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Chapter 1

The reception was meant to be casual and fun, but instead the air vibrated with tension, like a kettle on the verge of boiling. I saw some people in crisp lab coats (the food science researchers), others in tweed jackets (the cultural anthropologists), and a select group in shorts and hoodies who looked about the same age as us (the Internet start-up founders). The room was a convergence of all kinds of food industry professionals, from restaurateurs to packaged-food makers to web-series producers. Students like me jockeyed for position around these would-be mentors, needy moons circling any planet with a vacancy in its orbit.

“Do you see Helen?” I asked Elliott. He already had a job at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, but he’d come with me to the graduate student reception as a show of support.

Even though he had attended three of her speaking engagements with me and knew her face, he checked her picture again before scanning the crowd.

“Helen . . . Helen . . . where are you, Helen?” he said with squinted, searching eyes. “Want me to walk around? I’ll text you if I see her.”

Before I could say yes, Elliott was off, hunting. He was good like that. Elliott was Elliott—goofy and kind and the type of guy who made me giddy even by standing a little too close. He’s a good one.

But one thing Elliott will never be is a person who loves to eat. He isn’t opposed to a good meal or annoyingly picky or anything like that. It’s just that food doesn’t matter to him. If a meal ever tried to speak to Elliott, he’d probably excuse himself from the conversation. But that didn’t mean he’d bail on helping me out.

Now that I was officially in NYU’s master’s program in Food Studies, I didn’t want to leave Helen to chance. The committee already had my internship application and I’d find out my placement in five days, but maybe—just maybe—I could seal the deal by charming the socks off Helen at this event.

Helen is brilliant. Her work for the Times is legendary for its incisive critiques, but I love her memoirs and cookbooks the most. Unshackled by journalistic constraints, her voice grows warm and visceral and pulls you into the heart of every recipe and story. You sit in her blue childhood kitchen in Massachusetts, ache over her short-lived love affair with a chef in France, grit your teeth at her hectic days as a new mother.

Part of my plan included enticing Helen with a batch of my special cashew-almond-walnut-pecan Dacquoise Drops, something to make her take notice of my application essay. Dacquoise Drops were no ordinary cookies. They’re what drove me to Helen, though I can’t say I planned it that way.

My grandfather had been in the hospital with a weakened heart and rapidly degenerating lungs. For a month, my mom worked nights so she could spend her days with him. My dad visited after work and kept Mom calm.

I took the train from New Haven to Grand Central to Yonkers every Thursday and returned to campus every Monday morning, each trip depressing me more. Never mind the commute—I loathed one rude, forgetful nurse and how her negligence left Grandpa’s bed linens scratchy and a little too short. But I was most appalled by the food, which was bad for healthy people, and downright sadistic at the hospital: fried chicken, burgers, fries, salads larded with bacon and creamy dressings. Grandpa had always had a sweet tooth and it pained me to see him eat cookies filled with faux “crème” and cakes with decade-long shelf lives.

So back at campus I developed the Dacquoise Drop: a light, nutty, meringue-based cookie I knew Grandpa would love. I had been cooking with my grandfather since I could reach the stove, but this creation was something else entirely. It was the last thing he ate.

Elliott helped me make them for the funeral, and later, he was the one who convinced me to share my story and recipe in the Yale Daily News.

I wrote about one of our last cooking sessions together, right before I went to college. Grandpa taught me how to make Poulet aux Noix de Cajou, a chicken and cashew dish from his native Senegal. We took the train to Little Senegal, a pocket community tucked inside Harlem, and bought unshelled cashews, which are impossible to find anywhere else because the shells contain skin irritants similar to those in poison ivy. Together, we roasted the toxic fluids out, hand-peeled the shells, and then blistered the nuts.

We could have taken twenty different shortcuts, but we took the long way at every step.

I ended the article with my Dacquoise Drops. I bought unshelled nuts and revisited Little Senegal to get the cashews.

Elliott and I detoxed the cashews, then blanched, soaked, and roasted them. And that was just nut prep. The meringues were a whole other painstaking process. They took eight hours to make, but every step was connected to my grandpa. The essay was the most personal thing I had ever written.

The piece was published in the spring of my sophomore year and got a lot of reader attention. The editors gave me a regular food column, where I created original recipes and tied them to my real life. I loved it. One month before school let out for summer, the New York Times contacted me for a feature. The reporter said that Helen Lansky had discovered my column online and was reminded of her own writing. This came as the shock of my life. Helen was the master, and to get her vote of approval changed my entire life.

