The Proof is in the Pudding (3 page)

After giving a quick touch-up to my TV makeup in the tiny backstage dressing room, I led Tuffy out onto the studio’s TV kitchen set. He trotted over to his padded dog bed next to the refrigerator and settled down to watch me cook for the cameras.

We should have finished for the day an hour ago, but technical glitches during the first two shows had put us behind. Unless this one went off smoothly, we’d run into the time scheduled for taping the auto repair show,
Car Guy
.

The repair shop’s standing set was next to mine at the west end of the cable network’s no-frills broadcast studios. No one wanted to upset the temperamental mechanic who’d had his name changed legally to Car Guy. Car, as we called him, had turned a surly on-air disposition and a penchant for smashing things when agitated into the highest rated program on the BLC. Although no one mentioned it when Car was around, according to the latest figures, my show was now running a close second to his.

I looked around my kitchen set. Everything seemed to be ready. The lights had been reset and positioned according to the dishes I would be making in this episode. A quick survey of the pantry cabinet and the refrigerator showed me the stagehands had restocked them from the list of items I’d need for this show. All I had to do was not ruin the dishes.

In the glass-enclosed control booth above me, I saw director Quinn Tanner’s knife-blade-thin body leaning over the shoulder of the board engineer. As she spoke to him, I saw him respond with an affirmative nod. She straightened, pushed a few strands of long black hair back from her pale face, and gazed down at me. Through my earpiece, I heard her British accent and her habitually frosty tone. “Take your position, Della.”

Hoping a little humor would warm her up, I said, “When the police arrest bad guys they tell them ‘assume the position’ and they have to spread their arms and legs for a pat-down.”

That got a chuckle out of Ernie Ramirez, operating Camera One, and a smile from Jada Powell, piloting Camera Two. There were a few seconds of heavy silence from the director’s booth until Quinn said, “I don’t think that will be necessary—unless, of course, you’re carrying a concealed spatula.”

It wasn’t much of a joke, but it was the first I’d ever heard her make, so I laughed.

“Enough frivolity,” she said. “Move one meter to the right, Della. Let’s get through this taping before global warming kills us all.”

I moved a step to the right. Through my earpiece, I heard Quinn recite her beginning-of-show routine. “Theme music up . . . Opening credits . . . Five seconds . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”

I smiled at Camera One just as the red light came on above the lens. “Hi, everybody, I’m Della Carmichael. Welcome to
In the Kitchen with Della
. As anybody who’s ever watched me knows, I’m not a trained chef, but I love to create in the kitchen. I make the kind of meals anybody can make with a little encouragement, and with ingredients you can find just about anywhere. I always do my own shopping because I never know when I’ll spot something—preferably on sale—that inspires a new dish. It happened again yesterday. A fireman with a full shopping cart got into the checkout line behind me at the supermarket. I knew he was a fireman because he was wearing the shirt and boots and the heavy yellow pants, with a radiophone hooked to his belt. The only things missing were the coat and hat and the big red fire engine outside.

“I asked him if he was shopping for his firehouse, and he said yes, and that it was his turn to cook. I asked him what kind of things he prepared for his teammates, and he said, ‘Whatever can be made in under forty-five minutes and can be reheated if we get a call out.’ That conversation inspired the theme of today’s show: ‘Food That’s Fast and Durable.’ ”

I moved around the set, describing what I was doing as I collected a box of pasta and jars of prepared sauce from the pantry, and a big bag of broccoli florets from the freezer. “First up is a main dish that has three ingredients and requires only four steps to make: Linguine Alfredo with Broccoli.”

I filled a pasta pot with water and turned the flame up high to bring it to a boil quickly. “I’m making linguine today because sixteen-ounce boxes were on sale, four for three dollars. An irresistible price. There was also a special on jars of Bertolli Alfredo Sauce. If you watch the show regularly, you’ve probably seen me make my own Alfredo sauce, but frankly—and it’s a little embarrassing to admit—this brand is even better than mine. In addition to Linguine Alfredo with Broccoli being delicious and inexpensive, you can make it in just eleven minutes: two minutes for the pasta water to come to a boil and nine minutes to cook the linguine and broccoli.”

While waiting for the water to bubble, I opened the sauce, poured it into a pot, and turned the burner below it on low.

“My Grandma Nell taught me to cook. I call it going to the University of Nellie Campbell. She was one gutsy gal—came to America from Scotland all by herself when she was fourteen years old. A cousin in San Francisco sponsored her immigration, but she had to support herself. The only job she could get was as a kitchen maid in the home of a wealthy family. After a few years of watching and helping, she succeeded the old cook when the woman retired. When Grandma Nell herself retired, she came to live with us.”

The pasta water was ready. I indicated the pot. “We’ve got a nice, roiling boil going here.” I demonstrated as I talked. “In goes a toss of salt, and now the box of linguine.” Picking up a slotted spoon, I said, “Give the pasta a couple of stirs to keep the strands from sticking together.”

In my ear, Quinn started the countdown to the commercial break. I said to the camera, “I’ll be back in a couple of minutes and then we’ll start making a bright and tangy bread salad with fresh vegetables and an olive oil-based dressing that’s both delicious and also good for your hair and complexion. Then we’ll do the last two parts in our four-step main course. Don’t worry if you can’t write down the instructions. You’ll find the recipes on the Web site:
www.DellaCooks.com
.”

