Fork It Over The Intrepid Adventures of a Professional Eater-Mantesh

by Unknown

The sisters still laugh about the time they brought a delivery to the Food Network, then located in Midtown Manhattan. Irene, who is the most easily flustered sister, despite her previous profession as a first-grade teacher, recalls that she became disconcerted when they arrived with their bags of food. “We got out of this taxi, here’s this tall building, I’m nervous, we’re late, I’m fighting with the taxi driver, there are all these men outside in jackets and ties. I said to Marie, ‘How are we going to get all this food up to the thirty-first floor?’ She said to me, ‘Will you shut up! They have elevators. Do you want them to think we came from a farm?’ ”

  In a way, they did. The first Leo’s Latticini, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, was started in the late 1920s by Irene and Frank Leo, immigrants from Bari, a city in southeastern Italy. Once in America, Frank got a job working for the railroad. After that, he opened a wholesale ice and coal business. When gas heaters and electric refrigerators put him out of business, he decided to start selling food. In the mid-1930s the family moved to Queens, which looked nothing like it does today. Now essentially a sprawling expanse of undersize dwellings with plastic awnings, fake-stone fronts, and microscopic yards, at that time “it was like country here, like a farm, there were so many trees,” Nancy recalls. “For us, coming to Corona was like comF O R K I T O V E R

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  ing on vacation.” And she adds, “We felt that here we could better ourselves.”

  Newcomers to America still find their way to Queens, although the borough today is composed not so much of immigrants from Europe as from everywhere in the world. People from more than a hundred nations live there, and Corona has as colorful a history as any place in America. To TV addicts, it is famous as the habitat of Archie Bunker, the rascally racist from All in the Family. To jazz aficionados, Corona is celebrated as the home of the musician Louis Armstrong, who lived in a brick fortress of a house from 1943 until his death in 1971. (Legend has it that Armstrong’s fourth wife bought the house without his seeing it, and when he walked in he left his suitcases in the car, telling the driver to wait, he probably wasn’t going to stay.) To art collectors, Corona is remembered as the storied headquarters of the Tiffany glass company. When Louis Comfort Tiffany decided to make glass in America even more beautiful than what he saw in France, he picked Corona as the spot to do it.

  The place Frank and Irene Leo opened in the 1930s was about half the size of the current store, which itself isn’t very large, merely a few strides from end to end. Back then Frank made his mozzarella in the basement. His work was continued by his son-in-law, Frank DeBenedittis, who was the husband of Nancy and father of the three sisters.

  DeBenedittis had started in the dairy business back in Italy, bringing a cow from door-to-door and milking it for customers. The sisters grew up in the store, none more profoundly than Marie, whose playpen sat squarely in the middle. Irene remembers her grandfather worrying that the twine holding the massive provolones that hung from the ceiling might not be strong enough and that one day his baby granddaughter would be crushed by a falling chunk of cheese.

  These days Irene and Marie make the mozzarella in a back room, under a tiny photograph of their father lovingly placed in an ornate frame decorated with a tiny rose. It stands on a shelf over the vats.

  Carmela and her husband, Oronzo Lamorgese, are the owners of Leo’s Ravioli, the pasta store next door to Leo’s Latticini. With every member 2 8 2

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  of the family involved in the business, Nancy says with regret that she feels her daughters are wasting their education. Irene has her master’s degree, Carmela her bachelor’s, and Marie is only a few credits short of graduating college. Says Nancy, “I feel very guilty. Irene had a good teaching job and made good money, and now she’s here in the store.” That’s something of an understatement. The family is not only in the store during the day, they live above it at night—the Lamorgese family over the pasta store and the DeBenedittis family over the cheese store.

  Leo’s Latticini has become celebrated in recent years, at least locally.

  The shop supplies the food for both the home- and visiting-team club-houses at nearby Shea Stadium, and this has brought about a change in decor. Although still cowcentric, Leo’s also pays homage to the home team: during baseball season, the sisters often wear New York Mets jerseys while they work. Last season they opened a small sandwich shop in the stadium and named it Mama’s of Corona. During games they sell Mama’s Specials, turkey subs, and Marie’s new vegetarian sub—

  fresh mozzarella and three kinds of roasted vegetables on a warm roll.

