Joey was quiet on the other end of the line. I could practically see him pacing, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the other fingers on that hand, the way he did when he tried to figure something out, turning his head from side to side, considering all the options.
“Can’t you just come over, Doll?” he finally said. “Just get in a car and come over.”
“Did you hear anything I just said?” I said impatiently.
“Yeah, Doll,” he said, more calmly. “I want you to come over.”
I tried to decipher what he meant until he clarified.
“I don’t want to meet anybody else.” Finally, I was the quiet one.
“Does that mean you want to do this? That you want me to be your girlfriend ?” Saying the word out loud felt dangerous, but I needed to be sure. Absolutely sure. There was a pause. A long pause. Long as death.
“Yes, Doll. Please just get in a car and come over right away.”
I hung up the phone, dialed a car service, and grabbed some clean underwear.
EIGHTEEN
Reservations
With a flick of my wrist I flipped the banana tart Tatin over and waited for the caramel-laden banana slabs to fall elegantly onto the fat pillow of puff pastry that sat waiting for them on the plate below. Nothing. My previous attempt resulted in a caramel that was far too runny, and as a result I had overcompensated and made the caramel too hard. I tossed the useless Tatin into a bucket of water to soak and got some more caramel going, increasing the cream by 25 grams. The night after next was the first of two friends-and-family nights at Q56, the new hotel restaurant, so I had to have every dessert worked out by then. The caramel bottom for the banana tart Tatin was my only unfinished detail.
With the small taste of success at Scarabée under my belt, I no longer worried whether I could be a pastry chef. Instead, my new focus was to become a good pastry chef. I was ready to up my game and take a few chances. I knew I had to have a chocolate dessert, but I was determined not to have the ubiquitous chocolate molten cake that appeared on half of New York City’s menus. I didn’t care that everyone loved it. It was too easy, too one-note, too obvious. Instead, I decided on a chocolate-espresso custard tart served with “Creamsicle” sherbet, something I thought perfectly fit the definition of “new American cuisine.” The small round ball of sherbet would sit on top of the tart in a small crocus-shaped tuile. I made a bright green syrup with basil to give the dessert’s flavor a slightly herbal dimension and to add a flash of color. It was a small detail that added a hint of complexity and made the dessert decidedly not humdrum. It was a risk but one I could take, since the rest of my menu consisted of mostly familiar flavors, like the banana tart Tatin. If I could nail down that caramel, I knew the dessert would be a hit. Who doesn’t like warm bananas and caramel? Especially served with dark rum ice cream and macadamia nut brittle.
“How’s it going, Doll?” said Joey, sauntering through the doorway of my kitchen. My kitchen.
Space was a huge perk of working at the hotel. I had an entire room, complete with multiple stainless prep tables, deep sinks, double-decker convection ovens, and a walk-in refrigerator and freezer all to myself. It was a huge improvement over the six feet of basement table space I had at Scarabée. And space was not the only perk that came with working for a large, corporate entity; there was money, too. It was a whole new realm of budgeting.
In addition to a healthy salary increase (finally, I would no longer be living paycheck to paycheck), I was given some great equipment. A few days earlier, after Joey explained the superiority of housemade ice creams and sorbets to the general manager (and spending authority) of the hotel, a brand-new ice cream machine arrived. Making ice cream quickly became my favorite task, and I began experimenting with textures and flavors, ebullient with the creativity it afforded me with my menu. I tried pumpkin with homemade marshmallow, lemon meringue, peppermint stick, prune and Armagnac, even avocado. I was no longer a slave to an ice cream wholesaler’s flavor list or to a minuscule household machine.
“It’s going okay,” I answered Joey. “Just finalizing the banana. Where have you been all day?”
