The latest from Twitter: @chowgirls is planning a Valentine’s Day Dinner featuring loads of local farmers, @BlackDogStPaul is serving limited edition Lift Bridge Biscotti Ale tonight only, @SaffronMpls will reward the person who guesses how many pounds of lamb bacon are piled on their counter, and (though not from Twitter) Beez Kneez Bicycle Delivered Honey tragically lost a hive yesterday.
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
Six months later, it was summer in northern Minnesota. Outside, there was wind on the water, and warm sun beat down on the greenery that seemed to be everywhere, a thriving northern jungle.
“Six months a year,” said Robertson, quietly. “Six months a year, it’s goddamned beautiful around here.”
Robertson did a walk-through of the pantry and cooler. He had a few freshly ground spice blends, all made by a Palestinian guy in Minneapolis with a gift for balance and attention to detail. He had venison and six whole pheasants. Numerous rabbits. A heritage turkey. Local honey and maple syrup. Sixteen kinds of cheese, from blue to aged gouda to 15-year cheddar to Finnish juusto, most from Wisconsin, all from within 350 miles of his door. Raspberry ale. Complex hard cider made with Trappist beer yeast. Charcuterie he’d cured himself. Lemon mead he’d brewed himself. Bison braunschweiger. Hand-churned butter of European quality. Bread made with spent grain from a friend who brewed the kegs of Belgian dubbel that were tapped at the bar. Freshly caught sunfish. Corn, tomatoes, jams, jellies, and other house-made preserves, including pickled cucumbers that had grown in his own garden.
He checked his watch. Tonight, he was cooking for a guest, putting some of the debut menu through its paces. She was showing up early — he’d do some prep, they’d walk around the lake, and she’d watch him cook for her.
She knocked on the glass of the front door, peering into the restaurant to see if Robertson was there. She shaded her eyes with her right hand, spotted him, and waved.
He walked over to the door to let her in.
THE END
[First Part] << Previous Part
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Well, that’s it. I hope you can forgive the various lapses and errors I’ve committed in my haste to keep up with the weekly deadlines. I’m deeply grateful to the loyal few of you who took the time to read this work in progress, and I hope you’ve enjoyed aspects of it.
I hope I’ve been able to tell a story with at least a couple compelling characters and some distracting meditations on food and life. What I can promise you is this: I’ll take a serious pass at revising this, and hopefully find some sort of a real home for it — if not as a legitimate published novel, then at least as a nicely illustrated, ably edited self-published novel.
Two special thank-yous (although I’m sure I owe more): Emily Nystrom has copyedited this book in progress, and I’m extremely grateful for her vigilance. Every chapter of this story has been improved by her efforts.
And an extra special thank you to my wife, Becca Dilley. Becca’s been an invaluable sounding board, an inspiration in the kitchen, and a constant source of encouragement.
If you’ve enjoyed this book and have any thoughts on ways it could be revised and improved, please send me an email: I welcome all constructive criticism, enjoy (but don’t particularly profit from) praise, and will tolerate whatever else you’d like to toss my way.
Once more, thanks for your patience and support.
At your service,
James Norton
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
Wednesday shrugged.
“I didn’t talk to anyone outside the family about it. It was a fast-moving cancer. We didn’t even really get a chance to really say goodbye. It felt like, Oops, she’s sick. Oops, she’s in a coma. Oops, she’s dead. The whole process was about a month. Twenty-eight years we spent together, all of them in love. Really in love, good friends, partners, companions. I never cheated, there was no point — Sarrah was all I’d ever needed.”
Robertson said nothing. He didn’t know where Wednesday was going, and he wanted to stay out of the way.
“Here’s the thing about losing someone like that. You build a life together and after a while, it goes from being a pleasant little cottage with a view to a home, to a fortress, to a cathedral, with hundreds of alcoves, and shrines, and embellishments — you know every inch of this magnificent living edifice, you walk the halls daily. This beautiful invisible building, this is where you really live — in each other’s memories and in your plans for the future, and in the thousands of ways you understand and anticipate each other. All the shared secrets and little turns of phrase. Do you know?”
