Under the Table (31 page)

NOTES: This stew pairs well with buttered baby potatoes (easy to make for a crowd if you aren't bothering to peel them, and you shouldn't) or with wide pasta—egg noodles are good, and even textured ziti or campanelle (bellflower shaped—adorable!) would do nicely. Anything that will trap the glorious sauce is a natural pairing here. Fresh pasta would be divine, but don't overexert yourself before your party even starts. It is, after all, your party—enjoy yourself!

This stew is even better the second or third day. If you have the time beforehand (and the space!), make the stew and let it sit in your fridge. Skim the solidified fat off the top before rewarming right before serving.

T
here wasn't even time to be nervous, that last day. I was up before dawn, pressing my two uniforms, carefully hanging them inside plastic trash bags to shield them from the rain that was, even then, beating against the windows and holding off the light of day. A few minutes at the kitchen table were spent waiting for the coffee to filter through its tiny basket of highly scented grinds, and going over the notes and photos of the possible dishes again and again and again. I closed my eyes, imagining the rich green color of the herb oil against its backdrop of pale beurre blanc. I felt the spiky brittleness of a fried sage leaf between my fingers as I imagined plating the marinated tuna; saw the rosy color of slices of the salt-crusted beef tenderloin poised next to the alternating orange and green bands of the spinach and carrot flan. I laced my fingers together around a cup of coffee and fervently beseeched whoever the patron saint of chefs is not to land me with one of the meat dishes. Of course, having a garde-manger dish and a
saucier
dish meant that you would be through the exam, through the entire long, drawn-out, painful experience, before at least half of the rest of the class. That fact suddenly seemed important. To be done, to taste the uncluttered, uncomplicated sharp notes of freedom on the tongue, suddenly seemed very important, like a jolt of fresh raspberry coulis against a bland and featureless expanse of
blanc mange
or
coeur à la crème.
I tried not to prefer one dish combination to another, not to set my heart on anything in particular, reluctant to cloud my vision of what was to come.

I left the coffee untouched on the counter, kissed a sleepy
Michael for luck, and headed out into the rain with my clean uniforms hooked over my shoulder, my boots polished, and my well-thumbed notes in my pocket. Too soon I was at the students' entrance. Before I could punch in the code, David swung open the door to let me in. His face was wreathed in smiles, and he gave my hand a squeeze.

“Good luck,” he said, his heavy Cuban accent making the words thick and sweet as
dulce de leche.

Suddenly, words were stuck in my throat, and I couldn't squeeze anything past the lump, big as an orange, that was blocking the way. I didn't have to.

“We're all rooting for you,” David continued, giving me a wink. “You always were our favorite.”

Another squeeze and he was gone, back to the stacks of provisions behind the counter of the storeroom. I knew all the storeroom guys and dishwashers might be rooting for me, but I also knew they ran a lucrative pool among themselves, betting on which student would win top honors in the final and which ones would self-destruct.

Suddenly I was in the locker room, taking off my street clothes and carefully pulling on my chef 's uniform, setting my knife roll down next to my steady ally, the old red toolbox, still dusty with flour from the pastry kitchen. It was too early for the students from the other levels to be in school yet, and I was surrounded only by the soft rustlings of my classmates as we silently prepared for our day. It was too quiet. Jackie was fumbling with the French knots of her chef 's jacket, trying and failing to button it properly, and Imogene was sitting on her toolbox, scrambling through her own notes, comparing recipes with photos of the final dish, repeating the garnishes of each dish in a barely audible whisper.

I was trying to focus, to make sure I had everything I needed, to remember to put my meat thermometer in my jacket pocket, tie my neckerchief properly, zip my fly. The tension was almost too much
to bear. The door bounced backward on its hinges with the force of the blow directed at it, and shy, quiet Keri barreled into the room. She was quiet no longer.

“Hey, guys!” she shouted at us, at the top of her lungs. “What? Is there a funeral? Cheer up! It's our last day! Then we'll be free! Can you believe it?”

She was in such a good mood, so happy to be almost finished with school, she didn't even seem to care that the next six hours were going to be some of the most grueling we had ever faced in the kitchen.

“Let's just enjoy it! Come on, you look so sad! Let's have some fun!”

