Cooking as Fast as I Can

by Cat Cora

  I’d struggled with depression on and off throughout my life. I’d never been on the verge of doing myself in, but sometimes I thought my job at Bistro Don Giovanni would push me to consider hurling myself off the nearest bridge.

  The intense work that happens in a restaurant creates a kind of family, a natural and open camaraderie. In that context, a server had told me about a therapist named Robin. The server called her a healer and I nodded and smiled and thought, Yeah, California, whatever. She said Robin had helped her get to the bottom of her dysfunctional behavior, some of which sprang from early abuse. We were sitting in a coffee shop. I was slouched in the chair opposite her and at the mention of abuse I sat up straight.

  “I need that girl’s number,” I said.

  I called and left a message. It was my day off. I wasn’t good on my day off. I never knew what to do with myself. Like most chefs, my happiest moments were spent managing to stay out of the weeds during a harrowing dinner service, when life is lived thirty seconds at a time. I paced around the living room, opened the refrigerator, stared inside, then closed it. Hannah was at work. She’d hostessed for a few weeks at Bistro Don Giovanni, but it didn’t last, as she and Donna shared a mutual dislike. She quit and got a job as a waitress at Celadon, a popular place featuring global comfort food on Main Street. We were almost never home at the same time, the only thing that kept one of us from moving out.

  The phone rang. The moment I heard her say, “Hi, Cathy, this is Robin calling you back,” I started sobbing. Her voice was so gentle and reassuring. No one had said my name that way for a long time. I was Cat now. Donna hollered it. My brigade shouted it, usually with alarm when something in the kitchen had gone sideways. Hannah imbued it with equal parts anger and despair. “Cathy?” she said again. “Are you all right?”

  “I need help,” I cried.

  “Okay. Just take a breath and tell me what’s going on.”

  I told her about how this was the job I’d been waiting for, but the personal dynamics had become so complicated. How Donna had taken a personal interest in my welfare, but also undercut my authority in the kitchen with my brigade, guys she’d worked with for years. How she was there for me when I needed to talk about how to end my relationship with Hannah, then not an hour later made me feel like pond scum for oversearing a piece of trout. I was utterly confused, which did nothing to prevent my becoming infatuated with her. I’d managed to fall in something with her. Love? Probably not. But something.

  “Come and see me as soon as you can,” she said. She had an appointment available that very night.

  Here’s what I thought about my life. I thought this is the ocean, and this is what it’s like to swim. But I didn’t realize I was caught in a riptide, swimming, swimming hard, pointlessly, on the verge of drowning. Robin swam out to rescue me. I started seeing her once a week.

  I felt about an inch high when I sat down in the chair across from Robin. Together we examined my interactions with Donna, the way she doted on me, drawing me near, then putting me down. The way she claimed to believe in me, then sided with even the least-talented, least-reliable cook against me. Robin helped me gain some distance, some perspective, which then made it easier for me to see exactly what Donna was doing as she was doing it. I mentioned my childhood abuse in passing, and Robin wanted to examine that noxious stew, but at that point in my life I couldn’t conceive of taking the lid off that pot.

  It had been over with Hannah for some time, but we were too attached to the comfort of our coupledom to act on it. Sitting around on the couch watching videos with a glass of white wine and a bowl of popcorn. Having someone to check in with during the day and spoon at night. There was nothing wrong with this, but there wasn’t anything terribly right about it, either.

  But to break up once and for all felt as if I was dishonoring the sacrifices she’d made for me, and for us. She’d been with me when I first met the Greek side of my family on Skopelos, during the summer we’d backpacked through Europe. She’d pulled up stakes and moved with me to Rhinebeck so I wouldn’t have to go through the Culinary alone. Then cooled her heels while I lived a little more of my dream in France. I dragged her all the way out to California. She, and the memory of us, deserved better, I thought.

  Still, with the help of Robin, we managed to break up, to disengage, and not give in to the temptation to get back together just because we could.

