Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  Doug and I drove to the airport together. He was off to Lake Placid, to select a spot for his sculpture. “Everything’s okay, isn’t it?” he asked. I wondered if Jules had said something to him. But this time I was the one who didn’t want to talk.

  “Of course,” I replied. “You’re going to be famous.”

  “Maybe you are too,” he said.

  He parked in the long-term lot and we carried our luggage into the terminal. He put his arms around me and I inhaled his familiar scent. He gave me a kiss, and as he walked away I stood watching his lean body move gracefully through the crowd; from the back he could have been the Marlboro Man. He looked over his shoulder just before he turned the corner, and raised his hand in a wave. I waved back. Then he disappeared from sight as we went to get our separate planes.

  * * *

  “Look at the car I got you,” said the agent at Rent-A-Wreck, opening the door. “I thought you’d like this.” He thumped the hood of the yellow Cadillac affectionately. The car was the size of a small yacht, with tan leather seats as soft as butter.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” I asked, climbing in.

  “We take care of our good customers,” he said, loading my luggage into the trunk. “We thought it was time you got an upgrade.”

  The Cadillac was a smooth ride. There was no smog, and the sky sparkled, very blue against the snowcapped mountains that encircled the city. The entire East Coast, according to the radio, was blanketed in snow. I rolled down the window and felt the sun on my arms.

  * * *

  Michael’s pink stucco building would have been hard to miss even if it were not on a residential street. Dumpsters were lined up on the lawn, and a board was nailed across the front door. I pushed it aside and went into a room so dark it took me a few seconds to realize that Phil’s famous restaurant did not yet exist.

  Through the gloom I spotted a group of young construction workers leaning against a sink on the far side of the room. I carefully picked my way through the debris, past sawhorses and spilled nails. They were standing in what would one day be a kitchen, and they were deep in conversation.

  “I don’t know what’s going to happen now,” the tallest one was saying when I got close enough to hear. “Michael just got turned down for a loan.” He looked like a string bean with a Prince Valiant haircut. “The finance company was not amused by his corporate name: Acid Enterprises.”

  Phil had said that his visionary was young, but now I began to understand just what that might mean. He was a kid, the same age as these cute workmen now discussing cars with such concentration they had not even noticed my entrance. “I can drive my Lotus into a parking lot at fifty miles an hour,” the string bean bragged. “I don’t even have to stop; it slides right under the bars. It really pisses them off.”

  I didn’t know much about cars, but I knew construction workers didn’t drive fancy sports cars. Could these be the chefs? I cleared my throat. They all glanced in my direction, and one of them said, “We’re not hiring waitresses yet.” He had a humorous face framed by a curly brown beard, and when I did not reply he added helpfully, “I’ll take your name if you want.”

  “I don’t want to be a waitress,” I said. “I’m looking for Michael.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” he said, “he’s not going to do you any good. He’s got a girlfriend. Better stick with me.”

  “But he’s expecting me.”

  “Oh shit,” he replied. “You’re not that reporter from New West, are you?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am.”

  There was an awkward moment of silence. And then he shrugged and accused, “But you don’t look like a reporter.”

  “You’re not exactly my idea of a chef either,” I shot back.

  He laughed and said, “We were supposed to give you some espresso and tell you that Michael would be back soon. But he forgot that we don’t have an espresso machine yet. He tends to overlook inconvenient details.” He pointed to a box. “I’m Jonathan Waxman. Have a seat.”

  I did. Jonathan nodded to his right and said, “This is Mark Peel.” He nodded left, to the string bean. “This is Ken Frank. He’s head chef. You may have heard of him.” With a smile he added, “They call him the ‘enfant terrible of Los Angeles.’ ”

  “Don’t tell her that,” said Ken, grimacing as I shook his hand.

  “I’ve heard it before,” I said. “You’re twenty-four and you’ve already had your own restaurant. What was your training?”

  “I didn’t have any,” he said, waving a hand. “I just worked my way up from being a dishwasher. That, of course, was in France. In six months in France you can learn to be a chef in L.A.”

