Comfort Food (7 page)

Four years later, she had a steady income as a spokesperson for the top importer of black Spanish empeltres olives, and her live ten-minute Internetshow,
FlavorBoom
, was garnering attention. Carmen was on her way to crossing from cult hit to mainstream star.

Though, to be honest, a lot of her fans were as interested in her favorite brand of lip gloss as much as her lip-smacking recipes. And, keeping the universe in balance, she had also attracted a dedicated following of Carmenhaters.Every so often she deigned to check in on the latest ramblings on
CarmenVegaSucks.com
, the online home of an anonymous blogger who savaged
FlavorBoom
with regularity. She told herself it didn’t bother her, though she called her mother after each new update, unable to express her anger as succinctly in English as she could in Spanish.

Reflexively, Carmen reached for the phone—one eye still on Gus Simpsoncooking on the
Today
show—and dialed the number she knew so well.

"
¿Mamá? Tengo otro día malo ...
”

OvercOOked instant rice, dry pork chops, canned yellow beans, and wilted iceberg lettuce.

That’s what Gus said whenever an interviewer asked how she got into cooking. She recited the dinner menu her mother had cooked most often, typically more than once a week. Sometimes with apple sauce from a jar, sometimes without seasoning at all.

Her mother and father would sit across from each other, Gus in the middle.Pass the salt, pass the pepper. No one talked as they chewed, slowly, swallowing hard to get down each bite.

“Don’t believe it when you hear that the fifties and early sixties were all about Suzy Homemaker.” Gus repeated the same words to Al Roker that she’d said many times before: “Just like now, a lot of those folks couldn’t boil water and hadn’t a clue how to make a proper meal. My mother was one of them.”

And then Gus launched into her condensed but well-practiced anecdote of using her library card to take out cookbooks, of saving up her allowance to finally buy a copy of Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
for her very own, and of spending her Saturday and Sunday afternoons experimentingand forcing the neighborhood kids to eat her concoctions.

“I just wanted to eat something that tasted good!” she concluded with a laugh.

“Well, this brunch is fantastic,” said Ann Curry. “Thanks to Gus Simpson,host of
Cooking with Gusto!
, for sharing these great recipes! We’ll see all of you tomorrow.”

“And we’re out,” called out a voice offstage. One of the producers walked onto the set.

“Thanks so much for filling in last minute, Gus,” he said. “We were so shocked to find out Carmen Vega has the chicken pox. But you really saved our bacon, pun intended.”

With a light touch on her arm, he steered her off set, laughing, as though the two of them were coconspirators, saving the
Today
show from dead air. (Which, after years in television, Gus knew wouldn’t have actually happened.)

“Oh, I’m just delighted—delighted,” she repeated, a smile pasted on her face as he walked her to a dressing room. Carmen Vega! The young Internet Foodie Queen? Whom Gus had been replacing was one fact, she realized now, that had been conspicuously left out when she had been called as an emergency guest. In fact, she was so thrilled to get the call, she hadn’t even thought to ask who had dropped out. The reality was that she hadn’t done morning television in almost a year, as the breakfast shows had become more focused on the cheftestants of
Top Chef
and the latest cook with a gimmick. And now Gus understood: she’d morphed, seemingly overnight, from sexy fun guru of entertaining to the reliable old stalwart when they needed someone who would show up. Not someone who was ... exciting. Not a beauty queen.

And, for God’s sake, what had Gus done? She’d gone on the air and scrambled eggs.

“I could have at least done an omelette,” she said to no one in particular.

Maybe they were right.

She sat down in front of a mirror and wiped off the heavy TV makeup from her face, dabbing on a little moisturizer and reapplying a neutral lipstick and a swipe of mascara. She glanced down at her blouse quickly, checking to make sure she hadn’t rubbed any foundation on her. Then she stood, smoothing out her flat-fronted pants as she did so. “I look just like Gus Simpson,” she sighed, noting her golden-brownish hair pinned loosely at the back of her head, the few tendrils of hair pulled loose to soften the look, the flowing style of her clothing, the chunky necklace with a pendant that fell just above her breasts. She was always comfortably elegant. A viewer, a producer: everybody knew what they were getting when they ordered up Gus. Maybe it really was time to think about a makeover. Take a page from Carmen Vega’s book.

A quick check of her watch revealed it was just 10:20 AM. Perhaps she wouldn’t head back to Westchester immediately, would stroll over the few blocks from the NBC studios to Saks and poke around, buy something fresh.

