“I asked him if he was shopping for his firehouse, and he said yes, and that it was his turn to cook. I asked him what kind of things he prepared for his teammates, and he said, ‘Whatever can be made in under forty-five minutes and can be reheated if we get a call out.’ That conversation inspired the theme of today’s show: ‘Food That’s Fast and Durable.’ ”
I moved around the set, describing what I was doing as I collected a box of pasta and jars of prepared sauce from the pantry, and a big bag of broccoli florets from the freezer. “First up is a main dish that has three ingredients and requires only four steps to make: Linguine Alfredo with Broccoli.”
I filled a pasta pot with water and turned the flame up high to bring it to a boil quickly. “I’m making linguine today because sixteen-ounce boxes were on sale, four for three dollars. An irresistible price. There was also a special on jars of Bertolli Alfredo Sauce. If you watch the show regularly, you’ve probably seen me make my own Alfredo sauce, but frankly-and it’s a little embarrassing to admit-this brand is even better than mine. In addition to Linguine Alfredo with Broccoli being delicious and inexpensive, you can make it in just eleven minutes: two minutes for the pasta water to come to a boil and nine minutes to cook the linguine and broccoli.”
While waiting for the water to bubble, I opened the sauce, poured it into a pot, and turned the burner below it on low.
“My Grandma Nell taught me to cook. I call it going to the University of Nellie Campbell. She was one gutsy gal-came to America from Scotland all by herself when she was fourteen years old. A cousin in San Francisco sponsored her immigration, but she had to support herself. The only job she could get was as a kitchen maid in the home of a wealthy family. After a few years of watching and helping, she succeeded the old cook when the woman retired. When Grandma Nell herself retired, she came to live with us.”
The pasta water was ready. I indicated the pot. “We’ve got a nice, roiling boil going here.” I demonstrated as I talked. “In goes a toss of salt, and now the box of linguine.” Picking up a slotted spoon, I said, “Give the pasta a couple of stirs to keep the strands from sticking together.”
In my ear, Quinn started the countdown to the commercial break. I said to the camera, “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes and then we’ll start making a bright and tangy bread salad with fresh vegetables and an olive oil-based dressing that’s both delicious and also good for your hair and complexion. Then we’ll do the last two parts in our four-step main course. Don’t worry if you can’t write down the instructions. You’ll find the recipes on the Web site: www.DellaCooks.com.”
While the cameras were off, I rinsed out and refilled Tuffy’s water bowl. Because it was hot under the TV lights, I added a few ice cubes to it. Tuffy fished one out and crunched on it happily.
When we were taping again, the overhead camera took a close-up of the pasta in the boiling water.
“The pasta’s been cooking for almost five of the nine minutes it needs,” I said. “Now I’m pouring the contents of a twenty-eight-ounce bag of frozen broccoli into the water with the linguine. In four more minutes, they’ll be ready for the final step.”
While the pasta and broccoli cooked together, I started on the bread salad by tearing a loaf of Italian bread into bite-size chunks. I told the camera, “Bread salad is called Panzanella by the Italians. I don’t know if you realize it, but bread has been around for thousands of years. Loaves were found in ancient Egyptian tombs, along with jugs of wine. I guess the loyal subjects didn’t want their Pharaoh du jour waking up and being hungry and thirsty. Or lonely. Some rulers had wives or girlfriends put into the tombs with them. That thought gives a whole new meaning to the poem that goes ‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.’ ” I gave an exaggerated shudder. “Don’t worry-I’m not going to tell you so much about the history of bread that you’ll change the channel.”
As though he’d been given a cue, Tuffy got up from his bed and came over to the preparation counter to watch me. Camera Two’s light clicked on and Jada Powell moved in to catch Tuffy’s cocked head and quizzical expression.
I looked down at Tuffy, acknowledged him with a “Hi, Tuff,” and turned back to the camera to chat about food as I cut up tomatoes, and cucumbers, red onion, a clove of garlic, and made little confetti-like strips out of rolled up leaves of fresh basil.
As soon as the linguine and broccoli finished boiling, I ladled out one cup of the liquid and put it into an empty jar of Alfredo sauce before I drained the linguine.
Pouring the pasta and broccoli into the pot of warm Alfredo sauce, I said, “As you saw, I saved a cup of the nice starchy pasta water. If you need to reheat this dish, or heat the leftovers next day, you’ll want to add a little of this water to thin out the sauce.
“By the way, you don’t have to be a vegetarian to enjoy vegetarian meals. I like meat and chicken and fish, but I enjoy pasta and veggies so much that I eat like this two or three times a week. Varying your meals-veg and non-veg-is healthy, and it stretches the food budget, too.”
Quinn’s voice in my ear told me it was time for another series of commercials.
I said to the camera, “I’ve got to take a little break, but I’ll keep working on the salad, and when we come back we’ll mix up the dressing. Then we’ll finish off this meal by making the world’s easiest dessert: a fresh fruit and store-bought sherbet parfait.” I held up a tall crystal parfait glass. “Isn’t this pretty? I bought a set of them for six dollars at a yard sale. Anyway, after you have a main dish with a creamy sauce like Alfredo, I don’t think anything tastes better than fresh fruit sherbet. And it looks so pretty, too.
