The Recipes of Madame Powell

With both hands, Matthew Powell cradled a cheap water-glass full of a half-bottle of washington merlot, and stared at the red brick fireplace in his late father’s living room. Rarely could he enjoy sitting in the renovated living space of the victorian home, and now he would have to decide if he wanted to keep the property for himself, a prospect that daunted him. His father Jacob bought the house when Matthew’s mother had passed four years prior, and a change of scenery was necessary to adapt to life in Pine Grove without her. “Always go back to the source, that’s what your mother would say. This house,” Jacob described to his son, “Is also known as ‘Powell Place’ to the local historians.”

He had reached the legal drinking age last year, but he hardly tried any wine yet, or any other alcohol as well, having been warned by both of his parents that it might cause him to make mistakes. Today he returned alone to this charming house after seeing off his grandmother at the airport (she had stayed two extra days after Jacob’s funeral to discuss Matthew’s lack of plans), and he decided to try one of the bottles left in the basement, despite a nagging suspicion that he would not enjoy it. He still wore his coat and shoes, and managed merely to loosen two buttons before parking himself on the sofa for a private wake.

“I had to work hard to be a Chef,” the memory of Jacob’s voice remained fresh in his only child’s mind, “But much harder to have a family.” Matthew wondered what lessons from his father he would adopt now. What would he work so hard for? Jacob had left a more stressful job and almost entirely quit drinking only to wind up with a heart failure that buried him before his sixtieth birthday.

The living room fireplace did not function; it was closed off, as were the eight other fireplaces in the home, now decorative testaments to the original craftsmanship, yet this one had seen the only updates this decade. The upstairs ones were still covered by what looked to Matthew like cast-iron. The fireplace in the spare room upstairs, used only as an office in the recent years of Powell ownership, contained behind a cover what Jacob had told Matthew were papers prepared in case of his untimely passing. Instead of opening any of these old fireplace covers, the young man closed his thoughts off from dealing with more of his father’s business, and took a sip from the glass.

Jennifer Thompson, the human resources manager from the country club, knocked on Jacob’s, or rather Matthew’s front door. He had always been used to the sound of doorbells and this house never had one installed, making the knocking a special event when the rare visitor came. “Matt, I am sorry to drop by unannounced, but I needed to bring you something.”

“No no, it’s fine, come in,” he replied, and in the door she went with a swish of her bright yellow blazer. She stared for a second, but noticeably to him, at his glass full of wine, next to a half empty bottle.

“Can I get you a drink?” Matthew offered.

“No no, I have to go back to work. This won’t take long.” She set her blue leather tote on his coffee table and unzipped it. He could not stop himself from thinking it was odd how quickly and comfortably she had come into the house. He was unaccustomed to visitors of his own, and though she remained as professional in appearance and demeanor as ever, he could not remember ever having a grown woman, besides his mother, alone at home with him. Suddenly he regretted offering the drink, and then he regretted having one himself.

None of his concerns mattered after she pulled what looked to Matthew like a shiny yellow smartphone out of the tote and handed it to Matthew. He reflexively reached for it because she handed it over so conspicuously, but after holding it and examining the stamped letters reading “1 kilo” on it, he immediately realized this was no phone and he felt like something sinister had just taken place.

“I don’t understand,” was all he could think to say.

Jennifer sighed impatiently without breaking her smile. “Your father left this in the safe as a deposit for his stake in the business. I do not know what other financial arrangements he had made privately for you, but the club cannot in good conscience keep this. It’s yours now.” This was the first he heard of Jacob owning gold. He laid it down on the edge of the coffee table.

Seven years ago Matthew moved into their previous house with the family, after Jacob had promised to settle in the smaller town and spend more time at home. “That place almost killed me,” he had told Matthew, referring to the long work hours of his previous job and his tendency to imbibe too much of the bar’s inventory there. The few bottles currently in the house’s basement, and the one now open, were kept for “special occasions,” which meant that they did not get opened by people who worked all weekend in a kitchen.

Matthew started working at Gardenia Springs country club with Jacob a year before his mother’s fateful car accident, and he told himself at the time it wouldn’t last long. After she passed, he stayed longer, thinking his father needed the help. He wasn’t wrong. Jacob had crashed into the local culture with the notoriety of a five-million dollar a year kitchen behind him, and the locals clamored for his versions of their favorite dishes. While in St. Louis he had featured beef wellington and foie gras, in Pine Grove they wanted meatloaf and turkey with stuffing. “Nothing wrong with that,” Jacob used to say, “but people drive from all over the state to have us cook for them, all the while driving by a hundred other chefs with the same ingredients and the same recipes to get here.” Business had been good, and no one man could hope to run it alone.

