Food Whore

 

Dedication

To Mom and Dad

 

Contents

 

Out comes a gorgeous, fleshy wheel of foie gras, perched on its side like a monument grander than its actual two-­inch height. Around it are its minions, smears of savory-­sweet onion confit paste and garlic tendrils puffed like Rice Krispies. You slide your knife down, slowly at first. The wheel is murky, muddy, and before you know it, the knife is being sucked to the bottom of the plate as you watch the wheel unpeel from itself.

Out spills a green liquid, as mesmerizing as lava. Go on, take a forkful. Drag the finest, smoothest foie into the absolute essence of pea. Pick up a few pieces from the pool of accents. And taste. Put your fork down and wonder: how could this dish seem so pure and elemental, and yet have a flavor so electric, so challenging?

Bakushan, from the Japanese word
bakku-­shan
. A girl who looks pretty from behind, but is ugly in the front.

This dish is not ugly by any means, but it offers that bit of shock, that moment of fear and excitement when the girl turns around and shows you the truth.

 

Chapter 1

T
HE RECEPTION WAS MEANT TO BE CASUAL AND FUN, BUT
instead the air vibrated with tension, like a kettle on the verge of boiling. I saw some ­people in crisp lab coats (the food science researchers), others in tweed jackets (the cultural anthropologists), and a select group in shorts and hoodies who looked about the same age as us (the Internet start-­up founders). The room was a convergence of all kinds of food industry professionals, from restaurateurs to packaged-food makers to web-series producers. Students like me jockeyed for position around these would-­be mentors, needy moons circling any planet with a vacancy in its orbit.

“Do you see Helen?” I asked Elliott. He already had a job at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, but he'd come with me to the graduate student reception as a show of support.

Even though he had attended three of her speaking engagements with me and knew her face, he checked her picture again before scanning the crowd.

“Helen . . . Helen . . . where are you, Helen?” he said with squinted, searching eyes. “Want me to walk around? I'll text you if I see her.”

Before I could say yes, Elliott was off, hunting. He was good like that. Elliott was Elliott—­goofy and kind and the type of guy who made me giddy even by standing a little too close. He's a good one.

But one thing Elliott will never be is a person who loves to eat. He isn't opposed to a good meal or annoyingly picky or anything like that. It's just that food doesn't
matter
to him. If a meal ever tried to speak to Elliott, he'd probably excuse himself from the conversation. But that didn't mean he'd bail on helping me out.

Now that I was officially in NYU's master's program in Food Studies, I didn't want to leave Helen to chance. The committee already had my internship application and I'd find out my placement in five days, but maybe—­just maybe—­I could seal the deal by charming the socks off Helen at this event.

Helen is brilliant. Her work for the
Times
is legendary for its incisive critiques, but I love her memoirs and cookbooks the most. Unshackled by journalistic constraints, her voice grows warm and visceral and pulls you into the heart of every recipe and story. You sit in her blue childhood kitchen in Massachusetts, ache over her short-­lived love affair with a chef in France, grit your teeth at her hectic days as a new mother.

Part of my plan included enticing Helen with a batch of my special cashew-­almond-­walnut-­pecan Dacquoise Drops, something to make her take notice of my application essay. Dacquoise Drops were no ordinary cookies. They're what drove me to Helen, though I can't say I planned it that way.

My grandfather had been in the hospital with a weakened heart and rapidly degenerating lungs. For a month, my mom worked nights so she could spend her days with him. My dad visited after work and kept Mom calm.

I took the train from New Haven to Grand Central to Yonkers every Thursday and returned to campus every Monday morning, each trip depressing me more. Never mind the commute—­I loathed one rude, forgetful nurse and how her negligence left Grandpa's bed linens scratchy and a little too short. But I was most appalled by the food, which was bad for healthy ­people, and downright sadistic at the hospital: fried chicken, burgers, fries, salads larded with bacon and creamy dressings. Grandpa had always had a sweet tooth and it pained me to see him eat cookies filled with faux “crème” and cakes with decade-­long shelf lives.

