Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

  2 tablespoons Asian sesame oil

  2 tablespoons peanut oil

  FOR THE CURRIED OYSTERS

  1 tablespoon curry powder

  1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

  pinch of salt

  16 oysters, shucked, shells reserved

  3 tablespoons vegetable oil

  6 tablespoons salmon roe

  Accompaniment: lemon wedges

  TO MAKE THE CUCUMBER SAUCE

  In a blender, purée the cucumber with the vinegar and salt and pepper until very smooth. With the motor running, add the two oils in a slow stream and blend until emulsified.

  TO MAKE THE CURRIED OYSTERS

  Whisk together the curry powder, flour, and salt in a shallow bowl. Dredge the oysters in the curry mixture one at a time, shaking off the excess flour, and transfer them to a plate.

  Heat the oil in a 10-inch heavy skillet until hot but not smoking and pan-fry the oysters in batches, turning them once, until slightly crisp on the outside, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer the fried oysters to paper towels to drain. Spoon a scant tablespoon of the cucumber sauce into each of the 16 oyster shells and top with a fried oyster. Top each oyster with 1 teaspoon of salmon roe.

  Serves 4 to 6.

  12

  FOODIES

  A mockingbird lived in the tree behind the house Michael and I had rented in Laurel Canyon. He slept all day, but at night he perched in the branches belting out horrid, unnatural songs that twisted through my dreams. I’d wake up wondering why birds were singing after dark, thinking that even the stars were crooked in Los Angeles. I knew the midnight warbler was laughing at me, mocking me for leaving home.

  Then the crashes began. The steep curve at the bottom of Laurel Canyon lurked outside our house, waiting to snare unwary drivers. First we’d hear the whoosh of a car taking the curve too fast, then the screech of brakes, then the sickening thud of metal hitting bark. Next came the horns, the sirens, the flashing lights. No wonder the rent had been so reasonable.

  The house was dark, even in the daytime. The rooms, with their murky wooden panels and painted brown floors, seemed to repel sunlight, and the kitchen was dank, with scratched linoleum. There were far too many doors, and when Michael had to work late I checked and rechecked them, making sure they were locked. The landlord, a nosy, unpleasant person, lived next door and popped in unexpectedly, as if it were his right. I’d come home from work and find him in the kitchen, pretending to fix a leaky faucet.

  We’d rented the place for its large patio and spacious, shaded yard. We learned, later, about the coyotes who also considered it their home. You could watch them sneak through the hole in the fence and out to the street, sneering when they ran, howling when they stopped.

  Coyotes prowled my Los Angeles Times office too. They were not as visible, but I could feel them padding around my desk, sense their hot breath on the back of my neck, hear them howling off in the distance.

  “What are you worried about?” asked Michael, who loved his new job at KCBS. “You’re just writing restaurant reviews. It’s no different than the magazine.”

  But sitting at my shiny new computer, I knew that he was wrong. Even my friends seemed to think I had turned into someone else now that I had become the restaurant critic of California’s largest newspaper, and people who had known me forever were suddenly afraid to invite me for dinner. Michael McCarty didn’t punch me in the stomach anymore. Wolf and Barbara seated me on the celebrity schedule. And once, in a fancy restaurant, the man at the next table turned on his date as she complained about her meal to say, “Who do you think you are, Ruth Reichl?”

  The words hit me like a hammer. Who did I think I was? I really wasn’t sure anymore. More than a million people were reading my words, and half of them seemed to hate me. My predecessor had retired after almost twenty years, and for months her loyal readers filled the mailbox. “Another member of the Lois Dwan fan club,” said Bob Epstein, striding up to my desk one morning. He waved a letter over my head and added, “He says we should send you back to San Francisco. This guy,” he said, throwing a second letter onto my desk, “says you are personally responsible for lowering the quality of restaurants in Los Angeles. He wants us to bring back Lois Dwan.

  “And this one,” he said, gleefully adding another to the growing pile, “wants to know if we are aware of a loose cannon named Ruth Reichl running around Times Mirror Square.” He laughed, delighted. “We’ve never gotten this much reaction to a critic.”

