Dying for a Taste (18 page)

I never turn down freshly caught fish, so I gladly followed him to his truck, where he took out a cooler and showed me his day’s catch.

“You want me to scale and clean ’em for you?”

Having grown up in a fishing family, I of course would have been able to prep the sanddabs myself, but it’s a messy business, so I was happy to let Tony do it for me. He pulled a thin-bladed boning knife from a kit stowed behind his seat and deftly slit open the belly of one of the fish and removed its guts. Next, he used the flat of the knife and went backward, against the grain, to remove the scales. He made it look easy, but I noticed that the scales were flying all over the place, onto his clothes and into the gutter. “When I’m at home,” he
said, noticing my look, “I always scale fish under water in a dish pan—it’s a lot less messy.”

As he worked on the second sanddab, Tony told me how he prepares them. “I like to panfry ’em whole in some butter, with some garlic and maybe a little lemon and parsley. You don’t want to overwhelm their flavor, which is pretty mild.” He dropped the two fish into a plastic bag and handed it to me. “You want some ice?”

“That’s okay. I’m on my way to work; we’ve got plenty there.”

I followed Tony’s advice about panfrying the sanddabs, and as I savored the delicate fish that night, accompanied by boiled red potatoes and a simple green salad with a Dijon vinaigrette, I pondered what I’d learned from him.

Not much, actually, when I really thought about it. In my mind, I’d built up this whole soap opera backstory about Tony and his reaction to finding out about Kate. So hearing his anything-but-dramatic account of it all was kind of a let-down.

Assuming he was telling the truth, of course.

“There’s one; there’s a space!” I gestured frantically toward a car pulling away from the curb on the left side of the street.

“It’s green,” Eric replied.

“But it’s Sunday. It doesn’t matter if it’s green or not.”

Ignoring what I considered to be an astute observation, he drove on by the space, turning right once more onto Shattuck. I gazed glumly at the restaurant as we passed it for the third time, noting a group of people heading through the door with paper sacks in their arms.

“We’re going to be late,” I whined.

“No, we’re not.” Eric glanced over his shoulder, did a quick U-turn, and deftly pulled into a spot right across the street from La Récolte. “See?” With a smug smile, he switched off the engine and opened his door.

“I hate it when you do that.”

Eric retrieved our brown paper bag from the back seat. “What did you decide on?” I asked. The website for the event had directed folks to bring Bordeaux-style wines, or Cabernets or Merlots, in order to match the menu. I’d deferred to
Eric for the decision, knowing he had a cellar full of fabulous wines, despite his government-lackey salary.

“Two of the same thing,” he said, pulling one of the bottles out and holding it up for my inspection: a 2007 Storrs BXR.

“Sounds like the name of a dirt bike,” I observed.

He gave a condescending shake of the head. “It’s a Bordeaux-style blend, my dear. And, might I add, it’s going to kick the asses of the Napa Meritages these Bay Area wine snobs will no doubt bring. I thought I’d show them just how good our Santa Cruz wineries can be.”

We started across the street. “Now remember,” I said in a hushed voice, “don’t let on, when we see Kate, that I expected her to be there.”

“Don’t worry, I got it.” Eric grabbed my arm as a car sped around the corner right at our feet. “We’ve been over it all ad nauseum. I’m not going to blow it.”

The plan, which, I admit, we
had
spent a fair amount of time discussing in the car, was that I was going to pretend I’d found the tickets to the dinner among Letta’s papers and had thought it would be a shame to let them go to waste. I’d act surprised to see Kate, gambling that she hadn’t noticed her e-mail blunder and told Ted about it. That way, I could chat him up without him suspecting I knew about his secret identity.

And if Kate had noticed that she blew it with her e-mail message and if she figured out why I was really there? Well, then I’d just have to play it by ear. But I was really hoping that wasn’t the case, because I totally suck at improv.

We walked in the door and were greeted by a woman seated at a card table. I gave her my name and, after locating
me on the list, she handed us blank name-tag stickers to fill out. I scrawled “Sally Solari” as legibly as I could and handed the pen to Eric.

“You sure you want to use your full name?” he asked. “That Ted character will know who you are right away.”

“That’s the idea. As long as
he
doesn’t know that
I
know who he is, I’m thinking he might think he’s being really smart and try to get information out of me. Which could in turn give
me
information.”

“Clever. I guess.”

We turned to survey the room.

La Récolte—which I learned from Eric means “harvest” in French—had that stereotypical bistro feel. You know, with the black-and-white checkered floor, tables draped with white tablecloths and set with heavy flatware, lots of red plush and brass fixtures, old posters for Suze and Pernod, and a curved, zinc bar. It was almost too cutesy, but not quite.

