talking about it! You know that scene in the deli from the
movie When Harry Met Sally? That’s what I feel about food
when it’s really good.”
The waiter came offering dessert: crème brûlée, mango and
chocolate sorbet, or strawberry saffron and sweet-corn vanilla
gelato. Heylmun had the vanilla gelato and the mango sorbet
but not before she thought hard about the crème brûlée.
“Crème brûlée is the test of any restaurant,” she said. “It comes
down to the quality of the vanilla. I don’t like my crème brûlée
adulterated, because then you can’t taste through to the quality
of the ingredients.” An espresso came for Civille. As she took
her first sip, an almost imperceptible wince crossed her face.
“It’s good, not great,” she said. “It’s missing the whole winey
texture. It’s a little too woody.”
Heylmun then started talking about “rework,” which is the
practice in some food factories of recycling leftover or rejected
ingredients from one product batch into another product batch.
“Give me some cookies and crackers,” she said, “and I can tell
you not only what factory they came from but what rework
they were using.” Civille jumped in. Just the previous night, she
said, she had eaten two cookies — and here she named two
prominent brands. “I could taste the rework,” she said and made