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Authors: Meredith Mileti

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BOOK: Aftertaste
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“Look, Mira, Ruth Reichl, Barbara Fairchild, Frank Bruni, even me,” she says, with a slight, self-deprecating inclination of her head, “all of us are passable cooks. We can all give a damn good dinner party, but we don't have the gift that you have. And, by the way, you don't have the gifts they have, either, but that's beside the point. So the question is,” Enid says, swiveling in her desk chair and chewing thoughtfully on the earpiece of her glasses, “why would someone like you want to become a food writer?”
“I didn't get to where I am in the food world without having a well-developed palate. I know—”
Enid holds up her hand. She wasn't really asking me. “I know, I know. You've already told me that. But that isn't the real reason. You want to be a food writer because it is convenient. Do you know how many people apply for a job like this? Some are writers who think they would like to be paid to go out to dinner, but couldn't identify celeriac in a lineup of root vegetables. Some people are foodies with no writing skills who think their knowledge of the food world is enough for them to get by. I've actually hired some of those—but I'm getting too old to rewrite their columns.”
“Look, Ms. Maxwell—”
“My point, Mira, is that cooks need to cook. You won't be happy writing for a living, and you won't get rich either.” Enid sits back in her chair and gives me a speculative look. She appears to be considering something. She hesitates before continuing. “You think I don't understand what it takes to be a chef? I was at the CIA a couple of years ago. Took a two-week course for business people who want to become restaurateurs. I
know
how hard it is. I could never have cut it. The difference between those of us in the fake course and the kids we saw running themselves into the ground, besides a whole lot of talent, is the drive to cook. They
need
it. The threat of a bad review of Grappa in the
Times
bothered you. I could see it in your face. A restaurant like Grappa gets into your blood. You don't go from that to this,” she says, gesturing to the papers on her desk and the short walls of the cubicle. “Face it, you've missed it.”
“Missed it? The eighteen-hour days on my feet? Dealing with suppliers and linen sales people on my ‘off' time? Replacing line cooks on a weekly basis? There's a lot more to the restaurant business besides cooking. Loving to cook isn't nearly enough.” My voice is rising to an uncomfortably high pitch. Despite Ruth's perfectly tailored suit and a liberal dose of Bare Naked lip gloss, I've somehow gotten off on the wrong foot here. Before I'd even walked in the door, Enid seems to have made up her mind that I'm not cut out to be a food writer. So why bother interviewing me? “And besides, what makes you think I don't cook? I cook every day. For my family. Real cooks find ways to cook.”
Enid holds up her hands in mock surrender. “Yes, you're right. That is precisely what I'm suggesting, Mira. Listen, I don't know how much time you've spent looking at our food section since you've been back in town, but it's in the process of undergoing a much needed transformation. We're trying out a bunch of new ideas. Maybe you noticed a couple of weeks ago we did a feature article on ‘Five Ingredient Wonders'? We're considering continuing something like that once a week, publishing a few recipes on a theme: “Beat the Heat with Easy Summer Meals in Minutes.” She gestures as she speaks, blocking out chunks of the title with her hands, as if it's written on a billboard.
I groan involuntarily.
“What?”
“No—nothing.”
“Come on, you groaned. Did you see the article?”
“No. Well, yes, yes, I did. And if I'd been the editor I might have changed the title to ‘101 Uses for Cream of Mushroom Soup,'” I tell her, uncharitably blocking out those letters on my own personal billboard.
Silence. I've blown it, I think, holding my breath. When the hell am I going to learn to control myself?
Enid laughs. “Touché, Mira, Touché. I told you before,
Bon Appétit,
we're not—that's where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Well, the way I see it is I've got two choices. One, I sign Campbell's on as a corporate sponsor, so that someone, even if it is only some slob in their PR department, is reading the Food section; or two, I hire you to develop some new recipes. Something to wake up those tired Pittsburgh taste buds. People here are ready for something new, but they lack the knowledge about where to go or what to cook. The recipes in the
P-G
need to offer something quick and easy enough for the average cook to put together, but unique. What do you say?”
