Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [85]
More orders come in. It's getting to be full-tilt boogie time: another pheasant, more pork, another liver, and ouch! a navarin - a one-pot wonder but requiring a lot of digging around in my low-boy for all the garnishes. The key to staying ahead on a busy station is moving on a dish as soon as its name is out of Cachundo's mouth - setting up the pan, doing the pre-searing, getting it into the oven quickly, making the initial moves - so that later, when the whole board is fluttering with dupes, I can still tell what I have working and what I have waiting without having to read the actual tickets again.
'Ready on twelve!' says Carlos, who's already got a load of steaks and chops and a few tunas coming up. He wants to know if I'm close on my end. 'Let's go on twelve!' I say. Miguel starts dunking spuds. I call for mashed potatoes for the boudins from Omar, give the apples a few tosses over flame, heat and mount my liver sauce, pull the pork mignons from the oven and clip off the strings that hold them together, heat potatoes and veg for the pheasant, squeeze the sauce for the pheasant between pots on to a back burner, move the mussels off the heat and into a ready bowl, calling, 'Papas fritas para conchas negras' to Miguel as I spin and bend to check my duck breasts. Sauce pot with duck sauce and quince, I'll heat those right in the sauce, no room now, the orders are really coming in, the printer chattering away nonstop. I'm sneaking peeks at the dupes while they're still coming off the printer, trying to pick out what I'll be needing, like a base runner stealing signals. The intercom buzzes and I pick up, annoyed.
'Line one for the chef,' says the hostess.
I push the blinking green light. It's a salesman, wanting to sell me smoked fish. I answer all sweetness and light, lulling him into the bear trap in the Bigfoot style: 'So let me get this straight,' I say, after he's jabbered away about his full line of delicacies, me trying to sound a little slow and confused, 'you want to sell me food, right?' 'Yes!' comes the reply, the salesman sounding encouraged by my interest and apparent stupidity. 'And in general, you'd say,' I continue, 'you have like, a lot of restaurant accounts - in fact, you'd probably say that, like, you are in the business of servicing restaurants . . . and chefs in particular?' 'Oh, yes! says the witless salesman, beginning a litany of the usual prestigious accounts, the names of other chefs who buy his fine smoked sturgeon, salmon, trout and fish eggs. I have had enough and cut him off cold. 'So . . . WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING CALLING ME IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING LUNCH RUSH?!' I scream into the phone, smashing it abruptly into the cradle.
I catch the duck just in time, roll it over skin-side down again and pull it out of the oven. I've got a filet poivre on order - not on the regular lunch menu - but it's a steady customer, says Cachundo, and I'm set up for it anyway, so I start searing one off. Another pasta. I pour extra virgin into a pan and saute some paper-thin garlic slices with some crushed red pepper, add the artichoke hearts, roasted vegetables, some olives. I don't know why, but I always start humming Tony Bennett or Dino - today it's 'Ain't That a Kick in the Head' - when I'm cooking pasta. I like cooking pasta. Maybe it's that I always wanted to be Italian American in some dark part of my soul; maybe I get off on that final squirt of emulsifying extra virgin, just after the basil goes in, I don't know. More pore mignons, the runner calls down to Janine, who's making clafoutis batter at her work station in the cellar, and she comes running up to plate desserts . . .
We're doing well, so far. I'm keeping up with the grill, which is a faster station (unless a table orders