When Debora and the president told me about Marco, they spoke of a person who had made a mistake and was paying his debt to society. He needed help and support to slowly find his way back to a normal life. Then I met Marco in person, and he seemed savvier than those two could ever have imagined.
If it is true that evolution has given us a powerful instinct to survive and adjust to our environment, then Marco was its happy-go-lucky ambassador. All he actually needed was a temporary release permit allowing him to spend a few hours every day out of prison. For me he was the linchpin of the kitchen, and he was fully aware of it. Competent, fast, determined, smart, helpful, intelligent, and honest too. A good guy, compared to the many assholes I’d come across. Someone I could trust and a necessary presence in the kitchen. I gained his trust forever when I requested that he be allowed to stay out of prison twelve hours a day instead of the six that were initially granted. No change to his contract — the extra hours were considered volunteer work — but the important thing was that he was out of his cell. Now he arrived at nine in the morning and left at nine at night. I had my right-hand man and he had more time and freedom to move.
“Hey, Marco, my man, how about we try a few desserts?”
“Sure, Leo. Let me have a smoke and I’ll be there. Do you want some coffee?”
“Yes, please. A double espresso in a big cup.”
“Long and black, just the way you like it,” he said, chuckling.
I’ve always been fond of cooking in silence; ingredients are like the dreams you have when you’re half asleep, crammed with seemingly disparate fragments that come together into something abstract and illogical but nonetheless flow. I tried out new dishes and modified old ones, delighted in the touch of my super-sharp knives, rejoiced at the jam-packed fridges, and let the sizzling pans and browning steaks warm the cockles of my heart. Marco and I would go from meditating about ingredients and ruminating about recipes to actually making the dishes, usually putting our own personal twist on them. Gliding from the former to the latter came naturally. Everybody needs a friend, and from the get-go I had singled him out.
There was still one thing that I didn’t know, a subject we’d never talked about, and I wasn’t sure I was in any position to inquire. I was afraid to push too hard and find myself having to slam on the brakes when it was too late.
What can ruin a perfectly good dish, and what causes numerous road accidents every day, is not knowing when to hit the brakes. We all tend to ask too many questions, say too much, add too much, go too fast, run yellow lights and believe others will admire our zeal or stop at the red light. The clock in the corridor said half past three on the dot.
“Okay, Marco, here’s what we’ll do: I’ll prepare the mixture for the tuiles and you make the pastry cream. Okay?”
“But the cream is already made, it’s over there.”
“Yeah, but that’s Chantilly, you can taste the cream in it, and it’s three days old. Just make me a simple pastry cream.”
“Sure. Have you tasted the puff pastry?”
“I have and I don’t like it. It doesn’t have enough layers and it’s all misshapen.”
“Oh, okay, I made it myself by hand.”
“You made it by hand and you used margarine instead of butter.”
“But it comes better with margarine.”
“Jesus Christ, did I just hear what I thought I heard? The pastry has to taste buttery, that’s what’s so good about it. But let’s leave it at that, let’s not lose our cool. What we need is an electric dough roller, otherwise you spend hours and hours on a product we sell for peanuts and it’s not even as good. Let’s continue using the frozen pastry sheets.”
A tuile mixture is easy to make. All the quantities are the same. Same number of egg whites to the same amount of flour, butter, and confectioner’s sugar is the basic recipe, then you can add vanilla, cocoa, almonds, or whatever. I prepared the basic mixture. Melted the butter until it softened to a spreadable consistency, then whisked it together with the sugar and slowly added the egg whites. Then I added the sifted flour with a spatula. You must mix the ingredients until just combined; if you overdo it, the gluten develops and ruins everything. The oven was already heated to 390°. I poured three spoonfuls of batter separately onto the silicone baking sheet. I spread the batter so it formed thin rounds and placed the tray in the oven. As soon as the edges started turning golden brown, I took the discs out and placed them immediately onto overturned cups, gently pressing them into the shape I wanted in the few seconds that they were still hot and malleable.
“See how beautiful they are?”
“Beautiful. So beautiful they look fake. What do you want to fill them with?”
“I don’t know. Maybe pastry cream and fruit or some kind of mousse. How ’bout that?”
“How about leaving them flat and making a mille-feuille, layered with something like ricotta and chocolate?”
“Yep, I like the sound of that. Where’s the pastry cream?”
“I still have to cook it.”
He put the pot on the stove, lit the gas, and started whisking like crazy.
“Whoa, Marco, slow down, you’re whisking too hard. If it develops too much gluten, you’ll end up with glue.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed, and it didn’t take much imagination to sense that if he chose to, he could easily turn feral.
“Hey, Leo, gimme a break. Let’s see how it turns out first, and then you can say what you want …”
“Okay, okay … be my guest and see what happens. But it also depends on the recipe you’re following.”
I waited till he finished, highly skeptical of the outcome. When the custard cream was cooked, he put it on the pass next to the stove. I came closer and pressed some cling film over the surface — that way it doesn’t form a skin, I told him. He nodded. If he didn’t reply, it meant he was taking note of what I said. I knew him by now. We went outside to smoke a cigarette.
