Garlic and Sapphires (15 page)

“What are you worried about?” Carol asked each time I mentioned my terror of showing up in the greenies. “Are you afraid you'll misidentify an herb? That word will spread throughout the city that the great and powerful critic of the
New York Times
doesn't know basil from marjoram?”

“Yes,” I said, “that's exactly what I'm afraid of. Remember the flap when Bryan misidentified the color of a tablecloth?”

“Oh,” she said confidently, “you'd never make a mistake like that.”

But she was wrong. I did manage to elude the greenies—for all of five months. And then I wrote about steak.

In 1993 the city of New York was wallowing in steakhouses. For twenty years the combined forces of political correctness, a down economy, guilt, and California cuisine had conspired against this great American institution. Now the opposing forces of greed-is-good, an up economy, and pride in regional American food brought it back. In my first year at the
Times
half a dozen steak places set up shop. It was only the beginning: as New Yorkers grew richer, they began to see steak as a birthright and the consumption of red meat as their patriotic duty. Revised government grading standards had moved truly fine meat out of the supermarket, and restaurants rushed in to fill the void. It would have been impossible to be a restaurant critic in New York City and
not
write about steak.

I spent months researching a steakhouse roundup, eating at venerable old places and shiny new ones. I ate oceans of shrimp cocktails and acres of potatoes. I tasted every possible cut of steak, faithfully toting the leftovers home so I could retaste the meat in the morning. I called butchers all over the country to quiz them on their aging techniques. And as always, I agonized at the end, poring over the piece, looking for possible errors. I deleted the color of the napkins at one restaurant (Were they beige or brown? Better not to say at all) and the spice in the spinach at another (Nutmeg, I thought, but maybe there was also mace?). However, the lead sentence that read “If you are a native New Yorker, steak is in your blood” completely escaped my scrutiny.

The word police pounced. There, circled in the greenies, was the offending sentence. Next to it, written in a precise, angular script, was this comment: “What if you are Chinese? Latino? Beware of generalizations.”

Mortified, I went slinking through the newsroom, wishing I had never written those words. Why hadn't I simply said what I meant? Which was: “Growing up in New York City, steak was an important part of my childhood.” It was the truth, and no one could possibly have objected.

Every Saturday morning my father and I got up early to walk the sleepy streets of Greenwich Village, searching for a perfect piece of meat. We walked down Tenth Street to Greenwich Avenue, slowing to listen to the inmates in the Women's House of Detention call to their boyfriends in the street below. Sometimes when we turned into Sutter's Bakery on the corner, a raucous voice would shout, “Get some for me, baby,” and I'd think how sad it was to be locked up. But then the warm brown smell of butter and sugar would wrap itself around me, chasing everything from my mind as I stood breathing deeply, thinking how good it was to be alive. By the time we left, munching on jam tarts, I'd forgotten all about prison and was as happy as I knew how to be.

We'd pass Balducci's and sometimes the grocer would come out to show us the glamorous strawberries that had just arrived, or the fine figs that were exclusively his, and the day would get even brighter. Together Dad and I would stop to read the slogan printed on Prexy's window: “The hamburger with a college education.” Occasionally we'd press our noses against the plate glass at the Ideal Cheese Shop next door, and go in to buy a slice of real Gruyère to take home to Mom.

But no matter which route we took, our journey always ended at the narrow butcher shop on Jones Street, with its sawdust floor and its fine mineral aroma. The cases were filled with the bacon that they smoked themselves, pink and white strips spread out like gorgeous fabric, and a few pretty little lamb chops, red circles of meat clinging to elegantly long bones and decorated with frilly paper caps.

“Good morning, Jimmy,” my father would say.

And Jimmy would look up and smile and seem delighted to see us. He'd hand me a slice of salami, or some of the liverwurst he brought down from Yorkville, or sometimes the dried beef that he made when business was slow. “Fine morning,” he'd say, even when it wasn't.

