Free The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal

what you thought of the building.”
    “I made some notes.” She grabbed her notebook and ran through her initial impressions, touched on some of the ideas she had for remodeling, and listed the most urgent expenditures. “Also, I met Ivan.”
    His body loosened. “Ah.”
    “He’d crashed in the staff room and smelled of three weeks’ hard drinking, but he did assure me that he was the best chef that ever lived.”
    Julian grinned. “And?”
    “I said that would be impossible because I am the best.”
    His laughter was as bright as poppies. “That’s why I hired you. Chutzpah.” He sipped the beer, and rubbed his belly. “Let’s eat, shall we? That smells so good my stomach is growling.”
    Elena jumped up, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry. Of course. We can talk and eat. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
    His hand closed around her wrist. “Don’t,” he said.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Flutter. Worry, start the servant-master thing. I hate it.”
    Trouble bloomed right there, the two of them standing too close with the smell of Elena’s posole heating the air. She saw the faded scars of childhood acne on his lean cheeks, faint now, but once not so. She saw the weary thinness of the skin beneath his eyes and the creases along his mouth. He was older than she by more than a decade. He’d been through three wives, one of them twice. She caught a sharp taste of sour cream and potatoes—latkes, was that what they were?—Jewish food. Of course.
    In his turn, his eyes showed nothing, only that liquid blackness, focused on her face.
    “Where did you grow up?” Elena asked him, moving away.
    “New Jersey.”
    “Really? You don’t have that accent.”
    “We moved to Pasadena when I was twelve.”
    She flashed a smile over her shoulder. “And you fell in love with movies.”
    “I bet you read that in a magazine.”
    “Maybe.” She ladled the stew into the bowls, and garnished them very simply with tiny rings of fresh scallion and bright red minced tomatoes and just one strip of chile, roasted and spun into a ring. She carried them to the table.
    Julian bent into the bowl. “Beautiful,” he said, inhaling.
    “One more thing.” She fetched a tortilla warmer and carried it with an oven mitt to the table, then settled across from him.
    He rested his wrists against the edge of the table. “Tell me about this soup, Chef.”
    She sipped her beer without hurry. “Pork posole, a New Mexico stew, served with fresh corn tortillas.”
    “And this is your favorite meal?”
    “Well, comfort food, yes. Made from my grandmother’s recipe.”
    “Very pretty.” He bent over his bowl and inhaled the steam, evaluating it. Then he picked up his spoon and dipped it into the stew and took a bite, his eyes on the bowl. Elena noticed the high bridge of his nose, the way the hair at his crown shone against the light. “Oh yeah,” he said, and bent into it again, taking a more generous bite this time, looking at the ingredients in his spoon for a moment. Nodding, he pronounced it
“Very
good.”
    She nudged the dish of corn tortillas toward him. “Try one. Homemade.”
    “Also Grandmother’s recipe?”
    “Well, not exactly.” She pointed to the masa on the counter. “Add water and cook. The hard part is getting the shape. Took me years to master it.” She took one out and examined it, smooth and supple, then tore out a hunk to make a cup, and dipped it into the stew. It was her first real bite, not counting the samples tasted while cooking.
    —tender explosion of salty broth, subtle sharpness of sweet chiles, pungency of onions and plenty of garlic, and the smooth texture of hominy and the grainy pleasure of fresh corn tortilla—
    She closed her eyes. “Perfect.”
    It was a recipe that never failed. Julian tucked it away with gusto, proving the rule, and Elena relaxed a little. She ate without speaking, enjoying the moment—the fat candles burning, the light fading over the mountains outside the windows,