Cooking Dirty

by Jason Sheehan

  THERE WERE NO LIMOS AND NO BIG PARTIES after the awards were done. Or rather, there probably were, but none that Laura or I knew about or were invited to. Geeks at the prom all over again. As everyone was making for the doors, I did manage to shake hands with Ruth Reichl from Gourmet. She’s an incredibly short woman with a charming, shy smile and a formidable mass of curly hair like a show poodle trying to jump straight off her head. She congratulated me, which I thought was nice. She also called me Jerry, but that was okay. After that, there were photos to be taken of all the winners. Because I worked anonymously, I stood proudly among my peers with my back to the camera, my medal draped between my shoulder blades. In the final picture, it looked like I was trying to sniff David Rosengarten’s armpit.

  While walking back the few blocks to our hotel, Laura and I stopped like tourists to stare up at the gleaming spike of the Chrysler Building and to kiss in its presence. In the fullness of its reality and closeness, it was no less impressive than it had been in my imaginings—in those dawn moments years ago when I could feel it looming just over my possible horizon like a dare, like proof of all I hadn’t accomplished, and never would. I was still a couple weeks shy of my thirtieth birthday, and finally, for at least a few minutes and even if no one else noticed it, Laura and I owned Manhattan. It was a nice feeling while it lasted. When all was said and done, we rode the elevator up to our room.

  A SHINY MEDAL and a couple souvenir programs weren’t the only things Laura and I brought back to Denver with us.

  For a couple years, we’d been discussing what we would do about names if Laura ever got pregnant, either by accident or design. Our first thought was to sell the naming rights to large corporations as a way to finance the child’s eventual college education and/or bail bond. While we understood that it might be rough on this wholly speculative kid to go through life saddled with a name like Kotex Wonder-mop Sheehan or Coors Light Presents Starbucks Invesco Sheehan, we figured that eventually he or she would come to understand.

  But what if no large corporations were willing to pony up? we wondered. Well, our backup plan had always been to name this purely hypothetical child after the place it was conceived. You know, Denver or Mohave or Camry.

  As things turned out, my lovely daughter ought to have been named Manhattan.

  I told you Laura and I had always been good in hotels.

  THE CHILD ARRIVED RIGHT ON SCHEDULE: in the middle of a snowstorm, on Super Bowl Sunday, and only after seventy-some hours of labor and three days and nights when neither Laura nor I slept a wink. The doctor was about fourteen years old and behaved as though he’d never seen a vagina before. Not even in pictures. And Laura had, insanely, decided on delivering naturally—which meant no meds, no painkillers. Not even for me.

  But she did it. And I was there, watching, amazed. It was the greatest magic trick ever. One minute, there’s my wife. The next minute, poof! Some terrified-looking Cub Scout is pulling a baby out of her like a rabbit from a hat.

  We named her Parker Finn. She was the second most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, lying swaddled, with a tiny hat on, in a bassinet set beside the full-size bed where the first most beautiful girl I’d ever seen lay drooling and snoring like a ripsaw. I read to Parker from Jacques Pépin’s book The Apprentice, while Laura slept. I watched my daughter as she drifted off, had her first dream; more in love than I’d ever thought possible even if she did smell kinda like veal.

  PARKER WAS SMALL AND VORACIOUS, always hungry, and I found it odd that my lovely wife—who had, for so long, shared this food-obsessed life with me—had suddenly become food, breast-feeding everywhere for a child who was never full. Laura had also become (in my opinion) an ascetic. No coffee. No booze. No raw food or Indian food or weird cheeses or truffles. I would never have been able to make the sacrifice, which is just one among myriad reasons why I’m really glad I was born a boy.

  I also found it fascinating that Parker had been born into this world that was only mine by forced adoption. She experienced her first fine-dining meal at two weeks old, lying in her car seat between Laura and me at Clair de Lune in Denver, watching with fascination as we ate. Sushi bars and Ethiopian restaurants, basement dives and shiny strip-mall cafés—these are her natural environments, the places where she grew up. She came with us to so many work dinners, so many bars, on every plane. She had more airline miles behind her before her second birthday than I had had by the time I was twenty-five.

