Comfort Me with Apples

by Ruth Reichl

  When there were enough he piled the hot, sesame-studded tidbits onto a tray and shooed me out the door. “You have to make them eat them while they’re hot,” he said. “But come back quickly, because I want to show you what to do with the pork kidneys.”

  “I hate kidneys,” I couldn’t help saying.

  “Not these you won’t,” he said confidently. “You’ve never had them like this. With the Chinese method, if they’re done right, they’re pure texture. But you have to soak them and soak them and soak them, changing the water constantly, until all the blood and flavor have been leached out. You’ll see.”

  I was dubious, but I said nothing, and when I came back to the kitchen he showed me how to roast Szechuan peppercorns for the salad. I’d never seen them before, and I marveled at the little red pods and the deep, spicy scent that got more intense as they cooked, rising up to prickle at my nose. “When the peppercorns are so fragrant you almost can’t bear how good they smell,” he said, “they’re done. Then you scatter them across the top of the kidneys. They’ll be the first course.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we’ll have the fish, because it cooks the fastest. Come look at the flounder I bought.” He opened the refrigerator and held out a big, flat, clear-eyed fish.

  “How did you know where to buy fish in a town you had only just arrived in?” I asked.

  “Oh,” he said blithely, “I just went to Chinatown.”

  “And how did you know which fish to buy?”

  “Buying fish is easy in Chinatown. Any Chinatown. You just get the most expensive thing they’ve got. The Chinese figure their customers know what they’re doing. And the chickens there were fabulous. Look at this!” He held out a chicken with a very brown skin.

  “How did you find one with brown skin?”

  He laughed. “It doesn’t have brown skin. I rubbed it with soy sauce. It makes it more flavorful. We’ll put the chicken in when we take the kidneys out to the table. It cooks very quickly too, or it will if I can get the oven hot enough.” He opened the oven door and stuck his hand in. “It’ll do, I think.”

  Bruce’s infatuation with cooking was so infectious that I felt my mood improve. I liked watching him work; he was too tall for this kitchen, but he had an economy of motion that made him seem fluid, like a musician. He moved as if he were meant to be here, as if each of these tools fit comfortably into his hand. His imperious manner was irritating, but in spite of that I found myself liking him. “Isn’t it scary, just giving up your old life and making a new one?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “But I got married young and had children young. It’s now or never. If I don’t do what I really want to now, I never will.”

  It sounded familiar. I wished him luck. After a while I asked, “Do you want a job with Alice?” I asked.

  “You like working with her, don’t you?” he inquired. He leaned back and added magnanimously, “By the way, I’ll put in a good word for you. She promised to find me someone good to help me out, and I’ll be happy to tell her how well you’ve done.”

  “Thanks,” I said, suddenly understanding who I had to thank for this. “Have you met the journalist yet?”

  “Oh no,” he replied, “I don’t like to meet people like that when I’m cooking. I’d much rather hang out in the kitchen with you.”

  * * *

  I waited until after dinner to tell Bruce that he had been hanging out with a journalist. The timing was right. His food had been so extraordinary that Alice asked him to cook a special dinner at Chez Panisse. The publisher of The Garlic Book asked him to write a book on ginger. All I asked him to do was cook another meal for me, but I really didn’t have to ask. By then we were friends. One meal in Berkeley had already changed his life.

  * * *

  “Chinese food?” asked Colman the next day, when I told him about the meal. “Now you want to write about Chinese food? Could you please just finish the garlic article before we discuss that?”

  “It’s almost done,” I promised. “The dinner’s tonight.”

  “I wish I could be there,” said Colman.

  “I wish you could too,” I replied. But as I said it, I realized I was only being polite. Garlic had worked its magic, and it was not Colman I wanted next to me at Alice’s big-deal dinner.

  But Doug was still in Seattle. He didn’t think he was going to make it back in time. Not even for a spectacular meal at Chez Panisse.

