CHAPTER ELEVEN
Doing Lunch, the Vermont Way
11 a.m.
L UNCH IS BUSY AND NOISY. We start service at 11 a.m. and keep churning out sandwiches until 3 p.m. But the bulk of our orders come first thing; Vermonters being a conservative dining bunch, they take all their meals early. Tim mans the panini grill and completes pastry odds and ends during lulls. I finish up special cake orders for pickup in the afternoon and start elements for multidimensional pastries that I’ll have in the case tomorrow. Opera cakes, alternating layers of moist almond cake, mocha buttercream, chocolate ganache, and marzipan; chocolate pavé slices, five thin layers of spongy soufflé cake sandwiching rich and fluffy chocolate pastry cream, covered with chocolate glaze and decorated with white dots of confectioners’ sugar; and Mozart kugel cakes, small domed almond cakes filled with a chocolate truffle and set atop a round of pistachio meringue, covered with pistachio paste, and then doused with a thin layer of chocolate and sprinkled with bright green bits of ground pistachio. These are work-intensive little cakes and they leave the building almost instantly once they hit the pastry case; I feel as if I never made them. But there is an incomparable satisfaction in arranging each meticulously made element so the flavors are balanced and the cake itself is a work of art. This is what I do for lunch these days. Nibbling on pistachios along the way, sneaking into the back office for a few minutes to eat a bowl of yogurt and noodle around on the Internet.
Lunch used to be onerous for me. In Hollywood you “do” lunch, you don’t eat it. There’s no savoring or lingering. Instead it’s an hour devoted to kissing someone’s ass or someone kissing yours. There’s little to no eye contact. Your luncheon partner, while keeping up a steady stream of superlatives regarding your latest project and touting his own, keeps his sights on the entrance to check out who’s coming in next.
I once had a lunch meeting on Sunset Boulevard. I gave the hostess the name of my dining companion, who’d made the reservation, and she sat me at a table with an aging tanning booth veteran with spectacularly white teeth and a brow that had been recently pulled surgically tight. He moved his man-purse so I could sit. He looked confused. I probably did too, since the agent I was supposed to be having lunch with sounded a bit younger on the phone. And agents usually don’t carry man-purses or lunch in leisure suits. No matter. I introduced myself and he jumped right in. My dining companion had a bevy of projects to pitch. My God they were rank, but he just kept on peppering me with crap idea after crap idea, hoping something stuck. He kept it up with verve, his delivery straight from the old school. No apologies and plenty of sparkle. Then the hostess approached our table and very apologetically said, “I’m so sorry, Ms. Bullock. I sat you at the wrong table.”
Without missing a beat, my new friend whipped out a business card from his man-bag and bid me adieu. “Call me! We’ll do lunch for real next time!”
Seated at the right table with the appropriately fresh-faced agent, he jittered like an inbred lapdog and noodled with his BlackBerry under the table. But his sales pitch was identical to the one I’d just heard at the wrong table. An endless stream of crap film ideas, except that the seventy-year-old plastic surgery victim gave it a little more oomph. This is what I could expect from lunch for the rest of my life: a wimpy salad, tap water, and the same bad pitch. And I couldn’t be sure that when it was my turn to sell an idea, it was any better. I couldn’t tell any more. Quite honestly I didn’t care.
And then I had a lunch meeting the day after one of my worst nights. It was a lunchtime pitch at a studio with another producer I’d worked with and liked well enough. She was a big fish and she was smart. She was tough to talk to on the phone, though. She was always inhaling something, tobacco or weed, so conversations were punctuated with an asthmatic inhalation and luxuriant exhalation, taking up precious minutes I could be spending looking up cake recipes on the Internet. In person, she was a muscled crumb of a woman, a pinch over five feet. She favored brief skirts, allowing her toned legs free rein to contort. Mostly she pretzeled herself into a lotus position, skirt bunching up around her hips, panties exposed to the world. She was agile enough to torture herself into position and still keep hold of a lit cigarette.
We met a writer; he was pitching an idea. He suffered from a slight nervous palsy and dropped a few pages from his densely packed story outline. We had lunch brought in and we wrestled with the little plastic tubs of salad dressing while we chatted. Pitches always start with cocktail conversation. A little weather, some gossip, a lament on the ever-increasing traffic, and then a slight dissertation on the need for fuel conservation and a switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Our writer cut off the small talk and jumped straight into his pitch, ignoring his egg salad sandwich. He stumbled into his introduction, stopped and started a few times getting into the rhythm of his story. I tried to chew quietly, afraid any sudden noise would spook him and screw up his concentration.