  “So why did you come here?” I asked, taken aback by his arrogance.

  “Because,” he said, less flippant now, “it’s time that changed. We need to stop copying France. I’m a third-generation Californian and I want to create a California restaurant with California produce, California wines, and California employees. Michael’s philosophy is a lot like mine.”

  A grin broke across his face, making him look even younger. “Anyway,” he added, “the day I went to talk to Michael the owner of the restaurant I was working in tried to beat me up. It seemed like time to leave.”

  “Somebody try to beat you up too?” I asked, turning to Jonathan.

  “Oh no,” he replied, “they don’t do things like that in Berkeley. I’ve been working with Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, and I’ve learned a lot from her. But I’m bored with Berkeley. And I like Michael’s philosophy.”

  “So you just picked up and moved down here?” I said. “This guy must be something!”

  He nodded. “He is. And he’s letting me stay with him out in Malibu.”

  “It must be getting pretty crowded,” I murmured. I couldn’t help myself.

  * * *

  An hour later Michael had not appeared. “When do you think he’ll be back?” I asked hopefully.

  “There’s no saying,” said Jonathan. “Let’s make lunch.” He threw me an apron. “You can peel these tomatoes.” He set a cutting board on an overturned box and handed me a knife.

  After I had slipped all the tomatoes out of their skins I asked if he wanted the seeds removed. “Of course,” he said and I blushed, thinking what an amateur question it was. I tried to make up for it by removing every seed, but they were slippery little things, and a few resisted my attempts to get at them.

  “Sloppy,” said Jonathan when he came to inspect my work, “but I can hardly yell at you. You’re not getting paid.”

  “Neither are you, if I remember correctly,” I replied.

  “Just try not to cut your fingers off when you chop those tomatoes, okay?” he said curtly. I focused on keeping my fingers tucked and ostentatiously looked around the kitchen so everyone could see that I was not watching my hands. I tried to chop very fast and very fine. Still, I was not impressing even myself.

  Jonathan threw me a pan. “Now cook that down into a coulis,” he said.

  “I need something to stir it with,” I said.

  “We don’t have anything,” he replied in a tone that implied that only sissies would use an implement to stir a pot. “Use your fingers.”

  I was still dipping my fingers gingerly in and out of the blisteringly hot sauté pan when a pretty woman with pink cheeks and short brown hair ran into the kitchen waving a copy of the Los Angeles Times. “ ‘Talented young chef Mark Peel says that chefs should be well educated,’ ” she read in an elegant English accent, “ ‘and go to college so that they’re not dull.’ ”

  “Oh no,” said Mark, looking extremely embarrassed. “I didn’t say that. Or at least I didn’t say it in that context. I just meant it about me.”

  The woman came over to the stove, looked at me, and asked, “Are you going to work here?”

  “Meet Sally Clarke,” said Jonathan. “No, sweetheart, she’s not working here. She’s that reporter from New West.”

  “Oh, pleased to meet
you,” said Sally, with what seemed like relief.

  “How come the Times was writing about you?” Ken asked querulously.

  And suddenly I heard myself saying this: “Don’t worry—after my article comes out you’ll all be famous.”

  This statement was greeted by a momentary silence, and my cheeks went scarlet. What on earth had made me blurt that out? And then I realized the silence had nothing to do with me; Michael McCarty had arrived.

  He was not as tall as Ken or as handsome as Mark, and he lacked Jonathan’s sweetness. But he carried himself like a movie star. Within seconds he was the center of a vortex of sound.

  “Look at this beef!” Ken was saying to him, holding out a filet. “We’ve been to every meat supplier in town, and they all insist this is the best they’ve got.”

  “This cream is awful,” Jonathan moaned. “It’s manufacturer’s cream. We need something better.”

  A workman was shouting at him in Spanish and Sally was saying something about the damn computer system. Michael appeared to be answering them all simultaneously.

