I get asked a lot how I turned out to be the poster boy for bad behavior in the kitchen. After all, I was raised in a nice home with a family that was more than well off and the opportunity to really 'be something' in my life. I could have gone to Harvard or Princeton as my dad wanted and grow up to run the multi-national family business (a job that had later fallen into my brothers hands thank Christ), but if I had done that I think I would have had to eventually kill myself out of pure pity. When I was younger I would have rather died than spent my life in an office, in a suit, chasing after money like it was pussy. That was a job for the morally and artistically deaf dumb and blind.
I'm also asked a lot what the best thing about cooking for a living is. And it's this: to be a part of a subculture. To be part of a historical continuum, a secret society with its own language and customs. To enjoy the instant gratification of making something good with one's hands - using all one's senses. It can be, at times, the purest and most unselfish way of giving pleasure to another human being without receiving something back in return(though oral sex has to be a close second).
Chefs, cooks, service industry rats - even waitrons- are my favorite people. It's easy to forget how many people work in the restaurant business - and as significantly, how many have at one time or another worked in the business during their lives. And whether they're now sitting behind a desk or piloting a Lear Jet many of them apparently miss it.
It was the last time they could say what they wanted in the workplace. The last time they could behave like savages with one another, go home feeling proud and tired at the same time. The last time they could fuck someone in the linen closet and have it not mean anything too serious, or stay out all night and wake up on the floor. The last time they found themselves close to people from every corner of the world, of every race, proclivity, religion and background.
The restaurant business is perhaps the last meritocracy - where what we do is all that matters. The kitchen is the place where a chef feels safe and as comfortable as if he's sinking into a bubble bath. It is home. It is love. And it is the only thing I would ever want to dedicate my life to. My entire life, and my soul. It is who I am.
Now that I'm in a new city, starting over yet again, I find that the one thing that I cannot wait for is to be back on the mese dictating to the filthy pirates in my crew and doing God's work. The work of pleasure and pain that is only done in that last vestige of hope - the kitchen. I've bought a building in the French Quarter and sent for some of my staff, but that's only the beginning. This old boy has a lot left to do and hopefully I still have the miles in me to make it through. Guess we'll see.
My first indication that food was something other than a substance one stuffed in one's face when hungry - like filling up at a gas station- came after fourth grade in elementary school. It was on a family vacation to Europe, on the Queen Mary, in the first class dining room. I remember my mother in her Jackie O sunglasses, my younger brother and I in our painfully cute cruise wear, boarding the big Cunard ocean liner, all of us excited about our first transatlantic voyage, our first trip to my father's ancestral homeland, France. But the thing that really sticks out in my mind after all these years was the soup. It was cold.
This was something of a discovery for a curious fourth grader whose entire experience of soup to that point had consisted of Campbell's cream of tomato and chicken noodle. I'd eaten in restaurants before, sure, but this was the first food I really noticed. It was the first food I enjoyed and, more importantly, remembered enjoying. I asked our patient British waiter what this delightfully cool tasty liquid was.
"Vichyssoise," had come the reply, a word that to this day - even though it's now a tired old warhorse of a menu selection and one that I have prepared thousands of times- still has a magical ring to it. I remember everything about the experience: the way our waiter ladled it from a silver tureen into my bowl, the crunch of tiny chopped chives he spooned on as garnish, the rich creamy taste of leek and potato, the pleasurable shock, the surprise that it was cold.
I don't remember much else about the passage across the Atlantic. I saw Airport with Burt Lancaster and Dean Martin in the Queen's movie lounge, and an old Bardot flick. The old liner shuddered and vibrated terribly the whole way and from New York to Cherbourg it was like riding on a giant lawnmower. My brother and I quickly became bored and spent most of our time in the 'Teen Lounge' listening to David Bowie and Pink Floyd on the jukebox or watching the water slosh around like a contained tidal wave in the below deck saltwater pool.
But that cold soup stayed with me. It resonated, waking me up, making me aware of my tongue and, in some way, preparing me for future events. It was a childs first glance at what was to be the greatest love affair of my life.