He gave us a brief synopsis of a heartfelt and politically salient tale and segued into a story that had influenced his opus. It was here that he lost track of his agitation and fell into his natural cadence for storytelling.
“I married a first-generation Chinese American. Her mother lived with us but didn’t speak a word of English, so we cobbled together a primitive sign language. A lot of pointing, a little pushing, and vigorous nods. But it was in the kitchen that communication became effortless. She and I cooked together. She taught me generations’ worth of her family’s recipes, sharing with me a deep history and creating a true kinship. There was eloquent meaning in her gestures that I perfectly understood; we had no need for imperfect translators. We understood each other beautifully in the kitchen. She taught me how little I knew about what we consume and how artless and distant food can be in America. We had our closest moment one day while making dumplings.”
It’s rare to get insight into a colleague’s life, especially a genuine glimpse devoid of name-dropping and ego stroking. It’s a singular experience to witness even a calculated unveiling of vulnerability, so this guy’s humble tale of cross-cultural familial intimacy and his realization that he had a lot to learn from a little old Chinese lady he had heretofore probably looked upon as a cute stereotype was beguiling. That is, until the pretzel-bent producer yelled, “OH MY GOD! I LOVE DUMPLINGS! There’s this fabulous place downtown, you know what I’m talking about, don’t you?”
And she nattered on and on, interrupting a lovely story well told by a man who clearly had difficulty speaking naturally in public. I marveled at the disconnection and self-absorption that had just suffocated the room, this woman compulsively indulging in every urge to talk about herself, the writer scrambling to get his thoughts together, and looking for the right moment to jump back in. And me, just watching it all play out, not trying to help him, not trying to shut her up, guilelessly rubbernecking at the train wreck in front of me and feeling ashamed at my utter lack of interest in steering this pitch back on course. It wasn’t the worst thing that had ever happened after ten years in Hollywood, not by a long shot, but it was one of the last things. It was the proverbial straw and I was the camel.
Afterward, walking between the soundstages on the studio lot, dodging golf carts in high heels, I fished my car keys from my bag and folded my legs into my fuel-efficient clown car. I sat with my forehead pressed against the steering wheel, descending into lunacy as I endlessly repeated, “I hate this place. I hate this place. I hate this place.”
I had started out in the business with so much enthusiasm and hope. But each year most of my promising projects never made it out of development hell, and a slew of other producers’ regurgitated schlock made it to the big screen instead. Each year, I wrestled with the knowledge that no matter how well I did my job, no one looked at me as anything but “her sister” with nothing to offer but a fancy job title born of nepotism and access to a movie star. Each year, I stared down a pile of unpalatable scripts and sadly resigned myself to spending the better part of my waking hours reading them. But all of these things only contributed to a slow build of ennui that, sadly, I could live with; nothing really jarred me into quitting. Not until a project I actually cared about got made.
“Gesine, what are you doing here? I’d never have noticed if you didn’t come.”
That’s what did it. That’s why I quit, that one dickish, dismissive greeting. It didn’t even make sense. But what it was was mean. And it was uttered by a man I’d spent months helping get to this very place, the party to celebrate the start of his project. A project that for months no one wanted. And the damn party I’d helped plan, for God’s sake.
I’d set up meeting after meeting with studios, shilled the idea to anyone who would listen, helped organize showcases, filled the seats with high-powered suits, and then finally, in a last-ditch effort, my Hollywood Hail Mary, made a groveling call to a friend in a very high place begging for an introduction to the one person who could make it happen. And that one call led to a fortuitous creative confluence that resulted in a “go” project. And now that this guy had a career and a soon-to-be household name, he thought it was okay to treat one of the little people who did the idiot grunt work like a subhuman. So what was I doing there?
A day later, still smarting from that comment, I was in my car on a studio lot muttering to myself like a crazy woman. I stopped long enough to call Ray.
“I’ve had it. I want out of this douchebaggery.”
I do care about cake. There really aren’t any new ideas in baking; it’s the same confectionary plot again and again, perhaps in different combinations. But everything I bake is a story worth retelling. Working through lunch, the air thick with almonds and chocolate, I tend to the elements of my layer cakes, the acts that make up the whole, never losing sight of what they will become but taking joy in the deliciousness of each individual part. Buttercream, ganache, almond cake, marzipan; layering each element in perfect symmetry, so when I slice the long cake into individual pieces with a scalding hot knife, each layer is distinct and uniform. I carefully transfer the slices to the pastry tray and put any stray bits of cake on a plate for the crew to nibble, evidence of a lunchtime well spent.
