by Dana Bate
I jump off the train at Gallery Place–Chinatown and rush up the escalator, heading through Chinatown toward the market. To be fair, Washington’s Chinatown is more like Chinablock. The “Chinese” part only takes up approximately one city block and generally lacks the Chinese character of Chinatowns in other cities like New York and San Francisco. There is a red Chinese gate over Seventh and H streets and a handful of average Chinese restaurants, but that’s about it.
The surrounding area, however—the East End of downtown Washington known as Penn Quarter—is studded with upscale restaurants and art galleries and houses everything from condos and office buildings to the Verizon Center and the FBI. Unlike Dupont Circle and Logan Circle, Penn Quarter is all high-rises and pavement, a full-fledged business district, with the odd museum and government building thrown in and no town houses or backyards to speak of. Every Thursday, a farmers’ market opens from three until seven on a tucked-away stretch of Eighth Street, filling with lawyers and government workers from nearby offices. Today I’ve made the four-Metro-stop trek because this is the only place I can buy “the best pork in America” before our dinners this weekend.
As soon as I turn onto Eighth Street, I spot Shauna’s tent, already swarming with customers at three-fifteen.
“Well, look who it is,” she calls out, waving to me from behind her well-stocked ice tray as I approach her table. She reaches across and gives me a hug. “My favorite customer. You ready for your bellies?”
I pull a folded-up cooler bag from my tote and shake open the top. “Yes, ma’am.”
Shauna digs through one of the coolers behind her stand and comes back with an enormous plastic bag filled with vacuum-sealed pork bellies. “Look at these beautiful babies,” she says, pulling one of the packages out of the bag. She glances at the price tag and scrunches up her lips. “You know what? I’ll give you the employee discount today. You’ve been good to me lately.”
I’m about to tell Shauna she doesn’t have to do that, but when I see the thirty-dollar price tag on one of the packages, I decide to keep my mouth shut. “Thanks,” I say. “I appreciate that.”
“I’m looking to move a few sirloin and strip steaks today, too. Any interest?”
“Yeah, actually. I could use them for my cheesesteak arancini.”
Shauna’s face twists into a skeptical frown. “Your what?”
I shake my head. “Never mind. Another course for the party this weekend. Same idea as cheesesteak spring rolls.”
“Sweetie, I don’t think ‘cheesesteak’ and ‘spring roll’ are supposed to be used in the same sentence.”
“Trust me,” I say. “It’s better than it sounds.”
I first tried a cheesesteak spring roll ten years ago at my cousin’s wedding at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, and though I wasn’t as unconvinced as Shauna, I had my doubts. That Philadelphians could bastardize a menu item didn’t surprise me—this is, after all, the city that invented The Schmitter, a sandwich made of sliced beef, cheese, grilled salami, more cheese, tomatoes, fried onions, more cheese, and some sort of Thousand Island sauce—but the fact that the Four Seasons found it worthy of their fancy-pants menu intrigued me.
One bite and I knew I’d struck gold. The cheesy meat and onion filling oozed out of the crisp, fried wonton wrapper, enhancing the celebrated cheesesteak flavor with a sophisticated crunch. This weekend, I’m doing a similar riff, but instead of spring rolls, I’m using arancini, the Sicilian fried risotto balls that are usually stuffed with mozzarella and meat ragu. Instead, I will stuff mine with sautéed chopped beef, provolone, and fried onions and mushrooms. The crispy, saffron-scented rice balls will ooze with unctuous cheesesteak flavor, and I will secure my place among the culinary legends.
Shauna grabs three steaks and tosses them in my cooler bag before pulling out her calculator and punching in some numbers. “That’ll be … let’s make it an even eighty bucks.”
I sigh as I dig through my wallet. “Thank god I’m making money at this, right?”
Shauna frowns. “Making money at what? I thought this was for a party.”
I catch myself as I hand her a stack of twenties. “Right. It is. Sorry. Never mind.”
Shauna chuckles and stuffs my cash into her cashbox and gives me another hug across the table. “Same time next week?”
