by Jenny Nelson
“I’m glad you all had a chance to meet,” Effie said, returning empty-handed from his foraging. “But we need to find some plants. We have enough cheese back in the kitchen.”
Vanessa choked back a laugh.
“What are you doing out here?” Gianni asked, not catching Effie’s cheese reference. “Shouldn’t you be sweating over a hot stove?”
“Searching for our supper,” Georgia said. “We’re on the hunt for anything edible. Got any ideas?”
“A couple,” Gianni said slyly. Pausing a beat, he pointed to the abandoned well midway between his vineyard and the villa. “I guess you could start there.”
“Thanks. We’ll check it out.” Georgia crossed her clunky green boots.
“Guys,” Effie said impatiently. “Plants.”
“You are busy,” Gianni said. “And I must get going too. It was nice to meet you, Vanessa, and to see you, Effie.” He offered a slight bow. “And, Georgia, it was truly a pleasure.”
“Yes, it was. So, since you’re doing Dia’s house wine, will you be at the friends-and-family party tomorrow night?” Georgia’s voice sounded two octaves higher than normal.
“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Especially now.” Gianni turned his palm inward and offered the signature Italian wave. “Ciao, bellissima.”
“Ciao,” Georgia said.
“Nice one, George,” Vanessa said when he was out of earshot. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“I wasn’t so sure I did either. But I’m glad I did.”
He was cute. Cheesy, as Effie said, but Italians could get away with being cheesy in a way Americans couldn’t. A little harmless flirting was always a good distraction, and if it led to something more, then why not? She was in Italy, for God’s sake. Single and in Italy. The cute vineyard manager with the chiseled cheeks and the bouncy curls could be just the distraction she needed.
The two teams reconvened in the Dia kitchen to show off their scores. Georgia’s group brought back the sage, dandelion greens, and wild fennel. Bruno’s crew offered a bouquet of wildflowers Claudia proclaimed lovely to look at but likely poisonous, save for a mass of wild geraniums, and the echinacea the other group rejected. Since calling their truce, Georgia and Bruno had become, if not exactly best friends, then at least friendly. He still drove her crazy, but she no longer actively wished for his taste buds to implode.
“Well,” Claudia said, clapping her hands together, “this is going to be even worse than I feared.”
“It’s my turn for music tonight,” Tonio yelled as the crew assumed their stations. He stuck his iPod into the Bose sound system on top of the steel filing cabinet that, along with a child-size desk, functioned as the Dia cockpit. It held one of two computer screens, a phone, and the official cookbook, a thick, leatherbound volume in which Claudia and the crew kept notes on their favorite purveyors, seasonal ingredients, ideas for specials, and whatever else they couldn’t risk forgetting.
“None of that trance shit, please, Tonio,” Effie said.
Tonio scowled, scrolled down his playlists, and soon electronica pulsed through the kitchen. “Sorry, man. It’s all I have.”
Bruno pulled out bottles of Campari and sweet vermouth from the makeshift bar cabinet he’d created from a vintage milk crate. “Negroni?” he asked, not bothering to turn around. It was the staff’s night to celebrate, before the friends-and-family party, before the grand opening. It was a rhetorical question.
An hour and a half later, the not-quite-delicious dinner had been prepared, set on the table, and (mostly) eaten. The highlight was the salad, composed of wild greens and baby vegetables from the organic garden, which would provide many of the herbs and vegetables on the Dia menu. Those that didn’t come directly from the garden would come from nearby farms, whenever possible. Italians were still ahead of their American counterparts when it came to the local food movement.
Claudia raised her glass of Sassicaia, pulled from her personal cellar. “I’d like to say a few words, if I may. I promise I’ll be brief.”
The chattering stopped and all looked at their boss, who had stepped away from the table and stood in the center of the staff room, a snug little room tacked on to the Dia kitchen, where they had started taking meals and holding meetings. She wore skinny black pants, black ballet flats, and a crisp white button-down that hit midthigh.
“She looks like Audrey in Funny Face,” Vanessa whispered to Georgia.
“Exactly,” Georgia agreed.
