Healthy Place to Die

by Peter King

  “Come here every year,” he told me. “Fine place. None of that diet nonsense. Wonderful food, perfect service. Your first time?”

  He had put on weight since his glory days, and his face was showing a slight puffiness that suggested not only good food and drink but plenty of it. He was affable and friendly, though, and he showed interest when I explained how I came to be there.

  “Carver Armitage? Oh, yes, seen his column. So you’re replacing him? Demonstrations start tomorrow, I believe.”

  “Yes. Are you going to be there? Wouldn’t have had you pegged as wanting to learn how to cook.”

  “Coincidence more than anything. I come here once a year, and this year it just happens to be at the same time as this cooking festival. Don’t do much cooking myself, but I need a new interest and thought this might be it, so I signed up.” He gave me a wink. “Got a job on your hands, trying to teach me to cook.”

  “Anybody can learn,” I assured him. “Still play any golf?”

  “There’s a nine-hole course over there.” He waved past the main building. “Not too hard, but it keeps me loosened up.” He gave me an appraising look, as if trying to decide whether to confide in me. In a lowered tone, he said with a conspiratorial air, “There’s just one thing I don’t like about this place.”

  “Really? What’s that?”

  “It deprives me of the satisfaction of being able to smuggle booze in.” He broke into a laugh, and I joined him.

  “Had a lot of experience at that, have you?”

  “You’d better believe it. I guess I’m something of a spa buff. I really like these places, been to lots of them all over the world. Trouble with so many of them is that they behave like missionaries—want to reform your body, help you lose weight, tinker with your health. The way they all start is by saying ‘no alcohol.’”

  He lowered his voice again, this time to a confidential level. “Not that I’m a drunk. Oh, I’ve been close to it many a time—even when I was on the circuit. But I like to come to a place like this to enjoy myself, not be preached at and monitored. Certainly not to be a teetotaler.”

  “I don’t have that much experience of spas,” I said, “but I find this place unusual in that regard too. No alcohol is the first rule in many of them, I understand, and as for smokers, most places would refer them to Devil’s Island rather than accept them.”

  “They’re smart—Caroline de Witt and Leighton Vance. They know that people like to be pampered. That’s what they do here. Best spa I know.”

  I had left him after lunch to take part in a briefing session. About a dozen of us were there in a state-of-the-art conference room, where Caroline de Witt, the striking dark-haired director of the spa, introduced everyone.

  Marta Giannini was a face I knew at once, for she had been a longtime movie heartthrob of mine. I gallantly refused to calculate how old she was, for she had not been on the screen in some time. She told us in her delightful accent and quite without rancor that for purely financial reasons, she was going to undertake a series of television commercials featuring a major food product. The producers had asked her to attend the classes here at the spa in order to develop a familiarity with kitchens and their equipment.

  “How could I refuse?” she asked with a lovely smile. “The food here is so good. The atmosphere is wonderfully relaxing. Besides, I know nothing about cooking.”

  Gunther Probst, a reserved, quiet Austrian, was a computer genius, it seemed. He had plans for putting recipes on software and wanted to get some firsthand immersion in food and cooking. Millicent Manners was a fluffy blonde who appeared convinced that every eye was on her. (It was true that many were.) She was going to star in a TV soap opera series set in a restaurant and said she “wanted to soak up the atmosphere.”

  The presenters, demonstrators, and speakers were introduced in turn. Michel Leblanc was short and roly-poly, a TV chef of renown in France. Bradley Thompson was a fast-food millionaire from Canada and intended to shed a new and more favorable light on fast foods, he said. Kathleen Evans was a slim, fair-haired young woman who wrote a food column syndicated in several countries. Helmut Helberg from Stuttgart was the owner of a supermarket chain. He was big and jolly and said his mission was to improve the bond between the sellers of good food and its consumers.