Joey and I had been officially dating for weeks by then, though most of that time had been spent at the hotel, working. We didn’t have quite as much time side by side as we did at Scarabée, partly because of the hotel layout and partly because of his new corporate responsibilities. We made a conscious and determined effort to keep our relationship hidden from absolutely everyone, even Frank, the sous-chef who had worked with us at Scarabée. Casual kitchen hookups happen all the time in restaurants, but relationships are more dangerous. If any other employees figured out our secret, there’d be snickering at the very least. Neither one of us wanted anyone to get the idea that I had been hired for any reason other than talent or merit, or that I was getting any special treatment. Maintaining respect was the most important goal.
“Meetings,” he answered. “I don’t understand how there can be so many meetings, Doll.”
He started to make his way from the doorway over to my side of the room but stopped when he was distracted by the small array of stickers that Gilma had left stuck to her side of the table. Technically, Gilma was part of the pastry department, since she was responsible for things like cutting outsourced brownies for corporate events and arranging plates of chocolate-covered strawberries for VIP guests every day. I hated making those chocolate-covered strawberries. What hotel management saw as “luxury” I viewed as mediocre and generic. The out-of-season strawberries were always grossly large with tough, pale flesh. Each one lent little more than slightly sweet juice to the chocolate that coated it. It was one thing I looked forward to improving in the coming months. Gilma also put together shallow bowls of whole fruit for special guests, and every day—every single day—she peeled the small oval stickers off the Red Delicious apples, the underripe bananas and pears, and every single day she stuck them (and left them) on the surface of the table.
“Why does she have to do this, Doll?” Joey started to peel off the small, white ovals from the table. “It’s a simple thing. I just want her to stick them into the garbage or on a paper towel or something. I’ve asked her fifty times, but she just won’t do it. It drives me crazy.”
“She’s marking her territory,” I offered, shrugging.
Gilma, like most of the employees, had been working there for many years, and had met our arrival and the hotel’s decision to revamp and upgrade its restaurant with suspicion. When Joey announced that I’d be using the room to produce in-house desserts and proposed that Gilma use the other side of the table so that I could be on the side closest to the new ovens, she stiffened defiantly, lips pressed firmly into a thin line. She’d moved, but only after Joey had enlisted the cooperation of one of her coworkers, a shop steward in the union who convinced her, begrudgingly, to oblige. To say that Gilma was antagonistic is not exactly accurate, since she barely acknowledged my existence. She mostly pretended that I didn’t exist, and I, in turn, counted the minutes until her shift was over at three o’clock every day and the air of hostility dissipated.
Joey picked off all the stickers—he hated any sign of disorder or mess—dropped them into the trash, and finally stood next to me, keeping a few feet of space between us.
“So,” I asked, “what kind of meetings did you have?”
“Who even knows? They hand out all these charts with all these numbers. Everyone talks a lot, but no one really says anything. And you know I’m not good at sitting still, Doll.”
It was true; he wasn’t. It was another reason I’d taken on all computer work. Joey knew everything there was to know about running a restaurant, but sitting through meetings, especially if graphs were involved, was not something he tolerated well.
“All I know,” he said finally, leaning victoriously toward me, “is that when it comes down to food cost, I’m always right in line. Always.”
Joey prided himself on hitting a food cost of 27 or 28 pe
rcent every month, meaning that the ingredients for each dish cost no more than 28 percent of its selling price. Keeping a food cost of below 30 percent is imperative to the financial success of a restaurant, and every percentage point counts.
“You know what I do sometimes when I’m in these meetings?” he asked, taking a tiny step closer. “I rest my head on my hand and rub my fingers through my hair, like this.” He demonstrated how, with only his middle finger extended through his hair, he secretly but effectively gave the finger, his own personal “fuck you” to the corporate monster.
I’d been lured (as had Joey) by the challenge of opening a new restaurant, especially one with so much financing and support behind it: The hotel really seemed interested in making a big change with the new restaurant and was willing to spend to ensure its success. It was a challenge in scope, too. I was responsible not just for the restaurant desserts but for room service and private events and even the amenities, the tiny gifts left for guests in the rooms. The pay was better, too, along with the corporate perks like paid vacation, sick days, and personal days, all unheard of in the “outside” world. But I’d only been there a week and Joey a few more, and we’d already grown wary of the corporate entity we’d signed on with. Kitchens were supposed to be the antithesis of the corporate world with its orientations, appearance standards, and endless paperwork. Luckily, I was part of Joey’s team. In my mind, I worked for him, not the hotel.
