“What are you doing?” I whispered again to Marta. “If we use that stuff, the muffets won’t be one hundred percent organic.”
“Dios mío! It’s just vanilla. A tiny drop.”
“But the organic regulations require that every ingredient—”
“Hoolia!” Marta shrieked. “God will forgive this one transgression. Stop playing saint for a minute and—”
“Playing?” I sputtered. “This is not a game for me. It’s serious.”
“Serious? Let me tell you what’s serious. If tonight goes down the drain, you’ll spend your days strolling around your fancy neighborhood, drinking five-dollar lattes. But me, I might be back on welfare.” She brandished the bottle of vanilla. “I’m just asking you to remove that stick from your ass if we’re going to make it through tonight.”
Blood rushed to my face, and I had the sudden urge to belt Marta on the uninjured side of her face, but Zia pushed me aside and pressed a bag of ice with a great thunk onto Marta’s forehead.
“Ow!” Marta yelped.
And that’s when Smith and Smythe arrived.
Chapter 23
I will never forget the look on Smith’s face as he took in the kitchen. I’d already worried that he’d find our operation to be laughably small. But as I saw his eyes sweep the space and so quickly return to me, I knew it was even worse than I thought.
The others did an amazing transition, lunging into a pantomime performance that could be entitled Kitchen Hard at Work. Theresa, eyes down, began breaking eggs into the enormous bowl of the commercial mixer. Marta flicked the ice pack into a trash can and began sifting whole wheat flour. Zia Maria, stealing looks at my corporate raiders and clicking her tongue at Theresa’s handling of the eggs, took up a giant carrot and began to peel it.
“So this is where it all happens,” Smith said coolly.
“Yes, for now.” I was defensive. “But we’re bursting at the seams here. We need an automated facility to keep up with demand. I’ve toured six or seven copackers in New Jersey already, to get a feel for the market.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Smith chuckled. “I don’t think I can even calculate a labor coefficient on an operation this small.”
Whack! Zia Maria’s knife hit the chopping board with surprising force for a lady who must weigh eighty pounds dripping wet. A carrot top rolled off the table, like the head of a guillotined French rebel.
“We’re . . . uh . . . off to a good start here, though,” I said, trying to find something conciliatory to say.
Smythe peered over his clipboard, his eyeglasses glinting in the bright kitchen lighting. “And who handles your health department certificates?”
“That’s the good thing about this space—”
“One of many,” Zia grunted.
“I don’t have to maintain them myself,” I explained, ignoring her. “This is an incubator kitchen, designed to help small businesses get off the ground. The owner maintains the certifications and documentation. I rent space by the hour. This has allowed me to avoid the overhead of running my own certified commercial kitchen.”
“At the expense of scale,” Smith noted.
“Exactly,” I said. Scale was a well-placed euphemism for “small.”
“Ahem,” said Marta, putting down her sifter on the table in such a way that she managed to jab me in the ribcage with her elbow.
“Oh! I’d like you to meet Marta Rodríguez,” I said then. “My partner, friend, and general manager.”
Marta removed her latex kitchen gloves to shake hands. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sirs.”
“So what are you manufacturing tonight?”
“Muffets, of course,” Marta answered. “We’ve had to drop our other product lines because of Whole Foods’ insatiable appetite for this particular product.”
“I see,” Smith said politely. “And where do the ingredients come from? Julia’s farm?”
“Some of them do, of course,” Marta replied. “But most arrive from the distributor each night just before production.”
“So, you don’t need to store them,” Smythe noted.
“Right,” I volunteered. “We have very limited storage space for raw ingredients. We spend our storage dollars to warehouse the finished product.” I’d said it hoping to make the point that we took good care of our product, but then I cringed. It would be impossible to show Smith and Smythe my freezer space. If I walked two men in dark suits up to the door of the Sons of Sicily Social Club, Pastucci might take one look at them and bolt, imagining they were cops coming to inspect his liquor license.