  I knew she was a good kid, a smart kid, and I knew she was my kid because she has my stubby legs, my freakishly thick neck, and because, at three years old, while out playing with me one day in a pet store, she looked up at a cage full of parakeets, pointed and asked, “Daddy, what do those taste like?”

  I told her I didn’t know, that I’d never eaten parakeet before and didn’t know anyone who had.

  She thought about this for a minute while watching them flutter around their cage. I waited beside her.

  “We should find out,” she finally said. “Buy me one.”

  I didn’t, but I really wanted to. Instead, I told her that if she was really interested, then maybe when she was older (the parent’s classic evasion), we could find out together. She accepted this and put her little hand in mine. We walked away, to go and debate what the guinea pigs might taste like—something with which I did have some experience.

  So it’s not only what you don’t know that matters. It’s also what you’re willing to someday learn; what you might not know right now, but will. Life never gets dull so long as you’re prepared to one day eat the parakeets.

  It’s six-fifteen. I’m pulling a clean shirt out of the closet. I’m half-brushing my teeth. It’s dinnertime, showtime, time to go to work. Reservations at seven: Vigoda, party of four. I’m checking Map-Quest, my wallet, hustling Laura along as gently as I can: “Motherfucker, come on! We gotta go now.”

  It’s four in the afternoon and I’m changing in my car, middle of downtown, rush hour heating up. A nice button-down oxford and a tie that almost matches, my summer-weight sport coat with the spot on the sleeve where the cat barfed that’s almost-but-not-quite-completely unnoticeable unless you’re looking for it. The cop rolls by me slowly, wondering what the hell I’m doing, wrestling to get my arms in the sleeves—looking at me like he’s seen nothing weirder today. I tuck my shirt in by the unmanned valet’s stand, crush out a cigarette, bypass the smiling hostess and meet my boss at the bar. Drinks, herring amuse, smoked salmon done white trash–style with a coffee can full of hardwood chips and an oven door jammed open with side towels, more drinks. The skate wing is not good. The loup de mer is. City-council people eating fried potatoes at the bar, political operatives by the windows. An impromptu martini-tasting breaks out. I step outside for a smoke and run into the mayor. He’s a good guy—an ex-bar-and-restaurant guy, veteran of more years than he’d probably like to admit—and I like him. He reads my columns sometimes so I like him double. Standing there, I tell him a funny story about getting loaded on the job in Boulder last weekend and falling asleep on a display of Southwestern carpets at the import store next door to the restaurant. I don’t know why he wastes his time listening to me, but he does, and when I’m done, he laughs, so now I like him triple. He makes a crack about how, being mayor, he has a driver now so doesn’t have to worry about that kind of thing, but I’ve heard stories about back when he was in The Life. We shake hands. He goes in. I finish my cigarette, make for the bar, and eat a whole lobster. Two-hour dinner turns to four. When I leave, there’s a parking ticket on my car. Later, I’ll try to expense it. It’s been a good night.

  It’s ten in the morning and I can’t seem to peel myself up off the couch—sleeping in last night’s clothes, red-eyed, mouthful of cotton and a headache like a vise on the back of my neck. I smell like sake, like stale smoke and spilled beer and worse. I feel like a character in a cartoon, like if I were to cough right now, all that would come out would be cigarette butts and bottle caps and maybe a piece of sushi
or two. “Have fun last night?” Laura yells down from the top of the stairs, smiling down at me like the avenging angel of hangovers. I think about that for a minute. “Fucked if I know,” I say, but obviously, yeah, I did. Vague recall of sashimi with real Japanese wasabi, ridiculously expensive, and arctic char on a powdered waffle and arguing across the bar with one of the sushi rollers. A box of wooden matches rattles in my pocket, memento of where I’d been. What I don’t recall is getting home.