The two girls had discovered a shared love of old movies over a late-night, Italian-dubbed version of How to Steal a Million, complete with bowls of popcorn followed by Italiamerican sundaes with nocciola and gianduia gelato, grappa-soaked cherries, and canned whipped cream.
“This may not be the best meal any of us have cooked, or any of us have eaten.” Claudia grinned. “But we had fun making it, and sometimes that’s even more important than the end result. Though certainly not with a reviewer in the house.” She smiled at Georgia, who shifted in her seat. “This meal is what being a team is all about. Overcoming obstacles, building on each other’s strengths, collaborating. You’ve all come so far in such a short time. I’m so proud of each of you.”
The wine had flowed all night, and the crew soaked up Claudia’s words. This was clearly turning into the official preopening pep talk. Employees the world over fell into two camps: those who cringed at these rally-the-troops talks, and those who hung on every syllable. With their dreamy smiles and dewy eyes, the Dia staff was a sentence away from a group hug. They were a rapt, if woozy, audience.
“In three days, we open Trattoria Dia. Opening a restaurant is never easy. But we have a wonderful restaurant, and an even better team.” Claudia raised her glass. “I wouldn’t want to open Dia with anyone other than the people sitting at this table tonight. To all of you.”
Effie whistled, and Bruno stood and thrust his glass in the air, looking like a portly Statue of Liberty. “To Claudia!” he shouted.
“To Claudia!” the staff sang in unison. They polished off their glasses, and another bottle was passed, a downgrade from the Sassicaia, which, at close to $200 a bottle, was not a swilling sort of wine.
“And to Trattoria Dia!” yelled the usually composed Elena. Her cheeks flamed scarlet and her eyes were glassy.
“Tomorrow’s going to be so ugly,” Vanessa said to Georgia as the group continued toasting anything even remotely connected to the restaurant. “I’m already seeing one and a half of everything.”
“Red wine’s the worst,” Georgia said, taking another sip.
“One more thing,” Claudia shouted above the din. “We still don’t have a signature dish. Of course we can let one evolve, but it’s always better to open with one in place. As added incentive, a weekend off for whoever creates Dia’s dish.”
Amid whoops, whistles, and still more toasting, Georgia put down her almost full glass of Barbaresco. She’d been working on a signature dish for weeks and was so, so close to nailing it. The chance to salvage her reputation, plus spend two nights in Maremma—complete with a heavenly meal at La Pineta—was too good to let slip through her hands. While a solo sojourn would do just fine, there was always the option of inviting someone along, like, say, a certain vineyard owner. Georgia picked up her untouched water tumbler and chugged down its contents, then refilled her glass. She had work to do.
At 3:00 a.m. the alarm went off. Though not exactly refreshed, Georgia didn’t feel totally terrible, thanks to the three glasses of water she’d slammed before her nap. She slipped into an old pair of Levi’s she hadn’t worn since college but stashed in her suitcase at the last minute thinking they could come in handy. No power-washing, deconstructing, sandblasting, whiskering, or any other treatment that quadrupled the price of an ordinary pair of jeans could come close to the comfort of an old pair of velvet-soft Levi’s. They felt like home.
She walked across the winding stone path that stretched between the villa and the restaur
ant. Camouflaged by thorny rosebushes, it had carefully been plotted to allow for easy passage between the two buildings. It snaked by the southern tip of the gigantic garden, past the curing shack, at last arriving at an elegant brick patio that served as the unofficial staff smoking area. Framing the patio was a garden of cool blue and purple blooms intermixed with lacy ferns and shiny blue-green shrubs. Beyond the garden stretched a seemingly endless and somewhat overgrown meadow that created a striking counterpoint to the neat, gridlike vineyards and orchards surrounding it. Softly lit by a mix of unobtrusive lanterns and hidden spotlights, the setting was breathtaking, even in the thick of the night. Georgia stepped onto the patio and through an eggplant-colored door into the Dia kitchen.
Twenty aprons hung from an old-fashioned peg rack, and she grabbed hers and slipped it over her head. The kitchen stood empty, the dishes washed, the floor mopped, the stainless countertops polished and shiny. Everything was in place for tomorrow’s friends-and-family party. She pulled her hair into a low, looped ponytail and scrubbed her ringless hands.
