Delicious!

by Ruth Reichl

  “No,” I admitted. “But speaking of finding people: I’m worried about Sammy. I keep calling but there’s no answer. It’s been more than a month since he was here. It’s not like him.”

  “You know Sammy.” Richard looked slightly embarrassed, obviously remembering that he’d promised to make some calls. “I’m sorry,” he said, “with the holidays and all, I forgot. But I’m sure he’s lying on a beach somewhere, acquiring a beautiful tan. Or he’s someplace exotic, riding a camel. He’s going to think it’s hilarious that you’ve been anxious about him.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I was not convinced. “But you didn’t come here to talk about Sammy.”

  “No. I just wanted to look at the library again. I thought I might take some pictures. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” I was glad to have company. “And you’re going to like the next clue.”

  “And that would be …?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s ‘ice cream.’ ”

  There were dozens of cards for ice cream, but none were written in bright-turquoise ink. I must have looked so disappointed that Richard said, “You could still be right. Maybe it’s filed under another word for ice cream?”

  I brightened. “Father could be in France. Maybe it’s under ‘crème glacée.’ ”

  But it wasn’t.

  “How about Italy? Try ‘gelato,’ ” Richard suggested. But it wasn’t there either.

  I wasn’t ready to give up. “Is there some kind of unique Akron ice cream?” I wondered aloud, still convinced I had the right clue.

  “Let’s see.” Richard took out his phone and tapped in a few words. “There’s a place called Strickland’s Frozen Custard that’s apparently been an Akron institution since 1936.”

  And that was it. The “Frozen Custard” card was written in bright-blue ink, and Bertie didn’t beat around the bush. “What goes best with ice cream? Cookies, of course. You’ll find a very interesting note on the subject in a reader letter from 1943. Look for the file labeled ‘Exotica.’ ”

  DECEMBER 15, 1943

  Dear Mr. Beard,

  When your cookies arrived, Mother said that she could not accept them, but then she read your note. She said to tell you that the Goodyear girls all send their thanks. We named them Ration Frees, and everyone at the factory thinks they’re swell.

  I’ve been thinking and thinking how to thank you, and for a while I was in despair. But then I came up with a good plan. You sent us the Perfect War Cookie. Now I’m sending you the Perfect After-the-War Cookie; it exists only in my imagination, but it uses all the ingredients I miss most.

  I’ve named my cookies Snowballs, but not because that’s what they look like. It’s the way they make you feel. You know how it is when a snowball is flying toward you on an icy-cold night? The stars are glittering, and the snow is twinkling, but you’re wrapped up in mittens and boots, so you’re toasty warm. It’s surprise and comfort, all at the same time; that’s how I want them to taste. Do you know what I mean? Here’s the recipe: It has chocolate, maraschino cherries, marshmallows, and pecans in a very buttery batter. I know they’ll be delicious.

  I wish I could bake a batch for Father. As soon as the war’s over, I will. I’ll make a batch for you too. In the meantime, I wish you a very happy Christmas. Now that you’ve joined the United Seamen’s Service, I’m hoping to receive a letter from every exotic place you visit. Puerto Rico! Brazil! Panama! Even the names sound delicious. Here’s hoping that next year is filled with many good things for all of us.

  Your friend,

  Lulu

  She’d written the recipe out on an index card, the penmanship even more careful than usual. Richard studied it for a moment, his lips moving over the list of ingredients. “These sound pretty great.”

  “They do not! They sound disgusting. Think about it—chocolate, cherries, marshmallows, pecans—it’s just too much.”

  “I never knew you were such a food snob.” Richard hit me lightly on the shoulder. “Cookies are supposed to be kid food; what’s happened to your inner child?”

  “My inner child’s obviously got more sense than yours.” Were we really having this ridiculous argument?

  Richard pocketed the index card. “I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to make Lulu’s Snowballs and make you eat your words.”

  “Don’t forget to bring that recipe card back!” I replaced the letter in the folder and returned it to the shelf.

  “I’ll guard it with my life.” Hoisting his camera, Richard went off to take his pictures.