  “A critic should be controversial,” I retorted jauntily. “If you don’t make people mad, you’re not doing your job.”

  Bob was not taken in. “Don’t worry, kid,” he said kindly, “I don’t pass these letters on to the bosses.” He leaned over and added, “I just let them see the positive ones. And believe me, we get those too.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve gotten a few nice calls.”

  “Any celebrities?” he asked hopefully. This was, after all, Los Angeles. “It would help if I could drop a few names.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Danny Kaye.”

  * * *

  I’d recognized the voice at once: masculine, slightly high, with the polish of the theater and just a whiff of New York. It was straight out of my childhood. The very sound of it had made me laugh.

  “Danny Kaye phoned you?” said my mother during her daily call. “Why?”

  “He’s very interested in food,” I replied. “He said he liked my writing, and he invited me to his house for dinner next Monday night.”

  “Danny Kaye invited you to his house for dinner?” she repeated, actually sounding impressed. “He’s supposed to be a wonderful cook!”

  “He certainly seems to think he is,” I replied. “He told me that Paul Bocuse and Roger Verger say that the best restaurant in California is Danny Kaye’s house.”

  “He must have been joking,” she said.

  “No, Mom, he wasn’t.”

  “Too bad Daddy’s not alive. Danny Kaye was his favorite actor. He’d be so pleased.”

  I thought of my father, singing “Hans Christian Andersen” to me as I fell asleep. I saw him laughing at Me and the Colonel. “Do you think he might finally approve of the work I’m doing?” I asked, hating the needy tone of my voice.

  My mother ignored it. “He just loved Danny Kaye,” she replied, making no concessions.

  * * *

  At first the thought of going to Danny Kaye’s house was thrilling. But at the last minute Michael couldn’t come; three gunmen had held up a bank in Santa Monica, and he was needed at the station. As I drove through Beverly Hills, alone, looking for San Ysidro Drive, I began to have doubts. What on earth were we going to talk about? By the time I found the house and walked up the path I was so nervous that I panicked as I was about to ring the bell. I stood there for a second, then ran back to the car.

  “You’re late,” Danny said when I’d finally composed myself enough for a second attempt. He glanced at his watch. “Six minutes late. You could have ruined dinner.”

  “It’s nice to meet you too,” I heard myself say. He let out a short bark of laughter, shook my hand, and led me into the house.

  He looked just as he had in all the movies of my childhood. He was not so much older as more wrinkled, like laundry that had not been ironed. His blondish hair was a little too long and fluffed around his face, and his lean body no longer moved with the boneless grace of an acrobat, but otherwise he seemed unchanged.

  The best restaurant in California was huge—and echoing. We seemed to be alone as we walked through one silent decoratordesigned room after another, and I began to hate those gunmen who had sent Michael back to work. It was a relief when we reached a cheerful sitting room and found it filled with other guests.

  “Don’t get comfortable,” said Danny as he introduced me to his friends, “because I want to show you my kitchen.” He rushed through the introductions as if they were an irritating chor
e and led me out the door. I felt like a very special guest of honor. For the first time since I had been in Los Angeles I was glad I had taken the job.

  “Wow.” I actually said it, then put my hand to my mouth and blushed. The kitchen was a theater, and the round table in the middle was set so that the people seated there would be facing the stove. The cook would be the star of this show, and as Danny strolled possessively around the stage, showing off exotic pots and expensive gadgets, I saw that the entire room had been built with this in mind. It was a one-man kitchen, designed exactly for his body: Each counter was precisely calibrated to his height, so that he could stand at the stove and reach anything he might need.

  Danny picked up a cleaver lying on the butcher block and held it out. “Try it,” he urged. “I have them hand-made just for me.”

  I took the cleaver, feeling the comforting heft of the thing. Danny handed me a carrot. “Cut it,” he said, and I understood that he was conferring a rare privilege. “I don’t normally like people to touch my tools, but I want you to.” The cleaver felt good in my hand. I swung and felt it bite cleanly through the carrot.

