Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [61]
Which is how I found myself in a bathroom full of machine-guns.
Gino's New York, unlike its little brother in Baltimore, was still busy - crazy busy - and in every way, an out-of-control madhouse. If I wasn't already a burnt-out case from four years of drug abuse and two years in a Columbus Avenue pick-up joint and the cumulative effects of my whole checkered career to this point, I was after Gino's. Gino's finished me.
Brought in as the chef to replace the man whose jacket I'd discovered in Baltimore, I was shocked - even I was shocked - at the level of debauchery and open criminality. On my first day in Gino's New York, I found that the extremely well-paid head of prep could not so much as peel an onion - when he deigned to show up at work at all. When I inquired, I was matter-of-factly informed by the New York GM that he was the boss's coke dealer, kept around so that the boss and upper management could conveniently re-up if their little screwtop bottles ran empty.
The GM, a jangly, untrustworthy character, who seemed to be high on quaaludes most of the time, would disappear on benders for days at a time. This was problematic, as he had the only keys to the office. When the local wise guys showed up - as they did every Tuesday - looking for protection money (this kept our delivery trucks from having their tires slashed), we had to jimmy the office door to get at the safe. When no one with the combination was around, the assistant manager would simply ask the service bartender for a loan of a few thousand; he was always good for a few grand, as he did a bang-up business dealing coke to the employees.
A quick review of the schedule and time cards for my mammoth kitchen staff revealed more than a few irregularities. Juan Rodriguez, saute man, for instance, had been punching in as Juan Martinez, Juan García, and Juan Pérez - all of whom were imaginary creations the front office had been kind enough to keep paying, in spite of the fact that they clearly did not exist. If half the cooks were on the line when they were supposed to be as opposed to selling guns, or hiding in a stairwell smoking weed, or cooking up freebase in a bathroom, it was a good thing. Expediting was done by whoever happened to be in the kitchen at the time. Food for Baltimore was trucked into our walk-ins, rotated into our stocks, and then shipped out - such as it was the next day. We made our own pasta . . . sometimes. We also bought pasta from our other stores, we bought pasta from outside, often all three at once. Gigantic steam kettles simmered with Gorgonzola and garlic cream for our very popular garlic bread. (Eight bucks for a baguette and some goo.) And herds of sightseers, tourists, businessmen, gawkers, rubes and hungry fanny-packers poured through the doors.
The food was not bad. God knows we had enough cooks, plenty of equipment, and room to put it. Somehow, things got done, though I have no idea how; the place had its own momentum, like some rudderless ocean liner, captain and crew long gone - it just kept going, plowing through ice fields. Someone with a brain had designed the line: a sensible trough of water for pasta, with cute fitted baskets, ran the length of the range-tops, for easy dunking. Nice refrigerated bains held garnishes and mise-en-place, so that each cook had an artist's palette of easy-access ingredients at hand. Downstairs, a long bar curled around the dining room, serving a lighter menu of trattoria items, sandwiches, quick-grilled foods, cheese, shellfish. Outside, when it was warm, a long barbecue grill serviced the cafe.
I fine-tuned the menu, meeting with the Shadow for a few minutes a day, satisfying him by simply responding to his culinary whims. 'Bagna cauda? I can do that. No problem! Clams oreganata? Why not?' I had no delusions of chefly integrity or personal agenda where Italian menu items were concerned,