Now that Laz has agreed to send some of my old crew to New Orleans to work on this new project I think I should explain who these individuals are. First, let's take Steven. Steven is the man who is currently winging his way towards New Orleans from New York, (probably in the business class of a plane where he has managed to purloin extra mini bottles of Jack Daniels from the flight attendant to supply him with a buzz that will last the length of the flight), so that he can once again act as my right hand. This is a very good thing in many respects. Having Steven to run lunch shifts five days a week will give me some needed slack for awhile in the scheduling department, which has suddenly become important since I find myself desiring more of a home here in New Orleans. He will also be there in case tragedy or circumstance strikes and I ever actually decide to take a night off. (Unheard of behavior in the past).
I met Steven when I was working for Pino Luongo at Coco Pazzo and when I was snagged by Supper Club I took Steven with me. And after that I took him with me to work my first job for Barb Lazarus at a restaurant in Brazil called Sulli's. We were a traveling road show, and when we moved to another kitchen, we peeled off the best of the cooks we'd left behind with us. Which is exactly how I ended up with a lot of the crew that I have today. Steven, as I've said, is my kind of sous-chef. He loves cooking and he loves cooks. He doesn't yearn for a better different life than the one he has - because he knows he's got a home in this one.
Steven gets along with just about everyone at every time, total strangers tend to forgive him the most egregious excesses, whatever he says or does. He's an ingratiating bastard - totally without pretense, and you cannot embarrass, shame, or insult him no matter how hard you try (he and I are very alike in that way). He knows how bad he is so nothing anyone else can say really makes a difference. The line cooks at Les Halles had absolutely loved him, and his tortured completely useless command of their languages. It amused the hell out of the others as did his habit of singing Madonna or Elton John songs in a high pitched atonal voice, prancing shamelessly around the kitchen like a spastic breakdancer, taping over his sensitive nipples with band-aids (to avoid chafing or so he insists), and showing anyone who's interested his latest zit, boil, or cold sore.
He truly loves the technical aspects of cooking, works fast and clean, and makes pretty plates. He likes to jump in and help if another cook is in the weeds, loves washing dishes when not busy at his own station, finds no task too low or menial to take an interest in and help. He's a remarkably thoughtful guy. Mention you like Gummi Bears and Steven will show up the next day with a bag. He jokes around with waiters and managers, flirts with any woman in sight, and amazingly they seem to actually like it. A mexican cook who worked with us used to call Steven "Chuletita loca" the crazy little pork chop.
And one of my favorite stories is from the early Les Halles days when Manuel, then a clean living deeply religious ecuadorian man, used to receive 4 am phone calls every night for weeks - Steven mid-coitus with his girlfriend: "Manuel (grunt, plorp)....it's Steven (grunt).....guess what I'm doing?" And like everyone else in Steven's life Manuel would play along. "Oh Chef, Chef!" he'd say the next day shaking his head. "Chuletita call me again lass night." And then he'd burst into giggles. I don't really get it. To this day.
If I did half the gross or weird things that Steven does regularly (and I'm not even talking about the felonies, just the brutish misbehavior, the bad taste, the remarks, the exhibitionism, the conniving) I'd end up in court defending myself against a litany of sexual harassment suits. And yet I can't think of anyone who doesn't adore Steven. Think he's crazy, yes. Have trouble trusting him, yes. But equally everyone he meets seems to love him. And this...this, is my closest and most trusted friend and associate in the kitchen. Someone I am eager to have on my crew again.
....and that brings us to Adam. It was a historic moment the day that Steven and Adam had shown up at Coco Pazzo. Stevn had been looking for a saute position and had brought his friend Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown along for the ride. When I was in the kitchen with these two I couldn't turn my back for a minute. They were hyperactive and destructive, two evil energizer bunnies who, when they weren't squabbling and throwing food at eachother, seemed always to be dodging out of the kitchen on some criminal errand. They were loud, larcenous, and relentlessly curious. But boy could those boys cook! They were professionals, and together we were a culinary motherfucking A-Team.
I can picture Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown,psychotic bread baker, just as he probably looks alone in his small filthy Upper West Side apartment, his eyes two different sizes after a thirty-six hour coke and liquor jag, white crust accumulated at the corners of his mouth, a two-day growth of whiskers - standing there in a shirt and no pants amongst the porno mags, the empty Chinese takeout containers, as the Spice Channel flickers silently on the TV, throwing blue light on a can of Dinty Moore beef stew by an unmade bed.
Why did God in all his wisdom choose Adam to be the recipient of greatness?