“Two weeks from now,” I say. “But don’t worry. I’ll be in touch.”
I scamper away from Shauna’s stand and swing by Nature’s Harvest, where I pick up a few large bundles of broccoli rabe. I grab some prosciutto at Terrine, the charcuterie stand, and a bag of mushrooms from the mushroom lady, all of which I stuff into one of my reusable bags. The only other ingredient I need is a loaf of bread for my savory bread pudding, and then I can head back to the office.
Or so I think. As I inspect the loaves of bread—the country French and the Italian Pugliese and the English Pullman—I feel a tap on my shoulder. I whirl around, half expecting to see Shauna standing there with some meat product I forgot to toss in my bag, but instead of Shauna, I see Blake.
“Ahoy,” he says, a geeky grin painted on his face.
“Hey …”
Blake stares at the twenty pounds of groceries dangling from my arms and shoulders. “Wow, someone’s hungry.”
I glance down at the pork bellies and mounds of broccoli and let out a nervous laugh. “You know me.”
“Not well enough, clearly,” he says with a grin. “You hosting some big party this weekend?”
My stomach drops. “What? Party? Noooo. No, no, no. I was just passing through the market and got a little carried away.”
“You work around here?”
“No, I work in Dupont Circle.”
Blake furrows his brow. “Oh. Then what are you doing in Penn Quarter?”
“Just, you know …” You know … what? That I’m a big fat lying liar? “I was at the National Archives. Looking up some information for my boss. Happens all the time.”
Blake nods, looking a little surprised. “You know what’s funny—I’ve worked in this town for more than a decade, and I’ve never been in that building. Maybe you could give me a tour sometime.”
“If you’re ever in town,” I say, my voice dripping with sass. What am I doing? He could evict me. He could also change his travel schedule. Now is not the time to bust out Hannah the firecracker.
He grins. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry to say, with the immigration debate going the way it is, our travel schedule is only going to get worse.”
My ears perk up. “Really?”
“Unfortunately, yes. We’re trying to adjourn by October thirtieth, but I don’t see that happening. And on top of that, when I am in town I need to press the flesh for the ANC election, which is coming up fast.” He sighs. “Anyway, speaking of work, I should get back to it.”
“Yeah, what are you doing in these parts? Shouldn’t you be on the Hill, getting chased down by reporters?”
“They chased us all the way downtown today,” he says, nodding over his shoulder toward H Street. “We had an event with the Migration Policy Institute over at the Grand Hyatt. Speeches, press conference—the usual. But I figured I’d pick up a few cookies for the office on the way back.”
“By all means,” I say, gesturing toward a basket of chocolate chip cookies. “The last thing I want is to interfere with your sugar consumption.”
His lips curl to the side as he pats his stomach. “Thanks for looking out for me, ice cream lady.” His smile grows, the skin around his eyes crinkling like tissue paper. “And good luck with all those groceries. If you have any leftovers, you could always leave them in my freezer.”
“Ha! Yeah …”
I force a smile, gripping my grocery bags tighter in my clenched fists, and wonder how much longer I can keep this up before I crumble under the weight of these increasingly preposterous lies.
CHAPTER
eighteen
I ’ve never been good at keeping secrets. This is an established fa
ct. And yet, for someone who claims to lack the necessary skills for trickery and deception, I’ve managed to squeak through two encounters with Blake without exploding on the spot. This, I believe, is progress. Either that, or a total deterioration of my moral compass.
The following Saturday morning, once we’re sure Blake has left town, Rachel shows up outside Blake’s house at nine, dressed in boyfriend jeans and a loose linen sweater and carrying two tote bags filled with decorations. I meet her at the bottom of the wrought iron steps, holding two paper grocery bags in my hands, dressed in yoga pants and a faded Cornell T-shirt.
