“Competition for second, maybe.” Tristan rolled his eyes. “Feeling good?”
“Not as good as I did yesterday. But okay. I’m probably not going anywhere.” It felt a lot moreprobablythan it had when he’d talked with Tristan the day before, or even an hour ago. He had to have earned himself some credit with the focaccia, though. It had been even better than when he’d made it in his practice days, and it had been a good hank of flatbread then.
“Okay, that’s time!” Sylvia clapped her hands up at the front of the room. “Roll your rolls onto their display racks, and then we’ll roll them on up front.” She smiled right up until the director came out, then shook her head. “Can I reshoot that later? That was bad improv even for me.”
Jacob nodded. “No problem.” He looked around at everyone. “Five minutes, then we’ll reset for the final shoot.”
Henry nodded, as though they hadn’t heard some variation of that spiel every three days since they got to San Francisco. He tapped his rolls again to make sure nothing had magically gone wrong in the past five minutes, which it hadn’t.I think I’m a little too concerned. Then he transferred everything to his two big platters.
The set smelled absolutely divine. The past few filming sessions, there’d always been an underlying scent of char. Someone had inevitably burned something, at least a bit. But not this time.Guess we’ve weeded out the rabble.
In any show like this, even with the most accomplished chefs in the whole world, there would be some people who would bend to the pressure of being on national TV, or wouldn’t handle cooking outside their own kitchens or being away from their own business well, or would just hit a plain old streak of bad luck. Once they were gone, the real competition could start.
Consider it started.
“Good luck.” Tristan winked at him, smiling. “You’ll need it to do better than me, after all.”
“Hey, let go of the cocky schtick. That’s mine.” Although seeing him open up and smack talk was awfully endearing. And Henry would have taken any excuse to see him smiling. It brightened up Tristan’s face, brought out his dimples, and made it hard to believe he was the same semi-dour introvert Henry knew.
“Okay, guys. Let’s get going.” The director stepped off the set. “In five, four, three, two—” He pointed to Sylvia.
She smiled for the cameras. “Okay, then. Katherine. Let’s bring your rolls up to the front and see what we can see.”
Katherine passed by Henry on her way up, and he had to admit they looked a ton better than when he’d tried to help her. Maybe Dorian knew magic. If nothing else, he seemed to have straightened out whatever-the-hell problem Katherine had been having. Of course, she’d been doing fine up to the rolls too, so she was no longer out of the running the way she had been the past few days.
When she went by the front station, he noticed that Willa straightened up and her mouth seemed to turn down, though Henry was too far away to be sure. Something about Katherine had her annoyed. Annoyed enough she wasn’t pretending for the cameras, anyway.
Eli tore off a row of Katherine’s rolls, then split them up. “They’re nice. Potato rolls, correct?”
“Yeah. Garlic and herb potato rolls.”
“They’re nicely uniform, and I can smell all the garlic and the rosemary already.” He split the roll open and held it up to his nose. “Good, strong aroma on this.” He prodded the roll, pulled it apart. “I would have expected more moisture and give on the inside, however. Especially from a potato roll. This is almost crumbly. I’m guessing you overbaked it, but I’m a pastry chef, not a baker, so I’ll let Dexter take a look at it.”
“No, I agree.” Dexter tore off a bit and tasted it, then nodded. “It’s a good flavor, it’s a good chewy crust, but the interior is almost stale. Obviously it’s not—it has that good fresh-bread flavor—but the texture isn’t helping you. Cooked about five or ten minutes less, these would be a fine roll.”
“Exactly.” Rita nibbled some gently. “But itishard to go wrong with rosemary and garlic.”
Katherine’s shoulders raised slightly, her spine straightening. But she said nothing.
“Thank you, Katherine.” Sylvia smiled, production assistants carried everything off, and Henry prepared to carry all his shit up to the front.
A few minutes of reset, then Sylvia started again. “Henry, roll on down and show us what you’ve worked up.”
He balanced both platters on his arms, then carried the lot up to the front and set it all down. No nerves fired in his stomach or tingled across his skin. He felt almost as calm as he had during the cake round. More so in some ways—with cakes, he’d known he had a shot at taking first, sothathad been on the line. Today, he felt safe, but not like he could take the top spot.
Dexter grabbed the rolls and handed them out this time. “Now these look suspiciously like challah.”
“They are challah.”
Dexter smiled slightly and his eyes narrowed. “With butter?”
“With margarine. Pareve margarine.”Bless you, Eva Rosenbaum.“I’m not an animal.”
“Good man.” He tore his roll apart and sniffed the yellow interior. “I’m always a butter fan... with the exception of challah. It makes that little bit of difference.” He ripped off a sizable chunk and played it around his fingers. “A good bake. Moist, eggy, which I happen to like in a challah. It’s not too dense, so you managed to get a good rise in spite of the extra eggs.” He popped the manhandled piece into his mouth and, for a few moments, Henry’s stomach twisted and clenched. Just in case he’d managed to do something wrong like not add any salt.
“It’s a good challah. Not the most innovative roll out here, but to get that proper rise on a loaf with that much egg and margarine in it in that amount of time? It’s a solid showing.”
“I agree.” Rita smiled sweetly with a bitten roll in one hand. “The crust isn’t as hard as challah would normally have. It strikes a nice balance between a roll and a traditional bread. It still has that beautiful color to it.”
