Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance

by Nancy Verde Barr

  “Is she here yet?” she asked, dropping her backpack on a stool. “Sara, I mean.”

  “Mae, I have really bad news for you. They rushed Sara to the hospital with a severe case of additive deficiency. They’re feeding her liquidized Chee-tos and pepperoni pizza through a tube, and she is responding well. She’s begun to ask for take-out from Wendy’s.”

  Mae lifted her arms into a cross as if to ward off evil spirits. “You shouldn’t even contaminate the room with the name of that place. Trust me, you’ll be eating your words as soon as you meet Sara and taste her cheesecake.” Cheesecake made me think of the cheese Danish I had passed on earlier that morning. I figured one couldn’t hurt and headed back to the buffet.

  Our vegan chef, Sara Paul, turned out to be a delight, and her tofu cheesecake was as delicious as Mae had promised. We were even able to get all four Tonys to taste it. They declined offers of the tempeh fajitas, however, and although I did taste them, I didn’t think the local beef-heavy, Tex-Mex restaurant had to worry about being replaced. The morning’s only dicey moment was when I took Sara up to makeup and she asked if the products had been tested on animals and no one knew.

  “I just can’t use them, then. I’m sorry, but the very thought that they could have been is terribly upsetting to me. Can’t I just go on as I am?”

  I took a good look at her. She was wheat. Her hair, her eyes, her eyebrows, her complexion, her blouse, they were all one shade of beige. The camera would have trouble finding her. “I don’t think so, Sara. Can you just get made up for the show and we’ll wash it off immediately afterward?”

  She shook her head back and forth slowly. “I just can’t. I’m sorry. I think of those poor defenseless little creatures and it makes me too sad.”

  The last thing I needed was a sobbing animal-rights activist beating tofu, frying tempeh, and dedicating the segment to helpless, chemically altered Spot. Not a good show. Then I had an idea. “Wait here,” I said and ran down to my socially conscious assistant. “Mae, do you have makeup with you?”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “Everything but your Magic Markers.”

  As I suspected, Meg’s cosmetic bag held bottles and tubes all clearly marked that they had not been manufactured at the expense of any critter two- or four-footed. Sara got a little color and the audience got an exciting lesson in the uses of tofu and tempeh. Well, perhaps exciting is an exaggeration.

  After the show, Mae went out for a smoke and I headed to the buffet for a muffin. I was fairly certain that I had burned off the calories of at least the Danish I’d already eaten by running up and down the stairs to makeup in search of politically correct cosmetics for Sara. I returned to the kitchen and sat down at Romeo to look over the scripts for Sally’s two taped spots.

  The prep for taped spots is different from that for live ones. If something goes wrong in a live spot, there’s no way we can fix it; the talent just has to deal with it. So we only have to set it up once. With taped spots, there is always the possibility that we will have to do it more than once. If the talent makes a mistake or the camera misses something, the producer or director can ask for another take. So we have to have enough backup food prepped to repeat the shot as many times as necessary. It’s not a problem if the food hasn’t been disturbed, because then we can just wipe things clean and start again. But if the food has been cut or cooked or mashed about, we need backups. That means that for every food item on a tray that may be altered we need at least two identical items waiting in the wings. It’s my job to know which ones and how many of them we need.

  Mae returned to the kitchen with the Tonys. She was still going on about Sara to them. “You should definitely go to her restaurant. The food she serves will change your whole perspective on eating. You’ll get into a whole new way of life.” The Tonys were nodding their heads enthusiastically, but I knew the only thing they wanted to get into were Mae’s pants.

  I had made a huge number of notes on the tarte Tatin scripts and was trying to decipher what I’d written when Mae sat down. “Is Sally coming to the studio this morning?” she asked.

  “She’s going to try. She took an early shuttle from Washington and if it’s on time and the traffic isn’t bad, she told Sonya, she’ll stop in.”

  “I want to give her the invitation for the Oran Mor party.” It seemed to be all that was on Mae’s mind.

  “I told Sonya we were all invited and she said she’d tell Sally. I’m sure she’s going to want to go.”

