by Ruth Reichl
I remember Joe looking at Max over my head and saying, “This is interesting. And you know, we’ve heard this argument before. Only it was about books. What she’s really saying is that we’ve been selling restaurants and that isn’t our business. We should be selling newspapers.”
Max nodded thoughtfully and allowed me to natter on. I can’t remember what I said. But I do remember that after a while they had had enough. Max stuck out his hand and thanked me for coming. It was already getting dark when I walked out of the New York Times building.
was outrageous,” I reported to Michael when I got back to the hotel. “They’ll never hire me.”
I expected him to be annoyed, but all he said was “Good for you.”
“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think I don’t know you?” he asked. “I knew you were trying to blow it. That job would make you the most powerful restaurant critic in the world, and the idea scares you to death. You think you don’t know enough, but you do. You’re ready. You’ll be great. And I’ll bet they loved you.”
“Why would they? I was really snotty.”
“Because,” said Michael, “powerful people are accustomed to being sucked up to. When you don’t, it makes you more desirable. The less you want them, the more they want you. Wait and see.”
For days I jumped every time the phone rang. I was afraid it would be Warren offering me the job; I was afraid it would be Warren not offering me the job. I didn’t know what I wanted and I hoped he wouldn’t call at all.
In the meantime I fell in love with Los Angeles all over again, and found myself dreading going back to humid summers and chapped winters. I thought about all the friends I would miss, my wonderful kitchen, the ease of life with a car. I looked around my office and thought how depressing it was at the New York Times, how brittle all the people there seemed to be. And then I thought about what had happened when I first came to Los Angeles, the avalanche of mail lamenting the loss of the former critic, Lois Dwan. Was I going to have to go through all of that again?
And then the call came, and my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking as I listened to the voice saying, “It’s Warren.”
“We would like you to be our chief restaurant critic,” he said. “Please say yes. We don’t have any other candidates. If you don’t take the job I don’t know what we’ll do.”
“Of course,” said Michael when I told him. “CBS already has a desk waiting for me at the New York bureau. When you told me Bryan Miller was leaving the job, I went to my boss and told him we were moving to New York.”
New York Cheesecake
This book is going to have recipes instead of pictures because I want you to be able to taste what I am talking about. And what is the taste of New York? To much of the world, it’s cheesecake.
Cheesecake is something every cook should have in his or her repertoire, if only because it’s such a cheap trick. It’s fast, it’s easy, and it can make the most modest meal a celebration.
This one is an absolute classic. I’ve been modifying the recipe since I first spied it in a magazine when I was in high school. The magazine called it Lindy’s New York Cheesecake, but it’s nothing like the one they served at the restaurant, which had a cookielike crust and a fairly horrid gooey cherry topping. This one is cleaner, simpler, and a whole lot easier to make.½cups graham cracker crumbs (about 6 ounces)
1 cup sugar
½ cup melted unsalted butter
1½ pounds cream cheese, preferably without gum, at room
temperature
4 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla
Grated zest of one lemon
2 cups sour cream
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the graham crackers with ¼ cup sugar and the melted butter and press into bottom and sides of a 9-inch ungreased spring-form pan. Chill while preparing filling.
Beat the cream cheese, ½ cup sugar, eggs, 2 teaspoons of the vanilla, and lemon zest until smooth. Pour into chilled crust and bake 50 minutes to an hour, or until the cheese is set and starting to turn golden in spots. Remove from the oven (leave oven on) and cool for about 15 minutes on a wire rack.
Stir together the sour cream, remaining ¼ cup of sugar, remaining teaspoon of vanilla and spread over cooled cake. Return to oven for 12 minutes until glossy and set.
Cool completely, cover, and chill at least 8 hours.
Serves 8
Molly
The Los Angeles Times was known as “the velvet coffin” because it was such a cozy place to work. When I went to tell the editor that I was leaving, he didn’t let me down. “We’ll leave the light on,” said Shelby Coffey. “If it doesn’t work out, you can always come back.”
This only made me feel worse. It also made me wonder, once again, if it was a mistake to take a job at a paper with a reputation as a snake pit, a place where you constantly had to watch your back. My day at the New York Times had not given me any reason to think of it as warm and fuzzy. On top of that, the tabloids soon started sniffing around for gossip.
Arriving at the Los Angeles Times nine years earlier, I had been welcomed by letters from outraged readers crying “Bring back Lois Dwan!” and accusing me of being an interloper from up north. Now the New York gossips were playing up the California angle; no matter how many times I told reporters I was a native New Yorker, they insisted upon calling me “the critic from California,” as if I were fit to judge nothing but salads. They even ran stories about my food preferences: “She likes unadorned food,” they reported, and I could feel the city heave a collective groan, as if everyone would now be forced to give up sauce.
Still, until that fateful airplane ride I had not understood how busy the restaurants had been in gathering information, and I was shocked at their intrusiveness. They knew so much! As I sat there watching Jackie surreptitiously study my face as if memorizing the details, I realized that the remedy was simple: if every restaurant in New York knew what I looked like, I had to look like someone else. I even knew the person who could show me how to do it. As soon as the plane landed in New York, I went to a phone booth and called Claudia Banks.
