Last Bite: A Novel of Culinary Romance

by Nancy Verde Barr

  In spite of the long day, I wasn’t ready to sleep. I had finished the book I was reading on the plane and foolishly hadn’t brought another one, so I tried to watch a little television. After an episode of Friends, dubbed in Italian, and a little CNN news I was getting antsy. Since we’d be in Bologna for two nights, I decided to wash out some underwear. That’s when I noticed that Sally’s carry-on had been delivered to my room by mistake. She’d have the latest food magazines; she always traveled with an adequate supply of reading material. She was probably asleep by this time, so I unzipped it and found several cooking CDs. Great. I’d wanted to look them over since Sally had mentioned them in New York. There were five of them, but only one was open, so I picked that one and got out my laptop. When I opened the CD case, I saw that there were two discs inside—one marked, the other not. I slipped the unmarked one into my laptop.

  It was blank for a minute, and then I was looking at Peter Woods. He was sitting at a table in a small, unfamiliar kitchen, speaking to a man who was sitting to the side of him. I was confused for a moment, because Peter was not speaking English, and I thought maybe this was some type of comedy-show spoof. They were always doing takeoffs on Sally. But there was nothing funny about it, especially when the other man began to pound his fist on the table and rant at Peter.

  “Boris. Speak English,” Peter interrupted in English. “You know I can’t follow your Russian when you rave like that.”

  “I have told you,” Boris said, pounding the table again. “I will only pay the amount we agreed to. Not one dollar more.”

  “We agreed to that amount before I had this new material. What I have now is worth more.” Peter rested his arms on the table and leaned toward the other man. “If you would just let me speak to whoever is in charge, I know I could convince him. I don’t think you understand how big this is. You’ll get five, ten times the money I’m asking from the Iranians alone. North Korea will pay even more. Why don’t you set up a meeting for me with the guy in charge?”

  “I am in charge. Me. Boris Davinsky. I am my own leader.”

  “We both know that’s not true.”

  At that point, Boris stood up and tipped the table over. I saw Peter’s arms fly up, and then the CD went blank. I stared at it with my heart racing so fast that I had to take huge, deep breaths to slow it down. “Oh my God!” I said out loud. “Oh my God!” This is what Sally had found out about Peter. “Oh my God.” He was selling some kind of material to a Russian thug who was selling it to people who were not our friends. Peter worked in nuclear physics, so I could guess what kind of information. I began to pace the room, actually wringing my hands.

  I thought about this man whom I had adored, with whom I had shared so many good times, and I felt sick to my stomach. I could only imagine the horror Sally must have felt when she’d found out such a thing about the man she had married. I ejected the CD and put it back in its case, regretting ever having seen it. Not only did I not want to know what I now knew, I didn’t know whether I should tell Sally I knew. Would she be grateful to have someone to share the hurt or would someone else knowing make it harder for her? I turned off the lights, and tossed and turned for a long time before falling asleep without an answer.

  Chapter 16

  Postpone the pain.

  —Mark Chesnutt

  The next morning, I knocked on Sally’s door on my way to the lobby. I handed her the carry-on and explained that it had been delivered to my room by mistake. I watched for any reaction that might open up a dialogue about Peter, but she simply thanked me and said she hadn’t even missed it. I had decided that if she didn’t mention it when I returned the carry-on, I would wait until we were back home to discuss it. I would visit her in Washington, so we would be away from the public. Until then, I was going to pull a Sally and just bull it through.

  We met the others in the lobby, and Sally and Sonya took off to shoot balsamic vinegar, tortellini, and a 180-pound mortadella. I took off to a local restaurant to meet a 180-pound buffone. Gino Baffoni, the talent, was shorter than me, but his hair was a lot taller and died jet black. He was wearing an open-collared shirt with a red silk kerchief tied around his neck, and I swear he had on eye makeup. He was Italy’s primo, numero uno cookbook author and television personality; that’s what he told me the minute we met.

  “Tell me,” he said standing so close I could smell salami breath, “how do I make my own show on American television.” He handed me his six very thin paperback cookbooks and three DVDs, all marked with his name.

