King of the Kitchen (23 page)

Lindsay took out a notebook and uncapped a pen, then looked up with an expectant smile. “Good thing I blocked out my entire morning, then.”

Duncan finally took a sip of his coffee. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Not even a little bit,” Beck confirmed grimly.

Chapter FIFTEEN

DUNCAN HAD
hoped once he and Beck issued a statement, things would die down. He and his father were chefs, for Christ’s sake. Who the hell cared about them? Beck was on national television, so Duncan understood his popularity. But Vincent didn’t even have restaurants outside the Midwest. Why would anyone in California or New York care about him?

But apparently they did. Or maybe the viral video of a fundamentalist father berating his bisexual son hit the right notes at the right time, and it didn’t really matter who Duncan and his father were, only that they’d fought over his sexuality and it had been caught on camera.

A week later, it still hadn’t died down. Duncan was getting calls from the
Today Show
and
Ellen
asking him to come on and speak, and Vincent’s business manager had frozen all of Vincent’s restaurant social media accounts because of all of the attacks on him. Public favor was mostly with Duncan, though there had been a few right-wing talk show hosts who’d congratulated Vincent on doing what was right and disowning his son over his sexual proclivities. A lot of the early backlash had been split, but now it was heavily slanted toward Duncan.

He’d had to make the drive downstate to talk to his mom a few days ago because she’d been getting calls from the media too. He’d been forced to tell her the whole story, and it had been terrible. The good news was she wasn’t going to be guilting him into reconciling with Vincent again. He’d never heard some of the words she’d used come out of her mouth before, but suffice it to say she was horrified when she heard what had happened with the prep chef when Duncan was seventeen, and equally angered to hear what Vincent had said to him at Zane’s restaurant.

Beck had come along with him, and that had been terrifying too. Laying himself bare for his mother and bringing a significant other home for the first time were two nerve-wracking experiences he’d like to never have to repeat.

He and Beck had taken the morning off just to have an hour or two to themselves. Or rather, Beck had taken the morning off. Duncan was still subbing in at Bar Rio, but that didn’t involve any kind of managerial tasks, so his mornings and afternoons were his own. He’d spent most of them tagging along with Beck over the last week, hiding from reporters in Beck’s office at the studio or the kitchen at Brix.

It should have been a recipe for disaster. Starting a relationship amid a media blitz and public scandal was crazy enough but then spending practically every day together? A few weeks ago Duncan would have felt nothing but pity for the poor soul who found himself in that situation, but now he was actually enjoying himself. Not the media parts, but the Beck part. Spending time together doing inane things, cooking simple meals at Beck’s before they crashed for the night, waking up insanely early in the morning so Beck could get to work. Duncan had jumped into the deep end, and much to his surprise, he was swimming along just fine. They were heading into the studio to film in about twenty minutes, and he was actually looking forward to it. The director didn’t allow any interruptions while they were filming, so there could be no reporters calling or even well-meaning friends checking in. He was more than ready for the break.

“You’re good with the script? I don’t want you ad-libbing the intro,” Lindsay said, typing furiously on her phone. Her office had been working overtime to keep up with all the influx of interview requests and other things since the scandal had hit. There had even been a query from another network about him and Beck doing a reality TV series about their relationship. Ridiculous.

“Yes, I’ve already signed in blood that I’m going to stick to the intro,” Duncan grumbled.

The writers had worked with Lindsay to put together a few-sentence statement thanking fans for their concern and asking for their understanding. He didn’t think it was going to do much good, but it certainly couldn’t hurt.

“If you don’t want to do it, I can,” Beck offered. He rested a hand on the back of Duncan’s neck, and Duncan relaxed into the warmth, letting it leach tension out of his shoulders.

“No, I can do it. And then we’ll cook,” he said, offering Beck the artificial smile Lindsay had forced him to practice earlier while she’d drilled him on the carefully worded statement.

“Nice,” Beck said, his lips curving as he fought a smile. Duncan was cute even when he was being petulant.

“We all set?” Bob asked, scanning the sound stage.

Beck nodded. “Yeah. Did Christian say he wanted to announce last week’s winner or are you doing it again?”

