The Girls' Guide to Love and Supper Clubs

by Dana Bate

  “I heard about Adam,” my dad says. “What a shame. He seemed like a nice guy.” Unlike my mom, my dad admired Adam, though he never expressed his thoughts in any detail in front of my mother.

  “Yeah, well, live and learn.”

  “True, true, kiddo.” He pauses. “Listen, Mom and I were wondering—well, it came up in the context of that Princeton fellowship and some other issues we were discussing. Are you planning to take the GRE exam this fall?”

  Bingo: the real reason for this call. “Um … not sure.”

  I’ve thought about taking the GREs, but every time I attempt to sign up for the exam, I back out, driven by the intense nausea I experience every time I contemplate a career in economics.

  “Well don’t you think you should sign up for a course? Mom and I were talking about it. Those courses fill up pretty quickly.”

  “I don’t think so, Dad. If I decide to take the exam, I’ll be fine studying on my own.”

  “I’m sure you will, but a course would definitely give you an edge.”

  “Maybe,” I say, “but I’m not sold on taking the exam.”

  “I know, but when you think about it, kiddo, you have absolutely nothing to lose. The test is good for, what, five years? Might as well take it now and get it out of the way—even if you decide not to use it. Trust me. I speak from experience. Better to get it over with while you can.”

  As my dad speaks, I resume typing on my laptop and flipping through my recipe file. I don’t want to talk about the GREs. I don’t want to talk about fellowships or research journals. I don’t want to talk about any of those things because they all point to a future completely divorced from what I’m actually interested in—namely, food and cooking, the two subjects my parents assure me aren’t serious or worthy of my time.

  “Hannah, are you typing?”

  I stop. “No.”

  “Oh. I thought I heard tapping. Must be the connection.”

  “Probably.” I stare at my computer screen. “Actually, I’m sorry, Dad, but I have to go. I’m … meeting up with friends.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you go. Oh, but before I do—have you made plans for Rosh Hashanah?”

  I clear my throat. “Yeah. Kind of.”

  This is true. What is also true is that my parents would kill me if they knew that instead of going to temple, I plan to host a questionably legal dinner out of my apartment.

  “Good,” he says. “You’re mother and I like to know you’re keeping up the tradition. Anyway, have fun tonight. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “And keep us posted on the GREs,” he says. “Taking them this fall would be a very good idea.”

  I hang up and lie back on my air mattress, staring up at the ceiling as the bed rolls beneath me like a pool of water. My life, in some ways, would be a lot easier if I hated my parents—if they were awful, annoying people whose sordid reputation hovered over me like a dark cloud. But I genuinely like my parents. I think they’re great. And yet, it’s times like these, with their talk of fellowships and GREs and professional advancement, that I wish they’d hear me when I said no. That, for once, they’d realize I might know what I want and need better than they ever could.

  Maybe they’re afraid to let me figure out what I want to do with my life. Or maybe it’s easier for me to see things that way—my anxious, overprotective parents as the barriers preventing me from moving forward—rather than admit the only fear standing in my way is my own, and it always has been.

  CHAPTER

  ten

  A weekend of planning and recipe testing flies by, and before I know it, Sunday morning arrives, which means one thing: it’s time for the Dupont Circle farmers’ market.

  The market opens every Sunday year-round, stretching north along the pie-shaped block from Dupont Circle up to Q Street. The circle itself is like the hub of a wheel, with streets radiating outward like spokes, and the market is wedged between the northwestern spokes, crawling up Twentieth Street. Each Sunday the street fills with vendors who display baskets filled with fresh breads and pastries and crates teeming with seasonal fruits and vegetables. The market spills over into a large parking lot to the east, which overflows with more farmers and tradesmen, selling everything from handmade soaps to lamb chops. Needless to say, I consider this market one of the happiest places on Earth.

  I usually start with a practice lap, where I survey the offerings and compare prices and realize my NIRD salary will allow me to buy precisely three things, maybe four if I’m feeling wild. This Sunday, however, is different. With The Dupont Circle Supper Club debuting in less than a week, I have a license to buy.