  I DIDN’T BELIEVE he’d really bake the cookies, but the next day he was back, cookies in hand. “What do you think?” He held out a chunky orb.

  I took a bite. “I was right: It’s a bunch of ingredients stuck in a batter and locked in mortal combat. Kind of exhausting.”

  “Maybe it’s a guy thing,” he replied. “I like them fine, but Thursday’s with you. She actually spit hers out.”

  “Wait,” I said, “you’ve just given me an idea. If guys like them so much, let’s take some over to Sammy’s.”

  “But he’s away,” Richard pointed out.

  “He’s got to come back soon. They’d make a nice welcome-home gift.”

  Richard looked at me thoughtfully. “You’re really worried, aren’t you? You want to check in on him?”

  “Nobody’s even gotten a postcard. I think there’s something wrong. But I don’t want to go alone. Humor me?” I pleaded.

  Richard was laughing at me, but I didn’t care. I had a bad feeling about Sammy.

  “Okay.” He was giving in. “Meet me at The Pig at ten, and we’ll go over together. Maybe Thursday will come too.”

  In the end, Jake joined us, which turned out to be a good thing. Sammy’s building was one of those places where visitors had to be announced, and when he didn’t answer the intercom, the doorman crossed his arms and refused to let us in. You couldn’t blame him; it was late and we were a motley group. Then he recognized Jake, did a comical double take, and fell all over himself apologizing.

  We left the doorman downstairs, looking slightly worried, and took the elevator up to Sammy’s floor. I rang the bell. Nothing. Jake leaned on it, hard, and we began to bang and shout. Richard stood a little apart, arms crossed over his chest. “I told you he wasn’t here,” he was saying, when the door opened a crack.

  It was no more than a grudging sliver, but Sammy’s nose emerged. “Stop it at once! Are you intent on rousing my neighbors?” He refused to open the door any farther.

  “We brought you a present—” I began, but Sammy cut me off.

  “Why are you attempting an invasion?”

  Jake lunged at the door, shouldering it open, and Sammy shuffled back. He blinked at us, pale and mole-like in rumpled cotton pajamas. Then he began to growl. “What are you doing here? Are you inebriated? Depart! Go away. Vanish. The hour is late. “What do you mean by rousting me out of bed in this fashion?”

  “We wanted to show you what Lulu is up to.” Richard held up the plate of cookies.

  “Who?” Sammy’s lips jutted forward.

  “Lulu,” I reminded him. “That little girl in the library? Remember?”

  “Oh, yes.” He said it so vaguely that I wasn’t at all sure he did. His looks were shocking; in the weeks since I’d seen him, he’d turned into a frail old man.

  We were still standing in the doorway, but now Jake moved in, sweeping Sammy aside. When Sammy put up no resistance, the rest of us followed in his wake.

  The place was a mess. The elegant living room was littered with spilled bottles, dirty glasses, and crumpled newspapers. Empty boxes of candy littered the coffee table. It smelled like unwashed clothes, and a dusty film lay over every surface. There was something almost obscene about it.

  We walked in to the kitchen, expecting more of the same, but it was as spare as an operating room. When I pulled open the refrigerator door, I found nothing but an empty bottle of Champagne and a shriveled lemon
.

  “What have you been eating?” I demanded.

  “Oh”—Sammy’s voice was vague—“these days my appetite is rarely tempted.”

  “What have you been doing?” asked Richard.

  “Sleeping, mostly.” Sammy yawned. “I feel as if I have years of sleep to catch up on.”

  “When was the last time you left the apartment?” This was from Jake.

  “What is this, the Inquisition?” Sammy crossed his arms. “None of your damn business.” He had tossed himself into a kitchen chair. “I returned from Istanbul with the sense that a great adventure lay before me. I had met a wonderful new man, and the world looked like my oyster. Fool that I am, I anticipated that seeking a new job would prove a positive pleasure.”

  He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up until it was framing his face like a pale, fuzzy halo. “What I encountered was utter indifference. Was I disheartened? Not at all. For my next act I polished my résumé and went on ‘informational interviews,’ merely to remind the world of my existence. I believe I called on every publishing establishment in the metropolis, conversed with dozens of editors, took dozens more to lunch. Another exercise in futility: My services were no longer required—by anyone.” His face was bleak.

