Vintage

For Liesbeth and Nelda, who cooked for us

This classic peasant stew was originally designed to stretch bonier and cheaper fish into a meal, but the addition of crushed garlic, herbs and fresh vegetables in balanced proportion have rendered it the poor fisherman's gift to humanity. Bouillabaisse has sent many a Marseilles sailor to sea with a strong back and a full belly, but it can also work wonders on a broken heart. It is a comeback meal, and with a dash of cayenne and saffron, even the most battered hearts can be restored with enough vigor to again brave the turbulent and storm-ridden waters of love.

—B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

N
ot bad, not bad at all,
Bruno thought as he wiggled his fingers above the keys. He cracked his knuckles. He was glad. It was starting to feel like a book. “Now, that's a hell of a beginning!” He actually said this out loud, drawing attention from the other diners at the bistro. He didn't care, though. He resumed typing:

Wine is life. It is essence. It is the inky-dark heartsblood pulsing out the rhythm of our species' slow crawl from the muck. Wine is the mystery behind every religion. It is the warmth of every sunrise. It is the chime of every bell that ever rang for a wedding or tolled for a funeral . . .

Bruno stopped his typing, rousing himself long enough to reach for his glass and sip the peppery velvet of his wine. He swished, coating his gums, and swallowed. Then returned to the keys:

Wine is civilization. It is what raised us up from feasting around carcasses and seated us at tables lit with conversation and laughter. Wine is desire. It is poetry. Philosophy. Science, nature, art. It is . . . humanity.

Bruno surfaced satisfied from his writerly fog. He reached for his wine once more to celebrate the words that now poured directly from his heart. But the glass was empty.
Damn!
He tipped the bottle. A single drop rolled off the rim. He looked around in a mild state of panic, realizing that he'd likely overstayed his welcome. But he wasn't about to leave the restaurant. Not now that he was finally making progress.

He blinked, staring across the room at a youngish blonde in a low-cut black cocktail dress. She glanced at him with what may have been intrigue or annoyance. Maybe it wasn't him at all that caught her attention, but the oiled Smith Corona typewriter propped on the table before him, next to the half-eaten plate of mixed brochettes and the empty bottle of the house red, an affordable Vacqueyras from the southern Rhône. He didn't care what she thought. He was about to submerge into the writing
again. It had been too long. He'd worked too hard. He typed. The table shook. The bell on the carriage chimed in celebration of a new line. The typebars, gleaming with olive oil, clacked and hammered home. It was the music of composition. His blood ran with the fire of creation . . . and the Vacqueyras.

An El train whooshed past outside, blotting the evening sun. There was a dull murmur of conversation around him. Waiters slalomed between the small tables. In his periphery, Bruno could see the crowd in the vestibule, waiting for tables in the tight little restaurant.

La Marseillaise was more popular now than ever. The
Green Guide
gave it a perfect score and couples made dinner reservations six months in advance. This dismayed Bruno even though he'd had a hand in the establishment's success. He'd written the restaurant's very first review in the
Sun-Times
a decade ago. He'd described the meal as a “subtle spectacle,” and declared Chef Joel Berteau, a humble cook from the French Merchant Marine with no prior experience in the restaurant racket, without even a green card, a “culinary magician of the highest order.”

The upshot was that Bruno's adjectives had transformed La Marseillaise from a hidden gem into the crown jewel of Chicago's River North neighborhood. He couldn't afford to eat here anymore, especially not in his current predicament. But Joel Berteau had become a friend. Now that Bruno was back living with his mother, the chef offered him a sort of office . . . a corner table during the hours between the lunch and dinner rushes. Most days, a complimentary bowl of Joel's triumphant bouillabaisse would appear next to his notebook as inspiration to coax Bruno's chin out of his hands, to nudge his dormant fingers toward the pen or the typewriter keys. Occasionally Bruno would ask for a bottle of wine. Occasionally he'd get one.

Today, he'd already had two. He was celebrating the end of his writer's block.

The keys sang their clattering, literary song. Discovering his father's old typewriter in the closet beneath the spare pillows had been a stroke of good fortune buried within the larger humiliation of moving back in with his mom. The mechanical clatter gave a new sense of urgency and permanence to his words. Never mind that it annoyed the restaurant staff and other guests, who were now arriving for the evening rush: smart couples in relaxed cotton, first dates trying to impress, a salesman wooing an out-of-town client. All of them wore the self-assured air of folks who know where they belong. Bruno felt, and ignored, the occasional toe-to-head glance. The raised eyebrow. He was gruff. Stout. His unruly beard flecked with gray. His royal blue Chicago Cubs cap covering a thinning crown of bristly hair. His rumpled tweed jacket was neither new nor old enough to be fashionable.

And add to all of this the fact that he was typing. Noisily.

CLING!
The carriage chimed another small victory. Finally, his new book was under way. After all this time . . .

“Bruno? Mr. Tannenbaum?”

The voice was at his ear. Whispered. Urgent. Bruno turned his head and scowled, but his eyes never left the bond paper.

“Mr. Tannenbaum!” The whisper morphed into a low, urgent order.

Bruno glanced up. A waiter with a beak nose supporting Versace glasses was bending down at his elbow.
How the hell can a waiter afford Versace?

“Mr. Tannenbaum, you have to stop writing.”

“What?”

“The table . . . we need the table now.”

