Dieter took the cooler impatiently away from the other man. “Don’t brag about your heritage. You Italians are the ones who tried to make good bread without salt.”
Paolo stood up and tried to defend himself and his country. “I’ve seen you eat many of my Tuscan loaves and not complain. And our customers buy plenty of them too.”
Dieter’s tense expression broke into a smile. “I’m a dummkopf today. I’m sorry.”
Paolo held out his hand to his boss. “Good luck in Kansas City. I know you’ll do a great job, and they’ll love our bread. I wish I could go.”
Dieter shook hands with Paolo, then embraced him and each of the workers lined up at the door to see him off. He smiled again. “I’m tired of those French bastards getting all the credit. Last year ARTOS had Poulaine as their key note speaker. This year it’s my turn. I’m going to make them forget the word baguette.”
“Speaking of bread, do you want to take a loaf with you for the plane?” Paolo asked, grabbing one of the loaves that was sitting on Dieter’s desk. They must have been left over from the day before. Dieter stuck the loaf under his arm absentmindedly.
Paolo picked up two of the coolers and started out the door behind Dieter. “Just remember boss, Pumpernickel rules.”
Baked Eggs
10 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2½ cups milk
2 T. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 T. vanilla
Confectioners sugar
Juice of one lemon
I first ate this wonderful egg dish under the name “Swedish Breakfast.” The next time I ran into it, it was titled “Dutch Babies.” Whatever the name, it is a great company brunch item. Be sure you can serve it straight out of the oven as it puffs up during baking, soon to lose its soufflé-like height.
Whip the eggs, milk and sugar together until frothy, either with a whisk or an electric mixer. Gently fold in the flour, mixing until there are no lumps. Add salt and vanilla.
Heat and spray with non-stick spray a medium-sized cast iron skillet or sauté pan. Pour batter in the heated pan and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with confectioners sugar and the lemon juice.
Three
It was almost eleven-thirty at night. Heaven pushed through the swinging door into the dining room and felt the coolness, her eyes adjusting to the dim lighting. It was a relief after the harsh lights and the heat of the kitchen. The open mike had been over since eleven, but the room was more than half full, mostly with drinkers, folks who had come out to see the collection of talent that had appeared on the stage on Monday night. The crowd was in high spirits. Joe Long and Chris Snyder, waiters and also the producers of the open mike nights, were headed toward Heaven. So was Murray Steinblatz, the doorman at Cafe Heaven on weekends and emcee on Mondays for the open mike. Heaven put her hands up over her head defensively. “I surrender already. Three of you all at once is too much.”
Joe Long looked at Heaven slyly. “Then is this the right time to ask for two more microphones? Ours were old when we got them and they just don’t sound good and…”
Heaven sat down at a bar stool with the trio hovering. “Will you get me a glass of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, please. It just came in yesterday, the new release,” she said to anyone who might be listening behind the bar. She turned to Joe. “It’s been a long time since we spent any money on our theatrical department, so if you do all the comparison shopping, I’ll try to squeeze the money out of next month. The quarterly taxes are due this month so maybe next month we’ll have a little extra.”
Chris Snyder, left to play the good cop now that Joe had wheedled the new equipment out of Heaven, smiled and flounced his long blonde hair. “The show was good tonight. A whole group of poets came from the Writer’s Place and read.”
“So I heard, from my post in the peanut gallery, which is also known as the sauté station in the kitchen. It didn’t seem to put the crowd to sleep, thank God.” Heaven was always leery of a show with more than two poets.
Chris nodded his approval. “No, they were quite entertaining, actually. I told them they could come back every three months as a group. Some of them are already regulars as singles.”
Joe broke in. “We can bill them as a pack of poets.”
Chris ignored his friend. “There was a good video piece by the guy who’s the head of the video department at the Art Institute.”
Heaven sipped her wine. “It must have been. The crowd was whooping. Something we always like in a crowd, eh Murray? Murray, you sure are quiet tonight. What’s the matter? Did they give you a hard time?”