“We need a porterhouse, please,” my father would say. And Jimmy would reply, “The finest steak there is!” as if the thought had occurred to him for the very first time. Then he would pull open the heavy wooden door, with its huge slab of a handle, and disappear into the cooler in the back. When he reappeared he was carrying what looked to me like half a steer, although it was really just the short loins that had been hanging for a few weeks, acquiring a fine patina of age.

Picking up a hacksaw, he'd indicate a cut: “This much?” And no matter how thick it was, my father always said, “A little thicker, please.” And Jimmy would nod and cut off a substantial steak, humming as he worked. When he was done he'd hold up the steak and point out the fine veins of white tracing a pattern through the dense red meat. “Good marbling,” he said admiringly every week, as if this steak was a special star. “All the flavor's in the fat. Cut off the fat, you can't tell the difference between beef, pork, and lamb. That's a fact. Did you know that?”

Then he'd thump the steak onto the chopping block and begin the ritual of trimming. First he'd cut the thick blue-black layer of mold from the outside of the steak, scraping it until the bright red flesh beneath the crust had been revealed. Then he'd carefully remove a few inches of fat from the edges so that only a creamy white frame remained. Carefully folding in the little tail end, he'd lay the meat on a piece of pink paper and heave it onto the scale.

“You're going to have a fine dinner,” he'd say, as if the compliment were to the cook and not the cutter. “Don't be afraid of the salt.”

“That's the secret!” my father always replied, carefully tucking the parcel under his arm. Waving cheerily, we'd walk out the door.

At home we had another ritual. Three hours before it was time to eat, my father would jump up from his chair and say, “No point in cooking cold meat.” Together we'd go into the kitchen, remove the porterhouse from the refrigerator, carefully unwrap the package, and set the steak on a platter lined with wax paper. When it had thrown off the chill, Dad would salt it, releasing a small blizzard over the meat. “The secret to a great steak,” he always said, “is that when you think you have enough salt, you add some more. The other secret,” he'd say as he got out the big cast-iron skillet, “is to heat the pan until it's blazing hot and cook the meat exactly eight minutes on each side.”

“And the final secret,” I'd add, doing my bit, “is the butter.” My job was to plunk a lump of sweet butter onto the sizzling steak just as my father set it on the platter.

My father carved the steak with long, precise strokes of the knife, carefully separating the sirloin that he and my brother preferred from the tenderloin that my mother favored. The bone was mine.

While they plied their forks like civilized people I'd bring the bone up to my face until the aroma—animal and mineral, dirt and rock—was flooding my senses. Then I'd bite into the meat, soft and chewy at the same time, rolling it around in my mouth. It was juicy, powerful, primal, and I'd take another bite, and another. The meat closest to the bone was smooth as satin, and sweet. It tasted like nothing else on earth, and I would gnaw happily until the bone was stripped naked and my face was covered with a satisfying layer of grease.

Could you still find a steak that good? Myron Rosen, the Weekend editor, was thrilled when I said I wanted to try; he promised me the front page of his section for my steakhouse roundup.

“Great! We can take Nicky with us,” said Michael when I told him that massive amounts of meat were in our immediate future. “Steakhouses are loud and fast—perfect for a five-year-old.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and every one of them serves French fries.”

 

 

 

 

 

I
'm helping Mommy with her work,” Nicky confided to Gene as we set off for the first steakhouse.

“Are you now?” asked Gene, stepping aside so Nicky could drive us down to the ground floor. “What might you be doing?”

“I'm the potato man,” he said proudly, bringing the elevator in for a bumpy landing.

“Good for you, buddy,” said Gene, taking over the controls, “important work. New York is depending on you! Bundle up, now—it's wicked out there.”

The city was having its bitterest winter on record, and the icy dampness crept through your boots and entered your bones. We stepped outside to find the wind howling angrily off the river. The moon hung above us, aloof and silver in the noisy night, as we struggled up the street.

I had wrapped Nicky in so many layers that he looked like a walking snowball. As he stood next to Michael in the frozen slush, trying to flag down a taxi, his face glowed and his nose dripped.

