Food Whore
Page 31
I picked up some bread baskets and gave a piece of blueberry–sour cream coffee cake to each of Jake’s twins, Natalie and Leslie. The powdered sugar snowed down my blouse, an old Helmut Lang I loved and wore almost every night at Reststop. After the exposé, I kept expecting Michael Saltz or even Bergdorf to come after the clothes, but they never did. I gave some to Emerald so she could study the seaming and draping, kept some for myself, then sold the rest to Sherri at Trina. Since our Jay Garvey visit, Emerald and I had hung out more. Melinda joined when she felt like it.
As the day’s last matter of business, I reviewed the watchlist of PXs. Same as in Madison Park Tavern, there were vendors and friends and family that Jake wanted to give special service. Officially, we didn’t take reservations for brunch, but Jake always made exceptions, and I wanted to update our records with new guest notes. I knew most of the names, but didn’t recognize one set of initials that had three asterisks and my name beside it.
“Jake! What does this notation mean?”
“Don’t worry about it. Do your work.”
“Did you write this? Or did Lexi?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He brought his cell phone to his ear and moved behind a curtain into the nook we used as the coat closet.
Around 2:45, one of our waiters told me a woman had come in with a bread drop-off. At first, I just saw her from the back. She wore a delicate blood orange–colored shawl and a big bun on top of her head.
I told him to send her to the kitchen, then tried to find the delivery clipboard, which wasn’t on top of the ice machine where we usually put it. I didn’t mean to ignore the woman, but I needed the clipboard before I logged her bread into the inventory. Besides, we typically got our bread from Graham Street Bakery, so I wasn’t sure what Jake was thinking.
I was crouched down lifting a hotel pan when she spoke.
“Hello?”
Her face radiated with warmth and positivity. The world stopped. I had imagined this moment a hundred times, but had never come up with a satisfactory interaction. I’d always played out the situation with me too fawning, or her disinterested. She had become a far-off dream I sometimes indulged in, like imagining you won the lottery.
“Oh! You’re Helen Lansky!” I couldn’t help but say. “Sorry.” I gulped, each word walloping me with a sense of The Moment. “I’m just so happy to see you.”
“Miss Monroe,” a busboy said, handing me the clipboard. “You were looking for this?”
“Thank you, Pedro,” I said. I pulled the clipboard in front of me, but the words went all blurry.
Helen laughed. “Is your name Tia, by any chance?” She looked like a jewel-toned sprite, a person from another time, another place.
I had spent years pining for her, getting to know every lilt and nuance of her writing. I heard her voice in my ear and her stories in my heart. She had entered my life in the deepest way, like a language or a country, a thing that touches your every thought.
After I had become known as Michael Saltz’s lackey—coerced or not—I was convinced that I would never get to work with her. I had already abused the trust of millions of readers all over the world. Why would she trust me?
But now she stood in front of me—all five feet of her—guileless and gleaming, and every nasty thing that had happened with Michael Saltz disappeared.
“Yes, my name is Tia.” I looked to Jake, who’d returned from his phone call, and saw him grinning ear to ear. “What can I do for you, Ms. Lansky?” I asked, my voice trembling.
She gestured to the baguettes, boules, flatbreads, and even some crackers in front of us. “Well, first, I have bread!” she said. “I’ve become obsessed with the most wonderful baking method, one that few people in the States know about. After so many years in Paris, I knew I had to write about this craftsmanship firsthand. It’s the ease of commercial yeast, with the taste of a wild yeast starter.” She waved her small but strong-looking hands in the air. “They’re for my latest book, The Bread Worth Eating: Loaves, Buns, Pizzas, and More.”
“That sounds like an amazing project,” I said.
“Would you like to try a piece?” she asked. “I emailed some local contacts and Jake was the first one to respond. So he gets all my bread experiments. Too delicious to waste.” She chuckled and tore off a piece of baguette and another piece from an identical loaf.
“Tell me what you think of these.” The pieces had the same hardened brown exterior, the same spongy give that let out a sweet-sour smell.
I took a bite of one, then the other.
“This one,” I said, “tastes smoother. More refined. And this one, I guess you can say it’s more rustic. It has a mineral depth to it.”