  “Don’t worry about the meat and the cream,” he told the chefs. “I’ll get the boys to come and take a look at the restaurant. When they see the type of place we’re running, they’ll come up with something better.” He might have been holding a cigar for all his bravado, and when all three chefs looked skeptical he said, “Remember, I’ve already gotten someone to bring fresh pork loin from Chicago, even though everyone said that couldn’t be done. And we’re setting up a computer system to keep inventory, though everyone said that couldn’t be done either.” He turned to me and flashed an enormous smile. “You must be Ruth. I hope I didn’t keep you waiting. Let’s go up to my office.”

  As I pulled off the apron and started to follow him, Ken suddenly said, “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Your banker was here.”

  Michael winced. All the air seemed to evaporate from his body, leaving him looking small, young, and vulnerable. “Did you talk to him?”

  “No,” said Ken.

  Michael’s swagger came back as suddenly as it had deserted him; he expanded before my eyes, puffing up with confidence. “Good. He doesn’t know I’m over budget again.”

  As we walked up a rickety flight of stairs he said earnestly, “You have to understand, Ruth, I’m a wheeler-dealer. It’s all a matter of juggling time and money. Ninety-eight percent of the time it works, but it doesn’t always. Sometimes everyone wants their money at the same time. Like now. But that’s the way it goes. Most people get their paycheck and immediately eliminate the cash. They just don’t know how to use it.”

  As we walked into the office he turned and punched me lightly in the stomach. “Got five thousand dollars you can lend me?”

  * * *

  “I don’t think he was kidding,” I told Colman later. We were sitting on his bed drinking wine out of the Steuben glasses he stored in a box beneath it. “He really needs the money. He even asked Jonathan if his father would buy one of the paintings he bought for the restaurant.”

  “Is it good art?” asked Colman.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “He’s got great taste. He’s got Hockneys and Johnses and Diebenkorns. I don’t think any restaurant has ever had such terrific art before. And he’s not just borrowing it, he’s buying it. He says that a nice meal is not enough—the place has to be an event. No wonder he’s over budget. He thought the restaurant was going to cost three hundred thousand dollars, but it’s already up to half a million. He’s just refinanced his house to get more money.”

  “You can’t lend him money,” said Colman with some alarm. “You’re reporting on the place, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Do I look like I have five grand?” I asked.

  “Well,” he said with a grin, “appearances can be deceiving.”

  Looking around the room, I realized he might be talking about himself. I was seeing him more clearly now. Colman was a natty dresser, he wore Armani aftershave, and he had house accounts in every restaurant in Los Angeles. But his tiny Hollywood apartment had piles of unpaid bills stacked in every corner. The Mercedes he drove off in every morning was highly buffed and very smooth; only inside did you discover that the seats were torn, the radio gone, and the odometer stuck, unable to turn over anymore. For all his flash, Colman moved precariously from week to week.

  But although he didn’t have much money, he lived like a rich man. Every chef in Los Angeles was his friend, and red carpets unrolled beneath his feet. He got up early every morning to go off at six A.M. in his tennis whites. Whom did he play with? He only smiled when I asked. Just as he smiled when he said he had to work late and came home after midnight, complaining of deadlines but smelling of wine. Strange women smiled coyly from across every dining room, and when I answered the phone it was often a female voice. “Soon, in a week or so,” I’d hear him whispering into the phone.

  I whispered too. Sometimes in the middle of the night I’d get out of bed and call Doug in Lake Placid, pretending I had just gotten in.

  “The restaurant’s almost finished,” I said.

  “I think I found a site today,” he replied.

  “Phil was sick today. Michael seems to have forgotten I’m not on his payroll, so he had me unload the wine delivery.”

  “The committee is planning a big party next week. We’re supposed to announce what we’re doing. I have nightmares about not having an idea in time.”

  The conversations never went anywhere, but I found his voice reassuringly familiar. Talking to Doug made me feel that although I was playing a role, I still had a real life to return to.

