Garlic and Sapphires

by Ruth Reichl

  “As for the red,” he asked, “will we stay in France?” It was not lost on me that he was now employing the royal we.

  “Certainly,” said Daniel Green. “Chef Kunz’s food is so subtle. It would be criminal to assault the delicacy of his flavors with the brashness of American wine.” I made a note to try to remember these phrases for later use; they might come in handy. I liked the idea of wine assaulting food with criminal intent.

  The sommelier nodded respectfully. “How right you are!” he said, and I wondered if he was not overdoing it just a little. I sneaked a glance at Dan; apparently not. I hoped my face was wearing an appropriately admiring smile. “Will we continue with Burgundy?”

  Dan indicated that this was exactly what we would do. “I wonder,” said the sommelier, “if your eyes had wandered toward Le Corton?”

  “Precisely!” cried Dan happily. “You have read my mind!”

  Not all that difficult, I was thinking to myself. A man who chose whites from a region known for reds might be reasonably expected to choose a red from a region known for white wines. And since Le Corton was the only grand cru on the list from the Côte de Beaune, it hadn’t taken Sher lock Holmes to make that guess. But now the sommelier was coughing diffidently; he was still in the game.

  “Might I venture to say that the wine isn’t drinking at its best just now?” he said hesitantly. “It is having a small awkward period. Might I suggest this Clos St.-Denis?”

  “An ’86?” cried Dan. “You’re suggesting an ’86 over an ’88? I’m intrigued.”

  The sommelier gave a timid shrug. “The wine is lovely,” he said. “I tasted it only yesterday and I was most impressed.”

  “We’ll take your advice,” said Dan. There was just the slightest hint of threat in his voice.

  “If you don’t like it,” soothed the sommelier, “I will drink it myself. With pleasure.” He bowed and walked away.

  “The remarkable thing,” said Dan when he had moved out of earshot, “is that the red wine he’s suggested is considerably less expensive than the one I was going to order. That is a very good sommelier!”

  We still had the tasting ritual before us, and Dan dragged that out for fifteen minutes. He wanted the white plucked from the ice so that the red could be “brought up to cellar temperature.” This initiated a conversation about American restaurants always serving their red wine too warm, which somehow led to a discussion of root stock and vintage years. This was man talk, and I was not invited to join the conversation. The minutes ticked by. Finally it was over. Or so I thought.

  Dan raised his glass and took a sip. “Violets,” he said. “Silver. A cool brook babbling in a forest. Sunshine on rippling leaves.” I looked across the table and saw that his eyes were closed as he took rapid little sips of wine. He opened them and said, “When I first taste, I like to concentrate and just let images come. It helps me remember. Try it yourself.”

  I obediently closed my eyes and took a sip. “Grapes,” I thought. “Chardonnay. A bit of oak.” I tried to come up with something more romantic, just to please him, but all I could see was the grapes hanging on the vine. I pulled back the focus and looked again. “A village,” I said. “A little stone village with roads twisting through ancient green hills.”

  “Good,” he said, “very good. You see, I have a method for filing flavors so that I can access them later. To me wine is more than mere enjoyment; I’m attempting to build a mental encyclopedia that I can recall at will. The next time I encounter a Musigny, I’ll need to compare it to this one.”

  “Fascinating!” I said. This time I meant it.

  It was time to consider the menu. I was tempted by the foie gras with quince and lentil salad but then the shimeji broth leapt out at me. It seemed like just the thing that Chloe would order.

  “And for your main course?” asked Dan.

  “Steamed black bass with lime?” I said, realizing that I had just ordered what amounted to a diet dinner.

  Dan frowned. “That’s going to be difficult with the red wine,” he said.

  “Of course,” I said. “What if I tried the salmon braised in Syrah?”

  He smiled approvingly. “Much better!” he said, beginning to debate the merits of short ribs versus squab ragout; the ribs won.

  “I have an idea,” he said happily. “Why don’t we share the steamed bass as a mid-course?” I stole a glance at my watch. It was only three hours until midnight, and at this rate we’d never be done with dinner. He’d probably insist on cheese before dessert and cognac after. I hadn’t reckoned on an endless feast.