I jiggle the key into Blake’s lock, and Rachel and I storm through his hallway, dumping our bags on his breakfast bar and launching straight into our prep work for both tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s. Rachel heads for the dining room with one of her bags and begins arranging the table while I lay out the ingredients for the pretzel bread, risotto, and arancini filling. With the exception of the pretzel bread, I can make most of the components for both tonight’s and tomorrow’s dinners, which will save me a lot of time tomorrow morning. Last night I braised the pork belly in my own apartment, and tonight I’ll simply reheat half the recipe and sear the crackling under the broiler to crisp it up. I also baked two carrot cakes, both of which I will fill and frost today.
Before I start with the cakes or arancini, I decide to get the bread pudding out of the way, since the bread needs to soak for at least a few hours. I tear up one of the stale loaves of bread and scatter it into a rectangular baking dish, dousing the hunks of bread with a savory custard of cream, eggs, herbs, sharp provolone, and salty wisps of prosciutto. I press my hands into the dish, making sure each piece of bread is saturated with custard, and then I stick the whole thing in the refrigerator to steep until dinner.
Moving on to the risotto, I quickly chop up the onions and dump them in the castiron pot, the tiny squares dancing and sizzling in the hot oil. As the kitchen fills with the smell of frying onions, Rachel comes in for her second bag and glances at the copy of the menu I left lying on the counter.
“I meant to ask,” she says. “What’s ‘Commissary’ carrot cake?”
I tell her how The Commissary was a popular Philadelphia restaurant in the 1970s, a café that was, in essence, an upscale cafeteria. There were multiple food stations, manned by students of the arts, and the place was packed from morning until night, with lines out the door. All of their food was top quality, but their carrot cake was legendary. The restaurant folded, but the catering arm still exists, and they still make their carrot cake for everything from weddings to office parties.
“Ah, so it’s not really your carrot cake, is it?” she says.
I shrug. “Technically, no. I cribbed the idea from them. But it’s still damn good.”
“Agreed.” She plays with the handle on her tote bag as I dump the rice into the risotto pot. “So … have you been in touch with that guy from our first dinner? Jacob?”
My cheeks flush, and I take a whiff of the toasting rice, foisting the blame for the redness in my face onto the heat from the stove. It’s been nearly a week since I ran into Jacob at CVS, and I still haven’t e-mailed or called him. I came very close—starting to dial his number, beginning the draft of an e-mail—but each time I chickened out. I guess I figure if I set up a date, then all of this becomes real. And in reality, Jacob may decide he doesn’t like me as much as he thought. He may not like me at all. Or he may decide, after dating me for fifteen months and living with me for three of them, that he doesn’t find my quirks endearing anymore. And so what happens then? I’m tossed away like an outdated cell phone. It’s more fun to live in a fantasy world where I’m sought after but untouchable. I’m in control. It’s harder to get hurt that way.
That’s not to say I haven’t been thinking about Jacob. I have. But I haven’t been obsessing over him. My thoughts are like the hum of a refrigerator: constant low-level noise, just sort of … there. If the humming went away, that would mean something was broken. Having it there tells me I am, in fact, alive.
“Not yet,” I say, the insecurity in my voice masked by the hiss of the white wine hitting the hot pan.
“You’re waiting for … what, exactly?”
I ladle in the first cup of broth and begin stirring the risotto with one of Blake’s long wooden spoons. “I’ve been … busy.”
“So have I, but I’ve still managed to call and e-mail people.”
“Well, I’m sorry I’m not as naturally social and outgoing as you.”
Rachel clicks her tongue. “That’s not what I meant. I just think it would be good for you to get out there again. Take a risk.”
“Holding an underground supper club in my landlord’s house isn’t risky enough?”
“All I’m saying is this Jacob character seems friendly and interesting and hot, and you’ll probably kick yourself in a few months if you let him slip through your fingers. That’s all I’m saying.”
I pour in another ladle of broth and give the pot another stir. “Fine. I’ll e-mail him on Monday. Okay?”
“Okay,” she says, pulling her bag off the counter and tossing it over her shoulder. “You’ll thank me later. Trust me.”