I'm stunned. “Are you offering me a job? I mean, a real one, a paying one?”
Enid smiles. “Damn, Mira, you're quick. Well, are you interested?”
“Well—I—”
“It'll just be part-time, of course. The Food section is only weekly, but occasionally there are some Sunday special recipes you'll be asked to consult on. We don't have a test kitchen, so you'll have to work out of your home. How about ten hours per week, thirty bucks an hour, to start, all expenses paid?”
I certainly won't get rich doing it, but this isn't New York City, and part-time would leave me plenty of time for Chloe. But the best part is I'll be cooking again.
“Let me think about it, and I'll get back to you.”
Enid seems surprised that I haven't immediately accepted the job. I will, of course; it's just that, for the moment at least, I'm enjoying seeing her a little off-balance. But, shrewd newspaperwoman that she is, she quickly regains her composure. “So what's for dinner?” she asks.
“Excuse me?”
“You said you were cooking for your family. Can I ask what a professional chef feeds her family, or is that some deep, dark secret?”
“Curried prawn chowder, black sea bass en papillote with baby artichokes and red pepper coulis, frisee salad with shaved Asiago,” I tell her, even though the only thing currently in our refrigerator is the other half of my Primanti's sandwich.
“I love sea bass. What time is dinner?”
So, I'm being wooed by Enid Maxwell.
chapter 25
Richard is standing in the middle of the loft holding a tape measure and frowning at the white slipcovered sofa. “You don't want that. The scale is wrong for the room, and it's not a good white. It's also totally impractical.”
“It's washable, and, besides, I like it,” I tell him.
“No, you don't. You just think you do, because it's here and it's easy and because you can't imagine any other possibility.”
I know Richard means this literally, that he's talking about sofas and not lifestyles, but because I'm not yet completely at home with the idea that I've bought this place, I snap at him.
“That's ridiculous. I can imagine lots of possibilities!”
Richard tosses his tape measure onto the sofa and looks at me.
“Okay, tell me what you see,” he says calmly.
It is easier than I thought to tell Richard what I see, the apartment I'm envisioning, the furniture, the lamps, dimly lit, casting deep shadows on the brick walls, and the dishes, the only things I recognize as anything that I actually own, stacked neatly on open shelves in the kitchen. So why do I feel as if I'm on the outside, my nose pressed against the window of someone else's life?
Richard listens carefully, occasionally nodding in response to a particular detail, and he smiles when I tell him I've always wanted to live in a yellow house.
When I finish, he says nothing, but studies me, the vestige of a smile clinging, despite itself, to his handsome face.
“I really don't care about the sofa,” I tell him, picking up his tape measure and tossing it to him, not because it is true, but because I cannot bear to look at Richard a moment longer. In the couple of weeks since I've last seen him he's changed, though someone unused to living with a drunk might easily miss the signs. His arms and legs look thin under his custom shirt and carefully tailored trousers. He smells heavily of peppermint, yet his breath has the slightly acidic twang of mouthwash and stale coffee, and he has the nervous shifty gaze of a man who wants only to be alone with his next drink.
Although I'm hurt and disappointed that Richard apparently doesn't trust me enough to share whatever crisis has brought him to this, what hurts almost as much is the thought of intruding so completely and with such finality on his carefully guarded dignity. He is, after all, still holding down a job and maintaining his relationships, at least after a fashion. He pockets the tape measure and makes a few notes on the inside of a yellow manila folder, which is neatly labeled “Mira's Loft.” He's taking my request for some decorating guidance very seriously. And his advice, despite whatever personal turmoil he is experiencing, is practical and direct.
“My recommendation is that you take only your Heywood-Wakefield dining table and chairs. And the framed artwork. Leave the rest of your stuff for that Hope person.” He wrinkles his nose in a paroxysm of disgust, though I'm not sure whether it is at the vision of Hope or of my assorted odds and ends of furniture.