  “Tell me some more about your wine filing system,” I said when the decisions were finally behind us. “It’s so fascinating.” I was sincere about this, and he sensed that and relaxed.

  “It’s an ancient trick,” he said. “A device for memorization. You pick something—anything—as a way of differentiating the intangible to yourself. How do you define flavor? Some people might do it chemically, but that seems too cold; it would never work for me. Some might try colors, but my imagination doesn’t run that way. So I ascribe an image to each wine and file it away in a sort of mental photo album. Take this Musigny . . .” He lifted his glass and held the pale wine up to the light. I followed his gaze. “Take a sip,” he urged. “Close your eyes. I am going to describe what I see.”

  I closed my eyes and heard him take a sip. Then his words began to wash over me. “I am standing deep in the forest,” he said. “It’s early spring, and the leaves are just changing from little buds to leaves. They’re still that tender green they have when they’re new, and a little breeze is rippling across them so that they catch the light and are faintly silver.” He took another sip. “It’s cool here, and there is a brook at our feet, which murmurs softly. Violets are poking their heads up, between fiddlehead ferns.” I put my glass to my lips, and as the cold wine splashed into my mouth I could see what he was describing very clearly. It was beautiful in that forest, the air fresh and delicious.

  “Incredible!” I said, my voice soft and awestruck. But then I opened my eyes and the image disappeared, leaving me back in the pseudo-palace on the ground floor of the St. Regis Hotel. I quickly squeezed them shut and asked, “Can you remember the last Musigny you tasted?”

  I could sense him flipping through an invisible file. “In the woods, definitely,” he said. “No violets, though, just fiddlehead ferns. The brook is still, the leaves darker. It’s later in the year, a wine with less delicacy, less finesse. Yes,” he pondered for a moment, lost in his forest, “it’s an ’88. Not as good a year, and a bit clumsier in the mouth.”

  I was trying to taste it in my mind when his voice changed and he said, “Here’s our first course!”

  I opened my eyes and watched the waiter approach, holding a tapered Japanese bowl, very narrow at the bottom and wide at the top, an inverted pyramid balanced on the plate. It seemed oddly modern in the formal antiquity of the room, but when I leaned over and let the steam bathe my face, I forgot everything but the surprisingly fragrant aroma. I dipped my spoon into the broth and tasted lemongrass, kaffir lime, mushroom, and something else, something that hovered at the edge of my mind, familiar but elusive. I took another taste and it was there again, hiding just behind the citrus.

  The shimeji mushrooms went sliding sensuously across my tongue with the lush texture of custard. The sensation was first sour, then spicy, and then, there it was again, something sweet but not sugary that came whirling into my consciousness and then slid maddeningly away before I could identify it. What was it?

  “I can see that you like your broth,” said Dan, and I blushed, realizing that I had not said a word in many minutes. “Chloe, please don’t apologize,” he said, noting my embarrassment. “I like to see a woman enjoy her food. And my tuna is excellent! Would you like to try it?”

  “You must taste my soup,” I said, pushing the bowl toward him so that he had no choice but to hand his own plate, reluctantly I thought, across the table. “I
have never tasted anything quite like it.”

  But I’d never had anything like his raw tuna either. The clear, almost translucent fish had been tumbled with caviar so that it glowed deep red, like rubies among black pearls. A garland woven from leeks was twined around it, interspersed with mysterious little dark dots.

  “That aceto balsamico is excellent,” said Dan. I touched my fork to one of the dots and put it in my mouth, expecting the musty sweetness of the vinegar. But my mouth closed across something funkier and more mysterious, and I almost blurted out, “This isn’t balsamic.”

  Instead, I managed to make myself say, “How clever of you to know what it is,” as I took another taste. It was definitely not balsamic vinegar.

  “Good balsamic,” he said, “is a wonderful ingredient. It’s unfortunate that so few Americans know how to use it right.”

  “Oh?” I said, still trying to figure out what it was. Black, I kept thinking, what’s black in nature? Could it be Chinese black vinegar? I tasted again. Definitely not.