Gus zipped up her handbag and switched on her cell phone to check in. Her first call was to Porter.

“Hey, Gus. Did you get my message? ” He’d been producing her programs ever since her first stint on
The Lunch Bunch
. “Look, since you’re in the city, I was wondering if you could come by? Marketing has just brought in the results from a new focus group, and, well, I think we should just put our heads together.”

“Oh, Porter, it’s bad, isn’t it?” Gus was worried. “I know the ratings weren’t as strong last fall but—”

“Let’s talk face-to-face. See you when you get here.” And he was gone.

There went her quiet day of shopping.

upsetting the apple cart

5

It had been Hannah’s idea for Gus to call Troy and ask his advice. He was young and smart and he knew how to think on his feet. And Gus needed the help. She hadn’t been completely surprised by the news from her producer—that ratings were down again and the focus groups were favoring live shows over taped programs like
Cooking with Gusto!
What she hadn’t expected to hear was that her season was going to be cut short or, possibly, pulled completely to make way for a mid-season replacement. Just like that. Twelve years on the CookingChannel and suddenly, just like anyone else, she was being told to put up or shut up.

“I’ll call Alan and get this straightened out,” she told Porter, with confidence.“He may be the president but you and I have been with him since the beginning. There’s been some mistake.”

Porter had sat there quietly as Gus borrowed his office phone to place the call. She watched as he tapped his dark-skinned fingers on the desk, pointedlyavoiding her gaze. Giving her privacy even though she was mere feet away.

Alan, she’d been told slowly and repeatedly by his administrative assistant,was in a meeting. A meeting that was going to last all week, apparently.Gus held on to the handset long after the assistant had clicked off.

Business can seem so very personal, when you’re all friends sitting around a table toasting the latest success. But, in the end, business is just that. It’s business.

Gus Simpson could have her show canceled just like anyone else. And it hurt.

Porter, after breaking off a piece of good Swiss chocolate from the stash in his desk and encouraging Gus to nibble, had stripped the situation bare: the
Today
show appearance had been a fluke. Carmen Vega had chicken pox and Rachael Ray, their first choice of replacement, was shooting the world’s first all-cooking movie up in Albany. Gus had been close enough to their studio to make it on time. And she was a solid. Dependable. Enough said.

Not to mention, Porter explained, but he’d heard that all the well-known cooking personalities were retooling their programs on all the cable channels:Nigella Lawson was doing a thirteen-episode series devoted to the barbecue,that most un-English of meals, and while wearing designer tankinis, no less. Gus’s longtime rival, the incomparable Barefoot Contessa, was turningher program into a musical, sharing recipes set to lyric and score.

“You’re joking?”

“Gus, Ina Garten has an amazing range.” Porter shrugged his shoulders. “Everyone has a gimmick but you. And good food well prepared is snoring boring. Nobody’s tuning in anymore.”

“But I have a contract,” Gus sputtered.

“Contracts have a way of biting you,” Porter replied. “You know that part where it says you get a bonus if the ratings jump by ten percent? It also has a clause that the contract can be canceled if the ratings drop by the same percentage.”

“I haven’t read the contract since I signed it years ago . . .” Gus sighed. She never thought things would go this way.

But Porter had saved the best for last: the show’s budget was being slashed in half. And Carmen, the gorgeous Beauty Foodie Queen, had been spotted coming out of the president’s office at the CookingChannel studio the week before. And he wasn’t getting a straight answer from anybody.

Gus shot daggers with her eyes, her mouth full of chocolate.

“I figured we had more time to get things on track but it’s not looking good—for either of us,” Porter said, a wan smile on his face. “Give me somethingfresh, Gus. It’s the only way I can save your show.”

Of all the unexpected things to happen since moving from Oregon to Manhattanas a new college grad more than a decade ago, Troy never anticipated that he’d end up being dumped by the girl of his dreams while remaining on stellar terms with her mother. Who does that? It simply wasn’t normal. But it was true: Troy Park had a far more loyal friend in Gus Simpson than he’d ever had in her fickle daughter Sabrina. Gorgeous, sexy Sabrina, all glossy black hair and dewy blue eyes, forever dressing in lollipop colors. She was an eye-catching one, that girl, the type of woman who glided into any room and immediately demanded attention without saying a word. There was a certain sweet vulnerability to the young Miss Simpson, a softness that appealed. She was light on her feet and rather cheerful, in fact. Sabrina was unlike any woman he’d ever met.

