Spiced

by Dalia Jurgensen

  “Yeah, but still,” he countered with defeat, “whatever he ate wasn’t good enough to make up for any of that.”

  “But imagine a worst-case scenario, Joey. Maybe he came in, and no one was at the podium to seat him. And then maybe his waiter was Sam, who almost goes out of his way to be rude. And then no one brought him bread. Or water. Or the glass of wine he ordered. And maybe the crappy soundtrack grated on him. Maybe that’s what happened. Clearly no one spotted him, or we would have known he’d been in.” I was pouring salt in the wound by bringing up the last bit, reminding him of an earlier incident.

  At our friends-and-family night, the general manager—the general manager!—had turned away an important food critic from New York magazine. The GM was new to the nonhotel restaurant scene and hadn’t recognized her. Sorry, he told her, but it’s too late to be seated. She, in turn, angrily reported the exchange to Steven. Upon learning that she’d been turned away, Joey called the hotel bigwigs together and voiced his anger and frustration with their inability to understand or heed all the things he’d been trying to tell them. They’d let down their end of the bargain, not Joey. I desperately wanted to take the failure off of Joey’s shoulders and place it firmly in the hands of the hotel, where it belonged. I wanted it to be their fault. They deserved it. I started to get angry.

  “Joey, you’ve done everything you could have possibly done,” I finally said. “And anyway, I don’t care what the guy said. He can say anything he wants, but I know, I know that your food is delicious and amazing and very memorable. And you know it, too.”

  He nodded unconvincingly into the sofa.

  “But what are we going to do, Doll?” he finally said after a long pause.

  What were we going to do? Without a positive review from the Times, it was likely Q56 would never get any busier. It was quite possible that the restaurant would slip further and further into midtown hotel obscurity. The hotel would still have its restaurant, which would really exist only to serve its guests, and we’d still have our jobs and the frustrating reality that we were unable to change things.

  “I don’t know, Joey. I guess we just keep making the best food we can, right?” I said. “And we figure something out.”

  Eventually, Joey bounced back, determined not to let the Times or the hotel defeat him. We did the best job we could until finally none of it seemed worth it to any of us. We’d made it a year when we decided that we could leave our jobs in good conscience. Once again, we left: Joey, Frank, and I, together.

  TWENTY

  Sweet Relief

  After leaving Q56, I worked part-time for Moomba, a celebrity hot spot that had recently turned mostly lukewarm. Moomba’s pastry chef had left, so they hired me to maintain the mise-en-place for the desserts. I worked just three days a week, mostly on my own, since the restaurant was closed for lunch. On the heels of the antagonistic atmosphere at the hotel, the solitude and silence were bliss, as was the low stress level. I was not expected to come up with anything new; I simply had to maintain what was already in place. It paid enough to cover my rent and gave me a much-needed break. I even took a vacation: a four-week trip to the Philippines and Thailand with Les.

  I wasn’t counting on Joey to find me my next job (in fact, leaving Q56 gave me a much-needed break from Joey, too), but when I heard his voice on my answering machine once again—Gimme a buzz, Doll. I got something to talk to you about.—I knew he had something in the works. While I was off in Asia, Joey had signed on to be the new chef at Tonic, a restaurant and private party space that had opened a few years earlier. Tonic had received a glowing two stars from the Times early on, but its chef was moving on to another project (as chefs tend to do). The owner, Steve, a Greek man in his early sixties who had been in the business for years and owned a handful of restaurants, wanted to breathe some new life into Tonic, whose business had begun to wane. Joey got his team—me and Frank—back together for the job. He even hired some of the better cooks he’d hired at the hotel.

  At both Scarabée and Q56, Joey hired me as his pastry chef with no contest from owners or management; they simply trusted his judgment. This time, though, Joey’s word on my behalf was not enough for Steve. I was asked to do a tasting: prepare some of my desserts so he could get a realistic idea of what I would serve in his restaurant. The taste, the style, the look—all of these things would be judged.

