Chapter Text
The morning that Melinda May announces to her staff that they are going to get reviewed by a critic from SHIELD magazine it is a crisp and golden autumn morning, the kind that has Jemma dreaming of the kind of autumnal dishes she could put on the specials menu for the week.
‘Which critic?’ Bobbi asks, from her perch on May’s filing cabinet. She swings her long legs sending dead, wet leaves drifting down from the soles of her boots onto the carpet.
‘Not sure. Phil Coulson didn’t send me a name.’
‘Hold on, hold on!’ Daisy dumps her bag on May’s desk and begins rifling through it. ‘I think I have a copy of their latest issue here…’
Pumpkin and garlic risotto, Jemma thinks to herself, leaning against the door. But with rosemary or coriander?
‘When are they coming?’ Elena asks, peering over Daisy’s shoulder as she flicks through the magazine furiously.
‘Tonight.’ The skin around May’s mouth pulls taunt as she says it, but other than that she betrays no other outward sign of nerves.
Rosemary, definitely.
‘Tonight?’ Bobbi sounds horrified as she hops off the cabinet to join the others at the desk. ‘What, and we only get ten hours’ notice?’
‘Another restaurant they were reviewing backed out last minute,’ May says. ‘They still needed to fill their feature, and we could always do with the publicity. Profits have been down this month, not by a lot, but enough.’
Elena mutters something under her breath in Spanish that none of them want to translate, and then she jabs at the magazine page in Daisy’s hands. ‘There! That’s him.’
‘Leopold Fitz,’ Daisy reads. ‘Food columnist.’
If she has the time today, Jemma thinks, she will nip out to the food market, see if she can pick up a pumpkin or two for a good price. It would be a fantastically seasonal special for the evening.
‘Is there a picture?’
‘Nope. Not even a twitter handle.’
‘Seriously? What modern journalist isn’t on twitter?’
‘I don’t know, one who’s, like, ninety, maybe?’
Maybe she could pick up some fresh garlic at the market too. Perhaps even some spring onions…
‘I realise that its short notice,’ May says, ‘but providing service to customers is your jobs. This is just another day at work. Leopold Fitz is just another customer. You can handle this. Simmons?’
Jemma blinks, the sound of her name drawing her back into the room at last. Her brain speeds up, finally processing everything that has just been said. She swallows, tucking her thumbs into her palms nervously.
‘Yes, May?’
‘You can handle this. Right?’
And then suddenly they are all looking to her: May, Daisy, Bobbi and Elena. As the head chef in charge of the kitchen, most of the responsibility for tonight is about to fall squarely on her shoulders. But, then again, on what night did it not?
Taking a deep breath, Jemma forces her head upwards and gives her team an easy smile.
‘Of course I can. After all, what could go wrong?’
Two and a half hours into the evening rush, Jemma is beginning to wish that time travel existed, so that she could go back in time to that morning and clamp her hand over her own mouth in order to stop her uttering the words that had seemingly jinxed her for the whole day.
Apparently when cooking a risotto for a magazine’s food critic there were a lot of things that could go wrong.
To start with, the pumpkins she had bought at the food market were bland, watery, and a little bit bruised on the inside. There had been no time to head back and get any more, so she had just had to dice them even smaller than she normally would and throw them into the sizzling roasting tray to hope for the best.
After that, the bottle of olive oil had slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor, covering the linoleum with a thick layer of oil. Even now, an hour later, Jemma was still finding herself slipping on her feet as she spun from the fridge to the hob.
Then, disasters had come in alarmingly fast succession – her rice had stuck to the bottom of the pan, the spring onions had gone brown too quickly and when she goes to melt the butter in a fresh frying pan, the butter spits, jumping out of the pan and scalding the back of her hand.
Jemma winces, trying to ignore the pain as she takes a small spoonful of the risotto up to her lips and tastes. She sighs, tossing the spoon back down onto the surface in frustration.
She should have used the coriander instead.
Across the kitchen, Daisy stands by the door, anxiously biting her nails. Since the critic is coming tonight, May has decided to take over her usual job as front of house, leaving Daisy to drift about the kitchen as sous-chef to a head chef desperate to be left alone. Her friend is bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and the movement at the corner of Jemma’s eye is horribly distracting.
‘Daisy, darling,’ she says with a forced lightness, ‘I could do with that pan being washed, would you mind…?’
Daisy, visibly perking up at the idea of having something to do, takes the pan from her and carries it to the sink.
‘Everything is going to be fine, Jemma,’ she says, scrubbing at the pan with fresh vigour. ‘Trust me, you’ve got this.’
Jemma has to bite her lip to stop herself from wailing that she doesn’t have this, not at all, and that she is quite ready for somebody else to step in and handle it from here on out, thank you very much. But she knows that Daisy is only trying to reassure her, so she manages a smile in response.
Suddenly, the kitchen door bangs and Elena all but falls inside carrying a tray of empty plates. Inwardly, Jemma groans; usually she is delighted by how fast the head waitress could move about the restaurant because it means that her food has less time to go cold before it reaches the customers. Today though, Elena’s speed only means that she is running out of time.
‘He’s here.’
Jemma feels her heart sink as Daisy’s jaw drops beside her.
‘Is he? Already?’
Elena nods, and there is a gleam in her eyes that Jemma really doesn’t like.
‘Bobbi is getting him some wine, and I have his order…’
‘Is he actually ninety?’ Daisy demands, dropping the frying pan back into the soapy water and hurrying across to peer through the small circular window in the kitchen door.
