Risotto Mille e Una Notte
Wash and pat dry leaves from 1 bunch spinach, blanch in boiling water 2 to 3 minutes, transfer with slotted spoon to bowl of cold water, drain, puree in blender or food processor.
In a large saucepan, bring 12 cups chicken stock to simmer
In a large, heavy sauce pan, melt 3/4 cup unsalted butter over medium heat and saute1/2 cup chopped onion 3 to 4 minutes or until pale golden.
Add 2.1/4cups (1 Ib.) Arborio rice and stir 1 minute.
Add 1 cup dry white wine and cook until almost evaporated, 5 to 6 minutes.
Add 2/3 cup peeled and diced carrots,2/3cup chopped prosciutto, 1/2 cup diced fresh porcini mushrooms, and 1/2 cup of the hot chicken stock. Cook, stirring with wooden spoon, until broth has evaporated. Repeat, adding 1/2 cup hot stock at a time until rice is tender, but slightly chewy.
Fifteen minutes into broth addition, stir in1/3 cup green peas and spinach puree.
When rice is done, stir in1/2 cup unsalted butter, 1 cup (4 oz.) grated Parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper to taste.
Garnish six wide, rimmed soup bowls with 12 whole slices prosciutto (2 to a bowl), and serve risotto warm.
Having taken care of my professional duties and tucked the recipe in my handbag, Miranda scowling all the while, I turned again to Lester. "Now, what's this bad news about Julienne?"
"Scandal," said Lester around a mouthful of rice, vegetables, and prosciutto. "It seems that Nils's accusations have a basis in fact. Several professors in her department are under the impression that she and this Italian fellow are having an affair."
"Why? Because they share a seminar for their students? That's hardly grounds for sexual gossip," I retorted defensively.
"Because Torelli has all but told them so."
"But he denies it. I asked him."
"You asked him!" Jason looked astounded. "When did you ask him?"
"I tracked him down at his hotel and asked him straight out, and he denied it. Then, and on the telephone today, he said there's nothing to the rumors. That their relationship was strictly—" Well, I couldn't really say "professional" since he had taken her in the night she left the dinner and her husband. "Strictly platonic," I finished somewhat lamely.
"That's not what he's hinting to his male colleagues," said Lester, "and you shouldn't be surprised that he'd deny it to you. After all, he wouldn't want to tarnish her reputation with her female friends, who might tell her what he was saying about her."
"But he wouldn't care if she was being slandered in every locker room in town?"
"I've met Torelli," said Jason mildly. "I'd be surprised if the man has been in a locker room since he got out of high school."
He smiled at me sweetly and offered me some of his veal, which was excellent. Especially the sauce. I detected not only the flavor of chicken livers (very finely chopped) and balsamic vinegar (a flavorful addition to anything from a salad, vegetable, or fruit, to a soup or meat sauce), but also red pepper and sage. I assumed that a meat stock was added as well.
"Wonderful choice," I said to Jason. If I hadn't lost my taste for cooking, I'd have tried to reproduce it when we got home. Maybe I could interest my husband in conducting a sauce experiment. Instead of looking at the recipe, we'd wing it. How much different could it be from the excitement of creating some new compound in a lab or trying to reproduce some other chemist's work? Except, of course, that in the kitchen you could eat the result of the experiment. Since Jason is mainly interested in toxins, no one would want to eat anything produced in his lab.
"I don't believe a word of it," I told Lester.
"Then why did she run away?" Lester asked. He was waving the waiter over.
Did he want a recipe, too? I couldn't imagine that Miranda devoted much of her $350-an-hour time to cooking. However, Lester didn't want a recipe. He wanted the dessert menu.
"The last thing you need is a dessert, Lester," said Miranda.
Jason evidently saw an argument coming on because Lester looked both stubborn and petulant. "My poor wife, in her search for Julienne, was accosted this afternoon and bruised by some crazy woman," said Jason as he cut and provided me with another bite of his veal. I'd rather have had a bit of the sauce mopped up with bread, but we'd eaten all the bread.
"Yes," I agreed cooperatively. "She said, among other things, that I'd never leave New Orleans alive unless I left immediately."
