South of Franklin Street, nonmilitary vehicles were banned altogether, so the only way to get around was on foot. The four of us who had piled into the Jeep loaded up our arms with as much as we could manage and started walking. Instinctively, we each walked alone; to have the safety or comfort of a coworker by our sides seemed an unfair luxury, or maybe we just wanted, or needed, to be alone in the exodus downtown.
I walked first to Stuyvesant High School, where a Red Cross worker told me that the streets farther south would be blocked off and guarded by military. Try to get past them, she’d said. Nothing’s getting down that far, and they’re desperate. So I followed her directions and continued south on Greenwich Street, my arms full of food and bottled water, until I reached the line of military trucks and personnel dressed in full camouflage who were protecting the disaster site from any unauthorized or unnecessary visitors. I was not officially authorized; I was just a pastry chef who, along with some coworkers, had acted on a primal need to do something, anything, to help the relief effort going on in the financial district. I approached a man thick with muscles who seemed to be controlling the flow of traffic, lowered my protective mask, and repeated what the Red Cross had told me. He looked me over silently before giving me his answer.
“Walk directly there,” he said sternly and clearly, his steely eyes barely visible beneath the brim of his camouflaged army cap. “You drop off the food and you come right back. Don’t waste time staring, don’t get in anyone’s way, and watch where you’re going.”
I nodded, trying not to fixate on the large firearm that hung across his chest, an automatic weapon, I guessed, not that I had any experience whatsoever with those sorts of things. I’d never seen so many guns in one place, let alone been around so many people ready and willing to use them.
“And you report to me, Colonel DePalma, on your way back. Understand?” he demanded.
“Yes,” I told him. I understood. “Thank you.”
And so I continued through the throng of military, firefighters, and other rescue workers and replaced the protective white felt mask over my mouth. They were larger than life, with their thick protective gear, hard hats, and aptly named fatigues. Looking down at my own uniform of red-and-white-checked, chocolate-stained pants, baggy white chef’s coat, and the pink kitchen clogs that Joey had given me for my birthday, I felt absolutely powerless.
Past the military blockade and with a good six blocks still to walk, I stopped to readjust the case of bottled water, boxes of wrapped sandwiches, and freshly baked cookies in my arms. Good, the Red Cross woman had told me, when I showed her the cookies, they need sugar. My arms were beginning to ache from the load. I kept going, scolding myself for even allowing the indulgence of even the slightest complaint.
I kept walking, through the dust- and debris-filled air, over the ash-covered streets, past the squashed fire trucks and blown-out windows that grew in number with every step as I got closer to the site. I pinched the thin, metal band of my face mask more tightly around my nose so that it would stay put around my mouth, which was quickly becoming wet with sweat beneath its white felt. It didn’t protect my eyes, which were forced into a tighter squint with every step. The fallout seeped in through every sense.
I tried not to look anyone in the eyes, not wanting to get in their way, not wanting to see the horror and sadness reflected there. I was just a small woman bringing some food. I felt embarrassed to be sharing the space with people who were risking so much and had lost so much. I just wanted to relieve them of one tiny worry, make their efforts the tiniest bit more bearable.
“You don’t have any hot coffee in there, do you?” asked a fire-man leaning against a truck on the side of the road, barely nodding in my direction.
I shook my head no, feeling useless again for not anticipating such an obvious need and being unable to provide the one thing he asked for.
“Sandwiches and cookies,” I answered, offering my armload.
He took some cookies and said thank you. I should have been thanking him.
I kept walking.
I reached an enormous hole in the sky that was anchored to the ground by a massive tangle of what had been the towers. I followed a partially cleared path to the right while letting the view take me in, amazed at how a complete void in the skyline could make me feel so small. Don’t waste time staring, I remembered Colonel DePalma say. I pulled myself away from the view and turned instead into the former lobby of a cracked building that had been set up as a makeshift headquarters for medical treatment and other support. Its large, slanted window frames were empty, their shattered panes sharing the floor with exhausted firemen trying to catch a few moments of rest. I crossed the space crowded with IVs, eyewash stations, blank-eyed rescue workers, and Red Cross volunteers, finally reaching a table piled with prepackaged food. A woman took the weight off my arms with authority, asked what business I was from, and thanked me.
