Heat (26 page)

Frankie wasn’t naturally a manager; he was naturally sociable and capable of being one thing one moment (a friend, a confidant, a prankster—whipping up a bowl of egg whites and pretending to sneeze them down the neck of the dishwasher) and a frightening, abusive person the next. When he showed up at midday, I’d scrutinize his face to see which Frankie we were going to get. It made for a peculiar work environment, although one that was never dull. I may have been entertained more easily than the others, because I had so little at stake. I didn’t mind being criticized—I was there to learn—and accepted my servile status. “Yes, Frankie,” I would always say.

“Am I right, Bill?” he’d shout so the whole kitchen heard.

“Yes, Frankie.”

“Am I always right?”

“Yes, Frankie.”

“Is it possible that I could ever be wrong?”

“No, Frankie.”

Then he’d smile.

But my turn was bound to come.

The occasion was a staff shortfall. Abby had taken six days off. For some time, she’d been entertaining the notion of having cosmetic surgery. This had become a peculiar subject—should she? shouldn’t she?—but not much more peculiar than any other kitchen confidence: Holly’s sex life, say (a vivid chronicle), or Garland’s efforts to impregnate his wife (an ongoing one, with daily updates). When you spent so much time together, you had no secrets. And then, decisively, Abby resolved to have it done.

She was expected back on the following Monday. I had been working with her at the grill, splitting the job into a two-person station, as I had done with Mark. In the beginning, I cooked the meat and she prepared the contorni, and in time I was also preparing the contorni and plating the dishes, although Abby was nearby in case something went wrong. On the Sunday, she phoned. There were complications. She needed one more day. Who could cover for her?

I’d been hoping for such a moment. It was March 17th—fifteen months after my first day in the kitchen. Was I ready? Yes and no. Yes, because I almost knew everything I had to do. No, because I only almost knew everything.

The prep alone was so complicated that you never mastered it until you had no choice. (Or rather, I should say, it was so complicated that I’d never mastered it until I’d had no choice.) I had a map of the station and had just about committed it to memory. The meat and fish were under the counter in the lowboy. That was under control. The problem was what was on top: the little trays of contorni and various embellishments. There were thirty-three different ingredients, and most had to be prepared before the service started, including red onions (cooked in beet juice and red wine vinegar), salsify (braised in sambuca), and
farotta
(cooked in a beet purée). There were six different squirter bottles, two balsamic vinegars, two olive oils, plus
vin santo, vin cotto,
and
saba,
not to mention the Brussels sprouts and braised fennel and rabbit pâté—and damn! Today, I look at the map and am astonished I had any of it in my head.

I was nervous and started off in characteristic fashion by slicing myself. I was preparing Jerusalem artichokes, the knotty, remarkably ugly bulbs that look like dirt clods. But sliced thin and fried very hot, they have an earthy flavor that someone must like. Mario, I suppose. (Sometimes I’d put these dishes together and wonder: how in the world did he think this combination was a good idea?) Once the chokes started to brown, you added shiitake mushrooms and a splash of vinegar and finished them with a handful of parsley: it was a vegetable bed for the lamb chops. But it was edible only if the Jerusalem artichokes were cut very thin—a thinness you get only by using a meat slicer, that round spinning blade that you see at the deli. The slicer is big; the chokes are small and slippery. There was a grinding sound. I did my customary leap. Everyone froze. Tony Liu bent over to see if he’d find my finger jammed in the blade.

“No, no,” I said. “Just the nail and fingertip.”

I did my routine: disinfectant, bandages, and a rubber guard, which I slipped over a now foreshortened forefinger.

It wasn’t a good start, and I was now behind on my prep. Actually everyone was behind, and there was a feeling of pressure—a nasty, pissy kind of pressure. Elisa stayed later than normal and in her rush dropped a container of cockles, which scattered across the floor like marbles. Frankie said something. “Fuck off, Frankie,” she said. He mumbled something else. Elisa repeated herself loudly. “Frankie, fuck off.” She was irritable. Frankie was irritable. Was I the irritant? I was taking too long slicing my rosemary, Frankie said. I was taking too long preparing the thyme.