“Nice one,” I said, approving of his gesture. He knew more about running a restaurant than anyone in those meetings.
“So, how’s the banana?” he asked.
“Okay,” I answered. “I’m having a tiny bit of trouble with the caramel, but I think I’ve just about got it.”
“Did I ever tell you, Doll, that the first time I saw you make the pear tarts at Scarabée I was really nervous?”
“What?” I asked. “You were afraid they were gonna suck?”
“A little.” He smiled. “But then you flipped that first one over, and all the pear slices had melted into the caramel and it looked beautiful. It was perfect. I knew everything was gonna be great. Just like now.”
I smiled. I wanted to put my head on his shoulder or hold his hand or something. Whisper “thank you” in his ear. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just stood there smiling at him.
“Joseph!”
Joey nonchalantly took a step away from me as Carol from marketing stepped into the kitchen waving a stiff piece of paper. Joey had mandated that he be addressed only as Joseph. He thought it sounded more professional and less diminutive, I guess. I still hadn’t gotten used to it.
“Joseph!” she said again, excited. “We got the promotional materials in.”
We liked Carol, even if she was a suit. She spoke to us as equals and even seemed to understand our disdain for our new corporate identity. And she was genuinely excited about promoting the new restaurant.
“What do you think?” she asked, proudly handing over the large folded card.
On the cover was a stylized close-up of a baby artichoke against a glowing red background. It opened up to another stylized close-up, this time a slightly grainy black-and-white of Joey’s—I mean Joseph’s—hands plating a salmon tartare with the words performance and art at the top. A final fold opened up to a full-page sepia photo of four perfectly attractive and diverse but forgettable friends enjoying a meal at Q56. Joseph, the host, stood behind them staring knowingly out at the reader. In the top right corner was the word energy. There was copy to the left of the photo, and the Q56 and American Express logos to the right.
“Looks great, Carol,” Joey said. I nodded. Clearly a lot of money had gone into its production. Too much, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.
“The mailing goes out next week,” Carol explained. “Every American Express cardholder within a ten-block radius will get one. I think it’s really going to get people in here,” she said sincerely.
“Well,” she said, looking at her watch, “I’m getting out of here. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Carol,” said Joey. “The card looks really great.”
“What do you think, Doll?” he asked once Carol was gone.
“Did you get a manicure for that close-up?” I teased. “Because it looks like you got a manicure. Your nails are not that shiny in real life.”
“Doll,” he said, “they made me get one! Come on. What do you really think?”
“No, it’s good. You look great,” I said. It was true. He looked great but still natural, like he did in real life. But Joey knew me too well. I was holding back.
“Come on,” he urged. “What is it? I want to know what you really think.”
“Well, it’s just . . .” I stammered, trying to pinpoint exactly what it was that rubbed me the wrong way. It was those words.
“Performance? Art? Energy?” I said finally. “What is that? It sounds so corny, so . . . ad agency.”
I should’ve just shut up. The hotel had spent a lot of money on an ad agency and all the industry trappings—stylists, photographers, and models—to produce promotional materials to get people in the door.
“But honestly, Joey,” I said, recovering, “you do look great. And you know what? The food looks amazing, and that’s the most important thing. That’s why people are going to come here and come back. For the food.” I meant every word. Joey’s food was undeniably excellent, and I hoped my desserts would leave people wanting more, too.
“I know it’s a little cheesy,” he agreed. “But this hotel stuff is a whole new ball game. They know what they’re doing.” He paused before leaning in and lowering his voice. “And,” he said devilishly, “I do look really good.”
I considered this. “The food looks better, though.”
“I know,” he said, turning to leave, “but only by a hair.”
