Kitchen Confidential (31 page)

My feet hurt too, sticking out from under the covers, radiating pain up to the knees. Sunday morning at eight o'clock and I'm lying in bed after a king-hell, bone-crushing Saturday night at Les HaIles, making noises no human should ever make. Just getting my Zippo to light takes three tries with unresponsive fingers, a few muttered curses. I'm psyching myself up for the long walk to the bathroom, an exercise I will no doubt execute with all the grace and ease of a Red Foxx, and the further challenge of the child-proof cap on the aspirin bottle.

I tend to get philosophical on Sunday mornings; it's an activity well suited to my current physical condition, when even lighting cigarettes is difficult, and the chamber-pots my brother and I would see in the old house in La Teste sur Mer seem like an attractive and sensible option.

I got, finally, the hands I always wanted. Hands just like the ones Tyrone taunted me with all those years ago. Okay, there are no huge water-filled blisters-not this weekend anyway. But the scars are there, and as I lie in bed, I take stock of my extremities, idly examining the burns, old and new, checking the condition of my calluses, noting with some unhappiness the effects of age and hot metal.

At the base of my right forefinger is an inch-and-a-half diagonal callus, yellowish-brown in color, where the heels of all the knives I've ever owned have rested, the skin softened by constant immersions in water. I'm proud of this one. It distinguishes me immediately as a cook, as someone who's been on the job for a long time. You can feel it when you shake my hand, just as I feel it on others of my profession. It's a secret sign, sort of a Masonic handshake without the silliness, a way that we in the life recognize one another, the thickness and roughness of that piece of flesh, a resume of sorts, telling others how long and how hard it's been. My pinky finger on the same hand is permanently deformed, twisted and bent at the tip-a result of poor whisk handling. Making hollandaise and bearnaise every day for Bigfoot, I'd keep the whisk handle between pinky and third finger, and apparently the little finger slipped out of joint unnoticed and was allowed to build up calcium deposits, until it became what it is today, freakish-looking and arthritic.

There are some recent scrapes and tiny punctures, a few little dings here and there on the backs of my hands-the result of rummaging at high speed through crowded reach-in boxes, hauling milk crates filled with meat upstairs, busting open boxes and counting cans on Saturday inventory-and a few shiny spots where I must have spattered myself with hot oil or simply grabbed a pot handle or pair of kitchen tongs that was too hot. My nails, such as they are-I gnaw them in the taxi home from work-are filthy; there's dried animal blood under the cuticles, and crushed black pepper, beef fat and sea salt. A large black bruise under the left thumbnail is working its way slowly out over time; it looks as though I've dipped the thumb in India ink. There's a beveled-off fingertip on the left; I lopped off that fingertip while trying to cut poblano peppers many years back. Jesus, I remember that one: the face on the emergency room intern as he crunched the curved sewing needle right through the nail, trying vainly to re-attach a flap of skin that was clearly destined to become necrotic and falloff. I remember looking up at him as I twisted and writhed on the table, hoping to see the cool, calm, somehow reassuring expression of a Marcus Welby looking back at me. Instead, I saw the face of an overextended fry cook-a kid, really-and he looked pained, even grossed-out as he pulled through another loop of filament. There's a raised semi-circular scar on the left palm where I had a close encounter with the jagged edge of a can of Dijon mustard. Almost passed out from that one-that terrible few seconds before the blood came, me looking at my injured paw and it not looking like my hand at all, just some terribly violated slab of very pale meat. When the blood came it was almost a relief.

There are some centimeter-long ridges in the webbing of my left hand, between thumb and forefinger, from the Dreadnaught, when I would regularly lose control of the oyster knife, the dull blade hopping out of or breaking through the shell to bury itself in my hand. The knuckle wounds are so numerous, and have been opened and reopened so frequently, that I can no longer recall, in the layer upon layer of white scar tissue, where or when I got any of them. I know that one of them is the result of boiling duck fat at the Supper Club, but other insults to the flesh have come and gone; it's like the layers of an ancient city now, evidence of one kitchen after another piled up on top of each other. The middle finger of my left hand, at the first joint, where the finger guides the knife blade, has been nicked so many times it's a raised hump of dead flesh, which tends to get in the way of the blade if I'm whacking vegetables in a hurry. I have to be careful. My fingerprints are stained with beet juice (hot borscht as soupe du jour yesterday), and if I hold my fingers to my nose, I can still smell smoked salmon, chopped shallots and a hint of Morbier rind. I'm not even going to talk about my feet.