I nod, deliberately avoiding his eye. “Thanks. I'll arrange to have them shipped.”
Richard looks at me for a moment, as if he's considering saying something, but instead, takes out his phone and checks his voice mail for the second time in the twenty minutes we've been here.
He listens to his messages, smiles, and clicks his phone shut.
“You wouldn't happen to be free for dinner Thursday night?”
Richard ought to know that I've been free for dinner for, oh, roughly the last six months. “Sure,” I tell him.
“Good. There's someone I'd like you to meet.”
 
“I liked the one with too much ginger. Isn't there any of that left?” my father calls from the refrigerator.
“No, Chloe is eating it for breakfast. But there's plenty of the ‘not enough orange zest,' ” I tell him. My father pulls out several carefully marked containers of soup from the refrigerator and dons his reading glasses. “Peanut? Is this right? I don't think I even tried this one.”
My first assignment, which Enid e-mailed me three days ago, is a column entitled “Soup Suppers.” I'd selected two Grappa standbys, a roasted pappa al pomodoro and a lentil and sausage with red wine. But the third, a vegetarian carrot soup, had given me some trouble. I'd easily tried a dozen variations in the last couple of days, most of which are stacked, uneaten, in Tupperware containers in the fridge.
The clear winner had been the cumin-scented carrot with coconut milk and cilantro, the recipe for which I'd e-mailed to Enid, along with the rest of the column, early yesterday morning. She nixed my discussion of how to prepare soup stocks from scratch, but allowed me to keep in the recipe for baguettes, a simple one, involving only flour, yeast, and water and no specialty gadgets. “You've got to pick your battles, Mira,” she told me. “You can't expect people to make their own chicken and vegetable stocks
and
their own bread.”
The column will run tomorrow. In the end, I was pleased with my efforts, but now that it's out of my hands I'm nervous about seeing it in print. Not that I have a byline or anything, just a small mention at the end of the column: “Recipes courtesy of Chef Mirabella Rinaldi, formerly executive chef and owner of Grappa, New York,” which I'm sure most people won't even read.
“Dad, take the rest in for lunch, otherwise I'm going to throw them away. Forget the peanut, though. It was terrible. I don't even know why I saved it.”
“No, I think I'll pass,” my father says, frowning at his palms. “Do they look orange to you?” he asks, holding out his hands to me. They do.
“Too much beta-carotene. Hey, don't worry, you'll live longer and see better,” I tell him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
While Chloe is finishing her sliced bananas, I clean out the refrigerator, tossing entire disposable Tupperware containers unopened into the trash. I need the space so that I can begin working on my next assignment, which Enid gave me moments after I e-mailed her the final version of my piece. This time, the assignment is a column on kid-friendly food, entitled “Cooking With and For Kids.”
Enid has given me several suggestions—three of them involving processed cheese products—so I can already tell that there will be some major theoretical differences. My philosophy is that kids shouldn't be played down to. Introduce them to complex flavors early on, and they'll develop sophisticated palates. It's worked so far with Chloe, whose list of green vegetables, in addition to the standard ones, includes mizuna, artichokes, and rapini. The problem is, I don't know too many other kids. None really, except Eli and Carlos. I don't know much about Eli, but Carlos survives on nothing but Kraft Singles, oranges, macaroni and cheese, and Cheerios.
Because of the column, Ruth has been pulling double duty in the babysitting department lately. So when she calls for the third time this morning to ask if, in addition to the apple juice and fruit snacks I'm already picking up, I could also buy some nail polish remover, I owe it to her to dredge up my extra reserves of patience.
“According to
Vogue,
brown nails are in, but I think they look too punk. I used half a bottle just getting it off two fingers. I look like a freak. Better get the large bottle, okay? Oh, and I don't suppose you have any more of that carrot soup, the one with the peanut butter in it?”
“Sure,” I tell her, fishing the Tupperware container out of the trash and rinsing it off. “I'll bring it over.”
Just as Chloe and I are on our way out the door a few minutes later, the phone rings again. Sure it's Ruth, I don't pick up, figuring she can make me a shopping list when I drop off Chloe.
