Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line (23 page)

If you had the right amount of booze in you, you’d be content to stay up until that proximate dawn, swigging beers, smoking cigarettes, studying this soupçon of stars. For despite the chill, there is something warm about the stoop. It is as though this thick edifice, its brownstone balustrades cloaked in fresh pelts of snow, somehow insulates you from the bitter cold of the outside world. You could nestle here until the sun came back if you had to.

But eventually your defense mechanisms kick in. It’s after five. You do need to get
some
sleep tonight.

Eight o’clock comes awfully quick
, you think.

With a great heave, you hoist yourself up and begin climbing the steps.

When you arrive at your apartment, you fall immediately into bed.

You pull out your phone.

The screen is hard to read.

With arduous effort, you finger in the following for Vera:

You hit
SEND
and surrender to sleep.

T
HE ELECTRIC HOLLER OF YOUR ALARM JOLTS YOU TO ATTENTION
. A vague sense that it’s been going off for a while now materializes in you, some faint recollection of weaving the noise into your final dream scenes.

You look at the clock on your bedside table. The digital glow is a blur:

08:27.

Oh, shit
, you think.

You’re due in in three minutes.

You spring from bed to find you’re still fully clothed, toggle coat and all, in your outfit from last night. It crosses your mind to head out like this, to save time, to just go. But showing up to work in this clothing two days in a row won’t do. Late or not, you need at least to change. Plus, you need at least to brush your teeth, to get this acrid taste out of your mouth, to get this fruity scent of booze off your breath. And you need at least to shower, if only a quick spin, to steam off the film of filth and vaporize the clutter of your mind.

The shower is unmemorable at best. Sleep deprivation
and acute ethanol withdrawal have made a numb husk of your skin, and you can’t even tell if the water sprinkling on it is hot or cold. Soaping yourself is confusing and slippery. You can’t remember whether you’ve brushed your teeth. Yet, next thing you know, you’re standing naked in your bedroom, trying to figure out what to put on.

But it’s not until you find yourself in the backseat of a taxicab, hurtling at breakneck speed over the Manhattan Bridge, that you truly realize, with mathematical clarity, how horrible you actually feel. It’s as if you’ve been body-slammed by a sambo specialist after running an ultramarathon. It’s possible, given the ratio of hours of sleep to drinks consumed, that you are still a little drunk, which doesn’t augur well. It means it’s only going to get worse as the buzz wears off. The chances of today being better than yesterday are to hell and gone. It will only be with great effort that you make it through. And, judging by the way your throat threatens a gag every time you cough your deep morning cigarette cough, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to do so without throwing up at least once or twice.

But whatever
, you think.
Let’s do this
.

As the taxi touches down cityside, you’re startled by the buzzing of your phone in your pocket. It’s a message from Stefan:

Stefan typically comes in around 0930 for brunch on the weekends. When he arrives, you decide between the two of you who will work the line with Rogelio and who will hang out in the back prep area pulling together the mise en place for dinner. Since you get in first, you usually get to do whichever one you prefer. So it’s a good thing he’s also running behind today, otherwise he might have beaten you in and you’d be stuck cooking eggs all afternoon, which is never an attractive proposition.

You notice another message on your phone. This one, time-stamped at 0815, is from Rogelio:

You notice now that you’ve missed several calls as well. They are all from Rogelio, too. One after another after another. Every ten minutes for the last hour, it seems. And there is a gang of voice mails to go along with them that all say the same thing: there is still a lot of work to do.

This is bad
, you think.

Of the whole crew, Rojas is least likely to worry. He always keeps his composure. But if this assault he’s mounted on your phone is any indication, it’s safe to say he’s losing it now—big-time. Who knows what you’ll be walking into now? The falcon obviously cannot hear the falconer. Will the center hold? Will we be ready when the doors open to customers? What rough beasts slouch our way to dine today?

And, of course, since you haven’t gotten back to him,
not even to let him know that you received his messages, there is a good chance that Rogelio has called up Chef in hysterics. And if he has called Chef, there is a good chance Chef will be coming in early. In fact, there’s even a chance he’s already there.

This is really bad
, you think.

Your throat tightens as the cab draws nigh unto the restaurant’s back entrance.

