Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance (14 page)

The corners of his mouth turned up in a taunting grin. He saluted me. “Sorry, Chef. I didn’t know.”

I had wanted him to know that I knew my way around a stove, but I was sorry I had mentioned my class standing. It made me sound pretentious. Ignoring it, I went on. “The duxelles. You can mention that if someone has it on hand, they should use it, but for the show it would be better if you could make the dish with fresh mushrooms, shallots, and Madeira—build a duxelles in the pan. Do you think you can handle that?”

He put his arm on the back of my chair so that it brushed my shoulder and grinned at me. “I can handle anything.” I knew he meant more than mushrooms in a pan and he probably could, but his bold conceit still got
my
Irish up. I gave him a sarcastic look and continued going over what we’d do with the cured salmon and tuna tartare. Then I asked him how he made the sesame wonton cups.

“It’s simple, but we have to make some anyway so you can watch. Or, if you’d rather, you can help make them.”

“I’d love to.”

We went back into the kitchen and he handed me an apron and told Erin that I would be helping her make the wonton cups. He told her I was a chef; I was grateful that he didn’t add “second in her class.” Erin laid out several mini-muffin pans and handed me a pastry brush. “Brush the insides of the pans with that peanut oil. I’ll get the wontons.” We worked together, pressing wontons into the tins and then brushing them with a mixture of oil and cornstarch.

“Why the cornstarch?” I asked.

“It gives them a nice sheen and helps the seeds stay where they’re supposed to.”

Erin gave me sesame seeds and sea salt and told me to sprinkle them on the cups. Meanwhile, she cut a stack of wontons diagonally and arranged them on several baking trays before brushing them with the cornstarch oil and coating them with sesame seeds and salt.

“What do you do with the triangles?” I asked, sprinkling my wonton cups as directed.

“We bake them, just like the cups, and put four of them on the plate to eat with the tuna. They’re really good just as they are, and at home I use them for all manner of dips.”

We were working to the lively beat of the Chieftains’ music, and I could understand why Danny chose the lively tunes. It was hard not to work at the fast pace of its rhythm or not feel happy while doing so. In no time at all, we had filled all the muffin tins, covered all the trays with wontons, and had them in the oven. Erin removed the triangles after six minutes, let them cool a bit on racks, and then handed me one to taste.

“Pretty good. Don’t you think?” she said. I was already nibbling on a second one and wishing I had some hummus.

“Delicious!” I said between chews. “Well, I definitely think
we should go with the lamb, the cured salmon, and the tuna tartare in sesame cups.”

“So, what happens now?” Danny asked.

“I’ll turn my notes into recipes and then into scripts.”

“I’m going to have to memorize lines?”

“No. The scripts are not dialogue. They tell you what you will do and in what order. I’ll get them to you beforehand so you can look them over.”

“When will that be?”

“I’ll have them ready Monday afternoon and either fax or e-mail them to you.” I picked up my pad and pencil. “Do you have an e-mail address?”

He rolled his eyes and said, “[email protected]. Don’t groan. My staff set it up for me.”

I wrote the address on my pad and started to hum. “‘Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling . . .’”

“I’m begging you. Please don’t.”

I sang the next words quietly: “‘From glen to glen, and down the mountainside . . .’”

“I’m not listening.” He turned to the stove and began sautéing more mushrooms.

I leaned right up to his ear. “‘The summer’s gone and all the roses falling . . .’”

“I can’t hear you.”

“‘ ’Tis you, ’tis you must go, and I must bide.’” At that point, the rest of the staff joined in and we sang loud enough to drown out the Chieftains.

“‘But come ye back . . . ’” Brian and the two line chefs had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were rocking side to side as they sang. One of them was a pretty decent tenor. Erin and Sweetie were harmonizing and pretending to dry their eyes with chefs’ towels.

“You’re all fired!” Danny yelled above our singing.

“‘’Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow. Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.’”

“I hope you’re happy to bring all this chaos to my kitchen,” he said when we’d finished and the guys were taking a bow.

“You should change your e-mail address. Should I fax the scripts instead?”

“Maybe I could pick them up and watch a show from behind the scenes to get an idea of how it works, now that I know what I’m going to be making.”

