Katie's Cornish Kitchen
About the Author
ROSIE CHAMBERS loves writing uplifting, feel-good stories set in sun-filled locations around the world. Her stories are filled with fun, friendship and foodie treats, which Rosie hopes will bring a smile to her readers’ faces. She’s always in the market for quirky stationery and is never happier than with a pen in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. You can follow her on Twitter @RosieCbooks
Also by Rosie Chambers
A Year of Chasing Love
Katie’s Cornish Kitchen
ROSIE CHAMBERS
HQ
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2020
Copyright © Rosie Chambers 2020
Rosie Chambers asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
E-book Edition © July 2020 ISBN: 9780008364779
Version: 2020-05-07
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Author
Also by Rosie Chambers
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The Cornish Kitchen’s Recipes
Extract
Acknowledgements
Dear Reader …
Keep Reading …
About the Publisher
To Ben, with love
Chapter 1
Katie removed the carefully wrapped package from her beach bag and tucked it into the battered leather satchel that hung on Maya’s peg alongside her pristine apron. Her time in Bali was at an end, and whilst her stay on the Indonesian ‘Island of the Gods’ had been a million miles away from the romantic Parisian honeymoon she’d been dreaming of for the last twelve months, it had been the perfect escape from her misery-strewn life in London after Dominic had dropped his bombshell.
She would have preferred to melt away into the sunset, but she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to the person who had done so much to ease her heartache and help her get back on track. With a final glance around the empty kitchen-cum-classroom housed in a wooden shed at the back of Agatha’s Beachside Café, Katie spun on her sparkly flip-flops and made her way to the veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean, smiling as she thought of Maya’s joy when she discovered her gift the next day.
‘All packed I see?’ Agatha smiled, stepping from her place behind the bar to give Katie a farewell hug, her silver bangles jangling as she reached up to push her bushy salt-and-pepper curls from her eyes so she could peer more closely at her expression. ‘Ready to go home?’
Katie nodded. ‘Thanks, Aggie, for everything.’
‘It’s me who should be thanking you, darling. You’ve made a real impact in our cookery classes over the last few weeks. Your fabulous cake-decorating skills have definitely inspired a couple of our young students, particularly Maya, to take up sugar craft as a career, maybe in one of the big tourist hotels around the resort. That cake you created for Ed and Claire’s engagement yesterday was an absolute masterpiece!’
‘Oh, I loved making it just as much as your wonderful students did.’
Katie didn’t add that her involvement in the project hadn’t been purely altruistic; being busy had helped to keep her demons at bay. She wished she could stay longer, to continue to support Agatha’s venture, but sadly her money had run out.
‘Any news on the job applications?’
Katie grimaced, slumping down onto one of the tall bar stools with a view that would cause even a seasoned travel photographer to salivate – golden sandy beaches framed with whispering palm trees set against a backdrop of infinite azure skies. Add to that the bougainvillea and sweet jasmine twisted around the café’s eaves, the brightly coloured surfboards ducking and diving on the waves, and the scattered offerings the locals left to appease the gods, and Katie completely understood why tourists thought the Balinese lived in paradise.
‘Nothing yet,’ she mumbled, tucking a stray tendril of her ruffled blonde bob behind her ear and taking a sip of the iced mint tea Agatha had set in front of her, relishing the tang of the fresh peppermint crashing over her taste buds.
Katie had shared her story with Agatha: every pain-filled detail of the wedding that had never happened, as well as the mortifying mistake she had made at work, which had culminated in her being fired from her dream job with François Dubois – supplier of bespoke celebration cakes to the rich and famous.
Even now, her cheeks flushed at the memory of the expression on the hot-tempered chef’s face when he’d received a call from a TV soap actress to inform him of her disgust when, surrounded by family and friends, she had sliced into her birthday cake to find it was filled not with soft, lemony sponge, but soft, meaty dog food. It seemed that, in her trauma-filled state after Dominic’s betrayal, Katie had inadvertently delivered a cake destined for a celebrity couple’s beloved chihuahua’s birthday instead. She had been fired on the spot and it was only now – four weeks later and thousands of miles away – that she was able to see the funny side of what had happened. However, gossip travelled like wildfire in the higher echelons of the cake-making business and the story was bouncing all over London. Perhaps she should be thinking of a change in career direction?
‘Good.’
‘Good? Why is it good?’
Jobless, skint and heartbroken was not the preferred state of affairs for a twenty-eight-year-old former wedding cake maker to the stars, despite the bombshell that had shattered her world.
‘Because I have a proposition for you.’
‘You do?’