In her prime Claudia had been a famous acting coach. She had been retired for many years, but she instantly agreed to help me create a disguise. “Oh my darling,” she said in her smoky British accent, “what a wonderful idea. I shall meet you directly at your hotel.”
Of all my mother’s friends, Claudia had always been my favorite. Her size alone was endearing: she was so short that by the time I was eight, I towered over her square little body. She wore ridiculously high heels on her tiny feet and tight little snail-like curls on her small round head. She exaggerated everything, smoked like a chimney, and told wonderful stories about the people she had known in what she called, in a long, slow drawl, “the theater.”
She was past seventy, but when she exploded into my hotel room I saw that she was eerily unchanged. This was undoubtedly because there had never been anything natural about her to begin with. Claudia’s hair was dyed, her teeth were fake, and her body had always been trussed up in corsets. Even her snooty accent was made up. “At one time,” my mother used to say, “Claudia was actually born in the Bronx. But that’s ancient history, and she’d rather we forgot it.”
Now she came swirling dramatically toward me in a cloud of jasmine perfume. “Sit down,” she said, pressing a finger into my chest. “Let me have a look at you.”
For such a tiny woman she was astonishingly strong, and I tumbled onto the bed. Humming lightly under her breath, she took my jaw in her hands and twisted it into the light. “Tell me, my darling, what were you planning to do about that?” Her hand was tugging at my tangled mop of curls.
“A wig? “ I suggested timidly.
She grimaced. “I anticipate that it will present a problem,” she said. “Have you considered clothing?”
“No,” I said apologetically. “I thought you might help me with that.”
“I will help you,” she said, dropping onto the bed beside me, “but only if you are willing to do this properly. You are about to discover the extraordinary amount of effort that is required to turn one’s self into another person. If you are intent on deception, you must go all the way; the restaurant critic of the New York Times can not afford to look foolish.”
I nodded, and Claudia folded her hands. “Let us begin by contemplating who you are going to become.” She stared at me for a long time, studying my wild hair and colorful clothes with amused detachment. “One certainly has no difficulty imagining someone quite different from yourself,” she said dryly. She scrutinized me for a few more minutes, mentally dressing me in various clothes as if I were a paper doll. “I have it!” she decided at last. “You will be one of those ladies who lunch. A very proper person. What would you like to be called?”
When I remained silent, she glared at me with exasperation and said, “Please bestir yourself a bit, my darling. Surely you can think of a name?”
“Molly Hollis?” I asked. “Would that do?”
She savored the name, chewing on it as if she could actually taste the words. “It is not perfect,” she said, repeating it a few times. Her mouth was pursed as if the flavor was not quite right, and I remembered that she had been famous for the rigorous training she imposed upon her actors, and for her attention to detail.
“I just got a credit card in that name,” I added.
“How,” she asked, raising an eyebrow, “did you contrive that?”
“I got the idea from Mom,” I admitted. “After Dad died she had no credit so she asked if I would add her to my charge accounts. It was so easy—they didn’t ask for any information—and one day it occurred to me that if I could get supplementary cards in Mom’s name, I could probably get them in other names as well. I made one up and that was that; two days later I had my first fake credit card. It makes my life as a critic so much easier: I don’t have to carry cash and as soon as the name gets known, I throw it out and make up a new one. Molly’s card just came; I haven’t even used it yet.”
“Fascinating!” said Claudia, looking impressed. “Perhaps you will find acting less stressful than I had thought. May I ask where Molly is from?”
My adventures in deception had not included thinking up personalities for the people I invented, but I didn’t want to let Claudia down. “Birmingham, Michigan” was the first town that came into my head.
“And what does Molly do?”
“She was a high school English teacher,” I said, making it up as I went along. “She stopped teaching twelve years ago when her husband made a killing in real estate. He’s in strip malls. They have two children, both in college.” I was getting into it and Claudia looked pleased. “They go to Europe once a year,” I continued, “and they come to New York every few months to go to the theater and do some shopping.”
“Whoa,” said Claudia. “Slow down, my darling. Do not get carried away. You must inhabit the character and allow her to develop naturally.” She produced a small notebook. “We have a great deal of work ahead of us. Have you a pen?”
I nodded and flipped the book open. “You will need a wig. Write down this address, tell them I sent you, and be sure to buy something quite straight, short, and nondescript. I would say ash brown, if it looks at all plausible. Clothing: I believe that Molly would look best in a beige Armani suit.”
“An Armani suit!” I said, alarmed. “I can’t afford an Armani suit.”
“Nonsense,” said Claudia briskly. “It need not be new. It should not be new. Molly would be a woman who takes good care of her clothes. You will go to a resale shop. Write down these addresses. If you are unable to find beige, be sure to purchase something pale. Midwestern women do not wear black. More importantly, it will make you look plumper. Buy yourself some suitably plain pumps, the heels not too high. And a handbag.” She glanced disdainfully at mine, which was sitting on the bed. “A small, proper handbag, if you please, not one of those birdbaths.”