Tony Liu joined him. “You have to move faster. There’s a lot of prep. You’re too slow.”

The service started, and for the first two hours every piece of meat I cooked was inspected.

Okay. I’m being tested. Don’t panic. You know how to do this.

There was an order for lamb chops, medium rare. I cooked them, assembled the plate, was about to put it up on the pass, when Frankie stopped me, took the dish apart, and squeezed each piece of meat. He said nothing: no eye contact, nothing. A rib eye, medium rare, and four people immediately crowded round the meat after I cooked it, prodding it with a skewer, and then touching the lips with it to judge the meat’s doneness. A pork tenderloin; the same routine: the dish was taken apart. The meat was fine. I could see Frankie’s disappointment. “Put it back together,” he said.

Tony Liu saw my hand. “Get rid of the plastic.”

“I sliced my fingertip,” I reminded him.

“Get rid of it. You can’t cook meat wearing plastic. You won’t have the touch.”

I peeled off the plastic and threw out the bandages. For a while, I tried to use my other fingers, but they were ineffective. I couldn’t do the quick touch. I had to use too much of my middle finger to get a reading and burnt it and then couldn’t interpret what it was telling me—and so I gave in. I pressed my forefinger against a lamb chop on the grill, pressing the wound into meat. The wound spread and opened. The meat was salty and glistened with hot fat. I felt the salt (burning) and the fat (another kind of burning). Well, that was the drill. I turned to rinse my hand in the sudsy plastic container, but it was black, except for the surface, which was shiny. I paused and then dipped in my hand.

Frankie was inches from my face. “You don’t have Abby to protect you. Tonight you’ve got me. It’s just me and you.”

He picked up two slices of pancetta, which I was cooking on the flattop. They had the string around them. “We don’t serve string,” he said.

I knew that. This particular pancetta had been badly rolled and was coming loose, which Tony had observed when he’d delivered it to me from the walk-in: he’d told me to cook it with the string on and remove it when I plated the pancetta. I started to explain, but my explanation was provoking.

“Yes, Frankie,” I said.

He peeled off the string and threw it in my face.

“You’re with the big boys now. You’re on your own.”

I filled a sauté pan with orange juice, reduced it, added some butter, and dropped in the fennel. The fennel goes with the branzino.

Frankie picked up the pan.

“Do you think this fennel is good enough?” he asked. I thought he was going to throw the pan at me. I braced myself. He didn’t move. I looked at the fennel. There were two pieces, each one a third of a bulb. I didn’t know what to say.

“Would you be happy if you had so little fennel on your plate?”

I looked again. Okay, maybe this bulb was a little small.

“It’s not fucking good enough,” Frankie said. “Do it again.” He picked up the hot fennel pieces with his fingers and threw them at my face. He missed. They landed on the tray where my meat was resting, spraying it with buttery orange juice. I picked up the bulbs, tossed them, wiped off the meat, and started another pan.

“Tonight you’re with the big boys. Tonight you’ve got to carry your own weight.”

Andy fired a rabbit.

It was a favorite dish, because it was the most complex. The rabbit is cooked three ways—sautéed, grilled, and confit—and served on dandelion greens. It’s done in stages, requiring several people to work together. During the day, a prep cook roasts the foreleg and back leg. Just before service, I brown them in a hot pan, add thin slices of parsnips (which caramelize quickly), a splash of vin santo (which explodes in a flame), pancetta, and rabbit stock (a radical French addition, and I’m still not sure why it was tolerated). I then put the pan away until it is needed. The grilled bit is the rabbit loin. And the confit is a pâté, which is spread on a piece of toasted bread like a
crostino
and placed on the top of the dish, very architectural.

It takes two people to finish the dish, me and Frankie.

