Food Whore (10 page)

I felt delirious. It seemed like a joke. And yet the intense smell of the apartment and Michael Saltz himself, staring at me with his beady-­eyed gaze, convinced me. Amazingly, this was real life.

My mind raced through every fancy dinner I had ever had. I could count them on one hand, and they'd always been apologetic affairs, excursions where I felt underdressed and left hungry for more. The only time my family had gone out to eat had been when we were on vacation, and still my parents would complain how they could make those dishes better at home.

The first time I'd felt like I belonged at a fancy restaurant had been less than a week ago at Madison Park Tavern's tasting. But now I'd be on the other side, dining and not serving. I wouldn't have to worry about not dressing the part. My personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman would take care of that.

I could even get my own Prenza Schooler purse, or whatever the brand was called.

“Just one small thing,” he continued. “It probably doesn't even need to be said.”

“Oh, what's that?” I asked, breathless over this new chapter.

“This has to be a secret. If anyone found out I was working under these . . . unsuitable . . . conditions, the whole food world would have a fit. It'd be journalistic fraud, which is a very serious offense. I ask for your discretion, and in return you get dinners and clothes and an education unlike anything you can get in any school.”

“Discretion . . . So I can't tell . . . anyone?” My mind clicked. Of course, a catch.

“Not a soul. Remember—­free dinners, clothes, and, occasionally, your words in the
Times
blended with mine
.
That is your compensation, and our secret. Now that we've become involved, no one must know where you're going or what you're writing.”

Now that we were involved? I had agreed to come to his apartment, but I didn't remember signing a contract.

“Mr. Saltz . . .” I said.

“Please, we're partners now. Call me Michael.”

“Okay . . . Michael. ‘Our secret'? I still haven't said yes to anything.”

Michael Saltz scowled, his face an asterisk of wrinkles. Then he spoke, bringing his face so close to mine that I saw the veins in his eyes, wild branches of red that crowded his pupils.

“But don't you see? You have. You talked to me in the basement and didn't tell anyone you saw me, not then and not after. You probably didn't even tell anyone you were coming here.”

He had me there, yet again. I had told no one. But I couldn't put my finger on why. I guess I'd wanted to keep this to myself, to incubate it away from insistent eyes. Just for a little while.

“That's nothing to be ashamed of,” he continued. “You were being judicious.”

If my parents or Elliott or anyone knew what was happening, surely they'd encourage me to explore the opportunity. Explore and negotiate. I had to be smart about the offer. Michael Saltz was asking me to sacrifice something tremendous—­my identity. Now I recognized his enthusiasm at the door as desperation. It would be ridiculous to do this gigantic favor for him without securing a prize of equal value for myself. Wouldn't it?

I must have made a thoughtful face or hesitated too long, because when Saltz spoke again there was an edge to his voice.

“What's wrong?” he asked sourly. “Is this generous offer not to your liking?”

“No. I mean, yes, it is. It's amazing. I'm just wondering about one thing.” I was afraid to say it, afraid he'd withdraw his proposal. But what did I have to lose? He may have been playing tough, but I saw the hopeful, embarrassed look in his eyes. I had leverage and I had a dream, one I hadn't let go, even with my Madison Park Tavern assignment.

“Helen Lansky,” I said.

“Yes, Helen. The fine woman who brought us together.”

“Right. You said you'd help me get that internship before, but now it's gone. Dean Chang at NYU said there are no guarantees that Helen will serve as a mentor again. If I'm working with you, and keeping all of this secret, I won't be able to concentrate on building my résumé if and when Helen accepts applications again.”

Michael Saltz looked around his apartment. I followed his gaze, but couldn't tell what he was looking at or thinking.

“Helen, Helen. How could I forget about Helen? I should have known you'd still want to work alongside her after being placed at Madison Park Tavern. She has quite the pull. Well, in that case, I'll tell you the full story. I neglected to mention that I'm planning to undergo taste-­correction surgery later this fall—­January, at the latest—­pending approval from my ENT doctor, my neurosurgeon at New York–Presbyterian, and the FDA. It's an experimental surgery, and I'm up next in the trial. So this is only for the current semester. After that, I'll make sure you and Helen Lansky connect.” He spoke with a certainty and crispness that sounded like fact.

