name.”
As Gray talked, I helped him by organizing his ingredients in the order he would use them. We had rehearsed this bit, to have physical action during his explanation to the audience. I knew how to make pudding, but he’d briefed me on the particulars of his family recipe.
“The ‘spots’ in Spotted Dick come from the fact that it’s studded with currants and raisins,” he said. “Also, it can be made in the shape of a log and then sliced after it’s cooked, but I like to make it in what’s called a ‘pudding basin.’ ” Gray held up a round mold, about half the size of a Bundt pan.
“We start by sifting a cup of self-rising flour into a bowl, then we add the salt and half a cup of suet…”
Although I knew the answer, I asked Gray, “Where can people get suet?”
“Funnily enough, I buy my little tins on the Internet, but one can find it in British shops. You could even have a friendly butcher shred some up for you.”
“Suet is fat,” I said to the audience. “It performs the function of butter or solid Crisco. Roland, if people at home can’t write down your instructions, may I put the recipe on my Web site, www.DellaCooks.com?”
“I would be honored,” he said with an elegant bow.
I ran water into the Dutch oven Gray would use to steam his pudding, put it on the stove, and lighted the fire beneath it. It was another piece of business we’d preplanned.
Gray smiled at me in appreciation. “Thank you for the help,” he said. “You’re very gracious to this amateur.”
In my earpiece, I heard Quinn’s voice. “Ten seconds to commercial, Della… nine…”
“We have to take a little break now,” I told the audience. “Roland will keep working on his pudding and when we come back he’ll show you how to steam it.”
In the audience, a fifty-something woman in a bright pink pantsuit called out, “Yes!” Several other people laughed and clapped.
The camera lights went off.
I told Gray, “It sounds like you’re a hit.”
“Free books make friends,” he said with a wry smile.
As commercials began going out over the air, the audience in the studio could watch them on the large TV monitors, which were placed on either side of my kitchen set. Their purpose was to allow those on the premises to see close-up shots of the cooking in progress, which otherwise only the viewers at home could watch.
Gray strolled to the refrigerator on the back wall of the set and beckoned for me to join him. Puzzled, I moved over to where he was standing.
Gray leaned close to me and whispered, “I know that the plan was for me to be on the first half, and then watch the rest of the show from your director’s booth, but do you suppose you could let me stay down here, to help you prepare your stew?”
“Yes, of course.” I was happy to have him continue on camera, but he must have seen the question in my eyes.
“To be frank,” he said, answering the unspoken query, “I’m not entirely comfortable around your Ms. Tanner.”
I wasn’t going to say anything negative about Quinn, but I felt a sympathetic smile twitching the corner of my mouth.
“I’m happy to have your company,” I said. “This isn’t a scripted show, and we’re only shooting in one small set, so there’s no technical problem if you’re here. Stay near me and I’ll give you things to do.”
“Consider me your
“Deal. I have a favor to ask of you, too.”
“Anything.”
“After the show, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine. John O’Hara. He’s here tonight.”
“Ah, the man with the flying fist. Certainly. I recognized his face in the audience, but it took a few minutes for me to recall where I’d seen him before.”
I used the intercom microphone beneath the prep counter to contact Quinn.
“Little change of plans,” I said. “The audience likes Roland so much he’s going to stay down here for the rest of the show. I’m putting him to work.”
I half expected to hear Quinn object, but after a moment of silence, she said in an icy tone, “Take your place. Ten seconds.” She hissed the S in seconds, sounding like a snake whose nest had been disturbed.
When we were broadcasting again, I told the audience, “As soon as Roland’s pudding is steaming, he’s going to help me make our main dish, Italian Chicken Stew. It’s one of those meals you can prepare one day and keep reheating for the next two or three nights, and it just tastes better and better because the flavors soak in.”
The show went off without a glitch. I didn’t burn the chicken pieces I sauteed for the Italian stew, and Gray didn’t cut himself while he was chopping prosciutto ham and slicing red, yellow, and orange bell peppers for me. The show had been timed so that I could have done the chopping myself, but to make Gray look necessary, I wiped the stove top clean of grease spots from the sauteing, and brought the Dutch oven full of my completed Italian Chicken Stew I’d brought from home in my tote bag up to the counter.
“Here’s what our Italian Chicken Stew looks like when it’s finished,” I told the audience. Camera Two moved in for a close-up “beauty shot” of the stew.
In the show’s final segment, Roland and I chatted about pudding while we made the custard sauce for his Spotted Dick. Because what he’d demonstrated on the show was still steaming, Roland placed on the prep counter the Spotted Dick he’d made at home.
“That looks delicious,” I said sincerely.
“Something sweet is just the prescription to take one’s mind off the disappointments of the day. Or as a reward when things go well.”
“In other words,” I said, “any excuse will do.”
He chuckled. “Ah, Della, you have cracked my code, so to speak.”
The clock ticked down to the final ninety seconds. Roland placed his pudding on the crystal dessert dish he’d brought with him, and I ladled warm custard sauce over it.
As we’d planned during the previous commercial break, I took a handful of plastic spoons from a box in the drawer beneath the preparation counter, handed them to him, and told the audience, “Now Roland’s going to offer some volunteers a taste.” I was careful not to say, “a taste of his Spotted Dick.”
Most of the spectators applauded enthusiastically.
Jada Powell on Camera Two swung around and followed Gray as he strode to the front row of seats. With a theatrical flourish, he made a show of inhaling the pudding’s sweet aroma, then passed out spoons. He walked along the row, holding the plate, as people dug into the pudding. I saw appreciative nods at the taste from those with their mouths full.
As the end credits rolled over the scene, I was aware that Quinn did not instruct Ernie Ramirez, manning Camera One, to conclude the episode on me, as was the usual practice. Ernie must have realized that Quinn was punishing me, because he leaned around his camera and gave me a helpless shrug.
When the show was over, it took half an hour for Gray to finish autographing books and for the last of the audience members to leave.
The moment the final spectator had left the studio, Gray and I sat down on the stools behind the preparation counter. John O’Hara joined us and I introduced them. Gray’s response was warm. John’s was polite. The book was tucked under his arm, but John didn’t ask Gray to sign it for him.
“I’m sure Shannon ’s going to enjoy Terror Master,” I said to John. To Gray, I added, “John’s wife is one of your fans. Whichever of us buys one of your books first, as soon as we’ve read it, we pass it to the other.”
John speared Gray with what Eileen calls “the look that makes bad guys beg to confess.” Without preamble, he said to Gray, “How well did you know Keith Ingram?”
“I didn’t. Not really. We’d met, casually. In passing, so to speak.”
Uh oh. Gray’s tone was level-no nervous wobble in his voice-and he was meeting John’s gaze, but instinct told me he wasn’t telling us the truth. Starting back when I was a high school teacher, I’d noticed that when people
