Delicious! (4 page)

Benny beamed.

“You’re lucky, kid.” Sal touched my arm. “The old-time butchers are dying out. Take a lesson when it’s offered. That’s why you came to New York, right?”

“Yeah,” Benny chimed in. “This is the Neanderthal approach, but it works. And New Yorkers, thank God, they appreciate an artisan.”

“Benny’s amazing,” I said when we were back on the street.

“He doesn’t always open up like that. Benny’s stingy with his talent, but I think he saw something special in you. You want to know the truth? It was a treat for me too; that’s the first time he’s let me watch him butcher an entire hindquarter.”

“Do you know everyone in every shop in this neighborhood?”

“Pretty much. I grew up here. I travel a lot—buying cheese for the store—but I’m always happiest at home. People will tell you food is better over in Europe, but don’t you believe it. We’ve caught up; these days the place to be is New York.”

“I wish I could spend all day just following you around. I want to meet everyone!” I looked down, guilty, at my watch; I’d been gone two hours.

“Don’t worry”—he gave my arm a reassuring pat—“not far now.”

He kept walking, turning serenely onto Prince Street at a leisurely pace. But then he spotted someone on the next corner and began to trot down Thompson Street. “It’s Kim!” He urged me to keep up. “She makes the best chocolates in the city. You have to meet her!”

I love chocolate.

Up ahead, an elegant Asian woman was standing in the door of a shop, waiting. “Sal!” Her voice was as delighted as that of a child who has sighted Santa.

“Meet Jake’s new assistant. Billie Breslin. Kim Wong.”

“Welcome.” She opened the door to a quaint shop filled with sparkling glass cases, then reached for my hand and tugged me inside. The
shop was dark and dramatic, the chocolates laid out on velvet and lit like jewels. It was the perfect setting for this delicate, bird-like woman with a face like carved ivory.

“I know you’re a chocolate lover. I can always tell. I’m about to temper the chocolate. I have my own method; want to watch?”

“Could I?” Inside my head, a little voice was reminding me that I had to get back to the office, but it was drowned out by the scent of chocolate, which flooded all my senses with a heady froth of cocoa and coffee, passion fruit, cinnamon and clove. I closed my eyes, and for one moment I was back in Aunt Melba’s kitchen with Genie.

I opened them to find Kim dancing with a molten river of chocolate. I stood hypnotized by the scent and the grace of her motions, which were more beautiful than any ballet. Moving constantly, she caressed the chocolate like a lover, folding it over and over on a slab of white marble, working it to get the texture right. She stopped to feed me a chocolate sprinkled with salt, which had the fierce flavor of the ocean, and another with the resonant intensity of toasted saffron. One chocolate tasted like rain, another of the desert. I tried tracking the flavors, pulling them apart to see how she had done it, but, like a magician, she had hidden her tricks. Each time I followed the trail, it vanished, and after a while I just gave up and allowed the flavors to seduce me.

Now the scent changed as Kim began to dip fruit into the chocolate: raspberries, blackberries, tiny strawberries that smelled like violets. She put a chocolate-and-caramel-covered slice of peach into my mouth, and the taste of summer was so intense that I felt the room grow warmer. I lost all sense of time.

Sal was waiting outside, talking on his cell phone, but when he saw me he slipped it into his pocket. “You liked her chocolates!”

“She’s a sorceress. That rain chocolate—it tasted the way the air smells just before a storm. I want to know how she does it. I identified hyssop and maybe myrtle and a bit of cassia, but then it got away from me. God, she’s amazing!”

“Cassia, hyssop—you’re really something. I wish my daughter had your talent for flavor. But”—he sighed—“Toni’s a lawyer, and I’d bet
she’s never even heard of hyssop.” He gave me a slightly guilty look. “Don’t get me wrong; Toni’s the most wonderful daughter a person could ask for. But she’s never had an interest in our business.”

Sal sounded so sad that I said impulsively, “I think my father feels the same way about me. He’s a lawyer. My mother was too. Dad’s the nicest man in the world, but I know he’s disappointed. He would have liked me to follow in their footsteps.” Embarrassed at having said so much—too much?—I stared down at my watch again.

