The Food of Love — Page 2

Across town, Meeru awakens the couple’s school-age children; they bicker about outfits and hair. She walks the children to school while Vikram gets on the treadmill. At 9:15 the couple huddles quickly for daily action briefing. Vikram leaves for the restaurant office to complete last night’s accounts, assess inventory, ordering and other routines. Meeru will work at home for the next two hours, identifying and developing new menu items and attending to staffing issues.

By 11 a.m. Vikram has completed one of many meetings with Mike Bernardo, the restaurant manager. They briefly discuss last night, when the 65-seat restaurant “turned” two-and-a-half times, or more than 150 covers—busy, but not unusually so. There were plenty of regulars (10 to 15 percent of their customers come once a week) but no celebrity sightings: Hugh Jackman, Hilary Swank, Jessica Alba and Sarah McLachlan are also regulars when they are in town, and mockney chef Jamie Oliver and Indian culinary classicist Madhur Jaffrey have been spotted.

Meeru arrives at 11:30 and the two update. Vikram meets the Biovia Organics cube van, laden with produce. He makes rapid fire, point-and-shoot selections: kale, yellow zucchinis, celeriac, micro greens for salads, and peaches that might intersect with a chutney in development or, more likely, a cobbler at home, which he’ll prepare with his daughters on Sunday. Meeru spots manager Bernardo and, finishing each other’s sentences, scrum quickly about last night’s kitchen flow. (“Mike is my husband and Vikram’s wife.”) At 11:45 Vikram wheels into Rangoli to greet early-arriving lunch guests—the weather has turned and he will sell a lot of “mother-in-law’s” pork curry, for he is easily the best salesman in town and the dish is a friend on a drizzly afternoon. By 3 p.m. Vikram has returned home just as his children arrive from school. The cellphones are turned off for 90 minutes—time for a hug and for Vikram to grab a Churchillian nap.

The afternoon kitchen shift begins at 4:15, supervised by head chef and kitchen manager Amarjeet Gill; the aunties have their mise en place carefully aligned in the small presentation kitchen, their preparations awaiting final firing and assembly. There will be eight women on the line tonight, dressed in black, their faces, just visible through the kitchen pass, turned to simmering pots and ovens coming up to heat.

Vikram is back at the restaurant, walking the floor, chatting with staff. For a few moments it is quiet, the room finished dressing for dinner; there is a little anticipatory frisson in the air. Vikram nips into his office to return calls and prepare the agenda for an upcoming meeting of the Chefs’ Table Society of British Columbia, which he chairs.

Pre-theatre guests (the Stanley is just around the corner on Granville) storm the barricades. The restaurant fills quickly; by 5:50 the first sitting is looking happily over starters of cumin-spiced paneer and prawns in coconut masala, then curries and fenugreek-inflected lamb popsicles (a signature dish), and grilled sablefish in a broth of tomatoes and yogurt.

Vikram arrives home after service by 11, and he and Meeru have a late, light western-based meal. The couple will make a concerted attempt not to talk shop after work, for their marriage tonight will go beyond their love of food. It is a needed break in the lives of two individuals who have managed to stay in love while living in each other’s pockets. For Vij and Dhalwala know pain; at times it has been unbearable. On Christmas Eve, 2003, a car crash on Knight Street claimed the life of nighttime manager Kulwant Bains, and devastated the closely knit staff. A year before, Vij’s popular Ghanian server Kenny (he never bothered with his last name) died suddenly of stomach cancer. More recently, Maria Hernandez, who was Meeru’s best friend, died in childbirth. These recollections still deeply unsettle the couple.

With the three-year cookbook project completed, Vikram began a promotional tour across Canada. A month in advance, the launch event in Montreal was sold out. Meeru will miss him—not right away, but a few days later, after the fresh air of his absence turns as cloudy as the weather, and the missing begins; then the marriage will begin again. Perhaps, when he returns, they might even talk a little shop.

Vij’s—Elegant & Inspired Indian Cuisine, by Vikram Vij and Meeru Dhalwala (Douglas & McIntyre), is available at their restaurants, Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks and leading bookstores.

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