Topped Chef: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Lucy Burdette

  I parked my scooter in between a Smart car and a motorcycle on Southard Street and walked through the alley behind the Armory building, which normally housed art receptions and artists’ studios, to the courtyard in back. Chef Adam and Toby Davidson were already on the back porch of the little conch house; Sam Rizzoli was nowhere to be seen. Deena Smith was overseeing the application of makeup to the chef candidates in the other corner of the square.

  “Morning, Deena!” I called out. She waved back and returned to her work.

  I ducked through the sculpture garden to the porch and trudged up the steps. The lead cameraman muttered: “What do you people not understand about nine o’clock sharp?”

  “Sorry,” I said, and scuttled across the deck to take my place at the table. “Take a chill pill,” I added under my breath. “I’m five minutes late. And it’s Key West.”

  He began to suit us up with microphones, laying Sam’s wires and power pack on the table in front of his empty chair. Through the mullions of the glass doors that led into the kitchen, I could see our producer/director, Peter Shapiro, on the phone—getting some crummy news from the look of dismay on his face. He punched a button on his phone, threw it onto the counter, and strode out onto the porch. His ruddy complexion had paled and his blue eyes watered. He gestured for all the TV personnel to move away from the set.

  “I need to speak with the judges,” he explained curtly. Then he approached us, leaned forward, his hands on our table, and spoke in a low voice. “We’ve had some unfortunate news,” he said, lips thinning to a grim line. “Mr. Rizzoli is dead.”

  Toby gasped. “Oh my goodness, whatever happened? We can certainly reschedule. Or I for one, would understand completely if the show’s taping is cancelled.”

  I raised a finger to indicate that I agreed.

  Peter shook his head and smoothed a lock of white hair off his forehead. “I realize the news is horrifying,” he said in a soothing voice. “I feel ill myself, but I beg you to understand that we must proceed with filming. We’ll certainly be respectful of any services that are planned. But we’ve spent too much money and time on the show to risk letting it die—and even more importantly, these chefs have their careers riding on the outcome.” He waved across the courtyard to the makeup area, where the three chefs whose food we’d chosen yesterday were being groomed for their first appearance.

  “What in the world happened to him?” Toby asked. “He was much too young for a heart attack. Though in these stressful days I suppose men succumb younger and younger. Of all people, I should know that much.” She frowned, her eyes sad.

  Peter rubbed his chin, then said, “Mr. Rizzoli appears to have been murdered.”

  “Oh tell me no,” I said, melting down in my chair, the horrible image of the dead man I’d seen on the rigging flashing to mind, oversized like the picture at a drive-in horror movie. “Tell me he wasn’t found hanging from a sailboat’s mast last night.”

  Peter looked shocked. “I certainly hope not! Where in the world did you hear that?”

  I shrugged, wishing I could take my comment back. “There was a big brouhaha down at the harbor—something to do with a hanged man. They weren’t letting anyone get too close. I imagine you can find the details in the paper.”

  “You were there?”

  “Close enough to get a ghastly view that I wish I hadn’t seen.”

  “I’m not privy to the details of how Sam died,” Peter said. “We can only hope that wasn’t him.” He looked away from me to the other two judges and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Are we in agreement? We can continue?”

  “Give us a minute,” I said and turned my back on him to consult with Chef Adam and Toby. “We don’t have to do this if it doesn’t feel right.” It didn’t feel right to me, especially considering the way Rizzoli might have died. If in fact I’d seen his corpse last night.

  “But I do worry about those young people who came to cook today,” said Toby in a low voice, lifting her chin at the chef candidates.

  They looked so excited. And after all, having written the memoir about her husband’s death, wasn’t she an expert on working through grief?

  “More to the point,” said Chef Adam, “yes, it’s a tragedy, but if the world stopped every time someone died, nothing would get accomplished. I don’t mean to sound callous, but did either of you know him personally? I liked him fine and he seemed to know his way around a kitchen table…but yesterday was the first time I’d met him.”