“Not really,” said Robertson. “I hope to.”
“Yeah, who knows, right? You might never get a chance. But yeah. A cathedral. One day it’s there, the next day it’s ruins. Foundation cracked to hell, walls collapsed, empty, filled with garbage and dust. What do you do? Try to clean it up? Sweep away everything you spent almost 30 years building? Pace through the rubble screaming? Try to walk away? No good answers, really. But in the same way you owned that beautiful living masterpiece of architecture, you own the wreckage, the toppled columns, the dust, all that debris.”
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
Paul Wednesday called Robertson not long after the truncated version of the interview appeared in the Journal. He asked Robertson to meet him. Robertson, who was toying with a plan to fly to Paris and legally change his name, had nothing better going on, and he agreed to the meeting.
Robertson met with Wednesday at the big oak table at Blood, amid the stone, bone, and timber. The restaurant was regularly closed on Monday nights, and Robertson was expecting an empty house, but the table had food on it: a couple dozen oysters sitting on ice, served in a pewter-rimmed bowl hewn from a skull with small antlers still attached. In the ice were two tall faded blue hand-blown shot glasses, each half full of a clear liquid.
“Dill aquavit,” said Wednesday, standing up from his massive wooden chair and enveloping Robertson’s hand in a crushing grip. And I think you’ll like the oysters. For legal reasons, I can’t tell you anything about them, other than that they’re local and unusual.”
Robertson sat to the right of Wednesday and grabbed an oyster shell, sucking down its contents. The oyster was small and tasted almost impossibly delicate, a bit sweet, a bit briny, and a bit smokey, but mostly clean and fresh. He chased it with some of the herbal liquor, which was smooth as glass.
“Good God,” Robertson said.
“Yeah,” said Wednesday, tipping an oyster into his mouth. “If we can get this stuff on the menu in quantity, it’ll justify whatever I want to charge, and as much marketing as makes sense. Still pondering that.”
“You must have a private farm,” said Robertson. “Good Lord, man, if you’re dipping into aquaculture, you do have some deep pockets…”
Wednesday gave Robertson a sly smile. “Let’s just say that at this point in my career, it’s not a challenge to find competent partners.” He ate another couple oysters in quick succession, setting a pace that would finish his dozen within a few minutes. “I think that’s the best part about being generally perceived as having your affairs in order — you can figure out who the serious people are and transact serious business with them.”
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
Within minutes, Robertson’s phone was ringing. He ignored it and went to sleep. The next morning, he woke up late, restless, unhappy, pacing the apartment in his boxer shorts, too irritated to bother with coffee or cereal. For lack anything better to do, he checked his messages.
Journalist. Journalist. Journalist. Journalist. Then: Arthur Cho, from The New Amsterdam Journal.
“Robert, this is Arthur Cho from the Journal. Look, I know you’re probably besieged with questions about last night and whatever’s going on with Lastri. If I were you, I’d hide out for a few days or catch a plane to somewhere else and disappear. But if you decide to talk, I’m happy to give you as much anonymity as you want, or go completely off the record. I just want to get my head around the situation. Give me a call if you feel like it, otherwise take care.”
Certain that the other five messages were also from journalists — or possibly confused entreaties or demands from what was left of Lastri’s foundering empire — he hit the callback button on Cho’s message.
“This is Arthur Cho,” said the voice.
“Arthur, Robert Robertson here. Got your message. I’d like to talk.”
“Really? I mean, I wouldn’t expect you to…”
“No, I’m OK with talking, on the record and everything. Should we grab a coffee or something?”
They made arrangements. Here is what the article looked like when it appeared on the Web six hours later.
Q&A: Chef Robert Robertson and the Lastri Debacle
Early last night, Chef Robert Robertson working on a one-off basis to produce a high-end, Nero Wolfe-themed dinner for restaurant magnate Lastri, the woman behind Archipelago and a generous handful of other well-regarded New Amsterdam institutions.