“Now if the phone rings and it’s someone you can’t get off the line for half an hour, or if the plumber finally shows up to fix that leak, don’t worry about missing these instructions. If you’re just tuning into the show today, this is a reminder that they’re all on the Web site: www.DellaCooks.com.”
***
The show went off without technical problems, and I didn’t drop anything, or cut myself while chopping. In a new personal best, we finished ten minutes ahead of schedule.
As soon as Quinn called, “That’s it,” I thanked the crew and performed the usual ritual of setting out plates, paper napkins, and cutlery, and invited them to help themselves to what I’d made.
I didn’t stay to eat with them this time because I was eager to get home to talk to Eileen.
3
During weekdays, six PM is rush hour. If I were coming from my home in Santa Monica across Beverly Glen Canyon and going into North Hollywood where the Better Living Channel’s studio was located, it would have taken me at least an hour and a half-unless there’d been a car crash somewhere in the narrow cut in the mountain that separated Los Angeles and its west side suburbs from the San Fernando Valley. In that event, I’d be stuck in “gridlock hell” for anywhere from an extra half hour to the start of the next millennium.
But I was lucky this evening because I was going in the opposite direction from the seemingly endless line of cars inching their way into the valley. Traveling south from Ventura Boulevard toward Sunset Boulevard, I found my side of the road was virtually empty. I zipped along at a speed drivers on the other side of the road I imagined could only watch with longing.
Normally, I didn’t speed through the canyon, but tonight I wanted to get home to see Eileen. We’d both been so busy lately that we hadn’t spent much time together, even though she had lived in my house most of the time for the last fifteen of her twenty-one years. When my husband, Mack, was alive, we called her our “spiritual daughter.” We’d not managed to have children of our own. Eileen called us by the honoraria “ Aunt Del ” and “Uncle Mack.”
John O’Hara, Eileen’s father, had been Mack’s LAPD partner until Mack died. (I hated the phrase “passed away”; to me, it diminished the enormity of the loss.) John, who had risen to the rank of lieutenant, was still there, still dedicated, if increasingly disillusioned with the politician
s and their meddling with the force.
Eileen’s mother, Shannon, one of my two closest female friends, had struggled with paranoid schizophrenia for the past twenty years. She’d had to be hospitalized when medications stopped working, or when she’d ceased taking them because, she said, they made her gain weight. Her current psychiatrist had devised a combination of medications without that side effect and so she was taking them as scheduled. For the past few months Shannon had been more like the woman I first knew than she had been for years. That made all of us who loved her happy.
I was thinking about Shannon as I drove, because I wondered if Eileen had told her mother about her relationship with Keith Ingram. It seemed strange that my unofficial daughter hadn’t told me. She’d confided when she lost her virginity during her freshman year at UCLA, and I’d held her hand through her various romantic ups and downs since then. But I didn’t know anything about her involvement with Ingram-assuming that Phil had the right information. I had to admit that he usually did.
When I reached my little two-bedroom cottage in the 500 block of Ninth Street in Santa Monica and steered my Jeep into the driveway, I saw that Eileen’s slightly battered, old red VW wasn’t there.
I unhooked Tuffy from his safety harness, let him out of the vehicle, and took him for a short stroll before we went into the house. He’d had a major walk around the studio lot before we’d left North Hollywood and he’d relieved himself thoroughly. This little jaunt was just a stretch-of-the-legs for both of us.
My small gray and gold calico cat, Emma, met Tuffy and me at the front door. After the two four-footed friends touched noses, Emma looked up at me and meowed a greeting. Or perhaps it was a rebuke-I’d been away longer today than usual.
On the hall table, which was our traditional message center, I found a note from Eileen, telling me that she’d gone out to dinner with friends and not to wait up for her.
Friends? I wondered. Or with one special friend?
In the kitchen, as I fed Tuffy and Emma and washed out and refilled their water dishes, I thought about Eileen. I couldn’t love her more if she really were my daughter, but did that give me the right to pry into her private life? She was twenty-one years old; in a few weeks she’d be graduating from UCLA. She had taken the fact that I used to make fudge to give as Christmas presents when I was in college and too poor to buy gifts and translated that into the concept for our mail-order and on-site fudge business. She was there at our Della’s Sweet Dreams store and factory in Hollywood every day, overseeing the project that she’d talked Mickey Jordan, owner of the Better Living Channel, into financing for us. Eileen O’Hara was an intelligent, responsible grown-up.
But I still worried about her as though she were ten years old.
The ringing of the phone jarred me out of my thoughts. I picked up the receiver and heard the voice of Liddy Marshall, my other closest female friend.
She was speaking in a rush of excitement. “I bought five tickets!”
“Tickets to what?”
“To the Celebrity Cook-Off, of course! You’re going to be a judge.”
“Liddy, I just found out about that a couple of hours ago. How in the world did you know?”
“It was in the entertainment report on the four o’clock news. I phoned for the tickets right away. Thank heavens they still had some left.”
“But they cost five hundred dollars apiece.”
