Spiced

The Times critic made three more visits (any critic worth her salt makes multiple visits in order to sample a wide range of food and to test the consistency), and she was spotted every time. When the paper called to schedule a photo of the dining room during dinner service, we knew for sure that the review would appear the following Wednesday, so we had six days to agonize with anticipation. What was done was done; our fate rested in her hands. The most we could do was make sure that the dining room looked busy on the night of the photo, so we all asked friends to come in for dinner at the appointed time. The last thing we wanted was a photo of an empty room—how would that look?

Late on the night before the review was to appear, Joey left work to buy the paper from a twenty-four-hour newsstand. He’d scoped out which newsstand was the first to receive the earliest edition of the paper. He wanted to be the first to read the review, and he wanted to do it in solitude, just in case. The rest of us waited in the kitchen, glasses of wine and beer in hand, ready to celebrate—or drown our sorrows. What if she’d hated my desserts? Not only would I have failed, but it would be a public failure, in writing, for the entire world to see. I had a second glass of wine.

Two stars from the New York Times was a definite triumph. After a collective cheer we gathered around him as he read the entire review out loud, savoring each word of praise for his delicious food. She swooned over the lamb sandwich (one of my favorites, too), a flat disc of grilled dough stuffed with cinnamon-braised lamb, hummus, tadzhiki, greens, preserved lemon, and cucumbers, calling it “the best sandwich I ever tasted.” She praised his fricassee of rabbit with green lentils and the pomegranate-glazed salmon. She applauded the grilled baby octopus salad with finger-ling potatoes and pickled onions, an appetizer that was a kitchen favorite, too, not least of all because the tiny octopus bodies that we discarded (only the bouquets of eight tiny legs were used) made perfect finger puppets. She even loved my focaccia.

The owner was happy that he’d been praised for his fine selection of boutique wines and the service, and that she’d acknowledged his restaurant pedigree. Her only criticism so far was the phrasing of the menu: She found it too wordy and cumbersome, especially the dual French-English dinner menu. I wanted to yell out “I told you so,” but I didn’t. It was a minor criticism and a matter that could be easily remedied.

It was all wonderful, but I couldn’t breathe until I heard about the desserts. Joey kept reading: Desserts are classics that have been re-imagined with Middle Eastern flavors and are gorgeously arranged.

I stood there and smiled. It was a simple comment on my work, not gushing or superlative, perhaps, like I might have hoped it would be, but it was good. According to the review, my goal in creating Scarabée’s desserts had been achieved. I was the tiniest bit disappointed that my name had not appeared, but could I really complain? My desserts were “gorgeous,” and she hadn’t said a single negative thing about them.

As we hoped, the stellar review brought in business almost immediately, and we happily adjusted to the increase. In the following months, we were reviewed multiple times, and reading each one for the first time was exhilarating. I savored every moment of it. My name did eventually appear, and my ego swelled with pride every time my work was recognized for being “delicious,” “divine,” “fabulous.” I shamelessly told my friends about every review, demanding that they buy the magazines and newspapers to see for themselves.

I faxed the reviews from major publications to my mother in Tennessee, so she, too, could read for herself of my success. Every positive review served as validation: Trading in office life and becoming a pastry chef had been the right choice. My parents didn’t have to worry; I had succeeded in my new career. It was right there in black and white.

With so much positive feedback appearing in print, it should have been easy to brush off the occasional slur, but ego is a fragile thing. For us, cooking was all about achieving perfection: the perfect taste, the perfect plate, the perfect meal, and having someone, especially the less respected writers who had probably never themselves worked in a restaurant, disparage any part of it was hard to swallow.

Despite the glut of good reviews, the few bad comments stuck in my side like thick, stubborn thorns. I was outraged when a writer from a local free paper trashed my pear tarte Tatin. This same writer had made multiple errors in the food descriptions, mistaking currants for raisins, for example. How dare such a lazy writer be able to judge my work? I bellyached about it for days, despite Joey’s urging that I let it go: Nobody who matters cares about that restaurant column, Doll. It’s in a free paper! People don’t even pay for it! But I couldn’t let it go until finally, arriving home after work one night, I found my answering machine blinking with a single message. Joey had left a loop recording of a snippet from Ruth Reichl’s radio show in which she gave a brief review of the restaurant: the pear tart was quite delicious . . . the pear tart was quite delicious . . . the pear tart was quite delicious.

During an interview with a local radio host I’d been asked what my favorite dessert to eat was. I was honest. I didn’t really eat many sweets; they no longer tempted me. Aside from an occasional bit of ice cream or a cookie, I’d much rather have a steak or fries or even sautéed spinach with garlic.

It wasn’t the only time Joey encouraged me to “pretend a little.” If a writer called about an article she was writing on a particular ingredient, figs, for example, and asked if I used them on my menu, I was instructed to answer an emphatic “yes” and spontaneously invent a dessert that included that ingredient that I could then talk about. I could always put it on the menu after the fact, Joey said. That way I’d get included in the article and get the exposure. The more exposure, the better.

As a result of all the good press, we enjoyed an increase in business and therefore, a decrease in stress levels. My routines were set, I was comfortable with my desserts, and I even hired someone to work at night plating them. Finally I had my nights free, and my life resembled something almost normal. I pretended that I had never slept with Joey and had never been jealous of the Frenchie. Eventually, I started dating other people—outside of the business.

Joey and I still saw each other every day and worked together closely. Over time, we became an ideal team, able to work together on any task, our strengths complimenting each other’s perfectly. I fully accepted his authority, and he in turn always treated me with respect. I looked up to him, eager to learn anything I could from his fifteen years of experience, and he valued my computer and writing skills, my patience, my taste buds. Gradually, we developed a deeper friendship, too, and began talking on the phone. By the time summer rolled around, we were spending our mutual day off together, usually at the beach with a group of our friends, some of them in the restaurant business, others not. We became super-friends, friends on steroids. Even our friends became suspicious that there was something more.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before we once again crossed that line, and I should have seen it coming. I did see it coming, but I looked the other way. That night, after a long day at the beach, I didn’t have to go back to Joey’s under the pretense of wanting to take a shower before going out to have a bite to eat (as if spending the entire day together hadn’t been enough). I could have gotten dressed in his bathroom instead of coming out of the shower in just my towel to get my change of clothes. And I could have turned away from Joey when I saw that look in his heavy hazel eyes, the look I should have remembered from almost a year earlier. But I didn’t.

After that night, sleepovers became common, simply an extension of the time we already spent together, but nothing else changed. We remained a perfect team at work and never talked about what was going on between us. It just kept happening, unaffected at first by the gradual slowing of business. But when business began to slow, so did our morale. We tried in vain to figure out the problem. Was it the name? I’d been worried about naming the restaurant after a bug, even if it was a French-sounding one, and my fears were realized every time a delivery man announced he had a package for “Scrabby’s.” Maybe it was the location, though it was unlikely. There was nothing wrong with the food or service, we were sure of that, thanks to consistent affirmation in the press. Maybe New York City was simply too fickle a restaurant town, and our customers had moved on to the next new place. The early success we’d experienced had slipped through our fingers and been washed away, and we all felt the blow, especially the owner.

Eventually, things between Joey and the owner became irrevocably strained until finally Joey accepted an offer to open a new restaurant in a hotel just a few blocks away. Frank and I, utterly loyal to our chef, gave notice, too. We’d come in as a team and we left the same way.