“Madeline, that is very helpful. Thank you so much. And now, out of all the fabulous recipes you have created, which would you consider to be your signature dish?”
Madeline laughs, glances at the lamp reflected in her mirror, and imagines it’s a television camera. “That’s a tough question to answer, but I suppose I would have to say the dish that has brought me most comment is my raspberry gumdrop tart, though I’m the first to admit that raspberry tarts and even gumdrops have been around for a long time. Until me, however, no one ever thought to put them together, and I find that the freshness of the fresh raspberries blends perfectly with the slightly sticky sweetness of the gumdrops (no mint, please!). The beauty of this recipe is that a person doesn’t even have to add sugar because it’s all in the gumdrops but, at the same time, be sure to cook the pastry portion of this dessert first (thirty minutes at three hundred fifty degrees), and then add the gumdrops and raspberries, because the raspberries should be nearly uncooked, and the gumdrops should be under the broiler only long enough to be glazed a little by the heat, not melted. If you aren’t sure whether you have the kind of gumdrops that resist melting you can find them in the ‘Cooking with Madeline’ section of your supermarket, where you can also find my frozen tart pastry dough. If you want to try this for yourself, you can find the recipe at cookingwithmadeline.com.”
Celebrity: a famous person. From the Latin celeber, meaning numerous, or much frequented.
“Do you have any regrets in your career as a successful chef? Is there anything you are still waiting to accomplish?”
Here a long silence follows. When Madeline finally comes back to the question it’s obvious from the mirror that her expression has changed. She is visibly sadder, almost weary.
“As a chef, no. But when I see all the hungry people in this world, people for whom a half bowl of cooked rice would be a feast, people who sit around all day gnawing on roots and bark, people who have to slaughter their family dog, or cat, or even their canary in order to get a little protein, people who comb through the dumpsters and trash cans outside of Madeline’s Gourmet Restaurants in search of some specks of crème brûlée, or for a smear of pâté someone has missed stuck to the bottom of a shred of lettuce, it makes me so unhappy.
“Also, Bruce, it may surprise you to learn there are people who are so hungry they consider themselves lucky if they come across a snake and beat it to death, or a toad, too, though with toads a person has to be careful, because there are several varieties that are extremely toxic, including the cane toad and the Asiatic toad, which, paradoxically, plays an important part in Eastern medicine, so if you get one of those and wolf it down without thinking just because you’re starving, without having first looked it up in a book about those things — and frankly most people won’t take the trouble to do this — you could be dead or at least seriously ill. Then there are also insects, naturally, which a person can roast after pulling off the wings and legs, and they don’t in fact taste too bad — sort of a nutty taste, it seems to me — although I suggest you avoid the ones with stingers — and unbelievably, there are also people so desperate that they actually eat fleas — yes, fleas! — which their womenfolk grind in a mortar until they’re dead and turn into a paste, and then the paste is mixed with just a little tree sap — I forget the name of the tree they use — to give it a little sweetness and to hold it together — not too much, because the resulting dish, called a “flea stick,” is meant to be crunchy, not chewy. And although it is true that because I am an artist I have no choice but to follow my art wherever it leads me, I still think it’s important for everyone to remember that in the world there are a lot of people who are destitute, miserable, and hungry as well, so even as an artist, I constantly try to think of innovative and delightful ways to please all palates, from the most sophisticated to the average, which is something I believe we all—and not just celebrities — need to do more of.”
“Thank you so much, Madeline.”
“Any time, Bruce. Ready and waiting.”
But waiting for what?
And waiting for how long?
Jeffery watches Trisha Reed, the television news reporter who is a celebrity in her own right, speak about the sudden influx of strangers who have been seen wandering about St. Nils. Trisha Reed has a friendly but businesslike demeanor, as if at one time she was, or had thought about being, a real estate agent. “People report sightings of a mix of men and women,” she says and looks concerned, “but they are always described as ‘dirty,’ and many at times are covered with what witnesses call ‘actual soil.’” Then Reed displays some grainy photographs as evidence, holding them away from her as if the dirt displayed on the pictures might somehow be transferred to her fashionable scarlet dress and well-coifed golden hair. The photos are hard to make out; they are blurred and grainy, and could be people, gophers, or anything, truly. “Even worse,” Reed adds, “these strangers do nothing in particular, have nowhere they need to go, but walk the streets without an apparent destination.” She gives her head a smallish, outraged, attractive shake.
Jeffery scratches his own head. How could anyone possibly know someone else’s destination?
“Authorities conjecture these people may be part of a drug smuggling operation that went wrong,” Trisha Reed continues, giving her hair a flip to indicate that she is not responsible, even though this is a matter for public concern. “No one can say for certain,” she reads from the prompter, “but on the other hand,” (another flip), “the males appear not to be dangerous.” She cautions, however, that citizens should not approach them, even to offer small gifts of food or bottles of water or moist towelettes, as has been reported happening in certain liberal neighborhoods. “Some of the females”—and here she manages to convey a sort of sneering tone without an actual sneer—“have been reported being seen in fancy restaurants dining with wealthy men.” Then she reverts to her original expression of confused concern. It is also possible, she adds, that such individuals are not criminals at all, but victims of an illegal smuggling operation. However, while all our fellow humans in general should be treated with compassion, we should keep in mind that any victim can be dangerous if provoked, and the best thing a person can do is report any further sightings of these people as soon as possible to the authorities.
“We live in dangerous times,” Trisha Reed says and looks hard into the lens of the television camera. “We all need to be vigilant.”
Heather looks in her mirror. Her hair is okay, but not much more than that. In other words, nothing special, a mousey brown, a little limp, but not horrible by any means. Cut it off, the voice in the mirror says. You need to cut it off.