  I show up at 8:45 A.M., fifteen minutes before the market opens—a strategic move on my part. Arrive too late and the market will be picked over and crowded, filled with throngs of food enthusiasts and farmers’ market tourists who do little more than clog the main artery of the market. But now, fifteen minutes before the bell rings, the market is calm and the tables are fully stocked, giving me a chance to bookmark what vendors I want to revisit and what products I want to buy first.

  Rachel promised to meet me here when the bell rings at nine because, well, she knows me: with a license to buy and no one to stop me, I would inevitably spend way more than I should, which would no doubt involve the purchase of several gourds and leafy greens for which we’d have no use whatsoever. What can I say? Some women melt at the sight of Prada shoes or Gucci bags; I go crazy for free-range eggs and organic kale. It’s how I’m programmed. Adam never understood that. He bought me a Coach wallet for my birthday last May, when all I really wanted was a basil plant.

  Ambling through the market, I spot baskets of purple and orange cauliflower, bundles of Swiss chard and collard greens, and crates of Honeycrisp apples and Italian prune plums. The tables at the market always feel a little schizophrenic this time of year, as piles of fat summer tomatoes rub shoulders with apples and knobby winter squash. Just as the late-summer fruits and vegetables are celebrating their last hurrah, the autumn harvest makes its timid debut, competing for the attention of market-goers who may have tired of the surfeit of corn on the cob and tomato salad, but who may not be ready to commit to six months of gourds.

  I pass an impressive display of apples and an intriguing array of leafy greens, but before I can finish my practice lap, I feel a tap on my shoulder. I whip my head around and recognize Shauna, one of the owners of Open Meadow Farms.

  “Hannah, Hannah, bo-bana,” she says with a smile as she fastens her mousy hair into a twist with a large plastic clip. “I have your brisket on the truck. Ready to pick it up?”

  “Mind if I wait until the end? I don’t have a freezer bag.”

  Shauna shrugs. “Fine by me. You might want to stop by the tent, though. We have some amazing lamb today. We’re offering a special on pork chops, too.”

  “Alas, no pork today.”

  She raises her eyebrows and shakes her head. “Big mistake. Finest pork in America.”

  A few years back, the New York Times called Shauna’s pork the “finest pork in America,” and she has never let anyone forget it. Admittedly, her pork is fantastic—rich and flavorful, with the perfect amount of fat. Most of the charcuterie shops in town buy her meat and turn it into pâté and prosciutto and pancetta—all of which, Shauna will remind you, are so good because they start with the “finest pork in America.”

  Shauna pats me on the back and heads back to her stand, and a portly blonde in khaki shorts and hiking boots rings a large cowbell up and down the market thoroughfare. The market is officially open.

  Unfortunately, Rachel is nowhere to be seen. I stand by the gate to the parking lot on Massachusetts Avenue, tapping my foot as I check my watch every thirty seconds, becoming increasingly anxious that someone else has already bought all the parsnips and sweet potatoes, as if that’s even possible at 9:08. Rachel and I haven’t spoken since she dropped the table off Friday night, but I sent her multiple texts reminding her we were m
eeting at 9:00 this morning. And, unlike me, Rachel is never late. This is very unlike her.

  After ten minutes of waiting by the entrance, I give up. I don’t have all morning to wait around for her. My time is just as valuable as hers, and she shouldn’t waste my time like this, and this is very annoying, and how dare she—and so on. As the queen of tardiness, I fully appreciate the hypocrisy of my outrage, but never mind. There are vegetables to buy and free apple slices to sample.

  I wind my way through the market, picking through bunches of parsnips here and crates of apples there. I toss a few pears into my bag, followed by a head of cabbage and a skinny eggplant, shaped like a carnival balloon, because it’s so damn cute. By the time I reach Shauna’s tent, my bags overflow with an excessive amount of produce, including a bundle of Swiss chard and a mess of zucchini, neither of which I plan to use for the party. If Rachel’s role was to rein me in, she has failed spectacularly.

  “Finest pork in America!” Shauna bellows from her green-and-white tent, shouting at no one in particular. “Come and get it!”

