To create and execute a menu for the new restaurant, the owners installed a young chef we'll call Richard Lewison. Propriety prevents me from sharing his real name, but trust me, you've heard of him. He's the creative force behind a number of sickeningly successful restaurants in England. But at the time he was a complete unknown, one of countless young cooks who had toiled anonymously in the shadow of a couple of Michelin-starred restaurants.
Richard fashioned a two-man kitchen in the new restaurant, and I was kept on as the second man, quite an upgrade from bartender in just four weeks' time. The kitchen was an open one, in full view of the diners, with a little station that had pendant heat lamps suspended over it where finished dishes took a moment in the spotlight before being shuttled to the appropriate table.
Richard was an amazingly fit guy, with a sinewy build that brought to mind a young pugilist. This impression was reinforced by his frequent macho demonstrations, like his morning ritual of hoisting a fifty-pound bag of spuds up over his shoulder and depositing it in another part of the kitchen. (I'm not being a smartass when I say that I think that was the highlight of his day.) He was also a very creative, thoughtful, and smart cook. Sure, he was copying the greats he had worked with, but that's a necessary rite of passage for any chef. At the same time, he was busy developing his own style, and there was much that a young pup like myself, just starting cooking school, could learn from a guy who hailed from a Michelin darling like Le Gavroche.
For example, I saw up close and personal one of the great efficiencies of a classic French kitchen: the use of "mother sauces" to create any sauce required for service. All of Richard's sauces could be fashioned by embellishing one of the two bases we made every morning. One was a classic mother sauce, hollandaise, an emulsification of egg yolks and clarified butter. The other wasn't, strictly speaking, a mother sauce, but we used it as one, and that was a beurre blanc (literally translated as "white butter"), a reduction of vinegar and shallots, to which butter was added.
I mention this because, as you're about to learn, Richard was given to the sorts of fits common to European kitchens at the time: big public outbursts that involved chewing out his staff like Lee Ermey's drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket. He'd get right into your face and let you have it, with all kinds of weather spraying forth from his mouth. (He also had his human moments and graces, like when he used the term of endearment chups, by which he sometimes addressed me.) So, if you're wondering why I put up with it, it's because it was worth whatever it took to try to hang on, keep pace with him, and soak up as much knowledge as I could.
Or perhaps I should say, it was worth it, up to a point. And this, my friends, is the story of the day on which that point revealed itself.
Now, Richard liked his hollandaise whipped to an extreme froth. So every morning, I'd come in, make the yolk base, whip it for what felt like an eternity, then work in the butter. I don't know what, if anything, happened to him before he showed up for work on the evening in question, but he came in, took one look at the hollandaise, and started in on me. "What the fuck is this? What the fuck is this? There's no air in this!" I found this particularly annoying because when Richard got his back up, a French accent seeped into his voice {"What zee fuk iz sis?"), although, as far as I knew, he had never been to France in his life.
He then proceeded, right there in the open kitchen, with all of our customers looking on, to crack thirty-six eggs into a bowl and begin remaking the hollandaise. "This is how you make it, with the air, with the air!" he announced as he whipped the yolks, shouting and gesturing wildly so everyone in the restaurant could see and hear. When he had finished, he handed me the bowl with a satisfied grin. I glanced down at it. The hollandaise he had produced was more or less identical to the one I had made. I'll grant him that perhaps it was a bit airier, but it was, for all intents and purposes, the same. It was the kind of thing I was used to, however, so I shrugged it off and got back to work.
Ten minutes later came the french fries, which, like the sauces, were to be made fresh daily. Richard already had it in for the fries because he considered them beneath him; they were on the menu only because the owners insisted we have a burger and fries available for longtime customers who weren't about to order any dishes that involved a hollandaise sauce. After looking at the fries, Richard decided that I had cheated, making them the day before and stashing them in the walk-in (refrigerator). I assured him that I hadn't. In fact, I invited him to walk across the kitchen where he could see the evidence of freshness for himself: the spent potato peels, still in the garbage can.