Late last night, Robertson in a cab, headed home without finishing his dinner service. The police had shut down the restaurant; Lastri was unexpectedly abroad (a virtual fugitive by some accounts); and he’d put a pie in the face of the guest of honor. The dinner was a $5000 shambles.
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
Robertson was halfway through plating the pheasant when the police showed up. “Hey, boss,” said the red-headed and earnest busboy that Robertson had deemed more or less reliable. “The police are here.”
“You mean ‘Lastri,’ right?” Robertson asked through clenched teeth. Lastri’s non-appearance had thrown Robertson into the awkward role of MCing someone else’s extremely expensive and painstakingly planned-out dinner. Kenji Ota, her fat, round, sarcastic Japanese Nero Wolfe-loving friend, had apparently passed through his Nero Wolfe phase; now it was all Battlestar Galactica, all the time. Ota found Robertson’s lovingly crafted saucisse minuit mildly amusing, but he was spending most of his time exalting a molecular gastronomy three-ring circus he’d ingested at a restaurant in Chicago. Ota left half his sausage on the plate, even as others at the table demanded seconds.
As a point of information: The ingredients of saucisse minuit include: onions, garlic, goose fat, brandy, red wine, beef broth, thyme, rosemary, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, bread crumbs, bacon, pork, goose, pheasant, salt, black pepper, pistachio nuts, and pigs’ intestines. No proportions were given in the recipe — “Mr. Berin told Wolfe that they should vary with the climate, the season, the temperaments involved, the dishes to be eaten before and after, and the wine to be served.”
Robertson had put a fair bit of work into figuring out the proportions. He stared at the uneaten half sausage with a baleful eye as it was toted back into the kitchen. “Whose was that?” he asked the busboy. “Ota’s,” the guy replied. “And, like I said, cops.”
Robertson, with great difficulty, resisted bringing a pheasant out of the kitchen and braining Ota in front of his nine or so friends.
The little bits and pieces of the ongoing disaster were starting to knit themselves together in Robertson’s head.
Lastri had left him a rambling and somewhat emotional message on his phone the night before, but he’d only listened to the first half of it, losing interest and reading a travel magazine article about the best way to serve and enjoy kangaroo meat. He suddenly pined for his phone, which was currently lost somewhere. As if on cue, one of the pheasants, finally on the way out to the dining room, rang.
Each Friday, the Heavy Table presents a new installment of Knife Skills, a culinary novel presented piece by piece as it’s written. If you’re uncomfortable with salty language, please be aware that characters regularly use words and phrases unacceptable in polite conversation. In the author’s imagination, some members of the food service industry have a tendency to swear. For previous and subsequent installments, visit the Heavy Table’s Fiction directory.
When Robertson walked into the cocktail lounge, he was loaded for bear. In the week leading up to the week before the dinner, he’d been trying — with no success — to get a $2,500 cost overrun added to his budget. The item in question — 12 first-rate wild pheasants overnighted from the Dakotas and Montana so they could be properly aged out in a rented kitchen — wasn’t simply a luxury; it was key to the meal.
The pheasants were to be hung for 3 days, washed, cleaned, trussed, put into pots, covered with dry Hungarian Tokay (the other major player in the cost overrun in question), and then marinaded for 20 hours in a refrigerated room. Eventually they would be served on a bed of Minnesota wild rice and garnished with a ring of brandied kumquats. They were serious business. It wasn’t Robertson’s fault that they were neither cheap nor particularly easy to prepare — he blamed Nero Wolfe.
Ben Bratt, Lastri’s right-hand man, had dodged him. He’d failed to make Lastri’s new number available. He’d failed to return emails. Finally, at the 11th hour, he’d proposed a drink at a hotel lounge known for its martinis. When Robertson arrived, Ben was halfway through one — or three-quarters of the way through two. He had a feeling that it would be impossible to tell. Ben, dressed in a dark suit with a plaid pocket square, looked as composed as always, bookish with sharply creased edges, aggressively neutral, and confrontationally put together.
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