So back at campus I developed the Dacquoise Drop: a light, nutty, meringue-­based cookie I knew Grandpa would love. I had been cooking with my grandfather since I could reach the stove, but this creation was something else entirely. It was the last thing he ate.

Elliott helped me make them for the funeral, and later, he was the one who convinced me to share my story and recipe in the
Yale Daily News
.

I wrote about one of our last cooking sessions together, right before I went to college. Grandpa taught me how to make Poulet aux Noix de Cajou, a chicken and cashew dish from his native Senegal. We took the train to Little Senegal, a pocket community tucked inside Harlem, and bought unshelled cashews, which are impossible to find anywhere else because the shells contain skin irritants similar to those in poison ivy. Together, we roasted the toxic fluids out, hand-­peeled the shells, and then blistered the nuts.

We could have taken twenty different shortcuts, but we took the long way at every step.

I ended the article with my Dacquoise Drops. I bought unshelled nuts and revisited Little Senegal to get the cashews. Elliott and I detoxed the cashews, then blanched, soaked, and roasted them. And that was just nut prep. The meringues were a whole other painstaking process. They took eight hours to make, but every step was connected to my grandpa. The essay was the most personal thing I had ever written.

The piece was published in the spring of my sophomore year and got a lot of reader attention. The editors gave me a regular food column, where I created original recipes and tied them to my real life. I loved it. One month before school let out for summer, the
New York Times
contacted me for a feature. The reporter said that Helen Lansky had discovered my column online and was reminded of her own writing. This came as the shock of my life. Helen was the master, and to get her vote of approval changed my entire life.

I was supposed to be profiled with other “college chefs,” but I ended up being the main story. They even published the Dacquoise Drops recipe, and Helen wrote an editor's note: “These are a creation born of love. Some ­people write. Others may cook. And some, like Ms. Monroe, are compelled to do both: tell a story through food.”

I had been lost, searching for a major and a direction. But after reading those words, it all clicked: food, writing, Helen Lansky. I increased my Yale column to twice a week and spent summers writing for the
New Haven Register
. After that article, I hardly went home, even though my parents lived just one state over.

The day before the graduate student reception, Elliott and I had baked a batch of cookies, and now they were at the peak of their complexity: chewy and crispy and lacquered with the most delicate shell, one that only lasts for eighteen or so hours before humidity steals it away. Now, I clung to the container of cookies, my pride and claim to fame.

“Hey,” a big guy said as I surveyed the room for Helen. “You looking for someone?” Between his large red face and flannel checkered shirt, he looked like he had come in from the cold, though it was about eighty degrees out.

“Yeah,” I said. “Helen Lansky? She used to be the dining editor for the
New York Times
and was even the critic for a bit. Now she's a cookbook author—­”

“Helen! Of course I know Helen!” He looked both insulted and amused that I had assumed otherwise. This was Food Studies graduate school, and these students were serious. “It's weird she isn't here yet, right?” he continued. “Everything about her writing is so immaculate and precise. I would have expected her to be super punctual.”

I nodded. “Totally. I hope she's coming. Do you know how internships are typically assigned?”

The guy threw up his hands. “Who knows. This whole process is a black box. I overheard one guy saying selection is a random lottery. They want to ‘expose you to different disciplines.' But my friend's sister got her first choice and now she's a professor at UCLA.” He shrugged and we both sighed.

I wasn't surprised, though. Who expects anything in New York to be easy?

“Well . . . my name's Kyle Lorimer,” the guy said. He held out a hand that was warm and bouncy, like a fresh-­baked bagel. He rocked on the balls of his feet as if this were the stop for the Helen Lansky train and all he had to do was wait.

“Tia Monroe,” I said before excusing myself. He seemed like a nice guy, but I wasn't going to lose focus now. I only had eyes for Helen.