Murray Steinblatz hitched up his pants nervously. As Murray journeyed into his fifth decade, his butt had disappeared along with anything that could be described as muscle tone on the rest of his body. Somehow it just made him more adorable. Always wiry, Murray was a bundle of nervous energy tonight. “No, no, Heaven. The crowd was great. They laughed at all my bad jokes and…”
Heaven eyed her friend. Something was up with Murray, that was for sure. “Did you get my message about Thursday? I want to go out on this field trip with the bread people, and I’d feel better if you would work that night. Actually, Iris and I are going to go out Wednesday evening and spend the night with my brother Del, at the farm. Iris hasn’t been out there this summer, and we’ll only be about ten miles from the first stop of the day Thursday. But I don’t think you have to work Wednesday night,” she paused. “And I don’t think you heard a thing I just said.”
Even if he hadn’t been listening, Murray got the drift. “Sure, sure. I got your message and sure I’ll work. No problem.” Murray looked like he was dying to talk but nothing of substance came out. He shifted his trousers again and turned completely around, 360 degrees, and just stood looking at Heaven with a stupid look on his face. Heaven wanted to shake him, get him to spit out what was on his mind.
“That reminds me,” Chris said. “Joe and I have a great idea for next Monday when all the bread people will be in town. You know how those craft people make stuff out of flour and water, well we were thinking…”
“Chris, Joe, can it,” Heaven said with her eyes on Murray. “I’m tired and I don’t want to hear about anything that the Health Department would disapprove of. Get lost. Check your tables. Better yet, go back and order me a pork tenderloin and a hot hacked chicken to go. I want to take something home to Iris and Hank.”
“Iris and Hank? Are they at home together?” Joe asked anxiously.
Heaven was getting irritated. “So you think my twenty-two year old daughter and my twenty-six year old boyfriend can’t be trusted together? Is that what you’re implying?”
Joe looked frantically at Chris and Murray for a bail-out. They looked away. “Actually Hank is twenty-seven now, isn’t he? I think at his last birthday…” his voice trailed off uncertainly. “I don’t know where that came from. Iris has been home all summer. I’m sure they’ve spent lots of time together … I mean…”
Heaven drank her wine and glared at her friend. “Joe, I’m not about to help you out of this one. However, I have two things to say about this particular part of my life. One, I am the first to see that Hank should be more interested in my daughter if age is a determining factor. But after two years, I have concluded that the guy, for whatever reason, is crazy about me.”
“Crazy about you, madly in love,” Joe agreed.
Heaven went on. “Second point. As horrible as I would feel if Hank and Iris were attracted to each other, I would almost prefer it to who she is actually involved with.”
Both Chris and Joe were dying to hear who that was, but Heaven didn’t elaborate. She put her hand out to Murray. “Guys, like I told you, get lost. Murray, my man. Sit right down here and have a Diet Coke, your favorite. Tell mama what’s on your mind.”
Murray sat down and tried a weak smile. The bartender set a tall glass of cola in front of him. He didn’t even take a drink. “Heaven, do yo
u remember at the beginning of the summer when you and the boys went to Aspen?”
“How could I forget, Murray. I almost got pitched out of a ski gondola on Aspen Mountain.”
“And Mona got stuck on the roof and Jumpin Jack thought there were terrorists invading. Yes, sir. It was quite a five days, on both sides of Kansas.”
Heaven patted Murray’s hand. “But we came back alive, and you handled everything here, Murray. By the way, when will Jack get out of the hospital?”
“In a week or two. I talked to his doctor, and they think they have his medication under control. After how agitated he was in June, the doctors overreacted. They had Jack medicated like he weighed 300 pounds, and we both know he must be around 180. Poor Jack was sleeping twenty hours a day.”
Murray had convinced their friend, no stranger to the psychiatric ward, to check himself in for observation. “Anyway, back to that weekend. I wrote a piece. And I read it at the open mike that Monday. It was about my fear of heights. But it was really about my fear of everything, since my Eva died. It was especially about my fear of having a life, like I don’t deserve it. If she can’t have a life, neither can I.”
