Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  I knew I was being impossible, but I couldn’t help myself. “You do want to have children, don’t you?” I continued, knowing the answer. Having a family had always been part of our plan. All I really wanted Doug to say was that he missed me. But I had finally gotten his attention.

  “I always assumed we would,” he said reluctantly. “And I’m not against the idea. But now I’m not sure. I’m really excited about the way my work’s been going, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

  I gasped, feeling like a woman who has steamed open a letter addressed to someone else and uncovered a secret she did not want to know. By silently asking Doug to tell me that everything was the same, I had discovered that it was not. “So you might not want children at all?”

  “Oh no,” he gasped. And then, on an ascending note, “No, no, no!”

  “What’s the matter?” I asked, alarmed.

  “All the strings just snapped. There’s too much wind. I really have to go.” Behind him I heard an urgent voice shouting, “Doug! Come quickly.” The voice was female.

  “You better go,” I said, but my feelings were hurt. I felt shamed and, for the first time in eleven years, very alone. To reclaim my dignity I made a sudden decision. “I’m going to L.A.,” I said. “This new food editor thinks I need to know the restaurants down there.”

  “That’s a good idea,” said Doug, his mind on the wind.

  “Doug?” I said. “I love you.” But it was too late; he had already hung up.

  CRAB CAKES

  I put down the phone and did what I always do when I’m upset: I cooked.

  But this time I was making more than a meal. I was cooking in shorthand, sending a message to myself. Just look at this list of ingredients! Crabmeat, a true luxury, was definitely not on the Channing Way list of approved foods. For that very reason I found the sizzle each time a crab cake hit the butter in the pan profoundly satisfying.

  I will say this: Everybody loved these crab cakes. Even Nick overcame his butter aversion long enough to say, “It’s too bad Doug’s not here to taste these. He would really have enjoyed them.”

  1 pound lump crabmeat

  1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

  1/2 small onion, chopped

  1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

  2 large eggs

  1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

  1 teaspoon paprika

  1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  2 tablespoons prepared tartar sauce

  2 slices firm white sandwich bread torn into small pieces

  6 tablespoons fresh bread crumbs

  Pick over the crabmeat to remove any bits of shell and cartilage, being careful not to break up the lumps of crab.

  Cook the onion and 1/2 of the teaspoon of salt in 1 tablespoon butter in a small skillet, over moderate heat, until the onion is softened. Let the mixture cool.

  Whisk together the eggs, Worcestershire sauce, remaining salt, paprika, pepper, tartar sauce, and onion mixture. Gently fold in the crabmeat and torn bread (the mixture will be very wet). Gently form the mixture into six cakes, each about 3 1/2 inches across and 3/4 inch thick. Line a tray with a piece of wax paper just large enough to hold the cakes and sprinkle it with half of the bread crumbs. Set the crab cakes in one layer on top of the paper and sprinkle the tops with the remaining bread crumbs, patting them gently to adhere. Cover the crab cakes loosely with another sheet of wax paper and chill for 1 hour.

  Melt the remaining 3 tablespoons of butter in a large nonstick skillet over moderately high heat until the foam subsides. Cook the crab cakes until golden brown, about 3 minutes on each side.

  Makes 6 crab cakes.

  3

  PARIS

  The Rent-A-Wreck I picked up at LAX was in better shape than my Volvo. The horn worked, the turn signals operated automatically, and the radio got both AM and FM; I hit a blues station and sang along with Willie Dixon as I turned onto the Santa Monica Freeway. The magazine was putting me up at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, and I loved the cool, opulent privacy of my room. L.A., I thought, as I drove to meet the food editor for dinner, might not be so bad.

  The feeling lasted until I arrived at Ma Maison and saw the Jaguars, Rolls-Royces, and Mercedeses parked in front. How could I possibly hand my Rent-A-Wreck to the valet? I couldn’t. I drove right past the restaurant and parked on the street. As I struggled to lock the door I was conscious that the damp night air was frizzing my hair. By the time I got to the restaurant I was excruciatingly aware that my dress was hemmed with Scotch tape and my shoes were in need of a shine.