  On the morning of Christmas Eve I was cleaning the walk-in and Donna was standing in the kitchen with her hands on her hips chewing me out. I can’t remember exactly what she was on about. It may have had something to do with the fish order. I’ve repressed this particular tirade. Though it was indistinguishable from all the others, something rose up in me. I quit on the spot. “I’m not doing this anymore,” I said.

  “What do you mean? It’s Christmas Eve. You can’t leave on Christmas Eve,” she said.

  “I’m not leaving, I’m quitting.”

  I grabbed my knives and busted out through the back door, Donna on my heels, yelling the whole way. It was the first and last time I’ve ever walked out on a job. I was raised to be on time, work hard, treat your employers with respect, and give proper notice. I didn’t believe in quitting because a job proved to be more than you’d bargained for, or because you were tired. But this situation was poisonous, and I needed to get out before I’d absorbed too much of Donna’s low opinion of my abilities.

  I peeled off, drove around all morning through the Napa Valley mist in that Land Rover Donna had insisted I lease. I’d never leased a car before, and who knew what would happen to it now that I was unemployed. It drizzled a bit. A single run-on thought looped through my head. I’m done, I’m free! I’m done, I’m free! I’m done, I’m free! I called my mom and she said, “Thank God and hallelujah.” Finally, the mist lifted. It was going to be a crisp, cool Northern California day, and I went home, lit a fire, poured myself a glass of good wine, and wrapped Christmas presents.

  I felt I’d excelled in my executive chef position. With Donna and Giovanni’s help, I jettisoned that tired old Italian restaurant menu circa 1970 and introduced them to hip, light Mediterranean fare (which they still serve as I write this), helped them create a signature olive oil, and got them on the Net. Still, it had ended so badly I felt a little ashamed.

  Not long ago I called Donna. I had heard from a friend that she’d been diagnosed with brain cancer, and I called to see how she was doing. Almost twenty years had passed and I felt my old fondness for her energy and even her histrionics. She had made me a big part of her life, had been generous in so many ways. And she had brought me to California, where I finally set down roots. I owed her a lot, and I was genuinely sorry to hear she was sick.

  She caught me up on everything that was going on with the restaurant and our mutual acquaintances in Napa. She was still obsessed with redecorating and replacing the bistro’s chairs every other year, and wondered whether I’d had a chance to check out Per Se, Thomas Keller’s newest restaurant in New York. Before I could fill her in on what I was doing she said, “I’m just so proud of you, Cat. It doesn’t surprise me one bit. You were always so good at showboating.”

  Showboating.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d accused me of this—wanting to be out in the front of the house instead of back in the kitchen where she felt I belonged. My impulse was to snap back that I loved being in the kitchen, but it was so much water under the bridge, and I didn’t bite.

  I wanted to connect with her and felt I had reached a place where I could afford to accept her as she was, backhanded compliments and all. The conversation stumbled a little, then we got to talking about how tough it was to maintain any sort of balance in your life when you worked in the restaurant business. We reminisced about Giovanni, the old crew, and old friends, and the Bistro Don Giovanni olive oil, made from the loose olives that fell in the driveway.

  Not long after this conversation I heard she’d died. I felt sadder than I ever imagined I would.
Hannah, who still lives in Napa, texted me with the news. At her funeral, her best friend, Barbara, took me aside and said that despite our rocky past, Donna loved me. I felt a sense of closure I hadn’t expected. I loved that woman and she drove me mad, and I felt guilty for whatever part I played in our difficult dealings with each other. I was grateful that during our last conversation we seemed to have found peace with each other.

  fourteen

  Nothing quite ruins the high of quitting your job than the first overdue bill. It was 1997. I was thirty years old and had no job and no prospects. I’d split from the one person who’d loved me and put up with my shit. I had eight hundred dollars in my savings account. My rent was nine hundred dollars, and it was overdue.

