Now Toby flashed a warm smile. I pictured her pulling cake after gorgeous cake from her oven, her spirits lifting as each one baked and was frosted and eaten. I could definitely relate to that coping style—it was only surprising that she wasn’t round as a beach ball.
“And next to Toby, meet chef Adam Boyd whose brilliant treatment of seafood has propelled his Key West restaurant onto the top one hundred list of places to eat on the eastern seaboard.” The mustachioed young man in the chef’s coat blinked his eyes and gave a stiff bow.
“And last but by no means least, please meet Hayley Snow, new food critic for the style magazine Key Zest.” No accolades after my introduction—I hadn’t had time to accumulate any.
I bared my teeth and tried to look distinguished. And tried not to look at Sam Rizzoli’s incredulous, outraged face. He clearly hadn’t known that I was joining the judging roster.
“After the top dishes have been selected, the three winning chef candidates will be interviewed by our judges. Three cooking challenges will follow, details to come. Are there any questions about that? I hope not because we don’t have time for them.”
There was a smattering of applause and laughter and he glanced at his watch. “I would like the judges to follow me. Chefs, please remain here until you’re called. Any pressing questions or concerns, talk to Deena.” He squeezed her shoulder again and she grimaced and held up her clipboard.
“The bathroom is to the right of the entrance,” she said, and everyone laughed.
We trooped off the stage and exited out the back door, into a narrow passage between two buildings that opened into a small courtyard. Tropical plantings and pieces of abstract sculpture made it look both homey and artsy. Cameras, lights, and wires spoiled the effect.
“We’ll be filming up here,” said Peter as he ushered us up two steps onto a large covered porch connected to a darling conch cottage. Inside the double glass doors, I could see a cameraman filming dishes of food that had been laid out on the counter, filling most of the small kitchen. Workers wearing earbuds and microphones buzzed around him, adjusting plates and bowls and lights. Two more workers positioned us in four wicker chairs that had been pulled up to the table facing the kitchen, and then clipped microphones to our collars, wormed wires down our shirts, and fastened battery packs to the back of our pants.
I could feel my intestines starting to grind. I’d only appeared on a TV show one other time, shortly after getting hired at Key Zest. I’d come across simultaneously wooden and giddy, recalling not one of the talking points I’d memorized ahead of time.
“Welcome, welcome,” said Peter, when the sound checks had been completed. “Do you know each other?”
I looked down the row, at Toby’s ski jump nose, Chef Adam’s bristling mustache, and then Sam’s grim face, and shook my head. The others followed suit.
“Perfect! Then there will be no off-camera shenanigans to queer the contest. Don’t worry about the camera and don’t worry about us—we are simply white noise. Be yourselves, act natural, talk to each other about food. What could be easier? We are not airing live, but we do not, I repeat do not have time to reshoot scenes. So give us your best first time out.”
He pointed at a cameraman who stood by the double doors. “Are we ready?” The man with the camera gave a thumbs-up.
“Welcome to Topped Chef Key West–style!” Peter said as the camera rolled. “Home of the next culinary superstar. Our judges today are four distinguished guests from the food scene here in paradise—the island of Key West.” He stepped aside and introduced each of us, as he had on the stage. The crew in the kitchen began to ferry the dishes that had been arranged on the inside counter out to our table.
“Six seafood dishes have been selected in a preliminary tasting round,” Peter told our invisible audience. “Now our judges will have the opportunity to sample them all and narrow the selection down to three. As you can see”—he motioned for a camera close-up—“the dishes are only labeled with the number corresponding to our contestants’ names. Let the games begin!”
He stepped to the side and one of his assistants ladled a glob of orange-sauced seafood and rice onto the square white china plates that had been set in front of us.
“Tasters, on your mark, get set, go!” said Shapiro.
“What in the name of god is this?” Sam Rizzoli asked after he’d forked a bite into his mouth. “It tastes like a cross between Russian dressing and Welsh rarebit. Only curdled.”
I touched my tongue to the spoon, eyes closed so I could concentrate, wishing he’d let the rest of us taste before he’d trashed it. The sauce was definitely on the oily side, slightly sweet, containing small chunks of what appeared to be stone crab, and maybe a dash of pickle relish. A recipe my old-fashioned roommate, Miss Gloria, might have enjoyed. And actually something that might turn up on Rizzoli’s restaurant’s menu.