Perfect (3 page)

T  H  R  E  E

My kitchen in Provence has been the center of my universe since I bought La Petite Pomme twenty-five years ago. I am rooted to the earth in this wonderfully sunny room—as though an invisible magnet holds me in place. It has since the first moment I stepped through the door. Even for all the years I lived in London and could only visit the farm for an occasional week or two throughout the year, just transporting myself mentally to my kitchen brought me serenity and focus.

The walls are yellow, the cabinets white, and the counters are blue-and-white tile. My stainless-steel refrigerator door and the quilted stainless panel behind my six-burner range gleam—thanks to the elbow grease my houseman, Pierre, puts into them—as do the copper pots and pans stacked conveniently on open shelves beneath the counter. We are old friends. Beautiful food and cooking bring me almost as much pleasure as precious gems, which, until I met Thomas, provided the only long-term relationship I’d ever fully committed to in my life.

I have so many things to say about food and its place in our lives, I could probably write a book. Let me simply say, there’s more to life than watching one’s weight. I’m not saying we should all just eat whatever we want whenever we want, that would be dangerous and foolhardy, but I was born with an extra twenty-five pounds. Now, I could lose the weight and spend the rest of my life watching everything I eat, denying myself the pleasure of things I love for the sake of . . . what? Wearing a bathing suit? And where on earth would I do that? I’ve never been in the sun for more than a few minutes at a time, and even then I’m completely covered. No. I choose to accept that I am beautiful enough as I am. I have plenty of beauty to go around. I’m more interested in taking full advantage of all the richness life has to offer because you never know. You might be the next in line to leave the planet—wouldn’t you hate to do that having had just celery, carrot sticks, and a yogurt for lunch?

Much better to have just had a steaming bowl of thick vegetable soup, a crusty baguette with butter to sop it up, and a glass of clear, ruby red burgundy.

Anyhow, many of the most pleasurable things we remember through our lives have happened around the table. You might not remember the rainstorm that drenched you on the way to meet your lover for lunch, but you will remember sitting and staring at him across the table, the tall windows fogged and streaked from the weather. The laughter and the wine and the pleasure of the meal. The excitement of the conversation and the stolen touch of your knees beneath the table and the entwining of your fingers across the top. You might not remember specifically the dense flavor of the herbed butter on the grilled steak, the salty crunch of the pommes frites, the tartness of the braised leeks, and the wonderful dense fruit of the Bordeaux, but you will never forget the mounting anticipation of dessert or the chocolates and Champagne as you loll under the covers in the room upstairs afterward. You will always remember that the entire occasion was centered around the sheer sensuousness and intimacy of that wonderful, unforgettable meal, whatever it was.

A pot of lamb-and-olive ragout simmered on the stove, filling the kitchen with the aromas of fresh rosemary and garlic. I put on a clean white chef’s jacket and checked my lipstick before going to work. I always have to be completely squared away before I can do anything, including cook. My kitchen and my makeup must be in perfect order. I looked wonderful—healthy, calm, relaxed. Except, unfortunately, I saw just the slightest dart about my expression. I didn’t want to look myself in the eye too closely. I was afraid of what I would see. A little too much sparkle, possibly. That little fizz of excitement brought on by the queen’s misfortune? The possibility that I might have the opportunity to touch the Cambridge and Delhi Durbar parure and the Lesser Stars of Africa with my own two hands, see them face-to-face? Hide them in my pockets?

No!

I separated three cloves of garlic and crushed them with the side of a knife, separating them from their skins. I dropped the cloves into the mortar and sprinkled them with salt and mushed them around a bit before adding olive oil and pulverizing them completely. I set them aside and then began to assemble the ingredients for a chocolate soufflé.

Soufflés are a staple of my repertoire. When in doubt, or a small hurry, a cheese soufflé, a fresh green salad, and a bottle of burgundy are always the right solution. And when it’s cold and storming outside, there couldn’t be a finer combination than rich lamb stew, an arugula salad, crispy garlic crostini, a big bottle of Syrah, and a mouth-watering chocolate soufflé with Grand Marnier cream.

The Lesser Stars of Africa.

How on earth did he get away with such a robbery? Even if he was her closest aide, the security around the queen and her jewelry is among the tightest on earth.

The queen’s collection was the finest in the world—dozens of magnificent, irreplaceable pieces that I knew by heart. I could name and describe practically every single one of them in intricate detail, as well as the permutations of each: which brooch came apart and became ear clips or the twinkling centerpiece in a tiara. Which ones hooked together to make a stomacher—a grand, complicated cascade of jewels falling from the center of a monarch’s bust to her waist, a creation seldom seen today at public affairs—as opposed to a corsage, an elaborate piece draped from side to side across the corsage of a low-cut or strapless gown. Often, a jeweled corsage could also double as a necklace.

For centuries, the royal family has had a staggering stockpile of jewels, but Queen Mary raised the bar when it came to assembling a massive and breathtaking collection of large, and often priceless, stones. The majority of her efforts—in addition to the Romanoff pieces—comprise the current queen’s favorite jewels.

