But in July a friend told me someone with a yacht was looking for a private chef. I’d never been on a yacht, and €1,600 a month under the table would come in handy. What about the license that all working seafarers had to have? The Standards of Training and Certification of Watchkeeping is a bit like a résumé — no one ever asks you for it. The name of the yacht was Miles, and the old owner had apparently been a jazz enthusiast. I don’t think the new owner even knew how to spell “jazz.” He was a sleazy property developer from Rome, allergic to anything remotely resembling refinement or good taste, a mouth-breathing knuckle dragger with money. Funny, in some ways he reminded me of Arturo.
We moored the seventy-two-foot Comar in various locations between Sardinia’s jet-set hot spot of Porto Cervo and other stunning nearby inlets, sharing the crystal-clear waters of the Costa Smeralda with Silvio Berlusconi’s three-masted super-yacht and the pleasure craft owned by the pop singer Lucio Dalla. My duties were to cook for the captain, prepare salads with no dressings for the brute of a diet-obsessed owner, whip up pasta dishes at midnight (or two or three in the morning) for his eighteen-year-old firstborn and buddies, heat up and process baby food for the twins from his second marriage, and throw something together for the two nannies. I had to do the food shopping for the nannies separately, at the only discount store, which was located on the outskirts of Porto Rotondo. I had no idea when and where his young Dominican wife and her two surgically enhanced boobs went to eat. The whole setup couldn’t have oozed more stereotypes if I’d made it up.
I actually liked life at sea: getting a tan while I washed down the walls of the boat, going to do the shopping in the chase boat, learning how to tie knots and nonchalantly toss off nautical terms, and gazing from a suitable distance at seriously blinged wannabe fashionistas shelling out €60 for a pair of plastic flip-flops. I had a camera with me that I’d bought just before leaving, my first digital SLR.
“Hey, Leo, nice camera, does it take good pictures? What is it?”
“Yeah, nice. It’s a Nikon.”
“Gimme a look.”
I showed him the LCD screen and the latest shots I’d taken. At the third picture he punched in a number on his cell phone.
“Hello? Hey, Frank, can you hear me? Look, I want you to go buy me a camera. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Today, yeah. It’s a Nikon. A Nikon …” He turned to me. “What model is it?”
“A D70 —” I said.
“D70,” he repeated into the phone.
“S,” I added.
“S,” he echoed. “S for shithead. Right. Great. Okay. Okay, Yeah, yeah, see ya tomorrow, at the airport.”
S for shithead. But that wasn’t the only reason I jumped ship. I left because of the time he clapped his hands to call me while I was putting together his shitty salad with no fucking dressing.
I stood in the stairwell leading up to the deck and told him, “No, no way, no clapping. Clapping, N-O.”
I don’t think it hurt my pride as much as the realization that I couldn’t afford to mess around with college. Kitchen jobs come and go, something always turns up, often when you least expect it, but a degree is one of those things that if you miss the train, you’ll never catch it again.
I saw the Miles again the night I returned to the jetty at Fiumicino where it was moored, with Michele and a backpack containing a two-pound packet of sugar. Michele was back in Rome fresh from his last and final squabble with Orlando. It’s easier for two out-of-work cooks to hatch a devious plan than two busy chefs with full-time jobs.
All you have to do is find a €700,000 yacht, I’d told him over the phone. You locate the fuel tank and there’s a hatch lid, you give it a half turn, the way the captain taught you in case someone gets left outside, you yank it open and pour in two pounds of sugar. About half an hour into sailing the engine seizes.
Sugar in his fucking yacht would throttle that jackass and his salads and diets and whims. Except the hatch was bolted shut from the inside and we ended up sitting on the jetty, smoking and planning our future dream jobs, with two pounds of sugar lying idly next to us.
“There’s a good chance our old crew of the summer of 2003 is getting back together again,” he said.
“What, the Verve?”
“Yep. It’s reopening in January. Lucrezia, the owner, called. She wants to manage it herself, and she asked about you too.”
“And when did we ever see this Lucrezia person?”
“I bumped into her a couple of times; she’d drop in for a quick drink and then disappear. Our bosses reported to her. This time, we’d be reporting to her directly.”