While the cameras were off, I rinsed out and refilled Tuffy’s water bowl. Because it was hot under the TV lights, I added a few ice cubes to it. Tuffy fished one out and crunched on it happily.

When we were taping again, the overhead camera took a close-up of the pasta in the boiling water.

“The pasta’s been cooking for almost five of the nine minutes it needs,” I said. “Now I’m pouring the contents of a twenty-eight-ounce bag of frozen broccoli into the water with the linguine. In four more minutes, they’ll be ready for the final step.”

While the pasta and broccoli cooked together, I started on the bread salad by tearing a loaf of Italian bread into bite-size chunks. I told the camera, “Bread salad is called Panzanella by the Italians. I don’t know if you realize it, but bread has been around for thousands of years. Loaves were found in ancient Egyptian tombs, along with jugs of wine. I guess the loyal subjects didn’t want their Pharaoh du jour waking up and being hungry and thirsty. Or lonely. Some rulers had wives or girlfriends put into the tombs with them. That thought gives a whole new meaning to the poem that goes ‘A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and
thou
.’ ” I gave an exaggerated shudder. “Don’t worry—I’m not going to tell you so much about the history of bread that you’ll change the channel.”

As though he’d been given a cue, Tuffy got up from his bed and came over to the preparation counter to watch me. Camera Two’s light clicked on and Jada Powell moved in to catch Tuffy’s cocked head and quizzical expression.

I looked down at Tuffy, acknowledged him with a “Hi, Tuff,” and turned back to the camera to chat about food as I cut up tomatoes, and cucumbers, red onion, a clove of garlic, and made little confetti-like strips out of rolled up leaves of fresh basil.

As soon as the linguine and broccoli finished boiling, I ladled out one cup of the liquid and put it into an empty jar of Alfredo sauce before I drained the linguine.

Pouring the pasta and broccoli into the pot of warm Alfredo sauce, I said, “As you saw, I saved a cup of the nice starchy pasta water. If you need to reheat this dish, or heat the leftovers next day, you’ll want to add a little of this water to thin out the sauce.

“By the way, you don’t have to be a vegetarian to enjoy vegetarian meals. I like meat and chicken and fish, but I enjoy pasta and veggies so much that I eat like this two or three times a week. Varying your meals—veg and non-veg—is healthy, and it stretches the food budget, too.”

Quinn’s voice in my ear told me it was time for another series of commercials.

I said to the camera, “I’ve got to take a little break, but I’ll keep working on the salad, and when we come back we’ll mix up the dressing. Then we’ll finish off this meal by making the world’s easiest dessert: a fresh fruit and store-bought sherbet parfait.” I held up a tall crystal parfait glass. “Isn’t this pretty? I bought a set of them for six dollars at a yard sale. Anyway, after you have a main dish with a creamy sauce like Alfredo, I don’t think anything tastes better than fresh fruit sherbet. And it looks so pretty, too.

“Now if the phone rings and it’s someone you can’t get off the line for half an hour, or if the plumber finally shows up to fix that leak, don’t worry about missing these instructions. If you’re just tuning into the show today, this is a reminder that they’re all on the Web site:
www.DellaCooks.com
.”

The show went off without technical problems, and I didn’t drop anything, or cut myself while chopping. In a new personal best, we finished ten minutes ahead of schedule.

As soon as Quinn called, “That’s it,” I thanked the crew and performed the usual ritual of setting out plates, paper napkins, and cutlery, and invited them to help themselves to what I’d made.

I didn’t stay to eat with them this time because I was eager to get home to talk to Eileen.

During weekdays, six PM is rush hour. If I were coming from my home in Santa Monica across Beverly Glen Canyon and going into North Hollywood where the Better Living Channel’s studio was located, it would have taken me at least an hour and a half—unless there’d been a car crash somewhere in the narrow cut in the mountain that separated Los Angeles and its west side suburbs from the San Fernando Valley. In that event, I’d be stuck in “gridlock hell” for anywhere from an extra half hour to the start of the next millennium.

But I was lucky this evening because I was going in the opposite direction from the seemingly endless line of cars inching their way into the valley. Traveling south from Ventura Boulevard toward Sunset Boulevard, I found my side of the road was virtually empty. I zipped along at a speed drivers on the other side of the road I imagined could only watch with longing.

Normally, I didn’t speed through the canyon, but tonight I wanted to get home to see Eileen. We’d both been so busy lately that we hadn’t spent much time together, even though she had lived in my house most of the time for the last fifteen of her twenty-one years. When my husband, Mack, was alive, we called her our “spiritual daughter.” We’d not managed to have children of our own. Eileen called us by the honoraria “Aunt Del” and “Uncle Mack.”

John O’Hara, Eileen’s father, had been Mack’s LAPD partner until Mack died. (I hated the phrase “passed away”; to me, it diminished the enormity of the loss.) John, who had risen to the rank of lieutenant, was still there, still dedicated, if increasingly disillusioned with the politicians and their meddling with the force.

Eileen’s mother, Shannon, one of my two closest female friends, had struggled with paranoid schizophrenia for the past twenty years. She’d had to be hospitalized when medications stopped working, or when she’d ceased taking them because, she said, they made her gain weight. Her current psychiatrist had devised a combination of medications without that side effect and so she was taking them as scheduled. For the past few months Shannon had been more like the woman I first knew than she had been for years. That made all of us who loved her happy.