Helen nodded and her bun bobbed along with her. “Yes, the first bread is from a mother starter cultivated in Paris. The second one is a New York mother. I started it last week when I came back, so it’s a little underdeveloped, but I think it has a lot of character.”
She picked out a quart-size container from her tote bag. “See?” she said. “I brought some New York mother starter for Jake’s guys to experiment with.” She lifted the lid and it opened with a pop. Whatever was inside was clearly alive.
“This one’s a kicker,” she said. “Here.” She scooped out a pinch and held it in front of my nose.
“Wow, that’s really interesting,” I said. “It smells so . . . primal.”
“Indeed,” she said. “It’s an expression of its surroundings. The wild yeast lives all around us.” She wiggled her fingers above her head. “The character of the loaf comes from the air.”
I inspected the sourdough starter again and it fizzled and popped its singular scent.
“Paris, New York . . . Brooklyn,” she continued excitedly. “After discovering this method, I’ve almost stopped adding other accoutrements to bread. The bread speaks for itself. Olives, raisins, nuts—they’re nice, but distractions, don’t you think?”
“I’ve never thought of bread like that. But I get it. It doesn’t need a lot of ornamentation. Maybe the best flavor . . . is itself.”
“Brava.” Helen clapped, impressed. “The best flavor is always itself. That’s taken me a lifetime to figure out.”
I thought I might cry.
“And now my second matter of business. I’m leaving for Paris in a couple days,” Helen started, “but I’m coming back in the fall and will need a New York assistant as I finish my manuscript. Do you know what you will be doing then?”
“Oh! Next fall . . . I haven’t thought about it yet. I’m not sure I’m going back to grad school, so would you consider a nonstudent?”
Helen Lansky leaned toward me and grinned. “Well, if you’re a nonstudent, then I’ll say yes.”
A waiter poked his head into the kitchen. “Ms. Lansky? Your table is ready now.”
She reached out for my hand and gave it a squeeze.
It wasn’t the first time Helen Lansky had given me something to hold and hope for. But this time felt different. I felt different.
Jake came up behind me. “Who was that?” he asked mischievously.
“As if you didn’t know.” I swatted him with a dishcloth. “I’ve actually never spoken to her before. I didn’t know what to do with myself. She said she’s coming back to New York in the fall. That means, after everything, I might actually have a shot . . .”
Jake rolled his eyes at me. “Tia, you’ve done your fair share of bad. But I know there’s a lot of good in you.”
I gave him a huge hug. I couldn’t thank him enough. Jake had believed in me, and I hoped that one day I could return the favor.
A little while later, I walked up to Helen, who was amiably eating poached eggs in a bed of kale and blistered berbere chickpeas.
“Um, Ms. Lansky?”
“Yes, Tia?”
“I’d love to be
your assistant next fall. Please let me know how I can officially apply.”
Helen put down her fork. “Tia, that is wonderful news. But I already know you’re the woman for me. It was your choice to make and I’m so happy that you made it!”
I hurled myself forward and gave her a hug. “Thank you, thank you so much. I’m so grateful to you, and to Jake for helping connect us.”
“Oh, it wasn’t just Jake who put in a good word. I’ve been out of the country since Christmas, and I’ve missed most of the hullaballoo around your past. But let’s just say you had another ringing endorsement from . . . an anonymous fan.”
I released my embrace and sat down across from her to gain my bearings. Michael Saltz. He had said I’d never work with Helen, and now he had endorsed me? Either he’d had a change of heart, or he was planning something. But at least now I knew not to fall for his games.
“Well,” Helen said, dragging a piece of bread over the last smear of egg yolk. “I won’t be back in New York until September, but perhaps we can correspond via email until then. Would that be okay with you?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Of course that’d be okay,” I said, and a million pounds of secrecy and shame and deception and doubt evaporated off me. “That’s what I’ve always wanted.”
AFTER WORK LET out, Carey and I walked to a gourmet market on Grand Street to pick up a few things for that afternoon’s tart project. I bagged some gorgeous peaches, then turned to suggest to Carey that we add some pears to make the flavor profile more complex. She had disappeared.
I walked through the olive section, the cheese section, then the prepared food section. It was then that I noticed a couple sitting at the little café on the side, sharing a semolina cake.