  “They use that industrial product on salads,” he said contemptuously. “Nobody in Modena would ever do such a thing. This is the correct use of real balsamico, which as you can see is much thicker than ordinary vinegar. It should be used as a condiment, just like this, something to punctuate flavor. This chef is brilliant! Brilliant!”

  I took another taste, as if I were tasting the balsamic to confirm his verdict. And suddenly I had it. Squid ink! It was squid ink! “Wonderful balsamic,” I said quietly. “And what do you think is the sweet flavor in the soup?”

  “I don’t taste anything sweet,” he said, taking another spoonful. Then he reached across the table to reclaim his plate. I took my bowl back and tried again. The flavors tiptoed quietly into my mouth and then suddenly picked up the pace, so powerful that they were reverberating in a little tap dance of taste. The sweetness came and then disappeared as I tried to separate the flavors.

  “Still taste something sweet?” asked Dan.

  “Would you mind asking what’s in the soup?” I pleaded.

  “Of course not.” He raised his hand and summoned the waiter. “The lady thinks that she is tasting a sweet element in the soup,” he said, as if urging the waiter to forgive what he knew was an error. “Is there some secret ingredient?”

  The waiter smiled. “Pineapple juice,” he said.

  I should have gotten that! But even though I knew it now, when I took another bite it was there and then gone, so elusive that it was like the ghost of the fruit, merely haunting the bowl.

  “I’m impressed,” said Dan, but he was not pleased. He, after all, was the one with the flavor file. Clearly it was time to play dumb again.

  When the salmon arrived, a fat slash of bright orange fish in a deep purple sauce, I looked down at the sprig of chervil and said, “The colors are gorgeous, and the parsley looks so pretty on the orange fish.”

  “Chervil,” he corrected me. “Take a taste. See—it has a faint anise flavor.”

  “You know so much!” I said, and felt his knee creep over to touch mine.

  I took a bite and immediately forgot his knee. I forgot everything but what was going on in my mouth, the fish doing a little tango with crunchy strips of artichoke. The softness of the fish was sandwiched between layers of crunch—the artichoke on the bottom, bread crumbs on top, the flavors appearing and vanishing in a maddening way. I thought I tasted chestnut, and then it was gone, absorbed into the deep musky flavor of the wine. I tasted again and discerned something sour and completely unfamiliar. “I can see that you like your fish,” said Dan, who had, apparently, been watching me. “It’s such a pleasure to be with a woman who appreciates food.”

  “This chef,” I said sincerely, “is astonishingly good. How’s your beef?”

  “Superb!” he said, looking down at the little sculpture on his plate, a single boned rib set upright on a bed of pureed potatoes. “The chef has cooked it in a ginger-spiked sauce. But what is most impressive is the way he has laced the mousseline with shreds of fried potato—” He stopped with a horrified look and I realized that I had unconsciously scooped some potatoes off his plate.

  The knee withdrew. “You might have asked,” he snapped.

  I knew that contrition was in order, but I was too taken with the fireworks in my mouth to pay it much mind. The potatoes—more potato-laced butter than the other way around—were studded with the crisp strands of fried potato, which went off like little sparks. No matter how prepared you thought you were, each encounter was a little shock of electricity. Without thinking I stretched my fork out and took a bit of meat from his plate. It had melted into something so soft it simply slid down your throat. “Mmmm,” I murmured.

  “Try mine,” I said, pushing my plate toward him. “Maybe you can tell me what that faintly sour flavor is?”

  He tasted noisily. “Olive?” he asked. His lips chattered against the fish again and he said, “No, it’s not salty. What could it be?”

  “You would know better than I,” I replied demurely.

  “I taste the Syrah,” he said. “And the artichokes. But you’re right, there is something else.” He raised his hand and a waiter came skidding to a halt. “Sir?” he intoned.

  “We’ve been wondering what the unusual flavor in this dish is,” said Dan.

  “Kokum,” said the waiter. “It’s the dried peel of a fruit that is used a great deal in Indian cooking.”

  “Amazing!” I said. “I’ve learned so much tonight.”

