Page 37 of Kept
Hollandaise
Mother Sauce 5: Hollandaise is emulsified, rather than reduced.
Ingredients:water, lemon juice, egg yolks, butter, salt, pepper
Method:
Heat the water and lemon juice, remove from heat and sit until just warm, add the egg yolks and whisk in a figure-eight motion.
The eggs can curdle. If the sauce breaks add heavy cream and whisk until sauce becomes smooth again.
Reheat slowly until thick, continue to sir. Remove from heat again and add butter gradually, continuing to stir until correct viscosity, season and serve.
If not using immediately transfer to a bowl and place in a pan of warm water to prevent sauce curdling.
10
I was still angry when I landed, and angry for the whole day before work started, but now, that anger has turned to worry.
Where can she be?
I’d spent two whole days in Vegas by myself after Margarita did not return from her tryst with Jerry, and I had to assume she would fly back separately when she did not meet me at the airport for our return flight.
But she was not home, and still has not returned home, and now I am standing at the canteen, it is past 10am and still, no Margarita.
Finally, feeling silly, I put a call into her mother.
“Hi, uh, Mrs Ramirez? Yeah, hi, it’s Josephine, Margarita’s roommate. Look I was just wondering if you have heard from her lately?”
By the time I hung up, I was really worried. Her mother was not, however. She said Margarita did this kind of thing occasionally, and there was likely no reason to be concerned.
But I am.
I’ve known Margarita for almost a year now, lived day in and day out with her. We have an understanding, we look after each other, watch each other’s backs. She would not just run off with Jerry, or anyone else, without letting me know.
I decide straight after work to put a call into Blake.
As I’m worrying and making the dough for the girls’ lunchtime brioche, I hear a throat clear and look up to see James leaning on the counter, his eyes serious.
“Josephine, I need to know about the journal you found.”
“James, I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to date you. I want you to stay away from me.”
“I understand,” he frowns, looking to the ceiling and back to me, “and I will stay away from you, just, please. I need to know something.”
“What?”
“What number is the journal?”
“For fuck’s sake, James. I grit my teeth and narrow my eyes at him. It isn’t dated, alright, it says it is Journal 499, his birthday, and it ends when he arrives here, in Boston. But I think you know that.”
As I say this, I surprise myself.
‘Do I really think he might have written this? Yes.’
Suddenly my sketchy thoughts about the manuscript, my dreams about James writing; they all start to make the hair on the back of my neck rise. I’m sure this is his work.
“Oh my God, it’s his latest one,” he says, staring right through me as though he is looking at something far away.