When December rolled around, and with it the oral exam during which I’d be defending my dissertation, it had been exactly one year since my last shift at San Pietro a Sieve. The day I graduated was one of the happiest in living memory. We partied all night long with Emiliano, Orlando, Michele, Ciccio, Patrizio, and lots of other people.
So what’s the number-one reason I work in a kitchen? Money. Number two? Money. Three? Four? Five? The first ten reasons why I work as a cook, hanging in there and relentlessly signing up for any job in any way connected to food, is money. If I hadn’t earned enough money to let me take a year off, I’d never have graduated. If I hadn’t earned enough money to buy a camera and pay for the darkroom photography course, I wouldn’t be taking photos. I owe who I am to the kitchen. Therefore, the eleventh reason is gratitude.
32.
Michele and I put our heads together and came up with an awesome menu. We’d give people what they wanted: the illusion of a well-earned reward. Most people can’t cook, haven’t a clue where to start, and don’t even know what good food is. All they have is a hazy recollection of wonderful Sunday lunches at Grandma’s (bearing in mind that not all grandmas know how to cook), and a palate accustomed to the assembly line flavors of ready-made food and restaurant fare.
We, on the other side of the swinging door, know how to rustle up reassuring dishes that are beyond the capabilities of people who do not work in a commercial kitchen. Or maybe they can, but only with humongous effort, and the results are seldom consistent. We, instead, have some pretty amazing kitchen tools to help us: six-burner gas cookers, a convection oven that’s always on, a blast chiller, and — most important — razor-sharp knives. Even if you had a set of knives like ours in your own kitchen, you probably wouldn’t know how to use them. It’s all in the handles, someone used to say. No, I say, it’s all in the blades.
Immediately after our meeting with Lucrezia in January, I decided I deserved a present and bought myself a small set of Global Vanadium chef’s knives: pricey but not extravagant, Japanese made, lightweight, well-balanced and, of course, visually stunning. There are better — and worse — knives, but at the end of the day the only thing that matters is that they’re easy to sharpen. I get a kick out of watching an ultrasharp blade cut cleanly through a tomato, trim away cartilage without mangling the meat, or slice the tough skin of an eggplant. My knives are an extension of my thoughts; when they cut through ingredients and food, they are an extension of my fingertips. A good knife accounts for at least 40 percent of the skills that amateurs admire in professional chefs.
I’d liked them all, but I bought just the basic set of four to add to the twelve-inch Steinbach carving knife I’d used every day at the Verve, three years earlier. It was part of the utensils and smallwares Mauro had purchased for the season, and it had the longest blade, which is why I’d chosen it. I used that knife for everything, even peeling grapes. When the 2003 season finished, I took it away with me. It had become just as much mine as the scars it had made on my left thumb and knuckles. I sharpened it every time I used it and it could shave a hair on a hair. Now I had a proper chef’s knife with a beautiful eight-inch curved blade that I used to cut cheese and vegetables and to fan fruit for decorating desserts. Not meat or fish, though; that would be mistreating it.
You use a fillet knife for fish. It has a long, flexible blade to separate the sk
in from the soft flesh and enough bend to keep the edge close to the bone or table with the lightest of pressure. You can tell if someone’s any good at filleting fish and meat by the amount of waste they produce. In fact, that distinction applies across the board: You can tell a real chef from an amateur by the amount of waste produced.
I have a good boning knife, which sometimes gets called a boner (surprise!). It has a short tapered blade, a little thicker than a fillet knife but stiffer and heavier because it has to work harder. Tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue require more strength than fish, and they too require a sharp knife. You’re much more likely to cut yourself with a dull blade that slips when you least expect it than with a scalpel that meekly follows the slightest tilt of the wrist or pressure from the hand.
My fourth knife, which is just as essential as the others, is the paring knife. Everyone has a favorite: the bird’s beak, with an inwardly curved blade; the miniature chef’s knife, with a triangular blade; and others in different lengths and thicknesses. Mine is a simple serrated stainless steel number, perfect for tough skins like tomatoes and bell peppers in particular, but also for bread, celery, or just about anything else. Knives with serrated blades have the advantage of superior edge retention. They don’t cost an arm and a leg, and when they lose their edge (it takes a lot for that to happen!), you just throw them away and buy another one.