  Reincarnate yourself as another person, I thought. “I really don’t have anything to do with that,” I told him. “I’m just a prep cook.” He immediately took back his books and DVDs and gave me a look that combined disdain with dismissal. I knew the look; it was a Mrs. Alfano standard.

  “Allora, then who is in charge? Who is able to put my show on television in the United States?”

  Sonya would kill me if I said her name, so I improvised. “No one who is traveling with us can do that, but there is a man in New York who does it all the time. George Davis. Yeah, he’s the one. I’ll get you his number.”

  This seemed to satisfy Gino, and he led me into the restaurant kitchen and dropped me off. Gino was not a restaurant chef, and this was not his restaurant. We were borrowing it for the shoot. The meat sauce we’d be featuring, ragù alla bolognese, was his recipe, and he’d be the one on television, but beyond that he didn’t seem to want any involvement. Fine with me. The restaurant chefs were much more fun.

  None of them spoke much English, but I understood enough of their Italian to learn that I was the first female ever to work in their kitchen. They thought it was a riot. They also seemed to think that I was too delicate to lift anything, get close to the stove, or play with knives, so they outdid themselves in helping me. I liked that and was seriously thinking of taking them home with me. We finished prepping and making lunch well ahead of time, then made cappuccini and went outside to the patio so we could continue to bond.

  When the crew arrived, they found us still on the patio, drinking cappuccini and telling Italian jokes.

  “Are we ready, Casey?” Sonya asked, stretching out the words so they insinuated that I had gone bonkers and abandoned my job to hang out with Italian macho men who didn’t have a good intention among them.

  “Absolutely. We also have lunch prepared. Do you want to eat first?”

  “We certainly do,” said Sally.

  “Where’s Gino?” Sonya asked.

  Jeez. I’d forgotten all about him. “I’m not exactly sure.” I turned my head just in time to see him running across the street toward us, waving for the traffic to stop and let him pass. He rushed right up to Sally.

  “Signora Woods,” he gushed, kissing her hand, “it is so very good to meet finally my American colleague. We have so much in common, do we not?”

  Not.

  “What would that be?” asked Sally.

  “We are the best! Numero uno.” He made a fist with his index finger extended and lifted it up in the air above his head as he said it.

  “Let’s eat,” said Sally.

  After lunch, it was time to face the inevitable: Gino in front of a camera. John had to ask him three times to stop trying to watch himself in the monitor. They finally moved the monitor, and we were ready to roll.

  Sally started. “I am here with Gino Baffoni, who is going to show us how to make an authentic Bolognese sauce. Where do we begin, Gino?”

  Gino gave the camera a toothy grin and began. “Here we have some chop-ped meat.” He made the word two syllables. “Some chop-ped carrots, some chop-ped celery, some chop-ped . . .”

  John turned to me and whispered in my ear, “What’s he saying?”

  “Chopped,” I whispered back.

  “Cut, please,” said John aloud. Sally had to tell Gino to shush because he was going on to the chop-ped garlic.

  “Uh, Gino. Could you say ‘chopped’ instead?” John asked.

  �
�Chop-ped,” said Gino.

  “No, chopped,” John said.

  “Chopped-ed” said Gino.

  “Uh. Chopped. One word.”

  “Chop,” said Gino, and Sally screamed, “CHOPPED!” right in Gino’s face. He took a moment to regain his composure, but he got it right on the next take and finally began to make the Bolognese sauce. The pan on the stove had butter that we had already partially melted, and he poured in some olive oil. Then he stirred in the previously identified chopped vegetables, and after several minutes (which would later be edited out), the vegetables were translucent. When he added the finely chopped beef, Sally told the viewers, “You could also use a very good grade of hamburger.” He poured in some milk, let it evaporate, and then added crushed tomatoes, red wine, and broth. “Now you must cook the sauce two, three hours until it is done,” he said. The cameras stopped and we swapped the pan for an identical one with a finished sauce. We also poured boiling water and cooked spaghetti into the pot that had been sitting empty on the stove. When the cameras started to roll again, Gino scooped the spaghetti out of the pot and into a pasta bowl, and Sally spooned sauce on top. He sprinkled grated Parmesan over the spaghetti and Sally ate, raved over it, thanked Gino, and said arrivederci to the camera and, more emphatically, to Gino. John called it a wrap and Sally turned to leave, but Gino took her arm.