Why, of all his creatures, did He choose this loud, dirty, unkempt, obnoxious, uncontrollable, megalomaniacal madman to be his personal bread baker? How was it that this disgrace as a citizen, as a human being - this undocumented, untrained, uneducated and unwashed mental case who's been employed (for about ten minutes) by every kitchen in New York - could throw together a little flour and water and make magic happen? And I'm talking real magic here. I may have wanted Adam dead a thousand times but his bread and pizza crust and desserts are simply divine. To see his bread coming out of the oven, to smell it, that deeply satisfying spiritually comforting waft of yeasty goodness, to tear into it, breaking apart that floury, dusty crust and into the ethereally textured interior....to taste it is to experience real genius.
Adam might be the enemy of polite society, a security risk, and a potential serial killer but the man can bake. He's an idiot savante with whom God has serious, frequent, and intimate conversations. I just can't imagine what He's telling him - or whether the message is getting garbled during transmission. Adam gets right with God with every rack of sourdough bread he pulls out of the oven; every crisp, crunchy, deliciously blistered pizza. It's God's little joke on all of us. Especially me. I've hired him three or four times, and fired and rehired him again on countless occasions.
He's of medium height, with lank black hair, thinning at the crown. He's barrel-chested with the huge shoulders and upper arms of a guy who's been balling dough for years. His eyes are brown but they look at once menacing and pathetic set into the mischeivious baby face whose expression can change in an instant from huggably endearing and childlike to slavering and insane.
To sign on Adam to your crew is to buy, for a short time, the best bread I've ever tasted. It ensures that customers will rave about it, and buy more pastries and breads than they ever thought they would. It also means that your life will become a walking roller coaster ride of chaos. But, you get the stuff. The most amazing olive and herb breads, pepper bread, mushroom bread, focaccias, pizzas, garlic twists, breadsticks, and brioches, as well as every pastry and dessert known under the sun (and some that might not be).
To endure Adam as an employee was to become a full-time cop, psychiatrist, moneylender, friend, and antagonist, though he does have his sweet side as well. When I called him to come to London he was working for Jimmy Sears. For some time I had heard no rumors of violent assaults, or thirteen dollar whorehouses, or near overdoses. So maybe Adam really has gotten his act cleaned up. God knows, a man who can make those perfect rough-slashes boules of sourdough and Tuscan country bread deserves his place in the sun. Somewhere. He's the best at what he does, after all. The finest bread I've ever had. And the most expensive: in human cost, aggravation, and worry. Hiring Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown was always a trade-off - with God or Satan, I don't know - but it was usually worth it. Bread is the staff of life. And Adam, the unlikely source. Something else God has to answer for.
+ The only picture Geller has of himself, Steven, and Adam are from a line-up and a mugshot taken during the time when they all worked at Supper Club. How Adam and Steven had swindled copies of the pictures was a mystery, but one Christmas they had been sent to him along with a box full of fireworks and a bottle of scotch. The incident that caused the photo to be taken was worth thinking about with Steven and Adam now heading to join him in New Orleans, but time could change people. Or so he hoped. Well, he hoped it had changed them enough that they wouldn't all end up dead or in jail, not so much that they wouldn't have a fucking great time.+
Saturday, March 19th, 2011 Cigarettes 16, Drinks 4, # of times wished I understood people 15
I'm not going to say much in here right now because my level of busyness has far surpassed my level of introspection. Thus, you will only be getting a sound bite from me today oh great one. So here we are, in New Orleans, and starting all over again. Sometimes it really does feel like playing one of those video games where you die and start over the level again and again, except in this case there are infinite extra lives and no fire spitting plants and...okay, it's not really anything like a video game. That analogy sucked. Anyway, starting over can be exciting but it can also be a pain in the ass.
I swear when I was younger I used to look at my dad and think 'that is what a grown-up is like'. I thought I would know when I was a grown up because I assumed that people just knew that sort of thing. Now that I find myself officially in my forties and feeling about like I am sixteen most of the time I wonder if maybe my father felt that way too. Maybe he just went day to day making shit up as he went along and I was none the wiser. Maybe we all do that and the secret is that we never talk about it.