  It was true. But I was tired and the wig was digging maddeningly into my head, making my temples throb. I was beginning to feel the wine. Glancing down at my watch, I saw that it was past eleven, that we had been in our seats for three and a half hours, that I would soon turn into a pumpkin. It was time to go.

  A wave of desperation washed over me, and then I caught my own reflection in a knife and realized that Chloe would know exactly how to handle this situation. And so I let her handle it.

  I put one hand over Dan’s and said, so softly that he had to lean in to hear me, “Would you mind terribly if we skipped dessert?”

  The knee pressed harder against mine and I realized that he had misunderstood. Undaunted, I gently rolled my legs away and said, “I’m rather tired, and it’s very late, and I have a big day tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” he said, putting his other hand over mine so that our fingers formed a little stack on the table. “There will be other meals. Many other meals, I hope. This has been so enjoyable.”

  We paid our respective checks and he walked me to the door. By the time we reached it, the maître d’ was already holding out my coat. I slipped into it, Dan took my arm, and together we strolled out across the marble floors.

  “What a delightful evening,” he said. He held the door of the taxi for me, and leaned over to brush my cheek with his lips. His beard tickled as he pressed his card into my hands. “Call me. I’ll be back in New York in a few weeks, and I hope we can share another meal.”

  “Good night,” I said, making no promises. I slipped the card into my pocketbook and the door closed. The taxi pulled away from the curb. I turned to take one last look at Dan Green, wondering what he would think when he read the review.

  RESTAURANTS

  by Ruth Reichl

  POW!

  The food at Lespinasse comes out shooting. With your first bite you know that you are in for an exciting adventure. These are flavors you have never tasted before.

  This aggressive food is particularly shocking because it is served in such sedate surroundings. The dining room, all soaring ceilings, creamy gilded columns, chandeliers and luxurious chairs, makes you feel that you have walked into an 18th-century chateau, and the service makes you feel that you belong there. The restaurant, which was named for a French literary patron, overlooks no opportunity to pamper its own patrons.

  “You don’t need a check,” says the hostess as she relieves you of your coat. Sure enough, when you leave, there she is, stand
ing at the door with your coat in her arms. An evening here is constructed of so many small, considerate gestures that by the time it ends you feel entirely relaxed.

  Waiters work unobtrusively, anticipating every wish. Cutlery comes and goes in the elegant ballet of fine service. Wine is quietly put in and out of the wine bucket to keep it at the perfect temperature. When Lespinasse (pronounced less-peen-AHSS) opened in 1991, there were complaints about the service, but the restaurant now runs seamlessly. The staff has become so familiar with the food that in five visits I never came up with a single question the waiters were unable to answer.

  If you care about food, you will ask a lot of them; nothing at Lespinasse ever tastes the way you expect it to. Sour-spicy shimeji mushroom broth arrives looking like an austere Japanese still life. It is a surprise to dip your spoon into this mild-mannered soup and experience an explosion of flavor. Mushroom is at the base of the taste sensation, but it is haunted by citric tones—lemongrass, lime perhaps—and high at the top, a resonant note of sweetness. What is it?

  “Pineapple juice,” says the waiter. We dip our spoons again, taste. Yes, of course, there it is. Then, even though we know it is there, the elusive flavor begins to fade and disappear into the mushroom broth.

  Silky bits of raw tuna are tumbled with two kinds of caviar that add an intensity to the flavor and an edge to the texture. The fish sits on a disk of diced vegetables surrounded by spears of leek and colorful dots that get brighter as they dance around the plate. Between the colors are little dabs of black. Balsamic vinegar? No; you taste again. They are dense, unctuous, vaguely mysterious. And then it hits you: squid ink!

  Braised salmon and crisped artichokes with a syrah wine reduction sounds like a dish you may have tasted before. It even looks vaguely familiar, a fat slice of salmon on a bed of crisply fried strips of artichoke in a deep purple sauce. There are bread crumbs on top and a sprig of chervil. Take a taste, however, and you know you are in new territory. Yes, there is a bit of chestnut, and you can taste the wine and the tricky flavor of artichokes. But there is something else. You taste it again. Olive? Not quite. So you ask.