Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  “A week from now,” I replied, “you won’t feel that way.” The train arrived. I climbed on. I was going back to town, going to make mushroom soup.

  MUSHROOM SOUP

  1/2 pound mushrooms

  1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

  1 small onion, diced

  4 tablespoons flour

  1 cup beef broth

  2 cups half-and-half

  salt, pepper

  1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

  1 bay leaf

  Thinly slice the mushrooms.

  Melt the butter in a heavy sauté pan. When the foam subsides, add the onion and sauté until golden. Add the mushrooms and sauté until brown.

  Stir in the flour, and then slowly add the broth, stirring constantly.

  Heat the half-and-half in a saucepan or in the microwave. Add it to the mushrooms, along with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and bay leaf. Cook over low heat for 10 minutes; do not boil.

  Remove the bay leaf and serve.

  Serves 4.

  Winter Again: Swiss Pumpkin

  The night Doug moved out of Channing Way I made Swiss pumpkin. As I cooked I reminded myself of a famous Brillat-Savarin aphorism: “The invention of a new recipe does more for mankind than the discovery of a new star.”

  I invented Swiss pumpkin.

  Watching Doug pack had been unbearable. “You should move out too,” he said as he carefully layered his drawings into boxes. “You should get a place of your own, try living alone for a while, without the safety net of Channing Way.” When I didn’t reply, he said bitterly, “You’re planning on moving right in with Michael, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I replied. It was true. Some days I went apartment hunting with Michael. Some days I went apartment hunting alone. Paralyzed by indecision, I stayed on at Channing Way. Doug had been away so much that if I willed myself not to notice that his belongings were gone, the house did not seem very different. It was the same big mess it had always been, filled with too many people and too few rooms. It was easy to fool myself into thinking that Doug had just gone off on another trip.

  Then I went to visit his new place. It was just like him: calm, spare, quiet. The walls were old bricks, the ceiling was high, and Doug had painted the trim a blackened green. The space was uncluttered, with a few beautiful objects strategically placed to capture the eye.

  I wandered around, touching the things that had once belonged to us both. The stone bird we got in Italy was perched on his kitchen shelf; the star quilt from our bed covered his bed. He’d built himself a small round table for the living room with Charlie Chaplin legs that gave it a human air. It looked like no place we had ever lived together.

  There were letters on the table in the hall. When I saw that they were addressed to him it finally sank in. He lived here now; he was home. I had done this. I had pulled my life apart. I would never, ever be safe again.

  Doug ground coffee beans and put his arms around me while we waited for the water to boil. “We’ve done the right thing,” he said. “Our relationship has given us the strength to live without each other. We’ve made each other independent.”

  Words, I thought. So many words. My quiet man was becoming a talker, and I no longer even knew if he meant what he said. Now he kissed me and added, “I care more about our relationship than I do about our marriage. That’s why I want to let it go.”

  “Mmm,” I sighed, turning to leave. As I got to the door he said, “I think I’ll roast a chicken. Can you tell me how to do it?”

  “Don’t worry,” I replied, “you’ll figure it out.”

  And then I went down the stairs and out the door. I was going home to bake a pumpkin.

  SWISS PUMPKIN

  1 pumpkin, about 4 1/4 pounds

  a 14-inch baguette, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices, then toasted lightly

  1/4 pound Gruyère cheese, grated

  1 3/4 cups half-and-half

  2 large eggs

  1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

  1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Carefully cut a 1-inch slice off the top of the pumpkin. Reserving the top, scoop out and discard the seeds and strings. Make 3 layers each of toast and cheese in the pumpkin cavity, alternating layers and ending with cheese. Whisk together the half-and-half, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and slowly pour the mixture into the pumpkin. Replace the top of the pumpkin and bake on a shallow baking pan in the middle of the oven until the pumpkin is tender, about 2 hours. Serve by scooping out the pumpkin flesh with the bread and cheese.

  Serves 4.

