Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [30]
"You're gonna be scheduled for an extra prep shift," the chef had told him, "only you're not gonna work it. We split the difference." Naturally, Tommy had gone along with it. He felt bad for the chef; he was dissolving into his constituent parts, for Chrissakes. People on the floor were talking about it, shaking their heads when the chef walked by, smiling knowingly when the chef was on the nod. Not too cool.
Why the chef was trying to do without today, Tommy didn't know. He did this every once in a while. He'd come in junk-sick, trying to make it through the shift, knocking back Sea Breezes and Daiquiris and beer after beer, unable to work. He could only wield a knife for a few minutes at a time. He'd wander around the restaurant, his clipboard under his arm, like the Flying Dutchman. He thought the clipboard made it look like he was doing something important, something supervisory, conceptualizing, he sometimes said. He couldn't really even do that. He could only drink and suffer.
Tommy saw the chef step back from the broiler. He turned and gave Tommy a familiar look. He'd had enough.
"Cover me, alright?" he said to Tommy. "I gotta get a few things at the store. Back in a few minutes."
The chef slipped quietly out of the kitchen. Tommy was relieved. At least, when he got back, he'd be able to do some work. It was a heavy prep day. Ricky had scorched a five-gallon batch of soupe de poisson. Tommy had to put a whole new batch on the fire. Ricky had just started piping seafood mousse into the vol-au-vents; he was no help. Mel was shaving a big block of semisweet chocolate in the walk-in; he'd be lucky if he got through the shift without cutting his own hand off. Little Mohammed was hip-deep in salad greens, singing quietly in Arabic.
"I hate these fucking potatoes," said Tommy, when the chef had returned.
"What's the matter with them?" asked the chef.
"They stick to the fucking pan!" said Tommy. He scraped some burnt slices of potato into the trash with a spatula from a black, pressed steel pan.
"They love them," said the chef. "And they love them at three-fifty a pop."
"They eat enough a the damn things," said Tommy. He laid some more slices in a clean, freshly buttered pan and arranged them carefully in overlapping concentric circles. He drizzled clarified butter over them and sprinkled them with kosher salt. He opened the oven door and had to reach around a foil-topped hotel pan of duck confit to pull out another two pans of potato, burning his wrist on the shelf in the process. He put two more pans of potato in the oven and kicked the door closed with his foot.
"You know how much a potato costs us?" said the chef, his wine reductions for the beurres giving off blue flame in front of him. "Like ten bucks a bushel. You do the math. It's a moneymaker."
The chef was feeling better. He put a cassette in the machine and hopped around his station to Stevie Ray Vaughan, cutting confetti vegetables in time to the music.
"How many orders of pommes you got?" he asked Tommy.
"Twenty-five," answered Tommy.
"What's veg?"
"Grilled asparagus."
"Cool. Where's the new Mel?"
"He's still in the walk-in. He's shaving the chocolate for the tone."
"Christ. . . You'd better send out a search party, see if he's still alive in there," said the chef. "Probably tripped over his dick and broke his fuckin neck."
"Leave him alone," suggested Tommy. "At least he's not in the way.
Tommy opened the oven again and removed the duck confit. He peeled off the foil and gently removed a duck leg from the rendered fat. The skin on the legs had just begun to break away from the knuckle.
"Perfect," said the chef, smiling, "Smells good, too. Gimme some a that. I think we better do a little quality control here. I think I can actually eat."
The chef picked a piece off the board and popped it in his mouth. "That's really good," he said. Tommy nibbled at the few shreds of meat left on the bone. Ricky, finished with the mousse, came over and grabbed a piece for himself.
"You save the extra