At present Matthew did not have the official title of Sous Chef, although he functionally filled the role. Jacob had taught him that the primary skills he needed to learn in order to be just as good a cook as he was commitment, hard work and consistency. From all the years of work, and knowing how much revenue they had brought into Gardenia Springs, it was certainly possible Jacob had acquired a substantial bit of investment funds, even though Matthew previously believed most of the money his family had had gone into the house.

His thoughts drifted gradually back to the present moment, at which his first private encounter with a grown woman in his living room was drawing very near to an end. She thanked him for his time and stepped toward the door.

He muttered out a thank you and tried to think of something else appropriate to say. She pivoted around, and while tapping her index finger on her cheek, spoke once more: “I was hoping we could find a way to commemorate him at the kitchen. There used to be a little notebook of recipes he kept. Have you seen it? I think it was black.” She stared as if some excitement might explode out of her. “Of course, I understand maybe you aren’t sure right now. It’d be fun to frame it and hang it where he worked.”

While the gold surprised him, this notebook business felt inappropriate to Matthew. Feeling he had too much to deal with already, he burst out to her, “I really don’t know what you are talking about! I’ll need some time to look around.”

She never completely lost her smile. “Of course. Just let us know when you are ready to come back to work,” and then it was over. He double checked that the door was locked after she left, sat down on the floor by the coffee table, and looked at the gold and his wine.

“What should I do with this? Who else knows? And I probably should leave that glass alone until I have a plan,” He said to himself before considering his next course of action, which in his mind might have been driving to the bank, or perhaps to the club to ask what other secrets they had kept from him, but finally Matthew realized that it was time to go the upstairs office and remove the black fireplace cover.

The stairs creaked on the way, but the metal handle below the old chimney breast succumbed with little fuss or resistance. Held by andirons inside, a three ring binder lay, with neatly tabbed documents including legal and insurance papers. Matthew sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor to inspect the binder more closely. Before the penultimate tab, a black notebook was tucked between the laminated pages, which stuck slightly to the dark book as Matthew pulled it free.

He pried the cover of the book open and saw a page filled with six large words written in ink with an ornamented handwriting:

The Recipes of Madame Powell

The word Madame was written even larger than the others and with more curls and embellishments than the rest. Matthew turned the page and found a recipe for mulberry pie. It included notes such as look for the berries to blacken in summer, get them before the birds, and look high in the source for the gems. At the top right corner a scribbling of a twig with leaves and three berries decorated the recipe page. “Mom mentioned this pie when I was younger,” thought Matthew, although he had not previously considered that she had harvested ingredients herself. “Where do you find mulberries anyway?” He flipped several more pages to find other baking recipes, mostly for items he had also never had. The existence of a collection of his mother’s recipes surprised Matthew, because she had rarely cooked for him, but not nearly as much as the words written on the last page of the notebook. It had been scrawled diagonally and plainly, as if written in a hurry: Renee, How can I get Jacob to take back his bachelor name after the divorce? Should I return his deposit if he won’t? —Jennifer

The revelation of this note perplexed Matthew even more than the acquisition of gold. He folded the book closed and set it inside the binder, then laid it to rest back in the fireplace. Without returning the metal cover, he peeked out the window to see that Jennifer sat in her shiny white SUV, still parked in his driveway, applying lip gloss. “Still here, lady, you’re hiding something too,” he silently told himself, and after covering the fireplace, ran down the stairs and outside to approach her vehicle.

“Be careful where you keep that. It's worth more than this car,” she muttered while returning her gloss to a pocket in her tote.

“Why are you really here?” Matthew spewed out of frustration.

“So, you have the notebook after all,” Jennifer replied. “I’m not your lawyer, or your mom. Call me when you want to come back to work. You’ve been a good employee.” She began rolling up the window.

“Wait, where do I--”

“I’m not your mom,” she interrupted. “But at least you have the house. For now.”

Matthew watched the SUV depart from Powell Place, returned inside to empty his merlot into the kitchen sink, and held Jennifer’s delivery, wondering if he wanted it at all. He glanced out the window facing the backyard and saw what he realized after a quick online search was a flowering mulberry tree; it inspired in Matthew a new love for his mother’s enticing culinary finesse. “Gems,” he whispered. “What else are there recipes for in that book?”