Bone in the Throat - Anthony Bourdain [83]
"It's good, it's good," said Al, not entirely convinced.
Tommy looked around at the crowded dining room. "You know, they've got it timed here. They only seat like twenty people every half hour. They won t serve more than that. They want to keep the pressure off the kitchen. Lets them keep things cool in there, they can make nice. They won't serve faster than that. One of the reasons the food's so good."
"So, Tommy," said Al. "Tell me a little thing about yourself. How'd you get into the cooking thing? How did that happen?"
Tommy relaxed at the question. He smiled a little bit.
"Hey, I always liked to cook. From when I was a kid. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen—you didn't have a lotta choice about that if you were in my family. You wanted to see my mother, you found her in the kitchen, roasting peppers, makin' sauce. She'd cook stuff just to give it away People would come over sometimes and bring some food and they'd cook something up special and my mother would cook somethin' else and then everybody would sit down together and eat. It was like a big social thing at my house, people always droppin' by, say hello, maybe they stay and eat something. My mother was a pretty good cook. Everybody in the neighborhood thought so. A lot of food production in my house, I can tell you . . . So, a lot of times, I'd help her out in there, or somebody would come over with a lot of food and my mother would tell me to give them a hand.
"Anyway, one summer I got this summer job out at one of those big fish houses they got in Sheepshead Bay. You know the kinda place—fried fish, fried scallops, fried shrimp, steamers, a lobster tank in the window—that sorta place. So I did that one summer and then when I got outta high school, I went back there for a job. They had a new chef they just hired and this guy has got his own ideas about food. They got him straight outta the CIA—you know what that is?"
"The Culinary Institute, that's the place up there in Hyde Park, right?"
"Right," said Tommy. "So, anyway, this new chef is there and he's not crazy at all about the six different kindsa deep-fried bullshit they been serving at this place. He wants a new menu. He wants better food. He's right outta school and he's ambitious and for him, the sky's the limit. He wants to get famous, and fast. So, all of a sudden, this place where I been working, where I thought I was pretty hot shit, dunkin fries and steamin lobsters, all of a sudden we're makin' real food."
Tommy paused while the waiter filled his wine glass.
"So, the chef, he's not too popular with some of the old-timers in the kitchen. They're used to makin' things their own way and in their own sweet time. So when the chef needed something special, like when we got some parties comin' up, these weddings and banquets, he needed somebody to help him and that turned out to be me.
"And I liked it. I had a lotta fun. I'd never seen half the stuff this guy was making before. I had to play some serious catch-up just to keep up with the guy . . . So, there I am, learning a lotta new shit and I was havin' a good time doing it. People were impressed. Course he was drivin' the fuckin' place outta business with the kinda food he was ordering, but that's another story. Nobody gave a shit about food cost in those days.
"So, we're doin' all these parties together, me and this guy. We're holing up in the walk-in sometimes twelve, thirteen hours at a clip, spooning aspic and chaudfroid onto whole poached fish and turkey breasts and hams. We're makin' pates and galantines and decorating them with all these cute little garnishes the guy taught me. We're wrappin' stuff up in pastry, and making flowers and leaves out of the dough. And I gotta say, a lotta