Eating With the Angels Read Online Free Page A

something equally awful. But not only does Pop to this day wolf down her inedible meals, he encourages her. ‘Estelle, you’ve surpassed yourself yet again,’ he’ll say, rubbing his stomach and leaning back in his chair. ‘Aren’t I the lucky man?’
    Mom will ignore him — that’s their marital dynamic — but next thing you know she’ll be poring over Julia Child’s
Mastering the Art of French Cooking
, changing the ingredients to match whatever’s left over in the fridge or suits her mood, until the end result bears no relation whatsoever to the name of the dish nor certainly the picture. I’ve never worked out why she loves that cookbook so much because Mom has always thought food should be ‘thrown together’, something that, in my opinion, should only be practised by seriously talented chefs. But the things my mother throws together are not things that should be seen in the same city, let alone the same street nor, heaven forbid, the same plate. They are things that should be thrown in opposite directions at great speed while you head to the nearest diner, quick smart, without so much as a backward glance.
    ‘Cranberry omelette? What’s not to like?’ she would say, serving up something that looked as though it had been removed in a surgical procedure and called, like most of her inventions, Estelle’s Surprise. ‘Try it with the aged salami, it’s spectacular,’ she’d suggest although the word ‘aged’ was not one you wanted to hear at meal time in our house, trust me. ‘Look, your father’s eating his.’
    When I was young, I used to beg her to follow the recipes just to see what would happen but she always refused. ‘They all make such a fuss,’ she would say, even of Julia. ‘Who wants to make such a fuss? It’s only food.’
    She’s a complicated woman all right, my mother. On the one hand relishing her own ‘flair’ for cooking but on the other belittling its importance in the great scheme of things. You can imagine how thrilled she was that her daughter became a restaurant critic married to a chef.
    Anyway, by the time Tom and I hooked up as 15-year-olds it was no wonder I was ready and willing for him to educate me about food that tasted good and stayed down. By then he had already befriended Pippo and was sweeping floors and polishing glasses and worming his way into the Marzanos’ affections. All he ever wanted to do was cook there and while this wasn’t much of an ambition, boy did I admire him for having it at such a young age.
    Knowing what his home life was like, I could see why he loved Pippo. Tom’s dad was a big, brutal beast of a man who successfully bullied his four sons into hating his guts. His mom was a nervous wreck with more than a passing fondness for the sherry bottle and who could blame her? Well, Tom did but anyone else who counted her bruises or watched her limp up and down the stairs to their apartment thanked God that she was finding solace in something.
    So, little Tommy, the youngest of the four, got himself out of the Farrell clan and into the Marzano one, pronto. Pippo and his wife ’Cesca, whose two daughters had long flown the coop and had no interest in Il Secondo, could not have been happier. And Tom reallywas at home in an Italian kitchen, anyone could see that. Like I say, he even looked Italian in certain lights, usually low-wattage ones. I told him that once and he pretended to be annoyed, brushing me off, but secretly he was delighted. I know because he made me fall squash risotto, my favourite, and it wasn’t even on the menu that night.
    Anyway, a mediocre student in most subjects, I myself managed to get accepted into NYU thanks to good grades in English and the help of my teacher Mr Johansen whom Tom always suspected had the hots for me.
    My mother was horrified with my choice of journalism and this was before it even had anything to do with food. Where she came from, reporting on people’s activities happened behind closed doors,