It's been twenty-seven years since I walked into the Dreadnaught kitchen with my hair halfway down my back, a bad attitude, and a marginal desire to maybe do a little work in return for money. Twenty-six years since my humiliation at Mario's when I looked up at Tyrone's mightily abused claws and decided I wanted a pair like that. I don't know who said that every man, at fifty, gets the face they deserve, but I certainly got the hands I deserve. And I've got a few years to go yet.

How much longer am I going to do this? I don't know. I love it, you see. I love heating duck confit, saucisson de canard, confit gizzards, saucisson de Toulouse, poitrine and duck fat with those wonderful tarbais beans, spooning it into an earthenware crock and sprinkling it with breadcrumbs. I love making those little mountains of chive-mashed potatoes, wild mushrooms, ris de veau, a nice, tall micro-green salad as garnish, drizzling a perfectly reduced sauce around the plate with my favorite spoon. I enjoy the look on the face of my boss when I do a pot-au-feu special-the look of sheer delight as he takes the massive bowl of braised hooves, shoulders and tails in, the simple boiled turnips, potatoes and carrots looking just right, just the way it should be. I love that look, as I loved the look on Pino's face when he gazed upon a perfect bowl of spaghetti alIa chitarra, the same look I get when I approach a Scott Bryan daube of beef, a plate of perfect oysters. It's a gaze of wonder: the same look you see on small children's faces when their fathers take them into deep water at the beach, and it's always a beautiful thing. For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we've all had to become disappears, when we're confronted with a something as simple as a plate of food. When we remember what it was that moved us down this road in the first place.

Lying in bed and smoking my sixth or seventh cigarette of the morning, I'm wondering what the hell I'm going to do today. Oh yeah, I gotta write this thing. But that's not work, really, is it? It feels somehow shifty and. dishonest, making a buck writing. Writing anything is a treason of sorts. Even the cold recitation of facts-which is hardly what I've been up to-is never the thing itself. And the events described are somehow diminished in the telling. A perfect bowl of bouillabaisse, that first, all-important oyster, plucked from the Bassin d'Arcachon, both are made cheaper, less distinct in my memory, once I've written about them. Whether I missed a few other things, or described them inadaquately, like the adventures of the Amazing Steven Tempel, or my Day in the Life, are less important. Our movements through time and space seem somehow trivial compared to a heap of boiled meat in broth, the smell of saffron,

garlic, fishbones and Pernod.

Though I've spent half my life watching people, guiding them, trying to anticipate their moods, motivations and actions, running from them, manipulating and being manipulated by them, they remain a mystery to me. People confuse me. Food doesn't. I know what I'm looking at when I see a perfect loin of number one tuna. I can understand why millions of Japanese are driven to near bloodlust by the firm, almost iridescent flesh. I get why my boss grows teary-eyed when he sees a flawlessly executed choucroute garnie. Color, flavor, texture, composition. . and personal history. Who knows what circumstances, what events in his long ago past so inspire this rare display of emotion? And who needs to know? I just know what I see. And I understand it. It makes perfect sense.

'La voila!' myoId Tante Jeanne used to shout, as she limped out to the garden picnic table bearing a rustic salade de tomates, a fresh baguette, and that cheesy butter I had long since come to love. And every once in a while, I'll remember, in my very spine, what those days felt like, smelled like, even sounded like: the faraway neee-nawww, neee-nawww sounds of a distant Black Maria, the rooster's call from the neighbor's yard, the feel of sand between my toes, the draft up the leg of my too-short shorts. All it takes, sometimes, is the sight of a sliced red tomato and some rough-cut parsley. I might find myself humming 'These Boots Were Made for Walking' or 'Whiter Shade of Pale', and thinking about those canned chives on the Queen Mary, how they crunched between my teeth, the blissful shock as I realized the soup was actually cold.

