Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [40]
By eleven the kitchen is a mess, and should a health inspector walk in at this moment, there’s a good chance we’d be shut down. I patrol the various stations shouting orders to clean up and wipe down, to get it together. When it seems inconceivable that we can pull things together in half an hour, Tony jokes that we should flip a fuse or two and post a sign on the door reading, “Closed due to power failure.” For his attempt at levity, he gets jabbed in the ribs with a whisk, and I tell him he’s lucky I’m not holding a knife. I tell the staff that no dish is to leave the kitchen unless it goes by me. It is essential that I taste everything, since the majority of the food we are serving today is from recipes developed for the restaurant kitchen in the last two hours. In preparation, I chew a handful of Tums to quell the churning acid in my stomach.
As the first entrees go out, there’s a collective holding of breath in the kitchen. It isn’t that the food we are serving is bad. I would have taken Tony’s suggestion and induced a power failure long before I served food that was seriously compromised. The issue isn’t the quality, but the fact that we are serving different food. Grappa’s signature dishes feature simple food, perfectly grilled meats, poultry, and fish, straightforward braises, and earthy flavors—a branzino delicately grilled on the bone and adorned by little besides some excellent quality olive oil and fresh herbs. Today, however, constrained by the small amount of meat and fish available, our menu is more reminiscent of Nonna’s kitchen than what our well-heeled regulars are used to.
I’m in the midst of preparing a pesto for the fish stew when Eddie jogs through the back door and does a victory lap around the kitchen, while hefting a large bag of something over his head.
“Yo, I got the last in the city,” he booms. “The last calamari on the island! Don’t ask me whose ass I had to kiss to get it, Mira, but baby, you owe me.” He grabs me by the waist and gives me a hug that I can’t return, even if I wanted to. Still, the calamari is a nice gesture from Eddie, who has gone to considerable trouble just to please me.
“Thanks, Eddie,” I say, turning and giving him a tight smile. “That’s great.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to thank me later,” he says with a leer, inducing a few snickers from the line. I turn around, brandishing my pestle, and deliver a murderous look.
“Okay, I get the picture, you’re busy.”
As nice as Eddie’s gesture is, it does me little good right now. I’ve just shelled out close to three hundred bucks for a measly fifteen pounds of squid from Dean and Deluca that I’m now selling at a loss. Also, if Eddie has had as much trouble getting his hands on the squid as he says he has, then I know that I’m going to be paying for it through the nose. Maybe I should sleep with him.
Terry comes flying through the kitchen at a quarter to two announcing that she thinks she has spotted Frank Bruni in the dining room, causing me to burn myself on an open flame at the grill station. Tony locates some gauze, which he affixes to my burned hand with duct tape. I’m tempted to tell him not to bother. If Frank Bruni really is in the dining room, I might just as well throw myself into the pizza oven. When Tony is finished ministering to me, I allow myself a quick and surreptitious look, just to make sure. I decide, with relief, that Terry is probably wrong. The man in the toupee and tinted glasses is just as likely to be a movie star or a cheating husband as Frank Bruni.
By two thirty we’re limping and hobbling toward the finish line. We are out of most things on the menu, and I have had to call back both Eddie and Rob and place additional rush orders for dinner. When I finally get around to opening the City Meats bill, I’m horrified at the substantial