  * * *

  Meanwhile I spent my days hanging around the restaurant, trying to be both helpful and invisible. Ken was not particularly friendly, but Mark and Jonathan were easy to talk to, and day by day we could see Michael’s fantasy coming to life. “It looks different than any restaurant I’ve ever seen,” I told Colman, describing the cool modern dining room. “It’s a sort of a desert Bauhaus look with a bit of Moorish thrown in. And no matter where you sit, you see the garden. I feel as if he’s taken the whole idea of a restaurant and thrown the windows open. It feels expensive but not stuffy. You’ll like it.”

  “Yeah, but what about the food?” he wanted to know.

  “Michael keeps saying that the food is not the most important thing,” I replied. “But they spend an awful lot of time trying to find ingredients and arguing about techniques. Yesterday they had a big fight about beurre blanc. Ken said that if you don’t put a whisk in, it doesn’t get gray. Jonathan said it wasn’t true. They argued about it all afternoon.”

  “Why do you think guys like that have given up jobs in the best restaurants in California to go work there?” he asked.

  “I asked Michael that very question,” I replied. “You’ll like his answer. I just transcribed the tape; I’ll read it to you.” I flipped through my notes, looking for the quote. “Here it is: ‘You see, Ruth, they will all one day probably have their own little restaurant somewhere. And they’re all here for two reasons. One, because they like to work with me. And two, because I’m not a fifty-year-old Frenchman who owns the restaurant and is mean. They’ve all been working with these crusty old bastards who treat ’em like assholes, you see what I mean? If you were a second or third chef in Bertranou’s kitchen at L’Ermitage and you wanted to do something, do you think he’d let you? Never. We’re doing something different here. I’m allowing it to happen. There’s tons of room for creativity. I want to do the weirdest things.’ ”

  “That’s great,” he said. “You’ve got to use it.”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied. “I will. He said something else I really loved. Let me find it.” I scanned the notes. “Here. Listen. ‘What I want to do is the best possible ingredients cooked in the simplest way. Sure, it’s not the world’s most interesting menu, but my specials are the things that are supposed to blow your socks off.’ ”

  “ ‘Blow your socks off!’ ” he repeated. �
�That’s great. It’s going to be a good story. If he ever opens the damn restaurant.”

  “It must be close,” I said. “Michael’s been wandering around moaning about money and saying he needs cash.”

  “How close?” asked Colman. I had another one of those worried moments when I wondered if he was trying to get rid of me.

  “Mark says we’ll know we’re close when Michael calls the first waiters’ meeting,” I said. “Until then it’s just talk.”

  * * *

  But things did seem to be coming together. The kitchen slowly filled up with equipment, and helpers arrived to peel vegetables and do dishes. And then, one morning, a man came through the door staggering beneath the weight of a big box and saying, “I have the fish order?” as if he could not believe he had come to the right place.

  He set the box down on a makeshift counter, and the chefs gathered around to scrutinize his wares. Ken peeled a shrimp and popped it into his mouth. “Two days old?” he inquired. The man nodded. Ken slit open a salmon trout and sniffed it suspiciously. “They’re real nice,” said the fish man, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Ken said nothing. He poked at the whitefish. “Canadian all you have?” he said disparagingly. The fish man mumbled something about next week. “This Canadian stuff’s too fatty to make decent terrine,” said Ken.

  “I brought you a nice box of bones,” said the fish man hopefully. Jonathan peered into the box and frowned. “Grouper,” he sniffed. “It makes terrible fumet. The bones are too gelatinous, and the fish lacks flavor. Anyway, this one was past its prime.”

  “Fresh salmon next week,” the fish man said, retreating.

  “The first order is always good,” said Ken when the fish guy had gone.

  “Good?” I said. “But you were so negative about everything he brought.”

  “You can’t let them get too sure of themselves,” he replied. “We’ll have to see what he comes up with in a couple of weeks, when it counts.”

  “Not a couple of weeks,” said Michael, “a couple of days.”

  The chefs turned to stare at him. “Oh,” he said casually, “didn’t I tell you we’re having a waiters’ meeting this afternoon?”