Garlic and Sapphires

by Ruth Reichl

  “Oh,” says the waiter offhandedly. “That is kokum. It is a fruit used a great deal in Indian cooking.”

  Crisply coated snapper arrives in a shallow bowl of broth. The first taste is tarragon. It is replaced by fennel, which gives way to something that is definitely Chinese. You taste again. The tarragon is gone and what comes through is the elusive flavor of five-spice powder. In a minute all these flavors have come together so that you cannot separate them. You take another bite, and then another. Suddenly, disappointingly, the fish is gone.

  It is no surprise, of course, to find Thai, Chinese and Indian foods turning up in your favorite French restaurant. They have become so chic that chefs sprinkle them ostentatiously through their dishes. But Gray Kunz, the chef at Lespinasse, is ahead of the curve. A Singapore-born Swiss who trained in the kitchen of Frédy Gi rardet near Lausanne, Mr. Kunz uses these herbs and spices with extraordinary confidence. His cooking was impressive at his last post, Adrienne in the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan, but it has matured; he now cooks as if he had an instinctive understanding of each of his ingredients. He combines them, coaxes new tastes from them and yet maintains such firm control that no single flavor ever dominates a dish. At first you find yourself searching for flavors in this complex tapestry, fascinated by the way they are woven together. In the end, you just give in and allow yourself to be seduced; these dishes are too delicious to dissect.

  Each meal is a roller coaster of sensations. Mr. Kunz has an almost Asian fascination with texture, and he loves to play with temperature as well. His risotto always comes with a contrasting dish: one night the creamy rice was slicked with white truffle oil and served with a tiny casserole of sliced salsify and black truffles. The creaminess of the rice was emphasized by the crunchiness of the black truffles just as the delicate perfume of the white truffles emphasized the deep musky flavor of the black ones.

  Mr. Kunz is even inspired by simple bistro dishes. He cooks a single meaty short rib of beef until it melts into a gingery, slightly spicy tomato sauce. He sets it upright on a bed of mousseline potatoes, then spikes all that softness with shreds of fried potatoes that crunch invitingly each time you take a bite.

  The short rib can stand up to a full red wine, but much of Mr. Kunz’s food demands a bright white. Because the flavors are always unexpected, I usually ask for recommendations about wine. The staff has never let me down.

  One night I ordered a 1992 Chassagne-Montrachet La Romanée from Verget. “I’m so sorry,” said the captain with an apologetic look. “I sold the last bottle five minutes ago. Can I offer you this one at the same price?” He held out a ’91 Chassagne-Montrachet from Colin-Deleger, a better wine. Half an hour later when I asked to see the wine list again, it had been reprinted: the Verget was no longer on the list.

  Some chefs fade at dessert, contenting themselves with sweet, pretty things. Not Mr. Kunz. His desserts are as vivid as all his other dishes. Chocolate-banana soufflé is accompanied by banana-topped chocolate ice cream, a collision of hot and cold. Baked apples are set on fire and served with an astonishingly alcoholic ice cream. And crème brûlée slides sexily into your mouth, its smoothness set off by the little pot of berries at its side. Even the petits fours are exotic. What is that strange yellow fruit with the twisted husk? A gooseberry.

  Do these food fireworks become exhausting? Perhaps they might in a lesser restaurant. But at Lespinasse, the pyrotechnics in the kitchen are tempered by the lack of them in the dining room. As each meal comes to a close, you find you are both exhilarated and soothed.

  It’s quite a show.

  LESPINASSE

  Brenda

  Myron called,” said Carol, rolling her eyes as she handed me the little pink slip of paper. “I think he wants to have lunch with you.”

  “Already?” I asked. “It can’t be six months since he was boring me at our last lunch. Did he say that was what he wanted?”

  “No,” said Carol, “but I know a lunch voice when I hear one. After all these years I can recognize that little whine editors get when they think the restaurant critic is trying to avoid them.”

  “Just from the sound of their voices?” I asked.