  “My options dwindled, and finally I had exhausted them all. The days were growing short. My spirits were declining. And one fine day I returned to discover Andre clearing out his side of the closet. His explanation was all ‘home for the holidays,’ but we both knew he would never return. It was over.”

  “When was that?” asked Jake.

  “I don’t know.” Sammy ran his hands through his hair. “A few weeks ago? A month? After Andre left, I lost all track of time. I cannot conceive of any way that my life can possibly improve.”

  I recognized that feeling of bleak despair, and I went over and gave him a hug. He didn’t push me away, but he sat stiffly inside the circle of my arms.

  How do you bring someone back to life when he’s beyond caring? It won’t last, I wanted to tell him. You’ll feel better. But the words wouldn’t come, and I stood there, feeling stupidly inadequate, wishing I knew what to say.

  But I did have a plan. I took Richard’s arm and drew him into the living room. He listened solemnly and then began to laugh. “Great idea! We can definitely do that.”

  Jake was asking so many questions that Sammy didn’t notice when Thursday and Richard quietly disappeared. When they returned, their arms were filled with groceries from the twenty-four-hour market on the corner.

  “I’m making you dinner,” Thursday said, pulling out a carton of eggs, a wedge of cheese, and enough produce to make the kitchen resemble a farmers’ market on a busy Saturday morning.

  “Why on earth would I desire dinner at this time of the night?” Sammy asked crossly.

  “Because you haven’t been eating.” She tied on an apron and reached for a small bowl. “And we’re not going to have your death by starvation on our collective conscience.” She turned on the oven.

  “I can consume the cookies,” he said petulantly.

  “No.” She began to crack eggs. “I’m going to make you a lovely cheese soufflé.”

  “That bowl is too small,” shrieked Sammy as the eggs spilled onto the counter. She was an even better actress than I’d hoped. “You have been hitting the whiskey,” he accused. “And rather heavily, it seems.”

  Richard was quite the actor too. He pretended to be so drunk that, as he grated cheese, he created a mini snowstorm, sending flakes flying around the kitchen.

  “You are both intoxicated.” Sammy watched another egg ooze onto the counter. “Stop, stop, stop, you are making a fine mess. Remove yourselves from my kitchen.” He seized the whisk from Thursday’s hand and pushed her out of the way. My plan had worked! He opened the cupboard and extracted a shining copper bowl. “This is how you make a soufflé.” With a few elegant twists of his wrist, he separated the yolks from the whites. “The only thing that makes a soufflé fall,” he was talking almost to himself, “is if it knows that you are afraid of it.

  “Jake,” he ordered, “convey Richard to another room before that entire pound of Parmesan lands on the floor. Inebriates should never be permitted in the kitchen.”

  He began buttering the soufflé dish, washing lettuce, making vinaigrette. The aroma of melting cheese mingled with butter and wafted through the kitchen. It was joined by the high, clean scent of freshly squeezed lemons. Sammy’s face had lost its look of despair, and he was moving with grace and determination.

  “Billie.” His voice was all crisp command now. “Set the table. Use the sterling. Open a bottle of wine. I believe you will find an ’82 Ducru in there somewhere. I was reserving it for a special occasion. This might as well be it. Meanwhile, I believe I shall permit myself a shave.”

  The soufflé came out high and golden. Each crisp leaf of lettuce glistened with the faintest sheen of oil. It was after midnight. The food was perfect, the wine like velvet in our mouths. I caught Richard and Thursday exchanging a high five.

  “And now,” said Sammy, “I shall have that cookie, if you do not mind.” Richard passed him the plate. “What are they called?”

  “Snowballs.” I said the name softly, gratefully.

  Sammy took a bite. “Excellent,” he said, taking another. “And very aptly named.”

  Dripping Pudding

  “SHOW ME!”

  I jumped; I kept forgetting how many people still had keys to the mansion.