  9

  Raining Shrimp

  RESTAURANT CRITIC CHOKES TO DEATH IN RESTAURANT

  The headline flashed through my head; if I could have laughed, I would have. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, and I seemed unable to make anyone around me understand that I was in trouble. I was in a small restaurant surrounded by twenty of my closest friends, but in the general exuberance my silence went unnoticed.

  I was wedged into the back corner, one wall behind me and one to my side, unable to extricate myself from my seat. Time slowed down, and I began to understand that if I didn’t do something quickly I was really going to die. The irony of the situation was not lost on me: I had just fallen in love with Thai food and it was about to kill me.

  I hadn’t expected much from this little Berkeley joint. When the first course turned out to be a bright magenta soup, I sneered down into the bowl and said, “Food coloring” in my most disparaging restaurant-critic voice. Then I deigned to take a spoonful.

  My head flew off. I felt my cheeks getting hot and my eyes getting moist. My palms prickled. Shivers swooped down my spine. Suddenly I was so attuned to sensation that I could feel my watch ticking against my wrist. No food had ever done this to me before.

  The hot-pink soup was dotted with lacy green leaves of cilantro, like little bursts of breeze behind the heat. Small puffs of fried tofu, as insubstantial as clouds, floated in the liquid. I took another spoonful of soup and tasted citrus, as if lemons had once gone gliding through and left their ghosts behind.

  Afterward there were tropical fish cakes flavored with coconut and bursts of ginger. And then curries—green ones and red ones—exploded into my mouth. I was getting high, my whole body flooded with a feeling of well-being.

  And that was my undoing. Exhilarated and eager for the next sensation, I had become so silent that when the satay stuck in my throat, no one noticed.

  As my breath gave out I began to panic and wave my arms around. Jules, who was sitting next to me, said mildly, “Do you want something?” and handed me his beer. I took a sip and watched him watch it dribble out of my mouth, slowly realizing that I could not swallow.

  At that moment Michael leapt across the table, pushed everyone away, and grabbed me. He put his arms beneath my rib cage and squeezed upward with such force that the piece of meat that had been stuck in my throat flew halfway across the room. Air rushed back into my lungs, color back into my cheeks. I was going to live!

  “Thanks,” I said. “You saved my life.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he replied.

  “I have to go to Thailand,” I said next.

  “I get it,” he said. “As you were dying your whole life flashed before you. You had an epiphany. You realized you had to see Thailand before you died.”

  “Something like that,” I answered.

  * * *

  Every Thai man, the woman at the Tourism Authority of Thailand had told me, became a monk at the age of twenty. I thought about that as I flew. There were, she said, more than three hundred temples in Bangkok alone, and I imagined myself meandering down quiet streets, watching monks file past in saffron robes chanting softly, musically.

  I had put the trip together with uncharacteristic speed, begging every editor I knew to give me an assignment. Within days, three of
them had said yes, and I had enough work to make the trip a reality.

  “You’re not going to Thailand,” said Michael, “you’re just running away. It’s easier than deciding what to do with your life. You’re drifting, waiting for something to happen so you won’t have to make up your mind.” He had a very clear picture of my future: He wanted me to file divorce papers and move in with him. He wanted to get married and have children.

  Doug also thought I was being irresponsible. And he too had a plan for me. “You need to live alone for a while,” he said. “You should get your own apartment.” Although we no longer lived together, neither of us had made a move toward a divorce, and when we were together, we spoke as if we had a future.

  Going to Bangkok, I knew, was a coward’s move, but I wanted to get away from both of them. Southeast Asia seemed exotic and unfamiliar, the perfect place for an encounter with destiny.

  As the plane began the approach to Bangkok, I looked down and saw flooded green fields dotted with small thatched huts, and rivers snaking everywhere. It was hazy, and I remembered the other thing the woman at the Tourism Authority had said: “Our land is so lush that in monsoon season we say it is raining shrimp.”

