The Key Ingredient Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fleur de sel is one of those small touches that elevates an ordinary dish. It’s something Gran would call a key ingredient. The flaky character of this salt makes for a delicate finish. Don’t bother using it in cooking, because it will only melt and salt the food. You want it to rest like weightless snowflakes atop the food, dissolving on the tongue at first bite and melding with the sweetness of the syrup.
    It’s doubtful that Fletcher knew anything about fleur de sel, but as an eighteen-­year-­old boy, he knew that when you come into the sugarhouse after working in subzero temperatures, and the whole front of you is damp from spilled sap, and a girl gives you a warm, salty-­sweet maple-­pecan bar, it’s like spending a few minutes in heaven.
    Never let anyone tell you that food isn’t a kind of love.
    Yet even though I loved Fletcher Wyndham with every cell in my body, I lost him—­not just once, but twice. Blame it on youth, or on bad choices or rotten luck or unfortunate timing; a broken heart doesn’t care how the love got lost. And I don’t mean lost like losing your car keys. I mean like losing a piece of yourself so that you don’t feel whole anymore. You walk around with a part of yourself missing, the way Fletcher’s dad is missing his leg—­the incident that touched off a chain of events no one in Switchback could ever have foreseen.
    After loving someone the way I loved Fletcher, it’s hard to open up again and let anyone else in.
    There are things a person can’t leave behind, even when a relationship ends. You keep bracing yourself for the next disaster, the next problem, the next betrayal.
    Gran always said you can’t spend your life mired in regrets. You have to move forward, so that’s what I did. I managed to put myself back together, eventually. I managed to move on, even though it meant heading across the country to LA and totally changing the course of my life.
    Now I look at Martin, who is intently listening to the director. Martin must feel me looking at him, because he offers his trademark heart-­winning smile.
    Maybe yes, maybe no.
    Â­People who work with me on the show think I’m all that and more. Annie’s Yankee determination, they call it. She gets things done. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She’s like the Energizer Bunny .
    What they don’t realize is that most of the time, all that energy they admire so much is driven by fear and insecurity. In this business, you can’t let anyone sense any kind of weakness, or you’re culled from the pack and left behind. As far as anyone knows, I’m a homegrown success story with a real shot at creating a hit TV show and a bright future.
    That’s what I thought, too. It’s all been going extremely well . . . but now that we’re here with cameras rolling, I can’t help but feel a sense of impending disaster.
    The weather sucks. The snow has melted prematurely this year, something we didn’t anticipate. The pristine winter woods is now a dun-­colored swamp of bare maples, strung together with plastic tubing for the running sap, which doesn’t exactly create the homey image of those old-­fashioned collection buckets ­people picture when they think of Vermont maple syrup. The sugarhouse, where the magic is supposed to happen, turns out to be too noisy and steamy for the crew to film. The lenses keep fogging up and the crackle of the fire and the clanging of utensils interfere.
    When Melissa says something perky and friendly to Kyle, trying to draw him out, he stares at her blankly, clearly at a loss.
    â€œSo your brother,” she whispers to me later. “He’s incredibly good-­looking.”
    â€œThanks,” I reply. “His wife thinks so, too.” Melissa can’t stand being single. She’s told me so herself.
    â€œI’m not hitting on him,” she insists, dabbing at