Page 69 of The Prince of New York

All my siblings had played their parts in the man I’d become.

“The hardest thing in the world is to be a good father,” Vincent informed me in a gentle voice, and he rummaged through a huge paper bag labeled as sweet onions, setting five of them in front of me. “You’re going to have it harder than most fathers. Those girls need the sort of gentle hand I don’t think most people are capable of giving them. Me? My brats cause me trouble, and I will raise my voice at them and sharpen my tone. They, spoiled little shits that they are, laugh at me. But they know where the line is, and they toe it because I am raising them to do so. Iwantthem questioning my edicts as a parent. I also want them to respect my authority as the payer of bills, bringer of life, and the person who cooks them food they like rather than torturing them with foods they dislike. We don’t waste food in my house, and I’ve found I can absolutely win most arguments by informing them what the consequences of their behavior will be. Last night, we had clam linguine. Do you know what all my children hate? Clams. Even my wife hates clams. You know what everyone ate? Clams.”

“What did your wife do to get punished, too?”

Vincent laughed. “I didn’t immediately go into work yesterday upon hearing news of the kids. She yelled at me.”

I raised a brow. “It was your day off. You get those.”

“Ah, yes, but I am the master of all things soup. She was abused as a child, and she took her stress out on me. So, she requested punishment about an hour after we had our spat.”

Even I recognized when the man had gotten the wrong kind of idea regarding the sort of punishment his wife wanted. “Vincent.”

He grinned. “In good news, you just passed one of my tests. You recognized one of the common pitfalls of being a father. When a mother figure comes along, you will need to identify dangerous situations like that. And yes, she got what she wanted, but only after suffering through clam linguine first. We’re trying for another kid, although luck hasn’t been with us so far. Our youngest is a year and a half old, and we usually wait two years before adding to the fray. She’s worried about menopause, so we started a few months ago.”

“Make an appointment with Dr. Stanton or Melody,” I suggested. “It might have to wait until after my trip to California, but between the two of them, I’m sure they can handle any issues. And if you are concerned there might be complications during the pregnancy, just notify HR that your wife needs some extra care.” That was standard in the palace, although I found myself reminding hopeful parents-to-be to use the benefits we offered.

Times had changed since my parents had abandoned ship, and the palace staff often forgot that.

“I’ll do that, thanks. So, what do you know about cooking?”

“I can handle following instructions on prepackaged foods without issue. I use the kitchen at my apartment with frightening regularity, but I don’t know how to make anything from scratch.”

“You’re much better than the other royal disasters roaming around this palace, so that’s good enough. I’m going to teach you how to properly cut all the vegetables, because you’re probably doing it wrong. Texture is a big deal to kids, so learning how to cut vegetables properly will heavily lessen the risk of texture rejection.”

“Danielle and May are so starved at this point that I don’t think they care what the texture is as long as they’re being fed,” I admitted, and I sighed. “We suspect they only know how to eat soup right now.”

“In good news, soup is excellent for them. We can balance their nutritional needs well enough, and they’ll stay hydrated. You’re winning most of the battles and the war with this as a starting point. We’re going to make cheating soup to start with.”

“Cheating soup?” I asked, eyeing the onions. “My version of cheating is opening a can, Vincent.”

He chuckled, went to the kitchen pantry, and pulled out several boxes of liquid chicken stock. “After dinner, we will be making mass batches of chicken and beef stocks for the freezer. We’ll condense it, so all you’ll have to do is take it out of the freezer, add some water, and bring it up to a boil so the vegetables can cook. Today, we’re using boxes from the store. We just don’t have the time to make the stock properly, and this is good enough.”

“This looks deceptively simple.” I eyed the boxes of stock. “Isn’t that the hard part?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. The stockisthe hard part. First, we’re going to dice the onions. As the girls aren’t used to chewing much, we’ll work them up to chicken stew from soups. By the time we introduce stews to them, they’ll be used to having large enough pieces in their soup to be worth chewing. For now, we have extra cutting ahead of us.” Vincent proceeded to show me how to slice an onion, following the rib lines of the onion for the initial cuts before cutting them into tiny squares. The carrots, at least, were cut in a way I expected, relieving me that I’d accidentally gottensomethingright. The garlic threw me for a loop, especially upon learning I wasn’t supposed to just smash them with my knife and throw them in with the onions.

The garlic was to be sauteed last, and only until it became slightly fragrant.

Unlike my home cooking adventures, he had me prepare all the ingredients in advance, including the chicken, which we’d be pan roasting as legs and thighs. “Why not breasts?”

“The breasts are something we’ll use later as they gain a little weight. Dark meat has a higher fat content, which is what they need right now. Normally, I would make the soup with breasts, but they need the dark meat right now. The breasts have more protein, but they’re going to be getting their protein from shakes for the next few days, so we don’t have to worry about that quite yet.”

I eyed the pile of vegetables, which formed mountains in each of the preparation bowls. “This appears to be a rather insane amount of soup.”

“We’re going to be freezing a lot of it, as I want you to be able to stagger in here in the middle of the night, hit the freezer, and have them eating something within twenty minutes. And if you get peckish in the middle of the night, you’ll have a snack within your skill levels. For the next six months, we’re going to have a chef in the kitchen around the clock, and we’ll reevaluate things then. We absolutely do not mind royalty in the kitchen learning how to be independent people. Wedomind if the royalty run a high risk of burning the palace down.”

“I’m the first to admit that I’m all right with someone being around making certain I don’t burn the palace down from trying tocook.” I pointed at the pile of onions. “But why so many onions?”

“I am not sure why Dr. Stanton asked for there to be a high percentage of onions in the soup,” he admitted. “But it’s sweet onions, they’re tasty, and I can make this work, especially once we caramelize them. But first, we’re going to shake jars for twenty minutes or until we have butter, whichever comes first.”

“We’re going to do what?”

“We’re making butter. It’s fun, relieves stress, and tastes better than the shit that comes from the store. We need the butter to caramelize the onions. Just trust me.”

I considered the man through narrowed eyes. “This is appeasing the fact we couldn’t make stock for this, isn’t it?”

Vincent bowed his head, sighed, and after a few moments, he nodded. “It really is. We have plenty of butter in the refrigerator.”

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