‘Oh, no.’ Elena is grinning, and she can’t quite seem to stand still. ‘He is most definitely not ninety.’
Daisy is on her tip toes peeking through the window and she gestures behind her. ‘Jemma. You have got to come and look at this Fitz guy.’
Exhaling deeply, Jemma shakes her head, counting to five to steady herself before she speaks. ‘I can’t, Daisy, I need to work. Can you bring me the bowl I had warming?’
Grabbing the oven gloves, Daisy darts across to the grill and removes the bowl, bringing it over to the counter. Taking a brief moment to push back her tears, Jemma spoons a portion of the risotto into the bowl, finishing it off with a swirl of cream and a fine grating of parmesan.
She takes a step back and examines the end result with Daisy and Elena.
‘Dios mío,’ Elena mutters in dismay, and Jemma is rather inclined to agree with the sentiment.
Of all the dishes she has produced during her many years inside the kitchen, few have looked quite so unappealing.
‘What,’ she asks hopefully, ‘did Mr Fitz order?’
Please not the risotto.
Elena is still staring down at the bowl in front of her mournfully, as if she is already planning the displays of flowers for Jemma’s funeral.
‘The risotto.’
Behind her, she hears Daisy clap her hand over her mouth and Jemma is just about ready to scream herself. But she is the head of this kitchen, responsible for the dinners of dozens more diners still tonight. And so she can’t.
‘Well then,’ she says with as much brightness as she can muster as she gestures to the bowl. ‘There it is!’
Elena throws her a look, one that makes Jemma feel like she has moved on from flower arrangements and is now trying to decide what to say in her eulogy, before picking up the plate and leaving the kitchen as quickly as she had arrived.
Making her way back to the counter, Jemma sinks down heavily onto her stool to keep herself from falling over on her wobbly legs.
‘You never know,’ Daisy says helpfully. ‘Maybe he likes his rice overdone!’
With a groan, Jemma drops her head down onto the counter, landing her forehead slap bang in a pile of pumpkin seeds.
An Evening At Melinda’s (Just Don’t Call Her That)
When I was told that the restaurant I was reviewing this week was the little known establishment known as Melinda’s on Cavalry Street, I had high hopes. The place is quietly known for its laid back atmosphere and high quality cuisine, and I was looking forward to a night experiencing this first hand.
Sorry to say, I didn’t.
The evening started off well. I was greeted at the door by the owner (note: she did not seem to appreciate my considering us on a first name basis so soon into our acquaintance. I quickly reverted to the more acceptable ma’am instead) and was shown to my table, before being served a glass of Merlot and offered the menu. Things went rapidly downhill after making my choice.
I had the seasonal special: pumpkin, garlic and rosemary risotto. A culinary concept that had potential to be an exquisite dish but, like most of the evening, fell so far short it was hardly worth trying at all. The pumpkin was tasteless, the rice overdone and coriander would have been a much better complimentary herb.
What made the night even worse was that the staff seemed to know exactly how badly things were going, and made no visible attempt to hide it. The waitress’ hands shook as she served me and I could see the front of house slamming her head repeatedly into the kitchen door from where I sat. Also, I’m fairly sure the wine server was trying to get me so drunk I wouldn’t remember what I had eaten.
Looking back on that risotto, I can only wish that she had succeeded.
‘Invite them again,’ Jemma pleads.
May looks up at her from the desk; a copy of the newest issue of SHIELD laid out flat in front of her. Even the sight of it makes Jemma want to wince.
When it had first come out she had accompanied Daisy, Bobbi and Elena to a ceremonial burning of the issue in the kitchen, Daisy and Elena glaring at the smouldering shards of paper as Bobbi stood on a chair wafting the smoke away from the smoke detectors. But not even that had managed to take the sting out of the words and the humiliation is still making Jemma’s heart quicken a week after the event.
Not since her very early days of culinary school had she received an assessment quite so scathing.
Giving her a look somewhere between exasperation and compassion, May shakes her head. ‘Simmons…’
‘Please, May.’ Jemma takes a step forward, widening her eyes at her. ‘I’m better than that, you know that I am.’
‘I do know that,’ May agrees. ‘And so does everyone else working here, and, most importantly, so do you. You don’t need some random journalist from SHIELD to tell you that for you to know that it’s true.’
Jemma bites her lip at the reminder of the old lesson, the one May has been trying to teach her since the moment they met. She couldn’t cook to please everyone, she knew that now. But she still can’t shake off the hot flush of embarrassment over the review, and she knows that there is only one way she will ever be able to.
‘Jemma,’ May says, a little softer than before as she takes in the look on her face. ‘It’s alright. They’re just a small, backstreet magazine, and we’re just a small, backstreet restaurant. The review isn’t going to hurt us. If anything, it’s already done us good, getting our name out there. Profits are up 0.8% this week so far.’
Taking a deep breath, Jemma raises her eyes to meet her employer, one of her oldest and most trusted friends. ‘In that case,’ she says, as evenly as she can. ‘You’ve got nothing to lose by inviting them again, have you?’
May’s eyebrows narrow, and Jemma almost loses her nerve at the look on her face, but she stands her ground even so, holding her breath. After a few seconds, May gives a sigh and, without breaking eye contact, reaches across her desk for her phone and dials a number.
‘Hello? SHIELD magazine? This is Melinda May, calling from Melinda’s Restaurant. Put me through to Phil Coulson. I have a proposition for him.’
The speaker on the other end of the line says something, and May rolls her eyes.
‘No, not that kind of proposition.’