“If you had adequate storage, you’d save money in the long run,” Smythe said. He scribbled again on the clipboard.
“Of course,” I said. “I could save money on everything if I bought in greater bulk, especially packaging materials and non-perishables like flour.”
“Yeah,” Smith sighed. He stared toward the door. I seemed to be losing him.
“What else can I show you?” I asked, desperation creeping into my voice.
He leaned against a stainless steel countertop, and I worried that there’d be a line of flour chalked across the back of his navy suit. “I guess we’ll take a look at the books,” he said noncommittally.
Marta and Theresa were flash-freezing muffets when I emerged, alone, from Zia’s office.
“How’s it going in there?” Marta asked, over the clanking of the machine.
“I really don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I don’t have a good feeling about it. I left them alone, because I couldn’t stop hovering.”
Marta shook her head. “Qué será, será. We did our best.”
“I can’t believe Zia volunteered her office,” I whispered, to lighten the mood. “I don’t know anyone who’s ever been allowed into her inner sanctum.”
“Listen,” Marta stole a glance toward Zia, who was bent in concentration over her cookies. “Do this right now!” she hissed. “Take the vanilla back into the storeroom. The door is open. Put it on the left-hand shelf, next to the almond extract. Once the Smiths leave, we don’t have any more excuse to go back there. Go!”
I found Zia’s vanilla under Marta’s coat and quickly headed for the storeroom. Marta was right—the door stood ajar. It was a big walk-in closet, lit by a single overhead bulb. On the shelves, cartons of baking powder and bottles of spices stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
Just as I placed the vanilla on the shelf near the other extracts, I heard laughter. And it was loud.
I glanced around, forgetting to breathe. The wall between the storeroom where I stood and Zia’s adjacent office did not meet the ceiling. So I was effectively standing next to Smith and Smythe—invisibly—as they discussed Julia’s Child.
The laughter alarmed me.
“I said this would happen, didn’t I? If we went slumming at the trade show.” The voice was Smythe’s. It had a more nasal quality than his boss’s. “I told you it would.”
“The way I remember it, this was your idea. But look, I know. This brand is small. Laughably small. It’s a problem.”
“Small? Small? We’re talking . . . lemonade stand. No—even smaller than a lemonade stand. This brand is like a contact lens. Let’s not drop it on the rug, we might never find it again.”
Smith snorted with laughter, while my face burned.
“Look, dude,” he addressed his younger colleague. “Don’t forget why we’re here. We’d tour a larger competitor, if only there was one. But this market sector—it’s just emerging. There are other companies, but they’re all this size.”
“But we’re wasting our time. How could we possibly make a meaningful profit this year?”
“It’s not what we’re used to. I’ll give you that. But the economy is in the dumpster, and we’re trying to think outside the box here, okay? This lady, she walks the walk and talks the talk. Her business is actually growing, and every one of our lines is just treading water.”
The blood rushing to my head mig
ht have impeded my hearing, but I thought Smith had just defended me. A little bit.
“But—c’mon, Smith. We’re not venture capitalists. This isn’t Silicon Valley. In New York, we don’t start up companies in the garage. This place isn’t even as big as your garage in the Hamp-tons. The executive committee is gonna laugh us out of the room.”
“Then riddle me this, whiz kid—what are you and I going to do next quarter? We could sit around and wait for one of these organic brands to get bigger. But while we’re sitting on our thumbs for a year, the executive committee is going to wonder why they’re still paying for your Beemer. Not to mention that this company will just cost more after it grows.”
“That’s the silver lining, right? I guess we can buy it cheap.”
“Real cheap. I just might have enough change in my wallet.” Smith snorted at his own joke.
Someone laid a hand on my shoulder, and I nearly jumped to the ceiling. Whirling around, I was horrified to find Zia Maria.
But she didn’t yell at me. She didn’t ask what it was I was doing in her private storage room. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she put a finger to her lips and winked. Then she brushed past me and pulled the bottle of vanilla from the shelf—the same one I’d replaced less than five minutes before—and turned around and left the room.
