Red Beans and Vice (12 page)

“And what could that be?” Heaven said innocently.

“Have you received any threatening mail, any poison-pen letters, hate mail, extortion?”

To say Heaven was surprised by this turn would be understating it a great deal. “What are you talking about?”

“When someone writes to you and says defamatory things or asks for money not to reveal certain things. Usually unsigned,” Amelia answered patiently, as if Heaven were too dense to understand the definition of her words.

“Why?”

“Usually because the person is mentally unstable or
has criminal intent,” she said, continuing her answers in the same smart-ass vein.

Heaven wanted to slap her. She lulled me into thinking this was a peace visit, then she hits me with this, Heaven thought. “Amelia, now why would you ask me such a question?”

“Why won’t you answer me without all these questions back?”

“Because I don’t understand what… Has this got something to do with the vandalism against the convent?”

“Then I take it I should report that Heaven Lee refused to comment?”

“Fine with me. You’re going to have to give me a reason for this line of questioning before I say a thing,” Heaven said, and turned and went back to the kitchen.

T
he women chefs and their sous-chefs were sitting in the courtyard at Bayona. They had run through the schedule for the dinner and each chef had talked about their course, how it should be plated and how many people it would take to get that done. Heaven had remained quiet throughout the briefing, except when she presented her course. Now that they were nearing the end of their business she made up her mind and stood up. “Now that we know how organized we are, can I ask you all a very personal question?”

Someone made a crack about sex, and everyone laughed.

“I received a terrible letter at my restaurant. It was unsigned and it said some very bad things about the restaurant and my employees. Not only did I get a copy but the newspaper in Kansas City received the same letter
and so did the health department. I’ve been very upset and I’ve been trying to figure out who in Kansas City might have it in for me. That wasn’t exactly a small list.” She paused for the laugh and got it. “Now I’ve come to wonder if it might have something to do with the vandalism at the convent. And I wondered if any of you had received any hate mail. And I would ask that, either way, you not repeat what I’ve told you tonight. The reputation of a restaurant is very fragile, as you all know.”

It didn’t take long for a response. “Good work, Heaven. I would have never figured out that that piece of trash had anything to do with this,” Lidia said. “I got one two weeks ago and so did the New York City health department. I can’t tell you what it said, it was so disgusting.”

“I’m so relieved. I thought someone was going to blow my cafe up because my letter said Bacchanalia should be a parking lot,” Annie Quantero from Atlanta said.

“Since I don’t have a restaurant, I got one saying Hitler was right and why didn’t I have recipes for cooking Jews,” Rozanne Gold said.

There was shocked silence for a moment. Then, one by one, the whole group confessed to some kind of an unsigned written assault on their businesses and sometimes on them personally.

Heaven felt like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. From the looks on the faces of the other women chefs, everyone had harbored the same fears, that unfounded accusations would be the death of the businesses into which they put their hearts and souls.

“This doesn’t mean that there isn’t still some nut who wrote all the letters,” Heaven pointed out.

“Yes, but probably it’s the nut who is trying to sabotage the Sisters of the Holy Trinity and wanted to cast the chefs in the worst possible light, hoping it might make the news somewhere,” Susan Spicer said. “What do you say we hire a guard to be at the food tent at all times and each of us chip in to pay for it?”

That idea was met with enthusiastic response and they sealed the deal with a few bottles of Dom Perignon.

H
eaven looked around the table. They were at Upper-line, a wonderful uptown restaurant near Truely and Mary’s. The four of them, Mary, Truely, Will and Heaven, had formed an easy alliance. Their evenings were comfortable, as if they’d been dining together for years. All four were quick-witted, slightly sarcastic, and good storytellers. Heaven thought of Hank. It would be a totally different dynamic with him at the table, much sweeter.

Sometimes it was fun to hang out with people your own age.

“So not only did you get chased all over New Orleans last night, you admit that you’ve been getting hate mail and so have all the other chefs, and you call this a good day?” Truely shook his head and poured more wine, a bottle of Flora Springs Cabernet Sauvignon.

“It came as a great relief to all of us that this was a group problem, not someone singling us out. I was worried sick,” Heaven said.