  I most certainly wasn’t going to mention my connection: how I’d trashed his restaurant in our magazine. “I’ve seen his name in the paper from time to time,” I said. “He was a city commissioner, right? And kind of controversial.”

  I was pretty sure he’d stirred up some kind of trouble recently about widening the cruise ship channel. I remembered reading comments in the Citizen’s Voice that suggested he voted for things that would advance his businesses, to hell with the town’s needs.

  “That doesn’t mean he should have been murdered,” Toby squeaked.

  “Of course not,” I said. Though if I were the police, I’d be asking questions about exactly this. Local politics on this island were anything but cozy.

  “So you didn’t know him either?” Chef Adam asked Toby. She shook her head no. “Then I’d suggest we go ahead and get this over with. I’m losing money every minute I sit here without getting anything accomplished. I told my kitchen staff I would be out two days, three at the most.”

  I reluctantly agreed. Wally was expecting an article on this chef competition for Key Zest. And my own scramble to get hired was recent enough that I could understand how fiercely the candidates on this show wanted to succeed. I could feel the buzz of their excited and nervous energy from twenty-five yards away. They’d be devastated to hear the show’s taping had been canceled. Because canceling the taping would very likely mean the end of the opportunity. Peter Shapiro had warned us early on that he was operating with a gossamer-thin budget.

  I threw my hands up in agreement and Chef Adam signaled to Peter that we were prepared to continue.

  “Wonderful!” Peter clapped his hands together, flashing a relieved and grateful smile. “Here’s how the morning will go. We’ll introduce the candidates one at a time. You will want to ask them about the dish they prepared for you yesterday—their ingredients, their methods, their philosophy of cooking. Open-ended questions work best—sometimes these amateurs freeze in front of the camera. Try to understand their ambitions to host a cooking show—see how well they can explain themselves. And why do they think they would make a popular host? What do they bring to the table that’s fresh? And always, look for a sense of humor—the audience will eat that up. At the end of the segment, I’ll announce the challenge for tomorrow.”

  “I assume their personal lives should be off-limits?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” said Peter, rubbing his hands together and grinning. “The juicier the better. And remember, our job is to edit the whole mess into something viewable. In other words, don’t worry too much about the blunders you make or dead ends you wander down. We expect all that. We’ll fix it.”

  “But we’ll try not to embarrass the candidates, correct?” asked Toby.

  Peter all but rolled his eyes. “They’ve all signed releases giving us rights in perpetuity for their image and likeness. This is television, people, not grammar school. We take whatever they give us and exploit the bloody hell out of it!”

  He flashed a big smile, adjusted his glasses, and snapped his fingers at the group hovering across the courtyard. Two men with cameras moved forward and began to film the chefs as they trooped from the courtyard to the TV set. Catching an oblique glimpse of myself in the monitor that had been set up in the kitchen, I tried to fluff up my helmet-flattened curls. Deena herded the first chef over to the porch; he looked like he felt as though he was the next chicken on the chopping block.

  Peter took a few steps back and began to speak: “Ladies and gentlem
en, meet our first contestant, Randy Thompson.” He took the wrist of the slender man with green eyes and bleached blond hair gelled into points and pulled him forward. “Randy was born in Texas and raised near Houston. He moved here about ten years ago and has worked as a line cook in several of our Key West restaurants. He is also a singer who enjoys performing at local bars. Randy focuses on Keys-style cuisine and comfort food and says he loves highlighting local flavors in the meals he prepares.”

  Randy faked a curtsy and laughed, like a man who wasn’t afraid of having a little fun once he relaxed, even at his own expense.

  “You will remember enjoying his dish ‘Homestyle Shrimp and Cheesy Grits,’ which he says he based on a polenta recipe handed down from his grandmother,” Peter continued. “Randy, please take a seat in front of our panel of distinguished judges.”

  Randy sat at the table, across from the three of us. Up close, he looked nervous and chalky under the makeup. The cameraman zoomed in and caught him licking his lips.