“Anything we can do?” I asked.
“What these guys really need is hot food,” she said. “Real food.”
“Okay,” I answered. And she was gone, tending to those others who needed her.
I turned back north, keeping my head down, watching where I was going, and trying not to get in anyone’s way.
Three days later what began as an instinctual urge by a few cooks had turned into a citywide effort to provide as much food and drink as necessary. The restaurant world and soon after the larger food world came together to offer help in the best way they knew how. Tonic became a headquarters and a coordination center for donation drop-offs above Fourteenth Street, and we were overwhelmed by the generous contributions. Supermarket chains called to ask us for shopping lists and delivered food by the pallet. Within hours of making a single phone call, hundreds of pounds of coffee were delivered, along with a flatbed truck and huge plastic urns in which to deliver the brewed coffee and keep it hot. Promises were made that the flow would continue as long as necessary. Cooks from all over, some temporarily out of work because their restaurants had been forced to close as a result of the tragedy, others simply with a day off, heard about our efforts and turned up to show support for the rescue workers and also to pay tribute to our lost colleagues from Windows on the World, the restaurant that was at the top of the World Trade Center. Our kitchen was full with the energy of peeling, chopping, blanching, and seasoning, and with the camaraderie born of a common cause. We were no longer cooking for privileged customers or vying for the attention of critics; our craft was reduced to its most basic definition.
Ruth Reichl, former New York Times restaurant critic and now editor in chief of Gourmet magazine, joined in, delivering buckets of beef stew that she and her staff made at Gourmet’s test kitchen. The tables were turned, and for the first time chefs had an opportunity to be on an even playing field with the woman whose words they had for many years feared would make or break them. As soon as she pulled away, someone was opening the lid and taking a sniff.
“Hey!” he called everyone over. “Let’s taste her stew.”
The cooks and chefs followed, happy for the role reversal.
“Hmmm, I don’t know,” said one, smiling, chewing on a piece of meat. “It’s a bit tough!”
“Yeah,” said another gleefully, though unconvincingly, “and it needs a bit more seasoning, don’t you think?”
“One star!” announced another, closing the lid, as they all looked at each other with satisfaction.
My heart ached when an elderly woman who had heard about our efforts rolled her cart up to the restaurant and handed me dozens of individually wrapped peanut butter sandwiches she’d made.
Disappointment came, too, when one high-profile chef began showing up to help only when the news cameras were rolling, taking much of the credit and using the situation to his own public relations advantage. When the very same chef requested that he be sent only “fresh meat and produce” with which to prepare donated food, the restaurant world rolled its collective eyes. He was certainly
not the only opportunist during that time. Other chefs and owners became more generous when national television became interested in what we had started. Even sadder were the stories of those who abused Red Cross subsidies, monies that were meant to compensate restaurants near the site for their efforts to continue feeding the relief workers.
We stopped laughing and gossiping when the Red Cross called, advising us to avoid preparing food that contained bones, because it might too closely resemble parts found on site. They said to avoid red sauces, too, because the workers had seen too much blood already. We were reminded that our own priorities should remain focused on getting the necessary food down where it was needed. After more than a few urgent late-night requests for ice, which was needed to keep body parts cold, we loaded our truck with as many ice-filled trash bags as would fit, and drove quietly downtown again.
After those first couple of days, the modest relief effort we began at Tonic grew into a massive tristate endeavor that was centralized downtown, closer to where help was needed. A barge on the Hudson River became the new headquarters, solving the problem of both traffic and space. Restaurants reopened, though some never recovered from the extended forced closings and the loss of foot traffic. We at Tonic, along with the rest of the city, tried to get back to normal.