The moisture in my mouth dried up. The girl was petite, and wore a purple flowered top and a bouncy ponytail. It only lasted a couple of seconds, the two of us seeing each other. He nodded to me and a smile spread on his lips. I nodded back, then escaped around the corner.
Carey tapped me on my arm. “Hey! Sorry, I got distracted by the spices.” Then she waved her hand in front of my eyes. “Hello? Are you okay?”
I shook my head and looked at her. “I’m okay,” I said, more out of reflex than actually feeling that was true. I picked up some pears.
“Are you sure?”
I studied the pears in the bag.
“Come on,” Carey said before I could answer again. “Let’s go. Don’t you want to shoot this with natural light? We’ve gotta get this in the oven.”
We took the subway back to Carey’s place and made the tart, getting the perfect shot in the day’s magic twilight hour.
Afterward, while Carey hung out in her bedroom, I sat down in her living room to work on the blog post. Alone, I finally let my mind rest on that moment seeing him. Elliott and his new girlfriend. We hadn’t spoken since the night he broke up with me, not even during my public flogging over Michael Saltz.
I had thought it would hurt—tremendously—knowing that he was with someone else. I played the scene over in my head. I heard Carey tapping on her keyboard. I listened to the traffic noises outside the window. And I realized that I was fine. More than that, I was happy in my own life and happy for Elliott. Truly.
I loaded the pictures on my computer and attached a couple in an email to Kyle.
Hey—I wish you could have a slice of this with me, because I have something to celebrate. I saw your old mentor today. We’re going to work together. Maybe you can give me some tips.
Kyle Lorimer. He was a great guy and I found myself hoping that we’d get to spend more time together. After all, we had a lot in common.
The blog post included the peach-pear tart recipe and a meditation on what you want versus what you get versus what you fight for. I finished the post as I always did, though the first time had been strange. After all that writing under Michael Saltz’s name, it had felt foreign to see those two words together, though I’ve had them my whole life:
Love,
Tia Monroe
Acknowledgments
I NEVER READ ACKNOWLEDGMENTS UNTIL I STARTED WRITING this book. I was hungry for clues: Who are the people who help make books happen? Where can you find support? How solitary is writing, really?
Aspiring author, you’re not going to know most of the people in this section. So I’ll say: Surround yourself with positive people. Share your ideas. Be generous with your time. Thank those who give you theirs. Work hard. Persist.
THANK YOU TO My agent, Stefanie Lieberman, who has guided me with patience, understanding, and a razor-sharp intelligence. My gratitude to my editor, Chelsey Emmelhainz, who made this story deeper, stronger—a “real book.” Additional thanks to Megan Schumann, Laura Cherkas, Ivy McFadden, and Diahann Sturge. Thank you to Connie Gabbert for the luscious cover. Go Team Food Whore!
To Amy Bloom, who awakened a passion for writing and taught me lessons that’ll last a lifetime. And, simply put, this book wouldn’t have existed without Amanda Lewis.
Thank you to my advance readers: Jen, who tells it to me straight, and Lin, who shares my love of the juicy page-turner. Thank you to Cam and John, who in addition to being amazing writers and readers, are also savvy marketing minds.
And then there were friends who kept encouraging me, even when this book was just a file in my computer, a line to say at a cocktail party. An incomplete list: Andrea, Lauren, Allison, Amara, Alex, Bill, Jay, Sherry, Karen, Leiti, Liz, Matt, Meredith, Michael, Julian, Rosemarie, Randall, and Brian. You treated my little nothing like a Something, and that made a huge difference.
Thank you to my family—Mom, Dad, Andrew, Chris, and Uncle Jerry. I know my pursuits might seem strange, even disruptive, and yet you still support and celebrate them.
And thank you to Dave, the water ox to my wood rat.
About the Author
JESSICA TOM is a writer and food blogger living in Brooklyn. She has worked on initiatives with restaurants, hospitality start-ups, food trucks, and citywide culinary programs. She graduated from Yale University with a concentration in fiction writing and wrote the restaurant review for the Yale Daily News Magazine. Food Whore is her first novel.
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Credits
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
Cover photograph © by Tiffany Lausen
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
FOOD WHORE. Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Tom. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-238700-4
EPub Edition OCTOBER 2015 ISBN: 9780062387011
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