A Cook's Tour (36 page)

     ‘Dude!’ she wheezed, nervous, her eyes darting in all directions at once. ‘You can’t do that here! You gotta take that outside!’

     You can’t smoke anywhere in California. Rob Reiner says so. Celebrity fuckheads who live in walled compounds and use words like
working class
– never having sat down at a bar for an early-afternoon shot and a beer with any such animal in their lives – say so. For them, the bar is a place where we stupid, lumpen, and oppressed blue-collar proles are victimized by evil tobacco companies that have tricked us with their clever advertising into killing ourselves and our neighbors. For me, the bar is the last line of defense. ‘It’s an employee safety and health issue,’ explained Lucky. The state is protecting her fry cook (I could see him in the kitchen, picking at an abscessed track mark) from the pernicious effects of secondhand smoke. Now, I can understand why they don’t want me smoking in restaurant dining rooms. If I’m enjoying a delicate pairing of seared foie gras and pear chutney, I probably don’t want somebody puffing away on a jasmine cigarette at the next table. I’m considerate. I can find a way not to smoke in the dining rooms of decent restaurants. Though bitterly resentful that I can no longer enjoy a cigarette with my fucking coffee in most places, I’ve learned to live with it. But the bar? The
bar
! What these miserable screwheads are saying is that it’s OK to kill yourself with bourbon or tequila at nine o’clock in the morning – just don’t enjoy yourself when doing it. It’s only a matter of time before some well-intentioned health Nazi busts into your bedroom and yanks that postintercourse cigarette right outta your hand.

     San Francisco is said to be one of the most ‘liberal’ and ‘tolerant’ places to live in America. That’s a good thing, right? I’m avidly supportive of ‘alternative lifestyles.’ I’m ‘tolerant’. But something’s gone wrong here. It’s a wildly expensive city to live in – even where I’m staying in the Tenderloin – too expensive for most people to afford. Yet San Francisco’s acceptance of hopelessness, prostitution, and drug addiction as ‘alternative lifestyles’ seems to have ensured that many of its neighborhoods are choked with hustlers, junkies, the desperate, and the insane. I haven’t seen junkies in such great numbers since the bad old days of Alphabet City – and in such bad shape. They’re everywhere – dirty, diabetic, their limbs swollen, chalky, covered with suppurating tracks and infections. West Coast skells make my old crew from the methadone clinic look like the Osmond family. San Francisco’s main employment sectors, at a cursory glance, are the countless whorehouses, massage parlors, clip joints, live sex shows, and crummy-looking strip joints you see everywhere downtown. A great number of women in San Francisco seem to be sex workers, and while perfectly OK as a ‘lifestyle choice’ in my book, there are so many of them, and so disproportionately Asian, it feels more like Cambodia then any American city. As rents are so high, there’s nowhere to live – and the dotcoms ain’t hiring like they used to.

     With all their kind hearts and good intentions, San Franciscans, living in postcard-pretty houses atop high hills, seem to be sending a message: ‘It’s OK to come here. If you are prepared to lap dance for us . . . and then sleep on our sidewalks.’

     Just don’t smoke. That would be wrong.

     I don’t want you to think I don’t like San Francisco. I do. It’s a relief from Los Angeles. And some of my favorite movies were filmed there:
The Asphalt Jungle
,
Bullitt
,
Dirty Harry
. When I was a kid, reading
Life
magazine on a beach in France, all I wanted to do with my life was run away to the Haight and live in a house with the Jefferson Airplane, drop acid and draw underground comix. I grew up on R. Crumb’s incredible line drawings of San Francisco, dreamed feverishly of all that free love I’d be enjoying with hippie chicks – if I ever turned thirteen. When it became clear that living in a commune, or sharing a crash pad, meant arguing over whom the last yogurt belonged to, when I realized, finally, that I’d been right all along, that the Grateful Dead really did suck, regardless of what my brainy friends said, and that ‘the revolution’ would never, ever, ever happen – and that that was probably not a bad thing – that particular dream died. The putative leaders of that revolution probably wouldn’t let me smoke now, either. And of course, by 1975, when I first saw the Ramones, all thoughts of ever living in a city other than New York evaporated.