  I needed surefire desserts (trying out new things was too risky), so I stuck to things I’d done before: banana tarte Tatin, milk chocolate pot de crème, lemon blast (a frozen lemon soufflé). I brought each plate out to Steve, his wife, and Joey, who sat with them, as though he were part of the judging panel. I described each dessert as I imagined it would appear on a menu: This is the lemon blast, with blueberry frozen yogurt and vanilla shortbread. Then, I retreated down to the basement to work on the next one, happy not to have to face their reactions, their critique. That I had complete faith in my desserts (as did Joey) was no guarantee and of little comfort. People have different tastes, and, for all I knew, Steve might have hated the hint of whimsy in my lemon blast: It was an oval frozen soufflé that had a peephole cut through one end, on which I leaned a small, round scoop of frozen yogurt. I decorated the plate with a swirl of sauces. The other restaurants in Steve’s small empire were more traditional. Maybe he would think it was stupid. Conversely, maybe he wanted something outrageous, like the towering, architectural, overgarnished look that was popular in some high-end restaurants. I found that the taste of those desserts rarely lived up to their visual spectacle, but some customers loved them nonetheless.

  But Steve did like my desserts. His only question, Joey told me later, was a trivial one. The girl, he asked Joey, does she know how to use the machine? I was twenty-nine at the time, far too old to be thought of as a girl, even if I did still look like one. I hated that my appearance could undermine my ability or talent, but at least I had Joey to back me up. He assured Steve that not only could I use the ice cream machine, but I had plenty of high-volume experience to handle the production necessary for Tonic’s two private rooms, which could hold up to two hundred people. I was in and determined to prove myself to be much more than just “the girl.”

  Working at Tonic meant a return to “normal” restaurant life: We worked six-day weeks, shared family meals, and spent too much time together. Tonic had a pretty big staff (though still significantly smaller than that of the hotel), which consisted of the usual hodgepodge of personalities who managed, despite their differences, to get along and joke around.

  Working in such close quarters and with mostly young men encouraged sophomoric humor. I always stored my tart shells in the same place: bottom shelf of my walk-in refrigerator. Quite regularly I would grab the plastic-wrapped half sheet tray and realize that something was different. My handwritten, blue ink labeling had been altered. My T for “tart” had been turned into an F. Again. Using words for body parts or body functions was considered hysterically funny: butt as in butt milk for “buttermilk” or box for “refrigerator.” If a body part, especially a private body part, could in any way be substituted for a kitchen word, it was. Fart was the funniest at all times and in any application. Any sound resembling a fart? Also funny. For instance, squeezing the last bit of honey out of its bottle so it made a spitting noise. Blaming someone for it with a chorus of accusing eeews? Very funny. Turning the pastry chef’s tart into a fart? It didn’t get any better.

  Thanks to my French predecessor, who had designed the pastry station (he was less than pleased to learn that he was being replaced by a “girl”), my area was a dream; it was well equipped and well organized. I had my own end of the basement kitchen, complete with double convection oven, sink, burners, lowboys, mixers, and freezers. I even had a lot of “pastry-only” equipment—chinois, Robo Coupe, blender—which meant that my desserts could not be mistakenly adulterated by some other cook’s garlic or fish stock. There is nothing worse than innocently puréeing some fruit in a Robo Coupe only to discover,
too late, that it tastes like the garlic that has stubbornly sunk into the plastic body of the food processor. There was plenty of space for both me and Ali, my assistant, who came in every day at two and worked until closing.

  When I started at Tonic, Ali had been a dishwasher and a good one (being a dishwasher is hard work and a good one should not be taken for granted), but whenever he had a free moment, he would stand at the edge of my station, watching intently as I arranged berries on a tart, spread out tuile batter over a stencil, or scooped cookie dough. After a while, if I was doing a simple task, topping hundreds of miniature pistachio cakes with a single whole Sicilian pistachio, for example, I would ask him if he wanted to help, and he always nodded. He worked diligently and quietly, barely looking me in the eye. When my nighttime plater (the very job I’d had at Nobu so long ago) quit, I offered Ali the job.