  In front of her, dozens of vacuum-sealed packages of chicken and pork and beef and lamb sit atop an ice-filled tray, with packages of sausage and bacon stuffed into round coolers. An open carton of brown eggs sits to the right of display, in front of a huge sign that says FARM FRESH EGGS—GET YOURS TODAY! Every time I visit Shauna, I want to buy everything she sells, until I see the price tag and realize I cannot justify spending ten dollars on a single chicken breast.

  Shauna smiles when she sees me staring at a beautiful rib-eye steak. “Hey—Sam! Go get Hannah’s brisket off the truck, would you?” She points to the vacuum-sealed sirloin and strip steaks nestled into the ice tray, each piece bright red and marbled with streaks of fat. “Interested?”

  “Got any of it ground?”

  Shauna points to the corner of the ice tray. “Tons. How much you want?”

  “About two pounds?”

  She grabs two packages and sets them aside. “Done. Anything else? What about the lamb?”

  I glance at the price tag on the lamb chops. Too rich for my blood today. Then again …“Throw in one packet of chops,” I say. “I’ll freeze them until I figure out what to do with them.”

  “We have one wild boar chop left. Any interest?”

  “Um …” No. There is no reason for me to buy wild boar. I don’t need it. It’s totally unnecessary. On the other hand, I’ve never cooked wild boar before. And, really, I should probably learn how. Buying it would basically be educational.

  “It’s great marinated in lemon juice and olive oil with a little garlic and rosemary,” she says. “I’ll knock a dollar off the price.”

  “Sold!”

  And just like that, I manage to spend more than a hundred dollars on meat.

  The hundred-plus dollars on meat wouldn’t be such a huge problem if I hadn’t already spent thirty dollars on fruits and vegetables, twenty dollars on bread, and another twenty dollars on cheese, yogurt, and milk. But now I’ve bought more groceries in a day than I sometimes do in a month. This is all Rachel’s fault.

  As I lug my three thousand pounds of groceries through the market, I finally see Miss Classyface Stylewonk herself walking down Massachusetts Avenue toward the market, in no apparent hurry whatsoever. Guess who’s going to give her an earful in front of Dupont’s most passionate locavores? That’s right: this girl.

  When Rachel turns toward the market entrance, I notice she is walking next to a tall Asian man with broad shoulders and a strong, chiseled jawline. They both stop right before the entrance, and he turns toward her and reaches down and kisses her on the lips while resting his hand gently on her shoulder. I am beyond confused.

  Rachel waves good-bye to the mystery man and marches up the market thoroughfare, meeting me in front of the mushroom stand.

  “Hey!” she says. “Sorry I’m late.”

  I look at my watch. “It’s nine-forty-five. We said nine.”

  Her cheeks turn pink. “I know. I’m sorry. I overslept.”

  “With the muscular Asian dude?”

  The pink in her cheeks deepens to a dark red. “His name is Jackson.”

  “Ah, yes, another suitor you can pump and dump.”

  “Hey!” Her indignation yields to her usual feistiness. “Listen to you—‘pump and dump.’ You do realize that’s a stock-trading expression. It has nothing to do with dating.”

  “It does now.”

  “Well, I’ll have you know, Jackson is very cool and very interesting, and if I get a few fun dates out of him, then I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever you say, Jezebel.”

  She whacks me in the shoulder with her purse. “Prude.”

  “Tease.”

  “Blabbermouth.”

  “Etsy addict.”

  Rachel bursts into a fit of laughter. “You are ridiculous,” she says, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. She collects herself and glances down at my grocery bags, which I’ve laid on the ground to prevent myself from herniating a disk. “Is all of that for the supper club?”

  “Some of it is. The rest …” I shrug. “Impulse purchases.”

  Rachel shakes her head. “You’re the only woman I know for whom an impulse purchase involves a bunch of Swiss chard.” She reaches for two of the bags and grunts as she lifts them to her shoulders. “Come on, Julia Child,” she says. “Let me help you walk these home.”