  But no shrimp rained down as the taxi inched toward the hotel. And as we bumped and skidded through the gray industrial landscape, no temples peeked through the murk. The sky was dark, the streets flooded, the air so polluted it was hard to see the ugly buildings we were passing. Horns blared, engines whirred, and tailpipes spewed smoke. My head ached; my eyes stung. “Welcome to Bangkok!” shouted the driver.

  “What?” I shouted back.

  “Ninety-five percent of all the cars in Thailand are here in Bangkok,” he yelled.

  “I thought people rode boats along the canals,” I shouted.

  “You probably thought we shopped at the floating market as well,” he called over his shoulder.

  “You don’t?” I had an assignment from Cuisine magazine to write about the floating market of Bangkok.

  “Only for tourists,” he shouted. “The central market is much more convenient.”

  “Were you ever a monk?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

  “Of course,” he said solemnly. “I went to study scripture and purify myself. It is our tradition.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

  “What?” he screamed. Bangkok might have most of Thailand’s cars, but it did not seem to have a single muffler.

  “I’m glad,” I bellowed, making a megaphone of my hands.

  “Don’t worry,” he yelled. “Your hotel is like a temple. Very quiet.”

  * * *

  A woman with smooth skin, hair to her waist, and orchids at her neck stood at the entrance to the hotel. She bowed as I walked in. Another sarong-wrapped beauty led me along hushed corridors. She flung open the doors to my room and I entered, walking across thick white carpets to a white marble bathroom. The bedroom was filled with flowers. A bottle of champagne sat cooling in an ice bucket; a basket overflowed with rambutans and mangosteens. The woman led me to the window and out to the terrace. Below us the sun sparkled off the river, as if the curtain of pollution hanging over the city had been pulled aside. In Bangkok, I thought, the sun shines only for the rich. The woman smiled again, put her hands together in a prayerful attitude, and went out the door, walking backward.

  I tumbled into bed, jet-lagged and already overwhelmed by the strangeness of it all. My eyes closed. I was back in San Francisco, lost, trying to meet Doug for dinner. I was late, I was naked, I was running. Every street was a dead end, and Michael kept popping out of doorways, grinning wickedly, like the target in a penny arcade game. Bells were ringing, and I was running, trying to cover myself as the bells got louder and louder. Way down at the end of the street I could see Doug, but the more I ran toward him, the farther away he got. The noise was becoming unbearable . . .

  And then I was awake, sweating and disoriented, and the bells were the telephone. I grabbed it.

  “Ruth?” said a deep French voice. It was Jacques, my one friend in Thailand. He would pick me up in an hour.

  * * *

  Jacques was the most romantic figure who had ever turned up on Channing Way. He was a friend of Nick’s, a burly man with vigorous brown hair and a well-used face that made him look like a former prizefighter. Jacques was actually the Bangkok correspondent for a French newspaper, and we knew him because in his spare time he composed electronic music. He was an amiable man, passionate about wine and reputed to be friendly with both John Cage and Prince Sihanouk. None of us had ever met anyone quite like Jacques, and when we had nothing better to do we sat around and speculated that he was a spy. Seeing him standing in the lobby of my hotel was like discovering a little bit of Berkeley in the middle of Bangkok.

  “Tonight,” he said, giving me a lopsided grin, “we will eat like Thais.” He led me into the steamy, raucous Bangkok night. “People here eat in little bites, moving from one restaurant to another. I hope you like hot food?”

  “I’ve never tasted anything that was too hot for me,” I bragged.

  Jacques’s eyes twinkled. “Bravo!” he said. “Then we will start at the restaurant near the boxing stadium.”

  “I love it here,” he said as the valet came riding up on his motor scooter. “But you have to be a little bit crazy.” We climbed onto the scooter and plunged into the whirlpool of traffic.

  It was instantly clear that Jacques did not intend to take me to tourist places. Likit was a dump, an enormous, bare room with hundreds of chickens roasting on flat beds of charcoal in the front. Fans circulated above our heads in a vain attempt to clear away the smoke. The aroma was delicious. “They are famous for their charcoal chicken,” said Jacques, kicking at some papers on the floor. The papers fluttered up, momentarily, and settled back onto the wooden slats. “At New Year’s people line up for hours to get it to take out.”

