Angelina's Bachelors

by Brian O'Reilly

  Pepino listened to her plans quietly but attentively. She’d started off slowly, fully aware that this was the first time she had ever shared her ideas with an experienced culinary professional, a man who had most likely spent his entire adult life working in commercial kitchens.

  She suddenly found herself wanting his approval and felt a surge of confidence each time he nodded in agreement. They had just finished off their second cups of coffee when Angelina popped the question:

  “Have you had lunch, Pepino? Would you like to make us something to eat?”

  His eyes were so dark that they seemed to catch a different light whenever he moved his head even slightly, so she couldn’t be quite sure if the gleam came from amusement, his acceptance of her politely but pointedly proffered challenge, or simply a trick of the light. With the presence and dignity of a toreador, he rose, took off his jacket, and draped it neatly over the back of his chair.

  Pepino took his time making his way over to the walk-in, where Angelina had stocked assorted proteins, herbs, butter, onions, carrots, and a few more sundry essentials. She saw him slip his hand unobtrusively to the undersides of the counters as he went. When he returned to the big cutting board with his supplies, he stroked the inlaid wooden slab in a way that reminded her of the way she touched her child’s head one last time before he dropped off to sleep. Pepino indicated the chef’s knife lying beside the board.

  “May I use this, miss?”

  “Sure.”

  He had barely washed his hands and started his mise en place when his face suddenly split into a big smile. “It’s just … so clean!”

  He laughed and Angelina joined in. Pepino seemed to relax then and talked as he worked, mostly about the old days at Scolari’s. He didn’t talk about the people so much, but about little details, cook’s things, things specific to this kitchen, such as the slightly-off height of the grill, how long the fryer took to heat up properly, which racks to keep mushrooms on in the fridge so they stayed cool and dry; how he’d always liked to come in early before deliveries to check how the cleaner did the night before, make sure nothing was missed, to write his prep lists in a quiet room, to think; then once he’d seen what was delivered fresh, to plan a soup of the day, poach fat cloves of garlic slowly in olive oil for dipping at the table, blanch tomatoes, sear off his meats, build his sauces for that night’s service.

  As he talked, Pepino roughly diced a concasse into a stainless steel bowl, deftly peeling and deseeding three small, vine-ripened tomatoes in a blink of an eye, leaving them to marinate in extra-virgin olive oil with some brunoised carrot, parsley, and garlic. He heated butter and oil in a pan and let it come up to a foam while he quickly rinsed a dozen shrimp. He dropped the vegetables into the pan and let them cook down with a beaker of white wine while he delicately deveined the backs and bellies of the shrimp, leaving the heads undisturbed. He set a second pan on low heat, poured a light coating of olive oil and rubbed the pan with a large clove of garlic; he browned four large, bias-cut slices from a baguette. and left them to gently brown in the oil. He added a whisper of salt to his sauce, a generous grind of black pepper, saffron, a pinch of cayenne, and a dash of brown sugar. He laid the shrimp into the sauce, turned them and let them finish, then quickly pulled them out to a side plate at the precisely pink moment of doneness. He mounted his improvised beurre blanc with a knob of butter, plated the fried bread, laid on the shrimp and fragrant sauce, which he left unsieved and rustic, and sprinkled chopped scallions and parsley over everything.

  Angelina poured two glasses from the remainder of the wine he’d used in the sauce, an acidic, wonderfully dry Gavi di Gavi from Piedmont, and they touched glasses before diving in. The shrimp were fresh and perfectly cooked. They ate them shells and all, sucked the sweet meat of the heads with relish, then wiped every last drop of the sauce from their plates with the crostini, which were beautifully crisp on the outside and moist and lacy on the inside.

  When they finished, Angelina formally asked Pepino if he would like to come work with her.

  “Yes, miss. I would like to. Very much.”