It was well known that theft of baking extracts was a capital offence in Zia’s kitchen. But somehow eavesdropping was totally fine.
Chapter 24
Smith and Smythe’s parting directive had been, “Don’t call us. We’ll call you.” And with their laughter still ringing in my ears, I was happy to forget I’d ever met them.
But my cash-flow problems had not magically dissipated. And as often as I replayed the supply closet encounter in my mind, I had to admit that the worst thing they’d said about my company was that it was small. Even as I bristled, I knew that I needed their help. Unless GPG became my fairy godmother, by the next American Express billing cycle the whole enterprise would be as valuable as a few mice and a pumpkin.
I began to wonder if they’d ever call.
As a cure for waiting by the phone, I stayed busy. I noodled around with the website design, and I reorganized our files. I caught up on all the e-mail that had trickled into our website. There was a new variety of complaint that we’d begun to receive from a few of our loyal Brooklyn customers.
Dear Julia’s Child,
My daughter really liked your Cheese and Thank You pasta. And Give Peas a Chance was her only green vegetable. Where did they go? The health-food store in Cobble Hill now only carries your muffets. Please tell me where I can find those other foods.
Sincerely,
Shalom
I had no reply. It was hard to explain that the company’s entire direction had been altered by one ninety-pound daytime television star.
One afternoon, in a burst of optimism, I finally called the bigger organic outfit, in Massachusetts, and inquired about its certification process. More attempts to reach Kevin Dunham, my mysteriously disappearing organic inspector, had failed. I faxed the application I’d originally prepared for him to Massachusetts. Then I spoke to someone named Mary, and the new outfit, Organiquest, agreed to visit the site within three days.
If GPG thought my company was too puny, I would try one more time to impress them. I called Kai Travers at Whole Foods, to try to persuade him to expand Julia’s Child to the rest of the Northeast region.
It only took me three telephone calls to get through to him. “Hi, Julia!” Kai’s voice was cheerful enough.
“Hi, Kai. It was great to meet you at ANKST,” I began.
“The pleasure was all mine. But listen, I haven’t made any decisions yet about my lines for children. The market is changing so fast, and I’m learning a lot from the products I’m testing—yours included. It makes sense for me to give it another month or so before I firm things up. Besides, it gives you some time to figure out how you’d deal with a much bigger order, right?”
As if I could think about anything else.
“Actually, Mr. Travers, that’s why I’m calling. A sizeable food company is interested in backing Julia’s Child. And it would really help with my ramp-up, if only I could show them . . .”
“Great news, Julia! That’s terrific. You let me know how that turns out, okay? I’m late for a meeting, but we’ll speak soon.”
It was the unmistakable sound of the brush-off. So I let him go to his meeting, real or imaginary. I couldn’t meet Marta’s eyes after that call. Things in our little office weren’t as harried as before the trade show. But our formerly easy rapport was strained by a new, unspoken reality.
The Thanksgiving holiday rolled around then, which meant I would shortly be cooking a feast as well as hosting my parents. Eager for the distraction, I ordered a turkey at the farmers’ market and planned my menu. But Thanksgiving dawned rainy and cold, foiling Luke’s plan to take the kids out to watch the Macy’s parade from Columbus Circle. The confining weather, the change in routine, and attempts to compete for, as Wylie called them, “Bama and Bampa’s” attention made the boys rowdier by the hour.
Mostly, I hid in the kitchen. Cooking a big meal is 40 percent competence and 60 percent confidence. It had been months since I had attempted to prepare anything resembling a traditional feast, and frankly I was off my game.
The turkey was coming along nicely, but the side dishes were giving me trouble. I’d forgotten to put the corn pudding into the oven early enough, and now it looked soupy even as the turkey began to brown.
“What’s the matter, honey? You look stressed.” Luke was pulling citrus fruits out of the refrigerator.
“Nothing, it’s . . .” I grabbed the lid off the pot of potatoes just a second before it would have begun to boil over.