I've left a lot of destruction in my wake, and closed a hell of a lot of restaurants. I don't know what happened to many of my early owners, whether they're back pulling teeth for a living, or whether they still cling to the dream, trying to get some other operation off the ground, trying to stay ahead of their latest creditors, the latest unforgiving developments of market forces and broken equipment, unreliable cooks and menacing moneylenders. I don't know. I know I didn't do the best job for some of them, though I did the best I could have done-at the time.

The cooks who've passed through my kitchens? I know where most of them have gone; I'm more likely to keep in touch, as I might need some of them again. The brilliant Dimitri has been out of the life for years-and doesn't return my phone calls. I don't recall doing anything too bad to Dimitri, other than dragging him to New York. But I suspect he doesn't want to get tempted should I call with an unusual offer. 'Hey, Dimitri! This gig would be perfect for you! It'll be just like old times.' They make movies about that, the old bank robbers getting together for one final score. Dimitri knows better than that. He must. MyoId friend from high school, Sam, is still in the business. He's still bouncing around. He does very nicely catering and doing part-time mercenary work at various bistros around town, married now to a lovely and hugely talented pastry chef. I see him often.

Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown has held a steady job at a prestigious caterer for almost two years now, and seems to be doing very well. Patti Jackson (from my Pino interlude) works down the street, with a hunky-looking assistant I can well picture her referring to by saying, 'Have him washed and oiled and delivered to my chambers!' Beth the Grill Bitch works for private clients now, feeding Atkins Diet to wealthy jumbos. She eats at Les HaIles often and is considered to be a visiting celebrity in my kitchen-especially when she demonstrates some new karate moves and sleeper holds for my awed crew.

Manuel, the pasta cook I stole from Pino, and who worked with me at Sullivan's, enduring the late night sounds of Steven penetrating his girlfriend, is back in Ecuador, finishing work for his degree in engineering.

At Les HaIles, life goes on as always. The same crew showing up, on time, every day: Franck and Eddy, Carlos and Omar, Isidoro and Angel, Gerardo, Miguel, Arturo, the two Jaimes, Ramon and Janine. They're still with me, and I hope they stay with me. My bosses, however, when they read this, will really prove themselves patrons of the arts if they don't can me right away.

My wife, blessedly, has stayed with me through all of it, the late nights, the coming home drunk, my less than charming tendency not to pay any attention at all to her when mulling over prep lists and labor deployment and daily specials and food costs. A few months back, in a moment of admittedly misguided solidarity with my heavily decorated kitchen crew, I got a tattoo, a reasonably tasteful headhunter's band around my upper arm. Nancy, however, was on record as finding skin art about as attractive as ringworm; she took it, not unreasonably, as a personal affront. She was mightily pissed off, and still is, for that matter . but she still wakes up next to me every morning, laughs at my jokes on occasion, and helpfully points out when I'm being an asshole. The few days a year we spend in Saint Martin have been the only times I've ever not been a chef since she's been with me. Squatting under a palm tree, gnawing on barbequed chicken legs and drinking Red Stripes, there's nothing more important on my mind than what we're having for dinner-the stuffed crab backs or the spiny lobster-and I imagine that for once I behave in some approximate way like a normal person.

Tragically, inexplicably, myoId sous-chef and director of covert operations, Steven, has chosen to leave New York for Florida with his girlfriend, pulling up stakes, giving up his apartment, even bringing along his goldfish. So it doesn't look like he'll be coming back anytime soon. I can't imagine life without him. My doppelganger, my evil twin, my action arm and best friend-I just can't imagine not being able, at any time, to pick up the phone and call him on his cell, enlist his help in whatever dark plans I'm hatching at the moment. Plus, I'll need somebody strong to work my grill on Saturday nights. He'll be calling of course. 'Guess where I am. . right now?' He'll let me listen for a few seconds to the sounds of waves lapping against beach, or of the car with its top down, cruising down the main drag in South Beach. The bastard.

I'll be right here. Until they drag me off the line. I'm not going anywhere. I hope. It's been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn't have missed it for the world.