Now she turned her attention to me. “A manicure is imperative. Have them give you some modest fingernails, not too long. Molly, I am quite certain, does not have those stubby, and might I add, grubby, little paws of yours.” I quickly put my hands beneath me, but not before Claudia had noticed that they were ringless.
“Jewelry?” she inquired.
“Not much,” I replied.
“Miriam left you nothing when she had that unfortunate stroke last year? I mean, other than that frightful costume jewelry she draped around herself? The Mollys of the world wear wedding rings, and I seem to recall that your mother had a minor diamond from her first marriage.”
“She hated it,” I said, “and I do too. But I’ll see if I can find it.”
“Do,” said Claudia, plunging onward. “I am convinced that Molly is the sort of woman who would feel naked without her ring. If Miriam’s does not turn up, you will have to buy a fake one.”
This was going to be more work than I had anticipated. And Claudia was far from finished.
“Meanwhile,” she continued, “we will require the services of an excellent makeup artist. It must be someone who is not overly theatrical.” She shook her head. “It will not be easy, not easy at all. But a few people do come to mind. I shall look into it and we will meet again on your next trip to New York. Happily we are not pressed for time. This is going to demand a great deal of preparation. I do hope you are up to it . . .”
I spent the summer shuttling between Los Angeles and New York, and on each trip east Claudia and I conferred. She refused to even think about my physical transformation until Molly’s costume was complete. And that took a while: she was such a stickler for detail that she made me change the color of Molly’s stockings three times before she was satisfied.
I would have lost patience with the process, but I was wrapping up one life and starting another, and the search for Molly Hollis was a welcome distraction. In the midst of the tedious details of moving—packing up the house, emptying out the office, searching for babysitters and transporting animals—this exercise in disguise seemed like great fun.
I bought a dowdy Armani suit that was three sizes too large; Claudia insisted that I wear a padded bra and two thick skirts beneath it to give me more girth. I found a proper little purse and Mom’s old diamond ring. Bit by bit the clothing came together. It took almost two months before Claudia pronounced the costume complete, but at last she announced that the time had come for Molly’s debut. “Make a reservation,” she commanded. “Where are you planning to introduce this new woman to the world?”
“You’re coming with me, aren’t you?” I asked nervously. “I was thinking of starting with a four-star restaurant that has a brand-new chef. Everyone’s expecting me to weigh in on him, and if any restaurant in New York is watching for the new critic from the Times, this would be at the top of the list. They know I’ll be there sooner rather than later.”
“Le Cirque!” said Claudia, clapping her hands.
“Yes.”
“Perfection,” she said. “It’s as much theater as restaurant, and it will be a perfect stage for Molly. I will be very pleased to join you.”
The reservation was for an early dinner in midsummer. When Claudia arrived at the hotel, makeup lady in tow, I was already dressed. They both burst out laughing when I came to the door, and I realized how ridiculous I must look with my wild hair and Molly’s staid suit. Claudia turned to Denise. “We are counting on you,” she said, “to make the head match that body.”
“I can do that,” said Denise, extracting a plastic cape from her bag of tricks. She was a nondescript middle-aged woman who, like so many makeup artists, wore her well-scrubbed face disconcertingly free of lipstick, foundation, powder, or blush. She threw the cape over my suit and began to erase me. First she covered my skin with a thick coat of pancake makeup. Then she made my eyebrows disappear. As she worked, my skin acquired a yellow tone that it has never had, and wrinkles where none had b
een. She filled out my cheeks so they looked fuller, and the mouth that her pencil drew was smaller than my own. She hesitated over the lipstick, and then chose a rather creepy coral shade that was, she assured me, two years out of fashion.
“Close your eyes,” she said, beginning to work on the upper part of my face. Brushes swept across my lids, sponges swatted at the area below. My eyes were still closed when Denise asked me to put on the wig. It had been made to Claudia’s exact specifications: straight, short, and ash brown. It was also so tight that I had to wrestle the thing over my bunched-up hair. This was an ordeal, and as I bent down, struggling with it, I had the sensation that two enormous rubber bands were being wrapped around my head.
“It’s giving me a headache,” I complained, my voice muffled beneath the hair. “I hate it. It’s going to be like eating dinner in a bathing cap.”
“Darling,” said Claudia, “do stop complaining and look up.”
I raised my head and opened my eyes. Looking into the mirror, I found a woman I did not recognize staring straight at me.
“Meet Molly,” said Claudia. I could not speak. I found myself moving my lips to see if hers would move too. They did. I wiggled my nose; Molly’s nose wiggled. I raised my fingers; she raised hers. I waved. She waved back. Claudia tapped my arm and said gently, “I believe it is show-time.”
I watched her struggle to keep a smile from escaping, and saw that she was having a Henry Higgins moment. She was about to show her creation to the world; she could hardly wait.
