Off the Menu (5 page)

T
hat’s a wrap, people. Thank you all. We’ll do it again next week.” Bob, director extraordinaire of both
Feast
and
Academy
finally gets the ending he wants for the “Win Over Your In-Laws” brunch episode of
Feast
, the third show we’ve shot today. We do anywhere from three to five half-hour shows on a shooting day, three days a week, shooting the entire seasons of both shows for the following year in a whirlwind five months at a frenetic pace and with minimal sleep. The shows are not scripted, but rather lightly outlined. Patrick is a natural, so as long as he knows his talking points, he can work off the cuff. We generally tend to do four recipes per episode, two three-minute, one six-minute, and one eight-minute, which leaves room for an anecdote or two. Nearly clockwork. Crazy to some, but it frees Patrick up to run the restaurants and do personal appearances and work on the books and show planning six months a year, and for us both to have the full month of August off to recharge our batteries. No one can work effectively in Chicago’s August heat and humidity anyway; it makes us all mush-brained.

It became clear early on in our working relationship that the usual vacation schedule does not apply to Patrick’s personal team, and while other employees can grab a week here or there for trips with family, or plan ahead for getaways with friends or lovers, I am only on vacation when Patrick is on
vacation. Sometimes I get lucky and he gets a bee in his bonnet about a mini trip, and makes the time for himself (or the Legs of the moment) and I get a spontaneous bit of freedom. I have become adept at snagging last-minute deals for spa getaways with Bennie, cheapo airfare for long weekends in wine country or Montreal with the girls or Barry, or quick zips into New York to see friends and play with Bruce and eat expansively. But usually it is just a day or two of freedom, which I will spend holed up in the little cabin I bought a couple of years ago just over the border in Wisconsin. Just a ninety-minute drive, so close enough to get home quickly if there is a Patrick-related emergency, but far enough away to relax and breathe fresh air. It is Dumpling’s favorite place on the planet, where he can run around in the woods, chase chipmunks and rabbits that he never catches, and laze around being a warm puppy in the sun while I swing in a hammock or float in the Lilliputian pool, an in-ground so small that no more than four people can float in it at any one time. Emily, who often borrows the cabin to write the last few chapters of her books, calls it the Puddle.

August is when I can really decompress. Whole weeks at the cabin, where I can host barbecues with friends, spend quality time with the family, catch a Cubs game, sleep in, and take luxurious afternoon naps. Go to the farmer’s markets and get excited about canning, pickling, and making jam. Unfortunately, as today is the eleventh of October, I have 312 days to slog through before my next long break.

I meet Patrick in his dressing room-slash-office as I always do after taping.

“That was okay, right?” he asks, while taking off his makeup with cold cream and a hand towel like some 1930s film diva. I tried to turn him on to the new makeup remover
wipes, but he insists they goop him up so much for the camera that if he doesn’t really “deep down clean up” he gets foundation all over his eight-hundred-thread-count Italian linen pillowcases. Poor baby. So hard to be him. But even someone as pretty as Patrick can’t get away without makeup these days; HD is a bitch. Look at poor Bill Maher. I know he’s smart and funny, but when I watch his show all I can think is that the man needs spackle. In regular definition? Not a bad-looking guy. In high-def? He looks like his face caught fire and someone tried to put it out with a golf shoe. I’m not saying, I’m just saying. Lucky for Patrick, his skin is smooth enough, and he usually just needs to hide the dark circles under his eyes or the occasional blemish.

“It was great, as usual, Margot Channing. I think it will be your best season ever.” Patrick hates it when I use old movie references, as he is allergic to black-and-white. But watching him take his makeup off is so very
All About Eve
, I just can’t help it.

