The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [158]
“Thank you,” I said to Michael.
Michael had driven his car into Manhattan, so he offered to give me a ride home. On the way to the bridge, we passed a small side street and Michael suddenly hit the steering wheel.
“I forgot to ask Wylie Dufresne about the vacuum chamber,” he said.
“The what?”
“Hold on; do you mind if we make a little detour?” he asked. I shrugged and said it was fine. A few minutes later we stepped gingerly into the quiet, well-groomed lobby of the restaurant wd-50. It was late in the dinner service, and only a couple of tables that could be seen from the front of the room were filled. A host looked up at us expectantly.
“Good evening, sir,” Michael said to the host, and began to explain that he was a friend of Alex Talbot’s from “Ideas in Food,” who was a good friend of Wylie Dufresne’s, the owner of wd-50 and a renowned experimental chef. Alex had referred him to Wylie to ask about a particular brand of vacuum-compress chambers. The host apologized that Wylie was not present at the moment but took down Michael’s information to pass on the message.
On the car ride back, Michael told me about how Alex had purchased a less-than-great vacuum chamber, a large and extremely expensive device used by high-tech-minded chefs to essentially suck the air out of foods. Always lamenting his poor investment, he had urged Michael to speak with Wylie first about whatever kind of vacuum he owned.
“How much are these things again?” I asked Michael.
“It’s ridiculous. Like four thousand dollars. Totally nuts. But I need to have one,” he said. I knew he did, too. That was the way Michael progressed with his cooking—by constantly expanding. It was also where we fell on different sides of the track: I wanted to make cooking at home more approachable and thus simpler, and he wanted to make it as extravagant as could be. I still appreciated and was fascinated by his approach.
The next morning, I woke early to meet Saha at Doughnut Plant. It was still raining since the night before, and I put on my rain boots and took the train into Chinatown. I was running about five minutes late when I got out of the subway, so I gave him a call.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m here now, sitting with the guy at the counter, who gave me a chai,” he said. When I got to the bakery five minutes later, Saha was indeed sitting by the register, talking to the only other person in the store, with a cup of chai between his palms. They greeted me and went back to chatting as if they were old pals.
“So this is your friend?” The counter person asked, a few exchanges and chuckles with Saha later. His name was Luis. We nodded. “Would you guys like a doughnut now?” We nodded again. I put my umbrella down and took in the cozy atmosphere. One wall was lined with colorful doughnut-shaped tiles, and a few framed magazine features about Doughnut Plant were hung on it. Behind a large glass window, the interior of the kitchen and a couple of pastry chefs could be seen. Beside the register was a tall metal rack of fresh doughnuts on trays. The specials were written on the wall above Luis. I chose one of the special doughnuts of the day, a blackberry jam-filled, vanilla bean, glazed square doughnut. Saha ordered a coconut cream-filled glazed doughnut, also square. Luis handed them over with a sheet of waxed paper. I settled onto the bench next to Saha.
“Wow,” he said, tearing into the coconut one.
“Let me try,” I said. The cream spurted out as I took a bite. These doughnuts each had a hole in the middle, but the filling was stuffed all around the square of pastry. As we were eating, Mark Isreal came out from the kitchen and sat on a stool across the room. He opened up a newspaper.
“Hey, Mark, I want you to meet my new friends,” Luis said.
“Hey, guys,” Mark said as we waved hello back.
“Saha is a Web designer,” Luis said, shooting a look back to Saha. “Right?”
“Yes,” he said, mouth full of doughnut glaze crumbles.
“Really? I need to hire someone to help out