  “Please tell us about your grandmother and her influence on your cooking style,” I said before Adam could fire off a hardball that might cause Randy to crumble.

  The skin around his eyes crinkled as he smiled at me. “Grandma loved company in the kitchen,” he said. “But none of her other grandkids were much interested so I enjoyed the undivided benefit of her experience. She taught me about both Italian food and Southern-style recipes—like how to wrestle your vegetables into submission by boiling them for hours with salt pork, and how to tame your fear of butter. And Crisco.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Chef Adam. “Crisco?”

  Randy grinned again and patted his stomach, which was perfectly flat. “I don’t believe in diet foods—they taste horrible and they trick people into thinking they are eating healthy and so can eat more. My theory is that diners should learn to eat fabulous food, only in smaller portions.”

  Chef Adam leaned forward, fingers knotted together. “So then, you are essentially repeating Grandmother’s repertoire. But wouldn’t you imagine that shrimp and grits might be found on fifty percent of the menus in America—at least in the southern half of the country? How would you stand out as the host of Topped Chef? And how would your propensity toward fattening foods fit in with a world struggling with a full-blown obesity epidemic?” He sat back, looking satisfied.

  By now I wished I couldn’t see the monitor at all. I’d heard that the camera added ten pounds—on me it looked closer to twenty. And the slight time delay had the effect of repeating everything twice, making me feel as though I were moving in slow motion. Underwater. Bad enough to go through all this once.

  Randy’s face paled and he stumbled through an explanation of how he took solid cooking as his baseline and tweaked it with local flavors. “I’m not afraid of a deep-fat fryer,” he insisted.

  “Bravo,” said Toby. “The restraint should come from the diner, not the chef.”

  “Fascinating stuff,” said Peter Shapiro, “but we must move on to our second contestant.” He hustled Randy out of the spotlight and had him sit on a high stool at the far end of the porch.

  “Now, judges, what do you think about Randy’s prospects?” he asked us.

  No one said anything.

  “You want us to talk about him now?” Toby asked, her pale eyebrows knitting together as she frowned. “Right here where everyone can hear us, including him?”

  “That’s the whole idea,” Peter said. “It’s reality television. No conflict, no ratings.” He backed away, smiling a little stiffly, and signaled for us to continue the discussion.

  More silence. We kept our eyes on the table, and squirmed in our seats. Finally, I couldn’t stand it. I had to say something.

  “He clearly loves food,” I said. “Seems like he’d be able to connect with home cooks. That’s why my mom is nuts about Rachael Ray. Mom could sauté circles around her and yet she loves watching Rachael’s show. She has a certain warmth that she’s able to telegraph to her viewers. She makes us feel like we’re friends at the table in her kitchen. I sense a similar possibility with Randy. I think his personality would really shine if he wasn’t quite so nervous. His jitters would get worked out with a little more practice. And I’d love to meet his grandmother.”

  Chef Adam groaned. “You want to invite his granny? Sure death to our ratings. And don’t we have enough low-brow shows on the air?” he asked. “If I want something fried, I’ll go to the diner downtown, or even”—he shuddered—“a fast-food restaurant. How would this be different from what’s out there already?”

  “He’s a man,” Toby offered. “Maybe he’d appeal to gentlemen viewers?”

  Through the glass doors into the kitchen, I could see that Peter Shapiro and Deena had begun to argue in heated whispers. He thrust his clipboard at her and strode back out onto the porch.

  “Cut!” Peter swept his glasses off and clasped his free hand over his eyes. After heaving a great sigh, he replaced the glasses and then dropped his hands to his sides. “People, you have to speak your minds more bluntly here. This is reality television, not an edited sound bite on public radio. Viewers have the attention spans of gnats. You’re losing them. You’re losing me. You’re flat, you’re forced, you’re stiff.” He wiggled his shoulders. “Let’s loosen up, shall we?”

  Chef Adam’s face reddened and I imagined he was thinking what I was thinking: I quit.

