squash blossom tart
Chapter 3
My life was defined by walks. Walking my dog, walking for coffee, walking with music, walking at sunset, at sunrise. Walking. I decided to walk to the farmer’s market just because it was an excuse to walk somewhere. The cacti were scorched, the sidewalks hot. The fruit cart on the corner was long gone. Too bad. I would’ve enjoyed some melon and cucumber with Tajin, or anything really. The market line was too long when I finally got there, so I turned around and walked back. When I sat down at my desk, I opened my browser to an anonymous email:
Read the March 17th, 2021 issue of The New Yorker. Your next clue lies there.
I would’ve preferred a love letter, but I’d settle for a mystery. It’d been a while since the cake debacle. I’d sworn off both refined sugar and private investigation. Now the adventure was looking for me. I pulled the dated edition from my overflowing stack of unread pandemic prints and scoured the pages, trying to find something. It was mostly op eds on the vaccine, or political pieces that felt skewed and manipulative. There was a fun restaurant column, Table For Two, that made me want to live in New York City. Basically, there were a lot of words and ads. I flipped back and forth a few times, in a surreal cloud, not really paying attention when I stumbled onto the cartoon. The one I hacked up. There it was on page 27. This time with the artist’s signature beneath:
Paxton Charles Hubble
Just like the highway—PCH, an ironic reminder that the journey along this endless highway of clues was leading me nowhere. But I googled him anyway. Paxton was an agricultural professor with a farm in Topanga, a farmer-slash-cartoonist—how quintessential California. I got in my car, threw Maude in the back seat, and headed west. It was a nice day for a drive. And I couldn’t bear to walk again, maybe ever.
I arrived at his address and stopped the car. A white horse was staring at me. I had to remind myself that it was just a horse, and not a spy sent to take me out. A friend once told me to say, “It’s just a horse,” when things seemed overwhelming. But was it just a horse? Maybe this was Paxton Charles Hubble himself. I’d seen some strange things on these misadventures already. It wasn’t impossible.
“PCH?” I shouted to whoever would answer.
“Howdy!” someone hollered, rushing out from a ranch house on a hill in painter’s clothes. “Want to come pick some squash blossoms?”
Only in LA—no, only in Topanga—would a stranger ask you to pick produce without asking who you are, or invite you into his house for tea, or tell you he loves you and then never see you again.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d love to.” He gave me a small pair of shears and lead me to a back garden. We clipped squash blossoms. “Shall we stuff them with ricotta and fry them?” he ruminated aloud, “or make a tart?”
I stared at him. All I could think was, here he is living this simple life picking squash blossoms and here I am having a quiet existential crisis. But what does it take for someone to bug out to Topanga anyway? Maybe he’s having his own existential crisis. Maybe the blossoms are more important than I thought. Maybe we all feel the same. Maybe life on a vineyard in Tuscany is home after all.
“Both,” I said. “Definitely both. By, the way, my name is—”
“Oh!” he cut me off. “I’m no good with names. Just come inside already, will you?”
Walking into a stranger’s house used to be a different kind of a risk. A farmer could still be a killer. But I was vaccinated now. I had nothing to lose but a walk.
To be continued…
cara cara cake
Chapter 2
I turned the oven off, clipped on Maude’s leash, and put on some gloss—you never know who’s on the other side of a window. Then I headed out the door to Highland, in search of the little bistro.
I liked LA this time of day—at a standstill, exhausted but not quite dead. The sun was setting, hues like a Hemingway cocktail. Pale pinks and yellows tie dyed across the sky. It took me to Havana—not that I’ve ever been. Restaurants had just reopened outdoors, so there were chairs outside my local pastry shop. It was nice to feel the possibility of life again. Maude sneezed as she chased wrappers and cigarette butts. We hopped in the car and drove to the edge of Melrose. We needed to survey the scene. My destination—a strip mall. It was filled with basic LA regulars—a donut shop, a nail-salon-slash-foot-massage-parlor, and most important, the bistro.
The valet station was deserted so we self-parked. I grabbed Maude’s leash and we walked to the sign. The awning bleached and burned. The takeout window was mirrored, forcing me to look at myself. I should’ve worn a different mask.
I tapped seven times, just like the note said. It slid open, but no one was behind it, just a grease-stained chef’s hat facing me on the counter.
“Hello” I said, “Mr. Boulevardier?”