Opera Cake
OPERA CAKE IS TRADITIONALLY made with layers of almond sponge cake. In its natural state, almond sponge is, yes, spongy, but also a bit dry. Common practice is to soak the sponge with simple syrup; in this application, simple syrup laced with strong coffee. I think this is utter horseshit. Why not use a moist almond cake to start? Usually the saving grace of opera slices is the filling and the thin layer of almond paste that covers the very top of the cake. But the layers of sponge cake are very thin and with the soaked-cake approach, they become so sodden with simple syrup that there’s no possibility of peeling them off efficiently enough to just get down and dirty with the good stuff, the filling.
I use an almond cake that puts sponge to shame. I use a scale to measure out the ingredients for perfection. It’s easy to get this one wrong with shoddy measuring. When there are stray bits, I stack the errant pieces on a plate and set them on the workstation by the door leading from the bakery to the front of the house. It’s for this cake that my crew pays me the highest compliment: “I hate you. I hate you for doing this to me. You are an evil woman.” And within seconds, it disappears.
SERVES 8
For the almond cake
Nonstick cooking spray
1½ packages (each package is usually around 7 ounces) or 10 ounces almond paste, broken into small bits
1 cup sugar
2 ounces (¼ cup) honey
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
6 large eggs
⅞ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
For the chocolate ganache
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter
1 pound semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
For the mocha buttercream
10 egg whites
¼ cup brewed coffee with 1 tablespoon instant espresso dissolved in the coffee, cooled
2 cups sugar
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup chocolate ganache
One 7-ounce package almond paste, rolled out into a thin layer onto a large piece of parchment so that it’s the same size as the top of the finished cake. Cover the almond layer with another piece of parchment to keep from drying out and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Liberally spray a ½ sheet pan (18 × 13 inches) with nonstick cooking spray and line it with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, combine the remaining almond paste, sugar, and honey. Beat until well combined. Scrape the sides of the bowl now and again to make sure no bits of almond paste are left behind. If you don’t whip the mixture well enough, stray chunks of almond paste will make the batter lumpy.
Add the butter in small bits, scraping the bowl down at least twice in the process.
Add the eggs one by one, beating until each is completely incorporated. After each addition, scrape down the sides of the bowl. After the last egg, beat on high until the batter is fluffy.
On the lowest speed, slowly incorporate the flour, baking powder, and salt until blended.
Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back when you touch it, 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool completely.
In a saucepan, bring the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and butter to a boil over moderate heat, whisking until the sugar is dissolved.
Remove from heat and add the chocolate, whisking until smooth.
Allow the ganache to cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable. If the ganache cools so much that it is impossible to spread, transfer it to a microwavable container and nuke for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each 30 seconds.
Combine the egg whites, coffee, and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Place over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches 160°F (high enough to kill the bad stuff). Whisk vigorously and constantly; you don’t want scrambled eggs. You can dip your finger into the egg whites and rub them together to make sure the sugar has dissolved.
Transfer the bowl to a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk on high until the egg whites have tripled in size and are cool and shiny (about 10 minutes).
With the mixer on low, start dropping cubes of butter into the egg whites; then return to high until the buttercream thickens and is spreadable. On low, add the cup of ganache. Mix until completely incorporated.
Cut the almond cake lengthwise into three even strips. Use a ruler; don’t eyeball it.
Spread 1 cup of buttercream onto the first layer. Transfer to the refrigerator until the buttercream is set but not hard, about 15 minutes.
Carefully place a second layer of almond cake on top of the buttercream. Make sure the cake is level.
Spread 1 cup of ganache over the second layer, making sure that everything is level. Take your time with each layer to ensure evenness. Return to the refrigerator until just set, another 15 minutes.
Place the third layer of cake on top of the ganache and spread ¼ to ½ cup of buttercream in a very thin layer over the top. Keeping the almond paste on the parchment, carefully transfer the thin layer to the cake and invert it over the cake so that it completely covers the top layer, trimming any part that hangs over with scissors or a sharp knife.
Spread a thin layer of ganache over the almond paste and return to the refrigerator for at least an hour.
Using a ruler, mark guidelines in the ganache every 3 inches. With a hot, dry knife, carefully cut even slices. Transfer each slice to a platter or individual plate with a large offset spatula or a pie spatula for balance as you cut it.
Make sure the filling is very cool and firm and that your knife is damn hot and very dry. Otherwise, the slices will be messy. You don’t want messy slices. It’s hard to bring yourself to eat this cake when you get it right; it’s such a lovely little layered thing and it took a lot of patience to get it perfect. But it’s as tasty as it is beautiful. So admire it but please eat it.