  “Well, duh! That’s a def. Who wouldn’t? You’re going, aren’t you?”

  I tried to look bored. “I am.”

  “What are you going to wear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Huh?”

  “Mary talked me into buying a dress that is so skimpy, I might as well wear nothing.”

  Mae leaned toward me and raised her eyebrows. “So, you bought a new dress? A skimpy new dress. Are you hoping to impress anyone in particular?”

  I crossed my arms on Romeo and leaned into the distance she’d left between us. “Now, who could you have in mind? Mr. Love-’Em-and-Leave-’Em? Why don’t you go after him? You’re the one who thinks he’s so charming.”

  “Because he’s obviously into you.”

  “I’m going to assume that’s a plural ‘you,’ referring to the majority of the female population in the midtown area.”

  “You’re only guessing that he’s a player, Casey.”

  “Trust me. It’s a safe guess and I’m not interested. I bought the dress because I needed it.” Even I didn’t believe the sound of that. “What are you going to wear?”

  “I’m putting together an Irish outfit.” She leaned back and squinted in thought. “I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but I found the right color green spray paint.” She didn’t seem to have any idea how weird that sounded. “Speaking of clothes,” she said and left the topic of spray paint, “did you find anything cool for Italy? You must be getting so psyched about going.”

  “Yes to the clothes. The jury’s still out on the trip.”

  “Because Richard’s not going?” She sounded ready to jump on me about it.

  “Because George Davis is.”

  A look of disdain replaced her unsympathetic frown. “Hello! The Prince of Darkness. Who invited him?”

  “He did. He says he has business with Sally there.”

  “Gross! I don’t understand why she has anything to do with him. He’s, like, so totally creepy. And, you know, he has her doing things that are so un-Sally. Did you see that commercial he arranged for her to do for laundry detergent? I mean, it’s so embarrassing. His whole being around is a totally weird deal. He’s like that Sven-something guy.”

  “Svengali.”

  “Yeah. Svengali. He’s probably hypnotizing her into doing what he wants.”

  “I think that’s a real stretch, Mae.”

  “Well, there has to be something. Maybe they’re, like, getting it on. You know, a lot of lonely widows get trapped into doing crazy things by some young gigolo.”

  “Give me a break! Sally’s suffering a lapse in judgment, not going blind. Have you taken a good look at George Davis?”

  “You’re right. He’s pretty butt-ugly.”

  “Ugly’s just the half of it. He’s unkempt. Tina could start an herb garden under his fingernails. The dandruff, the dirty shoes. His clothes never fit. Oh!” I groaned. “And that smug look. There’s no way he’s Sally’s type.”

  “Well, there must be something. It’s too weird. If we were in a novel, we’d find out that he’s secretly her son from a teenage marriage to a drug dealer who beat her and she had to give him up at birth because he was born a crack baby.”

  “What are you reading, these days, Mae? Anyway, that wouldn’t make sense even if this were a novel. Sally’s life is an open book. Literally. With three different biographies written about her, someone would have found a skeleton if it exists.”

  “Hey, you never know.�
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  “I guess. Whoa. Look at the time. We’d better get busy.”

  “Okay, tell me about the lobster spot.”

  “Sally is going to show Jim the right way to eat a lobster. Jim and Sally will each have a lobster, so I’ve ordered six, which should be plenty. It gives us two backups. It’s just eating a lobster, not cooking it. What can go wrong?”

  “Those are the four most frightening words in food TV.”

  “You’re right. I take them back.”

  “Do we need any food prepped for that spot?”

  “Just melted butter, and we can do that in the morning. We should also cut up some lemons in case Jim wants to squeeze some on his lobster. It’s the tarte Tatin that’s going to be a bitch.” Mae and I each looked down at our recipes and scripts for the tarte Tatin. “With the tarte Tatin, Sally is not going to make the pastry crust but tell people to use their own perfectly made one. We can get those made today—three for three finished tarts, three for Sally, two of them backups. We can make the three finished tarts today and get all the apples we’ll need peeled and cut. Sprinkle them with lemon and sugar so they won’t turn brown. And be sure to leave some apples uncut, because Sally wants to show how to cut them up.” After trying it a number of different ways, Sally had determined that the most efficient way to cut an apple into wedges was to cut it in quarters, core it, then peel it and cut the wedges. It eliminated the contest to see who could cut the longest unbroken piece of apple peel, but it was a lot faster.