TWENTY-TWO
A Matter of Taste
Not long after 9/11, Joey received the New York Times review that he had so sorely missed at Q56 and with it redemption from the critic who had once deemed Joey, at least in Joey’s mind, “not memorable.” And the review could not have been better: Bill Grimes raved about Joey’s food as well as the beautiful, relaxed dining room and service. He even called my Kalamansi Colada, a layered parfait of coconut sorbet, pink tapioca, and kalamansi (a citrus fruit I discovered while traveling in the Philippines) granita, a “dreamsicle.” He mentioned me by name and pointed out other highlights on my menu, the banana tarte Tatin and my carrot cake.
In a marked reversal from a few years earlier, I was able to shrug off his negative comments: that my buttermilk crème brûlée was no better than a thousand others and that my “Stars & Stripes” (mascarpone panna cotta decorated with pomegranate gelée “stars” and a concord grape “stripe”) was disorganized and messy. He’d said too many great things about the restaurant, Joey, and my desserts for me to worry about a few negatives. Ironically, the paper called a week later. Grimes was doing a story on patriotic desserts, and, as a result, my “disorganized” dessert ended up being featured in his article. Soon after, other magazines and papers were calling so that they, too, could feature the dessert.
We all heaved a huge sigh of relief: We were part of a critically successful restaurant that was doing well financially. After so many years of working jobs that took over my life, I could finally settle into normalcy. My job was now only part of my life: I worked only five days a week, and only one of those days was a double. I actually had a life. I had time for socializing, dating, cooking for fun, sometimes all at the same time.
I started throwing dinner parties. In a city like New York, where kitchens are afterthoughts, refrigerators have space for little more than ketchup and leftover Chinese, and most people have far more takeout menus than cookbooks, I found that my friends were more than happy to crowd around my living room coffee table (no room for diners in my tiny kitchen and I certainly didn’t have a dining room or even a dining table) for a home-cooked meal. My ability to cook was a real asset to my social life, and I used it shamelessly.
When I discovered that Matt, a British writer I began dating, had an endless love for all desserts, or “puddings” as he called them, I took full advantage. When I learned that his favorite ice cream was coffee chip I made it for the restaurant, just so I could bring him a pint the next time we watched a movie at his place. His eyes had widened with excitement at my gift. It’s chock-a-block! he gushed before gulping it down. He devoured every little cake, cookie, and candy with boyish glee.
Even so, when Matt asked me to help him cook a dinner for his friends, I was a bit apprehensive. I knew he wanted to show off both his own abilities and mine (dating a pastry chef was cool), but far too often in my experience, my “expert” advice was requested and then promptly ignored or questioned. I was often asked about meat temperatures and always got the same response. After I gave the meat a feel with my finger and pronounced it to be medium rare, the cook (a friend or family member) would look at me and say No . . . let’s give it a few more minutes. More than once, I’d tried to correct a friend’s knife skills for his or her own safety: Put the flat side down, I would offer; there’ll be less chance of it slipping and you cutting yourself. But most people really just want to continue doing things their own way. So, unless my help was expressly requested, I stayed out of other people’s kitchens and drank my glass of wine far from any dinner preparations, which was fine with me. I was (and remain) happy to relax and be a guest, no matter how imperfectly prepared the meal.
But simply being a guest at a dinner party isn’t always without its pitfalls. People often likened me to the “chefs” they saw on TV, many of whom I unfortunately had never heard of. Like most chefs, I had little time and even less inclination to watch food television; my life was food television, only faster, meaner, and lower paid. In fact, most chefs express pure disgust for the likes of the permanently perky Rachael Ray, with her emphatic and recurring admission that she’s no chef. Lots of chefs and cooks blame user-friendly TV chefs along with food-themed kids’ movies like Ratatouille for sugar-coating the harsh realities of working in a kitchen. Oh, no, they worry when a cute movie like Ratatouille comes out, now every sniveling kid is going to want to be a chef. Top Chef was a welcome addition and antidote to the previous glut of unrealistic food programming. Finally, cooks had a show that not only represented their world but respected and rewarded it. Suddenly everyone was watching Top Chef (not just restaurant people), and cooking, real cooking, was in the spotlight.
