by Peter King
“To kill or not to kill—that is the question,” I said to start. “It’s the only question—at least the lobster thinks so. But does the lobster think? If not, then perhaps it doesn’t feel either. These considerations may appear more relevant to a philosophy class than a cooking class, but with loud factions defending the fox from being hunted, the whale from being caught, the bull from being fought—will the lobster be next? The state of Maine will secede from the Union first.”
The smiles on some of the faces justified my diversion, and I went on to say that the most popular way of preparing a lobster dish was still to plunge the live crustacean into boiling water. Another school said using warm water and heating it to boiling was more humane. Others used a sharp knife to kill the lobster quickly, but star Paris chef Joel Robuchon was one of those who insisted that this made the meat tough. All eyes were now on the two ugly, clawed creatures on the bench in front of me.
“These were killed just before this class started, so we’ll shelve the humanitarian thoughts and get back to the lobster. These two are about seven years old. This is the ideal age: they get tough after that. They weigh one and a half to two pounds. The female has more tender meat than the male. It is easy to tell the difference—the tiny legs under the tail are hard and bony on the male, soft and wispy on the female.” I held them up to display this. “By the way, it’s not true that lobsters are scavengers. They eat only fresh food, preferably mussels, clams, and sea urchins.”
I went on to prepare the two lobsters in front of me. The best way is probably steamed or boiled, but it can also be baked, grilled, sautéed, poached, or stir-fried. “Always use a minimum amount of water, too much takes away the flavor. Salt water is best. These two are bright red, you’ll notice. They were boiled for fifteen minutes just before you arrived. Now they are cool enough to handle.”
I laid each on its back and cut through the body and down the tail with a sharp knife, cutting through the underbelly but not the top shell. I flexed and drained it, cracked the claws, and drained those too. “Now I’m going to prepare these two each in a different way,” I told the class. The first was baked Mediterranean style with olives, parsley, and balsamic vinegar, and the other was the classic Newburg. Both can be prepared in half an hour by interspersing the operations, and so I was able to finish them both at about the same time.
“I prepared two so that there is at least a taste of each for everybody,” I said, and so there was. “Two other lobster dishes are on the menu for tonight,” I added. “Pilaff and thermidor; you might want to try those.”
“What’s the difference between Newburg and thermidor?” someone wanted to know.
“Thermidor contains cheese, mustard, and wine, Newburg contains sherry and egg yolks. Otherwise they’re the same.”
It was well after five o’clock when we broke for the day. Questions were still being asked and discussions and arguments continuing, but I managed to close the class and let the students keep talking about it.
I went on another investigation.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I HAD A REASONABLY clear picture in my mind of Rhoda, the blonde who had stopped me as I had been about to set forth across the lawn last night in the direction of the hydrotherapy units. Had she really stopped me? I was not sure of that; maybe she had just happened to be there and had felt like chatting.
Another possibility was that Kathleen had only just gone to the Seaweed Forest and someone—Rhoda or someone with her—had wanted to keep me away for another quarter of an hour until … Until what? Until someone killed Kathleen? That might be a little fanciful, but I did not have much else, so this was worth a try.
I strolled around, passing all the buildings, walking the pathways between the cabins, going everywhere I might expect to run into one of the luscious blondes. It was Julia I wanted to see first. I knew she was not the girl I had seen last night but she could provide me with the information I needed to start. I found her taking an empty tray back to the kitchen.
“Hello, Mr. Armitage,” she greeted me cheerfully. She clapped a hand to her mouth in a charming gesture. “Oh, it’s not though, is it? I’m sorry, I—”
“Perfectly all right. You girls do extraordinarily well in remembering the names of the guests as well as you do. And there are so few of you …” I let the rest of the sentence hang in the air. She obliged.
“Eight on the day shift, five on the night shift.”
“Is that all?” It was more than enough if I had to check them all out.
“We’re one short today.” She chattered on, bless her. “Rhoda is off. It’s very short notice apparently, but something urgent came up.”
I tried another approach. “You’re all very photogenic. Haven’t any of the magazines done a feature on you yet?”
She smiled. “Not yet. We did have a group photo taken recently though. Have you noticed it? It’s in the reception.”
“No, I haven’t. I’ll have to take a look.”
When I left Julia, I hastened to the reception area as fast as I could without making my impatience obvious. The usual number of guests and staff were there, and the customary tranquillity prevailed. I picked up a newspaper and looked for a place to sit. An armchair was near, but I ignored it and walked over to another near the wall on which a large photograph was hung. I examined it. The girls looked lovely. I studied the names below and found Rhoda’s.
Extreme left on the front row. I looked at the face. No doubt at all. It was the girl I had talked to on my way to the Seaweed Forest.
As we gathered before dinner, Helmut Helberg approached me. “I liked your presentation,” he said. “The reason I wanted to attend was that I am thinking of having presentations like that in my markets.”
I nodded. “Part of your campaign to change the supermarket image?”
“Right. It stands to reason that we could sell more lobsters if people knew more about them—how to buy them, how to prepare them.”
“The public is more afraid of the lobster than of any other food,” I said. “It has a terrifying appearance for a start. Most people don’t know what to look for and don’t know how to prepare it.”