“Sure. Tuesday’s a good day. We have a live spot and we’ll also be prepping for a Wednesday spot with Sally. So you’ll get to see what both involve. I’ll be there at five-thirty. You can come anytime. Bring your tools. I’ll put
you
to work”

“Brilliant. Will Sally be there Tuesday morning? I really enjoyed meeting her. She’s a trip.”

“No. She doesn’t get in until Wednesday,” I said and then remembered that I was in charge of lunch reservations for Wednesday. I thought it would be a nice gesture all around to come here, so I asked Danny if he could seat three of us.

“Brilliant. I’ll put you down.” He made a note on an order pad and then asked, “Do you have to go now or do you want to work some more?”

Working with his friendly staff to the happy beat of the Irish fiddles was making me feel a lot better than I would have expected, so I stayed and peeled, chopped, blanched, and whisked my way to feeling pretty good. As Sally always said, cooking together was fun. When it was time for me to go, I removed my apron and went to the dishwasher’s sink to wash my hands. Dishwasher’s sinks have a low faucet and a high shower-style faucet for rinsing the dishes. I realized too late that I’d turned on the high faucet, and a shower of cold water
streamed down from the faucet suspended above me. It was directed right at me, and before I could move, I was drenched right through my T-shirt, right through my half-price Calvin Klein bra, and all the way to me. I didn’t have to turn around to know that Danny had seen what I’d done. I could hear him laughing.

“You seem to favor that wet look.”

“Not on purpose,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

He looked down at my crossed arms and said, “No need to be shy. I’ve seen them before.”

I was going to punch one of his arms, but I didn’t want to uncross mine. “Very funny. I can’t go out like this. Have you got something I can borrow?”

“Sure. Come on.” He led me back to his private office, which was a small, windowless room with just about enough space for his desk, which was against the wall. The walls were lined with bookshelves and cookbooks, lots of cookbooks. It was orderly but undecorated. Danny took a jeans jacket off the hook of an old wooden hat rack.

“Will this work?”

I rolled up the sleeves. “It’s perfect. Thanks. Is it okay if I give it back to you on Tuesday?”

“Fine.” He leaned back against his desk and smiled at me—a killer smile. “I’m sorry you have to leave. It was nice having you here.”

“I really enjoyed it. You run a great kitchen.”

“Thanks. You’re very efficient yourself. Ever think about restaurant work?”

“No. I don’t like the late hours.”

“But if you don’t work lunch, you get to stay in bed all morning.”

“Staying in bed all morning has never been my bag.”

His smile became a wicked grin. “Maybe you just haven’t had the right company.”

He had that right. I put my hands on my hips and squinted at him. “Are you hitting on me, Danny O’Shea?”

His grin widened. “Second in your class and you have to ask.”

“Well, you have to stop.”

“Why? Are you attached?”

“That’s my business.” Please don’t cry. Please don’t cry. “Besides, that’s not the point.”

“Well, what is the point? I like you. I’m attracted to you.”

Me and the entire attractive female population of the five boroughs. “The point is, you’re a meadow vole.”

He laughed. “A what?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked square at him. “A meadow vole. A Don Juan, a Casanova, a womanizer, a player.”

“I think you have the wrong idea about me.” He took a step toward me and straightened my collar. “But I think you like me anyway.”

Oh, the arrogance!

I grinned back at him. “Okay. I’m done having this conversation. Thanks for the jacket.”

“Don’t mention it. But you looked better without it.”

He was laughing as I left.

Let the morning in, but keep it under cover.
—The Slip

I
woke up Sunday morning to the smell of gravy cooking. It was the same heartache therapy that working in the kitchen had been yesterday. Gravy is what Italian-Americans call tomato sauce, the three-hour kind with enough meat to feed a small country. My mother makes a huge pot of it every Sunday. It isn’t so much about cooking as it is about connecting with her heritage. She likes knowing that generations of her maternal ancestors spent their Sunday mornings stirring what they called
ragù
in their own kitchens. Even when we ate Sunday dinners at Nonna’s, my mother made her own gravy before we went. She’d give half the pot to me to bring to the city, and before the end of the week we had each used up our share for lasagne, sausage-and-pepper sandwiches, baked stuffed peppers, and veal parmigiana.