  I wasn’t surprised that Sally had chosen to demonstrate a tarte Tatin. It was a classic French dessert, delicious, a challenge, and it had a good story. The famous tarte Tatin or, as it was originally called, tarte des demoiselles Tatin, was created by two spinster sisters of the Loire Valley who supposedly forgot to put the pastry in the bottom of the pie pan, put it on top instead, and then reversed it after cooking, creating the upside-down apple tart. Sally got a hoot out of calling these two talented hotel owners “spinster sisters,” but what she really liked was the story, true or not, of how they just made the mistake work. More than once, she has told her audiences never to apologize to dinner guests. “If your cake is too moist and falls into pieces when you turn it out, scoop it up and call it a pudding.”

  “Okay. Let’s start by giving assignments to the ten cast-iron pans and putting a Post-it in each one so we don’t get confused.” The Tonys each handed Mae a Post-it pad and a pen. She passed one of them over to me.

  “When the segment opens, pan one will be on the stove with butter, already partially melted. Sally will add the sugar to that pan, then cook it until it caramelizes. Pans two and three are backups for pan one. Pan four will have already caramelized sugar and one partial circle of apple wedges. Sally will put on the second circle. Five and six are backups to pan four. She’ll put pan four on the stove to cook the apples until the juices are thick and syrupy. Pan seven has the juices already thick, and Sally covers the apples in that pan with the pastry dough, which will be rolled out and on the counter. We won’t need a backup for pan seven because it will be easy enough to pull the dough off without disturbing the apples. Pan eight is a finished, baked tart for Sally to turn out; nine and ten are backup finished tarts.

  “In case she drops eight.”

  “Please, Mae. Not you too.” When fans meet Sally, they feel compelled to tell her how much they loved the show when she accidentally dropped poached eggs on the floor. But people remember it differently, so sometimes they say chicken, sometimes leg of lamb, sometimes a great huge fish. Sally never corrects them; she just says, “Yes, wasn’t that funny?” Some people remember incorrectly but with such detail that you can only wonder. One guy could hardly talk when he recounted to Sally how he and his wife almost wet their pants when she dropped the éclair on the floor and it landed frosting down. “Remember how you scraped the frosting off the floor and squiggled it back on the éclair? It was hilarious.” “Wasn’t it?” was all Sally said.

  “I had to say it.” Mae grinned sheepishly.

  In no time at all, using Sally’s apple-wedging technique, the Tonys and I had the bulk of the bushel peeled, cut in wedges, and sprinkled with sugar and lemon juice. Mae had made the pastry dough and divided it into six portions, and it was resting in the refrigerator. We were discussing the spot’s degree of brownness in order to determine Jonathan’s degree of annoyance when we heard an unmistakable “Woo-hoo” just outside the door. Our culinary superhero was here.

  Chapter 5

  God must have spent a little more time on you.

  —Alabama

  Seventy-one-year-old Sally Woods galumphed into the kitchen with Sonya right behind her. Sally does galumph; it’s part of her charm and, I suppose, hard to avoid with size eleven feet tucked into two-inch-high pumps. “Is that Casey Costello?” Sally said this as though she had just discovered the Queen of England cleaning the loo. It was her regular greeting, and it always makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

  “Can it be—Sally Woods?” I mimicked her tone and slight Georgian drawl as I stretched out my arms to join her in a big hug. Sally is my exact height, so hugging her is easy for me. Lots of people find their faces crushed into her ample bosom, a position that can be disconcerting when hugging someone as famous as Sally. “It’s so great to see you.”