Which was all the more ironic since Troy had always made it rather a point of honor to roll his eyes whenever a pal confided, over a fifth or sixth beer, about being hit by a thunderbolt. About falling in
love
.

And then it happened to Troy.

He’d just left his advertising job to work full-time on his entrepreneurial venture. It was a little sooner than he’d imagined and he wasn’t completely ready. But the timing for the product was right and his father had encouragedhim to go for it. It’s always better, his father had said, to work for yourself.Then you know that you can always trust the boss.

His parents had worked side by side, growing apples and pears in their acres of orchard. Oregon had good soil, his father said, that’s why they moved there after arriving as newlyweds from South Korea, both working in a restaurantoperated by another immigrant family until they could finally put a down payment on the land they so desperately wanted. Troy was five when the Park family moved into the compact farmhouse on the property, and his mother’s excitement as she unpacked boxes, his sister Alice strapped into her high chair so she couldn’t crawl through the dust, remained vivid in his mind. His mother had not stopped smiling even as she washed the floors.

His father had walked him by each and every tree on the Park family farm that very night, carrying him after Troy’s stubby five-year-old legs could go no farther.

“Focus on what you want,” his father said, “and never lose sight of your goal. Then you must take a chance.”

Now Troy had started FarmFresh, a vending company that specialized in supplying custom refrigerated machines with fresh fruit, bottled water, and yogurt. Carrying on the Park family tradition.

And, because he was his mother’s son, he wanted to spiff up his offices. There was no denying that he’d been entranced by Sabrina from the moment she walked into his rented office space. He’d heard about her from the new wife of one of those beer buddies—she’d just done over their new apartment—and the newlyweds were ecstatic, driving Troy crazy with their insatiable need to discuss roman shades and the importance of choosing the right hardware for the bathroom vanity. “Sabrina is such a talent and just the right price because she’s starting out,” he’d been told. “Plus she’s the daughter of that entertainer-cook lady on TV. Only Sabrina doesn’t do kitchens.”

Good enough for Troy as he didn’t have a kitchen in his office. But he had enthusiasm: all the eagerness of a young businessman in receipt of his first major influx of cash, ready to outfit his workplace in a style befitting his business philosophy, his hope for the future, his wit. By which he envisionedsome combination of Scandinavian design, earth tones, ergonomic chairs, an office dog, and a wall-mounted basketball hoop. Perhaps even a banner of his college team, the Oregon Ducks, placed just so on a wall behind his desk.

“That’s absolutely fantastic,” Sabrina had said, smiling, as Troy had detailed his wish list in that initial meeting. She had a pedicure of shimmeringcoral and showed a good amount of smooth leg all the way up to a lime-colored sleeveless tweedy dress, its nubbly texture practically begginghim to rub his hands on her. (
Likes green
is what he’d written in his PDA; Troy made a point of noticing the small details when he was interestedin a woman.) Then she pulled out a design board with hardwood and carpet samples and some fabric swatches. A much more conservative look. Mature. “What’s neat is that we’re going with something entirely differentfrom dot-com fabulousness and I can’t wait for you to see it,” she said, and never stopped smiling the entire time she talked. Sabrina was unlike any other New Yorker he’d ever met: she looked happy instead of seriouslydetermined, and she owned not one stitch of black clothing. Even her walk was upbeat, more of a skip than a stroll. Sabrina made everything seem . . . lighter.

Quite without planning, their meetings had led to dates. (Well, withoutplanning on Sabrina’s part, that is. Troy had gone out of his way to set up reasons for them to meet, had feigned interest in desks and carpets and made a point of shopping with her, followed up with coffees and dinners and movies.) And soon enough they were inseparable, the tall, broad-shouldered Asian-American man from Oregon and the bright-eyed, dark-haired smiling girl from New York. Troy humbly, even happily, accepted his much-deserved ribbing from the chums he’d mocked over the years. He let Sabrina sell his black leather couch on Craigslist and wrote her a check to redecorate his overpriced apartment in the Meatpacking District. He made a point to spend time with the Simpson ladies, enjoying lazy Sundays up at Gus’s house in Westchester while she tossed together a sumptuous roast beef dinner, even going so far to ingratiate himself as to set up an ill-fated double date between his business partner and Sabrina’s sister. In Troy’s mind, Aimee was the anti-Sabrina, all dourness and disgruntlement. To his surprise, his business partner dated Aimee for several weeks before they parted ways amicably.Some people had strange taste, that was for sure.