Sal reached out and covered it with his hand. “Don’t worry.” His voice was sympathetic. “Jake’s a good guy. And”—he was watching me with a kind of compassion I found hard to interpret—“he’ll understand that you saw an opportunity and seized it. Jake appreciates curiosity. And these are all people you should know if you’re working at
Delicious!
Wait until you see our store!” He led me east past bakeries, butcher shops, and Chinese grocery stores. “Just a couple more blocks.” He spread his arms wide, taking in the shops around us. “Aren’t you glad you came to New York?”

His love for his city was so compelling that I found myself inhaling the aromas wafting from every door—roasting ducks, soy, dried mushrooms—with special pleasure.

“When we were growing up, my sister and I knew everyone on the block. But the neighborhood’s changed. Good people, still, but mostly Asian now. Here we are!”

He turned in to a crowded shop, and the deep, pungent smell of cheese wrapped itself around us. I smelled garlic and tomatoes and, somewhere, the rich ancient scent of olives. Bottles of clear green olive oil and dark-purple vinegar glistened like stained glass, while hams and salamis dangled from hooks in the ceiling. Huge loaves of bread balanced precariously on the shelves behind the raised counter, and great bunches of herbs hung from the rafters. It was like walking into a small Italian village, a kaleidoscope of scent, sound, and color that shifted each time another person came in.

I’d never been inside a store like this one, never imagined a room filled with great wheels of cheese stacked so high they towered over me.
There must have been three dozen people, all talking at the same time, their babble resonating like a flock of exotic, excited birds. An old lady with a cane reached to touch Sal’s arm, and he bent to murmur Italian endearments in her ear. A little girl handed him a drawing, and he swept her off her feet, both of them laughing as he swung her into the air. An elegant old gentleman said in heavily accented English, “I’ve been waiting. You’re the only one who cuts my cheese right,” and Sal replied, “You know my sister, Theresa, always gives you extra.” As he escorted me through the crowd, he whispered, “I want you to taste the cheese, so you understand why Thursday should be using the spring Parmigiano.”

I’d forgotten about Thursday. “But I need to get her the cheese! She said she was going to wait.”

“Relax.” He was reaching for the nearest wheel of cheese, a huge round, nearly two feet tall. He gave it a good thump. “This is the spring Parmigiano.”

And before I could stop him, he was off.

By this time I would have followed him anywhere. He showed me how each wheel was stamped with the month and year, and then he cracked the first one open to reveal its pale cream-colored interior. He chipped off a hefty shard and handed it to me. I took a bite, and my mouth filled with the hopeful taste of fresh green grass and young field flowers welcoming the sun.

“That’s the spring cheese.” Sal was cracking the next wheel, which was stamped with an autumn date; he chipped off a little piece. The color was deeper, almost golden, the texture heavier and nubbier. When I put the cheese in my mouth it was richer, and if I let it linger on my tongue I could taste the lush fields of late summer, just as the light begins to die.

Sal sliced off a slab of winter cheese and put that into my mouth. It felt different on my tongue, smoother somehow, the flavor sharper. “It’s like a different cheese.” I was savoring it. I tasted again; there was a familiar flavor. “It tastes like hay!”

“Yes!” Sal was openly delighted. “I
knew
you were going to be able to
taste how different this cheese is! Most Americans don’t even notice, but that cheese is so different that, back in the old days, it was sold under a different name. The Parmesan made from December to March, when the cows were in the barn, was called ‘invernengo’—winter cheese—because the flavor is so distinct.” He looked genuinely happy, as if he had met a kindred spirit, and I thought how hard it must be to care so much and have a clueless clientele. “Now I want to take you into the back kitchen and introduce you to my wife, Rosalie. She’ll show you how we make the mozzarella.”

I wasn’t about to pass that up. But I glanced at my watch again, thinking that even Jake wasn’t going to appreciate how fully I had seized this opportunity. “I might need a marketable skill. If they fire me”—I was only half joking—“will you give me a job?”

“They’re not going to fire you.” He picked up an apron. “But if they do, there’s a place for you at Fontanari’s.”

But the mention of the magazine seemed to jog his memory. He looked up at the clock. “It’s after three! You’d better get the Parmigiano to Thursday right away. I hope she’s not too upset.” He handed me a package. “If you have any trouble, tell Jake to call me. But I meant what I said: You can always have a job here.” He gave me a shrewd look. “I know it’s not your first choice, but it could be worse. We pay a lot better than the slave wages they hand out over at Pickwick Publications. You wouldn’t have to stay all night either. And you’d learn a lot.”