  It was rough going at first. Ali was from Mali and spoke both Arabic and French. His English, however, was only as good as my spotty French. But Ali always carried a small notebook in which he recorded everything I taught him. With naturally deft hands, he easily rolled out even logs of biscotti dough, and his tuiles were always thin and uniform. When his plates looked a little bit sloppy or just plain wrong, I tried to be patient, remembering how horrendous my own fruit plates and “Happy Birthdays” had been at Nobu when I first started. And just as I had improved over time and with repetition, Ali improved exponentially. I eventually learned to trust him completely. Not only did Ali become an amazing assistant, he started taking English classes and even earned his green card. Eventually, he arrived at work one day with a new identification card complete with his given name in an African dialect. We “fired” the old illegal Ali and “hired” the new legal one, the one with a name none of us could come close to pronouncing. It’s okay, he said, you can still call me Ali.

  Watching Ali grow in so many ways was wonderful, and I liked to believe that I played a tiny part in his achievement, but he was more likely inspired by some of the other cooks around him. It is not uncommon for a dishwasher, the lowest position in a kitchen, to gradually work his way up through the hierarchy until finally becoming a chef. It is one of the aspects of kitchens I like the best: They are great equalizers. Hard work and diligence pay off, regardless of class, race, or school transcripts.

  Part of Ali’s daily responsibility was steadily laying out tuile batter over the thin plastic stencils I’d cut out of old plastic fish tubs. Over time, he did just as good a job as I did. Once he mastered something, I taught him something new, building on his skills. Ali and I fell into a routine: He came in every day and prepped the station for dinner service, and I spent the bulk of my time producing the more complicated items and coming up with new ideas. It was not until I finally relaxed into the more normal and supportive environment of Tonic that I realized how much the frustration and stress of the hotel had affected my outlook. I had forgotten how much I loved creating desserts and even working in a restaurant.

  Q56 had been a disaster, but the desserts I developed there were not, so many of them reappeared on my Tonic menu. I kept the buttermilk crème brûlée and served it this time with miniature blueberry scones. The brûlée was so popular that I baked them almost every other day, which should have meant that I could not only bake them in my sleep but bake a batch without burning myself. But burns remained a constant though less frequent fact of my life. I was checking on my buttermilk crème brûlées one afternoon as they baked in my top convection oven. They were reaching that critical stage: nearing the point at which they would obtain that exact and perfect wiggle, not unlike Jell-O, that indicated doneness. A few too many minutes past that point and the small white ramekins of custard would be rendered useless, pots of sweet, scrambled egg.

  I’m short. So short, in fact, that I needed to balance on the tippy toes of my kitchen clogs, Michael Jackson style, to get a glimpse of them on the top rack.

  I balanced on my toes, craning my neck toward the crème brûlées to make a proper assessment. My eyes were trained on them as I nudged the pan to check for that wiggle, my depth perception thrown off as I focused more on my desserts than on the hot rack, getting closer and closer until finally the hot oven rack and I shared a quick kiss.

  “Crap,” I hissed, pulling away from the rack.

  By that time I’d burned myself so many times that I could easily judge the impending severity and outcome of any number of different burns. Just-boiled milk spilled on the delicate top skin of the foot? Redness, possible blister (luckily, I was wearing thick socks on the day that happened). Hot oil splattered onto the forearm after I’d dropped an order of fries into the fryer? In addition to a Jackson Pollack-style pattern of burn marks, there would be an annoying throb every time the newly tender area came within a few inches of heat. Happily, I spent far less time over the fryer since becoming a pastry chef, though I often got roped into helping the hot line when they were short staffed. Accidentally placing a palm on the freshly burned sugar of a crème brûlée? Palm-sized, caramel-coated, thick-skinned blister that renders that hand temporarily useless. Bumping mouth into a 300-degree oven while checking crème brûlées? Redness, potential blister, and, of course, embarrassment. I knew what was coming.

