It's So Easy - Duff Mckagan [19]
We couldn’t just grab anything we wanted. The owners usually allotted each of us a piece of chicken plus some rice and vegetables. As one of the prep chefs, I did have free rein to prepare the allotted ingredients as I wished. A bunch of my coworkers were from Mexico and Central America, and they taught me how to spice up the simple meal. Under their tutelage, I developed a go-to dish. Sometimes we would eat it every day for weeks on end.
PREP CHEF POLLO
—Skin and rinse chicken breasts, and arrange on broiling pan.
—Depending on thickness of the breasts, grill for approximately five minutes per side under the broiler. During final thirty seconds of broiling on each side, brush on a thick layer of teriyaki sauce.
—In a mixing bowl, toss together diced avocado, julienned jalapeño peppers, and cubed pineapple.
—Cook wild rice together with an ample amount of bread crumbs. This thickens up the rice and adds more gusto and calories to the meal.
—Place chicken breasts on rice and spoon spicy fruit salsa liberally over the top.
To this day, I love to make that dish for family and friends—though now I usually grill the chicken on the barbecue.
For the first three months in L.A. I lived on Prep Chef Pollo. Then suddenly I found myself scrambling to find both food and work: just after Thanksgiving, the Black Angus had to lay me off—I was the last one hired, so the first one to go when things slowed down.
Looking back, of course, I realize I would have qualified for government assistance. I’m not sure why I never applied for unemployment or went to a food bank during the worst periods between various jobs. Part of my reluctance was a legacy of my mom’s philosophy, impressed upon us as kids. Much of her thinking on such issues was informed by living through the Great Depression; she emphasized the fact that there were always people more needy than we were. I believed that resources were scarce, and that they should go to those with kids to feed or those too old or infirm to fend for themselves. It wasn’t that I was too proud, either; I just would have felt somehow dishonest because I knew that if I were really, really bad off, I could have called a brother or sister—I had a last resort. As a matter of fact, my sister Joan did send some money to me once. I didn’t ask her, she just knew I needed it.
My reluctance to avail myself of government services had been reinforced a few years prior, while I was still living in Seattle. One of my bands was on tour, and we were stuck in San Francisco without any money. I hadn’t eaten in a couple of days, and I was so hungry that I went to get emergency food stamps at a municipal aid office. I felt so down standing in that line at the government office. I had made choices that put me in that predicament, whereas the others in line—mothers with children in tow, for instance—seemed faced with situations largely beyond their control. I realized two things at that moment: my own problems paled in comparison to the level of desperation many of the people depending on assistance faced; and I never wanted to reach that level of desperation. This was definitely a motivating factor in my always keeping a job and usually having an apartment when I lived in Hollywood.
After I lost my job at the Black Angus, food joined the list of things that were hard to fit into the budget. I was left with the task of figuring out a cheap way to cook and subsist with only a hot plate, a single pan, and a small refrigerator. That’s when I discovered the wonders of Top Ramen, and after some experimentation I hit upon the perfect modifications to provide a filling meal for about a buck a serving:
HOLLYWOOD (NOODLE) BOWL
—Bring a pot of water to a hard boil.
—Add ramen noodles and a package of frozen mixed vegetables and cook for three minutes.
—Crack a raw egg into the boiling soup and let cook for an additional thirty