The Art of Eating In - Cathy Erway [130]
Once at the venue, we arranged all the courses in chafing dishes and platters along a serving table. The only thing that needed to be done now was grilling the peach halves. While the guys got to work on this, I carefully cut each cornbread tray into equal squares. The crowd was beginning to filter into the backyard, and people came over to the grill station, eyeing the offerings. The music started to play. Darin and Greg had created an organized system so people could line up for food. As I was waiting to begin service, I saw an extra bunch of scallions lying around and decided to add them to the sesame noodles. While chopping the bunch with one of Michael’s razor-sharp knives, I sliced off the tip of my thumb along with a sliver of the nail. I lurched for paper towels while blood rushed down my wrist.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked, in the midst of slicing brisket. I nodded, as it didn’t hurt terribly. But the blood was quickly leaking through the thin towel. I went to the bathroom in the bar’s basement and twisted a sturdy paper towel knot around my thumb. But by the time I got back upstairs, it was soaked through, and we’d just begun serving the anxious line of customers. I grabbed another paper towel and stood by the chafing dishes, ready to scoop collards or succotash onto plates. One of the first people who came to my station was Matt.
“What’s wrong with your finger? Do you need a Band-Aid?” he asked. I nodded, wincing. The pain wasn’t horrible, but it also wouldn’t cease. The harder I squeezed on my finger to stop the bleeding, the more piercing it felt. Matt returned a few minutes later with a Band-Aid, some paper towels, and something that looked like it was made of rubber.
“Here; the bar gave me this finger condom. You put it on over the Band-Aid,” he explained. I’d never seen or worn a finger condom in my life, but after wearing it for the rest of the night, I can say that it’s effective against the spread of blood in the food you’re serving up. Over the next dizzying hour, we managed to serve most of the people who’d shown up to the party. The line slowed down afterward, and the three of us chefs, plus Darin, Greg, and a couple of friends of theirs who had been helping to serve, could get a drink and relax. The compliments we’d received on the food had all been positive:
“Insane.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Freaking delicious.”
Greg chomped into his third or fourth slice of brisket, looking to the heavens in thanks. My friend Chrysanthe, a vegetarian, gave a thumbs-up on the grilled peach half, and I snuck an extra one onto her plate. The cornbread dessert had turned out to be a big hit, too, to my relief.
But the best part of the meal was yet to come. A hearty lump of beef tenderloin had been bobbing about in the immersion circulator that Michael brought to the venue and snuck beside the grill. This would be for the staff or “family meal,” in restaurant terminology, which we would all enjoy after service. We had all eaten our share of the barbecue food by the time the tenderloin was ready to come out of the bath, but as soon as Michael peeled away the air-suctioned plastic the meat had been wrapped in, a whiff of perfectly seasoned beef and rosemary filled the cooking station. He tossed it onto the hot grill for a quick char. After it had been browned, he sliced the tenderloin into pieces, revealing a juicy, pink, perfectly medium-rare complexion. I could barely put down three bites of that tender steak, though I wanted to eat much more. There was also potato salad Michael had somehow found time to prepare, served alongside it.
“This is the real stuff here,” Michael said, waving at the rest of the barbecue food we’d labored over for the past day or two.
Darin, Greg, and their friends eagerly filled up on the family meal. I couldn’t decide which food was better—that or the barbecue meal. They were both some of the best foods I’d ever tasted.
“I don’t think I can look at food again for a long time,” Mark joked.
I shook