  * * *

  The wine was strong. The garlic was pungent. A great flamenco singer named Anzonini Del Puerto, another citizen of Berkeley, sang his wild, lonely songs as the familiar garlic haze descended upon the table. Before long the entire room was giddy with garlic euphoria.

  Wrapped up in fumes of garlic, we ate galantines of pigeon, duck, and quail with garlic mosaics. We consumed more wine as several whole baked fish, gorgeously wrapped in puffs of garlic pastry and drizzled with lobster butter, were paraded around the dining room. Platters of spring lamb were brought out, surrounded by three garlic-infused purées. We washed the meat down with oceans of deep, dark Zinfandel. Then there was an arugula salad laced with goose fat and garlic-rubbed croutons, followed by poached figs in more red wine, with garlic meringues. And more wine. By the time Les set up his camera and filmed each of us talking about why we loved garlic, I was slurring my words.

  But I stood before the big fireplace at Chez Panisse, stuck a flower behind my ear, and looked earnestly into the camera. I had no idea of what I would say.

  And then it came to me. The article was going to be good, and I felt at peace with myself. I did not miss Colman and I did not miss Doug. “If everyone ate more garlic, the world would be a happier place,” I said.

  At that moment, I believed every word.

  LA VIEILLE MAISON SOUP

  Robert Charles was very proud of this recipe. No wonder. Once you’ve tried his variation on the classic French onion soup, you’ll never go back to the original.

  1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

  6 large onions (about 3 1/2 pounds), chopped

  4 large garlic cloves, chopped

  salt and pepper

  1 teaspoon all-purpose flour

  2 cups dry white wine

  4 cups chicken broth

  1 teaspoon dried thyme, crumbled

  4 large eggs

  1/4 pound Gruyère cheese, grated

  1/4 cup heavy cream

  Preheat the oven to 325°F.

  Melt the butter over moderately high heat in a heavy, ovenproof 8-quart pot until the foam subsides. Cook the onion and garlic in the butter, adding salt and pepper to taste and stirring, until the onion is softened. Stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the wine, broth, and thyme and cook the soup at a low boil, uncovered, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes. Cover the pot and bake in the middle of the oven for 2 hours.

  Ladle the soup into 4 individual earthenware crocks or ovenproof bowls (about 1 1/2-cup capacity) and whisk an egg into each. Sprinkle the tops with cheese and bake in the middle of the oven until the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes. Remove the crocks from the oven and spoon 1 tablespoon cream over each serving.

  Serves 4.

  DOTTIE’S SPINACH

  When I asked Les for his favorite garlic recipe, he gave me this one. I don’t even know who Dottie is. I do know, however, that her recipe will make your house smell like garlic for days, and that the fumes will precede the casserole to the table.

  2 pounds (about 3 10-ounce bags) fresh spinach, coarse stems removed

  1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter

  2 onions, chopped

  salt and pepper

  1 head garlic, peeled and chopped

  1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

  12 ounces cheddar cheese, grated

  2 cups fresh bread crumbs

  Wash the spinach well and drain it in a colander. Put half of the spinach, with water clinging to its leaves, in a heavy 6- to 8-quart pot and cook over moderate
heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until slightly wilted, about 1 minute. Add the remaining spinach and continue to cook over moderate heat, covered, stirring occasionally, until wilted but still bright green, about 1 minute more. Drain the spinach in a colander. When the spinach is cool enough to handle, squeeze it dry in small handfuls and chop finely.

  Preheat the oven to 350°F.

  Melt the butter in a large, deep, heavy skillet over moderate heat until the foam subsides. Cook the onion in the butter, with salt and pepper to taste, stirring, until softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cayenne and cook, stirring, until the garlic is softened. Add the spinach and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the cheese and cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until the cheese is melted and all the ingredients are combined well. Season the mixture with salt and pepper and spread in a well-buttered heavy 1 1/2- to 2-quart shallow baking dish. Sprinkle the top evenly with bread crumbs and bake in the middle of the oven until golden brown on top and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.