“And I’m not going bobblehead yet, right?” Patrick is very aware of what we call the bobblehead phenomenon when it comes to food television. The networks hire people with real, genuine personalities, endearing quirks, and charming ways about them to host shows. And somehow, the more time they spend doing their various projects, the more overexposured they become, and the more they are turned into weird and annoying caricatures of themselves. Initially cute phrases become overused tag lines. The anecdotes get more far-fetched. The special episodes become more heavily costumed and thematically insane. The joy and passion for cooking become forced, the smiles wider, the eyes more dead. Odd guest stars are trotted out. Veneers and hair extensions and plastic surgery rear their heads, making everyone look like
the Madame Tussauds wax version of who they used to be. There are more and more competition shows devoted to finding new hosts, the casts of which mostly range from mildly annoying to Machiavellian. The solution seems to be to just keep adding shows, perhaps in an attempt to keep the hosts themselves interested, but really just further diluting their appeal.

People who were easy and entertaining their first couple of seasons, now a decade or more in, are painfully unwatchable. Very few have escaped becoming bobbleheads. Nigella Lawson is one, and she is one of the few I still TiVo. Especially since she did an event with Patrick, and I got to spend half a day with her. She is luminously beautiful, and just as smart and funny and humble as she appears to be on television. Plus, all her recipes actually work, which is rarer than you might think for people who make a living cooking on TV. Jamie Oliver is another, although he walks a fine line sometimes and I don’t hold great hope for him in the long run. Some of the new faces on the Cooking Channel are hanging in there, although some of them started full-on bobble and aren’t getting better. And as far as I’m concerned Tom Colicchio can do no wrong, and I wish someone would give him a cooking show—I can’t imagine him going bobblehead. But the Food Network as a whole has pretty much completely jumped the shark, and at least 30 percent of Patrick’s colleagues on Food TV are bobbling, and the network is only five years old. Which is really troubling, since they are looking into launching a sister network themselves, because what America really needs is four channels devoted to twenty-four-hours-a-day food television.

Patrick is very easy on camera, and has so far been able to just stay himself, at least the fun, happy, nice, competent
television version of himself, which makes his shows still relevant and is why all the talk shows love him. The daytimes love his ability to banter and do a cooking demo simultaneously, and the nighttimes love his quick wit, willingness to laugh at himself, and the fact that he is up for anything. Letterman especially loves to have him on, even occasionally having him do a “man on the street” segment. I’ve always been enormously grateful to a certain Italian mama’s-boy chef whose on-camera cringe-worthy devolution and subsequent need to completely resurrect his career and re-form his face have meant that Patrick has both turned down all offers of reality shows and stayed far away from the Botox.

“Thanks, Alana-banana. I felt good about it, especially that last episode. And I love what you did with the French toast, the brûlée-ing idea was a genius move.”

We wanted to do French toast for the brunch, but acknowledged that it is a dangerous item for a special event where people might be dressed up. Patrick had an awesome recipe for the toast itself, using day-old Challah, melted vanilla ice cream as a main ingredient in the soaking liquid, and just a hint of sea salt. I had come up with an alternative to the sticky drippy-down-your-front maple syrup problem by mixing equal parts maple sugar and demerara sugar, and having him sprinkle this on top of the already-cooked French toast and doing a quick brûlée under the broiler, giving the toast a thin crackly maple sugar shell. All the sweet and smoky taste, nothing ruining your mother-in-law’s favorite silk blouse.

“Glad you approved. But even gladder that you finally managed to do it without setting it on fire.” Three takes of smoking, blackened bread, because Patrick was waxing poetic about his ex–mother-in-law and forgot to get the pan out of the oven.

“What can I say; Dora means the world to me.” It’s true. Patrick’s ex-wife, Sharlene, would not piss on him if he were on fire. But her mom secretly stays in touch, and Patrick takes her to a special lunch once a year, and still sends her Mother’s Day cards, and fairly lavish birthday gifts, which I agonize over choosing for him. I think this has less to do with genuine affection for Dora and more with it being a wonderful way to send a big fat middle finger to his ex.

“Yes, I know.”

“Change of plans for the weekend. I’m going to head to New York to check in on the new place, and have some meetings.”