"You didn't tell me that!" Jason exclaimed.
I shrugged. "She really had another agenda; to wit, my purse or camera or both, neither of which she got," I added with excusable satisfaction. "But I do think she stole the love potion and the voodoo doll I bought as presents for the children."
"I consider those very peculiar gift choices," said Miranda.
"No more peculiar than you and Lester giving your son toy guns when he was a toddler," I retorted. "My gift selections were jokes. Were the weapons jokes, as well?"
"Goodness, Carolyn, I certainly didn't mean to offend you. I was going to point out that beliefs in illogical things like love potions and astrology are all too prevalent these days."
Miranda sounded definitely huffy. Too bad! I thought.
"Amen to that," Jason agreed. "Just this year I discovered that over fifty percent of a junior-level chemistry class claimed to believe in astrology."
"If you go back far enough, even the Catholic Church acknowledged the uses of astrology," I pointed out.
"Oh, well, the Church," said Miranda dismissively.
"And in Padua, there are astrological signs above the seats of judges, so lawyers weren't immune, either," I added.
"When was that?" she retorted. "The Middle Ages?"
"Of course."
"Back when I was teaching, I certainly uncovered some peculiar superstitions among my students," said Lester.
"You don't teach anymore?" Jason asked, surprised. "All our deans teach."
"Perhaps they don't have enough administrative functions to keep them busy," said Lester.
Since I knew he was about to launch into denigrating remarks on Jason's new university, I said quickly, "Before you get into that, could I have the dessert menu, Lester?" The waiter had slipped it to him discreetly.
"Lester!" screeched Miranda.
No more was said about Jason's decision to change his place of employment or my run-in with the ugly, turbaned lady. And the Abbotts did not offer to pay for any dinners but their own.
12
Po'boys and Cafe Brulot
Another favorite sandwich in New Orleans is the po'bby, which once cost a nickel. These days, the price has gone up and might be too steep for the pockets of poor boys; however, no one, rich or poor, can find fault with the ingredients. In a long, slender French loaf, one can order meatballs, roast beef and gravy, oysters, shrimp, soft-shelled crab, or even plain old ham and cheese. A dressed po'boy adds mayonnaise, lettuce, and tomatoes. Like the muffuletta, the po'boy is a meal in itself.
Carolyn Blue, Eating Out in the Big Easy
I awoke on Tuesday morning feeling depressed. Julienne had now been missing since Saturday night and had not, as far as I knew, been seen by anyone since Sunday. Where was she yesterday? Why, if she was safe, had she not called me? And now I had to contend with the rumors passed on by Lester: People in Julienne's department thought that she had, indeed, been the lover of Linus Torelli, who had hinted of the affair to various men friends, although he had vehemently denied it to me.
Well, what else would he have said when I was, in essence, accusing him of being responsible for her disappearance? Was he responsible? The man admitted to quarreling with her early Sunday morning, but he claimed that she had stormed off alone. That part of it could be a lie. A man who tells one lie may tell another, and in his conflicting stories about their relationship, one of the versions had to be a lie.
And there was Nils, who wouldn't report her missing to the police. Even if the Sunday Julienne sightings were accurate, today woul
d see the passing of the necessary forty-eight hours, but Lieutenant Boudreaux insisted that Nils had to make the report, not I. And Nils refused, believing his wife unfaithful, believing her to be with Torelli, no matter what Linus said. Was Nils so certain because Julienne had done what she'd threatened—returned to their room on Sunday night, claiming to have slept with Torelli? And now her husband was refusing to report her missing because he had caused her disappearance, the result of a fit of rage and jealousy. But when had he attacked her? She'd been seen Sunday, and he attended the mixer Sunday night. Had he returned to find her waiting for him? All primed to hurt him by claiming to have fulfilled his suspicions? And then he, furious, had—what?
I stifled further disturbing speculation, rolled out of bed, and padded barefoot to the bathroom. Jason had left earlier to breakfast with colleagues. I would return to Cafe du Monde in the hope that Julienne, still alive, would take pity on a worried friend and meet me there. She didn't. I made a solitary meal of beignets and cafe au lait, this time without chicory, while I considered my next stop. Obviously I had to check the convention first. Everyone else thought she'd show up to chair her session. I thought that, if she were able to do that, she'd have called me. And I knew her better than the rest of them.