  The chicken was crisp and moist, spicy and fragrant. It was dripping with a thin chili sauce that prickled pleasantly in the back of my throat. “This is great,” I said, licking my fingers, as the waitress set a platter of fried pork with garlic and pepper on the table. I looked around for cutlery.

  “Where are the chopsticks?” I asked.

  “In Thailand chopsticks are used only for noodles,” said Jacques, ladling some rice onto his plate. He took a spoon in his right hand and a fork in his left. “The Thai eat with spoons,” he said, demonstrating. “The fork is a pusher.” He pointed out dishes of small chilies on each table, and plates heaped with cabbage, lettuce, basil, long beans, and cilantro. Bottles of hot sauce and vinegar stood sentinel behind them. “Here when you eat you have to be a little bit of a cook too,” he said, sprinkling hot sauce on his pork. He added some cilantro and a splash of vinegar. “The food is always served with condiments, and you make each dish to your own taste.” I followed his lead and took a bite. The flavors jumped around in my mouth, layered, intense. There was one, very green and earthy, that I could not identify.

  “What is that flavor that goes to the side of your mouth?” I asked.

  Jacques looked very pleased. “Cilantro root,” he said. “It is used a great deal in Thailand and hardly at all in the rest of the world.”

  “Delicious,” I said, a little disappointed that none of the food was spicy.

  The waitress set a big bowl filled with crabs on the table. They were fragrant with chilies and redolent of beer. “Steamed nippers,” said Jacques, adding more chilies and basil to his plate.

  I followed suit, but the dish was still not very hot, and I was starting to think that real Thai food was different from what I had been served in California.

  Then the waitress set another platter on the table. “How dong,” she announced.

  “Game,” explained Jacques. “I’m not quite sure what kind. How dong can be many things, but it is always something from the forest.”

  “Oh, I love game,” I said, taking a large serving. I ostentatiously sprinkled so
me hot sauce across the top, added a few leaves of basil and a couple of chilies, and took a bite.

  It was a mistake. The dish was incendiary. I reached for the water.

  Jacques laughed and grabbed the glass from my hand. “Water will only make it worse,” he said, handing me a small ball of sticky rice. “This should help.” I took a bite, and the pain began to abate.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “How dong,” he said. “It is always cheap, and it is always hot. It is made of miscellaneous meat; it could be anything—snake, muskrat, baby lion. The recipe calls for lots of chilies, pepper, and spice to mask the flavor of the meat. If you want heat, order how dong. Ready for the next adventure?”

  * * *

  We raced through the electric streets, screeching around corners, sideswiping cars, grazing the sidewalks, until we came to the night market. We meandered past stalls piled high with dishes, stopping for skewers of grilled squid and neat little bundles wrapped in banana leaves. Unfolding the green envelope, I uncovered a rectangle of sticky rice so rich with coconut milk that when the sweet tropical smell wafted up, it obliterated the surrounding aroma of curry, ginger, and limes.

  We went on to bars, where we drank Thai whiskey and beautiful women threw themselves at Jacques as if I were not there. Around midnight it started to rain and Jacques took me to a place down one of the small dirt alleys that shoot off the main avenues. Barely more than a shack with a corrugated tin roof, it had a primitive barbecue in the back, where a man stood grilling cockles; we snatched them from the fire, drenched them with lime and chilies, and poured them down our throats. The rain thundered down, like drums, like music, and Jacques threw back his head and laughed. We drank more whiskey mixed with bottled water and Jacques showed me the pots of food simmering on a stove. “You just point at what you want,” he said, ordering something submerged in a sauce the color of Tabasco.

  The thunder on the roof ended, abruptly, and the silence was startling, as loud as the music. Jacques grabbed my hand and pulled me outside. “Time for the next course,” he said.