Forty-Five
Clara had gone to Zabar’s to shop for dinner and to get some ideas for this week’s television segment about summer grilling, which was bound to be a royal pain in the ass because the studio kitchen still didn’t have a grill.
She would have to make everything in advance and figure out how to make it look like Jimmy was grilling in the studio.
She picked up a bunch of practice items: corn, peppers, sausages, and hamburger mix.
Bread and tomatoes. Trudging home with multiple bags in each hand, she made a mental list of all the things she would need to bring to the studio: her favorite large white platters but also something else because the director had developed a sudden aversion to all white plates even though they were almost always the best choice for the finished product, only seen on-screen for a minute, sometimes seconds.
But Clara had learned the hard way that the absolute worst thing you could do on a television or commercial set was antagonize the director.
“Dude,” she’d said to one dude who was throwing a temper tantrum because he didn’t like the “noodle read” on a bowl of farfalle she’d styled, “this is a jarred tomato sauce spot, not Goodfellas.” She was replaced that afternoon, so now she treated them all like the infantile prima donnas they seemed to be and greeted every suggestion and peccadillo and complaint like it was both brilliant and reasonable, which was almost never true.
Clara still did print work, especially with Philip, but it was the television work that thrilled her.
She loved live television and their scrappy fledgling food channel.
No reshoots, no fussing with tweezers and blowtorches and spritzers of water or glycerin once the show was live.
No retakes, no sitting around waiting for photos to be developed and photographers to agonize over whether the torn pieces of basil should have been placed a little bit to the right and on an angle.
No advertising executives asking why the grains of rice were irregular.
Things went wrong, sometimes spectacularly wrong, but was anyone even watching?
Clara started at the network the week they moved into a new studio space.
Though it looked shiny and clean on camera, in practical terms, the set barely functioned.
The sinks had running water because they were connected to the building’s sprinkler system, not because they had proper plumbing.
Everything emptied into a hidden bucket beneath the counter, and Clara was one of the people who had to remember to empty the slosh pail between shows.
“Who built this Potemkin kitchen?” she asked at the end of her first week. “Who wanted electric stoves?”
“It’s like the Taj Majal compared to the old place,” one of the production assistants told her.
“How is that possible?” Clara asked.
“No rats,” the woman said.
Even though Clara was pathologically organized and everything at the television studio was haphazard and last minute, she recognized the seemingly limitless opportunity of the gig.
The producers needed to fill countless hours of potentially profitable television and were willing to pull in any chef in the city who was photogenic and able to keep up a mildly coherent patter while cooking.
One night, she brought two producers to her friend Jimmy La Rocco’s small Northern Italian restaurant in the far West Village.
She knew Jimmy was a superstar in search of a bigger stage.
They gave him a trial slot and, after five flawless and entertaining demonstrations, came up with a format for what would become his show Tre al Tavola, three at the table.
In each episode, Jimmy would cook three dishes for three invited guests, some culled from the food world, some fans, and on the occasional day when they couldn’t book three guests, a few willing crew members.
Twenty twenty-five-minute episodes shot in four days.
Five episodes a day meant fifteen meals to prep and cook and duplicate and get just right—or right enough—for television. Clara thrived on the adrenaline.
As she turned onto her block, she thought about side dishes that didn’t have to be grilled.
Maybe an orzo salad. Maybe something with strawberries for dessert; they’d just appeared at the farmer’s market and looked spectacular.
She was smiling and humming as she walked through the front door, thinking about Philip and summer corn and peaches and plums. She heard voices as she put her key in the lock and wondered who it could be.
Anyone! Philip was a pied piper, always luring people home after a shoot for food and drinks and music.
At first it drove her crazy, but then she started to enjoy cooking for actual people again.
She’d forgotten how satisfying it was, and she loved how their home was becoming the center of cheer and comfort.
Something almost joyful. If only she could fully lean into all of it.
Too often it made her testy and curt, and Philip would retreat for a bit until she softened and apologized.
“Why do you do that?” he asked her once.
“What is the origin of all this discomfort around comfort?” She would brush him off, but she knew they needed to talk.
She had to tell him some things, confess some things, because she couldn’t avoid her family forever, and he was pressing to meet them.
She pushed open the door with her hip and hollered into the small entryway, “I’m home!
Can you give me a hand?” Silence. She walked into the living room, arms laden with groceries. “Philip?”
“Hi.” She heard Dune’s voice. She froze and dropped one bag of groceries. Cherry tomatoes started rolling across the floor.
“Got enough dynamite there, Butch?” Dune said, smiling briefly. She wanted to laugh but couldn’t. She turned to Philip and knew at once she’d gotten home too late. Both of them, Philip and Dune (Dune!), stood staring at her, baffled, both of them searching her face.
“Well, fuck,” she said.