At the conference information desk I managed to extract, from the young woman answering questions, the location of Julienne Magnussen's session, although Jeanne Rae, as her name tag identified her, took great pains to assure me that, as an accompanying person, I was welcome only to the social events, not the lectures. As if I wanted to hear people going on and on about arcane scientific topics. Much as I love my husband, I am no more enamoured of chemistry than I was when he was the graduate assistant in my chemistry class. I did point out to Jeanne Rae that, in fact, accompanying persons were invited to plenary lectures, which were, essentially, public events. Then, having wasted precious time, I had to jog through the corridors of the convention center to reach the appointed room before the session attendees had dispersed for lack of a chairwoman, my second, and no less distressing, attempt at jogging in twenty or more years.
I needn't have run so fast, for the attendees were clustered outside the door of the meeting room with Lester at the center of the group, in midtirade upon the unconscionable, irresponsible, inconsiderate ... Julienne had not arrived to chair the session, and Lester was appalled. I was appalled as well, but for wildly different reasons. Now I was convinced that my childhood friend had come to grief.
Nils was there, too, although he, being a mathematician and no ACS member, had no more right to attend the session than I did. "Have you heard from her?" I whispered to him. If he was innocent in the matter of her disappearance, surely he was now as worried as I.
"No," he replied curtly.
"You have to report her missing," I said pleadingly.
"Why should I?"
He killed her. The thought flashed through my mind like a tornado warning.
"She's obviously run off with Torelli. You'll notice he's not here, either. Since they're such close colleagues, he wouldn't have missed her session."
Misdirection or innocence on Nils's part? I wondered.
"Nils isn't required by law to report Julienne missing," said Miranda, who had joined our whispered conversation unexpectedly.
What was she doing here? She wasn't a conference participant, either. And she wasn't whispering. Lester and the several men around him turned when she spoke in that authoritative, courtroom voice. "The police don't want to hear about runaway wives," said Miranda. "They have their hands full with genuine disappearances. And don't give me that reproachful look, Carolyn. Have a little pity on poor Nils. Think of how embarrassing this is for him—to have his wife run off with a younger, more attractive man." Miranda looked almost pleased at the notion of a woman running off with a younger man. Nils did not look at all gratified by her defense of his cuckolded sensibilities.
"Torelli isn't better looking," I mumbled. How could these people, who had known Julienne for years, think so badly of her and show so little concern for her well-being?
"Thanks for that, Carolyn," said Nils sarcastically. "It's nice to know that my wife's best friend thinks I'm more attractive than my wife's lover. Too bad Julie wasn't of your opinion." He turned and walked away.
My impulse was to run after him and beg him to accompany me to the Vieux Carre station, but in my heart I knew it was hopeless. For whatever reason, guilt or male ego, Nils wasn't going to change his mind. "I guess your unkind remarks mean that neither you nor Lester has seen Julienne since last night?" I murmured to Miranda.
"We're not likely to see someone who doesn't want to be seen," said Miranda briskly. "Lester, I find that I'm free for lunch. Would you like to meet me at the hotel?"
Looking officious, Lester said, "I'm afraid that won't be possible, my dear. I am now forced to contend with the possibility that Julienne may fail to show up for her paper, having disappointed us today as she has."
I spotted Jason coming down the hall and walked quickly toward him. "I know. She's still missing," he said quietly. "I've been asking around. No one's seen her. Carlene's worried, too, and feeling badly that she made such a fuss about Julienne not attending her lecture. She told me Broder says you two may have found people who saw Julienne Sunday?"
I nodded.
"Unfortunately, that doesn't explain her absence yesterday, and certainly not today."
"Nils still won't go to the police."
"The man's a fool," said Jason.
I could have hugged him for his support and his good sense.
"Even if she's having affairs with ten different men, she wouldn't abrogate her responsibilities here and risk her scientific reputation."