  “Try answering the phone around here for a while,” she said. “The calls come like clockwork. It doesn’t matter who it is—you, Craig, Mimi, Bryan . . . For some editors, getting to eat out with you guys is a significant perk.”

  “He has his own expense account,” I said. “He doesn’t need me.”

  “You don’t get it,” said Carol. “It’s not about food. It’s about power. You have power over restaurants, but he has power over you. He wants to flaunt it. You’ve never noticed?”

  “No,” I said, “never.”

  “Well,” said Carol, “open your eyes. Call him. I’ll bet a million dollars he’ll want you to take him to some big-deal restaurant. And that when you get there, he’ll let them know he’s your boss.”

  “He didn’t do that before, at La Grenouille.”

  “You just didn’t notice. Call him. You’ll see. Offer to take him someplace small—that little Korean place we went to last week—and see what happens.”

  “What will?”

  “You’ll go someplace fancy. I don’t know how he’ll make it happen, but he will. And I’ll bet he won’t want you in disguise.”

  “Why not?”

  “How’s he going to let them know he’s your boss if you aren’t you?”

  “Oh come on!” I said.

  “I’ll make you a bet,” said Carol. “If I’m wrong I’ll—”

  “—answer my mail for a week?”

  “Fine. And if I’m right, you take me and Donald to dinner.”

  “In disguise?” I asked.

  “Oh,” she said, “definitely.” She stopped for a minute, thinking. “In fact, if I win I get to design the disguise.”

  “You’re on,” I said. “I hope I lose. I could use your help; I’m starting to run out of ideas.”

  “So what are you waiting for?” she asked. “Go call Myron.”

  The Weekend editor was a dumpy little man who wore his gray hair pulled into a ponytail, bit his fingernails to the quick, and dressed in varying shades of brown. Myron Rosen, one of the dull, capable people who made the paper run, could be counted on to assign the right stories and make reporters meet their deadlines (or have a contingency plan when they did not). He was pleasant enough, in his own tedious fashion, but like many of the minor editors he secretly resented the critics and reporters in his charge. He took his revenge by cultivating a personal aroma so ferocious that everyone on the third floor routinely plotted alternate routes around his desk. Those forced to spend time in his proximity doused themselves with cologne, which only made his corner of the newsroom more pungent. My own strategy involved gulping entire cloves of garlic before every encounter.

  “Myron Rosen, Weekend.” His telephone voice was crisp and businesslike, much more Timesian than his flaccid, slightly lisping real-life tone.

  “It’s Ruth,” I said, “returning your call.”

  Myron wasted no time. “We need to discuss future assignments,” he said, getting down to business. “We should have lunch as soon as possible.” There was a pause, during which I said nothing. “Sometime next week?” he insisted.

  “How’s Tuesday?” I tried. “I have a reservation at a lovely little Korean restaurant not far from here. The food’s vegetarian and extremely interesting—they cook like Buddhist monks.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” he said. “Let me just take a look at my book.” I listened to Myron rifle pages. “Tuesday would be perfect,” he said crisply. Carol was wrong! Myron took a breath before adding, “. . . if you don’t mind changing the venue. I have a doctor’s appointment on the Upper East Side, and it would be so convenient if we could meet around there.”

  “Hmm,” I said, hedging for time. “Let me see if I have any restaurants I need to check out in that neighborhood.”

  Myron didn’t miss a beat. “Wh
at about Daniel?” he asked, naming the city’s most expensive restaurant. “Isn’t it time you weighed in?”

  Carol was right, and I was stunned into silence. Undaunted, Myron pressed on. “Marian Burros reviewed the restaurant right before you came. She was very tough.”

  “I liked her review,” I said. “It took courage to give Daniel two stars. People were shocked.”

  Marian Burros was absolutely fearless, which made her the best kind of critic. A seasoned consumer reporter who had served time as a restaurant critic, she had no desire to step into Bryan’s shoes. When he quit, I’d been told, she reluctantly agreed to fill in. Then she dipped her pen in acid and wrote deliciously wicked reviews that burned through the pages of the paper. Her most controversial target was Daniel.