It was after seven and most of the staff was gone, so we had the luxury of being able to joke around. I was reminded of how much I missed the freedom—the enveloping and comfortable banter—we’d enjoyed at Scarabée.
“Doll,” Joey said suddenly, looking at his watch and walking back toward me. “Let’s get out of here early.”
“Really?” I looked at my watch. We usually worked until at least nine.
“Yeah,” he said. “You can finish the banana tomorrow. Why don’t you pack up your stuff and meet me in twenty minutes? I’ll go get the bug and pick you up down the block. We can pick up some sushi and watch a movie or something. It’ll probably be the last chance we’ll have for a while to take this kind of break.”
In order to keep up appearances, we never arrived or left within twenty minutes of each other.
“That sounds perfect.” Right after the friends-and-family nights, we’d be open to the public, and there was no telling when we’d get to take a breath. I happily cleaned up my area.
Once inside Joey’s baby blue ’71 Volkswagen bug, I forgot all about the promotional materials and corporate identities, coworker façades and menu perfection. I rested my head on Joey’s shoulder as we headed downtown.
NINETEEN
Reality Bites
Fuck me!”
It was the only thing I could say, my solitary sentiment, as my hand slipped off the edge of the large bain-marie of chocolate sauce I was holding.
“Motherfucker!”
I didn’t recover quickly enough, and so the bain fell over. I watched the mass of thick, hot, near-black sauce—a good six quarts—ooze across my table in a slow, steady blob. It blanketed my notebook, which had all my recipes-in-progress, and ran over the edge of the table and onto the floor before I could slow it with a stack of side towels.
“Hmmph . . .”
Gilma stared smugly at me from across the room, fixing her collage of fruit stickers to the table. She made no effort to lend a hand, and I responded to Gilma the way I always responded to Gilma. I ignored her.
Using a week’s worth of side towels, I mopped up the sticky chocolate mess and attempted to
salvage my notebook. One by one I wiped the pages off with a damp towel. Amazingly, it worked, and I lost only a few minutes cleaning up the disaster. At least I had my notebook and the months of work I’d done on new recipes. I kept meaning to transfer them to the computer.
I grabbed the dirty pot and headed for the pot sink to drop it off but stopped in my tracks a few feet before the sink.
“What are you doing?” I asked, dirty pot still in hand. Three dishwashers were huddled around the pot sink, hunched over a magazine.
I knew what they were doing; I could see the glare of bare skin staring back at me from the large, glossy photos in the porn magazine. The three men just stared at me and my stupid pot, looking irritated that I’d interrupted them and, even worse, that I’d dared to question them.
What began as an exciting opportunity to open a new restaurant had slowly turned into a borderline unbearable situation. The day-to-day minutiae of kitchen work had proved to be frustrating to the point of complete exasperation. The “old” employees did little to help the “new” and sometimes even went out of their way to make our lives more difficult. In a normal restaurant, the chef reigns, and each person works to support everyone else to make everything run smoothly, like a well-oiled machine. But that spirit of cooperation was lost at Q56. It was not a normal restaurant; it was a corporate one with a union staff—a different animal entirely.
“I need this pot, please,” I said, at least trying to sound authoritative.
Not only did they meet my request with a collective eye roll, but they didn’t even bother hiding their porn. I considered repeating the policy I’d been taught at orientation that imposed a ban on all pornographic material in the workplace and forbade any form of sexual harassment, but I had a feeling it would just elicit more eye rolls. What? I wanted to yell at them. Like you’re gonna jerk off between pots? All three of you together? The group consumption of porn was weird enough, but in the workplace? I wished I could intimidate them or even humiliate them, but I knew it would be useless. It wasn’t the porn that offended me so much—working in kitchens, I’d been privy to plenty of raunchy, locker-room chat from the many men I’d worked with—it was their complete lack of respect for my supposed authority (I was in a management position, after all) and for the restaurant that I wanted so desperately to succeed. I dropped off the pot and went back to my kitchen.
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