But Richard didn't want to hear this. He so didn't want to hear it that he called me a name he had never called me before: navvy. To this day, I'm not sure what it means, but I think it's a derogatory term that the Brits use to disparage the Irish. It has something to do with someone involved in the navigation or driving of a boat, like a merchant marine—in other words, an unskilled, menial laborer, a lowlife. When he called me that, a hush fell over the restaurant staff, as though Richard had just slapped me with his gloves and I was supposed to challenge him to a duel or something.
I didn't do that, but I did let him know that I didn't appreciate his disparagement, and he went after me for my supposedly unacceptable backtalk. We never came to physical blows, but things got verbally violent. Then, as always, they subsided, and we forgot about it and got back to work.
Shortly thereafter, one of our more important customers, the owner of a nearby antiques shop, came in for dinner and ordered one of the evening's specials. Richard prepared the meat, then summoned me for my contribution: "Mario, quick, bring me the sauteed zucchini that goes with this." I brought it over. A moment later, Richard stopped what he was doing: "Chups, come look at these, these are not right."
I had no idea what he was talking about. In the pan were perfectly cut matchsticks of zucchini, glistening in oil, cooked through but with just the right amount of bite left in them.
"But Chef, this is how we've been doing the zucchini for the past two days."
"This is not the way we do them! This will never be the way we do them! This is not Michelin-star food!"
But we're not a Michelin-star restaurant, I thought, though didn't dare say it.
Richard garbaged the zucchini and I made him a fresh batch, more or less identical to the first, but somehow acceptable this time.
A little while later, another gentleman joined the antiques shop owner at his table and ordered risotto with calf's liver. That's when things really got cooking in the kitchen.
"Mario, bring over the risotto," Richard said, summoning me again.
I obliged. Richard took one glance at the risotto and proclaimed it undercooked.
"Richard," I said, "This is al dente risotto. This is how we serve it here."
"Who's the chef here?"
"You're the chef here, Chef."
I don't know if he thought I was being sarcastic, or if maybe he detected just a smidge of had-enough-of-your-shit in my voice, but that was it. He slapped the hand in which I was holding the pan and unloaded a mess of adjectives on me, the whole drill sergeant bit again.
"Dude," I said, "this is perfect risotto."
"Perfect? This is not perfect! You'll have to cook it again!"
"Aw, for the love of fuck . . ."
Here came the French accent again: "For zee love of fuk? For zee love of fuk?"
And with that, he picked up the offending pan of risotto and hurled it across the five feet of space that had grown between us during the argument. The pan hit me smack in the chest before tumbling down to the ground, spilling its contents all over the newly renovated floor.
There wasn't anything else to be said. I turned my back on Richard, walked into the prep area at the rear of the kitchen, and took a fistful of salt in one hand. I paused and looked over at Richard. He had his back to me and was finishing the dish without the risotto, putting on his little show for the customers. I tossed the salt into the beurre blanc. Took anothe
r fistful and tossed it in the hollandaise. Then I took off my apron, threw it in the linen bin, and—having satisfied my appetite for knowledge and revenge at this particular place of employment—walked out the back door and into the cool London night, a navvy no more, whatever the hell that meant.
Two Great Tastes
That Taste Great Together
MICHELLE BERNSTEIN
A former dancer, Miami native Michelle Bernstein is executive chef of "MB" at the Aqua hotel in Cancun, Mexico. After graduating from Johnson & Wales University, Bernstein began her culinary career at Red Fish Grill and Christy's in Coral Gables, and Tantra in Miami Beach. She trained with Jean-Louis Palladin, and honed her skills at Alison on Dominick Street and Le Bernardin in New York. She then became executive chef and co-owner of the Strand, before drawing national attention as executive chef at Azul at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Miami. For two years, she cohosted the Food Network's Melting Pot. Bernstein was nominated for the 2004 James Beard Foundation Award as Best Chef/South east Region.
