Off the Menu - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stacey Ballis is the author of ten foodie novels: Inappropriate Men, Sleeping Over, Room for Improvement, The Spinster Sisters, Good Enough to Eat, Off the Menu, Out to Lunch, Recipe for Disaster, Wedding Girl, and How to Change a Life. She is a contributing author to three nonfiction anthologies: Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, Everything I Needed to Know About Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume, and Living Jewishly.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

Through the fog of those last ephemeral floaty moments before I fall into deep sleep, I suddenly feel a stirring in the bed next to me. I smile, knowing that as delicious as sleep is, there is something unbearably wonderful about the need for tenderness and contact. I roll over and let my tired lids open, forcing myself back from the brink of the sleep I desperately need, to attend to my sweetheart, who I need more. He looks at me with what can only be described as a perfect combination of love and longing, and tilts his head to one side, dark chocolate eyes sparkling wickedly in the darkness.

“Yes? Can I help you?” I say, my voice slightly roughened with exhaustion.

He lets his head tilt slowly to the other side and he reaches for me with a tentative teasing touch, then stops and just waits.

“You are very demanding, you know that?” I can’t help but laugh.

But what can I do? He is the love of my life. A smile appears on his face and he reaches out again, this time more assuredly, tapping my hand with gentle insistence.

“Okay, okay!” I give up. I can deny this boy nothing.

As soon as he hears that word, he pounces, all twenty-six pounds of him landing with a thump on my chest.

This dog will be the end of me.

“I know, I know, boy, you need some extra-special love time, because you were at doggie day care all day while I was working to put kibble on the table.”

Dumpling rolls over in my arms so that I can scratch his oddly broad chest. He is, to say the least, one of the strangest dogs anyone has ever seen. Which of course, is absolutely why I adopted him. I don’t really know for sure what his lineage is, but he has the coloring and legs of a Jack Russell, the head of a Chihuahua, with the broad chest and sloping back of a bulldog, wide pug-ly eyes that bug out and are a little watery, and happen to mostly look in opposite directions. His ears, one which sticks up and one which flops down, are definitely fruit bat–ish. And when he gets riled by something, he gets a two-inch-wide Mohawk down his whole back, which sticks straight up, definitively warthog. He’s a total ladies man, a relentless flirt, and the teensiest bit needy in the affection department, as are many rescue dogs. But of course, he is so irresistibly lovable he never has a problem finding the attention he desires.

He is also smart as a whip, and soon after I got him my dear friend Barry took him to train as a therapy dog so that the two of them could work occasionally in hospitals and nursing homes and with disabled kids. He has the highest possible certification for that work, and was one of only two dogs out of fifty to pass the test when he took it, proud mama me. Barry is an actor and cabaret performer, and on the days when he is not in rehearsal he often volunteers to “entertain the troops” as he calls it, singing standards for the elderly, doing dramatic readings of fairy tales for kids with cancer, and teaching music to teenagers with autism. He’d seen someone working with a therapy dog at Children’s Memorial Hospital, and when he found out how meaningful that work can be, he asked if he could borrow Dumpling and see if he was the right kind of dog. Dumpling turned out to be more than the right kind of dog; he turned out to be a total rock star, and has become a favorite at all of their stops. The fact that Barry has snagged many dates with handsome doctors and male nurses using Dumpling as bait is just a bonus for him. Dumpling loves the work and I love knowing that he spends at least one or two days a week out and about with Barry instead of just lazing around and getting too many treats from his pals at Best Friends doggie day care.

Dumpling is the kind of dog that makes people on the street do double- and triple-takes and ask in astonished voices, “What kind of dog IS that?!” His head is way too small for his thick solid body, and his legs are too spindly. His eyes point away from each other like a chameleon. One side of his mouth curls up a little, half-Elvis, half palsy-victim, and his tongue has a tendency to stick out just a smidgen on that side. He was found as a puppy running down the median of a local highway, and I adopted him from PAWS five years ago, after he had been there for nearly a year. He is, without a doubt, the best thing that ever happened to me.

My girlfriend Bennie says it looks like he was assembled by a disgruntled committee. Barry calls him a random collection of dog bits. My mom, in a classic ESL moment, asked upon meeting him, “He has the Jack Daniels in him, leetle bit, no?” I was going to correct her and say Jack Russell, but when you look at him, he does look a little bit like he has the Jack Daniels in him. My oldest nephew, Alex, who watches too much Family Guy and idolizes Stewie, took one look, and then turned to me in all seriousness and said in that weird almost-British accent, “Aunt Alana, precisely what brand of dog is that?” I replied, equally seriously, that he was a purebred Westphalian Stoat Hound. When the kid learns how to Google, I’m going to lose major cool aunt points.

Dumpling tilts his head back and licks the underside of my chin, wallowing in love.

“Dog, you are going to be the death of me. You have got to let me sleep sometime.”

These words are barely out of my mouth, when he leaps up and starts barking, in a powerful growly baritone that belies his small stature. The third bark is interrupted by the insistent ringing of my buzzer.

Crap. “Yes, you are very fierce. You are the best watchdog. Let’s go see what the crazy man wants.”

Only one person would have the audacity to ring my bell at a quarter to one on a weeknight.

Patrick Conlon.

Yes, the Patrick Conlon.

Owner and executive chef of Conlon Restaurant Group, based here in Chicago. Three local restaurants, Conlon, his flagship white tablecloth restaurant, housed in a Gold Coast historic mansion, which recently received a coveted second Michelin star. Patrick’s, a homey high-end comfort-food place in Lincoln Park, and PCGrub, his newest endeavor, innovative bar food in the suddenly hot Logan Square neighborhood, dangerously close to my apartment. He also has Conlon Las Vegas, Conlon Miami, and is in negotiations to open PCGrub in both those cities, and a one-off project looming in New York as well.

But even if you have never eaten in one of Patrick’s restaurants, you have probably seen him on Food TV, where he has two long-running shows, Feast, where he demonstrates home versions of his restaurant recipes and special menus for entertaining, and Conlon’s Academy, which is a heavily technique-based show for people who really want to learn professional-level cooking fundamentals as they relate to a passionate home cook. Maybe you have seen him guest judging on Top Chef, snarking and sparring with Tom Colicchio, Padma getting all giggly and tongue-tied in his handsome presence. Or judging on Iron Chef America, disagreeing charmingly with Jeffery Steingarten at his curmudgeoniest. Or on a booze-fueled tour of the best Chicago street food with Anthony Bourdain. Or giving his favorite foods a shout-out on The Best Thing I Ever Ate or Unique Eats compilation shows. Or maybe you have read one of his six bestselling cookbooks. Even more likely, you have seen him squiring an endless series of leggy actresses and pop princesses and supermodels on red carpets, and read about his latest heartbreaking act in a glossy tabloid. And yes, before you ask, that latest angry power-girl single by Ashley Bell rocketing up the country charts about “settin’ loose the one who cooked my goose” is...