  But the restaurant’s covered patio with its AstroTurf and white lawn furniture restored my confidence; Ma Maison was oddly tacky. The big red and blue beach umbrellas with the word RICARD splashed across them were meant to be raffish, but they were slightly pathetic. When the restaurant’s owner looked me up and down in the appraising manner of aging Frenchmen who think women are good for only one thing, I straightened my back and stuck out my chin.

  Patrick Terrail led me through the patio to the dim interior of the restaurant. He escorted me to a table, but it was so dark that all I could see was the outline of the food editor seated across from a massive man, a small mountain, planted at the far side. As we got closer I thought he looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember his name.

  “Colman,” said Patrick in a sort of lewd Rod Stewart rasp, “your guest is here.” The food editor leapt from his seat and introduced me to the mountain: It was Orson Welles! The actor surveyed me with intelligent eyes that seemed trapped in the flesh of his face. I shook the great man’s hand, and then Colman and I followed Patrick out of the darkness to the twilight of the patio. Colman, I realized, reminded me of the natty young Welles of Citizen Kane, the ne’er-do-well who was thrown out of every elite American college. He held my chair as I sat down; a few hours earlier I would have found this hopelessly hokey.

  We began with ’66 Krug and a pot of caviar.

  “Triple-zero?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he replied. “Let’s just eat it with spoons.”

  The caviar was gray and glistened. When I put some on my tongue it was not salty, the way other caviar was, but seductively fruity with a taste that went on and on. I swallowed and the flavor resonated down my throat. Then I took a sip of champagne, and instead of washing the taste down it brought it back to life, sharper now and more intense. I closed my eyes.

  I was somewhere else when a voice just above my head said, “Colman!” I jumped and opened my eyes. A man in a tall white toque was standing at the table. He had a round face and a snub nose he kept rubbing with his finger, like a little boy. “Colman,” he repeated in a thick Austrian accent, “shall I make a menu for you? I have a few dishes I would like you to try.”

  So this is how real restaurant critics live, I thought. Movie stars. Caviar. Special menus.

  “Shall we let Wolfgang impress us?” Colman asked, cocking his head to one side.

  The chef turned and looked at me imploringly, as if my opinion were the only thing in the world that mattered. “I’ve been doing something with oysters that I think you will like,” he urged.

  Unsure of what Colman wanted, ever so slightly I nodded my head.

  “Good!” said the chef. “I go cook now.” As he walked away Colman said, “Wolfgang Puck is the most talented young chef in Los Angeles. I think he’s going to be important. I hope you like his food.”

  There were baked oysters wrapped in lettuce, sprinkled with caviar and bathed in beurre blanc. There was terrine de foie gras with warm toast. The flavors danced and the soft substances slid down my throat. We drank Corton-Charlemagne and talked about New York and Paris and Rome. It all felt unreal, as if our dialogue had been lifted from one of those 1930s movies where mink coats go flying out of windows and there are only happy endings. He was Cary Grant. I was Katharine Hepburn.

  With the duck (“Just like Tour d’Argent”) we drank a ’75 Petit-Villag
e (Colman had no use for old wine). And then we had a chunk of Roquefort and a wedge of Brie. As we ate the cheese, so ripe, so rich, Patrick passed the table and said, under his breath, “I smuggled it past customs in my underwear.” I believed him.

  Colman didn’t like sweets, so I ate his dacquoise and then I ate mine. We had cognac. He smoked a cigar. Suddenly it was five hours later and the movie stars were all going home. By the time we were the only people in the restaurant, Patrick Terrail and Wolfgang Puck were sitting with us. We drank more cognac and talked about food. I felt beautiful and charming. I felt a million miles from Berkeley. Then Colman waved his hand and said, “Just put it on my account.” I had never known anyone with a house account in a fancy restaurant before.

  Colman pulled out my chair, put his arm around me, and asked where my car was. “Perfect,” he said when I told him I had parked on the street, “we’ll just come back for your car in the morning.” He held the door for me.

  “Yes,” I said, walking through. The valet opened the car door. I climbed in.