“A lot of customers don’t want to be bothered to prepare it,” Helberg argued.
“Then you should consider preparing it for them.”
“But they don’t keep.”
“On-the-spot preparation—prepared to order. While still fresh.”
He took on a pensive look and wandered away. I had a short conversation with Oriana Frascati. “Getting any ideas for your cookbooks?” I asked. She was not unattractive but used no makeup, and her hair looked as if it had not spent much time under the care of a hairdresser.
“Too many,” she sighed. “I already have a full schedule for the winter and the manuscripts keep flooding in.”
“Must be hard to find new approaches,” I suggested.
She studied me as if trying to decide whether to confide in me. “I have several possibilities,” she murmured. “I’m doing some final sifting right now. Maybe you would like to give me your opinion on them?”
“Pleased to,” I said, and waited. She nodded as if satisfied. “I’ll be talking to you,” she said, and walked off. They must be confidential, I thought, and she is afraid that the competition will hear about them. Was the cookbook business as cutthroat as the rest of the publishing business? I wondered.
Caroline de Witt was there, looking glamorous in a tight-fitting black dress. I congratulated her. “Superb organization,” I told her. “Everything is running as smoothly as—well, as a Swiss watch.”
She smiled appreciatively. “Thank you. It’s a lot of work but very rewarding.”
“An eclectic group of students too.”
“Yes. Classes like this are very gratifying. The interest is not professional in a direct sense but just as intense. It is more diverse, it brings in so many other concerns. The people are more demanding.”
“Your facilities are very impressive,
” I said. “I haven’t had a chance yet to partake of them all—”
“Oh, you must,” she implored, laying a beautifully manicured hand on my arm. “The mud baths—”
“Yes, I want to try those first. Then there are the others. …
“The underground sauna is wonderful, so beneficial. The Seaweed Forest too is so healthful.”
“Hmm,” I tried to sound reluctant. It was not difficult. “Sounds dangerous to me. More of a jungle than a forest, somebody said. It’s a flagellator, isn’t it?”
She laughed musically. “Oh, yes, but a very gentle one.”
An image floated into my mind of a dead body among those “gentle” seaweed strands. “You really must try it,” she insisted.
I nodded, still reluctant.
“I will see how my schedule is. Maybe I can introduce you to it.”
“That would be nice,” I said politely. My last assignation with a female in the Seaweed Forest was not a situation I wanted to repeat.
The dinner menu did indeed include the two lobster dishes I had mentioned, but a couple of other items caught my eye. For a starter, I chose the Cuban tamales, a dish containing pork, a Cuban favorite, and served with a sauce of orange, cherry, and lime juices with onion and garlic. The tamales had a pleasantly fragrant herbal taste that was unusual, and when I asked I was told that it was “culentro,” a Central American variant of coriander and much stronger.
Brad Thompson, the fast-food millionaire, was at my table and displaying an enterprising spirit in ordering the chilled zucchini bisque. A large baked zucchini blossom floated on the surface, stuffed with goat cheese and diced tomatoes.
For the main course, I selected a Swiss dish on the basis that it is hard to find outside of Switzerland. This was Egli, a variety of perch, delicate in flavor, white, and almost without bones. Brad Thompson had a grilled paillard of beef. It was served with red cabbage, a popular vegetable in Switzerland, and a red wine sauce fortified with port. A light fresh white wine from the Saar Valley went well with my fish. Brad chose a Cote Rotie to accompany his beef, and although I thought he might find it sufficiently full-bodied but too scented, I heard no complaints. He concluded with a peanut butter mascarpone, and I had a peach sorbet.
I slipped out as smoothly as I could. Caroline de Witt was only two tables away, and while I was determined to solve the mystery of the Seaweed Forest, I was not prepared to attempt it right now. The right mind-set would be critical, I told myself.
CHAPTER NINE
I WAS STILL CURIOUS about Leighton Vance. My schedule to date had been such that my presentations had coincided with his, so I had not had the opportunity to observe him in action. The next morning I was free, and I saw that he was giving a demonstration in conference room C. After a breakfast of fresh mango juice, some muesli made in the original style of Doctor Bircher-Brenner (who had lived near here), Nicaraguan coffee, and fresh-baked wheat rolls, I went to sit at the feet of the guru of Swiss cuisine.
My attitude was admittedly a little snide, considering how he had thrown me out of his kitchen—which was the way I persisted in thinking of it. So I sat in the second row—not the first, where I would be staring him in the face, and not in the back row, where I could toss in unexpected lobs of awkward questions. I wanted to keep it fair but still hold an advantage.
“More than a third of all new chefs are career changers,” he began. “That in itself is a clear indication of the attraction that cooking possesses. Learning to cook means cooking everyday dishes as well as those for special occasions.
“In recent years, chefs have been challenged by the addition of a new dimension. No longer is a meal expected only to look good and taste good: it must be healthy. Some dishes were immediately struck off the cooking list because they were too high in calories or fats. Pork was among the first to go.”
It was a good start, I conceded. A controversial topic was being introduced now.