We returned to the kitchen, I lifted off the cling film, making sure no drops of condensation fell onto the cream, then dipped my finger into the beautiful pale yellow mixture. I didn’t like the consistency — too thick and not silky enough. When I licked my finger, the sugary sweetness hit me like a slap in the face.
“Marco, I have to be honest here, this pastry cream is shit, it’s absolutely disgusting.”
“What do you mean disgusting? I’ve been making it like this forever.”
“Well, you’ve been making it wrong forever. It’s like putty, you can taste the flour, and it’s far too sweet. Pastry cream has to be smooth but not slimy, the sweetness shouldn’t overpower the other flavors, and the flour has to be cooked thoroughly. Let’s make another batch and we’ll taste it together, then you tell me which one you prefer.”
I started mixing the ingredients all over again, first the dry ones — flour and sugar — then a little milk and the egg yolk. In the meantime, I put the rest of the milk on the stove with the vanilla and the orange peel, ready to pour into the mixture as soon as it neared boiling point.
“Why did you become a chef, Leo?”
“Who knows. I guess because the things I cooked had the right look about them.” Then I tried to clarify. “I mean, when I cook things, they come out exactly as I imagined them before I even started making them.”
“I thought it was something simpler, like because you make a good living.”
“And what about you?”
“It was just a coincidence. In jail there were some courses you could take, and you got good-time credits. Then the cooperative gave me a chance to get out on work release and stick my nose out the door.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m happy with the way things are. I’ve only got a few years left of my sentence. Maybe when I’m out I can start up a little place of my own, but not in Italy. I’ve got some contacts in Tunisia. There, with twenty thousand euros, you can live like a king.”
I saw the flashing yellow light and decided to go
through it.
“Listen, you must’ve done something pretty big if you’ve been inside for so many years.”
He handed me the whisk without a word. The light had turned red.
“We’re not going to use the whisk,” I said. “We just stir the cream so it doesn’t stick to the pan. Can you pass me the spatula, please?”
“Go on,” he said.
“Well, there isn’t much more to do now, just work in a circular motion and scrape the bottom of the pan …”
“I’m not talking about the cream. You were starting to say something.”
I wanted to hit the brakes, but when you’re in the middle of an intersection that’s the worst thing you can do. When in doubt, accelerate, I remember someone saying.
“I don’t want to butt into your business, I want that to be clear. I know nothing about the lives of the people who end up here at the restaurant, and that’s the way it should be.”
“Don’t worry, Leo. I don’t tell everyone my story, but I do tell some.”
“I’m not worried.”
“Murder. I killed a loan shark. I don’t know how many chances you get in your life to stay outta trouble, and even if I did have a chance that day, I didn’t pick up on it. I’m telling it to you straight, that guy was an asshole and he deserved what he got.”
That’s when I should have either slammed on the brakes or hit the pedal to the metal; instead all I could do was let inertia carry me along and hope I wouldn’t smash into anything. He continued his story.
“I was working in my father’s company. I was about twenty and I wanted to set up my own business. Banks don’t lend money to kids, so I borrowed some from a guy who used to come over to our house. Everyone knew he was a loan shark, and my dad wasn’t the least bit happy when that guy lent me fifty million lire, but I didn’t care. I started up my business, worked my fingers to the bone, and every month I’d pay him the vig. Then, just when I’d nearly paid off my debt, I skipped a couple of payments. When I took him the final amount, the guy said the debt wasn’t settled yet because I’d been late, the interest had increased, and I still owed him another five million lire. I said maybe he was mistaken, that I’d given him all the money I owed him. Then he started to bust my balls; he’d wait for me when I’d meet up with my friends and then go on and on about it. One time, in front of everyone, I even said to him, ‘Leave me alone or I’ll shoot you.’ I wasn’t scared of him, he knew everyone in my family, just like we knew everyone in his, but I refused to be bullied. I was busting my ass, working Saturdays and Sundays, and I liked to spoil myself. I was living the high life, you know, new cars, going to a target-shooting range. I had a few guns and a firearms license. I was allowed to carry my weapon — disassembled — only from my house to the shooting range and back. I hardly ever disassembled my pistol, very few people ever do, and that night I had it in my car.
“Just as I was unlatching the gate to go home, I felt a sudden pain in my thigh. That motherfucker had hung around and waited to stab me in cold blood. He was blind drunk and his wife was with him. He was screaming that I had to learn respect and I was still wet behind the ears, and in the meantime he kept coming at me with the knife. It was a split-second decision. I circled him and opened the car door, got my pistol out from under the seat, and shot him in the arm. He must have been so damn drunk or stoned that it didn’t stop him, so I shot him two more times in the stomach, but he kept coming at me. He grabbed me around the neck, and I managed to shove the gun under his chin and blow his face off. His wife testified in court — she told them the truth about the knife, the stabbing, his hands around my neck, exactly as it happened. They didn’t arrest me right away. The case dragged on and on, and I thought I’d get away with self-defense. I even left Italy and went to Tunisia. I opened a business there and met a fantastic girl called Dalila. She’d never been out of her country, didn’t know anything about what had happened, and never wanted me to use a condom. When they came to arrest me in Tunis, we had just found out she was expecting a baby. They sent me packing back to Italy like I was some kind of fugitive from justice. Someone had testified that I’d threatened the asshole before I shot him: murder and attempted escape, thirty years without parole. Those shots cost me a life behind bars. My son was born while I was in the slammer, my woman moved to Italy, and I’m lucky she hasn’t turned her back on me. The warden of the penitentiary married us and our honeymoon was two days’ leave at my parents’ place. But I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Like I said, that asshole deserved to die.”