“I’m going to do it because I’ve done the others. We decided consistency was best,” Bob said.

Duncan doubted that was how the conversation had gone, but more power to Bob if he had the balls to stand up to Christian. Though he’d risen in esteem in Duncan’s eyes over the last week. Not only had he had Lindsay issue a statement from him supporting Beck and Duncan’s fledgling relationship, he’d also offered Duncan a job heading up one of his restaurants. Duncan had turned him down, but it had been a nice gesture.

The director clapped. “We’re on in three, two, one, go!”

“Thanks for tuning in to
King of the Kitchen
,” Beck said. Duncan grabbed his hand under the counter, and Beck squeezed back. “We’re into week three of our cooking challenge, and things are getting interesting.”

The camera panned a bit, and Duncan made sure he was standing on his mark. “Before we dive into that, I wanted to take a few minutes to thank viewers for their concern over the last week. Beck and I appreciate all the kind notes you’ve sent us. While your support means the world to us, we’re asking for privacy at this time. It’s not easy to start a relationship, and that goes double for doing it in the public eye,” Duncan said with a self-deprecating grin.

They’d decided not to mention Vincent or even address the altercation at all, though it was unlikely any fans of the show had missed it. Still, Lindsay said keeping the message positive was the way to move past it, and Duncan had very little positive to say about his father.

“And you don’t have to worry about our relationship affecting the competition, because I’m not going to take it easy on him just because he’s cute,” Duncan added, winking at Beck.

“I resent that. Maybe I’m the one taking it easy on you.”

Bob laughed and stepped between them, resting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Before we get started today, I wanted to announce last week’s winner. Duncan took the prize the first week, and last week they both had strong dishes, but the audience liked Beck’s the best. So you gentlemen are neck and neck going into today’s challenge.”

Beck took a regal bow, and Duncan laughed and swatted him lightly. “Congratulations,” he said.

“Thanks,” Beck said, grinning ear to ear. “Today we’re taking on shepherd’s pie, also known as cottage pie. For anyone not familiar with this hearty meal, it’s usually a meat pie filled with vegetables and topped with a crust of baked mashed potatoes.”

Duncan sat a finished shepherd’s pie out on the counter with a
thunk
. “When Beck says hearty, that’s code for
heavy
. Did you hear that thing when I put it down? It weighs a couple pounds.”

“And you’ll be changing that, I assume?” Beck asked, glancing over at him.

“I will. Today I’ll be making a beef in the sous vide, which is a style of cooking that allows meats to retain all of their natural juices and cook beautifully, and I’ll be pairing it with potatoes espuma and red wine caviar.”

Beck’s brows rose. “Red wine caviar?”

“You’ll have to wait and see with everyone else.”

“Fair enough. I’ll be lightening up this classic dish by turning it upside down. Instead of a topping of mashed potatoes, we’ll be putting some beef medallions in a crunchy potato basket and adding in a carrot puree and a nice red wine sauce.”

“A basket? Is that another name for a bird’s nest?”

“Pretty much.”

“I like it,” Duncan said, bobbing his head. “So let’s get started. We’ll get our beef lightly seared on the outside and then packed up and into the sous vide, which uses an immersed heater to bring the water to a gentle and constant temperature that lets the beef cook slowly and evenly.”

He checked the sous vide and added the beef, already sealed in the plastic bag, into it. “Now, an espuma is just a different type of foam, one with a bit more texture. Think of it kind of like a warm mousse. While I get the potatoes going for that, Beck’s going to tell you about his baskets.”

He watched Beck grate potatoes and get them onto the baking sheet, molding them around ramekins so they’d have the right shape. When Beck moved on to cooking his carrots and getting his beef medallions in the pan, Duncan grabbed his red wine and the ingredients he needed for his “caviar.”

“Right. So this red wine caviar is molecular gastronomy at its easiest and most impressive. Anyone can do this at home if they have the right ingredients. We’re using a good red drinking wine and two chemical additives that will help us shape it into tiny spheres that look like caviar and will pop on your tongue when you eat it, releasing the wine. Those are calcium chloride and sodium alginate.”