I looked at the clock and saw that it was only eight, so I closed my eyes and enjoyed a morning when I didn’t have to get out of bed at an insane hour. Seduced by the familiar aroma, I drifted into an alpha-wave sleep where images of my
mother making gravy played out like a TV food show. She moved gracefully about the kitchen cradling a large gold can of olive oil, dangling a long string of Italian sausage links in front of the camera, straining tomatoes, and finally putting her hands on her hips, smiling at her audience, and saying,
“Buon appetito
.” Sally couldn’t have done it better.

I heard the car pull into the driveway and knew that would be Dad returning from Piri’s Bakery with loaves of bread for dinner and pastries for breakfast. Time to get up. I found some old jeans and a faded Johnny Cash T-shirt in the closet and threw them on before snuggling my feet into my slippers and padding downstairs to meet the day.

My mother had just finished kneading a large mass of pasta dough and was patting it into a nice round ball before putting it aside to rest. That meant ravioli. We always began Sunday dinner with either ravioli or lasagne. The homemade pasta meant ravioli, because we buy the large sheets of dough for lasagne from Costantino’s. Sitting on the stove, waiting for the oven to get up to temperature, was a roasting pan holding a large pork roast studded with garlic, glistening with olive oil, and surrounded by rosemary sprigs. My parents looked at me without saying anything, and I could see that they were assessing my emotional state before speaking. Over a month had passed since the Richard fiasco, but they were still cautious.

“Good morning,” I said in a cheery tone. I could see them relax.

“Ah, she lives and breathes,” my father said as he cut the string wrapped around the white pastry box from Piri’s.

“Mmmm,
sfogliatelle, zeppole
,” I cooed while lifting the cover. I kissed him first.

“Good morning, Mary Sunshine. What makes you wake so
soon? You used to wake at twelve o’clock and now you wake at noon.” My mother had greeted me with that nursery rhyme as far back as I could remember, and I never grew weary of it. When I was little, I did wonder why she didn’t know my name, but I liked the rhyme so I let it pass. This morning, I was grateful because I knew I looked nothing like sunshine.

“I’m here to help,” I said with a mouthful of
zeppole
. “Are you ready to make the
braciole
and meatballs?”

“In a minute. Finish your breakfast first.”

One
sfogliatella
, two
zeppole
, and couple of new Dad jokes from the bakery later, I was ready to go into culinary action. Dad took his newspapers into the living room and Mom and I did what we love to do together—cook and talk.

“How are you doing, sweetie?” She was using a meat pounder, a
batticarne
, to even out thin slices of beef top round before stuffing and rolling them into
braciole
.

“I’m okay.” I took out the box grater, found dried pieces of Italian bread, and began to grate bread crumbs for the meatballs. “You need bread crumbs for the
braciole
?”

“About a cup. You’re going to be just fine.”

“I know. Any Parmesan?”

“Grate me a good cup. I feel sorry for Richard.”

“For
him
! Why’s that?” I put the few pounds of ground meat into a large bowl and added some beaten eggs, the bread crumbs, grated Parmesan, and salt and pepper.

“Because he missed out on the best.”

“Thanks. You want me to put raisins in any of the meatballs?” Italians are territorial about their gravy and meatballs. My mother’s heritage is Neapolitan; her people do not put garlic or tomato paste in their gravy and or raisins in their meatballs. My Aunt Maria’s mother-in-law, Louisa Alfano, who always comes for Sunday dinner, is Sicilian. She uses garlic,
tomato paste, and raisins and likes to point out that they are missing in my mother’s gravy and meatballs.

“Madonn’.” She pinched her fingers together and wagged them in the typical Italian sign language for exasperation. “That woman! Make a few with raisins.”

I began to mix the meat and eggs and bread crumbs and cheese into a homogeneous mass. “Who’ll be here today?”

Mom began to count with her left hand, never missing a beat with the
batticarne
in her right hand; she is an expert at multitasking. “Nonna, Mrs. Alfano, Aunt Maria, Uncle Tony . . .”

Mom’s older sister, my aunt Maria, is married to Tony Alfano, a pediatrician. Uncle Tony grew up three houses away from the Contis’ and started hanging around Aunt Maria when they were twelve. Mom says the whole street could hear Mrs. Alfano yelling from her second-story window, “Anthony! Anthony Alfano, you get away from that girl. Anthony!” They have five children: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Mary. Yup.