     My first few days in San Francisco were fine. I ate oysters and Dungeness crab at the Swan Oyster Depot – exactly the kind of eating establishment I dearly love. I had durian ice cream at Polly Anne’s out by the beach. I had a superb meal at Gary Danko – a too-precious dining room but very, very fine food, and a very likable group of hooligans in the kitchen. I visited a few New York transplants now working in the area, most lured by the town’s reputation for good food and innovative restaurants and its selection of readily available fresh ingredients. I had a gluey, cornstarchy, dinosaur Cantonese meal at Sam Wo’s in Chinatown, a throwback to my childhood forays to upper Broadway or Mott Street in New York. A cranky waitress hauled each course up a hand-pulled dumbwaiter. I purposefully ordered chop suey, wonton soup, and chow mein, not even having heard those words since 1963 – and thoroughly enjoyed myself – a little nostalgia for the old folks. I hung out with cooks a lot, as there are plenty of cooks in San Francisco. And one thing about cooks: Whether you’re talking about New York, Philadelphia, Glasgow, Melbourne, London, or San Francisco, we’re the same everywhere. (Though I don’t fully understand the Fernet Branca shot and ginger ale chaser thing.)

     I was staying in a rock and roll motel around the corner from the O’Farrell Theater. There was a bar/nightclub set off from the pool deck and music pounded all night long; bearded metalhead band members sat in deck chairs while their roadies brought them drinks. I whuffed down a few cigarettes and then wandered into the bar for a drink. ‘Are you Anthony Bourdain?’ asked a security guy by the door. Knowing of no outstanding warrants or unsettled grudges on this side of the country, I said yes.

     ‘Listen, man, my friend’s a chef, and he really loved your book. He’d love it if you dropped by his restaurant. It’s right down the street.’ I’d heard about the place. Let’s call it Restaurant X, a fairly swanky new joint a few blocks away. I’m always more comfortable in the company of chefs and cooks, so I figured, What the hell, maybe a few free snackies.

     When I swung by, much later, the chef joined me and two off-duty shooters at my table. He was eager to send out some
amuses-gueules
and some drinks. A fairly young guy, in only his second or third chef’s job, he was amiable but clearly stressed out, getting crispy from the pressure of opening a new restaurant, dealing with an overwhelming initial rush of business, and the responsibilities of managing a large crew. Nothing new there. We all have that look, to one degree or another. When he invited me in to see his kitchen, I gladly agreed. I like taking the tour through restaurant kitchens. (I’d been away from mine a long time – and I missed it.) He showed me a hot line of new Jade ranges, gleaming counters, an ice-cream machine and pasta maker, then took me through the walk-in, where he’d conscientiously organized and segregated the meat, fish, dairy, and produce. He introduced me to his cooks, the usual posse of pierced and decorated scamps, most in the final stages of kitchen breakdown.

     The chef opened the door to his office and beckoned me in, as if to show me around – the familiar cluttered desk piled with invoices, schedules, old copies of
Food Arts
,
Restaurant Hospitality
, faxed résumés, equipment manuals, stashes of saffron and truffle oil – and asked if I’d sign a grease-stained, food-smeared copy of my book, which I was all too happy to do. The greasier the better. Somebody shoves a book to be signed in my direction, and it’s covered with food? I know it’s for the home team. But when I looked up after scrawling my signature, the chef had closed the office door. He was sitting behind his desk, head in his hands, teary-eyed. ‘What do I do? . . . I don’t know what to do  . . .’

     I sat there, stunned, while a total stranger (I didn’t even know his last name) cried in front of me.

     ‘What . . . what’s the problem, man?’ I asked.

     ‘My sous-chef,’ he said, blinking away tears. ‘He’s . . . my best friend. But . . . he’s like . . . talking behind my back. He’s leaning on the cooks real hard. Yesterday, I had two cooks walk out ’cause a this guy! That’s why I’m working the line tonight. I was supposed to be off . . . But I’m working the fuckin’ grill ’cause two of my staff walked out. No notice, nothing.’

     I felt my blood starting to percolate, simmer, threaten to boil. ‘You tell this prick to lighten up?’ I asked.

     ‘Yes! I told him,’ said the chef, clearly pained by the situation. ‘He’s my friend. My best friend. We came up together. I told him . . . I told him . . . But he just ignores me. He knows better . . . He says that to the cooks! I say one thing? He says another. The cooks can’t take it anymore. I’m gonna lose all of them if something doesn’t change.’

     ‘You should fire the cocksucker’ was my suggestion. I didn’t have to think too long about it, either.

     ‘I know . . . I know. I should . . . But . . . I just can’t,’ he said, rubbing his face.

     ‘Listen. Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘Just so we both know what we’re talkin’ about here . . . You’re the chef, right?’

     ‘Yes.’