“If we don't find a cab in three minutes, we're going home,” muttered Michael. “It's too cold. Besides, I hate the Palm; the waiters can be such jerks.”

“My mother felt the same way,” I said. “She always said they threw the food at you.”

“Really?” asked Nicky, perking up at this news. “Do they get extra points for hitting you in good places?”

A taxi came sputtering and sliding, skidding to a stop in front of us, so I was not obliged to answer this question. And by the time we were settled, Nicky had moved on to French fries. “Do they have the fat kind or the skinny kind?” he wanted to know.

“Something even better,” I promised. “Hash browns.”

“What's that?” he said.

“Just wait,” I said. “You're going to like them. They're like a cake made out of potatoes, and nobody does them better than the Palm.”

Nicky considered this as we rode, snuggled together in the back of the cab, happy to be warm. There wasn't much traffic on this frigid night, and we went shooting through the streets at rocket speed.

The Palm smelled of hope and garlic and grilling meat. Vast crowds stood in the sawdust, clawing their way to the front of the line, desperate to lay claim to one of the uncomfortable chairs. Waiters rushed past, bearing enormous platters of food.

Michael put Nicky on his shoulders so he could see the action. “Nobody's throwing food!” Nicky reported disconsolately, “and I can't see the palm trees.”

“There aren't any,” I said, happy that I'd read up on the restaurant's history. “The name was a mistake. When they opened in 1926 the owners wanted to call it ‘Parma.' But they had thick Italian accents, and when they registered the name the clerk thought they were trying to say ‘Palm.'”

“That was lucky, wasn't it,” said the consummate Los Angeles kid as he climbed down from Michael's shoulders. “They got a better name.”

Our waiter started frowning when he saw three people approaching his prime four-top, and he looked even unhappier when he realized that one of us was only three feet tall. I could see him mentally calculating the tip and not liking the equation. Still, he perked up when Michael and I each ordered steak. And when Nicky asked for lobster he tried to be nonchalant as he mentioned that the smallest one they had weighed five pounds.

“That's okay,” I said.

I watched him struggle with himself a moment, and then his better nature won. “You sure?” he asked. He pointed his chin at Nicky. “It's bigger than him.”

“That's okay,” I said again. “Whatever he can't eat we'll take home.” The man recalculated his tip and grew visibly warmer.

“Hash browns?” he asked. If he wondered why two adults and one small child were ordering a mountain of food, he kept the question to himself.

The steaks were good enough, but the meat couldn't hold a candle to the steaks that Jimmy used to cut for Dad. But then, I hadn't expected them to. The hash browns, however, which spilled sloppily across the plate, were a major disappointment.

“You said it was a cake!” said Nicky accusingly.

“Something wrong?” asked the waiter.

I held up the messy pile. The man picked up a fork and prodded the potatoes. His lip curled. He looked down at Nicky. “Ever have hash browns before?” he asked.

“No,” said Nicky, “but my mommy said that yours are the best in the whole world.” In a smaller voice he added, “I think I'd rather have French fries?”

“Now wait a minute,” said the waiter, his pride obviously wounded. “Our hash browns
are
the best. Let me get some fresh ones.” He turned, reconsidered, came back, and asked, “Would you like to see how they're made?”

Nicky nodded. The waiter took his hand. “Come with me.” And together they trotted off to the kitchen.

Great steaks aren't cooked, they're bought; the important work is done before you ever leave the shop. Hash browns, however, are a different matter: They give a cook the chance to shine. Done well, they are a textbook on texture. Perfect hash browns are simultaneously crisp and tender, salty and sweet, black and white. When Nicky returned, he was carefully carrying the potatoes beneath the waiter's watchful eye. Settling in at the table, he took a bite. Then he took another. And one more. Soon every morsel of potato had disappeared.

“You were right, Mommy.” He sighed happily. “Hash browns are
much
better than French fries.” He smiled and said, “Do you want to know the secret?”