I was supposed to be profiled with other “college chefs,” but I ended up being the main story. They even published the Dacquoise Drops recipe, and Helen wrote an editor’s note: “These are a creation born of love. Some people write. Others may cook. And some, like Ms. Monroe, are compelled to do both: tell a story through food.”

I had been lost, searching for a major and a direction. But after reading those words, it all clicked: food, writing, Helen Lansky. I increased my Yale column to twice a week and spent summers writing for the New Haven Register. After that article, I hardly went home, even though my parents lived just one state over.

The day before the graduate student reception, Elliott and I had baked a batch of cookies, and now they were at the peak of their complexity: chewy and crispy and lacquered with the most delicate shell, one that only lasts for eighteen or so hours before humidity steals it away. Now, I clung to the container of cookies, my pride and claim to fame.

“Hey,” a big guy said as I surveyed the room for Helen. “You looking for someone?” Between his large red face and flannel checkered shirt, he looked like he had come in from the cold, though it was about eighty degrees out.

“Yeah,” I said. “Helen Lansky? She used to be the dining editor for the New York Times and was even the critic for a bit. Now she’s a cookbook author—”

“Helen! Of course I know Helen!” He looked both insulted and amused that I had assumed otherwise. This was Food Studies graduate school, and these students were serious. “It’s weird she isn’t here yet, right?” he continued. “Everything about her writing is so immaculate and precise. I would have expected her to be super punctual.”

I nodded. “Totally. I hope she’s coming. Do you know how internships are typically assigned?”

The guy threw up his hands. “Who knows. This whole process is a black box. I overheard one guy saying selection is a random lottery. They want to ‘expose you to different disciplines.’ But my friend’s sister got her first choice and now she’s a professor at UCLA.” He shrugged and we both sighed.

I wasn’t surprised, though. Who expects anything in New York to be easy?

“Well . . . my name’s Kyle Lorimer,” the guy said. He held out a hand that was warm and bouncy, like a fresh-baked bagel. He rocked on the balls of his feet as if this were the stop for the Helen Lansky train and all he had to do was wait.

“Tia Monroe,” I said before excusing myself. He seemed like a nice guy, but I wasn’t going to lose focus now. I only had eyes for Helen.

I texted Elliott: Anything?

I waited for the text to send, but the signal wasn’t strong enough, so I had to walk outside. As my message finally shot off, I saw her from across the street: a petite, fine-boned woman in a lime-green silk jacket and velvet pants. Her big, bushy black hair nested on top of her head. She was half exotic concubine, half Jewish auntie.

I stepped forward onto the sidewalk and beamed. It was the perfect scenario. I’d leave an impression before the mob of grad students even saw her. I crossed the street before realizing she wasn’t alone. A sickly thin gentleman stood across from her in an ill-fitting suit. Helen was on her toes, lecturing him.

Suddenly my nerves ramped up. What was I going to do now? This man—literally—stood in the way.

By the time I crept up behind them, their faces were inches apart and their whispers were loud enough to be heard. I figured the man might spy me hovering or Helen would feel my eyes on her back and turn around. But none of that happened. I just stood there, my smile stiffening and slipping away. I didn’t intend to eavesdrop on them, but I had to stay close so I could catch Helen once she stopped talking to the man.

“Now you’re not making sense!” Helen screeched. “I’m just trying to help you before you do something you can’t undo. I care about your future, even if you don’t.”

I took one step forward, stretching my ear toward them. What were they talking about?

“To help me, Helen? I wasn’t aware that I needed help,” huffed the thin man.

“Well, it’s increasingly obvious to me. I can read it in your words. I can see it in your physique. And now you want to attend a graduate school reception for no ascertainable reason? The manager of Madison Park Tavern is in there. And plenty of other industry people, too. Any single one of them might recognize you.”

She barked the last few words at full volume, then quickly lowered her voice and took a breath. When she spoke again, she sounded scratchy and strained, as if she was on the edge of crying.

“Michael,” she began, her words barely reaching me through the hum of the city streets. “You’re the New York Times restaurant critic. Don’t treat this as a game.”

I gasped and tripped over my feet. I couldn’t help it.

Michael. Michael Saltz, the current Times critic. Helen’s successor, minus some in-between people. For some, he was New York’s most feared person: the man who had the power to make or break any restaurant in town.

I felt a flash of awe. Sure, Helen had been his boss when she worked at the Times, but he was a critic who lived in anonymity, and that imparted the sighting with a special taste of the forbidden.

He wanted to attend the NYU reception?

No wonder Helen was so upset. The Food Studies graduate reception was no place for a high-profile anonymous critic. It was like partying with ex-cons while in the witness protection program. Why would you risk it?

