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‘So, the way I’ve designed theFestive Feastitinerary is that on Monday we’ll make an early start and showcase a sumptuous Christmas breakfast which we can enjoy together afterwards. On Tuesday we’ll be preparing a mid-morning brunch, Wednesday it’s the star attraction of Christmas lunch, then Thursday it’s a festive version of Afternoon Tea, and finally, on Friday, we’ll be creating the canapés for the farewell drinks party.’
Claudia opened the file and handed Millie a recipe for chickpea and cumin croquettes with a glossy photograph attached. She could almost smell the Indian spices and garlic waft through the air and her mouth watered in anticipation.
‘Everything on the menu has been triple-tested apart from the four winning recipes from the villagers’ competition which is what we’ll be doing today. We have mini orange-marmalade roulades with dark chocolate ganache from Mrs Dartington who runs the village post office, and cranberry-and-white chocolate muffins baked in tiny terracotta pots with chocolate antlers stuck into the brandy buttercream topping, both of which we’ll be including in the High Tea tutorial on Thursday.’
Claudia selected another recipe from her file.
‘Then there’s these egg and smoked salmon savoury cupcakes served in extra-large egg cups created by Old Mrs Greenwood, and the fourth and final recipe is a fabulous selection of sweet mince samosas designed by Mrs Singh who’s the secretary of the local WI. I thought we could also make a few batches of my grandmother’s special-recipe gingerbread and then we can take everything down to the village hall for the party after the tree-lighting ceremony.’
‘Sounds like my idea of a perfect day,’ Millie sighed. ‘How many enthusiastic foodies are you expecting for theFestive Feastcourse?’
‘Eight. Two men and two women from the same law firm in London and their respective spouses. Leo Groves, the senior partner, and his wife Gina have rented a cottage in St Ives for Christmas and they want to surprise their family with a gastronomic banquet made by their own fair hands on Christmas day. The others just want to brush up on their skills and have some fun away from the daily grind to six o’clock.’
‘What time are they arriving?’
‘Around five this afternoon. Gina said they were all delighted to accept our invitation to take part in the tree-lighting ceremony so that should give them enough time to settle into their suites and wrap up warm before we make our way down to the village green.’
Claudia paused to flick her hair behind her ears, revealing a pair of chunky red earrings in the shape of poinsettia leaves that complemented her cream-and-scarlet silk scarf that she’d tied in a complicated knot at her neck. Millie glanced down at her own attire and cringed when a voice – very much like Zach’s – commented on her lack of appreciation for the season. She really must ask Tim if she could borrow a couple of his jazzy golf jumpers if she was planning on leaving the house at all during the next week.
‘Oh, who’s that ringing? It’s barely eight a.m.! Back in a minute. Why don’t you check through Mrs Greenwood’s recipe for the savoury cupcakes and see what you think?’
‘Sure.’
Millie ran her eyes down the hand-written recipe and smiled when she saw it was in pounds and ounces. Nevertheless, if the end result was as delicious as the instructions sounded, they would be onto to a winner. She replaced the precious scrap of paper in the plastic folder and decided to explore the bibliographic paradise whilst she waited for Claudia to finish her phone call.
She padded across the colourful Persian rug to the bookshelf next to the fireplace, her heart pounding in anticipation of what she was about to discover. Books of all shapes and sizes had been crammed onto shelves lining three sides of the room. The fourth was made up of a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the vast expanse of lawn at the front of the property, complete with upholstered seats where any ardent bookworm could while away the hours with their chosen literary indulgence.
She ran her fingertips across the protruding spines like the keys on a piano and smiled. To Millie, all books provided a portal into another world: but only cookery books could guide the reader in the art of moulding seemingly disparate ingredients into taste-bud-zinging perfection.
The library at Stonelea Manor was no ordinary library, more a cornucopia of brightly coloured gems waiting to be explored, to be freed from the prison of the shelf and their contents brought to life in the kitchen.
There were cookery books Millie had not known existed; more a narrative comment on society at the time of writing than instruction on food preparation. Some were well-thumbed, the best friends of the busy professional cook, others pristine. Some were a single copy, while others were represented in multiple editions, updated over the years. The diversity of the published subject matter amazed her. There were books in many different languages, some with glossy photographs, some without. Each book contained a nugget of hidden treasure, promising an insight into what keeps body and soul together in their corner of the world.
She selected a book at random –for how could she possibly be expected to choose?– and was just about to turn the page when she heard the door creak open. She looked up to see Claudia, her apricot lips pursed, and her forehead creased with anxiety. Two spots of colour highlighted her cheeks and her hand trembled as she fingered one of her earrings.
‘Claudia? What’s wrong?’
To Millie’s surprise, Claudia burst into tears, and she rushed across the room to her side.
‘I really don’t know why I’m crying. It’s not as though this hasn’t happened before!’
‘What’s happened before?’
‘That was Leo Groves on the phone. One of the women in his party is six months pregnant and her husband doesn’t want to risk driving from Kent to the Cotswolds in this weather. Their friends have decided to stay in Kent with them, so that means only Leo and Gina, and Mike and Marianne will be joining us this afternoon. I know I should have taken Tim’s advice and cancelled the course before we accepted any bookings, but as it was going to be the last one, I really wanted to make it the most fabulous one ever.’ Claudia’s tears returned and this time she let them flow unabated, heaving in lungfuls of air as she allowed her emotions to run free.
Millie squeezed Claudia’s hands and gave her the space to recover her composure in her own time. Concern whipped through her brain, and again a myriad of questions about what was going on with the cookery school’s future nibbled at her curiosity. But they could wait. What Claudia needed was something to divert her attention and Millie had the perfect solution. It was what she always did when life tossed a random grenade in her path.
‘Come on, I think a session of extreme baking is what we need.’
Claudia smiled, her strikingly green eyes lighting up immediately. ‘Agreed!’
Millie grabbed the file of recipes and followed Claudia back to the kitchen. She unfolded one of the cookery school’s logoed aprons and tied the strings securely around her waist.
‘Right. What shall we bake first?’
‘I think it has to be my grandmother’s gingerbread recipe smothered in lots of lemon icing. After all, that’s what started everything off at the Claudia Croft Cotswold Cookery School, and the Berryford tree-lighting ceremony wouldn’t be the same without it – paired with a mug of hot chocolate laced with brandy.’
Claudia placed a huge silver soup pan on the hob and got busy adding catering-sized tins of golden syrup and treacle to the melting butter and sugar, stirring the contents with a wooden spoon. ‘Look, there’s the original recipe for the gingerbread.’