  Le Cirque’s much-admired chef had opened his own restaurant, and everybody expected that he would immediately be awarded the four stars he had left behind. Marian, however, had no interest in everybody’s expectations. Unimpressed, she suggested that the food would be better if Daniel Boulud had brought his old sous-chef, Sottha Kuhn, along with him. In the clubby world of American food, the implication that Sottha had been the real talent at Le Cirque was explosive.

  “It was a gutsy review,” Myron conceded, “but nobody cares what Marian thinks anymore. You’re the critic now. People are waiting to hear what you think of the food at Daniel.”

  “You may be right,” I said, wondering how far he would take this. “But they will surely know me, so I can’t go as myself. And I’ve promised to spend Tuesday morning at the Metropolitan Museum with my son’s kindergarten class, which I can hardly do in disguise. That’s why this Korean place would be so perfect.”

  Myron was not daunted. “They won’t be looking for you at lunchtime at Daniel,” he said.

  “They won’t?” I asked. “Why not?”

  “All those ladies who lunch,” he said complacently, “will make us seem like a couple of tourists. We’ll just disappear.”

  “He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” I reported to Carol, “and so far you’re batting a thousand. Daniel and no disguise.”

  “Gazing into my crystal ball,” she said, “I see Myron pronouncing your name, very clearly, ten times before dessert.”

  Everything happened exactly as Carol had predicted. With one ex ception. “You were right on the money,” I told her later. “He said my name twice before we were even seated, and then he dropped the paper’s name a few times for good measure. And whenever the waiter was near he thought up another assignment. If you were within ten feet of our table, you knew I worked for him. But you never said that he was going to stop and make a reservation as we walked out the door. That was masterful; I saw the maître d’ put a little star next to his name, so they’ll dance around his table all night.”

  “I should have thought of that,” she said, looking chagrined. “If he’d been one of the masthead men, I would have.”

  “Right,” I said, remembering the way Warren Hoge rejoiced whenever a restaurant got its fourth star. He liked to reserve a table the night the review came out so he could watch the staff react to the news. “They sent someone out for the first edition,” he’d tell me the next day, “and then there was pandemonium and champagne!”

  “Frankly,” said Carol, “I didn’t think Myron could afford Daniel.”

  “Special occasion,” I said. “His wife’s birthday.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “The perfect present. Now, enough about Myron. Have you ever thought about being a redhead?”

  Shirley eased her bulk off the stool and padded heavily around the counter to greet us. “Another one?” she said.

  “My friend thinks I should be a redhead,” I told her.

  Shirley examined me, her head to one side. “That would work.” She turned to Carol. “Short or long?” she asked. “Did you have some image in mind?”

  Now it was Carol’s turn to study my face as if she had never seen it before. “Long,” she finally decided.

  “Straight or curly?” asked Shirley.

  “Curly,” said Carol. “I was thinking of something a little kooky.”

  “Kooky?” I said. “What do you mean, kooky?”

  “Erase that,” said Carol. “It’s not the word I wanted. What I meant was bohemian. You know, aging hippie.”

  “Isn’t that going to be weird?” I asked. “I mean, what would an aging hippie be doing at Daniel?”

  “That’s the point,” she said. “I want you to look like you don’t belong there.”

  “Won’t I stick out like a sore thumb?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You will. That’s my plan. Who would wear a disguise that made them conspicuous?”

  “I get it,” I said, “sort of. I look so out of place that everyone stares at me. But while they may think I look strange, they won’t think I’m me, because if I were me I’d be trying to blend in.”

  “Exactly!” said Carol.

  Shirley was laughing and shaking her head. “Do you know that you’re both crazy?” she asked. “But I don’t mind. And I’m sure we can find the wig you want.”

  Humming a little, she walked over to the cupboards and began pulling open the drawers. As wigs tumbled out she snatched this one and that, creating a pile of burnished hair that grew steadily larger, a haystack in shades from copper to maroon. “Might as well have some fun,” she said, handing me a wig cap.