  * * *

  I woke up crying, stunned by my recklessness, wishing I could replay the night and give it a different ending. Overnight I had turned into some other person, become a stranger to myself. What had come over me? I was the least promiscuous person I knew. I had never even considered having an affair. In college my virginity had been a standing joke; guys whose names I did not know would sidle up and ask, “Still a virgin?” as if the very notion were ridiculous. Even now the number of men with whom I had slept would not fill the fingers of one hand.

  I lay there, next to this man I barely knew, consumed with self-loathing. I berated myself for a while and then tried making it Doug’s fault: If he didn’t travel so much, none of this would have happened. That made me feel better, but not for long.

  As daylight filtered into the room I weepily attempted to turn the situation into a soap opera. What would become of me when Doug discovered what I’d done? The two men dueled in the dusky room, leaping on chairs and making noble speeches, before the sheer ridiculousness of all that caught up with me. Doug would be hurt, but it would not be the end of the world, or even the end of the marriage. He knew that I loved him. Besides, it was not impossible that Doug was, at this very minute, in the arms of someone in Omaha. There was that female voice . . .

  But I could not fool myself into believing that what Doug was up to had any bearing on why I had woken up in bed with a stranger. And that was what I had to figure out.

  Colman was suave and handsome. He was wonderful company. But I had met other attractive men and never before been tempted to sleep with them. What was it that I found so irresistible about this man? I replayed the night in my head—the caviar, the oysters, the foie gras, the cigars. It had been like a wonderful dream, all my fantasies made real. Colman was like a character from some book I had read, like a man from another time, a bon vivant who had unabashedly devoted himself to food. He knew more about the subject than anyone I had ever met, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I had set out to invent the perfect man for this moment in my life, I could not possibly have done better.

  Knowing this did not make me less fearful. I still wanted to get up, get dressed, and run home to the safety of Berkeley. But I resisted the impulse, and when Colman woke up, when he turned and said, “I know just where I’m going to take you for lunch,” I smiled and said, “Can’t wait.”

  * * *

  “Are you still in Los Angeles?” my mother asked every day. “This is a very long trip.”

  “There are a lot of restaurants here,” I said. “Besides, Doug’s still in Omaha.”

  “How old is that new food editor of yours?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Old, Mom,” I said, stretching three years, “a lot older than me.” I was grateful that Doug’s radar was not as good as my mother’s. He called often, but each time it was only to say that he had to stay a little longer. The wind was with him, and in Omaha they really, really liked him.

  * * *

  Colman had his own table at every restaurant in Los Angeles, and there was nothing he did not know about food.

  “You’ve never tasted real mozzarella made with buffalo milk?” he asked one afternoon, sweeping me out the door. “I know just where to go.” We drove to an industrial section of Santa Monica and went into a shabby-looking bar. “This is an Italian restaurant?” I asked, peering dubiously around a modest establishment.

  “Wait,” he said. A trim, handsome man appeared and began dancing happily around us. “Oh, Colman,” he said in one of those absurdly romantic Italian accents, “you’ve come at the perfect moment. I have just returned from the airport. Look what I picked up!” He held out crumbling chunks of Parmesan cheese and glistening green bottles of olive oil.

  “This is Piero Selvaggio,” said Colman. “He can’t get great Italian products here, so he’s been importing what he needs.”

  “Wait until you taste these!” Piero exulted. “What a meal you will have!”

  The two men huddled for a moment, deciding on a menu. Words like focaccia, Amarone, vero olio showered down on me and I snuggled into them in happy anticipation.

  “Close your eyes,” said Colman. He held out a glass, and I took a sip. The wine was sweet and bitter at the same time, with an enormous flavor. It tasted like cherries and almonds mixed over a smoky fire. “Mmmm,” I said.

  “Now taste this.” He put the softest little ball of sweet, buttery cheese in my mouth. I swallowed, and it was like sunshine and green fields.

  Then Piero bustled up with six bottles of extra-virgin olive oil and good bread and demanded we taste them all, one by one, and decide which we liked best. One was green and spicy, another heavy and slightly sweet. The differences were astounding.