MY FIRST KITCHEN job was as a line cook (commis in the industry vernacular), at Mark's Place in North Miami Beach, Florida. One night in 1993, during my second year on the job, we were expecting two celebrity guests. The one more familiar to our customers was TV's Maude, a famous Golden Girl in a town of real-life Golden Girls, the actress Bea Arthur. But the guest that sent shivers through the kitchen was the late, great Jean-Louis Palladin, one of the few two- or three-Michelin-starred chefs ever to have opened a restaurant in the United States: Jean-Louis at the Watergate in Washington, D.C.
Palladin was a legendary character in the industry. Though only in his late forties, he already possessed a famously craggy face, the product of equal parts hard work and hard living, and he had the wildly unkempt hair of a mad scientist. His temper reportedly knew no equal, but he was also appreciated for his genius, was considered a true friend to his peers, and was said to have a keen eye for recognizing and appreciating talent and hard work.
Miami didn't have the number of great chefs and restaurants it does today, so this was a case of visiting royalty. Among our crew, I was the one most atwitter at the prospect of cooking for Chef Palladin, because our chef/owner Mark Millitello had arranged for me to leave my hometown of Miami and go work for Palladin in Washington in just a few months.
My role in Mark's kitchen was an unusual one. I was far from the most seasoned cook, but I was a serial perfectionist. That, combined with the fact that I was the only woman in the house, made me—I guess—a nurturing presence, as much for my fellow cooks as for Mark. On days like this one, when something special was afoot, it was typical for Mark to tell people to "run it by Michelle" before it leaves the kitchen.
Mark himself was a near nervous wreck about the visit; he spent the day in a tizzy, tasting and retasting every kitchen preparation, pulling out all the stops by embellishing the menu with extra touches. He and Jean-Louis had a passing acquaintance, as most U.S. chefs of any renown do, but they weren't intimates, and any time a chef visited from another region, you wanted to make a good impression because other chefs were sure to get a report on the meal.
The most special thing Mark did to welcome Chef Palladin was to make a foie gras terrine, one of the true labors of love in classic French gastronomy. Terrines require a deft hand and precise control throughout preparation, including careful monitoring of the temperature of the ingredients, both when you begin and when you stop cooking them.
I still remember the terrine that Mark made—featuring layers of foie gras and sauternes gelee, made from the sweet dessert wine traditionally served alongside foie gras—a truly exemplary piece of craftsmanship that beautifully filled out its huge, rectangular, stainless-steel mold.
Because of my special role in that kitchen, I was entrusted with the terrine. In order to ensure it would be as smooth as possible when the time came to slice and serve it, Mark left it out on a shelf above my station for a few hours before service.
My mission was so clear that Mark didn't have to say a word: don't screw up, especially not with my future mentor in the house.
The kitchen at Mark's Place was cramped, to say the least. There was a front kitchen and a back kitchen, separated by a wall, a most unusual configuration. I was in the back area where we made appetizers and some pastries. Accordingly, my station was crowded with both the mise en place (prepared ingredients) for salads and starters, and a huge bowl of warm chocolate sauce for topping various desserts.
Because of the kitchen's organization, and our enormous menu (there were more than twenty appetizers), being a cook there required quite a bit of multitasking. It wasn't unusual for me to be plating a dish with one hand and whisking a dressing with another.
The only problem is that, even though I'm an ex-ballerina, I'm also something of a klutz, prone to minor accidents, spills, and such.
When the time came to send the terrine to Palladin's table, I arranged the salad plates on which I would serve it on my work station. I was putting salad on the plates with my left hand, and reaching up for the terrine with my right.
I didn't have a very firm grip on the terrine mold, so instead of lifting it, I only succeeded in pulling it off the shelf. It eluded my slippery fingers and tumbled down past my widening eyes right into the bowl of chocolate sauce, where it bobbed for a moment, like a ship with a hull breach taking on water, and then proceeded to sink into the murky depths.