“Containing less protein and more fat than other meats, pork requires cooking at a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit minimum to kill the trichinae, the bacteria that cause trichinosis. This rule was not always observed in the past and thus gave pork a bad name.
“Today, lean cuts of pork are similar in both fat content and dietary cholesterol to chicken breasts. They contain greater amounts of thiamin and other vitamins and by minimizing the amount of oil used for cooking, you can eat pork without guilt.”
Leighton indicated two pork tenderloins before him. “I am going to barbecue these in a Chinese style, with garlic sauce,” he said. “The oven is already preheated at three hundred and fifty degrees, and this baking pan is lined with foil.” He whisked together hoisin sauce, garlic, ketchup, sugar, and soy sauce. He put the tenderloins in the pan, coated them with this mixture, and put them in the oven.
“I am going to cook these for thirty-five minutes,” he said, “but before the class started I put two identical tenderloins in. These will be due out in five minutes, and in the meantime I am going to make the garlic sauce.” He stirred together soy sauce, minced garlic, vinegar, sugar, and a sprinkle of Tabasco sauce, then warmed the mixture in a small pan, took the precooked tenderloins out of the oven, and placed them on a cutting board. He cut them diagonally across the grain into thin slices and poured the sauce over them.
“Come and try them,” he said invitingly, and there was a rush. “Only about one hundred and thirty calories an ounce and two and a half grams of fat.” When the pork had vanished, he said, “Now, while the other tenderloins are cooking. I’m going to show you how to make a typical Chinese accompaniment in order to serve a well-rounded meal. This is stir-fried vegetables with noodles.”
He took onions, broccoli, leeks, and carrots and steamed them for two or three minutes. He put noodles into boiling water—the so-called rice stick-noodles also known as rice vermicelli—and drained them when they were tender, which took about ten minutes. For a sauce, he mixed soy, Bourbon whiskey, and chicken broth with cornstarch, sugar, salt, and sesame oil. In a small pan, he sauteed ginger and garlic with curry powder and turmeric. He added the vegetables and the noodles and stirred.
“Bring plates,” he told the class as he opened the oven and began to slice the pork tenderloins. “This time, you can taste the whole dish.”
The presentation was a great success, and I told him so. He gave me a curt nod and turned his attention to Millicent Manners. The soap opera actress was giving him starry-eyed looks, and their conversation was carried on in lowered tones. It did not sound as if they were talking about food.
The tastes of barbecued pork tenderloin, garlic sauce, and a mixture of noodles and vegetables had been delicious, but they had given me an appetite. I was early for lunch and selected a cheese-and-onion salad, a specialty from the Appenzell in the northwestern corner of Switzerland, where Austria and Lake Constance come together. Maintaining continuity, I followed it with siedfleischteller, a type of beef stew from the same region. Helmut Helberg came to the table, perspiring slightly. “The underground sauna,” he explained, “it’s wonderful. Makes you perspire and lose all those body poisons. The trouble is I can’t stop!”
“Do you find it helps the thought processes?” I asked. “Did you get all kinds of great ideas for the reformation of the supermarket?”
“A few,” he admitted cautiously. I supposed the grocery business must be susceptible to industrial espionage in the same way as many others.
He scanned the menu and sighed. “So many choices.”
“I went for Swiss dishes,” I said, and told him what they were. He accepted my recommendation on the Appenzeller beef stew but wanted a more substantial dish to start. He stayed true to national tastes and ordered a warm potato salad with chopped onion, ham, green pepper, and mustard.
“Does the territory covered by your supermarket chain include Switzerland?” I asked.
“Certainly.”
“I was thinking that it’s a pity Swiss chefs are not better known outside their ow
n country.”
“That’s true,” he agreed. He had ordered a glass of red wine. It arrived and he sipped and nodded approval.
“Through your business, you must know some of these chefs. Fredy Girardet has become almost a legend, but perhaps it is his eminence that has kept other Swiss chefs from being recognized.”
“Martin Dalsass at the Sant’abbondio in the Ticino is outstanding,” he said promptly. “He is also a good friend of mine. Then there is Waldis Ratti. He has the Ristorante Rodolfo on the shore of Lake Maggiore. Horst Peterman in Zurich is growing quickly in stature, and so is Hans Stucki in Basel.”
“Outside of Switzerland, we don’t hear enough of these names,” I said. “Peterman is becoming well known, though.”
We discussed Swiss cooking and the influence on it of German cooking, but when the food arrived, Helmut gave full attention to it and slowed down in his conversation.
As we left, I encountered Marta Giannini, resplendent in a burgundy-colored dress of some shimmering material. “Have you tried the mud baths here yet?” she asked.
“Not yet, but they’re high on my list,” I told her.
“I just love the mud baths at the Gellert in Budapest,” she said, using those magnificent eyes as if cameras were focused on her from all angles. “The Romans began the tradition there, you know. It was the Turks, though, who converted them into the way they are today.”
“I don’t know how old these are,” I confessed. “The Romans were certainly in this region. But I’m sure the mud is new.”
“Are you taking a class this afternoon?”
“Only a short one at four o’clock.”
“Then perhaps I’ll see you there.” The luminous eyes were irresistible. I agreed.