  We had come for lunch; we stayed through dinner.

  * * *

  When I told my mother that I was planning a trip to France, she was immediately suspicious. “Is that food editor of yours going to be there?” she demanded.

  “He has nothing to do with it,” I replied with as much dignity as I could muster. “He doesn’t even know I’m going.”

  “But he will be there,” she said.

  “Yes,” I replied in a very small voice. “He will.”

  “PussyCat,” she said, “you’re asking for trouble.”

  I certainly did not need her to tell me that. But ten minutes after Doug had called to say that his wind tent was progressing more slowly than he had anticipated and he would be in Omaha at least two more weeks, my friend Béatrice called from Paris. Her apartment in the Sixth Arrondissement was empty, and it was mine if I wanted it. I took this to be a sign from heaven. Within minutes I had found a student charter flight to London and invented an assignment.

  * * *

  I took the boat train from London to Paris, sitting up all night with the scruffy kids with knapsacks and high hopes. It all felt comfortingly familiar—the dim light, the furtive departure from Dover, the French douaniers at Calais stamping their feet in the early-morning cold. And then I was on a train speeding through the gray countryside and everyone around me was speaking French. For a moment I remembered the terrible homesickness I had felt in my first years at French boarding school, and a great wave of loneliness swept over me. What did I think I was doing? My mother’s voice was in my ear, suddenly very loud. “People don’t behave this way,” she said disapprovingly. Before I could stop her, she went on. “It will serve you right if that food editor won’t even see you. And then what will you do, Miss Smarty Pants, all by yourself in Paris?”

  I didn’t have an answer. So I drew the shabby silver-wolf coat from Value Village around my shoulders and stared out the window, wishing I were in Berkeley, where it was sunny and I was not alone.

  It was a cold, misty day, and as I stepped onto the platform at the Gare du Nord the train coughed up clouds of vapor, which enveloped me in a man-made fog. I looked up, and the black train hunched its back like a malevolent cat an
d hissed angrily at me. It was such an unfriendly sound that it suddenly hit me that I had only an address and Béatrice’s assurance that she had written a note to the concierge. A sudden vision materialized: the concierge, looking me up and down and dismissing me with a curt, “Je n’en sais rien. On ne m’avait rien dit. Au revoir, mademoiselle.” I looked down at my shoes and wished, once again, that I had thought to polish them.

  The Métro was filled with people looking very purposeful, on their way to work. Watching them reading their papers and scurrying off to their jobs made me feel foreign, aimless, and alone; by the time I reached my stop I was so homesick I could barely drag myself from the train. I tried to shake myself out of the mood; I knew it was ridiculous. And then I climbed out into the air and started searching for the rue Auguste Comte, a bit startled by the elegance of the neighborhood.

  Béatrice lived in a pale Beaux-Arts beauty of a building, with baroque curves and graceful wrought-iron balconies. I patted my hair, wishing it looked less like a rat’s nest, and bit my lips to give them color before pushing open the huge wooden door into the entryway.

  “Vous désirez?” the concierge inquired. Her voice was like ice. She was exactly what I had expected: a small, officious woman with short, sensible black hair and shapeless, colorless clothes. My French deserted me completely, and I stammered in English, “I am the friend of Béatrice du Croix. I will be staying in her apartment?”

  She fumbled for her glasses and peered at me. “Je ne parle pas anglais,” she said shortly, and turned to go.

  “Je m’excuse,” I said quickly, a flood of French coming to my rescue. “Le voyage était si fatigant. Je suis l’amie de Béatrice du Croix. Nous nous connaissions à l’école. Elle m’avait gracieusement offert son appartement.”

  “Elle parle!” said the concierge sarcastically. She did not encourage me to continue.

  “On ne vous a rien dit sur moi?” I continued, a bit desperately. Already I saw myself on the street.

  “Oui, mademoiselle,” she finally conceded. She went to a desk, pulled out a large iron key, and handed it to me. She sniffed. “Troisième étage. Vous avez deux semaines. Au revoir.” And she shut the door, leaving me in the blackness of the hall.