elrhiarhodan

Title: More, Please
Author: elrhiarhodan
Fandom: White Collar
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Neal Caffrey, with appearances by everyone else.
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: Food, glorious food!
Word Count: ~800
Summary: Neal has a very practical avocation, and for his week off, he’s going to indulge himself unreservedly. Everyone else gains at least five pounds.

Title and warning from the classic musical, Oliver!

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Neal flipped idly through an old copy of Bon Appetite that he found tucked into one of the bookshelves in his apartment. It was a strange thing to find in a strange place. All of the books on the shelves were June’s - the ones she couldn’t bear to part with. But she didn’t cook. She hated to cook and often declared in lofty tones, ‘what’s the point of having a chef if you were constantly going into the kitchen.’ Neal would just raise an eyebrow and comment that she had five kitchens, and only one chef. Shouldn’t she have five chefs, one for each kitchen? June laughed and refused to answer.

The edition of Bon Appetite was a good one - there were recipes for duck breast, wild salmon, boar sausage, cassoulet, and a variety of winter vegetables. Plus a chocolate soufflé that made his mouth water.

He liked to cook, perhaps even more than he liked to paint. Painting was always fraught with tension - creating versus copying. The objective versus the subjective. Modern interpretation or classical execution.

Cooking was different - it was fun. Low pressure, low key. There was little need for originality, and improving someone else’s creation was a time honored, well respected and perfectly legal tradition. It was, oddly enough, one of the things he missed most in prison. After having the privacy to pee, not having to worry about his personal safety, and the ability to come and go as he pleased.

The kitchen in his apartment was perfectly adequate for basic meals, but useless for any major culinary endeavor. When Neal really wanted to cook, he used the newly renovated kitchen off of the first floor library. It was close to the service elevator and had a Viking range with a high volume burner. There was also a convection oven, perfect for soufflés and baking.

It was just after Christmas and Peter and Elizabeth were taking a short vacation. Diana was elbows deep in an undercover assignment and Jones was running point. Hughes waved a hand and told Neal he was to stay home, and he had no problem with that. Before leaving for the airport, Peter gave him the stink-eye and told him that if he heard one peep, there was even a single text from anyone to interrupt his trip, he was reducing Neal’s radius to a quarter-mile, permanently. Neal shrugged (and didn’t take the threat too seriously, anyway). It was the middle of the coldest, snowiest January in thirty years and he wasn’t going outside if he could avoid it.

Truth be told, he was going to spend the week in intimate congress with that kitchen. Fairway had already delivered everything he needed or wanted. June herself bought him a new apron - a black canvas affair with white vertical stripes. She said it was dashing. His knives were professionally sharpened. He was ready to go.

Neal had a copy of Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything, plus a stack of recipes he collected from the Internet. His plan was simple - devote a full day to just one meal. Monday - breakfast, Tuesday - lunch, Wednesday - soups and appetizers, Thursday - dinner, Friday - dessert. Saturday and Sunday were reserved for baking. Sweets and savories and breads of all kinds.

Mornings were spent doing the recipes by the book, so to speak. The afternoons were for experimenting and improvising. Mozzie would come and go, so would June. Sara stopped by for lunch - and for once, Neal was just too exhausted to satisfy her other mid-day appetites. Evenings were the best. Jones came by, he brought Blake and Westley and a few others from the Harvard Crew (even the ones who went to Yale and Cornell and Columbia). Christie came and Neal boxed up a selection for Diana, who was still unable to come herself. His crowning achievement was when Hughes stopped by with Bancroft in tow. They gorged themselves insensate and Neal extracted a promise from Hughes never to loan him to another division, if he provided a steady supply of chocolate filled rugalach.

Everyone ate everything Neal put before them. Moz complained happily about his lactose intolerance, his gluten intolerance and his peanut allergies, all the while downing Neal's satays and brittles and breads. June swore she was going to ban him from the kitchen, but only after finishing the asparagus risotto.

Neal just stood at the doorway to the dining room, wiping his hands on his apron and smiling. The joy, the satisfaction he got from watching his friends eat his food was deeper, more powerful than knowing that one of the Monets in the Chicago Art Institute wasn’t by good old Claude.

FIN