What a wonderful coincidence that many of the largest diamonds in the world, including the largest diamond ever discovered, the whopping 3,106-carat Cullinan—uncut, it was the size of a large brick—were discovered in English colonies during her husband, King Edward’s, reign. What a terrible waste it would have been if the reigning queen hadn’t cared about the unprecedented, blinding haul that poured through her door, as though Ali Baba’s cave were being delivered to her palace every day. I like to think that the fact that she personally received all 102 cleavings of the Cullinan as a gift from the South African government made her as giddy as she could get. I’m quite sure she dreamed about them and fondled them and loved them more than she loved her children, even more than she loved her dogs.

The Cullinan cleavings—in the gemstone business,
cleaving
or
cleavage
is the term used for rough diamonds that have at some time in their history been cleaved from a larger stone—are all numbered: The 530-carat Cullinan I, the Greater Star of Africa, sits atop the royal scepter like a transparent, slightly blue, baseball-sized pear. The Second Star of Africa, the 317.4-carat Cullinan II, is in the imperial state crown, placed there in 1911 by George V for his coronation. And so on and so forth down through the Cullinan number 102, which I must admit I have no idea where it can be found today. Some lesser royal’s lesser brooch, no doubt.

Queen Mary had power, vision, and a will of iron. In her official Durbar portrait—where she wears the now-missing Cambridge and Delhi Durbar parure—there is no question that she is empress. Although she was petite, she had the attitude of a giant.

I love to study portraits and photographs of her—I have never seen such a stern, inflexible countenance. And, in the few images where she appears to be trying to smile, it’s clearly such a distasteful, unnecessary,
unfamiliar
exercise that it’s agonizing to look at—she always looks as though she’s just taken a bite of a pickle. She was aloof and unreadable. Did a real woman’s tender heart beat behind that battleship of a bosom or had the circumstances of her position, duty, and life force it to become as impenetrable as lead at an early age?

Her family had been publicly humiliated when she was a young woman, just sixteen. Her father, Francis, duke of Teck, and her mother, Princess Mary Adelaide, had lived way beyond their means and were financially supported primarily by Mary Adelaide’s brother, the wealthy duke of Cambridge. At some point, brought on by I don’t know what monetary crisis, the duke of Cambridge had had enough. With Queen Victoria’s full knowledge and support, he demanded that the Tecks give up their “grace and favor” residence at Kensington Palace, publicly auction their furniture, and move to Florence, which they did, and where they managed to survive for a while on a very tight budget.

I suspect after that, Queen Mary’s only real pleasure came from her jewels; they were her lovers and comforters. They kept her warm on cold nights and secure from revisiting the mortifying, impoverished circumstances she suffered as an impressionable and possibly sensitive young woman. Her jewels gave her power and independence. They would never let her down.

Queen Mary and I have a lot in common.

F  O  U  R

I removed the lid from the stew pot and let a billow of fragrant steam envelop me. I stirred and then tested a piece of lamb, cutting it with the edge of my spoon. It was as soft as butter. I put the lid back on and lowered the heat. I turned the oven to 375 degrees and double-checked that every soufflé ingredient was laid out in proper order.

There are a number of things you need to know about making a chocolate soufflé. Unless you’re a very gifted cook, you can’t just assume it’s like anything else and jump in and get it together. After years and years of experimenting, and experiencing one version of a flop after another, I now follow exclusively Julia Child’s chocolate soufflé recipe. For me it is foolproof. This is a very different creation from other dessert soufflés because chocolate is heavy—you use potato starch instead of flour to make the roux, three rather than four egg yolks; it will need ten to fifteen minutes longer to bake (up to forty-five minutes); and the temperature of each element must be just right. One more thing: no matter how many times you’ve made a soufflé of any kind, do not talk to anyone while you are preparing it. The steps are easy to do and easy to follow, but they are precise and cannot be shortcut, tinkered with, or relaxed about. Just keep your eye on the target, there will be plenty of time to talk later when you’re all sitting around admiring the airy extravaganza and praising what a genius of a cook you are. I’ve always forced myself to adhere to this rule of total concentration, but today it was a struggle to keep my mind on the subject at hand and from sailing off into one scenario after another of how this person, this footman, could have absconded with such a huge haul from his queen. It was unbelievable.

I buttered a six-cup soufflé mold and, in another allowance for the properties of chocolate, sprinkled it with flour, not sugar.

I took a large, sharp knife, slivered three and half ounces of semi-sweet chocolate off a one-pound block, scraped it into the top of a double boiler over scarcely simmering water, and added a little espresso.

St Moritz. One of the most exclusive, expensive resorts in the world. Thomas obviously didn’t have a clue what he was saying when he said “St. Moritz” and “unlimited budget” in the same sentence. But, then again, if the queen were paying . . . was there something else to this? Something Thomas hasn’t told me? What did he mean when he said he’d performed a number of covert services for the queen over the years?