“And everyone said it was a great piece, Murray. I was hoping that it meant you were ready to write again. You ol’ Pulitzer winner, you.”
“That was a long time ago, babe. New York and the Times. I can’t even remember how I did it. I just lost my chops, you know?”
“Murray, we’ve been over this before. You did not lose your chops. It’s just like riding a bicycle or having sex. Didn’t writing that piece show you that?”
Murray took a drink of his soda. His voice was shaky. “Yeah, it must have. Cause, I’ve been writing.”
Heaven turned towards him. “And?”
“I’ve been writing a lot. Just about stuff here at the cafe and around town. And its been sounding pretty good, so I finally called my old editor, who retired last year. He made some calls and … well…”
Heaven threw her arms around Murray’s neck and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You’re going back to the New York Tomes, I mean Times.”
Murray looked embarrassed and unwound himself from Heaven’s embrace. “No, no, nothing like that. I took the name you came up with a few months ago when you were ragging me to get back to writing, ‘Letters from the Interior.’ I pitched writing something once a month, at least for now. And they went for it. I’m to send back dispatches from the front, in this case the Midwest, very colonial. They don’t want to come out here themselves, of course, but they sell a lot of papers in the Midwest. They even have a reporter stationed in Kansas City, but he doesn’t do any of the soft stuff.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Heaven was bouncing up and down on her bar stool. Then she stopped, mid-bounce. “Then why are you acting like you lost your last friend for God’s sake? Wait, you’re not quitting, are you?”
“Oh, God, no. This place is my family, my home. This just happened today. I got the OK from the editor of the Lifestyle section, and I’m scared to death, H. I’m supposed to send a few things this week, just so they can get the feel. And now I look at the stuff and I just don’t know. Would you mind reading over a few pieces? I know you’ve got the bread thing but I need your opinion.”
Heaven got up and hugged Murray again. “I’m so proud of you. I know this takes more guts than I can even imagine. Drop some stuff off here tomorrow. I’m honored that you ask. And proud that I thought of the name of your new gig. We’ll give ’em ‘Letters from the Interior’. Now I’m going home before that four top in the corner sees me and I’m stuck here another hour. One of them called today and left a message on my machine at home, something about helping them with the big gala opening of the jazz area. It sounded like a lot of work to me. I want to get home now to my baby. Iris leaves in a week and I’m already freaking about it.”
Murray got up too, and went back to his maitre d’ mode. His eyes scanned the room as he walked Heaven towards the back where her van was parked. “You’re sad because it’s time for Iris to go back to England, to college. I guess once a Mom, always a Mom.”
Heaven’s eyes clouded over. “Yes, this year I’m dreading her going back. She only has this one last year, and I guess I’d hoped she could make it through without … Christ, I sound boring and totally predictable, a classic overprotective mother.”
Murray wanted to draw Heaven out, but he figured they couldn’t both have moments of truth the same night. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t as bad as Heaven thought. Iris was a terrific kid and seemed to have her head on her shoulders for someone whose dad was rock ’n’ roll royalty. “Get out, babe. It’s almost midnight. Don’t forget your food. I see it up there in the kitchen window.”
Heaven grabbed her to-go order and headed for 5th Street and home.
Heaven didn’t live in the fashionable areas around the Country Club Plaza shopping center or a few blocks south in Brookside, the old fashioned neighborhoods with big, comfortable houses where many of her friends lived.
When she returned to Kansas City from London, pregnant with Iris, she discovered the Columbus Park area down by the river, an immigrant neighborhood that had been home to the Irish, the Italians, and by the time she moved in, the Vietnamese.
When Iris was a baby, their elderly neighbor on 5th Street died and left Heaven the building that was his home and also housed his business, a bread bakery. The bakery closed after Angelo Broncato died and soon Heaven and her baby moved in. Although she and Iris had lived with husbands in other places, she had always kept 5th Street.