"Exactly," I agreed. "And I don't think she's having an affair. I didn't even like that Torelli. Julienne wouldn't be interested in him. Not in a romantic way. He's just some emotionally retarded, would-be Lothario. He probably can't get a date, much less a wife, so he's trying to make himself look sexy at Julienne's expense. That's ... that's disgusting behavior. He should be drummed out of the American Chemical Society."
Jason grinned at me, and that reaction took some of the furious wind out of my sails. "I don't know of any case in which a member was drummed out of the society for his sexual exploits, real or imaginary." He thought a moment. "Well, maybe if he raped a student and got sent to jail for it, but then he'd be drummed out of his university and ... well, you see my point, Caro. What are you going to do now?"
Jason knew me well enough to know that I wasn't going to go home and have the vapors. I considered my options, then said, "I'm going to start making calls, first to her house and her department, in case she went back. Maybe she was so furious with Nils that she got the first plane home in order to file for divorce."
"Maybe," said Jason dubiously, "but it doesn't sound like her."
I sighed, admitting that it didn't. She'd have contacted me. She'd have warned conference officials that she was going to miss the sessions in which she was chair and lecturer. In fact, she'd have stayed for those and then gone home. "Well, I'll start telephoning hotels to see if she's registered somewhere else. If only that... that husband of hers would call the police, I wouldn't have to do any of this." Although Lieutenant Boudreaux had told me that no one of Julienne's description had turned up at a hospital or morgue, I wanted to know where she was and that she was safe. What if she'd been hit on the head by her supposed lover, her husband, or a mugger and was suffering from amnesia?
"That sounds like a sensible plan," said Jason, giving me a little hug.
I returned Jason's hug, an unexpected pleasure since he wasn't given to physical displays of affection in front of colleagues. Then I went back to our room in the hotel, sat myself down on the rose-covered bedspread with my address book and the New Orleans phone book at hand, and began to make calls. No one answered at Julienne's house. Her departmental secretary told me tha
t Julienne was at the American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans and wasn't expected home until the weekend, and, no, she hadn't returned early. Why would she? Dr. Magnussen was a distinguished scientist whose presence at the meeting was important to her department, to her, and to the other attendees. Some secretaries are so officious. The woman sounded like Lester. Then I began calling hotels in New Orleans asking if Julienne had registered under either her married or maiden name. She hadn't.
What now? Julienne had wanted to take the swamp tour. Both to introduce me to the wonders of the swamp and to take pictures. I telephoned swamp tour numbers in the Yellow Pages. No one of her name or description could be recalled by any of the bookers. Fine! That was a long shot, anyway, I consoled myself. She wouldn't have gone without me. We'd had extensive E-mail correspondence about the grotesque vegetation I'd see, the little aboveground cemeteries on the shores, and the alligators and snakes that would be swimming in the bayous and sunning themselves on the mud flats. If she had actually gone without me, I might have better luck interviewing boat captains, who would be more likely to remember her than would some ticket agent for a tour operator. Should I try to go this afternoon?
I rose to glance out the long windows that overlooked the street below. It was raining again, a light, mistlike rain, but still not good weather for a boat excursion or even for walking from boat to boat on some wooden pier surrounded by dripping vegetation that might well harbor nasty creatures, leeches, or something equally distasteful.
And I really needed a more recent picture of Julienne. And of Linus Torelli and Nils. But how? If I had an Internet connection, I could access the departmental web sites at their university, where there would be pictures of the professors that I could print out if I had a printer. But although Jason and I both have laptops, and his has a modem, neither of us has a portable printer. I called the desk, but the hotel did not offer that service. The desk clerk suggested that I try a computer bar.
Computer bar? People sat around drinking and playing with computers in New Orleans? That didn't sound very Creole to me, not very Cajun, not very French Quarter. Nonetheless, I again used the Yellow Pages and made yet more phone calls. A CompuCoffee representative informed me that his customers came to play computer games and didn't ask for printers, which he didn't provide, but that I'd undoubtedly enjoy CompuCoffee's chicory coffee and their newest game. It had some horrible name like Demise of the Bloody Death Planet. On my fourth call, I found an establishment called Po'Boy Computer Cafe that provided delicious drinks, sandwiches, and Internet access with printer facilities.
Fairbanks, Nancy Page 10