  “Doll,” Charlotte, the daytime sous-chef, asked, feigning sincerity. “You got a herpes sore?”

  Charlotte was one of the Q56 cooks who had followed Joey to the Tonic, and it wasn’t until she landed at Tonic that I really got to know her, once I finally let go of the thick layer of skin I had developed at the hotel. Charlotte was a good cook and a very hard worker. She had a tendency to talk—and tease—as tough as she worked. Normally she chose the waiters to torment and even bragged about making at least one waiter cry each day when she’d been the chef at a well-known pub downtown.

  “Who you been kissing, Doll?” she said again.

  I went into the office to look in the mirror we kept there. Joey was obsessive about checking his teeth. He swore the best advice he’d ever given me was to check both my teeth and my shoes for food remnants before going out to a table in the dining room.

  “Don’t go into the dining room, Doll,” Joey said, standing behind me. “You might take someone out with that thing.” By this time, Joey had become more like a big brother than an ex-boyfriend or even a boss.

  Even Ali, quiet, doe-eyed Ali, who had been working at the counter behind me, hadn’t been able to hold back a smirk after hearing me whisper “Crap!” as my lip met the heat of the oven rack.

  I’d had more than my fair share of burns, so I knew that the teasing, especially in response to carelessness, was as predictable as the blister itself and there was little I could do in the way of defense. Part of working in a kitchen with a “family” meant accepting the good-humored ribbing that permeated every moment and every aspect of the workday. “We tease because we love” was our mantra, and nothing was sacred, certainly not burns. I deserved a little teasing, and I took it all in stride. I was happy to be back in a restaurant where family meant something.

  TWENTY-ONE

  More Than Food Alone

  Like the rest of New York City, I’d been paralyzed on the morning of September 11, numbed by hours spent in front of the television watching the two planes stab our city straight through its heart over and over in the worst-ever instant replay. I’d overslept, so instead of hearing the news while working in my basement pastry kitchen, I was home, unable to believe my eyes. Twenty-four hours after the crashes, I returned to work at the restaurant with the rest of the kitchen staff. We were unable to get back to our routine and not just because of logistical difficulties (problems with deliveries and reservation cancellations); we were all stunned, our normal motivation paralyzed by the feeling that we should be doing something, anything, to help stitch up the city. There was no point in prepping for lunch or dinner service; few, if any, people would be dining with us that day. Instead, we began to think about the hundreds of people working nonstop downtown who would need to eat. W
hatever food they already had would probably be prepackaged, neither fresh nor appetizing. We knew that, even with minimal ingredients, we had the know-how, experience, and, most important of all, the time and resources at that moment to prepare good food. We went through all our walk-in boxes and pulled out anything that could be made into a tasty and easily transportable meal. We made as many sandwiches as we could, trying to imagine what the rescue workers would like. We rolled the dough I had proofing in the refrigerator (meant for dinner rolls) into thin discs and then baked them into pitastyle rounds that we used for sandwich wraps. We grilled chicken and hanger steak, sliced tomatoes and red onions, mixed mustard sauces and mayonnaises. I baked all the chocolate chip cookie and coconut macaroon batter I had left, hoping it wouldn’t seem silly to bring cookies. We loaded everything, along with cases of water, into our restaurant’s Jeep.

  Our friends and former colleagues at Tribeca Grill, who had been forced to close (since no regular traffic was allowed below Fourteenth Street), had had the same idea. They set up a temporary resting place for relief workers in their dining room, which became a general stopping-off point below Fourteenth Street. A police captain from the neighborhood came out of retirement temporarily to help out his old precinct. When I worked in the neighborhood years earlier, this same captain had been notorious for showing up at restaurants and expecting special attention or service (a burger, even though there wasn’t one on the menu, things like that), but with his precinct in need, he shed his air of entitlement. In the days to come, he provided us with the police escort we needed to get past the many protective blockades that surrounded lower Manhattan, and I was reminded of what my father had always said about disasters and wars: Despite their horror, they bring out the best in people.