I texted Elliott:
Anything?

I waited for the text to send, but the signal wasn't strong enough, so I had to walk outside. As my message finally shot off, I saw her from across the street: a petite, fine-­boned woman in a lime-­green silk jacket and velvet pants. Her big, bushy black hair nested on top of her head. She was half exotic concubine, half Jewish auntie.

I stepped forward onto the sidewalk and beamed. It was the perfect scenario. I'd leave an impression before the mob of grad students even saw her. I crossed the street before realizing she wasn't alone. A sickly thin gentleman stood across from her in an ill-­fitting suit. Helen was on her toes, lecturing him.

Suddenly my nerves ramped up. What was I going to do now? This man—­literally—­stood in the way.

By the time I crept up behind them, their faces were inches apart and their whispers were loud enough to be heard. I figured the man might spy me hovering or Helen would feel my eyes on her back and turn around. But none of that happened. I just stood there, my smile stiffening and slipping away. I didn't intend to eavesdrop on them, but I had to stay close so I could catch Helen once she stopped talking to the man.

“Now you're not making sense!” Helen screeched. “I'm just trying to help you before you do something you can't undo. I care about your future, even if you don't.”

I took one step forward, stretching my ear toward them. What were they talking about?

“To help me, Helen? I wasn't aware that I needed help,” huffed the thin man.

“Well, it's increasingly obvious to me. I can read it in your words. I can see it in your physique. And now you want to attend a graduate school reception for no ascertainable reason? The manager of Madison Park Tavern is in there. And plenty of other industry ­people, too. Any single one of them might recognize you.”

She barked the last few words at full volume, then quickly lowered her voice and took a breath. When she spoke again, she sounded scratchy and strained, as if she was on the edge of crying.

“Michael,” she began, her words barely reaching me through the hum of the city streets. “You're the
New York Times
restaurant critic. Don't treat this as a game.”

I gasped and tripped over my feet. I couldn't help it.

Michael. Michael Saltz, the current
Times
critic. Helen's successor, minus some in-­between ­people. For some, he was New York's most feared person: the man who had the power to make or break any restaurant in town.

I felt a flash of awe. Sure, Helen had been his boss when she worked at the
Times,
but he was a critic who lived in anonymity, and that imparted the sighting with a special taste of the forbidden.

He
wanted to attend the NYU reception?

No wonder Helen was so upset. The Food Studies graduate reception was no place for a high-­profile anonymous critic. It was like partying with ex-­cons while in the witness protection program. Why would you risk it?

Now I was basically on top of them, but they were still so engrossed in their conversation, I didn't think they'd notice. They hadn't paid any attention to me up until then.

And yet.

Michael Saltz's eyes peeled away from Helen and slithered over to mine. He regarded me with the lightest of touches, a nanometer of moisture absorbed into a cloud. But still, he got a read.

A moment later, a city bus arrived behind me and I was separated from the two of them by exiting passengers. I tried to keep Helen in my line of sight until I felt a hand at my elbow and looked up to see Michael Saltz. Helen had left.

“Why, hello,” he said. He had a slight lisp, which he didn't attempt to hide. “Looks like you missed your bus.”

“Oh, right!” I laughed, as cool as I could manage considering I had been caught eavesdropping on a conversation I'd known full well was private. “Um, I mean, no. I was waiting, but then I realized I have to stay here for a . . . thing.” I didn't want to tell him I was attending the same reception Helen had warned him against. His eyes lowered to my NYU name tag, which said, rather unhelpfully,
TI
A
M
O
N
R
O
E
.
Y
O
N
K
E
R
S
,
N
Y
.
Y
A
L
E
U
N
I
V
E
R
S
I
T
Y
.
F
O
O
D
W
R
I
T
I
N
G
A
N
D
C
U
L
T
U
R
A
L
A
N
T
H
R
O
P
O
L
O
G
Y
.