Her impression of little Mary Sunshine was infectious. I found myself smiling as I looked in the mirror to check that I had everything on correctly. Imogene had struck up a conversation with Marita, and they were laughing about some dirty joke Angelo had told them in a late-night study session. Soon, we were all dressed and ready to head downstairs. As we clomped down the stairs, swinging our toolboxes and gently joking with one another about what was waiting for us in the kitchens, we lost the nervousness and foreboding that had hung over us in the locker room, like a pall of smoke from an overdone tart in the oven.

We marched down the hallway, not allowed on this day to cut through the Level 2 kitchens to the dining room for our regular morning gathering. When we pushed through the swinging door to the restaurant, the difference in the room was at first frightening. Gone was the usual arrangement of tables and chairs, and in its place were four large judges' tables, already draped in immaculate white tablecloths and set with silver and glasses. In the middle of the room stood Chef Pierre. He was standing four square, his legs rooted to the ground like some ancient olive tree, and his meaty biceps and forearms folded and tucked tightly against his chest. He favored us with one of his rare, gorgeous smiles—eyes squinted
almost shut, a few teeth and a lot of healthy gum laced with the glint of medieval European dental work. It was as reassuring as the golden yellow yolk of a fresh, poached egg breaking with glorious abandon over buttered toast. My stomach rumbled. Maybe I should have eaten breakfast. It was too late now.

We took our seats at the tables placed around the room and tried to cram in just a few more pieces of information. Like magic, there was one seat left at a four top where Tucker, Ben, and Junior were drinking coffee and running over the details of each dish.

“Hey, Darling.” They greeted me with a few high fives, like every single other day. It was hard to believe that today was our last day together in the kitchens. I sat down and helped myself to a sip from Ben's cup of coffee—like every other day I had snagged a sip, I knew Ben wouldn't mind.

“Quick, Darling! The ingredients for
pâte brisée
!” Tucker barked at me. Easy. I could make piecrust backward, in my sleep.

“Pâte à choux!”
I shot right back at him. We had forgotten any sense of lingering nervousness in the happy groove of our regular competitive friendship. We had come all the way together, and it was down to how we would perform today. But even though the dishwashers might have been betting on me, I still wasn't too certain that I had what it took to perform better than my classmates and my friends.

After what seemed like an age of cramming, coffee, and a few good-natured insults, we were all present and accounted for. Chef Pierre called roll for the last time and then began to go over the final exam. After the written exam was administered at 8:30, we would draw our numbers from Chef 's toque, 1 through 24. This would be the order our dishes would appear in front of the judges—whoever drew number 1 would be the first one on the chopping block, 24 would be the last. I prayed that I wouldn't be the first or the last, but snuggled safely in the middle of the pack. When everyone had been assigned a number, we would then be told which two dishes
we would be preparing. Then we would file into the kitchens and find our stations at 8:45, check to make certain that we had been supplied with the correct ingredients, had enough pots and pans and squareboys and bowls, and at 9:00 precisely, Chef Pierre would blow his whistle and we could begin cooking.

The first dishes would go out to the judges at 1:00 pm on the dot, and the last round of desserts would leave the kitchen at 2:45. It was going to be a long day. Chef gave us another one of his dazzling smiles—I wondered if he had been saving them up until today, when we really needed them. The minutes ticked by—8:10, 8:13, 8:22, 8:27. The chatter had died, and even the last-minute scrambling for pencils and pieces of paper had faded to a few rustles and dry coughs. Eight-thirty.

Chef shouted, “Give me the ingredients and procedure for…
pâte sucrée
and
pâte à choux
!” This was it: all our studying, all the recipes we had memorized, and we would be asked to write only these two. It was all or nothing—you either knew it or you didn't.

And I knew it. We rushed to write down the proper proportion of ingredients and all the steps to both recipes in the proper order. Soon everyone had turned in their papers and it was time to draw our numbers from Chef 's hat. Even though Chef Pierre had only been wearing his Chef 's hat for an hour, when he took it off, it left a crease in his thick dark hair. It was odd to see Chef without his toque—a disarmingly informal touch in the middle of all our formal preparations.