Now I was basically on top of them, but they were still so engrossed in their conversation, I didn’t think they’d notice. They hadn’t paid any attention to me up until then.

And yet.

Michael Saltz’s eyes peeled away from Helen and slithered over to mine. He regarded me with the lightest of touches, a nanometer of moisture absorbed into a cloud. But still, he got a read.

A moment later, a city bus arrived behind me and I was separated from the two of them by exiting passengers. I tried to keep Helen in my line of sight until I felt a hand at my elbow and looked up to see Michael Saltz. Helen had left. 

“Why, hello,” he said. He had a slight lisp, which he didn’t attempt to hide. “Looks like you missed your bus.”

“Oh, right!” I laughed, as cool as I could manage considering I had been caught eavesdropping on a conversation I’d known full well was private. “Um, I mean, no. I was waiting, but then I realized I have to stay here for a . . . thing.” I didn’t want to tell him I was attending the same reception Helen had warned him against. His eyes lowered to my NYU name tag, which said, rather unhelpfully, tia monroe. yonkers, ny. yale university. food writing and cultural anthropology.

“So, Tia, you’re heading to that venue over there, yes? I see you’re a first year . . . an Ivy Leaguer . . . a writer.”

“Yes, sir,” I admitted.

“Do you know who I am?” He was an odd-looking man. His cheekbones were sharp and knobby like knees. He wore an immaculate suit full of custom bells and whistles—dark silk lining, leather buttons, plaid lines that matched up perfectly at the seams. And yet it didn’t fit. What was the point of a tailor-made suit if you swam in it so cartoonishly?

“You’re . . .” I looked around for Helen again, but the sidewalk had emptied.

“Go on, you can say it.”

“You’re Michael Saltz, the New York Times dining critic,” I said. He wanted the truth and I gave it. What else could I do?

He nodded solemnly. “That is correct. Well done.”

But I wasn’t congratulating myself. I could tell by the sarcastic lilt to his voice that he didn’t want to be ID’d. But he wasn’t being discreet, either.

“And are you bringing those . . . cookies . . . to the reception?” he asked, blinking twice at the plastic container cradled under my arm.

“Well, yes,” I said. “They’re called Dacquoise Drops. They’re kind of my specialty . . .”

“Oh!” Michael Saltz said. “The Dacquoise Drops? As I remember, that was the top emailed recipe for three months straight. Not developed in-house, but by a college-aged savant named . . .” His eyes lit up, then returned to my name tag. “Tia Monroe. I’ve been looking for someone like you. So you’re the cooking and writing prodigy, hm?”

He was looking for someone like me? In what way? “Oh, I wouldn’t say a prodigy, per se. Plus, that article came out a long time ago.”

I said it because the situation seemed to call for modesty, but in fact I had never tired of that recognition. My creations were usually a private affair, but that had changed for one glorious moment after the article. I’d been flooded with emails from readers who wanted more recipes, and even gone on local TV for a cooking demo.

But eventually the emails had stopped. Nothing had happened after that TV appearance, and people forgot about it. I had poured myself into each article since, mining every part of my life, sure that day’s column would be the gem that would return me to the spotlight. Every once in a while, I’d receive a random email or tweet and it’d make my day. But otherwise, silence. And yet I’d persisted on that track. Stay in New Haven, go to class, write for the paper, hope for the best. Hearing that Michael Saltz remembered—I was flabbergasted. The rush of recognition came back, extra sweet because he was so prominent and it had been so long.

“And, let me guess. You’d like to intern for a blog? Gobbler? Diner Nation?”

“No,” I said. “I’m not interested in blogs. I want to write cookbooks and study under—”

“Helen! 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.

“Well!” 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.

“But, 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.

“What 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.

“Oh, 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.

“But 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?

“Four,” I said. “And I shelled every one of them.”

“Unshelled cashews? How in the world did you manage that? They’re related to—”

“Poison 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.

“Again, 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 for the Don’t Walk sign to change and looked away from him. But from the corner of my eye, I saw that he never wavered, even as a car pulled up two inches away from him.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Would you do anything for her?”

Finally, the Walk sign lit up. I stepped from the curb and said, “Yeah, I would.”

After I crossed the street, I looked around to see if Michael Saltz had followed me. But he remained in the same spot and now had a wild grin on his face.

Elliott ran up the second I stepped into the reception hall. “Tia, there you are!” he said, winded. “She arrived a couple of minutes ago. Come on! People are already surrounding her! I tried to text you but—”

I had no time to tell Elliott about Michael Saltz. We ran and made a full circle of the room, but neither of us saw Helen anywhere.

“Did we lose her?” Elliott asked me, genuinely distressed.

