For the first time, she didn’t believe him.
They stood with the hippies and Palani as he introduced them. A bigger crowd than she expected sat in the stands and their cheers rose for Max, who waved.
She expected him to take her hand as they manned their stations, but instead he walked ahead of her.
Like a man to an execution. Wow, he was really wired. Or maybe tired. Or . . .
What if he regretted kissing her?
She pressed a hand to her roiling stomach. Smiled into the cameras. Game face—she had one too.
Then Palani spoke into the mic. “Today’s ingredients for the final round, the dessert course, are . . . kiwi, macadamia nuts, carob chips . . . and our challenge ingredient: Spam!”
Spam? She glanced at Max, who was frowning.
“Ready?” Palani said.
“We can do this,” she whispered to Max. He didn’t look at her.
“Go!”
Grace ran for her basket, turning over the ingredients. Kiwi and carob chips. They were like chocolate, and Spam was . . . it was soft, right? She picked up the basket, raced back.
Max looked almost white.
“What should we do?” she said.
“Uh . . .”
She wanted to shake him, or maybe slap him hard, but he was just staring at her, like a walleye out of water.
“Okay,” she said, “how about . . . chocolate . . . um . . . ?”
“Mousse.”
She met his eyes, saw a flicker of the man she knew. “Mousse. That’s good. And what if we candy the kiwi? I’ll brunoise it, and we’ll put it in the mousse.”
He nodded, enthusiasm lighting his voice. “Good. And we’ll roast the macadamia nuts, use them as garnish.”
“Max, you’re brilliant!” She wanted to kiss him.
Max grabbed the Spam, opened it, and dropped it in a bowl as she peeled the kiwi. He dumped the carob chips into a double boiler on the stove, stirring for a moment before he added the Spam.
She grabbed the coarse ground sugar and measured a half cup into a pan, added water, started it boiling.
Max took his chocolate mix off the stove. He disappeared into the pantry, returning with eggs and cream and adding them to the mix.
Meanwhile Grace dropped the kiwis into the dissolved sugar mixture, turned it to low, and grabbed the macadamia nuts and some butter.
Behind her, she heard Max begin to whip the mousse. “Don’t forget vanilla,” she said as she chopped the nuts. “Maybe even some honey.”
“Yes. Right.”
She threw two tablespoons of butter into a hot pan, tossed in the macadamia nuts, a handful of kosher salt. She put the salt down, then after a minute, rescued the nuts, setting them to cool.
“How’s the mousse?”
“Nearly whipped.” He took the kiwi off the stove, spooned it out, and set it on a baking tray, then shoved it into a dehydrator. “Thirteen minutes.”
Grace grinned at him.
He grinned back, and the memory of holding his face in her hands stirred inside her.
Across the stage in the next kitchen area, they heard a crash, then swearing.
The hippie wife stood holding a blowtorch, her tray of Spam on the floor.
A twitter went through the crowd as the husband and wife scrambled to find a new can of Spam and rescue their dessert.
Grace turned away and headed for the dehydrator as Max added another half cup of sugar to the mousse.
The kiwi seemed sticky yet dry enough to brunoise. She dropped the fruit onto the cutting board, julienned it, then turned it and cut it into tiny sections.
“Six minutes,” Palani called.
Max had the mousse in custard cups, chilling in the freezer. Grace grabbed the sugar, the macadamia nuts, and tossed them together.
They were working without comment now, Max grabbing the plates. Grace took the custard cups from the freezer and plated them in the center. Max dabbled the fruit on each one while she dusted them with macadamias.
They stepped back just as Palani called time.
The hippies had barely finished plating, their presentation a mess.
“I think they made a kiwi cobbler with blackened Spam,” Max said.
“We got this,” Grace whispered. She reached for his hand, but he put it behind his back, chef-like.
Okay.
She held her breath as the hippies presented their dessert. Ten thousand dollars. She hadn’t truly given the money any real thought until now. Ten thousand dollars would help her buy equipment, even rent a commercial kitchen. She could be in business by the fall . . .
“Interesting,” Rogers said. “I’ve never had blackened Spam before, but you managed to pull it off, even with the fiasco.”
“I like the macadamia crust on the cobbler—I just wish your dish had a bit more pizzazz,” Tonie said.
How hard was it to make cobbler, really? Oh yes, they had this.