  All manner of governmental agencies, not just the police and fire departments, are drawn to Leo’s. Over the years it has evolved into an unofficial cafeteria for civil servants. Occasional customers include the United States Secret Service Countersniper Unit—proof, I’d say, that Marie’s food rests easy on the stomach—as well as space-shuttle tech-nicians from NASA, who have been known to carry subs back to Florida with them.

  Al Roker, the famed TV weatherman, sent a limousine to collect a sub, and the driver firmly instructed Marie to pile on more garlic than belonged on a single sandwich. When she didn’t hear a word from Roker, she stopped sleeping well. She was about to telephone him and apologize for overdoing the garlic when an autographed picture arrived.

  The sisters even had a brush with glamour when Kenar, a clothing company, heard about the shop and brought in model Linda Evangelista for a fashion shoot. The whole family posed with Evangelista for an advertisement that ran in the New York Times and now hangs on the wall of the shop. They were delighted when a customer came into the F O R K I T O V E R

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  shop, saw the advertisement, pointed to Evangelista, and asked, “How can I meet that sister?”

  They have expanded the store, adding a modest outdoor dining area called Mama’s Backyard. It features tables with umbrellas, white-painted wrought-iron chairs, a cascading fountain, a few potted plants, and a statue of Saint Francis. In the past year the family took over yet another shop on the block, which they use for their burgeoning catering business. (They sheepishly recall the time they decorated a six-foot sub intended for a bachelor party with pink flamingos.) They’re so busy working that none of them ever seems to want to go anywhere. Irene’s twelve-year-old Mercury Sable has less than eight thousand miles on it.

  Marie says she is always getting calls from people who hear about the store and want to visit but don’t know how to find it. (New Yorkers living in Manhattan can’t find anyplace in Queens except LaGuardia and Kennedy airports.) The sisters, who will usually do anything for their customers, claim to be incapable of providing directions. “We tell them we don’t know how to get here because we’re already here,” Marie says.

  Food & Wine, november 2002

  P A L A T E C L E A N S E R

  Ten Reasons Why White Wine

  Is Better than Red Wine

  1. White wine does not stain clothing, which is important to those of us who dine with enthusiasm.

  2. White wine does not cause debilitating headaches, whereas red wine contains chemicals identical to those hidden from United Nations inspectors.

  3. White wine includes Champagne.

  4. No decanting required. Watching sommeliers light candles and stare at red wine sediment is like attending a bad seance.

  5. White wine goes with cheese the way red wine only wishes it did.

  6. Making white wine keeps the Germans distracted.

  7. Ever notice that the winos hanging around vacant lots strewn with broken bottles and dead cats are always drinking red wine?

  8. Sure, red wine lowers cholesterol, but is that any way to decide on a beverage?

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  A L A N R I C H M A N

  9. Bad red wine is always worse than bad white wine.

  10. Red wine drinkers talk constantly about terroir and barnyard aromas. They’re best brought to their senses by throwing a glass o
f cold white wine in their faces.

  W I N E

  N O S E J O B

  My feet hurt, my shoulders ached, and my neck was as stiff as my wing-tip collar. Even worse, my pockets were empty.

  A few hours into the first of my two evenings working as a sommelier at Maurice, the acclaimed restaurant at the Hotel Parker-Meridien in Manhattan, I had learned quite a bit about the duties of the professional wine steward, including how physically tiring it is to be unerringly polite. I had also learned why there are so few sommeliers left in America—only about sixty at last count. The rest probably starved to death, penniless and gnawing on corks.

  The real wine steward at Maurice is Roger Dagorn, thirty-nine, a native of France, a past president of the Sommelier Society of America, and the father of three children he must never see, considering the hours he works. Dagorn is one of the best wine stewards in the country. He’d have to be to allow me in his dining room. I’ve never worked in the food-service industry, and as for my mastery of the art of serving fine wine, I only know to pour larger amounts in my glass than in those of my friends.