  Serves 6 as a side dish.

  6

  ARMADILLOS IN CHINA

  “The two most important things in life,” my ailing father said, “are imagination and laughter. They make anything interesting. Even this.”

  He gestured at the tray before him, on which was arrayed an extremely dry piece of a substance reputed to be fish, some plain strands of unadorned spaghetti, and the soggiest bits of squash I have ever seen. He shook his head in mock agony. “It’s a disgrace to be reduced to this spiceless, saltless, flavorless food at my age.” My father is, however, the most polite man who ever lived, and he always polished off his plate for fear of offending whomever it was in the hospital’s labyrinthine kitchens who had prepared it.

  “How can you eat that stuff?” his visitors all asked, but Dad only shrugged. “It’s a matter of will. I just pretend that it’s something delicious. Sometimes I can even taste what my daughter describes.” He turned to me. “Where are we eating tonight?” he inquired.

  —New West magazine, November 1980

  * * *

  When Mom called about my father’s stroke Doug and I stared at each other in confusion. We knew he was eighty, but he had never seemed old. He still went into his office to design books every day, even on weekends, and he was extremely proud that twelve new publishers had recently offered him work. He was a man who laughed at pain and had never been in the hospital; born in a time when babies were delivered at home, he had never needed an operation. Watching Doug, I knew that the same thought was going through both of our minds: If Dad was ill, anything was possible.

  Then we swung into action. Doug canceled his next trip. I grabbed the menus from the two San Francisco restaurants I was reviewing, stuffed them into my suitcase between the skirts and sweaters, and dashed down the stairs. Ten hours later we were in New York, walking into Beth Israel Hospital.

  My father was propped up in a big metal bed with mysterious tubes snaking beneath the covers. His eyes were dull and he looked frail, but he smiled broadly when he saw us, and the light leapt into his eyes. Then he recalled his surroundings and bit off the smile, which turned into a frown of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry to trouble you like this,” he said. Still, he didn’t miss a beat before turning to Doug and asking, “Can you go to the office? There are three jobs I promised for yesterday.”

  They both seemed relieved to turn the sickroom into a workplace, and I had a moment of intense jealousy as I watched their heads bent together, going over the details of Dad’s designs for books. They understood each other so well that they barely needed language; as Dad began to draw a title page Doug, silently, finished it.

  “You could not have married a better man,” said Dad when Doug had left for the office. “You have no idea how relieved I am that he’s here.”

  Yearning to communicate with my father the way Doug did, I pulled the menus out of my suitcase. “Would you help me with my work now?” I asked.

  Dad looked delighted. “Of course!” he said. I handed him the menus. “See if you can guess, just from looking at the type, what these two restaurants are like,” I said.

  Dad took the menus and ran his fingers over the type, just as he did with books. He loved type; it spoke to him. I simply transcribed what he said. Talking to my father had never been easy for me, and our encounters had often left us both at a loss for words. But I had hit the right note, and the next few hours were the most comfortable that Dad and I had ever spent together.

  Dad decoded the restaurants amazingly well, and when he was done we were both so enthralled with the exercise that we continued by pretending to eat together. The nurse came in just as we were finishing “dessert” and stood in amazement, watching us eat nothing. “Delicious cheesecake,” said Dad, grinning at her.

  It was, perhaps, the strangest restaurant review ever written, but it made my father happy. He had never been very interested in my work, but writing that review changed everything. Now he said, “My daughter’s going to China,” to every person who approached his bed. And then, as if this were a special badge of honor, he added proudly, “She’s going to a city that has been closed to Caucasians for more than thirty years. She’s being sent there by a magazine.”

  Metropolitan Home had actually wanted Colman for this assignment, but he suggested that I take his place. “You’re interested in Chinese food,” he’d said when he’d called to tell me about it. “I thought you’d like to go.”

  “Feeling guilty?” I’d asked.

  “Do you want the assignment?” he’d replied.