  Axel Vorstahl had a well-known restaurant in Copenhagen and had been responsible for many of the kitchens on Scandinavian cruise ships. Oriana Frascati was a New Yorker but with all the looks and characteristics of an Italian background. She was editor of Kitchen Press, a prominent publisher of cookbooks. I completed the lineup and had to endure being addressed as “Armitage” a few more times.

  Caroline de Witt then introduced Leighton Vance. He was to lead the demonstrations of cooking techniques. He should be on TV, I thought. He was in his early forties, with movie-star good looks and a genial personality. His wife, Mallory, was one of the sous-chefs. Demure and pretty, a few years younger than her husband, she seemed to be very much in his shadow.

  The audience was largely amateur as far as practical cooking was concerned. A few worked in the trade in other capacities and others had tangential interest in food, for instance Marta Giannini, Millicent Manners, and Gunther Probst. Schedules were presented, timetables agreed upon and some guidelines indicated. Caroline asked each presenter to describe in brief detail the substance of their presentation in order to avoid duplication.

  As we broke up, I sought out Marta Giannini. Her luminous, wide-set eyes brightened as I told her how much I had enjoyed her films. She still looked good up close with her high cheekbones and generous mouth, and her figure was still eyecatching despite a few added pounds. “I enjoy my films too,” she told me with an intimate smile. “I watch them any time they are on television. I saw Stolen Love last night.”

  “The ending’s too sad for me,” I said. “You think Victor is dead and you go into a convent. He comes looking for you, can’t find you, and thinks you are dead. He goes on one last dangerous mission and is killed. His body is brought to your convent.”

  “It was sad,” she agreed. “But we had so much fun making it!”

  “I was astounded when you said you knew nothing about cooking. You wrote a cookbook some years ago.”

  “Pooh! That was written for me. They just paid me to use my name on the cover and put photographs of me all through the book.”

  “Photographs in kitchens,” I reminded her.

  She shook her head, still smiling. “No, they were studio photographs. They superimposed them on photos of kitchens.”

  We chatted further. Her memory was extraordinary when it came to her films. She remembered every person with whom she had ever worked, every twist of every plot, and had a fund of stories about happenings on the set.

  I tore myself away reluctantly. I could have basked in the light of those gorgeous eyes all morning, but I wanted to talk to as many people as possible. Helmut Helberg was looking round the room with something of the same purpose in mind, so we coincided.

  He was almost the stereotypical German—but his voice was not the deep booming projection that I expected. He spoke in a normal tone and his English was excellent. “Ah, Mr. Armitage,” he greeted me. “I have been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

  After I had straightened him out on that misapprehension, he told me of his desire to improve the supermarket system. “We have let it get out of control,” he was saying, and his sincerity made up for his lack of volume. “The supermarket has become too impersonal, too cold.”

  “The very factors that cause people to long for the days of the small corner shop where the owner knew all his customers and they got personalized service.”

  “Exactly. What we must do is combine the size and efficiency of today’s supermarket with those characteristics.”

  “A difficult task,” I commiserated.

  “That is what I am going to be talking about. How difficult it is and what we must do to achieve it.”

  “I�
�ll be listening,” I promised.

  Kathleen Evans was a slim young career woman. I had read her column on occasion and knew her to be provocative and caustic. At first I thought she belied that persona, but a few minutes’ conversation with her convinced me that she was just as tough as her column. Her fair hair stopped just short of being blond and her eyes, though blue, were unrelenting. Perhaps that was because her initial reaction to me was one of deep suspicion.

  “Who are you? You’re not Carver Armitage!”

  “It’s true,” I admitted. “I am not now, nor have I ever been, Carver Armitage.” I explained who I was and why I was there. She was not mollified. “Where is Carver?”

  “He’s in St. Giles’s Hospital in London.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Having treatment for a minor ailment.”

  Her hostility did not abate. “He was perfectly well the last time I saw him.”

  “Yes, well, his ailment did not prevent him from carrying out normal duties.”

  Her eyes glinted like blue rock. “So he sent you to replace him.” Her voice indicated what an impossible task she thought that to be.

  “As best I can,” I said lightly.