“And you hadn’t told us a thing about it,” Mary said, scolding her.

“The fewer people that know about something like that, the better. I would never have taken the chance to tell my tale to the other chefs if Amelia hadn’t come
over and questioned me about it. That bitch,” Heaven added with a chuckle.

“Who do you suppose told Amelia?” Will asked.

“Maybe Amelia knew about it because she did it,” Mary offered.

Heaven shook her head. “I don’t think so, but I don’t have any reason except a weird fondness I’ve acquired for Amelia. I think the person who did all this, the vandalism, the cross, the letters, sent copies to Amelia at the television station. But I couldn’t ask her that today because I wasn’t admitting that I received a letter.”

“What will happen tomorrow night, will the fish give us all a tummy ache?” Will said, still not taking the threats to the nuns very seriously.

“The chefs decided to all chip in and pay for a guard for the food tent,” Heaven reported.

“Good plan,” Truely said. “I wouldn’t want anyone to mess with the coffee. It’s a single estate bean from Kenya that kicks ass.”

“Thanks for donating expensive coffee, Truely,” Heaven said.

“Mary would kill me if I didn’t.” He gave his wife a pat on her hand. “And it can’t compare to what you’ve given, in time and money.”

“Let’s get back to last night. I can’t believe you didn’t call the police. Will was wrong,” Mary said, looking severely across the table at both Heaven and Will.

“I can’t believe I didn’t either. So this morning I called up the French Quarter station and they sent someone over to Peristyle to take my statement. I don’t know if they believed me. It was pretty farfetched, what with the casino and two streetcars and the Moonwalk and the Camellia Grill. But at least now if I’m strangled
again, I’ll be on record,” Heaven said, watching Will for a reaction.

She thought he shifted uncomfortably and his eyes darted around the table, meeting Truely’s for just a breath too long. It only lasted two seconds. What were those two trying to tell each other? Maybe Heaven was just reading things into Will’s reactions tonight because they had that on-the-lips kiss the night before. It was probably nothing more than two friends trying to react the same way to some woman and her ravings.

“Heaven has survived another harrowing day in the life of Super Chef. I think this calls for champagne,” Will said, with a trademark wink and a smile. He waved a hand to the waiter across the room.

“I
hope we’re lucky,” Heaven said to no one in particular as she dealt empty plates out on the long serving tables they were using to organize the dinner.

The cocktail hour was over and guests were looking for their table assignments. The weather was perfect and so was the setting; a slight breeze blowing the ribbons the decoration committee had tied on the tent stakes, the smell of roses wafting from the garden walls, fat white candles nestled safely in glass hurricane lamps that reflected the twinkling candlelight. Cocktails had been in the formal garden on the street side, what Heaven now knew was the back of the convent. The entire inner courtyard, facing the river, had been tented. Now people were making their way through the entryway, from the back to the front of the convent, to dinner. A brass band was leading the way.

The women chefs had decided not to list the chef
responsible for each course on the menu, as most celebrity chef dinners did. They preferred to show solidarity and just list their names at the top of the menu, trusting that their fellow cooks would not sully anyone else’s reputation with something less than spectacular. So far all the starters had been devoured with gusto, although Heaven was sure the onion soup beignets were the biggest hit of all.

The first course was already on the table, a cold English green pea soup with a shrimp-filled fried won-ton on the side. Heaven had learned long ago in her catering days that if a cold soup could be on the table, in place when the guests sat down, it really helped get the dinner rolling. You needed every bit of help when you were serving a coursed dinner in the middle of nowhere, kitchenwise.

Earlier, Heaven had poked around the convent grounds to check out the rest of their set-up. It was an organized production. The dish-washing tent was set up right next to one of the maintenance sheds with running water. There were hoses running to big metal tubs on stands, like people used to use to wash clothes. Next to each tub were two big trash containers for busing food off the plates and bowls. On the other side of the tubs were long tables with the empty boxes from the rental company. The dishes were scraped, rinsed in the tubs and then repacked in the boxes. The rental company would rewash and sterilize them at their plant.