“You need some help in here? I was just about to make my famous sangria.” He pushed my bag of cranberries aside and began to slice a lemon on my cutting board.
I tried not to be annoyed that Luke would commandeer the only two feet of prep space our cozy kitchen offered.
I watched my husband confidently juice an orange. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? My mother doesn’t hold her sangria very well,” I whispered.
“It’s not nearly as strong as martinis,” Luke said. “And I think Bonnie’s head will blow off if your mother gives her one more piece of child-rearing advice.”
“Yikes,” I said, adding a bit of milk to the mixer bowl in which I planned to mash the potatoes. “Maybe you should send my mother in here to ‘help’ me.”
“Okay,” he said, chuckling. “But it’s not bad theater. And your dad likes Bonnie. Scotland is apparently the golf capital of the universe.”
“Does Bonnie play golf?” I asked, trying to picture it.
“Who knows?” Luke poured wine and then orange liqueur into his concoction. “I don’t think it matters to your father.” Before he left the kitchen, Luke poured me a glass of sangria and left it on the counter. It was a nice gesture, but I was busier than a one-armed mom in a diaper-changing contest, and it would probably just sit there on the counter with the ice melting.
A few minutes later my mother swept in, her sangria glass already half-empty. For her sake, I hoped Luke hadn’t added too much Cointreau. She clutched her glass and grinned at me. “So tell me, dear,” her voice boomed off our ancient tile backsplash. “How’s business?” Her fingernails were painted flawlessly in a coral color, the nails of a retiree.
Leave it to my mother to select the one topic capable of stressing me out more than an undercooked corn pudding.
“It’s fine, Mom. There’s not much to tell.”
“Julia, how could that be? You say you’re too busy to call me, and it’s because of business. So when I ask you about business, your answer is that there’s not much to say? I haven’t heard a word about it since your big TV interview. It was a big hit on Kiawah, by the way. Everybody loved it.”
Jasper popped into the room. “Um, we’re playing t
hat I’m the daddy and Wylie is the mommy and I’m a pirate and do you want some cheese?”
I squinted at him. “Real cheese or pretend cheese?”
“Real cheese. Daddy told me to ask you. He’s going to put out some snacks for us and Bonnie and Grandpa.”
“No thank you, honey.” I sighed. Luke meant well. But only a daddy would make the mistake of putting crackers in front of the children right before I served a five-course feast.
“Jasper!” my mother bellowed. “Do you think your mother works too hard?”
The question was so obviously a loaded one that Jasper stared wide-eyed at his grandma. Then, having no easy answer, he bolted.
“It’s not going well,” I said in a low voice. I noticed the cranberries, still on the countertop. “Shit.” I cranked up the heat under a saucepan on the stove, and then dumped the berries, a bit of water, and a quarter cup of sugar into it, stirring furiously.
“Good God, dear. You won’t even use canned cranberry sauce? No wonder it’s not going well.”
“I don’t mean the berries!” I yelled. “I mean my business! It isn’t going well.”
My mother blinked at me.
“There, are you happy now? Now you know.” I hated the adolescent sound of that statement. I was devolving.
But she just shrugged and finished her drink. She set the empty glass down on the countertop. “Well, honey, what difference could that possibly make? I mean, really. You have these two gorgeous, healthy children, so how could you possibly care that much if it isn’t going well?”
I wrenched open the oven door. That was the question now, wasn’t it? The almost fifty-thousand-dollar question. I’d been trying not to think about it while I labored over the turkey. But my mother’s words restarted the mill of tortuous logic in my mind. And why would she put it that way? If my two children were ugly and obnoxious, would it be okay if I cared a little too much about my business?
I stabbed the bird with my instant-read thermometer. Cooking is a simple technology. Apply heat to the food and then wait until the appropriate physics and chemistry rendered it done. But the higher you set the bar for success—perfectly crispy skin, perfectly juicy breast meat—the easier it is to fail.
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