I stirred the starch and milk together in a saucepan, added a little sugar, and let them come quickly to the boil. Within seconds it was a thick, gluey mess. I immediately pulled the pan off the heat and beat in the hot, melted chocolate, laid a few pats of butter over the top, and set it aside to cool. Letting this mixture reach close to room temperature is one of the key steps to a successful chocolate soufflé.

Now for the eggs. Five whites into a large bowl and three yolks into a small one. I threw away the other two yolks. Some cooks keep extra whites and yolks in the freezer for future use, but when I need them, I need them and I can’t use them if they’re frozen, and that’s assuming I even remember they’re in the freezer in the first place.

A large suite at the Palace Hotel. I have a policy about traveling: I’m not interested in staying anywhere that isn’t nicer than my own home. But from what I’d heard over the years, I was quite sure Badrutt’s Palace would come close.

The egg whites quickly came together into stiff peaks before I added a little sugar and by then the chocolate batter was cool enough to receive the yolks without cooking them. In they went, whisked until well blended. Then the egg whites folded in delicately. Then the whole affair went into the baker and into the oven.

I sliced a loaf of bread for the crostini, laid the slices on the grill, and kept a close eye on them while they browned.

“I thought a nice fat Syrah would be perfect with the ragout,” Thomas interrupted my reverie. He set a bottle of 1999 Chapelle Jaboulet Hermitage on the counter and began to remove the capsule.

“Absolutely.” I brushed the toasts with olive oil, scrubbed them vigorously with sliced garlic, and sprinkled them with crunchy crystals of Fleur de Sel and ground pepper.

Well, it can’t hurt to ask a few more questions, can it?

By the end of lunch, he’d sunk the hook in fast and reeled me in. Thomas can be very persuasive. I agreed to take on the assignment.

The soufflé was perfect. We ate it in bed with a bottle of Champagne.

I slept little that night. I focused instead on creating a feasible strategy and scenario, and each time I created a plan, I ran through it from beginning to end, testing every possible angle and pitfall. Many ideas were discarded, but finally, about two-thirty in the morning, all the pieces fell into place and after another couple of hours of testing its merits, I felt confident I had a bulletproof strategy. It would be complicated and possibly even dangerous, but it would work. I got up and made a pot of coffee and sat quietly in the living room, just staring across the now moonlit valley, testing and testing, examining every contingency.

Pierre, my houseman, arrived at seven to drop off the newspapers, croissant, and baguette. I was already dressed in my favorite pink warm-up suit and soft leather ballet slippers.

“Pierre,” I said. “I think Monsieur has time to look at the new tractor-mower this morning. Does that suit you?”

He nodded.

“Good. I’ll let him know.”

After breakfast, Thomas and Bijou left for town to pick up the mail and to meet Pierre at the tractor dealer in Salon. They would be gone for at least two hours.

As soon as his Porsche disappeared down the drive, I went into my bathroom and locked the door. I pushed the rug aside and pressed a tiny, invisible button that is flush with the bottom of the window sill. With a scarcely distinguishable click, a panel of floor tiles was released. Beneath it lay a large safe containing my emergency stash—millions of dollars in diamonds and cash, both U.S. dollars and euros, dozens of identities, passports, driver’s licenses, license plates, as well as other critical tools of my trade: my highly prized jeweler’s tools that fit so familiarly and comfortably into my hands, it’s as though they’re physical extensions of myself, night-vision goggles, digital scanners, and indestructible, undetectable space-age-plastic lock-picking sticks, to name a few. I’m slightly ashamed to say I haven’t yet had an opportunity to tell Thomas about this safe or, actually, about any of the secret vaults I’d had built into the structure of the house when I bought it. One day I must. Possibly.

The section of tile swung aside smoothly and I knelt down on the floor, leaned over, and entered the electronic code. Seconds later, the seal released and the vault opened with a satisfying hiss—the most beautiful sound a jewel thief can hear. A breath of cold, sterile air blew over my face as I hefted up the heavy door and locked it into place, much the way one opens up and secures the bonnet of a car to check the engine. Then I sat back on my heels and ran my eyes across the twelve large safety-deposit-type boxes that were lined up vertically. I removed the boxes one at a time and withdrew what I needed to complete my mission.

Next, a thick shawl draped around my shoulders, I tiptoed through the melting slush across the gravel stable yard to the garage. I backed my British racing green Jaguar XJ-8 convertible out of its space and then pushed a small button concealed behind the track for the automatic garage door. A large section of floor opened hydraulically, revealing a secret stair that leads to my archives—arguably the most complete library in the world on the subject of jewels, gems, and the people who own them. I quickly located and copied every image and description I had of the missing loot.

Finally, I went to my main jewelry safe, which is hidden behind the kitchen pantry, and pulled out a few especially impressive wintertime pieces.

By the time Thomas got home, lunch was on the stove and everything was secure in the false bottoms of my Hermès canvas-and-leather overnight cases.