Crap. I was so hoping to have a life this weekend, maybe brunch with the girls, some doggie-park time with Dumpling. My disappointment must show on my face.

“No worries, pumpkin, going solo. You are off the hook for the next three days.”

I can feel my entire spine relax. “Sure you don’t need me?” Please don’t need me please don’t need me …

“I always need you, you are my right arm and my left lung and my middle testicle, but I’ll be okay for one little weekend in New York.” The little smirk playing around the corner of his mouth tells me all I need to know. In New York will be a new set of Legs, making my presence both unnecessary and unwelcome. Which is fine by me.

“Well, you and your testicles behave yourself and leave the city standing. Stealth me if you need anything.” Patrick and I have a private instant-messaging system on both of our iPhones, which he calls “stealthing.” The messages don’t get stored on any system and cannot be hacked. It is almost CIA-presidential. But when you are a celeb and
Us Weekly
pays a
bundle for text messages and e-mails of a private nature, you get a little paranoid.

Patrick wipes the last of the cream off his face, and stands up, with his traditional kissing of the top of my head. I know he thinks it is a big-brotherly type of affectionate display, but frankly it always feels a little condescending. And reminds me that I am only five three. It doesn’t bother me enough to ask him to stop, since I’ve experienced the alternative, which is his signature kiss on the inside of the wrist. He takes your hand and then turns it over, kissing you right where your hand meets your arm. It makes you all tingly in your girl parts, completely beyond your conscious control, which utterly wigs me out. It’s like having a random sex dream about Dick Cheney. You know consciously that it doesn’t mean you actually find him attractive in any way, but you still feel like you want to take a Silkwood shower when you wake up.

“You put some weekend in your weekend, kitten. We have a big week next week.”

“We always have a big week. Do you need me to make any arrangements?” Patrick’s executive assistant, Andrea, usually does travel booking, but she has been out all week with a horrible flu. The one unbreakable rule on Team Patrick is that the moment you feel like your health is going round the bend, you call in and stay away. We work too closely together, for too many hours, with too little ventilation to let anyone sick, even with just the sniffles, come in to work. If you are able to be available on computer and phone, great, but keep your in-person germs to yourself. There is an industrial-size pump jar of Purell around every corner, Airborne and Vitamin C lozenges and zinc tablets on the craft service table, and our crew washes hands like the set is an
operating theater. But with this kind of diligence, we have not had the kind of crud that so often sweeps through a whole team. And because Patrick insists on contracts being very generous about paid sick days, including days to take care of spouses or children who are sick, no one takes advantage.

“I was a big boy and made my own arrangements, thank you very much.”

Which means that he is staying with whomever she is, and doesn’t need a hotel room.

“Great. Well then, have an amazing trip, eat something delicious for me, and we’ll hit this again on Monday.”

I scamper across the hall to my little office, wall-to-wall cookbooks, and piles of recipes in progress. It should take me less than twenty minutes to finish up some e-mails, and approve the shooting schedule for next week, and then I can head out. Barry is freshly back from his star turn in Philly, with a pile of excellent reviews and a Barrymore nomination, and he and Dumpling are celebrating at an after-school program for autistic kids and their nonspectrum siblings. If I hurry, I’ll have plenty of time to stop and see my folks for a real decent visit before heading home. I flip open my laptop.

Oh. My. I had forgotten about that. It’s been nearly a month since I hit that button, and we’ve been so busy it didn’t occur to me to remember that I had reached out, or to be annoyed that he didn’t reach back. But apparently, here he is.
And the fact that it is another freebie event is not lost on me—he grudgingly gets extra points for probably not wanting to pay them anything either.

I click the link, and log in to my account. I can’t help but notice that the first thing on my profile is a notification that I have a new match. Jerry is sixty, five four, with an obvious Grecian Formula dye job, including his neatly trimmed beard, and apparently makes his living as a magician. I always wanted to date a man in a cape.

RJ has not added anything to his profile, including a picture. Likelihood of him being Trolltacular increases exponentially. Ditto married. I open his response.