One by one we filed to the front and fished out a small piece of paper from the depths. When my name was called, I took a deep breath and made a running start to the head of the room. I rummaged deep in the recesses of Chef 's toque, hoping my fingers would guide me to a good number. I finally settled on a piece of paper that seemed to flutter right into my hand. I tried not to take it as a sign, but I felt my heart racing anyway. I fumbled the paper open, praying to see 7, 8, 10, anything from the middle of the pack.
Hell, I would have even taken unlucky 13—anything but 1 or 24. There it was, in Chef Pierre's distinctive scrawl and French numerals: 24. Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap! I would be the last one finished with the exam. My four plates of dessert would go out at 2:45, the very final plates to go out to the judges. Then I would have to do my share of the heavy-duty cleaning in my small area of the kitchen before I was free at last to change into my fresh uniform, wash my face, and prepare to meet the judges and receive critiques on my final dishes. CRAP! The judges would have tasted almost two dozen other dishes before they got to my attempts—even if my dishes were better in comparison to the others, who would feel enthusiasm over their fifth plate of sea bass? I would have slightly more time to work on my dishes, which was a good thing, but suddenly, the only thing I cared about was being done, finished with chef school forever. I was suddenly very, very weary, and we hadn't even begun the final exam.

I stomped back to my seat, not even bothering to tell Chef Pierre what number I had drawn. He had to chase me across the room and I shouted, at the top of my lungs, “Twenty-four, goddamnit!”

Chef cocked his eyebrows at me over his glasses, pursed his lips, and said, “Hush, you. Somebody was going to get it. Today it was you. So?”

“I'm ruined, Chef,” I mumbled. “It's a sign.” I couldn't believe how superstitious I was being, but still. This was worse than anything I had imagined happening today, the one thing I hadn't thought of and planned for. Total emotional tailspin. Chef Pierre tried one of his molten smiles again, but there was no melting the icy lump of dread that had settled itself firmly in my stomach. Exasperated, Chef slapped me firmly in the rump and said, “Just cook your azz off, you'll do fine.”

Tucker, Ben, and Junior tried to cheer me up in their own way. “Sucks for you, Darling” seemed to be the consensus. I knew they were just glad to have dodged being the last one, and I couldn't
blame them. I would have been happy to be anywhere else as well, even first. At least then the judges would have had nothing to compare me to—now my efforts were going to be compared against every single other plate that my classmates prepared. I would really have to work hard to impress them. Now I could only pray that the gods would have mercy on me and give me a good pairing of dishes, at least. Once everyone had drawn their number, Chef once again called for our silence while he read out who would be receiving what. I was in for a little bit of luck on that score at least—I had gotten the striped bass with lobster sauce and the molten chocolate cakes with espresso crème anglaise. While these dishes were no cinch to make, they were exactly what I was hoping to get. The lobster sauce was the most labor-intensive aspect of the fish dish, and the molten cakes and crème anglaise needed to be made in advance, and only popped in the oven five minutes before plating. Still, it wasn't going to be easy, and for the next six hours I was going to need to cook my ass off, just like Chef said.

Wordlessly, we gathered up our knife bags and toolboxes and trooped through the double doors into the kitchens. A few whispered
good lucks
were passed back and forth, and then we were in, spread across the Level 3 and 4 kitchen, the Level 2 kitchen, even in the garde-manger and patisserie kitchens. In a corner of the garde-manger station, I found a tray of ingredients marked 24. I guess this was it—away from the bustle of the main kitchen, but not as removed as the few people marooned in the Level 2 kitchen. There was one other setup on the other side of the room, and I crossed my fingers I wouldn't be trapped in this confined space with Mimi or Penny. I was lucky again. Ravi sauntered in, all cool confidence, to take his place at the station set up across from me. Phew. Ravi and I had never worked together outside our week spent in the bread kitchen, but we were very friendly and would be able to work on the same stove without too much competition.

Hours passed in minutes, as Ravi and I worked in silence,
methodically preparing one aspect of our separate dishes after another, keeping an eye on each other's pots boiling on the stove. Periodically, one of the chef-instructors would come orbiting through, clipboard at the ready, poking through the lowboys where we kept our ingredients, sticking a tasting spoon into our pots and pans of sauces, barking an occasional question, making notes, and then moving on. I was determined not to let the occasional appearance of these birds of prey throw me off my game. I was in a rhythm; I could feel it; everything was falling into place for me. My lobster and crab shells had roasted nicely in the oven and I had had the good fortune to flame them with Cognac just as Chef Septimus swung through on his rounds. With the loud “whoof” of a controlled explosion, the Cognac ignited, and a blue flame danced merrily in the pan.