“It’s deductible,” she said. “And it’s for a good cause. The Healthy Life Fund does research into children’s diseases.”
Liddy Marshall and her husband, Bill, a successful Beverly Hills dentist, were well-off financially, and very generous, but I couldn’t understand why she’d buy five tickets to watch a bunch of celebrities cook their favorite dishes in the middle of a hotel ballroom. I asked her about that.
“I told you-it’s because you’re one of the judges. And it’s black tie. People don’t dress up enough anymore. If you look at those wonderful old movies on TV-everybody wore evening gowns and tuxedos just to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner. Oh, Shannon and John are going with us. Eileen, too. Won’t this be fun?”
I wondered… But then I told myself I was being silly. Liddy and Bill Marshall were delightful company. So was Shannon, now that she was on the right medication. It probably would be an enjoyable evening.
But one thing surprised me. “Did John actually agree to put on black tie to watch celebrities cook?”
“He tried to refuse, but Shannon persuaded him.” Liddy laughed. “He’s probably hoping he’ll get called into work on a murder case.”
“I saw the list of celebrities-at least two of them I know John has arrested in the past.”
Liddy giggled with amusement. “Maybe one of them will break a law Wednesday night. I’ve never seen Big John be a cop. This gala could be even more fun than I expect.”
“It’s going to be work for me, studying what’s happening at all of the stoves and voting for a winner, but I’ll enjoy having you all there.”
We were about to say good night when Liddy had a new thought: “What are you going to wear?”
“Phil Logan is going to borrow something from a designer for me.”
That impressed Liddy. “Ohhhh, just like the stars do! For a straight guy, Phil has really good taste.”
In a joking tone, I said, “Meaning that I don’t have good taste?”
“Of course you do-in food and friends. But when it comes to clothes… I mean, you look nice in those sweaters and skirts and jackets you like to wear, but you’re not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion. Just put yourself in Phil’s hands. That’s settled. Now, what are you doing tonight? Are you seeing that gorgeous Italian?”
“Nicholas is Sicilian. No, he’s up in northern California. What I’m going to do when we hang up is make myself some scrambled eggs for supper, organize the rest of my week, then take a warm, foamy bath and collapse into bed.”
***
By the time I’d eaten, made out the marketing lists for the classes I would be teaching this weekend, and gone over the recipes I’d be making on camera for Thursday night’s weekly live broadcast of In the Kitchen with Della-rehearsing the movements and timing them in my head-it was nearly eleven o’clock.
As soon as I put aside my pen and pad to stretch the kinks out of my shoulders, Tuffy got up from where he’d been dozing by the back door and came over to stand beside me. He looked at me with eager expectation in his bright black eyes and wagged his hindquarters vigorously.
I scratched him below his ears. “Oh, Tuff, I would recognize you if you were in the middle of a million black poodles. And yes, I know what time it is.” I took his leash down from its peg on the wall and hooked it to his collar.
I gave Tuffy an especially long pre-bedtime walk through the neighborhood, both because I knew how much he enjoyed his explorations and because I needed a big dose of fresh, cool air. Now that I’d finished my work, my mind came back to concern about Eileen.
Tuffy and I had been strolling for more than half an hour, and were almost back to the house, when the cell phone in my pocket rang. I fished it out. “Hello.”
“Hi, Slugger.” It was Nicholas D’Martino.
“Is this an obscene phone call?”
“Absolutely.” And he proceeded to whisper a few sentences that started to make me jittery.
“Stop. That’s enough, unless you’re in your car on your way over here.”
He sighed. “I wish. But I’m still up in Carmel on the Lopez murder story. Did you know that you’re speaking to the world’s most intrepid reporter?”
“ Lois Lane? Gosh, your voice is deeper than I’d expected.”
“Do you want to hear about my triumph or not?”
“Of course I do.”
Nicholas was usually so cool when he talked about his work, but tonight I heard pride in his voice. “I broke the case. The local cops are mad as hell because I turned up evidence that they missed, but it enabled them to arrest the k
iller.”
“Congratulations. That’s wonderful. Tell me all.”
“You’ll read about it in tomorrow’s Chronicle. Front page, above the fold. I’ve got a few days of follow-up here, but I’ll be back Friday. You available that night for dinner and… whatever?”
I smiled, imagining the whatever. “I’m available. Your place or mine?”
“Mine. I’m going to make dinner for you. Actually, it’ll be takeout, but I’ll heat it up. Afterward, I’m planning to broaden your education.”
“Hmmmm. Sounds interesting.”
“Bring money,” he said.
Money? That jolted me out of my erotic fantasy. “What are you talking about?”
“Coins: nickels, dimes, quarters. I’m going to teach you to play gin rummy.”
“I already know how,” I said. “But do we have to play for money?”
“What do you want to play for?”
“How about… the winner has to make passionate love to the loser? Or vice versa.”
He laughed. “You make me want to come home right now, but I’ve got to be intrepid for a while longer.”
We were about to say good night when I thought of something to ask him. “Keith Ingram, the food critic? His column runs in the Chronicle. Do you know him?”
The Proof is in the Pudding Page 2