  My parents would have starved to death before allowing the thought of unemployment to even enter their heads. “That’s one thing you never want to do,” my mother counseled me once. I can still see her in the kitchen, pointing at me with a wooden spoon. “Do not go on the dole. You will lose your pride if you start taking from the government.”

  Three months passed. I spent my days working out, sending out résumés, beating the pavement, then working out some more. Thomas Keller over at The French Laundry was sympathetic to my situation. He offered me an internship, which paid something like $7 an hour, and which I turned down on the spot. I was grateful—also terrified—but I wasn’t about to go backward. I drove around up and down the valley in the Land Rover until I couldn’t afford the gas. When I was down to a meal a day I gave in and applied for unemployment.

  I’d canceled my appointments with Robin the day I quit, feeling that therapy was the ultimate luxury. After a month or so she called to check up on me, suggesting I schedule an appointment.

  “Robin, I don’t have a job. I can’t pay you.”

  “I’ll tell you what. We can do this. You give me some cooking lessons in trade for therapy.”

  Robin came to my apartment once a week. We began with roast chicken and talking about why I’d been so susceptible to Donna’s charms and manipulations. We moved on to making a stock from the carcass and examining how much of it had to do with the sexual abuse I’d suffered all those years ago. From the stock we made rivithia, Greek chickpea and roasted pepper soup, traditionally eaten during Lent, and explored the additional anguish I’d endured when my parents discovered the abuse and more or less let it go.

  Some nights I would lie awake and wonder how long I could survive without a job. What would happen to me? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine moving home to Jackson, getting my old job back at the University Club. Was the executive chef who’d taken me under his wing still there? What would he make of my travails? It seemed possible that I might pass out simply from contemplating the potential for humiliation, while at the same time acknowledging that I was getting myself into a state for no reason. I was an experienced chef. I was a good chef, and somehow I would make something happen.

  One day, when I was about an inch away from destitute, the phone rang. It was Michael Chiarello.

  “I hear you’re looking for something,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. Hope stirred.

  “I’ve got a great restaurant opportunity in the East Bay. You’d be the perfect chef.”

  I wasn’t quite sure where the East Bay was, and I only knew Michael through reputation. He was a fellow graduate from the Culinary, and the founding chef of Tra Vigre, a restaurant in nearby St. Helena. He was charming and entrepreneurial, had won a slew of prestigious awards, including Chef of the Year by Food & Wine magazine and the Robert Mondavi Culinary Award. His new venture would be owned and managed by his restaurant group. I liked the idea of being the executive chef at a restaurant that was not someone’s doted upon only child, but purely a business venture.

  I searched for quarters beneath the couch cushions and in the pockets of the winter coat I hadn’t worn since Old Chatham to put together enough money to buy gas to drive to the East Bay. It turned out I did know where it was—Oakland, Berkeley, all the great little towns east of San Francisco.

  The place had formerly been called Tourelle and was a local landmark in Lafayette, California. The town sits among rolling hills covered with wildflowers and scrub. There’s a pretty reservoir, a terrific school system, and a well-off populace that enjoys fine dining. Berkeley is just over the hills, due west.

  Built in 1937, the restaurant was once Lafayette’s post office—hence the new name, Postino, Italian for postman. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever worked, and that was saying a lot. A flagstone walk led up to its atrium entrance, and ivy and jasmine vines grew up the brick walls. Inside there were five or six smaller rooms, also lined with brick, and on the small patio, a few “personal” fire pits around which guests could gather on cool evenings.

  The challenge in opening a restaurant there was getting people to come not just from neighboring Berkeley to the west, but from as far away as San Francisco, which would mean a drive across the Bay Bridge and over the hills to Lafayette. But my situation was dire enough that I would have snapped up the job even if it were in a ghost town in the middle of a desert.