  “Signora Woods. This night I give a special cooking demonstration at Il Teatro. I expect there will be no seats left, but if you would do me the honor to come, I can get you in.”

  Yeah. But, who’d get her out?

  SONYA, SALLY, AND I met the crew in the hotel lobby at seven that night to go to dinner. While out shooting B-roll, Rocket had discovered a simple, family-style restaurant that he thought we should try.

  The restaurant resembled the Costello dining room on a Sunday, times twenty. That’s how many long community tables were set in rows the length of the room. Most of them were already occupied with parents and their children, groups of college-age kids, singles reading newspapers, and couples giving each other “the look.” The room was alive with happy sounds, delicious smells, and a mandolin player in the corner. It was perfect.

  As soon as we sat down, a waitress wished us Buona sera and put two carafes of red wine down on the table. That freed up her hands to remove the two loaves of bread from under her arm, and she put those on the table as well. She left and returned a minute later with plates that held cubed mortadella and thin slices of Parma ham. In Italian, she told us there were no menus but we had a choice of pasta: tagliatelle alla bolognese or tortelloni di biete al burro e formaggio. Everyone looked at me to translate.

  “There are only two pasta choices. You can have tagliatelle—those are the noodles that Anna Maria made—with a Bolognese sauce. You all know what that is. Chop-ped meat and chop-ped vegetables.”

  “I’m going to jump over this table and chop-ped your head off,” John said.

  “Okay. Okay. Or you can have tortelloni—think ravioli—filled with Swiss chard and ricotta cheese and served with butter and Parmesan cheese. Okay, tagliatelles raise your hands.”

  I got a count for the waitress and asked in Italian if there were choices for the main course.

  “No, signora,” she said. “Il secondo è maiale al latte.”

  “Molto bene!” I said with enthusiasm, and she seemed pleased that I was happy with the lone entrée.

  “What are we eating?” Rocket asked.

  I was familiar with the dish, not from home but from culinary school. “It’s a Bolognese specialty, pork loin braised in milk.”

  “Oh, that does not appeal.” John had his nose all scrunched up.

  “It sounds like English food. Meat all boiled to death,” Rocket said.

  “Just wait until you taste it. The meat gets incredibly tender and juicy and the milk reduces down to this delicious, nutty sauce. It is so good.” I tried to make the dish sound as delicious as it really was, but they didn’t look convinced. Hey, they had no choice.

  John turned his attention away from the pork and to today’s shoot. “So, Sonya, how’d you find that Gino character?”

  “I didn’t. We had a local cooking-school teacher lined up, but her mother died last week and she couldn’t do it. The research people at the studio came up with his name right before I was leaving, and we had no tapes to watch. What a major piece of work he was!”

  “Well, don’t get your knickers in a knot over him,” Rocket said. “We took mostly close-ups of his hands.”

  “Hard to believe that such a delicious sauce could be made by such an irritating man,” said Sally.

  “We ran into a pompous bloke like that at the airport a few months ago,” Rocket said. “We were in line for one of the nineseater planes that fly to Dublin. They were all backed up on account of weather, and when they began to fly again, they took us in order. There was this Bond Street–type guy who insisted that he had to get on the first flight because he had to be in Dublin before noon. Well, we all had to be in Dublin before noon. He was mouthing off to the counter clerk, who was losing patience with him. So, when he said to her, ‘Do you know who I am? Have you any idea who I am?’ she picked up the loudspeaker and said, ‘Could I get some help here at the counter? We have a man who doesn’t know who he is and would like help in identifying himself.’”