Now, it was time to plate the fish course, an octopus salad that was one of Lidia’s dishes, plus a mini fritto misto, that Italian combination of fried seafood that was so popular in Venice. To do that, the cooks had several of the outdoor propane tanks and stock pots that were so popular in New Orleans to fry whole turkeys or boil
crayfish. In this case they had been converted into deep fat fryers. There was delicious grouper, soft-shell crab and zucchini blossoms, all in a delicate batter that reminded Heaven of an Asian tempura batter.

The chefs had made diagrams of the way each plate should look on butcher paper and taped these diagrams up on the inside of the tent siding. This plate had a small mound of the octopus salad on one side, a piece of grouper and a half a soft-shelled crab on the other, with two squash blossoms in the middle, their blooms facing opposite directions. The last touch was a light dressing for the fritto misto, olive oil and aged basalmic vinegar with some anchovy blended in.

That was Heaven’s job, along with three other volunteers—drizzling the dressing after other chefs and volunteers had placed the other salad elements.

As one group of servers picked up the soup bowls, the second group started serving the fish.

Since it was spring, the meat course was lamb. The chefs had long grills set up and some of the volunteers had taken the tedious job of grilling twelve hundred baby lamb chops. They were just keeping them on the grill a minute, then turning them over for another minute, as they had to be put in the electric warmers after they were grilled and would keep cooking. There was no way to have rare lamb at an event like this, but they were hoping for a little pink left in the center. These were being served around a baby-artichoke-and-potato gallette that had been baked at Bayona and brought over in warming boxes. There was also another side dish on the plate that Heaven intended to copy, a crawfish spoonbread. A little mound of it was decorated with a crawfish and placed at the twelve o’clock position on the plate. The guest sits at the six o’clock position.

The talk in the food tent was minimal. Everyone had their assignments for every dish ahead of time. On this course, Heaven was placing the three chops around the potato-and-artichoke galette. She walked slowly down the aisles of tables with plates, going behind the two people doing the potatoes.

Although it wasn’t the hardest physical labor in the world, plating for a big party was intense work. You were a part of a team fighting the clock. It was hard enough getting out food reasonably hot and still edible for a large party in a hotel situation, as anyone who has eaten at a banquet knows. Doing it in an outdoor setting with no kitchen required lots of organization. Heaven was glad she had so much catering experience to fall back on.

When the lamb went out, the kitchen started drinking. It wasn’t that the next courses weren’t as important. To the diner, the cheese and salad, and the desserts, were just as important in how the whole dinner worked together. But the crew was glad they had the hot stuff out of the way and that nothing bad had happened in relation to the many incidents that had occurred before the dinner. So, the Veuve Cliquot was broken out and everyone raised their glasses. So far, so good, someone quipped as a toast and then they quickly went back to work.

The salad course was simple. A local grower had supplied baby Lalla Rosa lettuce. Some blueberries and toasted pecans were tossed on top and a light dressing with blueberry vinegar and hazelnut oil was lightly drizzled on the lettuce. But because New Orleanians weren’t afraid to eat, after the salad was served, platters of French and American cheeses would be passed, along with dense walnut bread and crackers. The cheese trays had been arranged by the cheese wholesaler, who came
to the dinner to fuss over his prize triple creams. He didn’t want anyone to mishandle his goods as he had been carefully aging cheese for the evening. Heaven’s assignment was to slice the walnut bread with a volunteer. She waited until the salads were ready to go out, then they sliced furiously so the bread would be fresh when it was presented. Heaven hated being offered bread that had become even a bit dry to the touch.

She left the volunteer to put the bread in baskets. The next course was her Nola Pie.

Heaven went to the first empty table, where someone was already putting down empty luncheon-sized plates. She had asked for a slightly larger plate because cutting into a tart on a dessert-size plate could result in food flying onto the table. A clean bus tub was piled with the cookie crusts, still in their pie shells. Heaven and Pauline had added some pecans to the shortbread dough. Heaven showed a volunteer where to place the pastry shell, at the top of the plate. “Be careful taking these out of the aluminum. They’re fragile and we only have twenty-five extras. Five broke in the shipping,” she explained.