Katie stared at Agatha, taking in the vibrant orange kaftan, the statement necklace made from wooden beads the size of golf balls, and the calm, worry-free expression on her kind face. Her friend’s lithe frame and peaceful disposition were testament to her often-stated view that yoga was not just exercise, it was a way of life, but Katie hoped that Agatha wasn’t going to suggest she join her for a session before she left for the airport. It would take more than a few hours of yogic harmony to change her internal dialogue of doubt from high-speed chuntering
to calm, blissful acceptance, and if there was one thing she had avoided since arriving in Bali it was anything that would require her to confront her innermost emotions.
‘Here.’
To Katie’s surprise, Agatha reached into her handbag and, with a theatrical flourish, produced a brown paper envelope, causing a waft of her signature jasmine perfume to invade the air between them.
‘What’s this?’
‘Open it.’
Katie held Agatha’s gaze for a moment, confusion and curiosity chasing each other’s tails through the avenues of her brain. What was going on? She ran her finger under the flap and peered inside to see a large, old-fashioned iron key.
‘It’s a key?’
‘It is.’ Agatha smiled, clearly enjoying Katie’s bafflement.
‘What’s … what’s it for?’
‘Something that’s in my past but could be in your future.’
‘My future? What do you mean?’
Katie met her friend’s eyes and her heart softened. She had only known Agatha for a few weeks, but, as a fellow lover of all things culinary – particularly cake-related – they had formed an instant connection the moment she had sauntered into her Balinese café in search of a decent coffee. Their bond had deepened when they discovered they were both escapees from relationship trauma, and they were able to offer each other emotional support.
Katie had thought her story was painful until she heard what Agatha had been through. A former food tech teacher, her new friend had had the shock of her life when she had stumbled upon her Deputy Head husband in the broom cupboard with the gym mistress. So, after receiving the all-clear from her breast cancer diagnosis, she’d mothballed her café in a picturesque village in Cornwall to pursue her lifelong dream of attending a yoga retreat in the Balinese countryside. She’d loved the island so much she’d ended up staying, spending her divorce settlement on a dilapidated restaurant overlooking one of the most spectacular beaches in Bali. The thatched roof might let in rain and a myriad of exotic insects, but the place thrummed with positivity, cheerfulness and calm, just like its owner.
Never one to rest on her laurels, Agatha not only provided her customers with fresh, fragrant food, a listening ear and sage advice, but she also ran a cookery school in a small wooden annex at the back of the café. There she taught disadvantaged teenage girls to read, write and improve their spoken English – hence the Kindle Katie had slipped into Maya’s bag – alongside the culinary skills needed to secure employment in the luxury hotels along Sanur Beach and Nusa Dua.
Agatha said she was creating good karma in the only way she knew how.
‘This is the key to my café in Perrinby. I thought, as you don’t have a job to go back to … well, I thought you were just the person to give it a new lease of life. What do you say?’
Katie opened her mouth but no words came out. All she could hear was the tooting horns of the ubiquitous scooters the local residents and tourists loved so much, mingled with the chirp of crickets and the soft melody of Gamelan music.
‘I … you … you want me to run a café in Cornwall?’
‘Yes, it might need a lick of paint, but all the bills are paid for the next three months – rates, utilities, insurances, that sort of thing – and you have all the right qualifications and skills to make a go of it.’
‘Oh, Aggie, I … I’m sorry, no, I can’t …’
‘Of course you can, darling. I’m happy here; Bali is my home now, and I’ve no intention of returning to my old life in the UK. But it would be great not to have the place empty, especially as it used to be such a hub of the community with all the locals popping in. And I was thinking if you could breathe new life into the place, turn a bit of a profit, then perhaps some of those profits could be used to help with the cookery school. I’d love to take on more girls, vary the recipes we’ve been experimenting with so that the restaurant’s customers don’t get bored with the same old chocolate chip cookies after you’ve left. You know those banoffee cupcakes you made last week were the fastest selling dessert item in the history of Agatha’s Beachside Café.’
‘No, what I mean is …’
Agatha leaned forward, her eyes filled with sincerity and encouragement, but she had misinterpreted Katie’s reluctance. Katie opened her mouth to explain, then closed it again. Agatha had thought she’d demurred because her offer was too much, too generous, and of course it was both of those things. But what she had really meant was that she literally couldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it because after what had happened with Dominic, she had no energy, no self-belief, no desire even, to spend the next twelve weeks of her life revitalising a run-down café in a part of the country she’d never been to and where she knew no one. She was bound to make a mess of it – just ask François about the doggie-cake debacle.
Agatha realised what was causing Katie’s hesitation and she reached out to lace her fingers through hers, a gesture that caused tears to prickle at her eyes.
