Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [87]
Jose, my boss, stops by, wanting to take me to the Green-market. I quickly tie up a few loose ends, make sure Frank is briefed, and walk down to the market - about eleven blocks. We fondle, sniff, squeeze and rummage through produce for a while, returning to the restaurant an hour later with pears, lemon verbena, some baby fennel, fingerling potatoes and some turnips with greens, for all of which I'll have to come up with specials. The joke around Les Halles is that every time Jose walks in the door, the food cost climbs 2 percent. The man would have me mount all my sauces with Normandy butter and foie gras, garnish everything with fresh truffles if I didn't squawk - but he loves food, a good thing in an owner. Jose gets a dreamy look on his face when he hears about black truffles coming into season, or the first soft shell crabs of the season, even at sixty dollars (!) a dozen, or anything seasonal, high-quality, classic French, gamey, or difficult to find. He wants to be the first to sell it, whatever it costs. It's a strategy that seems to be working. The backbone of the business may be steak-frites but our regulars are often pleasantly surprised to find 15 dollars-worth of exotic food on a plate they're only paying 20 for, and little extras like that help develop a loyal clientele. Life with Jose means frequent surprise deliveries of very perishable and very expensive items, which I have to scramble to find outlets for, but what chef doesn't enjoy a load of Dover sole, still dripping with channel water and twisted with rigor, falling into his clutches? Okay, my grill man won't be too thrilled - he's the guy who'll have to skin and bone and reassemble them to order - but that's just tough.
Back from the market, night crew suiting up in the locker-room, I have just enough time to assemble the orders for Saturday. This is something I enjoy doing. My young gangster friend Segundo and I take a full tour of my walk-in and reach-ins. I've got two clipboards under my arm: one to assemble my orders (one page for Saturday, another to begin the Monday list) and a second for prep lists - my Things To Do Tomorrow list.
I break it down by company as I go along. De Bragga gets the Monday meat order; Schaller and Webber, the bacon. Riviera and Ridge get the produce - I'm too embarrassed to talk to Baldor right now. I see I need 40 pounds of whitewater mussels, 30 pounds of squid, eight whole fish, and a new fish of the day for Saturday and Sunday. I call Wild Edibles and talk to Chris Gerage, who was also a chef for Pino at one point, and we discuss what's good for tomorrow. I go for some wild striped bass, some king salmon, and some baby octopus for appetizer special. Dry goods, I'm locked in for the weekend - no Saturday deliveries - but I start building a Monday list anyway. From D'Artagnan, I'll need some more foie gras by Monday, some duck bones, maybe some magret, and maybe I'll splurge on some fresh black trumpets and some chanterelles for a special - Jose will be thrilled - and since wild boar has been a big moneymaker for me lately, maybe I'll make up on the boar what I lose on the 'shrooms. I add two boar legs to my D'Artagnan list. Segundo knows exactly what I'm going to ask him and in what order he's ready for me.
We go through the familiar list of items, in my inept, but still useful Spanish:
'Mesclun?'
'Veinte,' he replies.
'Cebolla blanca'
'Una'
'Shallot?'
'Tres.'
And so on . . .
Dairy has to be in early or they'll call me which I hate. So I call the Monday dairy in right away: two poly milks, four 55-pound blocks of sweet butter, one case of heavy cream ultra, a case of large eggs. Gourmand, another specialty