Thirty minutes before our guests arrive, I arrange the slices of tomato pie on a big platter, the three-inch squares of pizza crust and tomato sauce looking like a red checkerboard against the white porcelain plate. Rachel grabs the platter from my hands and lays it on one of the side tables in Blake’s living room, across from the table where our stromboli will sit.
“You like?” Rachel asks, gesturing around the room as she spins slowly in place. The room is filled with votives and little twinkle-light replicas of the Philadelphia skyline, and the bottles of microbrewery beer are artfully arranged in an ice-filled metal tub.
“I like,” I say.
“Wait until you see the dining room.”
She waves me into the next room, where she managed to decorate the table with miniature oars and rowing boats, slipped between a series of paper luminaria bags cut to look like Philadelphia’s Boathouse Row. In different hands, decorated white paper bags could look cheesy or cheap, but with Rachel’s touch, the entire table looks sophisticated and classy and perfect for the occasion.
I pat Rachel on the shoulder. “You have a gift, my dear.”
She knocks into me gently with her hips. “So do you.”
We head back into the kitchen, where I finish baking off the pretzel bread and pull one of the carrot cakes from the refrigerator to let it come to room temperature. Mounds of toasted coconut cling to the side of the cake, held in place by the fluffy cream cheese frosting. Beneath the frosting lies a moist and fragrant cake bursting with carrots and cinnamon and golden raisins, stuffed with a gooey caramelized pecan filling. It is, in my eyes, a dessert approximating perfection.
“A thing of beauty,” Rachel says, twirling the cake stand by its base.
We scurry around the kitchen as the final countdown approaches, pulling the stromboli from the oven, warming the pan of marinara sauce on the stove, and bringing the tall pot of frying oil to 350 degrees. Rachel shuttles back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, making last-minute adjustments to the table arrangements and laying the pots of mustard sauce in the appropriate locations.
Just as I pull a sheet tray of stuffed risotto balls from the refrigerator, the doorbell chimes with its signature dong-ding.
“Here we go again,” Rachel says, raising her eyebrows. “Break a leg.”
I do not, thank Christ, break a leg, nor do I break anything else in Blake’s kitchen—a small miracle after last weekend’s rampant clusterfuckery. In fact, now that I’ve done this once before, the entire evening proceeds without a hitch. The jitters I experienced last weekend—the flailing limbs, the two left feet, the utter lack of coherence—have all evaporated, and I now run The Dupont Circle Supper Club like a seasoned chef de cuisine. Courses fly out one after the other, and Rachel clears and cleans plates
in mere minutes. We have this operation down to a science, as if this were a professional kitchen and not a Dupont Circle town house—one that, incidentally, happens to belong to someone else.
After I serve up the cheesesteak arancini, each ball golden and crispy and swimming in garlicky marinara sauce, a woman with a brown bob and a pointy chin slips into the kitchen.
“Are you Hannah?” she asks, tucking a lock of her pin-straight hair behind her ear.
“The one and only.”
She adjusts her black-rimmed glasses and smiles. “I’m Cynthia Green. With the Washington Post? I was hoping I could ask you a few questions after dinner.”
My stomach churns. “Questions?”
“I want to write a little feature about your supper club for next week’s food section. Nothing major, but I thought it would be a fun below-the-fold piece.”
I heat the flame under the sauté pan for the broccoli rabe, and as I do, the timer goes off for the bread pudding. “What did you want to talk about?”
“Your background, where the idea came from, what sort of food you cook. That kind of thing.”
I grab a pair of pot holders and pull the bread pudding out of the oven, the crisped top bubbling with provolone and Parmesan cheese and studded with flecks of salty prosciutto. “Um … maybe …”
“I won’t give away your identity in the article, if that’s what you’re worried about. And we can keep the location a secret.” She watches as I toss the broccoli rabe into a pan of garlic-and-red-pepper-laced olive oil. “Think about it.”
I give the pan a flip and a swirl and meet her eyes across the counter. “Why don’t you meet me in the living room after dessert,” I say. “I’ll see if I can help you out.”