So, when Matt asked for my help with a party where I’d be not only a guest but also a cohost, I set one ground rule: He had to listen to me and follow directions; my reputation as a professional was on the line! And he did. When I corrected the way he cut an onion for the truffled mushroom risotto, he quietly did it my way without complaining. And he didn’t whine when I gently chided him to keep stirring the risotto after adding some chicken stock or when I urged him to add more salt when seasoning the roast chicken. He was amazed that we never measured anything, even the ingredients for the caramel sauce and pecan brittle we made for the sundaes. Over the years, I explained, some measurements just become ingrained in your head and you get a feel for things.
If only I held as much sway in my job at Tonic. A year later, the food remained as good as always, but despite the restaurant’s many accolades, business had begun to slow, and once again we found ourselves trying to unravel the mysterious equation that results in a successful restaurant. It was frustrating for everyone, not least of all the owner. As an owner of several restaurants, he should have been accustomed to the finicky ups and downs of the business; nevetheless he got into the habit of loitering in my dessert station during the afternoon hours. Both hands in his front pockets, he would rock forward on his toes and then back onto his heels, shaking his head: Oh, we are losing money. . . . Business is not good. . . . What am I going to do? He just stood around, talking to the air or venting his thoughts to me, I never knew which.
The writing was soon on the wall, and we began hearing rumors (the restaurant world is a small one) that Uncle Steve, as we called the owner, was preparing to sell part of the business to a new chef. It was only a matter of time—weeks, maybe—before we would once again be leaving a restaurant that had not lived up to our expectations for any length of time.
TWENTY-THREE
Rolling with the Punches
For almost two years after leaving Tonic, I floated from consulting job to consulting job, helping out chefs in small restaurants who had neither the time n
or the space to support a full-time pastry chef. Most chefs are too preoccupied with opening or running their restaurants to worry about coming up with desserts, and I discovered that my ability to relieve them of this worry was a great commodity. These restaurants needed simple but pleasing desserts that fit their food style and that their staffs could execute when I was no longer there. The money for these jobs was usually pretty good, and I had much more control over my own schedule: I could commit to a few weeks or a few months. After working with Joey for so many years, a tiny part of me worried about achieving success out from under his protective wing, but consulting for new chefs proved that I did not need Joey, that my talents were all my own. Consulting also introduced me to new chefs, new ideas, and totally new food styles, some of which were completely at odds with everything I’d grown used to.
I connected with Barton, an African-American chef who was opening a small West Village restaurant, because we had worked for the same restaurant group years earlier and knew a lot of the same people. My interview with him was casual, but it was clear he was totally committed to his career. I knew next to nothing about his food style, which he described as “American as influenced by the African Diaspora,” but I was fascinated by his seemingly endless knowledge of all kinds of food. Not only did he casually throw around words like calas, bolo de apim, and philpy, but he gave me their detailed definition as well as their anthropological background and the route through which they derived. He was a species I had not yet encountered in restaurant kitchens: the intellectual. It seemed he had vast stores of information about everything from jazz to art to history, and he was like a mad scientist in the kitchen, throwing what seemed to me way too many ingredients into a pot, taking too many steps, and combining too many ethnicities only to succeed in creating an amazing new flavor or dish. I’d gotten used to the simple elegance of French techniques and Mediterranean flavors, but Barton opened up a whole new way of approaching food. With the help of everything he taught me, I developed a recipe for calas, New Orleans fritters, using leftover rice, and a sweet potato crème caramel that was served with a lime gelée. Barton had suggested the unusual flavor combination, and, to my surprise, it totally worked. I was reminded that cooking and food provide endless opportunities to learn and grow. When my time at Barton’s restaurant was over, we remained friends, brought together by a love of food and an eagerness to learn new things.
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