Maurice Van Rensalear

Concept: Food Critic from Hell.

AKA: Known to the people who work in the foodservice by a number of colorful sobriquets. The least offensive one that is relatively common is “The Scalpel”

Desc: The sort of fellow who is tubby enough that you can hear it over the phone when he pronounces the letter “B”  Double chin and working on number three. Hair plugs, and to be fair, they ARE coming nicely. He still has a wisp or two of his original blond hair. Sweats a lot. pudgy little fingers that force him to decry the state of the young people these days, because he fumble fingers a LOT when he tries to text on his phone. Gimlet eyes. Trifocals. Gets winded easily unless he’s arguing. Then, somehow, he can go all goddamn night.  Goes in for the “Academic with Money” look. Favors a bowtie generally.  Can pull off a velvet dinner jacket. Nice watch and polished wingtips.

History: Some people have a bit of luck in finding their passion. With Maurice it was writing. He’s decent at it. Don’t misunderstand me.  The novels he keeps revising aren’t half bad. And he’s quite good at research. He’s picked up a lot on the job, and if it weren’t for his attitude he might make a decent journalist.  He’s got an English degree from a fairly prestigious ivy league school.

His current gig came about as a favor to a friend. Over the years, newspapers have been cutting back on their staff’s. One of the feature writers was overworked and scheduled to pull food critic duty on a night when he was also scheduled to do Music Critic duty for a rare Foo Fighters gig at The Witness.   Being a Foo Fan, it was easy to see which way that was going to go.  Maurice has always fancied himself something of a foody, and so, at his friends insistence, he went to Pain et Vin and then went home to talk about the experience.

    To say that Maurice has a positive gift for invective is to undersell the many years of complaining and bitching that honed his craft. The friend was horrified, mainly because it was so utterly devastating, but even he had to admit it was well written..and since he had nothing else to hand in, he took it to his editor and explained about the favor.

   The Editor read it over three times, and then he said. “I want to talk to this man.”

Pain et Vin was shuttered within a month.

While Maurice has family money and need never lift a finger, the idea of being a feature writer appealed to him. I mean, it certainly would. You can be mean to people and they can’t really do anything to you in return and you collect a paycheck in the bargain? It would be vulgar to say, “Sign me up!”  But Maurice’s back-brain was doing a happy dance. Quite possibly the Macarena. it’s one of the few dances Maurice can do.

     Maurice is sort of a wunderkind in this respect. He’s an awful person but he’s capable of being nice long enough to ingratiate himself to powerful people. His command of the English language fills many poor restaurant owners with fear and indignation. He’s even managed to have himself featured on local television and while he comes off as snotty, sweaty, and a touch desperate. It hasn’t dampened his dreams of getting his own food network show.

   And you know, He just might. His family has money, and he’s a member of The Vermillion House. They are always on the prod to promote one of their own to the vaunted rarified circles of the world. In fact, They are thinking very seriously about asking him to join the inner circle...Which will certainly be a new culinary experience for him.  It turns out that he and Lennox Van Doren ended up having a long and interesting argument about Asian cuisine one evening in the Billiard Room and ever since, they’ve been somewhat chummy.

Attitude: “Look dear, the fact here is that this isn’t Haute Cuisine. It’s a Haute Mess. And I’ll be saying so in my column tomorrow...”

Skills: It’s pretty obvious that physically, he’s not much at all. The only use he’d be in a firefight is as ablative cover. Intellectually, he’s got a great education. he can talk knowledgable about food, wine, art, culture, and even a little bit about journalism. It should be noted that no one else in the newsroom thinks he’s a journalist.

He’s not stupid and on those occasions when deigns to talk politics, He says that Libertarianism is a fraud and the GOP died a horrible twitching death when they stopped listening to William F. Buckley.  He’s very firm on that.

Socially, he’s complicated. He’s okay in short bursts but as people get to know him they tend to like him less and less. He has a few staunch friends, most of whom are as rich and lily white like himself.  He is as closeted as they come. (“Father wouldn’t approve.”)

and yet he always has model pretty women on his arm.  (Mostly, they’re there because he isn’t interested in screwing them and the food is pretty good.)

Dress it up however you like, He’s a cheap little thug who uses his words to beat up people who can’t hit back. Okay, Maybe “Cheap” isn’t exactly the word...but he is that sort of dude.

Depending on how deep you feel he is into the Vermillion House, he may have a hedge magic template of some sort, and a dot or two of occult. He’s a beginner. He does however pick up things pretty quick.  He’ll be likely to have a Heightened Sense (Taste) He’s actually pretty good at discerning extremely subtle flavors. It’s what led him to his foodie proclivities in the first place.

Gear: He carries a round container of french raspberry pastiles as a palette cleanser. Uses Siri on his phone to dictate notes and mail his copy to the newsroom. (Say what you will, He’s never missed a deadline.) he is never without at least two silk handkerchiefs and he still wears a watch, (A Phillipe Patek that his father gave him.)

His wallet and business card case are black suede. Unless it’s the dead of summer, he also favors a black cashmere scarf.

Home:

Circle: Nearly all of his social circle are rich white folks. Uptight. A few of them closeted like him. The occasional well paid rent boy, a few people he knows from college, friends of his family, and his “Ladyfriends” and that’s about it. Granted, his familial connections have some juice and his own dabbling with the Vermillion House will likely pay off.

Story Uses:

“I wouldn’t feed this to my dog.”

Occasionally, you might need to have someone be your entrée to the high society set. Maurice can get you in the door, and all you have to do is keep your eyes closed to the way that he treats people who are his inferiors.  And the reason why most people seem to chill on him eventually, is that he feels, deep down where it counts, that ALL people are his inferiors. So yeah. He knows all the right names. He knows all the right parties. He is wired in.  But even rich unlikeable pricks look upon Maurice Van Rensalear with a certain amount of disdain. Not really enough to exclude him...but you know.  Perhaps even The Vermillion House will realize that it is about to clasp an asp to it’s bosom...Or it’s possible that with them he will truly find his purpose.  As a true power broker...or as an entrée himself.

“Ugh! Did this come from a CAN?”

On the other hand, it might just be that your friends or your PC is involved in the foodservice business and you desire the sort of justice that only can come with feeding this guy his own entrails...But then again, it will involve rich people looking into the matter. Can’t be helped.

Connections:

* Temple of Athens Just the mention of the man's name is enough to send Rhea into paroxysms of livid spitting rage.

* Surrender Dorothy "Father REALLY wouldn't approve." Suffice it to say, he's a regular.

* Blaise Newkirk Maurice considers Blaise to be one of his very best friends. Blaise considers Maurice useful but occasionally tiresome.

* Ralston Van Doren " I DO NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON HIM! You take that back this instant!"

* Frederick Wyngarde  "My best friend from college. I'm a little envious of his writing. Has the palette of a german shepherd, but we can't have everything can we?"

* Meredith Shaw One of the few people who honestly likes Maurice. She is, of course, one of his primary "Ladyfriends" because there is exactly nothing that they like better than to eat well and talk shit about all the people they know."

* Lorna Crane "Trying too hard."

* Lillian Penobscot "Also, trying too hard. But you never heard that from me."