Overthinking food spoils it, Claudia had said. And that was exactly Georgia’s problem when it came to the signature dish. She’d been so focused on creating the end-all, be-all whatever it was that she’d forgotten to look right in front of her, where every good dish begins: the basic ingredients. This wasn’t New York City, where anything worth eating came from a great purveyor or a farm at least fifty miles away. This was Tuscany, where the biggest organic garden Georgia had ever seen lay right outside her bedroom window. She grabbed a pad and pen to write down the recipe. If all went well, she’d copy it into the cookbook so it could be replicated exactly as she’d made it.
She soaked, washed, and trimmed three artichokes, baby purple Romagnas, which would sadly lose their beautiful hue once they hit hot water, then washed and peeled a bunch of pencil-thin asparagus. She pulled out several small zucchini and sliced them into translucent moons. She washed three leeks, slicing them down their centers and peeling back each layer, carefully rinsing away any sand, then chopped the white, light green, and some of the darker parts into a fine dice. She shelled a couple handfuls of spring peas, collecting them in a ceramic bowl. She chopped a bulb of fennel and julienned one more, then washed and spun the fronds. She washed the basil and mint and spun them dry. Last, she chopped the shallots. With the vegetables prepped, she started on the risotto, the base layer for the torta a strati alla primavera, or spring layer cake, she’d been finessing since her arrival, and which she hoped would become Dia’s dish. She’d make a total of six torte: three artichoke and three asparagus.
The trick was getting the risotto to the perfect consistency, which was considerably less creamy than usual. It had to be firm enough to keep its shape and support the layers that would be placed on top of it, but not gummy, the kiss of death for any risotto. She started with a soffritto of shallot, fennel, and leek, adding Carnaroli rice, which she preferred to arborio, pinot grigio, and, when the wine had plumped the rice, spring-vegetable stock, one ladle at a time. Once the risotto had absorbed all the liquid and cooked sufficiently, she divided it into six single-serving crescent molds, placed the molds in a glass baking dish, and popped them all in the oven, which made the risotto the consistency of a soft Rice Krispies treat. Keeping the molds in place, she added the next layer, steamed asparagus in one version, artichoke in the other. A layer of basil and crushed pignoli pesto followed, then the zucchini rounds, flash-sautéed, and the fennel matchsticks, cooked until soft, and finally, the spring-pea puree. She carefully removed the first mold and was rewarded with a near-perfect crescent tower, which she drizzled with red-pepper coulis. Finally, she placed a dollop of chilled basil-mint sformato alongside the crescent and radiated mint leaves around the sformato so that it looked like a sun. The sun and the moon, sole e luna, all anyone could hope for.
The dish was so beautiful to behold, with such lovely coloration, such perfect plate-to-food ratio, she almost couldn’t bear to bite into it. But of course she did, because as much as she loved creating a gorgeous plate, she loved eating it even more. So she dug in, delighted when her fork slid through the layers without any help from a knife, and even more so when the cake traveled from tine to tongue without slipping. And the taste, the texture, it was, well, sublime was the word that crossed Georgia’s mind. She hated getting all food-critic-y with herself, but it was true. It had to be Dia’s dish.
She pulled out the cookbook and carefully transcribed the recipe in neat script. A wave of paranoia washed over her as she imagined Bruno or Tonio stealing her recipe and claiming it as his own. But they were all friends now, and especially after Claudia’s teamwork pep talk, no one would dare. She closed the book. Really, no one would dare.
After a hasty cleanup, she hurried out the door and onto the rose-lined path back to the villa. The air was soft with summer, and a glittering array of stars illuminated the sky. She paused midway between the restaurant and the villa and trained her eye on the horizon. Though she couldn’t make out the hills in the distance, knowing they were there was enough. Surrounded by the heady scent of roses and fresh green grass, she felt lucky and content. If life was really a bunch of tiny moments daisy-chained together, then this, she thought, was one of those moments.