Two long tables had been set up that ran the length of the dining room. It looked like they were expecting about forty people for the dinner. Along the far wall was another long table where folks were placing their bottles of wine and pouring themselves glasses. A waiter in a black vest and white apron was busy opening the bottles as they were set down. Spotting several platters of appetizers at either end of the table, I went over to investigate. Eric followed and set his wines next to the others.

“I was right. Just look at all these Napa wines: BV Reserve Tapestry, St. Supéry Élu, Ramey . . . Oh wow.” He picked up a bottle to examine it more closely. “A 2011 Chimney Rock
Elevage, Stags Leap District. I’ve been wanting to check this out,” he said and grabbed a glass to pour himself a taste.

I was more interested in the food. Wanting to save myself for what I was hoping would be a scrumptious dinner, I hadn’t eaten any lunch, and my stomach had been complaining all the way up to Berkeley. There was a terrine of some kind of
pâté en croûte
and a basket of toasted bread rounds to go with it. Next to that sat a platter heaped with roasted vegetables: white and green asparagus, porcini mushrooms, spring onions, red and golden beets, fennel, and carrots in several flaming hues.

And finally, there was an enormous woodblock covered with different cheeses. Each one had a little sign stuck in it with a toothpick. I bent to examine them: Red Hawk and Humboldt Fog from Cowgirl Creamery, a blue from the Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company, San Andreas from Bellwether Farms, and Hollyhock from Garden Variety Cheese—all from Northern California, the signs noted. I cut a wedge from the Humboldt Fog and laid it on a piece of bread. It was a creamy white with a bright-white rind and was bisected by a layer of ash.

“Oh, yum!” I said to no one in particular.

“Have you tried the Hollyhock? It’s from down in your neck of the woods.” I turned, and there was Kate standing next to me, a glass of wine in her hand.

“Kate!” I was so startled to see her there that I didn’t have to feign any surprise. “Wha . . . what are you doing here?”

“I helped organize this event. It’s a joint effort between the Berkeley and Marin chapters. The better question is, what are
you
doing here?”

I saw Eric eying us. He had finished his taste of the Chimney Rock and was moving on to the St. Supéry.

Time for my story: “I found the tickets to the dinner in Letta’s papers the other day and thought it would be a shame to waste them, so—”

“Tickets? There weren’t any tickets to this dinner, at least not that I know of.”

Oh boy
. “Not tickets. I didn’t mean tickets. I meant the, you know, the receipt thing you get when you register online and print it out . . .”

“Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t mean to jump on you. It’s just that we’d talked about the idea of doing paper tickets, and I was sure that it had been nixed—to save the postage and paper. So I got confused when you said that, is all.” Kate smiled at someone across the room and waved. “I didn’t know Letta had been planning on coming to this. She hadn’t told me. You said tickets, plural?”

Think fast, Sal. You know she’s wondering if Tony was going to be her date
. “Uh . . . I think she may have been planning on taking me, actually. She did mention something last month about a Slow Food dinner.” I was amazed at how quickly the lies were springing from my tongue.

“Well, I guess it’s good that you came tonight then,” Kate said and finished off her wine.

I exhaled. It didn’t seem like she was on to my game, and she sure wasn’t acting like she was aware of her e-mail screw-up. But then again, I suppose you wouldn’t know you’d sent a message to the wrong person unless you happened to check your sent e-mails folder, or the person it was intended for was expecting it and said something about it not arriving.

“Yeah, it seemed appropriate that I come.” I reached over the
pâté
for a wine glass.

“You here alone?” Kate asked.

“Try the St. Supéry—it’s fantastic,” a male voice cut in. Eric had come up next to us at this last question as if on cue.

“No, to answer your question. This is my . . . friend, Eric.”

He bent his head in salutation. “How do you do. Would you care to try a bit of the St. Supéry . . . uh . . . ?” Eric squinted at her name tag, pretending to read it.

“Kate,” I said. “Sorry. This is Kate. Now where are my manners?”
Sheez
. Just because
I
knew Eric knew her name didn’t mean
she
knew he did. Thank goodness he, at least, was doing his job.

At her nod of assent, Eric poured a taste of the wine into Kate’s glass. I held out my glass, and he did the same for me.

“So how do you two ladies know each other?”

I would have kicked him had it been possible to do so without being observed. Kate saved me, however, from having to decide how to phrase an answer.

“I sell produce to Gauguin.” Simple and truthful—what a concept.

“Ah. And is any of this beautiful produce yours?” Eric plucked a tiny purple carrot from the platter and bit off its end.

