can give it to you, since you are going, and it can be one of your columns.”
“You don’t think I’m an odd fit?” said Maggie. She did do ethnic food, of course. From the Basque country-style platters of the San Joaquin Valley to the German sausages of central Texas, it was impossible not to. American cuisine had so many incoming tributary tastes. She knew them all. What she never did was foreign food.
“It’s a chef profile. American guy, born and raised here, but half Chinese.”
“Hmm. That’s a little closer.”
“He’s not cooking American,” Sarah said. “The opposite — back to the old traditions. He’s descended from a chef who cooked for the Emperor and in 1925 wrote a book that became a big food classic, The Last Chinese Chef. Liang Wei was his name. The grandson’s name is Liang too, Sam Liang; he’s translating the book into English. He’s a cook. Everything he does is orthodox, it’s all according to his grandfather, even though Beijing seems to be spinning the opposite way, new, global.”
“I like it,” Maggie said.
“He’s about to open a restaurant. It’s going to be a big launch. That’s the assignment, the restaurant.”
“Look, I won’t lie, for me it would be ideal. I would love to write it,” said Maggie. “Not to mention that it would keep me sane. It’s just — I don’t know how you can give it to me. I’m the American queen.”
“Sometimes it’s good to mix things up. Anyway, you’re going. When are you leaving?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight! You must have a ticket.”
“I do. And I’ll have a rush visa by midday. Tell you what, Sarah, if you just reimburse me for the ticket, I’ll take care of all the other expenses. I do have to go there anyway.” And she did have the company apartment.
“I can sell that,” said Sarah. She shone with satisfaction. She loved to solve a problem. “Are we there yet?” she said. “Is that a yes?”
They knew each other well. Maggie had only to allow the small lift of a smile into her gaze for her friend to read her agreement.
“Good,” said Sarah. “So.” She handed Maggie the file. “Sam Liang.”
In Beijing it was late evening. Yet people were still out, for the autumn night was fine and cool, faintly sharp with the scent of the chrysanthemums along the sidewalk. It was the local life in his adopted city that Sam Liang loved the best, like here, the people shopping and strolling on Gulou, the street that went right up to the dark, silent drum tower for which it was named. Sam barely glanced at the fifteenth-century tower, which rose in the center of the street up ahead. He didn’t look into the brightly arranged shop windows, or the faces of the migrant vendors who had set up here and there on the curb. He searched ahead. There was a cooking-supply store on this block. His Third Uncle Xie had told him about it. Xie lived in Hangzhou; when he came north to Beijing he always stopped there.
Sam was hoping to find a chopping block, heavy, round, a straight-through slice of tree trunk, the kind that Chinese chefs had always used. He had two for his restaurant and he needed a third; a busy restaurant really needed three. Every place he’d tried had cutting boards, but they were the plastic ones — the new, modern alternative that had taken hold all over the capital. Plastic was cleaner, people said, safer; it was the future.
Sam didn’t agree. He hadn’t come all the way to China to switch from the traditional tree slab to plastic. Plastic ruined a fine blade. Besides, it was true what his grandfather had said, that wood was a living thing beneath a man’s knife. It had its own spring.
Ah, he spotted the store ahead — its lights were on, it was open. If any place still had the old-style chopping blocks, it would be this one.
More than once Xie had explained how to choose one. “Never buy from a young tree, only an old one. Make sure its rings are tight with age. See that the block’s been conditioned properly with oil, that it has a sheen. Don’t bring home the wrong one.”
“And what kind of wood?”
“When I was young all chefs used soapwood. Now most chefs use ironwood, though some like the wood of the tamarind tree from Vietnam. Listen to Third Uncle. Choose the wood that feels best under your hands. Forget the rest.”