  “Great cleaver,” I said, handing it back.

  “Knives are very important,” he noted, solemnly caressing the edge.

  He went to the big refrigerator and took out something wrapped in white paper. “I hope you eat liver,” he said, opening the paper and holding up a thick maroon slab.

  “Of course I eat it,” I replied. “I’m a restaurant critic. I eat everything.”

  “You have not eaten liver like my liver,” he said confidently. “Just wait. There’s only one butcher in the entire city worth buying it from. And then you have to slice the meat just so, on the diagonal.” He demonstrated.

  He showed me the vegetables, the fruits, the cheese, reciting the pedigree of each. As he offered to introduce me to his purveyors I realized that my opinion really mattered to him. I hoped, with all my heart, that he cooked as well as he believed he did; I did not think I would be able to lie to him.

  Danny led me back to the sitting room, and then he disappeared for a while. The rest of us chatted, distant and polite, but the room seemed empty without him. Suddenly he was back, standing in the doorway imperiously calling, “Dinner, now!” Everyone in the room jumped up, scattering crumbs and spilling drinks, scrambled into the hall, and made a mad dash for the kitchen.

  I stood in the doorway, staring at the scene. The table had been set with bowls of clear, golden broth that sat steaming at each place. The fragrance drifted intoxicatingly through the room. “Lemongrass!” I said.

  “Sit down!” Danny shouted irritably from his post at the stove. We stopped milling and each of us rushed for the nearest seat, as if this were a game of musical chairs. We threw ourselves down as he commanded, “Eat!” We obediently picked up our spoons.

  With the first bite I knew that no lies would be necessary. Danny’s soup was extraordinary, with that resonance that goes on and on, like a bell still humming, long after the last note has been struck.

  Danny did not sit down. As we ate he stood at the stove like a mad scientist, enveloped in the steam that billowed about him from a huge cauldron. I heard the sizzle of butter hitting a hot surface and sensed the high, clean note of lemon juice being added to the pan. Now there was a richer scent—cream, I guessed—and then the aromas began to mingle, so that lemon and cream and butter were dancing through the air.

  Water drained; wet pasta hit a skillet with a hiss, and a cover went crashing down. Then Danny was rushing to the table with a plate in his hand and setting it in front of me. “Eat it now,” he insisted, “don’t wait for the others. This is a dish that can only be served to people eating in the kitchen. In a few minutes it won’t be any good. I made the noodles myself.”

  I twirled the pasta around my fork and took a bite. And then, in spite of myself, I gasped. The pasta was so thin that it seemed to have vanished, leaving only a memory behind. What was left was simply the subtlety of the sauce, pure and light, as if the liquid had somehow taken solid form. It wasn’t food; it was magic on a plate, and for a moment I disappeared into the flavor. When I returned Danny was standing over me, watching me so intently and with such pleasure that I knew I didn’t have to say a single word.

  I didn’t listen to the conversation after that, or think about much of anything at all. I just ate, conscious of my luck at being there, trusting that each dish would be extraordinary. The liver was like little pillows of velvet between satin slivers of onion, and so sweet it was as if it had been dusted with sugar. “It’s the onions,” he said, answering my unspoken question. “They’re grown in special soil. And, of course, the way they’re cut.”

  The conversation flowed around us, background music, but I didn’t try to join it. I understood that in his kitchen Danny was desperate for an audience; cooking for people who didn’t pay attention ruined it for him. He was a creator, not a consumer, and the only thing he required was appreciation.

  And so I said nothing as he snatched the lemon soufflé from the oven and rushed it to the table. High, light, rich, and eggy, it fell, slightly, as it was cut, collapsing onto itself with a fragrant sigh. I ate it slowly, savoring the way it disappeared in my mouth, and drank the espresso he served me at the end without sugar, liking the bitterness against the sweetness of the soufflé.