  Rocket’s story started the crew on a round of telling battle stories and eventually led to jokes that would have made my father blush. It was like having a front-row seat at an uncensored comedy club. Many of the jokes involved the wearing of napkins formed into nun’s wimples, little-old-lady babushkas, and nappies, which I figured out were diapers when Rocket ran the napkin through his crotch. The guys in the crew were very naughty and outrageously amusing and they had us in stitches.

  Rocket had just finished telling a joke about an old man and his nubile young bride when Sally said, “I have one. The chicken and the egg are in bed. The egg looks grumpy and the chicken is smoking, so the egg says, ‘I guess that answers the question of who came first.’” The joke was all the funnier for Sally telling it, and the crew wolf-whistled and clapped for her.

  Rocket put his arm around her and said, “So how about it, Sal. You and me have a little slap and tickle later.” Sally and my father are the only two people I know who laugh so hard that tears really do roll out of their eyes. Sally’s were pouring.

  We were still laughing when we got back to the hotel. “I haven’t laughed that hard in years,” Sally said. “Aren’t we lucky to have them with us?”

  “They’re the best. I just love it. Ouch. Do you have a nail file, Sally? I broke a nail this morning and I keep scratching myself with it.” We were just outside her room.

  “Sure do. Come on in. We can have a little nightcap.”

  When Sally opened the door, there was an envelope on the floor. “You’ve got mail,” I said mimicking the AOL mail-call sound.

  “See what it is. I’ll get the nail file.”

  I opened the envelope, which had the hotel’s logo on it, and scanned the note.

  “I am here in the hotel, room 321. Call. George.”

  Mannaggia.

  Chapter 17

  What’s he doing in my world?

  —Eddy Arnold

  I woke up Monday morning with a strange sense of dread. At first I thought I might have had a bad dream, and I tried to remember what it was. Then I remembered that it was worse than a bad dream: it was a nightmare. Last night, when I had handed the note to Sally, it was as if I’d thrown a bucket of cold water at her. She’d read it and said, “I’ll have to call him. I’ll see you tomorrow, honey.” And that was it. No nightcap. No more laughing. No more Sally. Talk about rotten timing. Today was my birthday, and I wondered if George was someone’s sick idea of a present.

  I rolled over and looked at the clock. Seven. This was a travel day; we were scheduled to leave for Florence at nine. I knew Sonya was an early riser, so I showered, dressed, packed, and knocked on her door
at seven-thirty. As I guessed, she’d already been up for hours.

  “Happy Birthday, kiddo,” she said, giving me a big hug.

  “Thanks,” I said. “But it’s not going to be so happy. Guess who’s here.”

  “Who . . . oh, damn it, no?”

  “Yep.” I told her about the note.

  “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it. I wonder if he expects to ride with us to Florence.” Sonya looked as though she was trying to figure something out—probably where the train station was in case George decided to ride with us. “Have you spoken to Sally this morning?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I wanted to tell you about George so you wouldn’t be surprised. I’m going to her room when I leave here.”

  “I just don’t get it. It’s not as though he’s such a great agent. I mean, have you ever heard Sally say anything like, ‘Wow, did you see that commercial I did? Wasn’t it brilliant?’ I haven’t. Not once.” She sat down on the corner of her bed and kind of sank into it. She looked so defeated, and I couldn’t make it better by telling her he was only a temporary problem. She took a deep breath and clapped her hands on her thighs. “Well, as Sally says, let’s keep our eye on the target. We have a lot of shows to do and we have to keep things moving along in spite of what’s going on behind the scenes.” She had no idea how much that was. I left Sonya’s room before I could break down and tell her that Sally was dealing with a hell of a lot more than lousy commercials.

  “Come in. Door’s open,” Sally called out when I knocked on her door. I wished she wouldn’t always leave her door unlocked like that, but she got so many visitors she hated to keep getting up to open it. She was sitting at a room-service table eating breakfast, and she opened up her arms to hug me.

  “Happy Birthday. How do you say that in Italian?”

  “Buon compleanno.”

  “Buon compleanno, mia amica. You don’t look a day older.”

  Funny. I felt years older than yesterday. “Mille grazie, mia buon’ amica.”