“Didn't you promise that the first time around? That you would get me Helen?”

He waved his hand. “Yes, but that was for
school.
That's not the real world. The world doesn't act on committees and applications. It acts on this.” He jerked his hand between our bodies. “Personal relationships. Influence. Access. You know I know Helen and that I can get you into any restaurant. And you know your opinions will matter to me. The one thing you need is faith.”

“Faith.” I squinted my eyes and thought. “Say I were to believe you. What would come next?”

Michael Saltz raised his eyebrow, a gesture of
game on.
“Well, you can still work at Madison Park Tavern, if it's necessary for your degree. But for the purposes of this relationship, it's unnecessary. A liability, even. After we finish up this semester, I'll just call Helen and you can work with her in the spring.”

“Work with her. As a recipe tester or research assistant or something?”

“Recipe tester?” he scoffed. “You've been spending too much time in your graduate school bubble. No trivial work for you. No fake ‘exercises' that count for nothing in the real world. This is real, true, the biggest of the big leagues. As I said earlier, you are an unusual talent, Tia. If you prove as much to Helen and work very, very hard, she is the sort of fair-­minded person who will want to reward you accordingly. I would think that, under the right conditions—­and with the right introduction from me—­Helen would consider crediting you as a coauthor on her forthcoming cookbook. Your name would appear on the cover below hers. Think about it, Tia. This is a chance of a lifetime, the finest education in food writing you could ask for. This autumn, you'll serve as my protégée. Then, you'll work with Helen in the spring. Your whole career will just fall into place after that. It's rather simple. An easy decision, if you ask me. You'll leave behind your other, more mundane life for something extraordinary.”

Extraordinary. My heart raced; my palms began to sweat. Could I do this? Manage this second life, without telling a soul?

“Well?” he asked.

With one word, I'd get closer to Helen. I could walk into any New York restaurant with my head held high. I'd have something, like that girl with the ice pops and the women at Bakushan, that made me shine above all others.

“Yes,” I said.

And so it began.

Michael Saltz gave a slow, conspiratorial smile. “Wonderful. Come, let's toast! I have just the thing.”

He opened his cabinet, and I thought he would take out one of his many bottles of wine there, but instead he reached in the back and brought out a large foil bag. As he opened it, a strong coffee aroma rolled through the air. He ran his fingers through the beans and the smell amplified. It smelled like a million coffee shops in one. The purest expression of a roasty, toasty coffee flavor.

“Nice, right?” said Michael Saltz. “I love this. It's called kopi luwak. The rarest coffee in the world. Goes for a hundred dollars a cup. Thankfully I can at least smell it.”

I reached for the bag so I could hold a handful under my nose. I couldn't get enough of it.

“A civet cat has already digested and fermented the beans,” Michael Saltz continued. I pulled my hand away. It was already
digested
? By a
cat
?

“But perhaps I love it so much because I've never had the chance to taste it.” His face was clear and open. “Every cup is like water to me. So now I just brew it and smell it. Heat creates another dimension of smell. It amplifies and deepens and . . .” he hesitated, looking for the right word by waving his pointy white fingers. “Pierces. But, come. I want you to tell me how this coffee tastes.”

We walked into the kitchen, a room littered with spices and herbs and jars of what looked like dried fish and wrinkled brown citrus peels. There was a fresh pineapple on the counter, split open with the exposed yellow part desiccated away. A wasabi root the size of a child's shoe sat perched on a porcelain grater, its smell prickling the air.

“It's an obsession, I know. All these jars, they're the reason I can get by. I've spent thousands of dollars to recapture through smell what I've lost in taste.” He smiled abruptly. “But now I have the surgery lined up. And I have you!”