     ‘And your sous-chef, your underboss, is talking treason behind your back . . . disobeying your orders, causing discontent, disgruntlement, desertion . . . possible mutiny among the troops?’

     ‘Well . . . yeah . . . I guess so. I mean, maybe he doesn’t mean to. He’s just trying to – ’

     ‘This guy’s a fuckin’ lone wolf! He’s a loose cannon! He’s gotta go!’ I snarled, surprising myself with how viscerally involved I suddenly was in the chef’s problem. ‘I don’t care if he’s your bestest, dearest, closest buddy since you were babies. This mutt has gotta go. The sous-chef’s number-one job is what? To make the chef look good. At all times. He’s not there so that every time you come back from a day off there’s some kinda problem you gotta deal with. Is he making you look good with this shit he’s pullin’?’

     ‘No,’ admitted the chef. ‘It’s not good. Things are all fucked up.’

     ‘That alone is enough . . . And he’s talking trash about you when you’re not around? Forget it! You gotta cut this cancer out before it kills you.’

     ‘I know.’ He sniffled. ‘I know.’

     ‘Look,’ I said, softening. ‘I know what you’re going through. I fired my own best friend and sous-chef at least . . . what . . . three times. We’re still friends. He’s still my best friend. He’s just not my sous-chef anymore. And you know what? After you kick this guy out, this kid’ll go on and get his own chef’s job. He’ll be calling you up and apologizing for all the stuff he pulled when he was here. He’ll know. He’ll find out what a chef needs and expects in a sous. It’s business. That’s all. But it’s serious business. That’s what you forgot to tell him. Kiss this guy on the mouth and say, “Fredo, you broke my heart.” Then whack him. But don’t wait.’

     ‘You’re right . . . you’re right  . . .’

     ‘Next time you’re hiring a sous, do like I do. Take him out to a nice bar. Buy him a drink before you close the deal. Then give him the Talk. Let him know right up front. I say, “I’m the nicest, sweetest guy in the world. You call me at four o’clock in the morning needing bail money? I’m there for you. I’m not going to be riding your ass like some other chefs will. I won’t humiliate you in front of your crew or anybody else. You don’t have to address me as ‘Chef’ all the time. I’ve got a sense of humor – and in my off hours I’m a depraved, degenerate animal – just like you. You will like working with me. We’ll have fun . . . But if you ever fuck me, talk shit about me behind my back, drop the ball, show up late, or show disloyalty in any way, I don’t care if you’re my dearest friend, I don’t care if you saved my fucking
life,
I
will
fire your sorry ass like I’m blowing my fucking nose. Do we understand each other? Is that clear? And do you want me to write it down?” That’s what’s called “fair warning”. You’ve drawn the lines. He crosses them and it’s bye-bye. You let him know up front what a vicious, cold-blooded motherfucker you can be. That way, there’re no surprises.’

     The chef seemed considerably cheered by my inspiring little lecture. ‘Thanks, man,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for dropping all this on you. I knew what I had to do and all . . . It’s just . . . I guess I needed to hear somebody else say it.’ Then he reached into the pocket of his chef coat and offered me a bump from a big bag of white powder.

     Maybe his sous-chef wasn’t his only problem.

Reasons Why You Don’t Want to Be on Television: Number Five in a Series

‘C’mon, Tony! You’ve been to Cambodia, for Chrissakes! How bad can it be?’ said the television producer. ‘We can’t do a whole show on one restaurant! This will be funny! They’re looking forward to cooking for you!’ What he’d arranged, what he had in mind, was for me to venture into the real heart of darkness, deep, deep into enemy territory, to Berkeley, and a vegan potluck dinner.

     I’ve said some pretty hateful things about vegetarians, I know. In spite of this, many of them have been very nice to me over the past year. Though I think I have at various times referred to them as ‘Hezbollah-like’ and as ‘the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit,’ they come to my readings, write me nice letters. My publicist in England, whom I adore, is a veg (though I’ve forced her at gunpoint to eat fish a few times), as are a couple of the shooters I’ve worked with. They’ve shown remarkable good humor, considering how I feel about their predilections. There have been lots of vegheads who’ve been very kind and generous these last few months, in spite of the fact that they know that at the first opportunity, when they’re drunk or vulnerable, I’m getting a bacon cheeseburger down their throats. That doesn’t mean I wanted to sit in some hilltop A-frame eating lentils out of a pot with a bunch of Nader supporters and hairy-legged earth mothers in caftans. I certainly didn’t want to visit ‘them’ on their home turf. If nothing else, I was reasonably certain that smoking would be a problem.