Heaven thought of that now as she drove home. A space that had been a bread bakery had been her sanctuary, the one constant thing in a life of change. It was strange that it had taken her so long to become involved in making bread herself. The first floor of the bakery had evolved into a huge commercial kitchen and entertaining area when Heaven had been a caterer. She always kept the bread ovens and coal fire boxes exposed in the brick walls. And she continued the bread theme by using bakers racks to store all the platters and baskets that she used for food displays. But making bread, well, that was something she had never tackled until now.
Heaven had built a garage over the parking lot that had been provided for the bakery customers. As she pressed the garage-door opener, she saw that Iris was home, her beat-up pickup truck already parked. Hank’s car was parked on the street; obviously he had been able to leave the hospital on time. Heaven was anxious and glad to be home. She went in the house and walked through the darkened kitchen and took the stairs to the rest of the living quarters on the second floor. She had knocked down walls upstairs to create big bedroom-studies for herself and Iris. What had been eight rooms when Angelo was alive was now just three, counting the huge bathroom with all kinds of trick showers and tubs.
Heaven had lots of collections: old photographs, quilts, 1950s lamps, Mission oak furniture. There were several massive overstuffed couches, lots of books and bookshelves, with every magazine known to man. It was cluttered but with stuff you wanted to look at, books you wanted to read. Hank called it a stimulating environment.
This summer had flown by. Iris had worked at the restaurant and written for a free newspaper. Heaven had enjoyed having her home at least for the first few weeks. Until Iris had told her about Stuart. Although Iris had still seemed to be having a good time, visiting high schools friends, writing and waiting tables, worry preoccupied Heaven. She thought she had carried on with modest success, not whining too often at her daughter to find a younger, more suitable beau. She could count on one hand the times she had lost her cool with Iris over the summer. But each time it had been about her daughter’s new lover.
Now she stood in the doorway of Iris’s suite and her cool evaporated, this time because she was faced with the reality of the end of the summer. Hank and Iris were sitting on the floor, surrounded by suitcases and empty boxes. Iris was packing to go back to Oxford, and that reality was almost too much for Heaven. Iris sat there, hair pull
ed up in a ponytail, showing Hank some photographs she had printed. Both Iris and Heaven had a taste for black and white photography and Heaven had rigged up a darkroom in the basement.
“Mom, you’re finally home. How was the open mike? Did you bring us any food? We’re starved,” Iris said, seemingly without a care in the world.
Hank held up his hand to Heaven and she moved toward him. His eyes held understanding. He knew that Iris’ leaving was painful for Heaven. “H, your daughter has another skill. She has a great eye. Each frame is so complete.” Hank pulled Heaven down to the floor beside him and gave her a kiss. She was choked up and didn’t trust her voice to not come out a croak. What’s more, she was afraid she would whine and grovel, never attractive attributes in a mother. She could just hear herself begging Iris to stay in Kansas City another week. So, instead of talking, she started unpacking their midnight snack.
Iris was excited about her photos. “I got to shoot the photos for this concert that I’m reviewing for the NEW GRAPH. Its been fun, being a music reviewer. I guess I hadn’t thought about writing about rock. What with Dad being so much a part of the music world, I’ve always just been in the middle of it. But, of course, this new editor for the GRAPH only saw me as Dennis McGuinne’s daughter and naturally assumed I’d want to write about rock ’n’ roll.”
Heaven smiled and got up to go downstairs and get plates and silverware for everyone. “I was just thinking about that tonight. Not you and rock music, but me and bread. Same deal though. I have lived off and on in this bread bakery since before you were born and I’ve never been curious about learning to bake bread until now.”
Hank looked at both of them. “Talk about the forest and the trees. This could be the start of new interests for both of you.”
“I’ll be right back, I’ll get plates,” Heaven said as she disappeared down the stairs. “Stay in the moment, woman,” she scolded herself out loud as she rustled around the big kitchen. “Don’t spoil the time you have together worrying about the time you don’t have together.”
Bread on Arrival Page 3