  Of course I did. Nine years after Nixon’s first trip, China still seemed remote, mysterious, and unexplored. My father loved poring over the brochures, with their misty pictures of dancing children dressed in red. “You’ll be seeing things no American has ever seen,” Dad said. When I protested that it was not all that exotic, he quoted the flowery words of the brochure. “ ‘You have the opportunity to leave the pressures of the twentieth century behind,’ ” he intoned solemnly. “ ‘Experience,’ ” he said, “ ‘a brief journey into another time.’ ” He read on, mentioning the fact that my access to the village of Taishan would be unrestricted and that I would witness “a more natural way of life.” But to my father, this was the clincher: “ ‘Few people,’ ” he read, “ ‘have toured rural China and come away unchanged.’ ”

  “But I don’t want to change,” I protested.

  “Nonsense,” said my father, “everybody changes.” And then he said what he always said just before the nurse arrived with the tray of dreary, unsalted glop that the doctors were convinced would make him well: “Promise me you’ll go. Even if I am not better. Even if I die. You may never get this chance again.”

  * * *

  “He’ll get better,” I said to Doug as we left the hospital. I swung my arms in the gray, humid air, conscious of how effortlessly my legs were moving across the sidewalk. My own good health felt like a reproach, and as I kicked crumpled paper cups and old Popsicle sticks out of my path I felt light enough to fly.

  Doug touched my arm, bringing me back to earth. “I doubt it,” he said flatly. “He’ll die before he turns into one of those pathetic old men hanging around the house. He won’t live if he can’t work.”

  “He’s eighty years old,” I said. “He doesn’t have to work.”

  “Ruth, think,” said Doug, “Do you really think he wants to spend all his time alone with your mother?”

  “No,” I answered, seeing his point. “When I was little I envied the way he could escape to the office, while I had to stay home with her. I remember once when I was very young, years before we knew she was manic-depressive, and she was giving one of those out-of-control parties. She was wearing red pedal-pushers, and she’d decided to clean the closets. The hallway was filled with piles of sheets, stacks of napkins, and mountains of blankets. In the living room silver trays, ramekins, teapots, and spoons swirled across the coffee table and bookcases, covering every surface. And heaps of
sticks were stacked on the floor, looking like bonfires waiting to be ignited.”

  “Sticks?” said Doug.

  “Yes. She used to make us go to the country in the middle of winter and cut forsythia so that back in the city we could force it to bloom. You had to get the heat up really high to make it happen. I remember Dad standing there, sweat pouring down his face, as he picked up his briefcase. I wanted a briefcase too.”

  “No wonder,” said Doug dryly.

  “Then Mom walked into the kitchen, dragging a tablecloth that had attached itself to her shoe. When I giggled Dad put his fingers to his lips. You know how Mom hates to be laughed at. Then he followed her into the kitchen.”

  “She was cooking?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

  “Trying,” I said. “She had Life’s Picture Cook Book open on the counter, surrounded by piles of rabbit bones, bunches of celery, heaps of onions and unpeeled carrots. She’d decided to tackle the Forum of the Twelve Caesars alpine snow hare, oblivious to the fact that the recipe required four days and the party was tomorrow.”

  “What did your dad do?” asked Doug.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “Kissed her good-bye and said, ‘I have to work late tonight. Don’t wait up for me.’ I went to the door to stand with him until the elevator came, and I remember watching the way his whole body relaxed as he stepped in, on his way out of the house and off to the world of work.”

  “So imagine his life with no work,” said Doug.

  The light changed. I put my hand on Doug’s arm. “Are you sure he won’t get better?” I asked. We crossed the street, walking down Second Avenue to Saint Marks Place.

  “Maybe he’ll recover from the stroke,” said Doug, “but I don’t think he’ll be able to go back to work.” He swung the briefcase he was carrying and indicated it with his head. “I’ve had to redo every job. His hands are getting too shaky to continue designing books. I didn’t say anything, but I’m sure he knows.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?” I asked.