I spotted Kyle and ran over to him, desperate for info. I’d been so close to Helen. Why had I stayed with Michael Saltz?

“Have you seen Helen?” I wheezed.

“Oh, hey,” Kyle said. “Yeah, she was in here for like, five or ten minutes, and then she left. I barely chatted with her.”

“You chatted with her?”

“Yeah . . . I’m gunning for her internship, so of course I talked to her. At least a dozen people bombarded her with gifts. Did you see her?”

His question sucker-punched me. No, I hadn’t. Would I ever? Had I lost Helen, just like that?

I climbed up a set of stairs to get a better view of the room. The room was still crowded with faces, but none was the one I wanted to see.

Then I felt a tap on my leg and looked down to see Elliott, his mouth tight and wary. “Hey,” Elliott said. “I was asking around for Helen, and this gentleman said he knows where to find her.” He gestured behind him to Michael Saltz, peering at me with those curious, predatory eyes.

“Tia! I’d like to make up for the incident earlier. I’ll connect you with Helen. Send me your application essay, and I’ll ensure she sees it and makes her desires known to the committee.” He took out a pen and scribbled a generic email address, then held out his hand to Elliott. “I must go, but I realized I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Paul,” Michael Saltz said.

“Elliott,” he replied as he shook. With the other hand, Elliott touched the small of my back as if to say, If this weird guy does anything, I got you.

I loved that. But at the same time, I was amazed at Michael Saltz’s persistence, even after I had stormed away and Helen had expressly warned him against attending this very reception. Amazed, and a little flattered.

“And Tia,” Michael Saltz said, turning to me again, “such a pleasure.” He held out his hand and as my flesh touched his, he clamped my fingers and swooped down for a kiss. His lips were dry and frail. His cold nose touched my wrist and a chill ran through my bones.

Elliott grabbed my other arm and pulled me away. I looked behind me and saw Michael Saltz smirk his good-bye.

“Ugh, sorry I subjected you to that guy. Who was that creep?” “He was . . .” My heart was pounding so fast I could hardly breathe.

What could I say to Elliott? He was the New York Times restaurant critic. Helen’s stubborn friend. An interloper at the reception. A sickly thin man who frightened and aggravated and—I had to admit—fascinated me.

The man who would give my essay to Helen. But what was in it for him? I couldn’t quite figure it out, so I echoed the critic’s lie, to give myself time. He obviously hadn’t wanted to reveal his identity to Elliott, so I didn’t give him away. “His name is Paul.” Elliott heaved a sigh of relief, as if that explained everything.

“Well, glad we got you out of there.”

I made a sound of agreement, but my skin still tingled from Michael Saltz’s kiss.

Elliott and I had planned to wander our new neighborhood for good restaurants, but I didn’t want to socialize after the NYU reception disaster. Instead, I made an excuse and stayed in my apartment and thought.

Now my application was out of my hands.

I needed to get the Helen Lansky internship and wanted to start the year on the right foot.

In retrospect, I’d had so many things handed to me in high school and college. But after that article, I’d stagnated, waiting for opportunities to arrive at my doorstep. I’d devoted myself to articles that only a handful of people read.

And I’d thought I’d land a top-tier graduate school internship placement with a batch of cookies.

As much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, Michael Saltz had put something into sharp relief. I couldn’t stand idle about my own future now. I had gotten all the way to grad school with one person in mind. Why would I leave my entire future in other people’s hands if I had the ability to help things along?

I wasn’t thrilled about accepting back-channel help from an erratic, mysterious stranger, but I decided my days of passive waiting were over. This was New York, and if you don’t push, you’ll be pushed. And I couldn’t let that happen.

I pulled Michael Saltz’s email address out of my pocket. He had written it on a receipt from a restaurant called Sargasso. The total: $608. Each line was some complicated dish reduced to two words: offal terrine; rye risotto; papaya choux. It was a different food world than Helen’s. I had fifteen of her books on my bookshelf and not one of them had a recipe for rye risotto. What did rye risotto taste like, anyway?

I typed out the email address—a vague collection of random letters and numbers—pecking at the keys one by one. I kept my message short and sweet, knowing deep down that this was an underground transaction, wrong in some intangible way I couldn’t put my finger on.

Hi—I’ve attached my essay. Please let me know if Helen needs anything else.

But he was the one doing me the favor. So I deleted the last line and started again.

Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you.

Send.

I still don’t know what made him pick me. Maybe my cookies had told him something about the level of my desire. Or maybe he’d know from that one line—anything else I can do for you— that I would play by his rules, as long as it got me closer to Helen.

He never responded to my email. The next time he wrote to me, it was under his real name.

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