Sale, and she promptly introduced me to the head of the coordinating committee—a lovely (and very sharp) woman named Valerie Noonan.
“And have you made your decision yet?” Mike asked.
I could almost hear him smiling over the cellular line, but I couldn’t blame him. I’d called the man three times today, obsessing over what would impress his family more: my cinnamon-sugar doughnut muffins; blueberries ’n’ cream coffee cake pie; or honey-glazed peach crostata with fresh ginger-infused whipped cream. There were always my pastry case standbys: caramelized banana bread; almond-roca scones; and mini Italian coffeehouse cakes. (Ricotta cheese was my secret ingredient to making those tasty little loaves tender and delicious.) They were absolutely perfect with coffee, and I topped each with a different glaze inspired by the gourmet syrups of my coffeehouse: chocolate-hazelnut; buttery toffee; candied orange-cinnamon; raspberry-white chocolate; and sugar-kissed lemon, the flavor found in my Romano “sweet,” an espresso served in a cup with its rim rubbed by a lemon twist, then dipped in granulated cane—the way the old-timers drank it in the Pennsylvania factory town where I’d grown up.
“I think I should make them all,” I said.
“All?”
Am I trying too hard? I thought. Probably. Then I remembered tomorrow was March 19, the feast day of St. Joseph (patron saint of pastry chefs). Every year my nonna would fry up crunchy sweet bow tie cookies and set them out with hot, fresh, doughy zeppolinis in her little Italian grocery. That’s it!
“I’ll make champagne cream puffs!”
“Champagne cream puffs?”
“Zeppole dough baked in the oven and filled with Asti Spumante-based zabaglione!”
“It’s a bake sale, sweetheart, not a four-star dessert cart.”
Just then our shop bell rang and a young woman with fluffy, crumpet-colored curls walked across our main floor. “Hey, everyone!” Vicki Glockner waved at me.
“Mike, I’ve got to go. My relief is here.”
“Okay,” he said, “but that’s why I called. It’s my turn to relieve you. Don’t worry about cooking tonight. I’ll get us takeout.”
BY the time I drove down the Queensboro Bridge ramp, dusk had fully descended, and streetlights were flickering on, their halogen bulbs pouring pools of blue-tinged light into an ocean of deepening darkness. Madame and I had been late getting started. Then a pileup on the bridge left me inching and lurching my way across the mile-long span. Now we were more than an hour behind schedule.
“Do you want to try calling again?” I asked, swinging my old Honda beneath the subway’s elevated tracks.
“It’s all right, dear,” Madame replied. “I left a message apologizing for our tardiness. Let’s hope Enzo picks it up.”
Enzo was “Lorenzo” Testa, the owner of Caffè Lucia. He’d called Madame that morning, telling her he’d been cleaning out his basement and came across an old Blend roaster and a photo album with pictures of Madame and her late first husband, Antonio Allegro. While Madame was thrilled about the photos, I was itching to get my paws on the old Probat, a small-batch German coffee roaster, circa 1921. Enzo had bought it used from the Blend in the sixties.
“So this man worked for you and Matt’s father,” I asked.
Madame nodded. “He came to us fresh off the boat from Italy. An eager aspiring artist.”
“Marlon Brando-ish? Isn’t that how you described him?”
“More Victor Mature, dear. The young female customers absolutely swooned when they saw him in our shop or Washington Square Park—that’s where he liked to set up his painter’s easel.”
Oo-la-la? I suppressed a smile. “Is that why I’m the one driving you to Astoria to meet with him instead of Otto?”
“My. Don’t you have a suspicious mind?”
“I think we’ve already established that.”
“Well, the answer to your question is no. My Otto would have taken me, but he has a very important business dinner lined up this evening so I’m a free agent.”
“Uh-huh.” The last time Madame characterized herself as a “free agent” she was in East Hampton, enjoying a fling with a septuagenarian expert on Jackson Pollock.
“And, besides,” she added. “I’ve wanted you to meet Enzo for ages. Given your background, I thought it was about time.”
“Whatever became of Enzo’s art career, anyway?” (Myself an art school dropout, I couldn’t help wondering.) “Did his work ever sell?”
“Oh, yes. Enzo’s female admirers bought many of his paintings. Restaurants and caffès hired him, too. At one time, you could see his trompe l’oeil frescos in dozens of pizzerias around town. But most of them are gone now. Irreplaceable because