TWENTY-TWO

A Matter of Taste

Not long after 9/11, Joey received the New York Times review that he had so sorely missed at Q56 and with it redemption from the critic who had once deemed Joey, at least in Joey’s mind, “not memorable.” And the review could not have been better: Bill Grimes raved about Joey’s food as well as the beautiful, relaxed dining room and service. He even called my Kalamansi Colada, a layered parfait of coconut sorbet, pink tapioca, and kalamansi (a citrus fruit I discovered while traveling in the Philippines) granita, a “dreamsicle.” He mentioned me by name and pointed out other highlights on my menu, the banana tarte Tatin and my carrot cake.

In a marked reversal from a few years earlier, I was able to shrug off his negative comments: that my buttermilk crème brûlée was no better than a thousand others and that my “Stars & Stripes” (mascarpone panna cotta decorated with pomegranate gelée “stars” and a concord grape “stripe”) was disorganized and messy. He’d said too many great things about the restaurant, Joey, and my desserts for me to worry about a few negatives. Ironically, the paper called a week later. Grimes was doing a story on patriotic desserts, and, as a result, my “disorganized” dessert ended up being featured in his article. Soon after, other magazines and papers were calling so that they, too, could feature the dessert.

We all heaved a huge sigh of relief: We were part of a critically successful restaurant that was doing well financially. After so many years of working jobs that took over my life, I could finally settle into normalcy. My job was now only part of my life: I worked only five days a week, and only one of those days was a double. I actually had a life. I had time for socializing, dating, cooking for fun, sometimes all at the same time.

I started throwing dinner parties. In a city like New York, where kitchens are afterthoughts, refrigerators have space for little more than ketchup and leftover Chinese, and most people have far more takeout menus than cookbooks, I found that my friends were more than happy to crowd around my living room coffee table (no room for diners in my tiny kitchen and I certainly didn’t have a dining room or even a dining table) for a home-cooked meal. My ability to cook was a real asset to my social life, and I used it shamelessly.

When I discovered that Matt, a British writer I began dating, had an endless love for all desserts, or “puddings” as he called them, I took full advantage. When I learned that his favorite ice cream was coffee chip I made it for the restaurant, just so I could bring him a pint the next time we watched a movie at his place. His eyes had widened with excitement at my gift. It’s chock-a-block! he gushed before gulping it down. He devoured every little cake, cookie, and candy with boyish glee.

Even so, when Matt asked me to help him cook a dinner for his friends, I was a bit apprehensive. I knew he wanted to show off both his own abilities and mine (dating a pastry chef was cool), but far too often in my experience, my “expert” advice was requested and then promptly ignored or questioned. I was often asked about meat temperatures and always got the same response. After I gave the meat a feel with my finger and pronounced it to be medium rare, the cook (a friend or family member) would look at me and say No . . . let’s give it a few more minutes. More than once, I’d tried to correct a friend’s knife skills for his or her own safety: Put the flat side down, I would offer; there’ll be less chance of it slipping and you cutting yourself. But most people really just want to continue doing things their own way. So, unless my help was expressly requested, I stayed out of other people’s kitchens and drank my glass of wine far from any dinner preparations, which was fine with me. I was (and remain) happy to relax and be a guest, no matter how imperfectly prepared the meal.

But simply being a guest at a dinner party isn’t always without its pitfalls. People often likened me to the “chefs” they saw on TV, many of whom I unfortunately had never heard of. Like most chefs, I had little time and even less inclination to watch food television; my life was food television, only faster, meaner, and lower paid. In fact, most chefs express pure disgust for the likes of the permanently perky Rachael Ray, with her emphatic and recurring admission that she’s no chef. Lots of chefs and cooks blame user-friendly TV chefs along with food-themed kids’ movies like Ratatouille for sugar-coating the harsh realities of working in a kitchen. Oh, no, they worry when a cute movie like Ratatouille comes out, now every sniveling kid is going to want to be a chef. Top Chef was a welcome addition and antidote to the previous glut of unrealistic food programming. Finally, cooks had a show that not only represented their world but respected and rewarded it. Suddenly everyone was watching Top Chef (not just restaurant people), and cooking, real cooking, was in the spotlight.

So, when Matt asked for my help with a party where I’d be not only a guest but also a cohost, I set one ground rule: He had to listen to me and follow directions; my reputation as a professional was on the line! And he did. When I corrected the way he cut an onion for the truffled mushroom risotto, he quietly did it my way without complaining. And he didn’t whine when I gently chided him to keep stirring the risotto after adding some chicken stock or when I urged him to add more salt when seasoning the roast chicken. He was amazed that we never measured anything, even the ingredients for the caramel sauce and pecan brittle we made for the sundaes. Over the years, I explained, some measurements just become ingrained in your head and you get a feel for things.

If only I held as much sway in my job at Tonic. A year later, the food remained as good as always, but despite the restaurant’s many accolades, business had begun to slow, and once again we found ourselves trying to unravel the mysterious equation that results in a successful restaurant. It was frustrating for everyone, not least of all the owner. As an owner of several restaurants, he should have been accustomed to the finicky ups and downs of the business; nevetheless he got into the habit of loitering in my dessert station during the afternoon hours. Both hands in his front pockets, he would rock forward on his toes and then back onto his heels, shaking his head: Oh, we are losing money. . . . Business is not good. . . . What am I going to do? He just stood around, talking to the air or venting his thoughts to me, I never knew which.

The writing was soon on the wall, and we began hearing rumors (the restaurant world is a small one) that Uncle Steve, as we called the owner, was preparing to sell part of the business to a new chef. It was only a matter of time—weeks, maybe—before we would once again be leaving a restaurant that had not lived up to our expectations for any length of time.