Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [47]
The chef picked up a big piece of black truffle from the top of his turbot with his fingers and popped it in his mouth.
"Oh! Michel!" protested his mother, "not with the hands!"
The chef shook his head and picked up his fork and took a first bite of fish.
"Is it all right? It's moist in the center? It's not cooked too much?" asked his mother, peering across the table.
"It's fine," said the chef. He picked up the oversize white-wine glass and drank half its contents.
"You just got your fish and you've almost finished your wine," she said.
"I can always drink the rest of yours," he said. "You've hardly touched it."
"And stop squirming in your chair like that. Why can't you get comfortable? Something is always eating you," she said.
"Sorry," said the chef.
"And you drink too much," she added.
"I don't drink like this on a regular basis," said the chef. "It's just good wine. I don't drink a lot of wine this good. I'm trying to make the most of it."
She nodded and took a delicate bite from the center of her lamb chop. "I wish you had ordered some meat. You don't look well."
"Maybe it's my liver. Une crise de foie. I left the window open last night. The drafts, the night air . . . "
His mother frowned. "Don't make fun of me, Michel. It's not funny. You don't look well. I worry."
"I'm fine, I'm fine," scowled the chef. "I'm just working too damn hard. Not enough sleep."
"You don't even have health insurance. That terrible man you work for can't even give his people, his chef, health insurance. It's disgraceful."
"He can't afford it right now," said the chef. "I can't afford it."
His mother shook her head disapprovingly. "You could have worked here maybe. I could ask my friends. I'm sure he treats his people correctly here. You should let me ask."
"I couldn't be the chef here," said the chef. "I want to be in charge. I need the money, I can't afford to be just a commis."
"All right," she said. "Not here then, somewhere else, where you could be the chef. Like this."
The chef shook his head slowly. "I couldn't work like this . . . I can't get up at four in the morning and go down Fulton Street and put my nose in a bunch offish gills. I can't do fifteen, sixteen hours a day, six, seven days a week. And I'm just not that good to do this sort of food. Not as the chef anyway."
"That's a terrible defeatist attitude," said his mother. "You didn't always feel like this."
"Yeah, well, I'm getting older," said the chef.
"Exactly. Yes. You are getting older," said his mother. "And you still live like . . . like some sort of gypsy. Never enough money. Changing jobs, every two years another place, another apartment. No family, no insurance, you own nothing."
"I've always got you, right?" he said with a smile.
"Yes. For now. I won't always be here," she said. "I won't be here to help forever. Don't they pay you at your job?"
"They pay me," said the chef. "It's just everything is so expensive, you know. And I owe people money."
"You always owe people money. It's terrible to owe money. I don't owe anybody anything. I don't know how you live like that. And your friends, they look like a . . . like a motorcycle gang, not cuisiniers—"
The chef laughed and hurried to change the subject.
They ate quietly. His mother methodically stripped the last bits of fat from the lamb, leaving three thin white rib bones on an otherwise empty plate. The busboy appeared and removed the plates. The waiter pushed a cheese cart alongside the table. The chef's mother reached into her purse for her glasses and, perching them at the end of her nose, leaned over to inspect the cheese. After a moment's reflection she chose a runny-looking Pont l'Eveque. The chef, without looking, requested a wedge each of St. Andre and Camembert.
"I guess we like soft cheeses," said the chef.
"The cheese here is not the same. They ruin it for export," said his mother.
"They pasteurize it," said the chef.
"It's not the same," said his mother.
"Maybe you should live in France."
"Then how could I help