Food Whore Read Free

cookbooks and study under—­”
    â€œHelen! Now I see. Of course the prodigy would want Helen’s internship. As I remember, Helen loved your writing and your recipe. Was she the food editor when you were . . . front page, was it?” He closed his eyes and waved his hands in the air, like the end-­of-­days soothsayer I had seen two blocks down on Sullivan Street. “In the picture, you were sitting in the dining hall with a bowl of cherries.”
    Bingo. His words glowed on me like a heat lamp and I basked in every second. He wasn’t exactly pleasant, but he spoke in the most persuasive way, with a tingling insistence. Still, I realized I was losing valuable time with Helen. I had one chance to talk to her before the placements were announced, and I couldn’t waste precious minutes with anyone but her.
    And yet, he kept talking and I kept listening.
    â€œWell!” he continued. “You must think that Helen made that happen, yes? Let me guess . . . You came straight from college. Yale, no less. Then came this article . . . all by the hand of Helen, our fearless editor at the time. You never gave yourself a chance to see the outside world.” He laughed, not with me, but at me.
    I found none of this funny. He sounded a bit like my parents. They loved food and it was their method of choice when showing their love, but graduate school struck them as impractical. Still, I had wanted to go for it.
    Plus, Michael Saltz was also making me seem like some obsequious little girl, following her childhood idol with no real-­world experience. Maybe I was, but I didn’t care. There are things in life that drill into your core. Helen was my idol. She had anointed me into the New York Times. She’d been the one to help set me on my path.
    â€œBut, cookies?” he replied when I didn’t respond. “You think anything in this town gets done because of cookies? No, you must do better than that.” He took the Tupperware out of my hands and opened the lid. But as soon as the top was off, Michael Saltz lost his grip and the cookies fell to the ground. A morning of sourcing the best ingredients, an afternoon of blistering four types of nuts, a night of making fifty cookies and keeping only the most perfect dozen. All gone. He had wiped out my best plan to secure Helen.
    â€œWhat did you do that for?” I screamed and scrambled to pick them up, but they had splayed themselves over the filthy ground.
    Immediately, I started thinking about a plan B. Could I dust these off? Make another batch and send them to her in time? Either way, the first step was getting away from Michael Saltz.
    â€œOh, I’m so sorry,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “That was terrible of me.”
    I had turned away, thinking I’d never say another word to this psychotic man ever again, when he spun me around.
    â€œBut tell me,” he started. “As I remember, those darling Dacquoise Drops are quite labor-­intensive. How many nuts did you use? Three? Four?”
    I shot him a glare. He’d destroyed my cookies and now he wanted to hear how I’d made them?
    â€œFour,” I said. “And I shelled every one of them.”
    â€œUnshelled cashews? How in the world did you manage that? They’re related to—­”
    â€œPoison ivy, I know. My boyfriend helped me roast out the oils,” I said. “And now we’ll have to do it again since you ruined this batch. But first I’m going to talk to Helen—­with no cookies, thanks to you.”
    I was ready to storm off when Michael Saltz ran in front of me, standing partially in the street while I stood on the sidewalk. A taxi pulled up so close I thought it might hit him.
    â€œAgain, I’m sorry. That was idiotic. But it’s become clear that besides being an exemplary cook and writer, you’ll take great pains to be with Helen. Am I correct?”
    I ached