I've got a project in the works with Laz and Shazz...wow, both of their names end with a Z sound. How did I never notice that before? Anyway, this idea sort of came to me in a dream which probably just proves that I haven't gotten laid in a long time because the dream was of this really dark old world style 40's Caberet with burlesque dancers on stage. None of this PussyCat Dolls shit, I mean the real thing circa WWII and all that shit. I was watching this women slowly roll a silk stocking down her calf and I was eating this unfuckingbelievable cake that had chocolate and peanut butter and some kind of raspberry sauce on it (I'll be testing things in my kitchen soon until I get it just right). So I'm eating this cake and watching this lady and dream me thinks 'wow, this would be a great idea for a new place.'
So that's the deal with work. Gotta get several asses in gear to get things started but it'll be worth it. As far as living goes, we finally closed on the new house so unless another hurricane strikes we are officially out of the hotel and into something more like a home. Venus is coming and bringing her ex-fiancee Vincent, Nike and James have their own seperate apartment above the garage, Maya, Zoe, and Dee Dee will all be there of course. Also, there's this odd little wolf named Trent who will possibly be moving in for awhile till he gets his feet under him. At last I'll have a full house to cook for again. That's always something worth looking forward to.
Love life. Just fucking shoot me in the head now. Really, sometimes the lazy part of me kind of longs for the days of fucking waitresses in the walk-in. At least that was simple. These days, not so much. But...that will have to be a story for another day because I have to go meet with the building contractor at the site for Betwixt and Between to start getting some things down on paper so we can get a remodel under way. Just gonna have to leave you hanging.
Let's be honest. Let's be really, painfully honest: Who is cooking? Who is the backbone of the American restaurant business? Whose sudden departure could shut down nearly every good restaurant, nightclub, and banquet facility in every major city in the country? Whose sweat and toil allows amazingly well known white-boy chefs like me to go around the country opening restaurants, flogging books, and baiting their peers? Who, pound for pound, are the best French and Italian cooks in the city?
If you're a chef, manager, or owner, you know the answer: Mexicans. Ecuadoreans. Salvadoran guys (and some women) from south of the border, many of them with green cards they bought on Queens Boulevard for thirty dollars. Ex-dishwashers with no formal training, minimal education; people who have often never eaten in restaurants as good as the ones they cook in. Manuel, the brilliant saucier at your two star restaurant, puts on his best suit, combs his hair, dresses up his family in their Sunday best, and tries to get a table at the one-star place across the street. The aspiring actor/model/part-time maitre'd will break out in a flop sweat, trying to figure out where to hide them - if "La Migra" hasn't already grabbed him on the way to dinner.
There is no deception more hypocritical, more nauseating, more self-deluding than the industry approved image of "the chef". We all know who's doing the heavy lifting, who's making the nice risotto with white truffles and porcini mushrooms, the pan seared hamachi with sauce vierge, the ravioli of beef cheeks with sage and sauce madere...We know, to our eternal shame, who is more likely to show up every day, dig in, do the right thing, cook contientiously, endure without complaint: our perennially unrecognized coworkers from Mexico, Ecuador, Haiti, and points south. The ones you don't see hurling catchphrases on the TV Food Network, or grinning witlessly after their latest freebie.
What is the heart of the matter? The answer to this simple question: When did you last see an American dishwasher? And if you saw one - would you hire him? If you're like me, probably not.
The best cooks are ex dish-washers. Because who do you want in your kitchen when push comes to shove, and you're in danger of falling in the weeds and the orders are pouring in and the number one oven just went down and the host just sat a twelve top and there's a bad case of the flu tearing through the staff like the Vandals through Rome? Do you want an American CIA trained know it all like I was early in my career? A guy who's certain there's a job waiting for him somewhere else ("Maybe like Aspen man...or the Keys....I can cook and maybe hit the slopes on my day off, or the beach.) Or some resume building aspiring chef ("Yeah, dude....I'm thinking of leaving here in a month and going to do a stage with Thomas Keller or Dean Fearing...he rocks.").
Or do you want someone who's come in the hard way? A guy who has started at the bottom, worked his way up, educated himself, step by step, station by station in the intricacies of your particular operation - who knows where everything is in every corner of your restaurant, who has been shown again and again until it's implanted in his cell structure, the way you want it cooked?
The ex-dishwashers usually come from a culture where cooking and family are important. They have, more often than not, a family to support, and are used to being responsible for others. They are, more than likely, inured to regimes despotic, ludicrous, and hostile. They've known hardship - real hardship. You see an expression on the faces of veteran American cooks who've been around the block a few times, had their butts kicked, a look that says "I expect the worst - and I'm ready for it." The ex-dishwashers have that look from the get go.