He pulled out a shiny Italian grinder and poured some beans into it. Grinding the beans released even more incredible aromas. Then he tamped the grounds and screwed the portafilter into the espresso machine. The coffee came out in a rusty, rushed stream. He inhaled it longingly before he handed the tiny cup to me.

“Go on, taste.”

I didn't even like coffee that much, but even I could tell this was exceptional. It was easy to forget that it had come from the inside of a cat and figure out why ­people paid so much for it.

“Well? Does it taste like it smells? Or is it even more amazing?” He started idly combing through the beans, rustling up their scent.

The coffee did smell amazing. But the truth of it was: it tasted even better. It had a sudden, violent character, hitting you over the head and grabbing you by the throat. It was a full, lusty drink that needed all the senses, but especially taste. That's what made the coffee exceptional.

“Yes,” I said to him. “It tastes like it smells.” My first lie. It came out accidentally. Something in me wanted to put his mind at ease.

Michael Saltz took his hand out of the coffee bag, stopping the search for whatever he yearned for. “Really?”

“Really. Exactly the way it smells.” My second lie. This time it came more easily.

He lifted his eyes to the ceiling, his mouth slackened, and the wrinkle in his forehead smoothed out. I had never seen a man so relieved by a coffee description. “I've been wondering about that for so long. Thank you,” he whispered.

“What else do you miss?”

Michael Saltz's eyes softened. “Everything,” he said with resignation. “It's torture to go to these restaurants and not be able to experience them. But I also miss the simple things. Coffee in the morning. Popcorn at the movie theater. A fresh bagel on a Sunday.”

I nodded. I'd miss those things, too. Take away the rituals of eating and you remove the bones of the day, your connections to others.

“And . . . when did you lose your taste?”

Now Michael Saltz had fallen fully into a reverie. “I lost it about three months ago,” he said. “It turned off like a switch. For a while, I was in denial, but . . .” He rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air. “This condition isn't easily treated through medical means, so I've been treating it using my own tactics.”

I didn't dare ask how he'd published a weekly review for the past three months, afraid that the question would make him angry and he'd rescind his offer. Had he really been faking it the whole time?

“Is there a name for what you have?”

“Well, that's an interesting question.” He grated the wasabi, holding his nose to the porcelain spikes where the pungent smell collected. “When you lose your sight, you're blind. When you lose your hearing, you're deaf. When most ­people lose their sense of taste, they're actually losing their sense of smell. There's a name for that, too. But my brain tangles tastes, sometimes nullifies them. If I'm lucky, things just taste like nothing. But other times they taste like sawdust or cardboard, or like something else entirely. I'm one of the unlucky ones. And there's no name for what I have.”

“Why is that?”

Michael Saltz took a long time to answer. “Maybe because it's too terrible.” He put his hand on my shoulder, the smell of the coffee beans still stuck to his skin. “But let's not dwell on that ugly past. This is an exciting arrangement, for both of us.”

“I agree,” I said. Then he opened a kitchen drawer and gave me a wad of hundred-­dollar bills.

“Here's some pocket money for miscellaneous expenses. Remember, use my personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman and don't mention the
New York Times
. Just ask for Giada Fabrizio and put it on my tab. It's family money, and it's of no object to me. I'm not your typical restaurant reviewer, and this is not a typical arrangement.”

“Yes, I realize.” I exhaled. “I'm looking forward to starting.”

Michael Saltz shook his head. “No, no, don't look at it like that. You've already started. You're already
in
.”

Again with his insistence that we were more involved than we were.

“Okay, then. Yes. I'm in,” I said. I didn't say it with confidence, a
yes
clenching its conviction. No, I said it like a question in the dark, hoping someone would catch it. I had no idea how this would work, and already he expected me to be fully committed. But I'd go along. I'd catch up with him eventually.

“Very good,” he said. “It's very important you think about this in immediate, immersive terms. I need absolute discretion. Even your saffron-­harvesting boyfriend cannot know. It's usually the ones closest to you that hold you back. Especially ones from a prior, simpler life. Do you understand?”