“Bless you,” Beck teased, and Duncan scowled at him.

“Whoever told you you were funny was lying, Beck,” he said. He turned to the camera. “We shouldn’t encourage him. Now, as I was saying, this is incredibly simple. We need to have a bowl with eighteen ounces of water ready for this, which Beck will fetch for me in penance for his terrible joke, while I show you what to do with the wine.

“We’ll mix the sodium alginate in our wine, being careful to get it nicely combined because it likes to clump,” Duncan narrated as he whisked the powder in. Beck set the bowl down next to him. “Thanks, you’re forgiven,” he said, laughing when Beck shook his head in exasperation. “We’ll mix the calcium chloride in the water. It’s going to help our little caviar pearls form when the wine hits the water.”

He loaded up a small syringe with the wine and held it over the glass. “The height you drop this from and how much you put in at once determines the shape and size of your spheres. Try to be as even as you can with your amounts because these look most impressive when they’re all the same size.”

He dropped a bit of the wine into the water, and it beaded up right away. He followed it up with a few more to show the process, then put the syringe aside and used a strainer to take the spheres out of the bath.

“We’ll rinse these and then they’re ready to go.”

Beck reached in and popped one from the finished pile in his mouth. He shuddered a little when it burst on his tongue. “I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting it to taste like wine, but it does. It’s kind of like—did you ever have those fruit snacks as a kid?”

Duncan laughed. “Gushers?”

Beck pointed and nodded. “Yes! A similar mouth-feel experience.”

“I suppose so. And that’s a good warning too. These look like candy, which can be good if you’re using the technique to spherify veggies to sneak them in so your kids will eat them because they look cool. But we didn’t cook any alcohol out of this, so this red wine caviar isn't something you want your kids eating.”

While Beck was busy assembling his potato baskets, Duncan pulled his beef out of the sous vide. He had one under the counter ready to slice, so he brought that out. “The meat is tender and soft but cooked perfectly,” he said, showing the cutting board to the camera when it panned closer.

“Ah, but it’s not caramelized and seared to perfection on the outside like this,” Beck said, showing off his beef medallions. Duncan had to admit they looked pretty good. “We’ll pull these carrots and stick them in the blender with a bit of beef stock to puree, season it up and we’re ready to go over here. How are you doing, Duncan?”

“Getting ready to make our potato espuma,” he said. “The key here is to mash our potatoes as well as we can, and then we’re going to run it through a chinois, which is just a fancy strainer, to get it as fine as possible. Then we’re going to add in cream and season the potatoes, and we’ll load it into our siphon to create our espuma.”

The foam was thick and exactly the way he wanted it, and Duncan grinned up at the camera. “We’ll top that with our beef slices and our red wine caviar, and we’re done!”

He put his plate next to Beck’s with a flourish.

“It’s almost too pretty to eat,” Beck said, looking at Duncan’s plate.

“And how do I eat yours? Cut into it, or pick up the basket?”

Beck snorted. “You’re a heathen. Cut into it, you Neanderthal!”

They each took a bite, and Duncan was surprised at how flavorful Beck’s beef medallions were. He’d have to give him this one—he hadn’t accomplished that kind of complex taste with his sous vide. Not that he’d tell the audience that.

“All right, we’re out of time for today. Thanks for inviting us into your kitchen, and don’t forget to vote!” Beck pointed at the counter where the information would be edited in. “The numbers and URLs for our charities are on the screen right now. And this week there’s an added twist—you can also vote for what classic you’d like to see us take on next week. Voting on that runs through Tuesday, so make sure you go online and make your preferences known. See you next week!”

As soon as the camera turned off, Duncan grabbed another bite of Beck’s beef. “This is delicious.”

Beck smirked. “I know. But I think you’re going to win with your fancy red wine caviar.” He poked at one and it rolled off the plate. “I think I prefer Gushers.”

Duncan laughed. “Me too. But this is classic modernist cuisine, so I couldn’t resist.”

“So you’re not going to call me old-fashioned because I prefer to drink my wine instead of chew it?”

“Nah. I happen to agree on that front.”