Can't Stand the Heat - Louisa Edwards [6]
“I’m not going anywhere,” he told Grant. “It looks okay. Frankie’s got the crew working, and everything’s under control.”
“Not yet, but it will be,” Grant promised, eyes narrowed. “That was the last bottle of rose vodka, we’re nearly out of raspberries, and the line cooks are on point with the first round of hors d’oeuvres. We can get the food trays going while you do your welcome speech, let these folks soak up some of the alcohol.”
That was Grant. For all his fussing and bossiness, and occasional friction with the authorityphobic Frankie, Grant was a master of organization.
Adam . . . wasn’t. He liked to get involved with things, get his hands dirty, explore. Which led to hours of playing in the kitchen with a new recipe, or driving all the way up through the Adirondacks to check out a new possible source for fresh goat cheese. He needed someone like Grant to keep him grounded. On track. Bounding along in the right direction.
Which, in this case, seemed to be behind the bar. Grant had swung open the movable piece at the side while he was giving Adam the rundown, and now he was tugging Adam’s sleeve to get him to step behind the bar and up onto the raised platform that helped the bartenders reach the top-shelf liquor.
Suddenly, Adam was head and shoulders above the milling crowd, and before he could blink, Grant had clapped loudly enough to get the attention of those standing closest.
Word spread throughout the room like a line of fire around a pan of cherries jubilee, and pretty soon it was quiet. Mostly. Adam paused long enough to hear several people clear their throats, and one inebriated guest tittered loudly before being shushed.
Grant beamed up at him encouragingly, and rather than wring his scrawny neck for shoving him up here with no warning, Adam settled for narrowing his eyes in a way that he hoped promised future, painful retribution. The answering sparkle in Grant’s gaze suggested that the message had been received, and was mainly fodder for amusement. He took off for the kitchen at a fast clip, clearly relieved to finally be allowed to feed the hordes.
Gritting his teeth, Adam carved out a “company” smile. The wide grin reserved for high-profile diners who wanted to see how a professional kitchen worked, and figured their status out in the real world entitled them to an all-access pass to Adam’s.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us tonight, as we celebrate the launch of Market. A new way to eat.”
There was applause, enough to relax him and make him think soaking the audience in liquor hadn’t been such a bad idea, after all.
“At Market, we want to bring back an old-fashioned idea: bone-deep knowledge of what you’re eating, and where it came from. Everything I serve, every ingredient I cook with, has been sourced from local suppliers. I don’t know about all of you,” he continued, falling into the comforting rhythm of this discussion he’d had so many times, with Frankie, with Grant, with the loan guy at the bank, with anyone who would listen, “but I’m sick of the grocery-store culture that has kids thinking chickens are born shrink-wrapped in plastic, or that peaches ripen in December. We’re so removed from our food! And it turns the experience of eating into a mundane chore.”
The house lights were dim, but the bar was lit from underneath and the spillover light reflected off the glassware and bottles, casting dancing white sparks over the upturned faces of the crowd.
“My mission here is to let all of you know—to let everyone who loves food and loves to eat know—it doesn’t have to be that way. Food is personal. It should be personal. Dining is an intimate experience, and I want to close the gap between diners and food producers. This is nothing new. Alice Waters has been talking about this since the sixties. What makes Market different is our dedication and our creativity. I refuse to cook boring food.
“No,” he continued, putting a hand flat on the bartop,