  To most people, sommeliers are dour men with slicked-back hair and patent-leather shoes. At one time, this was a fairly accurate appraisal, although almost all the wine stewards I’ve encountered recently have been reasonable and unintimidating fellows. (These days, it’s the salesmen in good wine shops that I find haughty and patronizing.) Unlike wine stewards of old—men as leathery as a tannic Cabernet—Dagorn is more like young Champagne: bright, effervescent, and correct with 2 9 0

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  every course. Dressed in the classic black-and-burgundy sommelier’s suit (with an apron to hold pen, pad, corkscrew, napkin, and more), he is a comfortably approachable figure. Unlike me—and most professional wine stewards I know—he does not worry about tips. “You have to remember that the customer has to think of the waiter, the captain, and the maître d’ before he thinks of the sommelier,” Dagorn said.

  “You wonder if he should even bother.” A wine steward at one of Boston’s most famous restaurants once told me he felt he deserved a 10 percent tip on every bottle he sold, and other wine stewards have confirmed this figure. They suggest that the customer break down the check, tipping the waiter and the captain for the food and the wine steward for the wine. (When paying by credit card, this would necessitate inking in a separate line on the receipt.) The wine steward from Boston is now out of the business, which suggests that things rarely worked out to his satisfaction.

  When I signed on with Dagorn for my two-night stint, I charitably informed him that I would pass on to him the hundreds of dollars in tips I expected to receive for the thousands of dollars’ worth of wine I expected to sell. He didn’t seem concerned. He was more worried about my inexperience in dealing with customers, and he gave me a crash course in service that included placement of wine lists and ice buckets in strategic parts of the room, opening the wine correctly (“Turn the corkscrew, not the bottle”) and proper presentation of the cork (“I don’t see any purpose in smelling it; I’ve had too many bad corks when the wine was superb”). I remember a story told by the ex–wine steward from Boston of a customer who sent back a perfectly sound bottle of Montrachet after smelling the cork. The man, who was showing off for his friends, had sniffed the wrong end.

  As the gate separating the restaurant from the hotel lobby slid up at five-thirty on a Wednesday evening, I was as ready as I could be in my rented tuxedo. Around my neck hung a taste-vin, the small silver tasting cup that has come to signify the office of the sommelier. In truth, I felt self-conscious and overly accessorized, like the Reverend Al Sharpton out for a night on the town. I fervently hoped that nobody would order F O R K I T O V E R

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  Champagne, for I imagined the cork exploding out of my hands, leaving a trail of lawsuits as it ricocheted off the heads of customers. And, I prayed, let nobody speak French. I understand little, and my vocabulary is limited to omelette au fromage.

  So there I stood, as perfectly trained as Dagorn could get me in a few hours.

  “Hands out of your pockets,” he said.

  “Button your coat,” he said.

  At the first table I served, I leaned over too far while presenting the bottle, and my taste-vin banged against it, clanging like a cowbell.

  Dagorn understood. “It happens to me, too,” he said. “It’s not so bad.

  It lets them know you’re there.” My second table consisted of a group of Californians ordering French wine for the first time and wishing to share the experience with me. They requested the 1981 Château L’An-gelus, a St.-Emilion, and asked how it differed from the Cabernet Sauvignons they were used to drinking back home. All St.-Emilions are blends, usually with Merlot dominating and the rest Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Ordinarily, I love to talk that Merlot talk.

  I froze. I nervously started to speak at length about the Pomerol grape. (There is no such thing, although there is a Pomerol region in Bordeaux.) Fortunately, they didn’t know enough about French wine to realize how idiotic I sounded. Following my discourse on Bordeaux, the Californians ordered their second bottle—a Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon. They did not leave a tip.

  At 8:10 p.m., I broke my first cork while extracting it from the bottle. That wasn’t as bad as what I did next. When I started to pour, tiny bits of cork floated into madame’s glass. Resisting the impulse to plunge my pinkie into her wine and scoop out the debris, I ran for Dagorn. He said I should have taken the glass away and brought another. As we hurried back, we saw that madame had already plunged her pinkie in and removed the cork. (No tip.)