Bruno looked around. People crowded the entry. They spilled onto the street. They eyed him and his corner table. Prized real estate. When he'd arrived, the last diners were abandoning their lunches. He blinked. He looked at his page . . . a full page, finally a single full page. How many hours had it taken?

“Give me some more time. I'm working here.”

Wine didn't usually make Bruno surly. But he didn't like this waiter, who was wearing glasses worth more than a check from Condé Nast for a freelance article on squid salads. Whoever this guy was, Bruno was a peg higher. After all, he was pals with Berteau. After a number of favorable reviews, Berteau had invited him into the kitchen. They'd spent many a late night at the table in back, uncorking Rhônes, experimenting on the stove and discussing the merits and failings of Twain, Proust, Fitzgerald and Flaubert: Berteau had done a fair amount of reading in the Merchant Marine, and one such evening had led him to make the offer: a clean, well-lighted place to work. It was an offer that Bruno now abused. But an offer nonetheless. And Bruno wasn't about to let this waiter challenge precedent.

The door to the kitchen flopped open. A waitress shouldered a tray. Bruno smelled the Mediterranean Sea. Inspiration struck and he resumed typing.

“Mr. Tannenbaum . . .” Versace said, as if speaking to a child.

“Can't you see I'm working?” Bruno must have shouted, because heads turned. The blonde in the low-cut glanced his way again.

“Mr. Tannenbaum, the chef would love to offer you his table in the kitchen. It would be an honor . . .”

Bruno wasn't listening. He knew he was imposing. But he also knew he'd been working for hours, days, years to carve out the first few words of a new book. He was writing again.
Writing something real. It was the first step in climbing out of the hole he'd been living in. He was making his comeback. And Versace wasn't going to derail him.

“Bring me more Vin de la Maison,” Bruno ordered, swiping at the empty bottle and knocking it over.

Another waiter arrived. A pair of hands reached for his typewriter. They lifted it from the table. His hard-won sentences were being snatched away. He spun. He swung. He felt flesh and bone mash beneath his palm. The Versace glasses smacked the cobbled floor. There was a collective gasp.

Rough hands were on his shoulders. He was on his feet. Standing up so quickly carried the wine from his stomach to his head. He felt someone grabbing his jacket, muscling him toward the door. Then he lost handle on his consciousness.

*      *      *

Bruno came to with his cheek pressed to the concrete. A taxi roared past. A train rattled overhead. He sucked in a mouthful of oily exhaust, blinked and saw his father's typewriter lying upside down before him, the handle on the return broken. Tears burned hot behind his nose, but he sniffed them back.

He heard the door swing open. Big hands were on him again, but gentler this time, coaxing him to his feet. Joel was there. Bruno smelled the garlic, sweat and olive oil. The chef's apron was smeared, his toque askew.

“Bruno, Bruno, look at you.” Joel shook his head. The large sailor steadied Bruno on his feet, then took a step back and scratched his sandpapery jaw. Bruno was a big man, but Joel was bigger. “I don't want you back. Not till you straighten yourself out.”

“I am straight. I'm back at the top of my game.”

Joel reached down and pulled the single page out of the typewriter. He began reading. Bruno watched, eager, expectant, as Joel studied it.

When Joel finally looked up, Bruno's heart sank. The chef folded the page and tucked it into Bruno's inside jacket pocket. “I don't get it. Where's it going?” he asked. Bruno didn't answer. He couldn't. There was a pause. Joel shook his head. “Try again, Bruno. Come back when you're in a better place.”

Bruno felt like a child as Joel squeezed his shoulder. He could feel his friend's disappointment, like a cold, heavy weight, in the chef's grasp.

Joel hailed a cab. It eased to the side of the street and he helped Bruno in, setting the typewriter gently in his lap. Then he turned and disappeared back into the maelstrom of the restaurant.

Call the capon the king of the cockerels: this table bird has been gelded and fattened, and the result is the richest, most mouthwatering fowl that can cross your palate. To refer to him as a chicken is an insult. The capon is the perfect gourmet solution for finicky dinner guests, but careful preparation and pairing with an excellent wine also wins him a special place in the practices of seductive cookery.

—
B
RUNO
T
ANNENBAUM,
T
WENTY
R
ECIPES FOR
L
OVE

“S
ome Frog fishmonger thinks he knows good writing . . .” Bruno was saying.

“S'cuse me?” The cabdriver glanced in the rearview.

“Nothing.”

Bruno huddled over the typewriter, cursing Joel Berteau. But in his heart, he knew his friend was right. He didn't even unfold the page that Berteau had stuffed into his pocket. How could anything be good after two bottles of wine? He had no doubt he was a decent writer. He'd written a very good novel twenty years
before. It hadn't sold exceptionally well, but it earned strong reviews and was translated into French, Spanish and German. One draft, words pouring from his heart, adjectives tumbling from his palate. One draft, and his editor had requested only minor revisions. He'd written the book in France in his twenties, fresh out of college, after he'd spent his savings on a backpacking trip across Europe and then taken a job as a vineyard laborer in the Burgundian village of Pommard to raise funds for his return home. The novel was filled with so many rich vignettes of food and wine that it earned him a guest column at his hometown newspaper, the
Chicago Sun-Times
. This turned into a regular gig reviewing restaurants, then a spot on the local news and finally another book deal.