A chef’s personal knives are seldom used by anyone else in the kitchen. If you need someone’s knife, you ask for it politely and expect the answer to be no. If you want me to stop treating you nicely, then use one of my knives on a ceramic plate. If you want me to kick you out of the kitchen, use it on the stainless steel pass.
Two years ago, neither Michele nor I had our own personal knives, and now I couldn’t do a half-decent job without them. But the knives and our awesome menu were not the only things that had changed over the last three years. Other than the two of us, there was no one from the old brigade, and the hiring process resembled a virus that spreads through direct contact.
Staff was taken on day by day, following the simple rules of nepotism and chemistry. Among the first to arrive were Luana, who had shared an apartment with Giusy for a year, and Mario, who was Patrizio’s second cousin. Then all the others followed. I got into the act as well, bringing in Nicolò, an old friend still studying at the Academy of Dramatic Arts, to work front of house, and Angelo, a guy I knew from school — we’d spent many nights at his place printing photographs. For desserts, I’d pulled in Sara, the weird and wonderful pusher from our rave party days, who had just Xanaxed herself out of severe depression and earned a diploma from the A Tavola con lo Chef culinary school in Rome (she’d be making straightforward dishes, nothing overly elaborate). Another Gabriele (this one known as Gaby Baby, a buddy of Matteo’s from university with a passion for Foucault and a latecomer to the world of cooking) was also sweet-talked into joining us with the promise of running the appetizer station once he’d cut his teeth as a dishwasher. Gaby Baby was the weakest link in our kitchen chain gang.
Mauro was right about the difference between Italian and non-Italian kitchen hands. It didn’t take Gaby Baby long to flounder. He ranted and raved and swore like a trooper. He treated an extra spoon in the sink like a dagger between his shoulder blades. He’d throw regular tantrums and, all in all, behaved egregiously during service. I helped out whenever I could, washing pots and pans, especially early in the week when it was quieter, and very occasionally let him prepare the main course. I wanted to keep my word, but my power was, in all fairness, quite limited. A line cook makes at least €1,500 a month, while he, as dishwasher, made €1,000. And I didn’t have anyone else to take his place at the sink. Another young guy in the kitchen was Sampath, from Sri Lanka, who knew Michele. He was thorough and meticulous, quick to learn, and unobtrusive, with an uncanny knack for stepping in a second before being asked to. Sampath coped unfailingly and uncomplainingly with heavy-duty everyday drudgery, going about his business as service got into full swing and giving Michele and me the space and calm we needed to put the finishing touches on dishes and keep the wheels turning. Gaby Baby was champing at the bit to stop washing and start cooking, but he still had a long way to go. Other than dumping his frustrations on everyone during service, the rest of the day he managed to be quite pleasant and I became fond of his defiant outlook on life and his distinctive habit of analyzing things deeply, one syllable at a time.
“Hey, Gaby Baby, do you believe in eternal life?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Then you believe in God?”
“Nope.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.”
“The only completely consistent people are the dead.”
One Friday he texted me he was sick and would not be coming in, which I expected would happen sooner or later. I phoned him back immediately, but his cell was switched off.
In a flash, I remembered Joseph. I’d met him a few weeks earlier at a gas station on Via Tuscolana. My bike had refused to start and it was the middle of the night. He’d helped me push it more than half a mile along the deserted road, until the damn machine finally sputtered to life. I offered him a kebab and a glass of wine (he was a Christian Indian, the first I’d ever met; I’d taken it for granted he was a Pakistani Muslim, big mistake!), and listened, engrossed, to his life story as we ate together, before giving him a ride home. He had been working for a year at the Esso gas station, he was an illegal immigrant, spoke no Italian at all and just enough English to get by. His wage was made up entirely of tips. He worked there Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday, always during lunch breaks, and often all night. He never sat down because his boss didn’t want him to even though he was not paying him a cent. He slept a few hours in the morning, and every day around three he would pass by home to say good night to his eleven-year-old son and eight-year-old daughter. This he did like all immigrants: Seated on a plastic stool in front of an ancient computer on a table made of chipboard in a room shared with five other people, he would sign into Skype, draw his face nearer to the monitor and wait. The connection was slow, the voices choppy, and the image of the two children often froze, but since the arrival of Skype, everything seemed easier and closer. Before that there had been only letters, a few photographs, and the weekly remittances. So I remembered Joseph as being a cheerful guy, his speech interspersed not with expletives but “Thank God.”