I’d prepared a shelf of sauté pans before the service. I took one out and put it on the flattop. I placed a loin on the grill and got another pan for the dandelion greens. When the loin was almost done, I put a slice of bread on the counter, which Frankie was meant to toast. While it was toasting, I got out the pâté. That was the routine, anyway.

I put out a piece of bread.

Frankie smashed it.

That was confusing. Was there something wrong with the bread? I looked up at Frankie. He was full of rage.

“Get me another.”

I cleaned up the smashed bread, wiped away the crumbs, and got another piece.

Frankie smashed it.

This piece had been identical to the last one. I didn’t know what was wrong.

“Get me another.”

I cleaned up the smashed bread and got another piece. Frankie smashed it. I looked at him. What the fuck are you doing? He was profoundly, irretrievably irrational, as though some scary chemical thing was going on in his head. I looked for Andy, but he had turned away. This, too, was peculiar. Wasn’t he waiting for the very dish that we were failing to complete because Frankie was smashing the bread that needed to be toasted?

“Get me another.”

I got another piece, no different from the previous three pieces. Frankie took it, and we assembled the dish and put it up on the pass.

It was a long night. There were other mishaps. At one point, Andy fired a branzino, but I hadn’t heard the order (could I have not heard it?) and hadn’t cooked one. Later it was an order of lamb chops. Had I missed that too? I stared at Andy. His face said nothing.

Maybe there were more things. The night was a blur. When John Mainieri came into the kitchen and said “All in,” I was overcome with relief. It was early, only eleven o’clock. I’d been there since one. I was drenched. My cook’s coat was stuck to my back; it had melted. When I got the chance to pee, it was bright yellow. I was dehydrated. The night had begun with such high expectations. I got home, I put a chair in front of a window and stared out and didn’t move until dawn.

I
WENT TO WORK
the next day—with, perhaps, a noticeable lack of bounce in my step. I was the embodiment of slowness. Everything about me was slow. My thoughts were arrested in some kind of brain molasses. I could have been running in water. I had a career idea: I could be the mascot for the slow-food movement.

Abby had returned but shouldn’t have. She was pale and fragile and couldn’t lift her arms. You can’t cook if you can’t move your arms. The kitchen had a real problem. The day before, Tony Liu had come in on his day off, just in case something went wrong. Today there was no backup. Abby knew she shouldn’t have come in; she also knew that she was expected. The kitchen motto: no one gets ill. (Until I worked there, I’d always wondered why so many people in New York suddenly got ill in the winter. Was it the subway and the exposure to so many germy people pressed together? Or simply that most people in New York don’t cook at home and get their meals from a professional kitchen?)

Once again the same challenge. Was I ready?

Yes. And yes.

I set up the station. I saw what was missing. I cooked and browned my fennel. I cut my rosemary—fast: bam, bam, bam. I sorted out the thyme. I prepared six sauté pans of rabbit. And the more I did, the looser I got, like an athlete warming up. The thickness in my head melted away. My movements became more fluid. I completed a task and knew what I had to do next and what I needed to do after that one was done. The service started. I was ready. I fell into a rhythm. I was seeing the kitchen in a way I’d never seen it. I seemed to be seeing everything. Was this adrenaline? Was it a clarity that comes from exhaustion? I couldn’t explain why I was feeling so good, especially after feeling so bad. I knew where everyone was at every point in their preparations. I understood all the tickets and all the items on them. I was working with Frankie, but again somehow, I don’t know how, I knew what he was going to do before he did it, when he wanted something before he asked for it. “Bill, I need the—” but whatever it was (red onions, sprouts, a piece of bread) I already had it. I was cooking: fast, hard, effectively. It was the most satisfying evening of labor I’d ever experienced.

When the evening was over, I sat at the bar. I had to cool down. I asked Tom for a beer. Frankie appeared and sat on the stool next to me. He wanted to thank me. “You did good. Don’t let no one tell you no different. You saved our ass.”

I finished my beer. Okay. I did good. I liked that.

P
ASTA
-M
AKER