  Pepino recommended his nephews to Angelina—Tomas, as dishwasher, prep cook, and general utility man in the kitchen, and Michael, who could tend the bar and fill in as needed just about anywhere else. In addition, Angelina hired two waitresses, Peggy and Lisa. Peggy was older and more experienced and had been in the business for twenty years. Lisa had a great smile, was fresh out of school, seemed to have a great way with people and was eager to learn. Lastly, Angelina found a hostess who lived right around the corner from the restaurant, Mrs. Fielding, who had worked at the old Bellevue-Stratford and agreed to come out of retirement, partly because she had lately been looking for a way to fill her days, but mostly because she and Angelina hit it off like old comrades right away.

  A week before the planned opening, Angelina was in the kitchen working out the finishing touches on a dish of sweetbreads with artichokes and Tuscan white beans when Jerry popped into the kitchen with two giant lemonades and a large paper shopping bag in tow.

  “Hey, Chef,” he said. “Remember when you told me you needed a clock in here?”

  “Hey there,” said Angelina brightly. “I keep forgetting to pick one up even though I keep looking up at the same blank space on the wall fifty times a day.”

  “Guess what I got. Look at this.” He reached into the bag and took out a big, round, institutional-looking, old clock, with a white face and the plainest possible black numbers and hands.

  “Nice. That’ll do the trick.”

  “But guess where I got it from.”

  “Where?”

  “It came from Saint Teresa’s.”

  “No way.”

  “Yeah, really. I found it in the basement at Saint Joe’s with some other stuff. It used to hang up in the library, it’s marked on the back with Magic Marker. When I used to get detention in third grade, this was the slowest-moving clock in the world. I’m telling you, this thing ticked, like, once an hour.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that clock,” said Angelina. “It’s just that juvenile delinquents can’t tell time.”

  “True. Here, I got you some lemonade.” Jerry put a big plastic cup next to her on the counter.

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m gonna go get a ladder and stick this baby up on the wall for you.”

  “Nice work!” Angelina called after him.

  Jerry disappeared into the dining room and reappeared with an aluminum folding ladder. Angelina starting heating grapeseed oil in a sauté pan to sear her veal, while Jerry positioned the ladder under the exposed wiring for the clock fixture high up on the wall.

  Angelina’s focus was entirely on the oil in the pan. She wanted to start cooking when the oil was shimmering, but before the smoking point. It was just a matter of watching and practiced waiting.

  “Whoa!”

  Angelina looked up, startled. One of the legs of Jerry’s ladder had slipped on an errant slick spot on the floor. He neatly jumped down in time without hurting himself, but the ladder clattered noisily to the floor. Angelina’s hand slipped and she yelped when she burned her thumb on the edge of the blazing-hot pan.

  Jerry was at her side in an instant. “Quick, let me see.”

  “Dammit!” Tears sprang up immediately. The burn was right on the edge of her palm, at the sensitive little web of skin where the base of the thumb joins the hand. “Don’t touch it!” she cried.

  “It’s okay, hold on a minute.”

  Jerry flipped the lid off her lemonade and popped an ice cube into his mouth. He took her by the hand, pressed his lips tenderly into her palm, then moved his mouth gently against the spot.

  He seemed to know just how and when to draw the warming liquid back in and when to allow the coolness of the ice to seep through and soothe the pain. In seconds, the cool kiss of it sent a thrill of relief into her hand, up her arm, to the back of her neck, and into her cheeks. She shuddered a little as the sti
nging ache ebbed and subsided.

  “Oh.”

  Jerry looked up. “Does that help?”

  “Yes,” she said, exhaling. “That’s better. I don’t think it’s too bad.”

  He brushed a tear away from her cheek. “You okay?”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  Just then, Gia walked in with little Francis bundled in her arms and saw the ladder sprawled sideways on the floor, an oily pan smoking and spattering on the stove, and Angelina and Jerry standing close in the middle of the kitchen holding hands, gazing into each other’s eyes.

  She cleared her throat authoritatively, but tried to do it without sounding too judgmental.

  They both turned their heads in her direction. Jerry released Angelina’s hand and starting scooping some ice cubes into a side towel.

  “Oh, hi, Gia,” said Jerry.

  “Hi, Ma.”

  “Everything okay in here?” asked Gia.

  Jerry handed the towel to Angelina, and she wrapped it gingerly around her hand.