  “I think it’s the best meal I’ve ever eaten,” I said as I left. Danny nodded. “You have to come back,” he said. I understood that this had been a test, and I had passed.

  * * *

  After that Danny called now and then, regularly. There was a French chef arriving in town whom he thought I should meet—could I come to dinner? He was going to the baseball game—did I like Dodger dogs? When he heard I’d had a car accident he went right to the hospital. He was furious to discover I had already checked out.

  “What do you mean by leaving the hospital early?” he yelled into the phone. “I brought you something to eat.”

  “You’re at the hospital now?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. I pictured him there, ranting around the bedside of the person now occupying my room. “I’ve probably set this poor woman’s recovery back a week,” he said accusingly, as if it were my fault. “I think I scared her silly.”

  “Well, leave the food for her, why don’t you?” I suggested.

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. And then he said, “It wouldn’t be the same.”

  I understood that this was his idea of a compliment, and I wanted to reciprocate. “I wish all my readers were like you,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “There is a strange new tribe of people in the world,” I told him, “who live only to eat out. They’re groupies, obsessed consumers of the restaurant experience.” I thought for a minute and then added, “They’re sort of the opposite of you.”

  “Thank you,” he said, understanding at once.

  “You’ll like this,” I said. “One producer told me he’s been so busy eating he hasn’t made a movie in two years. But he has a hernia, which makes eating all that food painful. So he has to drink a bottle of Maalox every night. I asked him why he did it, and he said, ‘Oh, I don’t mind suffering for my art.’ ”

  Danny let out a snort of laughter. “You ought to write an article about them,” he said.

  * * *

  It seemed like a good idea. Bob thought so too. And so I began interviewing the pale, rich fanatics whose lives revolved around restaurants. There were dozens of them, people who collected meals like baseball cards and chefs like trophies, and they were only too happy to discuss their addiction.

  One couple drove down to the paper to show off their enormous menu collection. I sat for hours as they pulled one precious document after another out of a suitcase. “We find that most diners don’t play their role,” said the wife. “You don’t go to important restaurants without doing some preparation for it. It’s not just the food and the ambience and
the people who are representing the experience. It’s what you bring to it.”

  I looked to see if she was serious. She was. Her husband extracted a photo album from the suitcase and said, “Let’s show her the pictures from Wolfgang’s wedding in France.” He shoved the album under my nose. There they were, flanked by Wolf and Barbara. “The wedding was fabulous,” he said and turned the page. “Afterward we went on to Italy.” He pointed down at pictures of his wife and himself with one smiling Italian chef after another. “Then, of course,” he continued, turning the page yet again, “we went on to Switzerland and Frédy’s.”

  The happy couple, their arms around an unsmiling Frédy Girardet, gazed up from the snapshot. “The problem with eating at Frédy’s,” said the wife wistfully, “is that once you’ve eaten there it is hard to eat anywhere else.”

  As she spoke I remembered what Darrell Corti had said when I’d met him: “What’s the point of knowing a lot about food if all you get is disappointment?” But I kept my mouth shut and tried to look wise. I nodded. I changed the subject.

  “I was praying that they wouldn’t ask me what I thought of Girardet,” I said to Michael later that night as we were dressing for dinner. “Because of course I’ve never been there.”

  “You had nothing to worry about,” he replied. “People like that cannot imagine a world in which the L.A. Times would hire a critic who had never been to Girardet.”

  “You’re probably right. One man told me his day was ruined if he couldn’t tell his friends about at least one restaurant they didn’t know about. Another told me he was using up his daughter’s inheritance with his passion for restaurants. But my favorite moment of all was when I asked a woman if she ate out because she couldn’t cook and she said, ‘Oh no. Actually I’m an extraordinarily good cook. But I believe in doing what I do best. And I eat wonderfully.’ ”

  “Well, I wish you were taking one of those people who eat wonderfully to dinner,” he replied. “Are you absolutely sure I have to wear a jacket?”

  “Yes,” I said. “When I made the reservation they said they wouldn’t let you in without one.”