  She studied me for a moment and I prepared further a defense, but it was not needed. She switched subjects. “Leighton Vance is one of the most underrated chefs I know,” she declared. “Maybe this conference will help to raise him up where he belongs.”

  “It’s an excellent opportunity,” I agreed.

  She was evidently a fervent supporter of Vance and his cooking. She praised him highly, said she had publicized him in her column and thought him bold and imaginative.

  “Increasingly rare talents in a chef,” I agreed. Such enthusiasm in his favor seemed at odds with her generally critical attitude.

  “He and Caroline run a great operation here. Everything about it is first class.”

  “You sound as if you’ve been here before.”

  “Once or twice,” she said offhandedly.

  I wanted to talk to Axel Vorstahl. I had spent a part of my early career as a chef on cruise ships and was anxious to learn what had changed since then with the still-continuing boom in cruise travel. He was in a deep conversation, but I saw Michel Leblanc, the French chef. He was talking to Gunther Probst, the computer whiz, and as both gave me an inviting smile I joined them.

  Inevitably, the topic moved to French cuisine. As tactfully as I could, I asked if perhaps the eminent position of French cuisine was threatened.

  “Very much so,” Leblanc admitted. “I strongly believe that interest in the Oriental cuisines in recent years is responsible.”

  Probst was surprised. “Oriental cuisines?”

  “Yes. They offer meals with lowered fat and reduced cholesterol. They are simple to prepare and fast to cook. All our top chefs in France recognized these advantages and began to incorporate their characteristics into our cuisine.”

  “Isn’t it true that these changes initiated the nouvelle cuisine?” I asked.

  “Certainly. Alain Senderens, Gerard Besson, Fredy Girardet all acknowledged this.”

  “But how did this threaten the dominant position of French cooking?” Probst wanted to know.

  “The novelty wore off too quickly,” said Leblanc. “Also, it was perhaps too abrupt a change to make in so short a time. The French—and many other nations cooking in the French style—were used to their sauces and richer methods of food preparation.”

  “Is this the secret of the spa?” I asked. “Do we see here the realization that while really rich foods—high cholesterols and high saturated fat, salt and sodium—must be modified, neither do we want to go too lean and mean? Is a compromise better achieved here than in most places?”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” said Probst, “but then I’m still learning some of the terminology. It’s as specialized as computer-speak.”

  Leblanc nodded. “It is one of the reasons I was delighted to get the invitation to come to this conference again. I wanted to see for myself just why the spa is so successful. There is no question that the food is a major factor.”

  The discussion went on, Probst being concerned with leaping in periodically to query a word or an expression and Leblanc showing a good understanding of the responsibilities—and problems—of a good chef. He would be a chef-owner in a very short time, that was my analysis.

  During this conversation, we had drifted in the direction of the long table that covered the wall nearest the double doors. It contained various kinds of coffee and tea as well as snacks and soft drinks. We had reached a crisis, Leblanc and I. We did not see eye-to-eye on the leveling effect—if any—of the European Community on the individuality of the cuisines of the various nations composing it. Leblanc was wagging an admonishing finger at me as he prepared to make a vital point.

  It was then that the double doors flung open and a newcomer entered the room.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE WAS ONE OF those women who display presence and personality without being domineering or sexist. She was also a woman who was clearly attractive, and yet it was not easy to identify any of the notable characteristics of beauty. She had a strong face with slightly high cheekbones, large brown eyes, and light brown hair that fell straight as if it were natural. She was fairly tall and almost athletic in build.

  “I believe I’m late,” she announced without a hint of apology. “Can’t blame Swissair. I missed my flight.”

  The room hadn’t exactly fallen silent when she walked in, but most of its occupants were aware of her entrance. Then conversations resumed as Caroline de Witt went to her and they exchanged words. “Let me introduce you around,” Caroline said as she approached the nearest group, which happened to be our trio.

  “This is Elaine Dunbar,” she said, presenting the newcomer. When Caroline had told her who we were, I said to her, “You missed the part where we all tell what we do and why we are here.”

