Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [38]
Rob stared. “Pot. For water. A couple inches will do it.” He pointed. “Steamer basket. The chokes go in there. The water boils, steam rises, cooks them. Shit.” He stomped over to the sink to fill the pot, ignoring Miranda’s outstretched hand. “Do you even know how to trim the artichokes?”
Miranda froze, and a cook behind her cursed loudly and had to dance sideways to avoid bashing her with the tray he was carrying. Miranda ducked her head, avoiding Adam’s sudden laser glare, and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
It was going to be a long night.
TEN
Adam was stoked, hyped up to a level usually reserved for just before orgasm after a long, drawn-out, sweaty bout of sex. Only this feeling had been sustained for more than four hours straight.
Market was a full-on, high-def blast.
The customers surged in, more than they had reservations for, until they were standing three deep at the bar, waiting and hoping for a table to open up. Grant had popped his head in to inform him, ecstatically, that Samara, their new bartender, was handling the pressure well. Grant liked to hire people he didn’t know, so he could crow about it later when they turned out to be awesome. And maybe he knew something Adam didn’t, because Grant’s hires almost always panned out.
Even that kid, Jess. Adam had to admit that Jess Wake had more than pulled his weight over the past week. His demeanor when he came to the pass to pick up his tables’ orders was intent, but calm. Focused speed. A quick peek into the dining room, though, revealed him laughing and charming the customers with that wide, bright smile, and Adam liked that.
Keep the punters happy and you can’t go wrong, as Frankie was fond of saying. Adam shot the sous-chef a glance, amused as always to see him manning the grill like a gunner on a battleship. Frankie’s wild-man act was toned down a bit, in deference to the steady flow of work, but nothing could shake him out of his intensity when he had meat on the grill. And he undoubtedly set the standard for the rest of the kitchen.
The crew looked to Adam for orders; they looked to Frankie for cues. Tonight, they seemed to have gotten the message, big-time. No playing around, this is not a drill, make or break.
Cook like your heartbeat is connected to the movement of your hands, like it’s life-or-death every second.
The orders flew in, so fast Adam could barely shout them out quickly enough, and the food, when it came up to the hot plate, was superlative. The pile of tasting spoons next to the sink was a testament to his crew’s dedication to seasoning. Warm pride swelled in Adam’s chest.
Even his little scribbler hadn’t performed too badly. Aside from a near-collision early on, Miranda had kept out from underfoot, and hadn’t seemed to slow Rob Meeks down. Family meal had been adequate, if uninspired. Adam planned to do something about that as they went forward. Restaurants that served shit at the family meal usually ended up serving shit to customers, too, as kitchen morale took a nosedive and cooks stopped caring.
It was nearly ten o’clock and they were down to the last few tickets. The rush was over, and the kitchen was slowing, the fever pitch tapering to a low hum of activity.
That’s when it happened.
He’d called a fourtop order, three asparagus salads and one soup. The apps came up, all at the same time. The salads looked good: fresh, unbruised lettuce with just the right amount of dressing, raw asparagus stalks sliced on a precise bias. He reached automatically for a spoon to taste the soup.
It was a cold soup in deference to the warming weather, a variation on the classic vichyssoise. It used parsnips and shallots for the purée, instead of the more familiar potato and leek, but the base of the soup was still chicken stock.
Adam inhaled as the spoon reached his face, and frowned. Something was off. He opened his mouth and breathed in again as he tilted the soup onto his