  “I have startled you!” Sammy sounded chagrined. “That was certainly not my intention.”

  The frightened hedgehog we’d cornered in his apartment the night before had vanished; Sammy was back. Dressed in his customary tweeds, he gave off his familiar scent of spice and smoke, and exuded general well-being. He’d even had his hair cut.

  “You’ve come to collect your things?”

  “All in good time. I am consumed with curiosity about the letters.” He executed one of the old-fashioned little bows that would have seemed absurd from anybody else and offered me his arm. “Will you join me in the library?”

  “Aren’t we being formal,” I said as we headed for the stairs.

  Sammy stood at the library door for a long moment, just taking it in. Then he moved slowly forward, refamiliarizing himself with the room. It reminded me of the first time we met and how joyfully he’d greeted his possessions after his long trip to Morocco. Then he headed for the secret room.

  I stopped him.

  “I want to show you something first.” I led him to the card file, and he stood staring suspiciously at the ungainly wooden cabinet. “What am I supposed to do? Say ‘abracadabra’?”

  “Open any drawer. Look something up.”

  “What?”

  “Anything. What’s your favorite food?”

  “Yorkshire pudding!” He obediently opened the “XYZ” drawer, leaning in for a closer look, sniffing the air as if this were a stove and he had to determine if a sauce was ready. He flicked through the cards, pulled one up, and began to read the bright-blue writing.

  “ ‘The first recorded recipe for Yorkshire pudding appeared in 1737 in The Whole Duty of a Woman, where it was known as “A dripping pudding.” Ten years later, in The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse renamed it Yorkshire pudding; nobody knows why. (The usually reliable Mrs. Beeton, incidentally, got the recipe wrong.) James Beard calls Yorkshire pudding “a gift from England” but remains skeptical about most American recipes, which he calls “inedible, to say nothing of being indigestible.” ’ ”

  Sammy studied the card, his face suffused with a kind of wistful nostalgia. “Dear me. How could I possibly have forgotten the legend of Bertie? How the old dears used to talk about her! I always regretted not having known her, but she was already history by the time I arrived. Remarkable, is it not, how vivid the ink remains after all these years? Such flamboyance!”

  “You knew about Bertie?”

  “Indeed.
One of the more formidable characters to have graced the halls of the Timbers Mansion.”

  “We guessed that Bertie was the blue librarian. But there’s no clue on this card.”

  “Clue? I fail to comprehend your meaning.” Sammy looked at me, head cocked to one side.

  Explanations seemed too complicated. Instead, I pulled up the ice-cream card and handed it to him. “Bertie’s created a kind of treasure hunt. To find Lulu’s letters, you have to read the last letter in the file and look for the most unusual words. After a while you get the hang of it. Then you come out to the card catalog. If you’ve guessed right, Bertie tells you exactly where to find the next letters.”

  “So.” Sammy read the ice-cream card. “ ‘What goes best with ice cream? Cookies, of course. You’ll find a very interesting note on the subject in a reader letter from 1943. Look for the file labeled “Exotica.” ’ ” He returned it to the card catalog and began to walk toward the secret room. “If I comprehend correctly, Bertie is informing us that Lulu’s subsequent missive will be found among the reader letters of 1943 in a file labeled ‘Exotica’?”

  “Exactly!”

  Sammy had lost weight during his exile, which made it easier for him to wriggle through the small door. He eased himself onto the floor as I went to the 1943 shelf, pulled the “Exotica” folder, and handed it to him. He read for a moment in the dense silence of the room, and when he began to read out loud, his voice was almost reverent. “ ‘You know how it is when a snowball is flying toward you on an icy-cold night? The stars are glittering, and the snow is twinkling, but you’re wrapped up in mittens and boots, so you’re toasty warm. It’s surprise and comfort, all at the same time.’ ” He looked up at me. “What a lovely child.” He replaced the letter and picked up another.

  “There’s another letter in that folder?” How had I missed it?

  Then I remembered the argument Richard and I’d had about the cookies. He’d taken off with the recipe card and I’d simply put the folder away. Now I leaned over Sammy’s shoulder to see what I’d missed.