  Once we’ve put away all the groceries and drafted a shopping list for our last-minute Whole Foods run on Thursday, Rachel flips open my laptop and signs into the dedicated e-mail account she created for The Dupont Circle Supper Club.

  “Check it out,” she says. “Five more e-mails.”

  I glance over her shoulder at the screen. “But you said we only have one more spot available.”

  “Exactly. We’re drumming up interest for supper club number two.”

  I reach out and slam the laptop cover shut. “Why don’t we see how supper club number one goes before we commit to a number two? I may have burned the house down by then.”

  Rachel rolls her eyes. “Whatever. So, let’s go over the menu again. Break it down for me. Tell me a story.”

  “I’ll do you one better.” I reach beneath my stack of cookbooks and hand Rachel a sheet of paper.

  Rachel drags her eyes down the sheet of paper, studying its contents:

  Red and white wine/Manischewitz cocktails

  Apple cider challah/homemade date honey

  Potato and apple tart with horseradish cream

  Old-Fashioned braised brisket with tomatoes and paprika

  Tzimmes duo: Honeyed parsnips with currants and saffron,

  sweet potatoes with dried pears and prunes

  Stuffed cabbage

  Mini Jewish apple cakes with honeycomb ice cream

  “What’s the difference between ‘Jewish apple cake’ and regular apple cake?” Rachel asks.

  I shrug. “Not sure. Maybe the fact that it’s made with oil instead of butter? I think it’s a regional thing. My grandmother used to make it all the time.”

  Rachel nods and runs her finger down the menu one more time. “Mind if I hang on to this?”

  “Go ahead.”

  She jumps to her feet. “Cool. Might be useful for our future Web site.”

  Leave it to Rachel to worry about a Web site. She always works ten steps ahead, planning the next supper club or the next vacation or the next ten years of her life. I’m hardly a carpe diem type of gal—my modus operandi tends to involve agonizing over my future with little follow-up action—but Rachel’s groundless optimism over the success and future of this supper club unnerves me.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say. “One secret dinner at a time.”

  Rachel wraps her arm around my shoulder and walks with me to my front door. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says. “I know. But I have a good feeling about this.”

  “I’m
glad someone around here does.”

  “Stop worrying. You’re a fabulous cook, and we’ve been planning like crazy, and there’s no way this dinner will be anything but a success.” She gives my shoulder a squeeze. “You, my dear, are going to be DC’s next big thing.”

  I smile nervously and feel my stomach rumble because, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not ready to be “DC’s next big thing,” and I’m not sure I ever will be.

  CHAPTER

  eleven

  The day before the supper club, I rush into work full of energy. We’ve set the menu, we’ve bought all the ingredients, and we’ve cleaned my apartment from top to bottom. I plan to scoot out of work a few hours early to start prepping everything for tomorrow, but as far as I can tell, we’re right on schedule.

  As soon as I get into the office, I swing by the top-floor conference room in search of free bagels and coffee, part of my daily routine since I moved to 1774 ½ Church Street. I’ve been on a tight budget, and with all the money I spent at the farmers’ market, I am officially in full-fledged cash preservation mode.

  I grab a poppy seed bagel and pot of cream cheese and fill a paper cup with very dark, very strong coffee. For some reason, catering has decided we need to serve caffeinated jet fuel at NIRD conferences. I’m not sure what that says about the events we host, but it isn’t a ringing endorsement.

  I quietly slip out of the conference room and head downstairs to my desk, where I see a large yellow Post-it note tacked onto my computer screen. It’s from Mark.

  NEED EDITS ASAP!

  Last week, Mark sent me a rough sketch of a paper on the future strength of the dollar and asked me to fill in the blanks. Suffice it to say, the paper had more blanks than a toy gun, so I’ve spent the past week frantically researching currency markets. Susan has been on his ass all week to submit this paper to the publishing department for her Economic Outlook series, one of our think tank’s flagship publications, which means he’s already on her shit list. I finished pulling together a decent draft yesterday, so all I need to do is give it a final polish before sending it off to Mark. From what he says, it will be one of his most important papers of the year.