  “Too big,” said Carol when I put on the first one, a flaming frizz that turned me into Bozo the Clown.

  “Too small,” she said when I slipped on tight little curls. Glancing into the mirror, I saw that I had the forlorn look of a hennaed poodle.

  “Wrong, wrong,” she cried when the next one went on. Fat, strawberry-red curls hung by my cheeks, making me ludicrous, like an aging Ann-Margret.

  The short straight cuts made my head look too small for my body. The preppy copper pageboy was cute and perky and plain wrong for my face. I was going quickly through the pile, slipping on one wig after another and turning to face them. Each time they shook their heads.

  “Okay,” said Shirley, when the pile had dwindled, “see how this one works.” The wig she handed me was long and oddly scruffy, with none of the neat shininess of the others. When I slipped the hair on my head it didn’t slide into place the way wigs usually do. It just sort of flopped forward and sat there, a solid mass of carrot red that hung into my eyes and fell below my shoulders.

  I pushed aside the messy bangs and looked into the mirror. I looked rumpled and sleepy, as if I had just climbed out of bed. “Brenda,” cried Shirley, “comb your hair!”

  “Brenda?” I asked. “Brenda? Where did that come from?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “it just sort of came to me. Do you like it?”

  “Brenda,” I said, trying it on for size. “Yeah, she could be Brenda.”

  “It doesn’t seem like a wig,” said Carol. Her voice was small and strained. Looking at her, I suddenly understood Shirley’s strategy, knew why she had made me try on so many wigs. She had known that the first ones wouldn’t work, but she had also known that they would enhance the drama of finding the right wig.

  The effect on Carol was startling. “You seem—” she was struggling for words “—like Brenda.” She kept her eyes on me for a few more beats and then said, “I feel as if I know exactly who she is. I know what kind of makeup she wears. And I can see her clothes.”

  Looking in the mirror, I felt giddy and excited, the way I did the first time I put on my mother’s high heels and suddenly saw myself as a grown-up. Afterward, studying my parents the way all children do, I began to notice that my father always looked the same but my mother was a chameleon with the ability to choose whom she wanted to be. I watched her primping for a party and saw that she became someone else when she dressed up. Once she lost weight, and for a while she dyed her hair, and both times her personality changed with her looks. Then I began to study the other girls in school and realized that mak
ing new friends could be as simple as changing the way I dressed.

  Most little girls, I think, grow up with the instinctive understanding that we have the power to direct the way the world sees us. It is why fashion has such a powerful pull. But until the moment that Carol met Brenda, this had never been a conscious consideration. “And what does she wear?” I asked now.

  “Vintage,” said Carol. “Definitely vintage. Brenda likes bold, old clothing. Japanese kimonos, cocktail dresses from the twenties, those great old shoes with platforms. Bright, bright colors. And I think she wears glasses.”

  “Glasses?”

  “Yes,” said Carol firmly, “she definitely wears glasses. Big ones with colorful frames. She’s not one of those people who wears rimless glasses, hoping nobody will notice that they’re sitting on her nose. Dorothy Parker didn’t have her in mind when she wrote the poem.”

  Shirley was beaming. “I wish,” she said fervently, “that you were here to talk to all my customers. These poor women come in with no hair on their heads, and they have such a great opportunity to remake themselves. It’s their chance to try on new personalities. But what do they want? To look as much like their old selves as possible.”

  “Of course they do!” cried Carol with such heat that I suddenly remembered that AIDS had claimed her daughter. “When people are ill they need to be reminded that they’re no different than they used to be, just because they’re sick. They need to know that they’re the same people they always were.”

  Shirley saw that she had stepped into quicksand. “You’re right,” she said, hurriedly extricating herself, “of course you’re right. I don’t push. But I keep thinking it’s a wasted opportunity.” Sighing heavily, she walked around the counter, back to her own side.

  “No wonder she loves working with you,” said Carol when we were back on the street. “You’re her dream come true, a living testimonial to the power of her product.” She stared at the wig on my head and asked, “Do you ever go back to show her what you look like in full regalia?”