  She gave me a cool look and asked in a firm voice with no identifiable origin, “And just what do you all do and why are you here?”

  It wasn’t what I had in mind, but it was another means to the same end. We all told her and waited for her contribution. “I’m a lawyer. I just got my J.D. My fiancé bought me the package to spend the week here as a reward.”

  “An unusual compensation,” said Probst drily.

  “Not at all. I intend to specialize in law as it pertains to food and restaurants. What more natural way to prepare for that kind of career?”

  “It’s still unusual,” I commented. “The culinary business doesn’t have many legal specialists—in fact, I can’t think of any. Perhaps it needs a few. There must be lots of opportunities.”

  “But we are a very law-abiding vocation,” Leblanc protested. “Do we need lawyers?”

  “Not until you’re in trouble,” Elaine Dunbar said calmly. “Then you come screaming to us.”

  Leblanc looked ready to respond vigorously, his male Gallic blood aroused, but Probst defused him, saying lazily, “Have a lot of occasions to need lawyers in the computer business. Glad to have them on my side—it was always the ones on the other side I hated.”

  Caroline took the newcomer off to meet another group. I hoped none of them knew any lawyer jokes or that they would exercise restraint if they did. Elaine Dunbar looked as if she could be a tough customer in a debate.

  There was not much more opportunity to talk to any of the other participants. All were anxious to get out into the extensive grounds and enjoy the glorious Alpine sunshine. The sun must have been hot down at lower altitudes, but we were about three thousand feet up the western slopes of the Schondig, whose peak tapered into the azure sky as if reaching to claw down an unwary cloud. Periodic breezes rolled up from the valley to keep the temperature at a perfect level.

  I strolled across the grass and stood on the shore of the lake. On the far side, small craft were lined up awaiting customers. Kayaks, canoes, rowboats, and small sailcraft
were there but nothing powered. Nobody was out today and a flock of birds was dining noisily, undisturbed. Down toward the valley, I caught sight of movement. Two horses were coming up the slope, and I recalled that stables were another attraction of the spa. It did not seem to lack any of the entertaining amenities, I thought. I was anxious too to see the mud baths, saunas, steam baths, and similar aids to health, but they would have to wait.

  This was a good chance to take a look at the kitchens. Stainless steel was everywhere, gleaming, glistening, reflecting from bench tops, splash shields, burner racks. The wooden chopping blocks were spotless and looked alien against the groups of bright orange, indigo blue, and charcoal black ceramic stoves and hoods. These were trimmed with copper, and among them I noted the very newest features such as magnetic induction burners that cook without producing heat and infrared covers that maintain heat without drying. A most unusual sight in a professional kitchen was the large windows, framing a fairy-tale picture of snowcapped peaks in the distance.

  As it was late in the afternoon, the kitchen was quiet. The hustle and bustle would soon be starting as preparations got under way for the evening meal, but right now only two young women were active. One of them was Mallory Vance, the pretty, shy wife of Leighton. She was preparing a terrine of duck, laying the sliced duck breast into strips of prosciutto and sprinkling it liberally with wild rice, dried apricots, pistachio nuts, dried cherries, and a blend of spices. Before folding the prosciutto over it, she drizzled a generous amount of brandy on the mixture.

  “Beautifully done,” I complimented her, and she looked up, startled. Then she recognized me and smiled delightfully.

  “Garde-manger usually comes off a mechanized production line today,” I said. “It’s nice to see it made properly, that is to say, by hand.”

  “Not many people call it that anymore,” she said, reaching for more slices of duck breast. “You know what it means? ‘The preservation of what is eaten.’”

  “Yes. I believe that in former days, it referred to ways of using up scraps of meat, poultry, game, and fish that had been left over in the kitchen. Then the term was applied to the piece of kitchenware that was designed to store those scraps—a smaller larder, built of wood and with a wire mesh front. An apprentice chef had the task of keeping it supplied with ice.”