Marshall laughed while Max did a double take.
“I admire your pluck!” Marshall exclaimed through his laughter. “What, may I ask, compelled you to attempt Chef Max’s signature dish, in competition against Chef Max?”
“Again . . . didn’t know it was a competition. But it’s a tribute, actually. He and I do not always agree on food—in fact, we rarely do. But the first risotto I ever attempted was this one, from Chef Max’s very first cookbook.”
“Tell us your thoughts, Chef Maxwell.” Marshall crossed to the side of Max’s island. “Chef Hadley is preparing her dish in tribute to you. I can’t imagine you expected that.”
“No,” he replied softly. “I didn’t.”
What in the world is she up to?
Max weighed his options. If he had been the one with the plan to prepare Hadley’s signature dish, everyone would have thought he was being manipulative—and let’s face it, not all that long ago he probably would have been. And not all that long ago, he probably would have assumed that was what Hadley was attempting as well. She wouldn’t have been, but he would have taken it as an attack and responded in kind. The problem was how well he knew her now. There wasn’t an ounce of manipulation in it, and that made it difficult to know how to respond.
“I’m genuinely moved by this.” He hated that he had to reveal his true feelings about it all to Marshall and everyone else, but he needed Hadley to know. “I had no idea that Chef Hadley ever used any of my recipes.” He turned to face her and smiled. “I am a little depressed, however, at the thought of how old I must be now. Either that or you were shockingly late to the risotto party.”
“A little bit of both,” she countered with a smirk.
“And as for you, Chef Maxwell? What will you be preparing in competition against your own recipe?”
Well, he’d planned on preparing his signature wild mushroom risotto, of course. It was a lose-lose. Hadley was a brilliant, remarkable chef. He had come to know and truly believe that. But she wasn’t going to beat Max at that dish. He didn’t doubt her abilities for a moment, but he’d had ten years of perfecting that recipe before it ever appeared in the cookbook where Hadley found it. And he was shocked by just how much he didn’t want to upstage her that way.
At the same time, the thought occurred, she had to have known she couldn’t win. Was it some sort of olive branch? Did she want him to win so they’d be one-and-one in head-to-head competition? Was it all about balancing the playing field between them?
Except we didn’t know it was a competition! he had to remind himself. It was more than a little bit worrisome to him how quickly and easily he fell into the competition mind-set. Especially when Hadley was his competition, it seemed.
But as he prepared to say something that would hopefully be ambiguous enough but also somewhat realistic, one final thought popped into his mind. What if she hadn’t submitted ingredients for wild mushroom risotto, but had decided at the last minute to make use of her three allowed wild card ingredients from the Renowned kitchen? And she was banking on being able to find some wild mushrooms?
No, Hadley wasn’t manipulative, but she was driven and unexpectedly fearless in certain circumstances. Was it possible that she actually believed she could out-Max-Cavanagh Max Cavanagh? He didn’t have a difficult time believing that she could have rolled out of bed, ready to take him down—even if she hadn’t known they’d be competing.
“I’ll be preparing a Southern, down-home, comfort food risotto, Chef Simons.”
It was Hadley’s turn to whip her head around in surprise, and Max had to admit to himself that he was very gratified by her reaction. Whatever she’d expected him to do, that wasn’t it.
“Well, well, well,” Marshall reveled. “This is a fine turn of events!”
Max glanced over at Hadley, who was attempting to neutralize her expression, but it was plain as day. He’d taken her element of surprise and upped the ante.
“Chefs, you have one hour until your risotto dishes will be judged by a panel of experts. You may now begin.”
Max opened up his basket and quickly surveyed the ingredients. He was desperately hoping that the mushrooms were what was missing, so he could pick out all three of his wild card ingredients for his new dish, but alas, no.
“Which ingredient are you missing, Chef Maxwell?” Marshall asked.
He sighed and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “That would be rice, Chef Simons.”
“Ah. That will most assuredly be needed.” He nodded and flashed a smarmy smile. “And you, Chef Hadley?”
She was already digging through the kitchen, on the hunt, while Max was still standing over his basket, attempting to figure out what two ingredients he needed to get—along with rice, of course—in order to have any hope of turning his gourmet plan into comfort food.
“Well,” she drawled with a bit of a frustrated tone. “I’m missing wild mushrooms, Chef Simons.”
“I believe I spotted canned mushrooms in the pantry,” he contributed, most unhelpfully.
“Yes, Chef. I saw those too. But I would sooner turn this into a dessert risotto than ruin Chef Max’s legendary recipe that way.”
A smile spread across Max’s lips and he turned to look at her. She was on her knees in front of the open refrigerator, digging through the crisper. He glanced down at his own basket and the bowl of beautiful, fresh wild mushrooms he wasn’t going to use.
“Here, Had,” he called out as he set the bowl on her island. “Take mine.”
He’d shown her his hand and made it very clear that he’d had every intention of making wild mushroom risotto, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered apart from the expression of pure, unadulterated gratitude on her face as she climbed out of the fridge.
She ran over and quickly kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks, Max.”
Okay. That mattered too.
Of course, Marshall didn’t want to let it all be that easy. “That’s very generous of you, Chef Maxwell, but I’m afraid the rules state—”
“These rules, which supposedly exist for this impromptu competition, state she can take three separate ingredients found in the Renowned kitchen, I believe. My basket is sitting here in the Renowned kitchen, so . . .”
Marshall nodded, not looking at all pleased. “Of course.”
“But you’d better believe that counts as one of her three,” Max added, resulting in another beautiful grin from Hadley.
Max pulled out a Dutch oven as his comfort food plan began to come together in his mind and placed it on one of the burners. He hurried over and grabbed rice from the pantry, and then gathered chicken breasts from the refrigerator. His basket already had vegetables he could use and plenty of Parmesan cheese, and of course some white wine, so he decided to err on the side of caution and save his third ingredient for any potential inspiration that might come along. Bacon, perhaps.
But his mind was quickly changed when Hadley appeared in the open refrigerator door beside him. “You need butter,” she whispered.
“I’ve got olive oil.”
She nodded. “I know. But no brilliant comfort food has ever been created by a chef who said, ‘I don’t need butter. I’ve got olive oil.’” She shrugged. “That’s all I’m saying.”