Read Online The Perfect Meal by John Baxter - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Baxter
Ads: Link
waitress said, “We have a wonderful sandwich of grilled Portabellas with Asiago on country bread dressed with extra virgin olive oil and served with a julienne of jicama and blood orange.”
“What’s a portabella?,” Shirley said to me.
“A big mushroom,” I said.
She looked at the waitress and frowned. “A mushroom sandwich?”
From Chance by Robert B. Parker
I n all my agonizing over the ingredients of my banquet, one emerged as essential. No great dinner could be complete without the unique taste of truffle.
Between 2004 and 2005, I spent a lot of time in Italy, hired by an American company to create the plots, character outlines, general background, and, in time, write some of the screenplay for a TV drama series about that great fourteenth-century outpouring of creativity known as the Renaissance. Though the project was doomed from the start, it was an exhilarating if troubling task. To visit men and women descended from the families that employed Leonardo and Raphael, to handle actual letters written by Lorenzo de’ Medici, to stroll after closing time through the empty galleries of the Pitti Palace, alone with the work of Botticelli and Tiepolo, was worth more than any salary I was paid—when it was paid, that is.
I never got used to the modern-day aristocrats who often neither knew of nor cared about their heritage nor preserved it. One couple brought in an expensively bound family history published years before but obviously never opened—except, they discovered to their embarrassment, by their children, who’d used some blank pages to scribble in crayon. Another duke demanded testily, “Why do people make such a fuss about this Machiavelli fellow? He was just a secretary to one of my ancestors.”
Occasionally, good taste and intelligence prevailed. As we left one palazzo, our hostess paused by a glass cabinet filled with tiny figurines and objets d’art .
“A few of our family treasures,” she said (as if her entire house didn’t deserve that description). She opened the door of the case and lifted out a fragile object.
“As you enjoy cooking, John, you might find this interesting.”
I recognized a mandoline. Chefs use them to slice vegetables or cheese. A panel of wood or plastic is supported at a forty-five-degree angle on metal struts. As you slide something down the panel, a raised blade cuts uniform slices that fall through a slot to a plate below.
Most mandolines are solid and robust—they need to be—but this one was so tiny it could sit on her open palm. A delicate filigree of metal supported a slide made of some pale, yellowing material that wasn’t wood.
“Silver,” she said, “and ivory. Early nineteenth century.”
“Is it a toy?” asked our producer. “For a doll’s house?”
Meeting my eye, the contessa turned down one corner of her mouth. How can you work with such people?
“No,” I said, answering for her. “I believe it’s for truffles.”
Few people hold up their end of a cocktail party conversation when the subject turns to fungi. The moment I ask if they prefer French girolles to the larger but, in my opinion, less tasty Romanian variety, they glimpse friends on the other side of the room whom they just must talk to.
A Scots traveler named John Lauder, who visited France in 1665, was disgusted by the very idea of eating mushrooms. “It astonished me that the French find them so delicious. They gather them at night in the most sordid and damp places. They cook them in a terrine with butter, vinegar, salt and spices. If you have them grilled, you can imagine you are biting into the tenderest meat. But I was so biased that I couldn’t eat them.”
For years, I agreed. My region of Australia knew only one variety. Large, flat, gray-white on top and pink underneath, they appeared after rain in paddocks where animals had manured the ground. Without being precious about it, I hesitated to throw a lip over anything that could trace its ancestry so
“What’s a portabella?,” Shirley said to me.
“A big mushroom,” I said.
She looked at the waitress and frowned. “A mushroom sandwich?”
From Chance by Robert B. Parker
I n all my agonizing over the ingredients of my banquet, one emerged as essential. No great dinner could be complete without the unique taste of truffle.
Between 2004 and 2005, I spent a lot of time in Italy, hired by an American company to create the plots, character outlines, general background, and, in time, write some of the screenplay for a TV drama series about that great fourteenth-century outpouring of creativity known as the Renaissance. Though the project was doomed from the start, it was an exhilarating if troubling task. To visit men and women descended from the families that employed Leonardo and Raphael, to handle actual letters written by Lorenzo de’ Medici, to stroll after closing time through the empty galleries of the Pitti Palace, alone with the work of Botticelli and Tiepolo, was worth more than any salary I was paid—when it was paid, that is.
I never got used to the modern-day aristocrats who often neither knew of nor cared about their heritage nor preserved it. One couple brought in an expensively bound family history published years before but obviously never opened—except, they discovered to their embarrassment, by their children, who’d used some blank pages to scribble in crayon. Another duke demanded testily, “Why do people make such a fuss about this Machiavelli fellow? He was just a secretary to one of my ancestors.”
Occasionally, good taste and intelligence prevailed. As we left one palazzo, our hostess paused by a glass cabinet filled with tiny figurines and objets d’art .
“A few of our family treasures,” she said (as if her entire house didn’t deserve that description). She opened the door of the case and lifted out a fragile object.
“As you enjoy cooking, John, you might find this interesting.”
I recognized a mandoline. Chefs use them to slice vegetables or cheese. A panel of wood or plastic is supported at a forty-five-degree angle on metal struts. As you slide something down the panel, a raised blade cuts uniform slices that fall through a slot to a plate below.
Most mandolines are solid and robust—they need to be—but this one was so tiny it could sit on her open palm. A delicate filigree of metal supported a slide made of some pale, yellowing material that wasn’t wood.
“Silver,” she said, “and ivory. Early nineteenth century.”
“Is it a toy?” asked our producer. “For a doll’s house?”
Meeting my eye, the contessa turned down one corner of her mouth. How can you work with such people?
“No,” I said, answering for her. “I believe it’s for truffles.”
Few people hold up their end of a cocktail party conversation when the subject turns to fungi. The moment I ask if they prefer French girolles to the larger but, in my opinion, less tasty Romanian variety, they glimpse friends on the other side of the room whom they just must talk to.
A Scots traveler named John Lauder, who visited France in 1665, was disgusted by the very idea of eating mushrooms. “It astonished me that the French find them so delicious. They gather them at night in the most sordid and damp places. They cook them in a terrine with butter, vinegar, salt and spices. If you have them grilled, you can imagine you are biting into the tenderest meat. But I was so biased that I couldn’t eat them.”
For years, I agreed. My region of Australia knew only one variety. Large, flat, gray-white on top and pink underneath, they appeared after rain in paddocks where animals had manured the ground. Without being precious about it, I hesitated to throw a lip over anything that could trace its ancestry so
Similar Books