  “The ladder fell and I burned my hand. Jerry was just putting some ice on it for me.” Angelina felt her cheeks coloring.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s an old trick my mother taught me,” said Jerry. “It works pretty well.”

  “I feel much better already,” said Angelina helpfully.

  Gia paused for a few seconds with the unmistakable air of a mother who has seen it all before. “Well, Francis and I went out for a walk and thought we’d stop by to see how it was going in here,” she said finally.

  “It’s going good,” said Jerry.

  “It’s going great,” said Angelina, suddenly feeling like his echo. “Let me clean up and put something on this burn, then I’ll make us a little lunch.”

  “Okay,” said Gia. “We’ll go sit at a table and wait outside.”

  Jerry moved over and picked up the ladder. “You do that and I’ll just finish putting up this clock.”

  Gia took a turn around the room like a beat cop, past Angelina, who busied herself in her purse looking for Neosporin and a Band-Aid, and stopped briefly to give the once-over to Jerry, who gave her his most innocent and affable-looking smile in return.

  Gia backed out of the door slowly with the baby nestled in her arms. “As long as nobody gets hurt, that’s all that matters.”

  On a sunny Saturday in October, a small crowd was gathered on the pavement at the site of the old Scolari’s on Tenth. Angelina was there, Johnny and Tina, Mamma Gia with little Francis in her arms, Don Eddie and Big Phil, Jerry and Guy, Mr. Cupertino and Mr. Pettibone; it was a family affair.

  Jerry had jury-rigged a mechanism for the unveiling. Big swatches of cloth covered both the awning and the classic, hand-carved sign that Angelina had commissioned, which hung from a wrought-iron armature above their heads. Angelina held the end of the rip cord in her hand.

  “Is everybody here?” asked Basil.

  “We’re here,” said Tina, after a quick head count.

  Angelina took a step forward. “First, I want to say a few words. This is the first day of the new restaurant, and it couldn’t have happened without all of you. I wanted you all to be here to see the new name.”

  “It’s got to be Angelina’s,” said Johnny.

  Jerry gave him a friendly shot in the arm. “Come on, John, don’t guess, you’ll ruin it.”

  “Sorry,” said Johnny.

  “So,” said Angelina, “please come for dinner as often as you can, tell your friends, tell strangers, tell everybody, starting tonight. And …”

  “Come on, Aunt Angelina, please,” said Tina. “I can’t wait anymore!”

  Angelina smiled and raised both hands over her head. “Okay, here goes.”

  She pulled on the cord and the drapes sprung from their places dramatically and fluttered to the ground, revealing the awning and the sign, both lettered in gold on a field of forest green. The establishment’s new name now stood proudly for all to see:

  Il Primo Amore

  They all clapped and cheered and Angelina glowed.

  “It’s so pretty,” said Tina.

  “Il Primo Amore,” said Basil, and tried his hand at an Italian accent when he did. “Why’d you pick that name, Angelina?”

  “It’s an old Italian saying: Il primo amore che non dimenticate mai. ‘The first love you never forget.’”

  Guy moved a step closer to her. “So you named it after Frank.”

  “And Francis,” said Angelina, “and food, cooking for all of you. Cooking for my family and for you all will always be the most special to me. In fact, let’s face it, it’s really one and the same thing.”

  Gia handed Angelina the baby and she waved them all inside.

  “Come on in, everybody,” said Angelina. “I have some coffee and soda and sandwiches waiting. Then I have to get busy. We’ve got a full house tonight.”

  The first three weeks were nothing but hard work and kinks that needed to be ironed out, from seating charts to turning the tables quickly enough, to ovens that ran hot and cold, and all of the other endless minutiae that have to be taken into consideration simply to muscle a nice plate of food on the table. Angelina had sensibly tried to keep the menu simple to start with, but she and Pepino still had their hands full until they learned to work as a unit. Pepino had a razor-sharp focus and an unerring instinct for the sweet spot in every one of Angelina’s recipes. Overcooked and underdone were not words that existed in his culinary vocabulary.

