Chapter 25 #2
He thought about the eight banchan dishes at Zaya — the way they’d both tasted their way through them, comparing notes on the pickled radish and agreeing the cool cucumber was welcome after the kimchi — and understood exactly what she meant.
Whitebird sat at the foot of the bridge, with river views through the windows. Dark wood, warm light, white tablecloths. Completely, one-thousand percent different from Zaya’s.
Tuesday had obviously called ahead, and they were led to a table big enough for six people.
He ordered the Wanderlinger Pilsner, surprised they had something he actually liked. It’s from a Chattanooga brewery, and the club made an attempt to buy local.
He sat back and let her handle their order again. This woman knew her food and clearly had a good grasp on what he liked.
He listened to her rattle off fried green tomatoes, crispy pork ribs, smoked pork belly, cornbread, beef tartare, roasted beets. She slowed when the server turned a page, and picked back up. Meatloaf. Grilled lamb chops. Habanero glazed pork. Lamb shank. Short rib gnocchi.
The server didn’t blink, but she asked a few questions, which Tuesday easily answered, and then, “What will you have to drink?”
“Oh,” Tuesday said, “I forgot to look at your wine list. A Malbec, I think. What do you have, preferably from Argentina?”
“We have the Santa Julia El Burro, by the glass or bottle.”
“Oh, that’s perfect. So good, let’s go for the bottle.”
When they were alone, he asked her, “How many people are you expecting?”
“Just us.” She settled back in her chair, completely at home in the fancy restaurant. “We’ve been climbing for hours. I worked up an appetite, and I knew what I was doing.”
She looked around and lowered her voice. “Also, it’s kind of a deal I have with my inner animal. Really good food after I make her deal with heights. She hates it when I climb.”
“Mine did at first, but eventually saw the value in learning. It’s a new skill, right?
Never know when I’ll be on the run somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, and knowing how to scale a wall might come in handy.
I’m considering looking for an actual wall to try, once I get a little better on the fake ones. ”
“I can take you. Belaying is different. I handle your rope while you climb, and then you handle mine. We have to climb one at a time, but it works out okay. There’s a fun wall a little way up Signal Mountain.”
The fried green tomatoes and ribs arrived first, and he took a bite of a tomato before he’d made a conscious decision to. The crisp of the cornmeal crust, the acid of the tomato, and whatever the kitchen had done with the accompanying sauce stopped him mid-reach for his beer.
“What’s on these?”
“Remoulade, probably.” She was already eating a rib. “Good?”
“Amazingly good. I’ve had fried green tomatoes, but never like this.”
And he wasn’t sure he could tell his aunt Carol that hers weren’t the best he’d ever had anymore.
“That’s the difference between knowing the technique and understanding the ingredient.
” Tuesday said, and most of her rib was devoid of meat already.
“Appalachian cooking at its best is more about what’s available locally, but it also leans heavily on its Scots-Irish and German roots, plus what early settlers learned from the Cherokee.
It’s Southern-adjacent, but there are differences.
Less rice and seafood, and a lot less heavily-breaded and then fried dishes. ”
He thought about that while he tried the pork belly — smoked low and long, the fat rendered to silk. Meat that took two days to get exactly right, and tasted like it.
He thought about the restaurant on the mountain, the oval plates of liver, and the chicken hearts in the little cast iron skillet, and he thought about Zaya’s this afternoon, and the sixty-day ribeye he’d pulled off the grill at exactly the right moment.
And now everything at this table.
The food was completely different at every place, but also real food, without fucking chemicals.
Most wolves prefer unprocessed food straight from the farm, but Tuesday took it farther. She went for cuisine, not just food. She found people who were not only careful with sourcing, but who knew what to do with it once they had it.
The lamb chops arrived, and he reached for one while she was testing the beef tartare. His first bite added even more points to his opinion of this place. Whoever was running things understood that lamb doesn’t forgive impatience.
“Where do they source?” he asked.
“Tennessee River Valley, mostly. If it isn’t regional, it isn’t on the menu, best I can tell.”
She looked at the lamb in his hands, then back up to his face with a grin. “You’re doing the butcher thing. Where you figure out where it came from.”
He shrugged. “Force of habit.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I do the same with technique. I can’t eat anywhere without reverse-engineering the kitchen.”
He thought about her asking for the collard green recipe and then cooking it a few days later, and the text that evening to let him know it was almost exactly the same, but it was close enough unless she wanted to make her own apple cider vinegar, or find someone locally who did.
The short rib gnocchi was the last thing to arrive and the last thing he expected to win the day, but someone had managed to braise ribs down to the most tender thing he’d ever put into his mouth — a rich, concentrated flavor you only get with time and skill.
He had to close his eyes while he ate it to give it the attention it deserved.
Before he took his third bite, he told her, “This is the best thing I’ve eaten today.”
“Including the dry-aged ribeye? The Galbi?”
He considered that. “Different categories.” He took another bite. “I grew up in Appalachia, so this is better than the Galbi to me, but a Korean butcher would probably prefer what’s familiar to him.”
She looked pleased, as if she’d won some kind of contest, and he supposed she had. He hadn’t known it was a competition when he’d picked the restaurant last week, but apparently, Potbellies been good enough to start one. He still had places he could take her, though.
Outside, the river had gone gold with the last of the afternoon light, and the bridge cast its long shadow across the water.
Only another hour or two, and she’d be in his ropes, but he was enjoying this time with her.
He’d learned a lot about her just by putting her on his bike, but then there’d been the disappearing creek, the boulders of the Fruit Bowl, her appreciation of Raven’s Point — not to mention how comfortable she’d been in an old country diner.
And then today, watching her climb had been like a chocolate-covered cherry on top.
He was in love with every facet of her, and looked forward to learning more about this complex, brilliant, beautiful woman.
He wanted all of her, and he was going to have to figure out what to do about that — but not tonight. Tonight, she was his, and he knew exactly what to do with her.
They stopped on the bridge to look at the evening view. Same city, different lighting, and it made a big difference.
He thought they were on the way back to her car, but Tuesday had one more surprise when they walked by the carousel — she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the bizarre animals circling a partially mirrored center.
He looked at the carousel. Then at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s a hundred-year-old antique. Hand-carved and hand-painted. A local master woodcarver spent years restoring it.”
He just stared at her, and she added, “I’m riding it. You can either watch or ride it with me.”
If she’d told him he was riding it, he’d have declined, but giving him a choice made it harder to refuse. Dammit.
She bought tokens, they waited for the current ride to end, and when the gate opened, she walked straight to a carved tiger — deep orange and black, mid-leap, frozen at the apex of something ferocious — and looked at him expectantly.
Knife looked around at the bear, the frog, the rabbit, and the fucking ostrich —and mentally shook his head. No fucking way.
A horse was right behind the tiger, and he climbed on it. At least he could keep an eye on her from here.
The music started and the carousel began to move, and Knife watched the river appear and disappear, watched Tuesday rise and fall with the tiger, grinning like a little kid, and decided maybe this wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
As long as no one got a picture and showed it to his brothers.