  “Honestly, Mr. Shapiro,” said Toby, “it’s hard to concentrate after getting that news about Mr. Rizzoli. It makes all this feel”—she gestured at the cameras, her lips trembling as she searched for the right words—“rather inconsequential.”

  Shapiro forced a smile but his voice softened. “Understood. We are all in shock over the news. But again, I must ask you to think about these young chefs. They have big dreams. Are you willing to quit on them because of this tragedy? I think not. You are our experts, handpicked. We brought you on board because we believe you can help us find the next star. Think outside the food here, people. Can you see the kernel of celebrity in one of our contestants?”

  He made eye contact with each of us, his blue eyes intense, then waved forward a thin, tanned man with a long ponytail and settled him in the chair that Randy had vacated. With one hand on the man’s shoulder, Peter turned to address the camera.

  “Buddy Higgs has completed a number of internships in well-known kitchens, and dreams of opening his own restaurant. He takes the nouveau cuisine of Grant Achatz in Chicago and the former chef Ferran Adrià at El Bulli as his models. He would love to bring the sophistication of molecular gastronomy to the American public.”

  I fidgeted silently. Molecular gastronomy—replete with its foams, fumes, tubes of aspic, tubs of foie gras, and peculiar combinations and arrangements of spices—was something I felt the public could safely ignore. Higgs must have been the creator of yesterday’s oddball lobster salad over which Chef Adam and the now-deceased Sam Rizzoli had swooned. I remembered tasting parsnip chips, caviar, jalapeños, saffron threads, mustard seeds, and god only knows what else in the lobster dish. I also remembered yearning for some simple steamed lobster meat and a ramekin of melted butter.

  “I’m curious, Mr. Higgs,” I said. “Why should the public take an interest in molecular gastronomy? My impression has been that the techniques are so complicated, and the results so, well, odd, that most folks—your TV viewers—will find this type of cuisine way over their heads. They cook with pots and stoves, not test tubes and Bunsen burners.”

  Buddy Higgs cleared his throat and touched a finger to his mustache, which undulated like a struggling caterpillar. “I believe you underestimate the public, Miss Snow.” He leaned forward and tapped on the table in front of me. “Chef Ashatz,” he said, “is purely a genius. What he has been able to do—and what I hope to expand upon—is to make his dining customers think.”

  “Example, please,” said Chef Adam.

  “Who says surf and turf has to be plain old lobster and steak? Why n
ot a dish pairing foie gras with anchovies?” Buddy smiled slyly.

  I could only think how grateful I was that he hadn’t prepared this yesterday. First of all, anchovies remind me of hair-covered fish bait. Paired with foie gras? I would have struggled to choke it down.

  “What would be the point of that?” asked Toby, her forehead furrowed.

  “The point is not to present mounds of fatty food for already-overweight patrons to gobble,” said Buddy. “The point is to challenge people as they eat. Food should be stimulating for the mind as well as the palate!”

  For the first time, I saw the spark of creativity and joy that he hoped to convey in his cooking. But I still wasn’t dying to try more of it, nor did I imagine him as a popular TV personality. Maybe a small cult audience would follow him.

  Peter surged forward, clapped Buddy on the back, and directed him to take the stool next to Randy. “Thank you, Mr. Higgs. Panelists? Your impressions?”

  “I may be too simpleminded,” said Toby, “but I don’t quite get why I should have to think this hard over dinner.”

  “He’s an interesting fellow,” I said, “and I can imagine the first few episodes making quite a splash. After that?” I shook my head. “I believe viewers would lose interest. Most Americans wouldn’t have a single one of his ingredients in their larder.”

  “He’s cutting-edge. He’s brilliant,” said Chef Adam grimly. “Can’t you see the difference between choosing someone who cooks like his doddering grandmother and a host who is a brilliant professional?”

  After a few more minutes, Peter cut off further discussion and brought forward Henrietta Stentzel, the third chef candidate. I sunk a little lower in my chair and avoided looking at her face.