So there you have it. So much for remorse, I thought to myself. Marco gave me a serious look that said, Keep it to yourself. Then he smiled and asked if we could taste the frigging pastry cream stirred with a spatula. The intersection was behind us and the traffic was flowing smoothly again.
“Look, forget what I said about the pastry cream. Yours is fantastic, perfect, silky soft, and mouth-wateringly delicious. Disregard whatever I told you before, keep making it just like that,” I joked, putting on a wild-eyed face and groveling.
“So what are we going to do with my glue?” he asked, laughing too.
“We’ll wait until it cools down, then we’ll jazz it up with some whipped cream and rum, and tonight’s dessert will be fantastic almond cookies with sabayon and mixed berries. Do we still have some frozen berries somewhere?”
“Yeah, I think we do. I’ll go and check.” And off he went, leaving me on my own.
And there you have it. People still ask me why I continue to work as a chef. The truth is that I could have tried any number of improbable careers without finding one I love as much as this. What other job would allow me to peep through so many cracks in the wall of life?
That defeat was the first of seven more for Floyd Patterson. His career at the top of the world was over, although he didn’t know it yet. When he did realize it was over, he hung up his gloves and became a coach and gave bittersweet interviews. He died of cancer at seventy-one. Sonny Liston never lost a bout, except when he sold out to the gambling mafia. He was thirty-eight years of age when they found him lying facedown on the floor of his home with needle tracks in his arm and a massive amount of morphine in his bloodstream. Everyone knew he was terrified of injections.
Being a bittersweet coach has its advantages. My name is Leonardo Lucarelli, and it’s embroidered in dark red on the black uniform that defines me. I have a natural talent for giving people better answers than the ones I give myself. Every so often I think I should have stayed in the one-star restaurant with its Pasta all’Amatriciana at €40 a pop, and eventually opened my own restaurant, which is what every chef is expected to want, but life goes on, and there you go.
Marco returned to the kitchen holding a bag of frozen berries.
“Hey, man, you get to ask me why I’m in jail and you haven’t even told me your son’s name.”
“My little boy? Matteo. His name’s Matteo.”
You continue working in a kitchen because you’ve been following politics for years but you never go to vote. Because one day you might have a casual conversation that will take you somewhere else. Because when they say it’s too late, to you it always seems too soon. Because nothing defines you as perfectly as this job does. Because you never know how it’s going to end, but you know you have to whisk egg yolks in a copper bowl. You continue to work in a kitchen because you can’t find what you’ve learned in the lyrics of a song or on TV, and some nights, when you feel like God’s right-hand man, you know you’re not exaggerating.
You continue working in a kitchen because you want to live to tell the tale of all the great things that keep happening to you, and because if you truly know what it feels like to be in a good place, then maybe now you say, convincingly, Yep, I’m in a good place.
You continue to work in a kitchen because knowing how to cook immerses you in reality and history, because the kitchen is a theodemocracy and fools always lose.
You continue to work in a kitchen because chefs
are the fifth quarter of Roman cuisine, an oxymoron, the offal that most people regard as waste, but the only part of the animal that distinguishes a real chef from a wannabe, that differentiates someone who knows how to live from someone who doesn’t. Living life as a fillet steak or a rump steak is easy. Only an artist knows how to survive as tripe, brains, intestine, spleen, or testicles. You continue working in a kitchen because the world of restaurants and food service is a contradiction in terms and it can give you a good laugh. You continue to work in a kitchen to transform scraps into flavors. Because cooking’s right on trend but you got there a nanosecond ahead of the curve. Because outside the kitchen you are a consummate good-for-nothing, and cooking is all that stops you from smoking more than you breathe, drinking more than you eat, standing still more than you sleep, and spending more than you earn. You continue to work in a kitchen because you need boundaries, and because knowing how to handle knives is a useful skill to have when the days seem to meld into each other and form a single dangerous whole.
You continue to work in a kitchen because by now it’s become pretty obvious that you’ll always choose sneering mockery over subtle irony.
Without the friendship, support, advice, steadfastness, and help of Matteo, I’d never have written this book.
LEONARDO LUCARELLI was born in India and has since resided in regions all across Italy, including Lazio, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Trentino, and Tuscany. He entered the culinary world as a college student, and after completing a degree in anthropology, he continued his career in the kitchen. He has worked in fifteen restaurants — some Michelin-starred, and seven of which employed him as chef. Lucarelli currently lives in L’Aquila, where he consults for several restaurants in Rome.
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