I told Michele I thought I’d found a solution and to wait for me. Still in my blacks, I grabbed my helmet and asked the barman, who had just arrived on his motorbike, to lend me his. I headed toward Via Tuscolana, praying I’d find Joseph there. When I got to the gas station, there he was, wearing his hat and a checked shirt over a white undershirt. As soon as he saw me, he broke out into a big grin and came over to give me a hug. I talked to him without even taking my helmet off.
Five minutes later he was awkwardly climbing onto the back of the bike and grabbing me for dear life, his ribs pressing into my back.
“Joseph … not so tightly please, I can’t breathe …”
We arrived at the restaurant, I introduced Joseph to Michele and the others, tossed him a plastic apron, showed him more or less where things were and where to put the plates, flatware, and pans, and then I gave him a pat on the back and marched up the stairs to Lucrezia’s office. I explained that we had a new kitchen hand as of today because Sara could no longer manage the desserts by herself; what with prep, service, and the business starting to take off, we really needed another person in the kitchen. The best solution was to shift Gabriele over to Sara’s station, which he would agree to do for the same pay, and find a new dishwasher. For the time being we could try out this Indian guy. I hoped the prospect of saving money by not getting a new cook to help Sara would make Lucrezia ignore the fact that I was actually asking her to spend more on staff. I waited for an answer, then realized that her eyes had a faraway glazed-over look. I reached acr
oss her desk and gave her a gentle prod. Lucrezia suffered from narcolepsy. She shuddered and picked up the conversation as if nothing had happened.
“What were you saying? A new dishwasher?”
“Yeah, Gabriele on desserts and appetizers with Sara, and a new dishwasher … did you get all that?”
“Yes, of course. I’m not deaf, you know. Well, okay, if that’s what you want and what’s needed. But does this Indian guy have all his papers in order?”
“Of course he does. It’s the first thing I asked him.”
“Fine. Bring him upstairs and I’ll add him to the paperwork.”
“Are you thinking of giving him a contract?”
“I’ll put him on the payroll along with everyone else as soon as our license comes through from the council.”
“Yeah, well. Do you know when that’ll be? May has come and gone.”
“Look, you know how important this place is to me. You’ve got to give me a hand, Leo, the others look up to you. Have a word with them. And don’t worry.”
I left the office thinking she was nothing but a spoiled forty-something fucking bimbo with overly indulgent über-rich parents backing her. Getting a manager in to run the restaurant hadn’t caused enough grief — and debts — so she’d decided to manage the place herself and lose more money even faster. The business about the license had come out early on because both Michele and I had been convinced she owned the property. Instead, it turned out that the local city council owned it and had rented it under a ninety-year lease to a private investor who — according to Lucrezia — was soon to take possession and sublet it to her. Since we were occupying the premises and working here, we should, in theory, be entitled to take over the license. It was not at all clear to me how the council could possibly license an establishment like this with none of the staff holding a legally binding work contract. Wasn’t this in total breach of labor laws? Was being in cahoots with a couple of local councilors enough to get away with fucking murder? What actually constitutes employment? I was unfamiliar with the ins and outs of these machinations, and up to a certain point, I didn’t give a shit. All I needed was a kitchen to run and my pay packet at the end of the month: how I got it, I didn’t care. It was the slapdash way money was splurged on concerts that we couldn’t afford that caused me the greatest concern. The new artistic director was learning the ropes at Lucrezia’s expense, a bit like everyone else, for sure, but he was throwing bucket loads of cash to pay for bigger-name artists — as well as to tart up his résumé. Performers of the caliber of Ferruccio Spinetti and Petra Magoni, Avion Travel and Kocani Orkestar had already soaked up rivers of cash. Going back downstairs to the kitchen, it occurred to me that my job was taking care of the kitchen and keeping my team together. My job was to balance the restaurant’s books. The artistic director would have to deal with Lucrezia, and Lucrezia would have to deal with the council, and that was their business.
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