I have achieved a new summit: I have written not one but three stories I can’t do anything with this morning. I will have to put them aside. At this rate, I will still be at the keyboard late this afternoon and miss crucial pool time.
Anyway, the traumatic news of yesterday morning didn’t sit well on top of the troubling news from Iraq. If you haven’t run into the unifying field theory for why all this is happening, you might want to peruse Seymour Hersh’s “Red Lines and Rat Lines.” I have not always found his reporting to be salubrious, but I have always respected his integrity and the accuracy of his sources.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line
Between that and the anguished situation with my former colleagues I was dyspeptic enough that dramatic action seemed to be required. I called up Old Jim and asked if he could re-arrange his schedule and accommodate a late lunch at Willow. He allowed as how he could manage that, once the fierce dark clouds did what they promised to do, and we found ourselves presently at the Amen Corner long before the usual time.
It was interesting to watch the place transition from buttoned-down lunch-time to the slack period of a Friday afternoon. Some late diners lingered over plates of the Lunch Counter specials- Friday’s special- last time for this cycle is the mega-tasty short rib Steak and Cheese on Kate Jansen’s delicious home-baked roll.
It was too late for that, and Jim opted for a Budweiser and I for a crisp sauvignon blanc. Dante was handling the afternoon trade and asked if we wanted one check or two, something that had never been asked in the seven years we have been hanging out at the place. Jim gave a curt “no,” and then the conversation drifted over to the morning set-up sous chef, who was sitting next to Jim. His birthday it was, and having come off shift, he was celebrating in earnest and way ahead of us.
He is living with his girlfriend’s uncle at the moment, hoping to save up enough money to marry the mother of his daughter and move up in the world. It was an interesting (though mostly one-sided) ramble through the world of a hard-working 24 year old, and a litany of challenges that I had not been forced to consider for several decades.
At some point Dante and Marc helped him on to his next destination, which was on the verge of being face down at the bar, and things returned to a more sedate and measured discussion. Both Tracy and Kate stopped by to chat, since things were slow at three, and we had to comment on the gluten-free millet bread we sampled Thursday night.
“We are working on the bread, and we might be getting close,” said Tracy. “It is complex. Our loaves have as many as 35 ingredients.”
“That’s amazing,” I said. “The slices we ate last night were rich and nutty and absolutely delicious.”
“Yeah, and without a damn thing on it. I would definitely buy some if you sold it at the bakery counter back there.”
“The problem we are having now is the preservative aspect. We don’t want to add that awful stuff some people put in their bread- like ammonium sulfate or L-cysteine to keep it fresh.”
“Holy smokes,” I said. “I thought gluten-free was supposed to be healthy.”
“Gosh, no!” said Tracy firmly and frowned. “The majority of flours and starches used to make conventionally-sold gluten-free bread are incredibly high in glycemic properties.”
“You are kidding,” said Jim. “That is poison if you have a tendency for Type-2 diabetes.”
“Absolutely,” said Tracy, crossing her arms over her white chef’s jacket. “Turn over a bag of gluten free bread at Trader Joe’s and see what the label says. Rice, even the brown stuff, potato flour and tapioca. Sometimes they contain ‘industrial’ type binders to make it stick together- like xanthan gum.”
“Ick,” I said, taking a sip of wine. “That doesn’t sound very appealing.”
“You have that. We are working to have a healthy, preservative and gluten free mixture, but that means our loaves have more than two dozen separate ingredients to get the texture we want and still have it stay moist for a few days. That is what we are working on today. It’s an oat loaf.”
“I would like to buy a loaf- how much would it cost?”
Tracy pursed her brow, calculated. “That is really the problem. We don’t know. We can do the cost of ingredients, but there are sunk costs in the kitchen and such that we would have to back into the pricing. Say, six bucks for a small loaf and twelve for a large one.”
“That is a lot of money,” I said, trying to think what the last loaf of artisan bread I purchased at the Harris Tweeter. “But I quit carbs and would only buy it for a blue moon event like a really cool grilled cheese sandwich.”
“That is what we are trying for, and to get the price down. This is all experimental cooking at this point. She sighed. It is funny- I need someone to handle all the back-office stuff like payroll and taxes and permits. We are going through that with the new location we are thinking about.”
“What? That is spectacular news!” I said. “A Willow 2? That is huge!”
“Nothing for sure. Brian is looking at some options, maybe in Rossyln. That would give us some leverage when the lease on this place comes up again.”
“You can’t move,” I declared. “This is an institution.”
“The Fish and Wildlife Service is leaving their headquarters across the street at the end of the month. So things do change. Sometimes I feel like this is an institution I feel like I am committed in sometimes.”
“You need someone to handle the business end,” said Jim. “That would free you up to do what you love, and you sure have the passion for it.”
She smiled and said if we were nice and didn’t scare the other patrons she might send out a slice of the gluten-free Oat loaf.”
Jim and I went back to talking about days past, making a concerted effort to stay away from the present, where not that much seems funny. My favorite was his story about the dwarfs- little people, I mean. It was a hysterical tale of a friend who had a phobia about them. Stark fear. So, this one night in Northhampton there’s a traveling circus in town and he and a buddy hired one of the little people to walk into the bar where the phobic was drinking quietly and tug on the hem to his coat and sing him “happy birthday.”
“You know, in that kinda high-pitched voice like the Munchkins?”
I nodded. “I always liked Munchkins, but those guys from the Lollypop League in the Wizard of Oz looked like hard cases.”
“Well, the dwarf finished the song and my pal panicked, fainted and fell off his stool. He broke his leg, and we had to take him to the hospital.”
“Serves him right, I guess,” I said, rubbing the long scar on my thigh where I had done about the same thing without benefit of a single little person.”
At that point Dante slid a plate in front of us with two slices of the oat bread, still warm from the oven. Jim quickly reached for one and tore off a hunk, popping it in his mouth. He smiled. “That is tasty.”
I asked Dante if Willow could spare some fresh creamery butter. I f I was going to eat carbs, I wanted to go all the way.
“Pussy. You ought to take it straight.” In the time it took for the little metal bowls with the whipped unsalted butter to arrive he was starting on the second slice. I loaded up a piece with the butter and tasted it. The lightness of the whip melded marvelously with the nutty rich flavor of the oat loaf. Texture was superb, the consistency moist without being flaccid. “That is fantastic!”
Kate Jansen stopped by as the place was starting to fill up with people eager to start the weekend. We talked bread strategy for a while as the level of chatter increased. The sun had come out and flooded through the window adjacent to the Corner. Life was looking up, and I forgot about all the stuff that had got me spooled up in the morning.
I decided to go home and take a nice long swim. I was paying the check when something else happened. Tracy stopped by and gave me the end of the oat bread.
“That was enough for our experiment,” she said. “Why don’t you make a nice grilled sandwich when you get home and see what you think.”
I smiled broadly. “Tracy O’Grady,” I said. “You are the greatest.” I turned and reached out to shake Jim’s hand. “And as for you, keep the little people away from me. I can’t afford to fall again!”
“Happy Birthday,” he said, laughing.
“That is so fifteen minutes ago,” I said, and actually whistled as I walked into the sunlight to see if I could find the car.
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303