‘Darling, you can do anything you put your mind to! Now is the perfect time to decide what exactly you want your future to look like. It’s time to pursue your own dreams, just like Dominic is doing.’
A flash of pain scorched through Katie’s veins as she thought of her ex-fiancé living the high life in the bars and nightclubs of Ibiza where he was trying to make it as a musician. The vibrant Mediterranean island was where Dominic, along with his best man Iain and six of his closest friends, had flown off to for his long-anticipated stag weekend, but what had totally floored her was that whilst his friends had returned home after their three-day sojourn of drink-fuelled revelry, Dominic had not. Instead of a text telling her he’d landed safely at Gatwick, she’d received one informing her that the wedding was off because he ‘needed some time to think about whether marriage was the right way forward for him’.
Not only that – it had turned out that he had also emptied their wedding account of every last penny and then disappeared from her world, neatly avoiding all her efforts to contact him. If it hadn’t been for her best friend, Cara, would-be chief bridesmaid, travel agent and eternal optimist, coming to her rescue with a suggestion that she transfer the already-paid-for honeymoon to something that had been on her bucket list for years, she would be looking at her sanity in the rear-view mirror.
‘Katie, darling, I know what happened with Dominic was devastating, but you can’t let what he did define you. Since you arrived here in Bali, I’ve seen lots of guys show an interest in you, but you’ve always turned them down. I know it’s hard, but you have to learn to trust again – not everyone is like Dom.’
Katie smiled at Agatha who, by making such a generous offer, had just bestowed her with the first vote of confidence she’d had for years. However, whilst she had been open about her heartache over Dominic, she hadn’t told her new friend that her issues ran far deeper than her ex-fiancé’s rejection, and anyway, despite her gentle urging, she had no intention of letting anyone into her heart ever again.
‘So, what do you say? Will you do this? It’s the perfect solution, even if I do say so myself.’
‘I don’t know, Aggie …’
Katie fiddled with the plaited leather friendship bracelets at her wrist, and when she raised her eyes and saw the hope shining in Agatha’s kind, chestnut-coloured eyes, a new emotion joined the maelstrom of doubt in her chest.
Guilt.
Agatha had been through so much in the last year – her husband cheating on her, a difficult divorce, gruelling treatment for breast cancer – yet here she was chasing her dreams with vigour, with a smile on her face, a song in her heart and an eye on helping others to do the same. She loved what Agatha was doing in Bali. She loved the fact that everything her students created in her cookery school was sold in the café – nothing wasted, nothing without purpose. She wanted to help her, wanted to give something back, something more than just her Kindle. And if she did this, at least she would be busy and it would keep her abandonment demons bay.
 
; So, trying her best to hide the reluctance in her voice, she met Agatha’s gaze and nodded.
‘Okay, I’ll give it a go.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m so pleased. I’ll leave you to do your own thing, but what I’d really like you to do is to use some of that amazingly creative talent I’ve seen you display in the kitchen to come up with a new name for the café. Agatha’s Beachside Café is a perfect name for a restaurant in sun-drenched Bali, but for the Cornish coast it just sounds so dull and boring, don’t you think? Not to mention the fact that I’m over six thousand miles away and have most definitely served my last cream tea. I know you’ll come up with something much more enticing to the discerning customers of Cornwall.’
‘Are you … are you sure?’ gasped Katie, her brain completely bamboozled by what was happening. Rename the café?
‘Never more so, darling. I have complete faith in you.’
She was probably the only person on the planet who did, mused Katie as Agatha wrapped her in another jasmine-scented hug.
Over her friend’s shoulder, Katie surveyed the Balinese restaurant, trying to ignore the tightening knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. Okay, so she might have graduated top of her class at catering college, and she had worked for one of the most celebrated confectionery chefs in the whole of London, but she knew nothing, nothing whatsoever, about what it took to run a village café other than what she had learned whilst helping Agatha in the cookery school and the beachside restaurant.
She decided that the least she could do was take a trip down to Cornwall to have a look at the café, give it a lick of paint and a couple of weeks, a month max, then she could admit defeat, scuttle back to London and return to her former life, minus the fiancé and the prestigious job. She only hoped that Cara’s sofa was available because she couldn’t afford to keep her flat on without Dominic’s contribution towards the rent.
However, as Katie slid into the back seat of her airport taxi and joined the flow of bustling traffic, mingled in with the panic, the self-doubt and the fear of failure, was a tiny sparkle of excitement as ideas began to ricochet around her brain. By the time she was seated on the plane next to a woman who took bling to the next level, she was brainstorming menus – perhaps with a Balinese as well as a Cornish twist – and ideas for the perfect name for her new venture.