This Place of Wonder (3)

I’d read all the classics of food writing by then, of course. In a literature class I read M. F. K. Fisher, and loved her rich, clear accounts of eating. I’d found the original archived blog written by Julie Powell about her one-year experiment with cooking every single recipe from Julia Child’s first cookbook and been completely swept away. Her writing was harsher than Fisher’s, but also earthier. I found Bourdain, and fell in love with his lusty approach to life and cried for three days when he killed himself.

All of them. And then I found Meadow Beauvais. It had been a terrible day. I’d poured everything I had into attempting to land an internship with a publisher I desperately wanted. Friday, I found out I’d lost it to one of the princes of the universe who peopled the gilded kingdom to which I was trying to gain access.

I still had to go to work at five and sling cocktails for other princes who would tip me and flirt aggressively, but it was still too early to show up and I wandered into the bookstore not far away from the bar. Bookstores can solve any problem, at least for a little while. It was humid and too warm inside, the lights bright against the gray day, and it all smelled of paper and glue and dust and humans and damp wool and coffee brewing somewhere. Only this place of wonders could soothe me.

Meadow’s book was on an endcap near the cookbooks, which wasn’t the right place for it. It wasn’t a cookbook. It was a memoir.

I’d seen the book, Between Peaches and Pork: A Celebration of Sustainable and Festive Food, before. The cover is red, tomato red, to match the short-sleeved peasant blouse she’s wearing in the photo of her smiling into the camera, an enormous flat basket of herbs balanced on her hip. She’s stunningly beautiful, of course, with that long wavy red hair and big pale eyes, and the photographer gave the viewer just a slight glimpse of her cleavage, hinting at the voluptuous breasts that match her juicy lips and the invitation in her eyes. She’s holding an apple in her free hand.

You can’t help but fall in love with her, or maybe long to rest your head on her bosom and let her sing you to sleep. The ultimate Demeter, mother of all. Naturally I, the motherless daughter, was drawn to her. How could I help it? And even as I intellectualized my longing, slightly embarrassed at my lingering neediness, that little orphan girl picked up the book.

Peaches and Pork. The title of the book, the name of the restaurant. The story of a marriage. Who couldn’t fall a little in love with Augustus, the way she wrote about him, the way he loved her?

The marriage had failed by the time I made it to Santa Barbara, as much as you can say a marriage failed after twenty years. Does it only count if it lasts forever? I mean, I’d be pretty happy with twenty years of almost anything.

Anyway. I inhale more acrid smoke. Meadow. I fell for her image, her words, her funny way of writing. I connected with her so very deeply, feeling that she somehow knew me, that if we met, we would be friends.

The book woke me up. If the boys’ club wouldn’t let me in, I’d make my own way. I changed my focus to writing about women and food, and managed to land a place in graduate school at Harvard. In the back of my mind, I’d always thought to interview Meadow, along with other women chefs, particularly about the ways they influenced the male-dominated world of food.

It took some time to get through my graduate program, working and supporting myself as well as taking classes. I was getting worn down by it all, wondering why I didn’t just find a job and get to work, when Meadow landed in my sights again. She was named one of the top food influencers in the country, and Padma invited her to cohost an episode of her television show, one featuring California cuisine.

I became obsessed with interviewing her. At least that’s what I said in my email inquiry, which I sent care of Peaches and Pork. What I really wanted was for her to . . . I don’t know. Adopt me.

Not really, you know, but if I’m honest, really honest, that’s what I wanted. I wanted the sun of her smile to warm me. I wanted to be her.

She’s also a bit of a mystery.

A copious amount of material has been penned about Augustus, with his big personality and notable charm. In my mind, he was far less interesting than Meadow, whose history was shadowed and not at all clear. Where did she grow up? Why was there so little about her early life? In my reading she appeared to be the impetus for the success of Peaches and Pork, the woman behind the throne, as it were. I had noble, powerful thoughts about elevating her to queen. Empress, perhaps.

Meadow was in Australia when I reached out, so my email was read by Augustus, who invited me to visit the restaurant.

So it was that on a hot, windless day in September, when the threat of fire hung like a portent in the shimmery weight of the sky, I parked a rented compact in the lot of Peaches and Pork and got out, pulling my blouse away from my sweaty back. I’d left my hair down because the sheer volume of it covers my ears, but now I regretted that decision. Better ears that stuck out than sweat soaking my neck.

Too late. I locked the car and approached the front door of the restaurant. In the full light of day, age showed in the ocean-weathered wood facing and the outdated font on the sign. None of that mattered, of course, because the windows and decks all looked over the ocean, the beach sparsely populated on a Tuesday.

I’d read a lot about Augustus, and much was made of his charisma. By then he was well into his sixties, decades older than me, and I was just going through a formality, a stop on the way to Meadow.