“Thanks.”

Sal put his hand on my arm. “Got any friends in New York?”

“I just got here.”

“If you find that you’re lonely on the weekend, we can always use an extra pair of hands. I like you, kid. Don’t be a stranger.”

THURSDAY IS A SMALL WOMAN
, and every review mentions she has eyes like pansies and enormous charm. But she was scowling when I got back to The Pig. “I was hoping to use this today.” She held out her
hand. “I should have sent a messenger. I expect Maggie was hoping the same.” She shook her head. “Wasn’t this your first day on the job?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I blew it.”

She gave me an enigmatic look and went back to stirring her pot.

The cab I’d managed to hail crept through traffic, and I sat there wondering if I still had a job at
Delicious!
Probably not. Working at Fontanari’s wouldn’t be so bad. I could always temp. Maybe I could even try to freelance. It had been worth it; I wouldn’t trade this day away for anything.

On the other hand, I’d just blown the best job in New York. I was a total idiot.

I reached the Timbers Mansion in a schizophrenic state and went racing up the stairs. I barreled into the kitchen with such force that the door almost sent Maggie, who was standing behind it, reeling into a counter. Surrounded by a semicircle of cooks, she rubbed her arm and peered accusingly at me. I handed her the anchovies and turned to go.

“Wait!” Maggie’s voice was imperious. She had set the jar on the counter and stood staring at her watch. “Congratulations. You’ve clocked the slowest time in
Delicious!
history.”

“Excuse me?”

“In the eight years we’ve been sending people off to take the Sal Test, no one’s ever stayed away this long.”

“The Sal Test?” There was a beat as all the cooks looked at me expectantly. “What are you talking about?” My eyes moved from one face to another, trying to understand what was going on. When I finally got it, a wave of laughter swept through me, mingled with relief, indignation, and disbelief.

“Are you telling me you
planned
that?” I said when I was finally able to speak. “Thursday was in on it? Benny? Kim? They
all
were?”

Maggie nodded. “A waste of everybody’s time, if you ask me,” she said sourly. “But Jake doesn’t want to be surrounded by what he calls ‘corporate widgets.’ He appreciates ‘curiosity.’ ” She even used air quotes.

I laughed again. Sal had been telling the truth. Something occurred to me. “Does anyone ever manage to escape?”

“Most do.” Her voice implied that if I had any sense, I’d have been among them.

“What happened to them?”

“Jake paid them for their time, thanked them very much, and told them they wouldn’t be happy here.” She walked away. “Oh, yeah,” she called over her shoulder, “thanks for the anchovies.”

“Did you even need them?”

But she was gone.

“No,” said a pretty cook with a heart-shaped face. “She’s got two jars in her refrigerator.” She had straight black brows sitting like dashes above widely spaced brown eyes, and they were raised now, as if she was trying to make up her mind. Then the brows relaxed and she held out her hand.

“I’m Diana. Maggie would never tell you this, but after you left the shop, Sal called Jake. He told him you have an extraordinary palate. He said he didn’t know how Jake had found you, but he should not, under any circumstances, let you go. He said you belong here. Welcome to
Delicious!
”

“
D
ID YOU GET THOSE APPROVED?” THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR WAS
standing at my desk, staring critically at the daisies I’d bought at the corner deli.

Richard Phillips was the most attractive man I’d ever met. His olive skin, emerald eyes, and chiseled cheekbones gave him the languid, unshaven arrogance of a model, but he wore quirky old clothes, which softened the impact of his beauty. The smile was even more effective; I watched warmth transform his face, taking him from sexy to sweet as it traveled from his mouth to his eyes.

“Don’t you know we have rules about these things? Daisies in the Timbers Mansion …” His face was so serious, I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me.

“Rules for daisies?”

“Oh, yes. Martha Stewart has nothing on us.” He flicked his blue-black ponytail over one shoulder. “Stop looking at me like I’m speaking Martian.”

“I don’t understand.”

“If you worked over at her book, you’d have to get every photograph and flower approved. You hadn’t heard?”

“Even family pictures?”