  I then served a gentleman who insisted on testing me to see if I could correctly pronounce “Montrachet.” Meanwhile, Dagorn took charge of a party of Japanese tourists. I pronounced Montrachet impeccably—

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  A L A N R I C H M A N

  both t’s are silent. My inquisitor was impressed, but not enough to leave a tip. The Japanese left $11 for Dagorn. We could not figure out how they had arrived at such an odd amount, but Dagorn was pleased. The Japanese may be inscrutable, but at least they reward a hardworking wine steward.

  Dagorn pointed to a table of three men who looked like the cast of Cheers out for a boisterous, free-spending evening. Hoping to improve my self-esteem, he sent me their way. “There’s your first tip,” he predicted. They ordered mineral water. “To expect tips is to leave yourself open to disappointment,” Dagorn said.

  By ten p.m., I was hungry and starting to dislike all the privileged people eating the wonderful food denied to me. I had dined, if you could call it that, with the rest of the staff in the in-house cafeteria before starting work. We’d eaten Salisbury steak and gravy, not chef Christian Delouvrier’s medallions of veal with juniper sauce. Out of the kitchen came a fragrant chocolate soufflé; once pierced, it filled the room with the bouquet of dark chocolate. “Not so good for the wine,” Dagorn mumbled. Even worse for my morale, I thought. I cheered up when Dagorn told me that leftovers were served to the staff after the restaurant closed. Since the wine steward is usually finished before the waiters and captains, he gets first crack at the food. I had rack of lamb.

  My second night started with the Champagne challenge. I was ter-rified, but the Mumm’s Cordon Rouge opened with an ethereal “poof.” I poured the way I had seen Dagorn do it: I placed the thumb of my right hand in the punt (the indentation in the bottle’s bottom) and cradled the bottle with the fingers of that hand. By pouring this way, a technique that requires the lower-arm strength of a power-lifter and the hand-eye coordination of a fighter pilot, I managed to dribble wine down the side of the host’s glass. (No tip, and none deserved.) Dagorn advised me that in such cases, when sheer ineptitude prevails, the only recourse is a joke. I tried this the next time I crumbled a cork into fine powder. I told the astonished customers that my performance was the theater that went with their pre-theater menu. They chuckled (but did not tip).

>   F O R K I T O V E R

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  An Englishman was seated at one of my tables. The English are perhaps the most predictable wine drinkers in the world. “He’ll order the Château Talbot,” whispered a captain. He did. “He’ll say it’s too cold,” whispered Dagorn. He did. After tasting the wine, the Englishman said to me, “This is a fourth growth, isn’t it?” I replied in a deferential tone,

  “I believe so, sir.” Actually, I had no idea. I would rather memorize the periodic table of elements than the 1855 Bordeaux classifications. I pressed on, obsequiously adding, “And I believe it deserves a much higher rating.” He replied, “Indeed.”

  I was certain my first tip would be forthcoming. It was not. He was probably saving his money to buy a third growth.

  A likable fellow from the Southwest started asking so many personal questions I decided to confess that I was a wine writer, not a wine steward. He was amused. A guest at his table, a rude young man of the sort who flourishes when the stock market is going up, decided I should be the beneficiary of his bad manners. He had already whined to the maître d’ that none of the waiters or captains would go to the lobby and make telephone calls to arrange his personal transportation. As I walked around the table pouring wine, he grabbed my taste-vin and yanked hard on it, saying, “What’s this, buddy, an ashtray?” I was reminded of Harrison Ford in Witness, living among the gentle Amish but unable to resist smashing the face of a bully. I pictured a staff of grateful waiters carrying me from the restaurant on their shoulders after I had performed a similar act of retaliation. I did nothing.

  “Patience,” said Dagorn, who saw everything, including my finger-ing the knife blade on my corkscrew.

  Soon afterward, I got my only tip. A woman ordered a glass of white wine, and she so enjoyed it that her husband asked what it was. I scribbled “Trimbach Pinot Gris” on a slip of paper, and he pressed two one-dollar bills into my hand. I was exceedingly proud. While I am not quite ready to give up my day job as a writer, I have on many occasions been paid far less per word.