A smoldering Russian voice boomed over an intercom. “Turn around and place your order,” it crackled. The Russians always make their mark in these noir stories—fitting, too, since the word bistro is actually Russian.
“Um, I’ll have the Dante’s Inferno?” I whispered, like I was asking myself a question instead of questioning my entire existence, “and a jambon beurre.”
“Close your eyes and count to ten. No cheating. We’re watching you.”
I complied, finally some direction in life. “1…2…3—my mind drifted to my favorite Russian restaurant in NY (the only one)—caviar—perogies—vodka—borscht (whatastrangesoup)—if I made it home alive, I’d make a martini…10.”
I turned around. The hat was gone and its place was a lone Cara Cara cake. Cara Cara oranges were in season. I loved their sweet-tart flavor, orange in the streets and grapefruit in the sheets.
“Eat it at home,” the Russian voice commanded. “And don’t come back!”
I got in my car and went ham on the cake. Maude stared me down from the passenger seat. Hints of Aperol, olive oil, and orange rind haunted me with delight as I devoured it. The bitter tinge and moist mouthfeel made me nostalgic for something I’d never experienced.
I felt something at the back of my throat. I hacked it up. Yeah, I know, disgusting. It was a New Yorker cartoon—classic. It featured an illustration of the nine circles of hell, a couple beneath, with the caption: Honey, I told you we shouldn’t have eaten another slice of cake. A cop car sirened by. I turned the cartoon over to reveal a note scrawled in sharpie: STOP EATING! (WHILE YOU’RE AHEAD).
To be continued…
potato tart
Chapter 1
“It’s time to wake up,” blasted on my alarm clock. It was January 1st, 2021 and nothing had changed. The world was still masked. The unit next door was still empty. My oven still needed to be degreased. My partially sipped amaro was sweating on my nightstand, a trail of peanuts beside it. Maude was licking my face, a white fluff ball with browned ears, my coconut macaroon. It was always cute when we started making out, until I’d think, “Oh god, what if my own dog gives me COVID?”
I grabbed my phone and almost turned off “Do not Disturb” to let the New Year’s messages flood in. I held back and opened the Calm app instead, a meditation to start things off—very unlike me. Maude nibbled my toes while I counted my breaths. After a life-changing eight minutes I turned on my phone. I was ready to be disturbed.
No messages came through. What a surprise. I slumped to the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed my canister of matcha and set my pot to boiling. I’d probably grab coffee down the street anyway, just to feel like a New Yorker again. I scooped a heaping tablespoon and sifted it through a fine strainer into my ceremonial bowl, added boiling water, then whisked. This was my morning ritual, followed by a walk with Maude. Though she was usually the one walking me, leaping at birds, heart racing in hopes of winning the attentions of the odd stranger. People say owners mirror their dogs. Maybe I was leaping at flights of fury, beating for the attentions of a stranger.
Drunk on Bored to Death and Agatha Christie, I decided to pursue my dream of being LA County’s masked detective in the pandemic peak. What better time? I had to hunt something down. I set up an ad on Tinder. A picture of me in a tweed news cap with the caption: “looking for a mystery to solve.”
No swipes came in. No detective in sight. No one had anything to solve.
I was bored. I went to the kitchen and investigated the fridge. A bottle of Beaujolais to start the morning. Shallots, fennel, goat cheese and Yukon golds. A comforting assortment of wintry bulbs, roots and stems. The smells wafted in the air as they sweated in my Dutch oven, Maude whining at my feet. I reached into my freezer for my puff pastry, assembled the dish, and put it in the oven. I self-medicated with a potato tart—we all have our vices.
As the first bite crunched in my mouth, smoke cigaretting from my lips, eight knocks hit the door—I could swear it was to the rhythm of “Fever”. An envelope slid through the mail slot, sealed with the wax stamp of a smile. Maude barked. The smoke detector beeped.
I opened the letter: I saw your ad on Tinder. If you’re looking for a mystery to solve, you won’t find it there. Go to the little French bistro in the strip mall on Highland. Tap on their window seven times. Ask for Mr. Boulevardier. Order Dante’s Inferno and a jambon beurre. The rooks have landed beyond the grave, the pawns are lined in lattice formation, ce n’est pas de la tarte.
My half-eaten tart dropped. A chilled breeze blew through my kitchen window. This is what I’d been craving.
To be continued…