was undeniably bright with good smells and the sounds of chattering pleasure. Each table was filled. Waiters strode past, steamer baskets held high. Bubbles of laughter floated up. Slowly she took in the shrubs, the tasseled lanterns, the cranked-open latticework windows that revealed other dining rooms filled, like this courtyard, with loud, happy, mostly young Chinese.
Could the food in China be truly exceptional? It was possible, she thought now. Well then, she would eat; she would keep an open mind. Of course, writing the article about the chef would have been the perfect way to find out more. Again she felt the stab of regret that he had canceled, so sharply this time that her hand crept into her pocket and lingered on her cell phone. Should she really let it go? No. She should call him again. One more time.
She scrolled through the recently called numbers to his, took a breath, and hit SEND.
It rang, and she heard fumbling. “Wei,” he said when he got the phone to his mouth.
“Mr. Liang? It’s Maggie McElroy again.”
“Hi.” Pause. He was surprised. “How are you?” he said.
“Fine. Thanks.”
She could hear a scramble of voices behind him. He half covered the phone, hissing, and then came back. “Sorry. My uncles are here.”
“I’m interrupting.”
“No. They want me to talk to you.”
“Why?”
“They’ve figured out you’re a female person.”
“Ah.” Funny, she thought. She had somehow forgotten how to even look at it in that way. “Actually I’m calling one last time about the article. I don’t want to overstep, but — I had to ask you again, since I’m here. Won’t you give it some thought?”
“Look — ”
“I don’t have to write about the restaurant. There are so many things. The book. Aren’t you doing a book?”
“Translating, with my father. We’re doing it together. It’s a book my grandfather wrote.”
“The Last Chinese Chef,” she supplied.
“You know,” he said.
Naturally. You’re my assignment. “We could write about that.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s the wrong time. I should do that when the book comes out.”
“True,” she admitted.
“Also,” he said, “I’m swamped.”
She was getting the signals, but she never heard No. Not the first time, anyway. “Swamped by what?”
“By an audition to get on the Chinese national cooking team. The 2008 Games in Beijing are going to have their own Olympic competition of culture — things like opera, martial arts. It’s an adjunct to the opening ceremonies. Food is one of the categories.”
“An audition for the national team?” She digested this. “What do you have to do?”
“Cook a banquet for the committee. There are ten chefs competing for the two northern-style spots on the team. The rest of the team has six spots — two for southern style like Cantonese; two for western, which includes Hunan and Sichuan; and the eastern school, which is Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, basically the Yangtze delta.”
“So ten of you are competing for two northern spots.”
“Right. Each night for the next ten nights, one of us puts on a banquet for the committee. They’ll choose two. Seems I drew the last slot — mine is a week from Saturday. The tenth night.”
“The last one. The best. So two win out of ten. What sets you apart from the others?”
“I’m the only one rooted in imperial — it’s very rarefied. The emperors had dishes brought in from all provinces, so in some ways I have more flexibility, but also a more rigid artistic standard.”
“And you have ten days to prepare.”
“Yes. Well, nine. The first banquet is tonight.”
“But as a story for the magazine, this is wonderful! Forget the restaurant. Really, Mr. Liang. This would be great.”
“Sam.”
“Sam. I could follow you through the process. I would not get in your way. You could tell me things — just a little, just what’s comfortable. I’d do a good piece. Contests are one of my specialties.” Why was she having to work so hard to sell this? Most chefs paid PR companies to get them features in places like Table.
But he said, “I don’t know. I might not even have a chance. I’m kind of an outsider — the only one doing true traditional, on top of everything else.”
“Whether you win or not, it’s a great story. I can almost guarantee you’d be happy with it,” she said. In fact, with just this one glimpse she could see it take shape. Beijing was a gleaming new city, all that steel and glass forming only a partial façade over its celebrated past. The old and the new were locked in a