  Sally has been the biggest cheese in the food world for nearly thirty years. She has been declared a legend and a national treasure, been dined and feted by three presidents of the United States and one in France, and granted diplomas and awards more times than anyone of us can count, including Sally, who doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention to such things. The man in the street knows her; children barely old enough to use the stove ask for her autograph; foodies swoon over her.

  “It has been much too long, honey,” she said and then turned to hug Mae, who did stand on her tiptoes to avoid the bosom crush. “And here’s our Mae.” There was never any question about who belonged to the Sally family. They were “ours.”

  As big a deal as Sally is, she never acts like one. The first thing she did after the hugging us was pull an apron out of her tote bag and ask what needed to be done.

  “Well, we still have apples to peel and cut. All the dough’s made and chilling and needs to be rolled out and we have to caramelize enough sugar to cover . . .” I looked down at my notes. “Six—no, seven pans.”

  Sally looked at the ten cast-iron skillets stacked up on the counter and let out one of her great hoots. “Huh! Just look at those pans. Isn’t this something? I’d like to make the caramel.”

  Sonya reached for an apron and asked what she could do to help. Her question brought panic to Mae’s eyes. Sonya is a genius at producing food shows but a real klutz when it comes to actually cooking. The last time she helped, she came close to chopping off two fingers. Between getting her to the hospital for stitches and washing blood out of the potato salad, we were lucky to get on the air in time. At some point one of us was going to have to level with her, but for now, I just had to find her a task. “Would you mind going over my notes for the tarte Tatin setup? There are so many pans to deal with; I want to make sure it’s all there.” It was a stopgap measure at best. It wouldn’t take her all that long.

  “Sure,” she said without enthusiasm and sat down at one end of Romeo with my script. Mae dusted the other end of Romeo with flour and lined up six plastic bags, each containing a perfectly smooth, flattened cake of pâté brisée. Sally gave the bags affectionate pats on her way to the stove. “Those are lovely, Mae.” She slipped one out of its plastic cocoon, broke off a piece of the raw dough, and popped it into her mouth. It’s not for nothing she’s the best; she tastes everything. “Mmm. Buttery and delicious,” she said before going over to the stove.

  “I just followed your recipe. It’s, like, foolproof.” Mae was beaming even as she tried to make a perfect circle out of the cake with the missing mouthful. I measured out the sugar and butter for the caramel and put it on the counter next to Sally, who
was trying to get the uncooperative electric stove to deliver a moderately high heat. Any serious cook uses gas, not electricity, and this particular stove always presents a challenge. She turned on all four imperfect burners and waved her hand a few inches above them to see which ones were responsive. “You can be sure no cook ever designed a stove like this. And who sells these? Someone who last week was working in men’s socks? It’s just a shame.” Knowing what little control electricity provides the cook, I gave Sally a cut lemon. A few drops of acid added to the butter and sugar will prevent the caramel from crystallizing should the electric coils go mad.

  “Oh yes, my friends. There is a God and he’s painted my world red.” An obviously jubilant Jonathan walked in carrying a small crate with six bright red steamed lobsters. He immediately spied Sally and set his bounty down on the counter. “Mrs. Woods! How wonderful to see you again!” He ignored the rest of us to get to Sally and took her hand in both of his. He was uncharacteristically all smiles. “How are you?”

  “Just fine, honey.” Calling him “honey” without using his name meant she knew she knew him and knew that he was one of us but just couldn’t bring up his name quickly. It’s a tactic she uses often and well. “How have you been?” When Sally asks that, she really wants to know. I know this because months after she has chatted with a fan she’ll talk about how he or she lives in a trailer park, or was a pothead in the sixties, or has ten children. People fascinate her, and that has a lot to do with the kinship they feel with her. It’s why they never hesitate to approach her—in restaurants, airports, on street corners and in the market. One woman actually slipped a piece of paper under the door in a ladies’ room and asked for her autograph. Sally wrote “tinkle, tinkle” on it and slipped it back.

  Sonya’s cell phone rang and I said a little prayer that it was something that would need her attention elsewhere for a while so I wouldn’t have to manufacture another task for her. It was and she mouthed, “I’ll be right back” as she left the room with the phone still glued to her ear.