worked as sous chef to a celebrated chef—celebrated was code for crazy—at a snazzy restaurant. By twenty-four, I had graduated to full-fledged chef at a French restaurant. Every night I went home eager to start my own restaurant. Knowing I needed seed money, I started saving twenty percent of every paycheck. It was hard; I denied myself new clothes, rode a bicycle to work (which was good for the waistline), and cut my own hair—shaggy chic was a fairly good look on me. Fairly. Over the past year, I had let my hair grow to my shoulders, a much better style with my oval-shaped face. I usually wore my hair in a bun so a stray hair wouldn’t, you know, wind up in a salad or something, but I wasn’t going near food for a while.

  “I like the outfit, too,” Heather added.

  I didn’t need to glance down. I put on the same thing every day: white shirt, tan trousers, and suede clogs. I was not a fashion horse. I dressed for practicality. I had duplicate outfits in the bistro’s office in case I needed to make a quick change. My one fashion statement was the hot-pink tourmaline necklace my father gave me when I’d turned sixteen, the necklace I always wore because it reminded me of his stalwart belief in me.

  “Did you put on blush?” Heather asked.

  “No.” I rarely donned makeup.

  “Then use more sunblock,” she warned.

  Okay, I had to admit I liked a few minutes of unprotected sun exposure every day. I didn’t want to wind up with leathery skin; I simply needed a joy boost on occasion.

  “Is Chef C here?” Heather asked.

  “Yes.” Though I was the owner and no longer the chef, I set the carte du jour, and I would taste test to ensure quality, but Camille Chabot, a.k.a. Chef C, a talented French-born chef with twenty years’ experience and no accent—she had worked determinedly as a child to lose it—would do the heavy lifting. She could be a demanding woman, but she had a lust for food that was awe-inspiring. I was lucky to have found her.

  “What’s on the menu for tonight?”

  “For the appetizers? Gougères,” I said, pronouncing the word correctly: goo-zhehr. The singular and plural were pronounced the same. They were tiny cheese puffs that could be filled with anything. “And fig-and-olive tapenade on toast triangles. For the entrées, tamarind-braised black cod set atop a vegetable ragout, filet mignon with potatoes dauphinoise, or my specialty, rotisserie chicken.” Poulet rôti was a must for any French bistro. I used my own personal blend of twelve spices for the rub. I paired the chicken with pommes frites—french fries that I served extra crispy.

  “Soupe gratinée à l’oignon?” Heather asked.

  “But of course. The guests will have a choice between the onion soup or a house salad.” My mother had handed down the yummiest recipe for balsamic vinaigrette. A dash of wh
ite pepper gave it its zing.

  Heather stretched her long arms and yawned.

  “Uh-uh, none of that,” I chided. “It’s not yet half past ten.” We had to last until at least midnight. Luckily, I wasn’t much of a sleeper, not since I had fallen in love with food. I was always up before dawn, ready to cook with a flashlight if necessary.

  Heather yawned again. “Sorry. My husband insisted on reading his latest sci-fi thriller to me.” She claimed she was married, but I had yet to meet the guy . . . author . . . aspiring author. He had never been published. Was he real or a figment of Heather’s colorful imagination? Had her hypnotherapist implanted that memory, too?

  “Mimi! Yoo-hoo, Miss Rousseau!” My sous chef, Stefan, a young African American in his twenties, called from the entrance to the kitchen.

  I had reverted to my maiden name after the calamitous end to my marriage. Calamitous because—

  Stefan flapped his arms wildly. “Red alert!”

  “What’s wrong?” I yelped. My heart started chugging again. “Is there an emergency?”

  “Ha! Nope. I just thought it would be fun to send you into a tailspin.” Stefan could be a clown at times. His laugh was a rollicking guffaw worthy of a man twice his size. He was slim, thinner than Heather, but he had spine and could stand up to our demanding chef. Stefan hadn’t revealed his last name to anyone except me—he’d had to, for tax purposes—and merely went by Stefan. I understood why, and I would keep his secret. For now. For the record, he was one of the best sous chefs I had ever met. He could slice and dice like a Ginsu pro, and he had a flair for beauty when it came to plating. On his off hours, he painted watercolor landscapes. “Chef C wants someone to fetch rosemary from the garden. Stat! I would go, but I’ve got bacon sizzling for the salad.” The chef had the commanding air of a general.

  “I’ll get it in a few minutes.”

  “Swell!” He disappeared.

  The garden was located between the bistro and the inn. It was a sizeable patch, flush with summer vegetables and dozens of herbs. After fetching rosemary and flowers, I would head to the inn to check how things were going for the wedding. There was no rain in the forecast, so we hadn’t needed to rent a tent, but I wanted to oversee the setting up of the chairs and the gazebo where the happy couple would say their vows.