As I've said before, I can teach people to cook. I can't teach character. And my comrades from south of the border have been some of the finest characters I've known in twenty plus years as a cook and a chef. I am priveleged, made better, by having known and worked with many of them. I am honored by their hard work, their toil, and their loyalty. I am enriched by their sense of humor, their music, their food, their not-so-nice names for me behind my back, their kindness, and their strength. They have shown me what real character is. They have made this business - the "Hospitality Industry" - what it is, and they keep it's wheels grinding forward.
-- Edited by CHARLES GELLER on Monday 27th of June 2011 05:40:47 PM
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 Cigarettes 18, Drinks 0, # of times wished I thought of her infinity
"How I wish, how I wish you were here, we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year...."
As the holidays draw closer I am finding myself surrounded by friends and family that have been away for awhile. I even had the chance occasion to visit Nike (though honestly it wasn't much of a social event - but I'll get to that later). All around me is warmth and happiness and I am nothing but grateful for that. Still, as I walk through the city all I see are memories and my heart beats with an aching lonliness for the one person who isn't here.
I know that my friends want to make things better by encouraging me to move on, but I don't think they realize that isn't possible. I am not looking to move on because for me there isn't anywhere I want to move on to. You don't meet a woman like Jenna Foster everyday, and you certainly don't forget her overnight. It isn't that I don't appreciate their desire to help, but I just don't think they understand that for me this isn't over. Just because she had things to take care of that doesn't mean I am going to find someone new.
Inside I just hold onto the hope that one day she will come back to me. Forever wouldn't be enough time with her, so one year is certainly a poor substitute. Still, I know that Jenna wouldn't want me to be sad here without her, and I know that she is doing something genuinely amazing where she is. Part of why I loved her was that goodness inside her and the way that she strived to help people, so in a way her reason for leaving only makes me love her more. Time will pass and we'll both live our lives, but I know that no matter what she will always be on my mind; a part of me.
Things here are getting into a routine again. I think we've actually broken a record for how long it's been since the last emergency. If this was a factory then we'd be getting an award. I don't know why it is that words like routine and peace give some people the heebie jeebies and make them start looking for trouble. Personally, I like it this way. I can take care of business, my employees, my family, and just roll with things for awhile.
Of course I know that won't be the case for long. The Ulfric has talked about leaving, at least temporarily, and that means that changes are on the horizon. He asked me to step into his shoes, but that isn't really the kind of position that I have ever been drawn towards. I know that my loyalties would always be divided, and I don't think that would be a good thing in a position like that.
Besides, I am comfortable with where I am in life. I've worked hard to get this business up and running and I would like to devote the time needed to keep it successful. Also, I've missed my family and now that I have them around more I want to be able to spend time with them. Then there are the tigers that Jenna left behind...I know that with her gone my role in their life changes, but I made a promise to her that I intend to keep. I will always watch over her tigers and if they need it I will try to do for them what she would have done. That is too many loyalties for an Ulfric, not to mention my rather blase attitude about vampires (which a lot of wolves don't share).
Ash accepted my rejection of his offer and I think he expected it. Still, it was an honor to even be asked. It was because of Ash that I went to visit Nike at Leeds Castle. The trip was underwhelming. Once upon a time I might've stopped in London to see Dakota; have a drink and talk over old times, but given the timing I couldn't deal with the possible reprocussions of that sort of visit. I was sent to ask Nike to come take the position of Master of the City here in New Orleans so that someone trusted would be in that seat of power, but she turned it down. (I told Ash that she would.)
Even though in a practical sense the trip didn't accomplish much it was still good to see Nike again. I've missed her a lot. It's never easy when a frienship goes south because of misunderstandings or unexpected circumstances. Part of me will always hate that something came between us, but given what that something was I can't really regret it. I just hope that one day we can get past this and be friends again. I don't think that I will ever stop hoping for that.
There's so much more to share about the family, but it will have to wait until next time. Right now I have to go meet Venus (who is home with her husband for Christmas - maybe longer - we hope) so we can get the decorations finished. Then I swear I am going to go do some last minute Christmas shopping so I don't have to give everyone coal in their stockings.
-- Edited by CHARLES GELLER on Tuesday 20th of December 2011 05:53:29 PM