The kitchen is the worst on Saturday morning. It’s packed with people, and the impending brunch rush has everyone buzzing around flustered. Prep cooks rig up mise en place, back waiters kit up jams and jellies, servers roll up silverware sets. Crumbs have begun to collect on the floor; dishes have begun to collect in the sink. Every surface is covered with something. And the smells—of vinegared water and broken eggs and scorched fat—are ever present and overwhelming. And the noise—an incessant babel of pots and pans and plates and stainless—is only amplified by the droning flurry of the intake hoods. It’s a veritable imbroglio. And service hasn’t even started yet.

You round a corner to find that Chef has indeed arrived early. He stands stern at the pass folding a stack of side-towels. He has his back to you, but something in his posture says he knows you’re here. Yet when you slip past him en route to the office, he merely leers at you out of the very corner of his eye, as if he barely wishes to acknowledge your presence. He looks livid.

Your limbs are stiff as you twist the chef’s outfit around you once again. The cotton of the coat is cold on your skin;
the wood of the clogs is inflexible on your feet. It’s slow going today, and it’s not going to get any easier.

It’s nearing ten o’clock. The doors will be opening any minute now. Guests are probably already queuing up outside. You seize a Pedialyte from the minifridge, grab some gear—a knife, a spatula, a few spoons, a side-towel or two—and head into the thicket.

Before getting started, you must first interface with Rogelio. You find him in the back prep area slicing up day-old brioche for the
pain perdu
.

“Ay, Chef! I no see you coming!” he exclaims with an embarrassed grin. “I get scare and call Jefe Vryon,” he says. “Sorry, no?”

“No, no,” you say, extending your hand for the shake. “It’s me that messed up. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“Ah, is okay, Chef,” he says. “I think we gonna be okay now. We work together.”

“Good,” you say. “How we looking on the line?”

“Come,” he says. “I show you. I think we ready.”

Out on the line, it appears you actually
are
almost there. Despite your absence, Rogelio has succeeded in getting nearly everything together. He’s even managed to arrange it exactly as you would. All that remains to be done is the brown butter hollandaise, for which the ingredients have already been assembled. You slap a sauteuse down on the flat-top and get ready to make the sauce.

Just then, your section’s printer begins to make noise, as though your presence on the line were the cause. A ticket begins to emerge. You look to the pass. The printer there begins to activate as well. That mechanical buzzing sound fills the kitchen again.

They’re not wasting any time out front
, you think.

You lock eyes with Chef. He raises an eyebrow, glowers all the way into you.

“Sorry I’m late, Chef,” you say, sheepishly. “It won’t happen again.”

He plucks the ticket from the printer. You tilt your head and wait for the call.

“Order fire,” he says. “Four-top: two duck eggs, one eggs lamb, one pain perdu.”

“
Oui
, Chef,” you say.

Pans hammer down. Fat splashes into them.

You slug your Pedialyte and force back the nausea.

Hopefully Stefan will be here to jump in for you soon. Today it’s your turn to hide out rolling pasta.

The printers begin buzzing again.

Another order spits out. And another, impatiently, behind it.

All you can do is put your head down and cook.

This sucks
, you think.
Fuck brunch
.

But you
do
do it well when you do it.

à la carte
(of a menu or restaurant) listing or serving food that can be ordered as separate items, rather than part of a set meal; (of food) available on such a menu as separately priced items, not as part of a set meal

à la minute
(of food) made to order; (of the cooking process) at the last minute

à sec
(of liquid) heavily reduced to a syrupy consistency

accoutrements
additional items served alongside the central component of a dish

acid
a seasoning agent used to accentuate flavor, esp. citrus juice or vinegar

agnolotti
a kind of ravioli typical of the Piedmont region of Italy, made with small pieces of flattened pasta dough, folded over any variety of fillings

aioli
mayonnaise flavored with garlic

all day
(of a particular food item) the total quantity that has been ordered by patrons or that remains to be prepared

amuse-bouche
a bite-size hors d’oeuvre of the chef’s choosing given to a patron at the top of a meal, free of charge, in order to give the guest a glimpse of what is to come

argan oil
a nutty, aromatic culinary oil expressed from the seeds
of the argan tree, native to southwestern Morocco, used for cooking, seasoning, dressing, and finishing

aromatics
those ingredients that impart lively flavor or fragrance outside the normal range of lingual taste (which is limited to the flavors sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umami), chiefly alliums (e.g. garlic, onion, leek), hard-stemmed herbs (e.g. thyme, rosemary, bay), and spices (e.g. coriander seed, cinnamon bark, cardamom pod)

arroser
to baste a given food product (usually with melted fat and aromatics) during stovetop cooking in order to accelerate the cooking process and/or enhance flavor