Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [118]
Although I’m hurt and disappointed that Richard apparently doesn’t trust me enough to share whatever crisis has brought him to this, what hurts almost as much is the thought of intruding so completely and with such finality on his carefully guarded dignity. He is, after all, still holding down a job and maintaining his relationships, at least after a fashion. He pockets the tape measure and makes a few notes on the inside of a yellow manila folder, which is neatly labeled “Mira’s Loft.” He’s taking my request for some decorating guidance very seriously. And his advice, despite whatever personal turmoil he is experiencing, is practical and direct.
“My recommendation is that you take only your Heywood-Wakefield dining table and chairs. And the framed artwork. Leave the rest of your stuff for that Hope person.” He wrinkles his nose in a paroxysm of disgust, though I’m not sure whether it is at the vision of Hope or of my assorted odds and ends of furniture.
I nod, deliberately avoiding his eye. “Thanks. I’ll arrange to have them shipped.”
Richard looks at me for a moment, as if he’s considering saying something, but instead, takes out his phone and checks his voice mail for the second time in the twenty minutes we’ve been here.
He listens to his messages, smiles, and clicks his phone shut.
“You wouldn’t happen to be free for dinner Thursday night?”
Richard ought to know that I’ve been free for dinner for, oh, roughly the last six months. “Sure,” I tell him.
“Good. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
“I liked the one with too much ginger. Isn’t there any of that left?” my father calls from the refrigerator.
“No, Chloe is eating it for breakfast. But there’s plenty of the ‘not enough orange zest,’ ” I tell him. My father pulls out several carefully marked containers of soup from the refrigerator and dons his reading glasses. “Peanut? Is this right? I don’t think I even tried this one.”
My first assignment, which Enid e-mailed me three days ago, is a column entitled “Soup Suppers.” I’d selected two Grappa standbys, a roasted pappa al pomodoro and a lentil and sausage with red wine. But the third, a vegetarian carrot soup, had given me some trouble. I’d easily tried a dozen variations in the last couple of days, most of which are stacked, uneaten, in Tupperware containers in the fridge.
The clear winner had been the cumin-scented carrot with coconut milk and cilantro, the recipe for which I’d e-mailed to Enid, along with the rest of the column, early yesterday morning. She nixed my discussion of how to prepare soup stocks from scratch, but allowed me to keep in the recipe for baguettes, a simple one, involving only flour, yeast, and water and no specialty gadgets. “You’ve got to pick your battles, Mira,” she told me. “You can’t expect people to make their own chicken and vegetable stocks and their own bread.”
The column will run tomorrow. In the end, I was pleased with my efforts, but now that it’s out of my hands I’m nervous about seeing it in print. Not that I have a byline or anything, just a small mention at the end of the column: “Recipes courtesy of Chef Mirabella Rinaldi, formerly executive chef and owner of Grappa, New York,” which I’m sure most people won’t even read.
“Dad, take the rest in for lunch, otherwise I’m going to throw them away. Forget the peanut, though. It was terrible. I don’t even know why I saved it.”
“No, I think I’ll pass,” my father says, frowning at his palms. “Do they look orange to you?” he asks, holding out his hands to me. They do.
“Too much beta-carotene. Hey, don’t worry, you’ll live longer and see better,” I tell him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.
While Chloe is finishing her sliced bananas, I clean out the refrigerator, tossing entire disposable Tupperware containers unopened into the trash. I need the space so that I can begin working on my next assignment, which Enid gave me moments after I e-mailed her the final version of my piece. This time, the assignment is a column on kid-friendly food, entitled “Cooking With and For Kids.”