Paper Palate

If the name Poppy Z. Brite rings a bell with you, then you might be a Goth, or at least a horror fan. Or, if you’re more familiar with Brite’s recent writings, you might just be a foodie.

In the late-nineties, Brite abandoned the vampires and demons of her earlier work in favor of stories about chefs and kitchens. Her novels, which once focused on the darker side of the city of New Orleans, now feature the tasty and delicious side of that city. Having worked in a variety of restaurants herself over the years to support her writing career, and being married a chef, Poppy Z. Brite has an insider’s point of view of the restaurant kitchen and is happy to share what she knows.

In Liquor, main characters chefs John Rickey and Gary (G-Man) Stubbs come up with an ingenious plan to open a restaurant called Liquor, where, in true New Orleans style, all the dishes include alcohol. Problem is, they’re flat broke and can’t afford to open the place themselves.

The book gets off to a slow start – it isn’t until about halfway through that the real excitement begins, at which point the plot takes some sharp turns and some odd coincidences occur to create a nice tension. It’s not until the end that we see Brite has been setting us up for the ending, and the slow beginning was actually imperative.

Throughout, Brite makes her love of good food well known. Almost every page is full of vivid descriptions of everything the main characters cook and eat. As Rickey and G-Man and their hand-picked staff get set for opening night, the reader is a fly on the wall as they test recipes and argue over ingredients; camembert ice cream, risotto with truffles, proscuitto-wrapped figs in Calvados and a rum beurre blanc will all have the reader drooling on the pages.

The day before opening and they were in the kitchen working out the last kinks. Tanker’s dessert menu was mostly brilliant: he’d taken classic cocktails and reconstructed them into sweets. There was the “Mint Julep,” a tuile cookie cup filled with chocolate-mint and chocolate bourbon mousses; the “Amaretto Sour,” lemon curd touched with di Saronno in an almond tart crust; the “Fuzzy Navel,” two perfect poached peach halves in a Grand Marnier sabayon sauce; the “Margarita,” orange and tequila-lime sorbets served in a sugar-edged martini glass garnished with a chocolate-dipped pretzel swizzle stick.

There were others and Tanker was just trying to narrow them down to five that could be served on opening night. But his concept for a big, expensive signature dessert hurt Rickey’s brain. Though he was calling it a Napoleon, it had nothing to do with puff pastry or cream. That would have made too much sense. Instead, he’d found an actual reproduction of Napoleon Bonaparte’s death mask and coated the inside with chocolate to make a mold which he proposed to fill with a frozen mousse of Napoleon brandy surrounding a scoop of the terrifying Camembert ice cream.

“C’mon, Rickey. It’s no more extravagant than a whole Baked Alaska. They do those at Antoine’s and charge a fortune for them.”

“Yeah, but people actually want to eat Baked Alaska. Nobody wants to have some guy’s face for dessert. And why the Camembert?”

“To follow through on the death mask theme. I want it to have a little bit of a corpsey flavor.”

“You’re nuts!”

“Just try it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Remember what you told me when you fixed those kidneys?” said G-Man from his spot by the sauté station. “A good cook is a fearless cook.”

“So I suppose you tried it already?”

“And?”

“It’s pretty gross,” G-Man said cheerfully.

Liquor’s climax comes with a show-down in the restaurant kitchen, and a sharp look at New Orleans’ underbelly. The restaurant profession isn’t always the exciting, glamorous lifestyle it’s made out to be, and the long hours of physically and emotionally demanding work can often take their toll. Brite offers a clear and concise look at the drawbacks to that world, all the while celebrating the creations that come out of it.

As an entertaining thriller, Liquor does its job well. The plot is engaging and the characters are sympathetic and well-drawn. The splendid city of New Orleans itself becomes a character in the story, creating a unique plot that would be significantly different were it set anywhere else.

For anyone who enjoys a fun read studded with descriptions of a gorgeous city and equally gorgeous food, Liquor will be a fun treat that will send you scurrying to make reservations at your favorite local bistro.

Liquor is the first in a planned series of five books featuring the New Orleans’ restaurant scene and the characters Rickey and G-Man. The third book in the series, Soul Kitchenleased in July 2006. Brite’s website can be found at www.poppyzbrite.com.