As I reached in after it, my colleagues rushed over to help me try to save it—a difficult task. Flad the terrine come straight from the fridge, it would have been hard and cold, and easy to wipe off. But softened as it was, and warming even more thanks to the chocolate, it was beginning to leach out into the sauce. Tan globules were bubbling up to the surface, turning the chocolate into a mocha-colored nightmare.
I gingerly retrieved the unmolded terrine from the sauce and laid it out on my station. The other cooks and I stood over it in our chocolate-spattered whites, trying to decide how to save our patient. The first step was to halt the melting and preserve its shape, and we worked on it furiously, smoothing it over with spatulas, and our fingers.
I was panicked beyond words.
But I also couldn't help recalling, with amusement, those old television commercials for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups I used to watch as a kid. In the series of advertisements, two individuals, hurried for no apparent reason—one carrying chocolate and one peanut butter—would turn a corner and slam into each other, sending the chocolate into the peanut butter. They'd gasp in alarm, but needlessly so, because when they tasted the resulting combination, they realized that they had made the junk-food equivalent of discovering penicillin: peanut butter and chocolate, "two great tastes that taste great together."
Snobs might turn their nose up at this observation, but make no mistake about it: foie gras is the gourmet equivalent of peanut butter; insanely rich, it's best complemented by sweet or tart elements. Just as peanut butter goes with jelly, foie gras gets on famously with any number of fruit chutneys or compotes, like the sauternes gelee with which it was layered in the terrine.
Along these same lines, it turned out, as we licked our fingers, that foie gras and chocolate—just like the commercials said—were two great tastes that tasted great together. I'd be lying if I denied that we were moaning with pleasure as we licked the bittersweet chocolate and molten foie gras from our fingers, the rich concoction sticking to the roofs of our mouths like, well, like peanut butter.
Though we saved the terrine from total destruction, we weren't able to totally remove the chocolate, which had fused with the foie into a coating that could not be removed without serious risk of destroying the whole thing.
Making peace with the situation, I continued plating the terrine, racing to finish before Mark could see it. He was anxious enough that Jean-Louis was in the house; finding out about the dive the terrine had taken into the chocolate might have put him over the edge.
Finally, I sent out our new special
starter: "chocolate-painted foie gras" with a lovely mache salad.
I was too nervous to look out the kitchen to see how the terrine went over, but it must have been fine because Jean-Louis's plates came back clean, and Mark didn't charge through the swinging kitchen doors, screaming my name.
I came away from this incident unscathed. In fact, I got three things out of it. The first was a nickname by which my old pals from that kitchen still address me: Reeses.
The second is that, years later, when I had become executive chef of Azul at the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Miami Beach, I called on this episode to fashion one of my signature dishes: Seared Foie Gras with Chocolate Mole, mole of course being the savory Mexican chocolate sauce.
If Mark reads this story, it'll be the first he ever heard of the chocolate-painted terrine incident . . . because I never quite worked up the courage to tell him. I did tell Jean-Louis, though, during one of the rare times that, while working for the great chef, I found myself sharing a quiet moment with him. This was the third thing I got from that night: when I arrived at the punch line, Jean-Louis exploded with his huge, throaty laugh—I honestly don't think I've ever heard anyone laugh harder or louder—a cherished memory that alone made the whole thing worthwhile.
Lean Times at the Fat Duck
HESTON BLUMENTHAL
One of the most celebrated culinary figures in contemporary England, self-taught chef Heston Blumenthal opened the Fat Duck in 1995 in Bray, Berkshire. The Michelin Guide awarded the Fat Duck its first star in 1999, and upheld it in 2000 and 2001. He was awarded a second star in 2002, and a third star in 2004. Blumenthal was the first winner of the Chef of the Year award in the 2001 Good Food Guide. His first book, Family Food, was published in 2001, the same year he hosted the program Kitchen Chemistry on Discovery Channel.
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