“Have you ever been to India?” she asks.
Manoj shakes his head. “Papa went back about ten years ago, when his papa passed away. I had never met my grandparents, so it didn’t make sense for me to go with him. Besides, someone needed to stay back and keep an eye on the restaurant.” He gestures around him and then heads to the small pantry in the back to gather some spices for the shaaks, seemingly not interested in continuing the conversation.
Sophie cannot imagine a life in which she had never met her grandparents or relatives. Even if her fois drive her mad, they are family, and she can’t fathom her childhood without them. Her entire existence had revolved around family until she came to France last week.
She finishes the salad and covers the large steel bowl with plastic wrap and places it off to the side.
“Can I help you with the shaaks?” She gestures to the medley of vegetables that are ready to be sautéed in large skillets with a combination of turmeric, red chili powder, ground cumin, cinnamon, fresh green chilis, and mustard seeds.
“I should be okay,” he says as he drops some black mustard seeds into the hot oil and they start to sizzle and pop.
“Let her help you, yaar,” Naresh Uncle says as he enters the kitchen with bags of groceries.
Sophie and Manoj startle and turn toward him. They had not heard him come into the restaurant. Manoj reluctantly shifts to the right to make room for Sophie to join him.
“That’s okay, Uncle,” Sophie says. “Your arms are full. I will help you put these away.” She grabs a bag from him and nearly drops it, surprised by the weight.
Naresh Uncle smiles at her. “You are too eager,” he says. “It’s flour, so the bags are quite heavy!”
Together, they manage to get everything to the pantry, and by the time they return to the kitchen, it is heavy with the smell of sautéed spiced potatoes. Sophie never tires of these familiar foods and aromas. One of the best perks of the job is that she gets to eat comforting Indian food and drink chai when she’s there. While traditional Gujarati food is not on the menu, Naresh and Manoj often make it for them to eat in the back as their dinner. Sophie’s taste buds were awakened by the smell of khichdi when she arrived for her shift tonight. The simple meal of rice, lentils, and potatoes pressure-cooked with cinnamon, cloves, red chili, salt, lemon, ginger, and garlic made her feel most like she was back in Ahmedabad. It was the ultimate comfort food to her, the one her fois made her when she was sick, paired with tart homemade yogurt and mango pickle on the side so she could mix them in the proportions she desired. At Taj Palace, she does not have to worry about language barriers or fear that what she has ordered might have meat or alcohol or some other forbidden item. She has taken for granted how easy it was for her to do basic things like eat in restaurants in Ahmedabad. The entire city catered to her caste and diet, and she had taken that luxury as a given until Paris.
“He will come around,” Naresh Uncle says to her.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Sophie says.
“No, he’s thirty-two years old. He needs to learn to adapt. I won’t always be here to smooth things over for him, and he must learn that.”
Sophie smiles politely, wondering if Papa thought the same thing of her before he died. Did he question whether he had sheltered Sophie too much? Did he regret it if he had? Did he think her incapable of adapting to life if the path before her took any unexpected turns? Perhaps he would have been right to question those things, or perhaps he had underestimated her and would be surprised to see her coping now.
“Manoj,” Naresh Uncle says in a stern voice. “Show Sophie how to make the cauliflower shaak.”
Manoj pulls out the spice dabba and places it on the counter next to the stove and makes room for Sophie. She awkwardly joins him, feeling like she is caught in the middle of a long-standing papa-son battle, but her embedded obedience has her following orders.
“I need to tend to the books,” Naresh Uncle says as he leaves the kitchen for the small office tucked away in the back. “Manoj, you’ll be okay here, right?” His tone has a warning note in it.
“Oui, Papa. I will show Sophie the shaaks,” he says.
After Naresh Uncle leaves the kitchen, Manoj teaches Sophie the spice ratios for the cauliflower shaak: equal parts turmeric and red chili powder and twice the amount of salt and the blend of ground cumin and coriander. She mentally notes them, as numbers and proportions have always come easily to her.
After they work in silence for a while, she asks him, “Have you heard of a place called Bistro Laurent?”
Manoj shrugs. “Why?”
“I need to go there after work,” she says as she removes cauliflower florets from the head with a sharp paring knife, cutting from the base rather than the head, as Manoj had shown her the day before, so that the florets stay intact and the counter is not littered with cauliflower crumbs. She knows she’ll always cut cauliflower this way now.
“Where is it?”
She gives him the street Cecile told her. He stops stirring the first batch of cauliflower in the large saucepan.
“You’re going to go there after work?” he asks.
She nods.
“Why?”
Now she shrugs, not wanting to tell him the truth.
“You shouldn’t go there that late. It’s better to go during the day.”
“It’s not too far from here,” Sophie muses. “It should be okay to make a quick stop on my way home.”
“It’s not very smart for you to be walking alone at night around there.”
Sophie tries to brush off his warning. “I need to find someone. It should only take a minute.”
“Someone who can’t wait until tomorrow?”
Sophie realizes it is better to tell him what he wants to hear, so she says, “Maybe you’re right. It can wait.”
Manoj looks at her pointedly. “Your choice.”
The two work in silence again, and she begins to roll out the dough for the naan. He takes it from her and slaps it against the side of the clay tandoor in the corner of the kitchen.
As she walks past the small office where Naresh Uncle is working, she sees him poring over ledgers with his head in his hands. His expression is pained.
“Is something wrong, Uncle?” she asks, wiping her hands on her apron as she stands in the doorway.
He forces a smile and looks up at her. “No, Sophie. Nothing to worry.”
She sees a stack of bills next to him and knows the finances of a small restaurant like Taj Palace must be difficult. The place is rarely full of guests, and Indian food doesn’t seem to be that popular with the locals, as they don’t get many delivery orders either. She knows Naresh Uncle has had the restaurant for many years, so she assumed they had worked out a system, but she sees the worry on Naresh Uncle’s face, and it is unmistakable. She has seen that look on countless clients of her accounting firm. She has helped restaurant owners in India rebudget their money to have the right ratio between food costs, labor, and marketing. Taj Palace has very little in the way of true labor costs, save Sophie, and she feels guilty knowing she is taking money from Naresh Uncle when it seems he has very little to give.
She considers the best way to offer some advice or help without insulting him but doesn’t see a good opportunity now, so she moves back to her place in the kitchen and starts making mental notes of where the money in the restaurant is allocated. As she moves through the kitchen, she thinks about how much food in the pantry is wasted due to spoilage. She thinks about the cost of the menu items and how they compare to the portion sizes. Naresh Uncle’s portions are quite generous, and the patrons of the restaurant leave a lot of food waste. She suspects that would be an easy fix to increase profitability. She thinks through the number of menu items and knows many are hardly ever ordered but require ingredients on hand in case they are.