 
 
“What's this?” Ben asks, sitting down to eat. He's come on his lunch hour to install my pasta spigot, but because the loft is basically empty, we've had to make a table out of the large plywood crate that, until earlier this morning, had contained my professional series Gaggenau range. The lone stool is Ben's tall Craftsman tool chest.
“This? This is Carlos's Three-Cheese Casserole.” In between my appointment with Dr. D-P and my trip to the loft to supervise the installation of the range, I'd run home and gathered some ingredients from my father's pantry, intending to break in my new stove and play around with my kids' cooking assignment. I'd used tricolor bows, mixed with a combination of cottage cheese, Gruyère, the end of a piece of hard cheese I'd found in the back of the fridge, and a couple of eggs. I baked it all in a hot oven and served it topped with a fresh tomato basil sauce.
“Hmm. Pretty good. Who's Carlos?”
“I'm a journalist now. I can't divulge my sources.”
“A mystery man, huh?” Ben gives me a curious look.
“Actually, he's a kid I know.”
“Oh.”
“It's for a column on kid-friendly foods.”
“You think a kid would eat this?”
“A kid does eat this.”
“No kid would eat this.”
“Why not?”
“Because for one thing, kids don't like Swiss cheese.”
“It isn't Swiss, it's Gruyère.”
“Okay, way worse than Swiss.”
“It's delicious, loaded with calcium, and all that I had in the refrigerator.”
“Aha! So the recipe from your mystery kid did not specifically mention Gruyère?”
“No, not exactly.”
Ben helps himself to another serving of Three-Cheese Casserole.
“I'll bet the original recipe called for cheddar,” he says, taking another bite. “Kids would like it better with cheddar.”
“Actually, it was Kraft American Singles.”
“I rest my case,” Ben says, looking smug.
“Oh, yeah? What do kids know?”
It's nice of Ben to install my pasta spigot. For one thing, he isn't charging me, preferring instead to barter his services in return for food. When he tells me that he'll have to come back to hook up the water lines, he suggests that maybe I could make something on my new stove for dinner one night. For us.
“Maybe we could even scare up another chair. You know, both of us eating at the same time.” Ben widens his eyes, as if he's just suggested something as daring and improbable as eating al fresco on the dark side of the moon.
“Sure, but I warn you I'll still be working on this kid column, so you're taking your chances. It might be hot dogs, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” I tell him, flustered by his flirting.
“Nah. Too obvious. You'll come up with something, something probably way too exotic. You could always ask Aunt Fi. She has all kinds of kid recipes. My cousins were very picky eaters, so if she wanted them to eat something besides peanut butter, she had to get creative. She had a recipe for brownies made with tomato soup. You almost couldn't taste the soup,” he says, depositing his empty plate in the sink. “Thanks for lunch,” Ben says, giving my arm a squeeze.
By the time we get home, it's almost supper time. I'm making dinner, another version of the casserole, this time with cheddar and mild tomato salsa, when I notice the answering machine light blinking. The first and only message is from Richard. “Mira. I guess you're not there.” There's a long pause, as if he'd hoped I'd hear him and pick up. “I need you to do something for me,” he says, only the “something” comes out as “shomething.” Another long pause. “Call me, all right?” Richard doesn't say good-bye, but before the connection is broken I can hear the sound of the phone being clumsily hung up, as if he tried to place it in the cradle and missed, causing it to fall over on the table. And then, a static fumbling accompanied by a halfhearted “shit.”
From the automated voice on my dad's machine I know that the call had been received at nine forty-five this morning, which means it had been Richard, and not Ruth, who called as we were on our way out. I haven't spoken to him since the day at the loft when he'd invited me to dinner to meet his mystery guest. Ordinarily, I'd have called him and tried to worm some additional details out of him, but I've been so busy working on my column that I hadn't given it much thought. I call him back, first at home, then at the shop, and finally, on his cell, where I leave a message.
BOOK: Aftertaste
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