  It turned out I had no cause for worry. From the time it opened in May 1998, Postino was a hit. I could not have lucked into a better situation. Michael generously offered me profit-sharing, which means that unlike the equity partners, I would receive a portion of the earnings without sharing the risk. Because this time I was a bona fide executive chef, and not in name only, I brought on my own cooks, including my great friend from the Culinary, Lorilynn, the Julia Child–size redhead with the infectious laugh, whom I appointed my sous chef. I’d always been impressed with Lorilynn’s organizational skills and also her palate. She’s a gifted baker, an expert at classical technique, and her dishes were always both whimsical and satisfying. But more than that, she was like a big sister, the great friend who would always answer the call to go into battle with me.

  I’d helped open the Sheepherding Co., but Postino was four times as big and located on busy Mt. Diablo Blvd. Everything involved in opening this restaurant was more expensive, more complex.

  By now I was experienced and confident enough to have fun with the menu. Crisp onion rings, Meyer lemon and rock shrimp, fried in rice flour with buttermilk and served in a paper cone with spicy mayonnaise. Asparagus with pancetta. Homemade crusty calzone stuffed with prosciutto, sheep’s cheese, and truffle oil. Halibut crusted in cheese and served with roasted potatoes and a sweet corn zabaglione sauce. Fresh pulled mozzarella with local heirloom tomatoes. Garganelli pasta rolled by hand with braised rabbit, pancetta, and local wild mushrooms. Michael’s connections in the wine industry contributed to a great list of which I was proud.

  Suddenly, life was not just good but great. I was finally an executive chef with no strings attached, making good money. I’d extricated myself from Don Giovanni, and had finally moved on from Hannah. I felt free, suddenly, and filled with a wild joy.

  After I left Bistro Don Giovanni, Jean-Pierre, my swashbuckling French partner in olive oil creation, had kept in touch. On those desperate, unemployed nights when I spent hours calculating in my head how I was going to make it through the month, he would take me out to eat. He was gracious enough to pretend that he was starving and I was doing him a favor by joining him. I was so grateful for his friendship, and not unattracted to him, so we started sleeping together. I had had very little experience with men, but the unspoken agreement was always that in exchange for their care and companionship I would try, to the best of my ability, to make them happy. I wasn’t turned off, but there were limits. Every time we had sex, I couldn’t wait to jump out of bed and move on. There was never any cuddling, secret sharing, or planning for the future. I could only do those things with a woman.

  After I’d started at Postino and our fling had played itself out, Jean-Pierre did me another favor by turning Lorilynn and me on to a great place to live. His ex-wife had a huge house, with a lot of empty rooms to rent. She was rarely there
, and Lorilynn and I would have the run of the place.

  I worked harder than I ever had, and played harder, too. I hadn’t been single in eight years and hooked up with pretty much everyone who caught my eye. There were a few servers at Postino, including a lovely guy named Chase, an aspiring opera singer with whom I would remain friends, and a number of avowed straight ladies who were interested in experimenting and felt I was a safe bet. One was Alexa, who was sharp tongued and had a crazy head of curly hair.

  Lorilynn was forever rescuing me from situations with chicks that were probably against my better (i.e., sober) judgment. Once I was invited back to an employee party at Bistro Don Giovanni and I invited Lorilynn to come along. Donna and Giovanni were always generous with the alcohol, and the drinks were flowing. Around 1:00 a.m. Lorilynn was ready to leave, and I was nowhere to be found. After searching the dining room and patio, she found me in the kitchen, sandwiched between two hot Latina waitresses, making out in the back of the pantry. She pulled me out by my collar. I stumbled along, throwing kisses back at my new girlfriends and promising to call. She said, “Come on, lover girl, it’s time to pour you into bed.”

  Another night I went out drinking with some friends at a bar in Berkeley, and started flirting with the bartender. She was Italian, funny and sexy, and reminded me of Penelope Cruz. If memory serves, her name was Carmen. Since I was living in this big, gorgeous house, I thought why not invite her over for dinner? I’d never forgotten the blueberry muffins Blake made for me on our first date, and the effect they’d had on me. I set about using all of my by-now top-notch culinary skills to make Carmen a meal she’d never forget.