  The biggest—and best—problem they had was keeping up with demand. They built up a reliable crowd almost overnight and word of mouth, which was kind, bordering on enthusiastic, spread quickly. It became a rarity when at least one person at a table of new customers didn’t casually mention to Peggy or Lisa that so-and-so had sent them, or that they had felt compelled to come in to “see what all of the fuss was about.”

  Gia willingly and happily took charge on the home front, with Tina filling in the gaps, and before too long they, Angelina, and Francis had achieved a reliable balance of home life in relation to work life that at least showed a promise of relative normalcy for the foreseeable future. Angelina kept Il Primo Amore closed on Sundays and Mondays and for lunches, but the business they did at dinner during the week and especially on Fridays and Saturdays was enough to make their start out of the gate look encouraging. The Don and Phil were regulars, as was Mr. Cupertino, and as investors, they all had special house accounts that took the sting out of eating out almost every night.

  One Sunday in mid-November, Angelina and Francis were enjoying a lazy morning at home when Mr. Pettibone called.

  “Angelina,” he said, “I hate to intrude on your day off, but do you think I could stop by for a few minutes later this morning? There’s something I need to consult with you about.” He seemed uncharacteristically stressed.

  “Sure, Douglas, of course. What is it?”

  “I’ll explain when I see you.” He hung up without saying good-bye.

  Angelina’s curiosity was most definitely piqued.

  Douglas arrived, quite out of breath, about twenty minutes later. He came in, took off his coat, and made sure to say a formal “Hello” to Francis. He was dressed in jeans and a knotted, old fisherman’s sweater.

  “Douglas, I don’t think I have ever seen you wearing a pair of blue jeans,” said Angelina.

  He looked at her in deadly earnest and said, “These are my cooking clothes.”

  The story unfolded in a blur. In a nutshell, Pettibone had a date coming to his apartment that very evening, and he didn’t know what to make for dinner.

  “So, here is my predicament. This is a person I think I like very much, who seems to really enjoy good food, and, to be honest, I may have … exaggerated my cooking skills a bit.”

  “A bit?”

  “Maybe,” he said tensely, “a bit.”

  The only time Angelina could ever remember being this nervous about a meal was the first time she cooked just for Frank.

&nbs
p; “I’ll go upstairs and get my book,” said Angelina, snapping into action. “Meet me in the kitchen.” When she reached the top of the stairs, she called down, “What’s her name?”

  Mr. Pettibone hadn’t heard her clearly and he came to the foot of the steps. “Excuse me?”

  “What is your date’s name?”

  “Oh,” he said bashfully, “Leslie.”

  “Well, let’s make sure we give Leslie a night to remember.”

  Angelina brewed a pot of tea, and after a few minutes’ intense discussion, they spread out at the big kitchen table and set to work outlining his campaign. She wanted to design a menu for him that was technically achievable, that she thought was harmonious and balanced, full of provocative tastes and textures, without being too showy, and for which he still had time to shop and to cook.

  It immediately became apparent that the man knew his way around a cookbook. He took notes and asked smart questions and made a couple of insightful suggestions to a few of her recipes that Angelina noted in the margins for later.

  She decided to start them off with a Sweet Corn Bisque with Crab “Soufflé.” The puréed texture of this deeply penetrating soup gave it a rich, suede-smooth mouth-feel, and the stack of jumbo lump crabmeat mounded in the center, warm and bound together with a whisper of mayonnaise and coriander, told someone immediately that you were excited they came.

  The main course would be center-cut Filet Mignon in a Grand Marnier Reduction, with Chestnut Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans Amandine. Romantic encounters had been preceded by bold yet classically inspired meals like this since Casanova’s day. She advised Pettibone in no uncertain terms that the steaks needed to be done just to the brink of medium-rare, then finished with butter and allowed to carry-over cook their last five minutes for the best results.

  Dessert would be a delicate Flan with Sauternes Caramel, a velvety, infused custard that finished with a rapturous, dulcet swirl of caramel on the tongue. Mr. Pettibone seemed most sure of himself when it came to desserts, but he was nervous about the soup and the reduction sauce for the filets. Angelina checked her larder and found that she had the ingredients for the soup at hand, so they decided that they would prepare it in advance together, and she also agreed to take him through a dry run on her method for the sauce before he left.