“As a matter of fact, it is. As will be the vegetables served with dinner.”

He made a show of smacking his lips and swallowing with relish. “Delectable,” he pronounced with a boyish smile.

I stifled a snort. Eric could be such a flirt. But I didn’t think his charms would have much of an effect on Kate. He
poured himself another half glass of the St. Supéry, killing the bottle. “Good thing we got here early,” he said. Setting the bottle on the table, he turned back toward us, facing the now rather full room. “Hey, I think I know that gal over there. Will you excuse me a moment?” He strode across the room and struck up a conversation with a woman with short, red hair and a dress to match.

We’d agreed in advance that he’d make sure to leave me alone with Kate so I could ask her in private about the photo. But his chatting up hot, young babes—I knew he didn’t really know her—had not been on the official agenda.

Whatever. I turned back to Kate.

“So since I’ve got you here, I wanted to ask . . .” I burrowed in my bag and came up with my wallet. I removed the picture of Tony and handed it to Kate. “Is this, by any chance, the guy who drove up to your farm that day?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so. The man in the Camaro, or whatever it was, was heavier set as I remember, with a broader face. And his eyes were different: more bug-eyed than this guy’s.” She studied the photo again and then looked at me. “So who is he, anyway?”

When I didn’t answer immediately, she shook her head in disgust. “It’s Tony, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Kate handed the photo back. “I knew it. Yuck. Now forevermore, I’m going to have this picture in my mind of him—of
them
, together . . .”

It had been a good impulse to crop Letta out of the picture. “Sorry,” I said. “I just had to make sure it wasn’t him who came to the farm that day.”

“Understood.”

“So what else can you tell me about what he looked like?”

“As I said before,” she answered with a hint of peevishness, “he had dark hair, was stocky, fiftyish, maybe older. I think he was wearing a T-shirt, but he didn’t get out of the car, so I’m not really sure exactly what he was wearing. Oh, and that blue Giants tattoo on his left forearm—I saw that because he had his elbow out the window.”

“
Blue
? Are you sure? ’Cause the Giants colors are orange and black.”

“I’m pretty sure it was blue. A bright blue. But I’m not into sports at all, so I never really thought about it, whether the color was right or anything.” Kate glanced over toward the door, and I saw her catch someone’s eye. “Look, I gotta go relieve Patty at the door,” she said. “But I’m glad you could make it. Are you a Slow Food member? If not, you should think about joining, especially now that you’re the owner of a restaurant.”

“Yeah, it seems like a great organization. I’ll have to check it out.”

I watched her make her way toward the front door, saying “hi” to various people along the way. It seemed like she knew just about everyone in the room. Looking around for Eric, I finally spotted him at the other end of the appetizer table. He was still talking to the redhead, pouring her a glass of wine and laughing at something she was saying. I grabbed a plate; loaded it with cheese, roast veggies, and bread rounds; and walked over to join them.

“Hey, Sal. There you are. This is Rebecca. She makes
charcuterie
.”

We shook hands. “Like prosciutto?” I asked.

“Some. And other kinds of dry-cured ham, too. I also do several
pâtés
. That one over there is mine: it’s a pork and chicken liver terrine with brandied prunes and juniper berries.”

I glanced in embarrassment at my plate, which was noticeably lacking in
pâté
. I’ve never been a big fan of liver. “Sounds delicious,” I lied. “I’ll have to try some.”

“But mostly I’ve been into sausages lately. I was just telling Eric about a new kind I tried making yesterday: turkey, chanterelle mushrooms, and dried apricots.”

“Yum,” I said, this time with conviction, and bit into a piece of bread slathered with creamy Red Hawk cheese.

“Yeah, they came out pretty good, but they were a little too dry. I was thinking the apricots would add more moisture than they did. I’ll have to add a lot more fat if I’m going to start selling them. Did you know that most commercial sausage is between thirty and fifty percent fat?”

“I guess that explains why I like it so much,” I said, taking another bite of the triple-cream cheese.

A woman started clinking a wine glass with a fork. As we turned toward the sound, Eric nudged me with his elbow and nodded toward a man standing to our right. On his name tag was printed, in large block letters, “TED.”

“Dinner’s about to be served,” the glass-clinker announced after the room had quieted down, “so why doesn’t everyone start getting seated.”

Eric and I watched to see where Ted would sit. He chose a spot next to a woman he appeared to know and set a wine bottle down in front of his seat.

“What if it’s the wrong Ted?” I whispered to Eric.

“What’s to lose?” he answered. “It’s not like there’s another Ted we’ve seen here so far.”

“Right.” We followed Ted to the table; I took the seat to his left, and Eric the one across from me.