She realized she’d left the torte out on the counter instead of in the walk-in and was considering going back to the kitchen when she heard a loud rustling. Claudia had warned her about a pack of coyotes who roamed the property, and Georgia wasn’t interested in making their acquaintance anytime soon. Besides, the housekeeper would toss the torte in the morning. She hightailed it back to the villa and fell into her bed, fully clothed, sated at last.
“Dude, no way. I’m not listening to that shit again!” Effie was in worse form than usual after the festivities of the night before. The object of his wrath, Tonio, had once again commandeered the iPod.
“Break it up, boys. We’re all friends here, remember?” Georgia swatted the back of Effie’s head. “Claudia’s running the show tonight anyway, and she gave me her iPod. So back off.” Georgia docked the iPod, and Louis Armstrong started singing about missing New Orleans. “You guys clean up nice, by the way. It’s good to see everyone in something other than chef whites or playground clothes for a change.”
Both Tonio and Effie were decked out in jackets and slacks, the one nice outfit they each owned. The rest of the staff was similarly attired in their best party duds.
“How come you’re so chipper?” Effie growled. “I feel like an ice pick is slowly scooping out my left eye and shooting it into my right, and you look fresh as a turnip. Weren’t you drinking grapes with the rest of us?”
“Some of us opted out early, Ef. Some of us had cooking to do.” She cuffed him on the shoulder. Always ripe for a little ribbing, Effie was turning into the younger brother she never had.
“You too, Georgia?” Bruno walked into the kitchen. “I was also in the kitchen very late last night, the sun was almost up, and I made a really interesting vegetable dish. What’d you make?”
Georgia swallowed hard. “You made what?”
“A vegetable layer cake, with herbs and vegetables from the garden. I just fixed a fresh batch and gave it to Claudia. Would you like a taste?”
The rustling she’d heard! He’d scooped the dish from under her nose. She clenched her fists together.
“Is everything okay, Georgia?” Bruno asked with mock concern. “Suddenly you look pale.”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. So this was her lot in life. Forced to play second string to a succession of no-talent, no-good bosses, each one worse than the last.
“The thing is,” Bruno continued, “the recipe’s not really mine, or all mine. I went to the kitchen thinking I’d do some work on the signature dish. When I got there, these beautiful crescent towers were just sitting there, and the recipe was right there in the cookbook.” Bruno paused, allowing Georgia to savor his words.
“I thought they’d make the p
erfect signature dish. The ingredients come straight from the garden, there’s nothing too complex or expensive, and it’s a plate even the least sophisticated palate would like.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “The only problem is, the ingredients are seasonal. We can’t have a seasonal signature dish.”
Georgia exhaled, puffing out her cheeks. Bruno was right. Much as it killed her to admit it, he was right. Claudia’s entire food philosophy was built on eating locally and eating seasonally. How could she have overlooked her dish’s fatal flaw?
“So I decided to come up with a cold-weather version using eggplant, wild mushrooms, stewed tomatoes, you get the idea. It’s delicious.” He kissed his fingers to prove his point. “Now I’m looking for the person who created the original.”
“Bruno,” Georgia said as calmly as she could, “do you seriously not know whose recipe it is, or are you effing with me?”
His face fell blank before erupting into a gigantic grin. “Effing with you, whatever that means. Of course I know it’s yours.”
“Are you guys talking about me again?” Effie said. “I keep hearing my name.”
“Georgia,” Bruno said, ignoring Effie, “I think this is the one. I think you did it.”
“I did—” She paused for a second. “I did some of it, Bruno. And you did the rest.”
“I was only joking, Georgia. It’s your dish.”
“Didn’t you hear what Claudia said last night? It’s all about teamwork. And collaboration. My torta wouldn’t have a shot without yours to back it up. Teamwork, Bruno.” She couldn’t believe the words coming from her mouth.
“Then in that case,” Bruno said, “the artichoke is better.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“And there is one thing it needed.”
Georgia frowned. “Really? Because I thought it was pretty perfect as is.” Her willingness to share the credit didn’t mean her ego had entirely been snuffed out. “What’d you add?”
“Salt. It needed salt.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