  It’s eight o’clock at night, nine, ten, and I’m just trying to get home, so wracked by food poisoning I have to pull over every couple miles to throw up and hurting so bad I want to die until, accidentally, I almost do—heaving so hard I pass out, tumble from the car into a gutter filled with slush and running, icy water. I lay there for twenty minutes, slowly freezing to death, until I’m awakened by my bowels letting go. I shit myself volcanically. Humiliating as it is, I’m sorta thankful because at least it woke me, maybe saved my life. So many people who’ve known me have already assumed that someday I’d be found dead in a gutter. Dragging myself back into the car, I’m just happy to fucking disappoint them.

  It’s one in the afternoon, machaca on the patio by the waterfall while the mariachis play. It’s three in the morning, upstairs in a room above the bar, drinking high-priced tequila and passing joints with Hollywood’s B-list. Another story I’ll never get to tell. It’s ten in the morning and I’m at the bar already—breakfast beers and a whole afternoon ahead of me as visiting dignitary in a friend’s kitchen. My buddy Ian comes forward from the galley, wipes his hands on a side towel, looks me over. “Let’s get you dressed,” he says. First time I’ve worn a chef’s jacket in years. It’s big on me, but they all are. Putting it on feels like slipping back into my own skin.

  It’s eight o’clock. I’d taken my last clean shirt from the luggage, my party jeans, my dad’s old cowboy boots, polished to a cinnamon gloss, and my leather jacket. Putting on the costume, I’d told Laura I was going out for a little bit, asked her if she wanted to come along. She’d waved me off, laughing incredulously as if to say, “You must be kidding.” We were just back from Manhattan again, Philadelphia, Rochester—a whirlwind tour. She was exhausted. Kid had the sniffles. I was only starving.

  So alone, standing outside the restaurant in the snow, soft, silent flakes powdering me like confectioners’ sugar, I watch the garde-manger inside the warm square of the window laying his weight against the works of a candy-apple-red slicer, humping it, with forearm pressed to the guard and free hand waiting beneath the spinning blade for that one, perfect, wisp-thin piece of prosciutto to fall. I watch a girl with mauled line cook’s fingers and the grace of a concert pianist roll and cut handmade pasta, the fine hair on her arms furred with flour. The neighborhood foot traffic ebbs and flows, forms currents, whirlpools around bums, parking kiosks and me—standing riveted, finishing my cigarette, watching a vision as ancient as cuisine: the rise of a bottle of olive oil in a cook’s hand tilting it, and the thin stream of green-gold oil splashing across the plate. In the snow, everything is muffled, soft. I can hear the metronome of my own heart, the hiss of my breath escaping, smoke laddering upward in the still, cold air.

  Through a door, another door, down a broad, sweeping flight of stairs and to my table. Glass of Corbara in the sudden damp warmth and noise of a busy floor; crochette, a ball of buratta as big as half a baseball and a plate of prosciutto di San Daniele; another glass of wine. I sit by myself at my table, happy, eating with my fingers, leaving greasy smudges on my wineglass, leaning back comfortably against the leather banquette. In the back, by the kitchen door, I see a cook pass by. A young guy, baseball hat turned backward, dressed in a white coat that doesn’t fit him quite right. Busy, this kid. Focused. Wrestling with a sheet tray covered in resting balls of milky-white pizza dough.

  I finish my wine, lay a curl of prosciutto on my tongue and wait for my body’s heat to melt the soft marble of fat. I shift position, crossing and uncrossing my legs, rubbing the back of my neck where, now, a weight of weariness has settled. My feet hurt in these ridiculous boots. The collar of my shirt bites at my throat.

  The kid, the cook with the backward baseball hat and check pants, pops out the door again, moving with a dancer’s confidence, a veteran’s conservation of motion—twining his way through a knot of people, tapping a rôtisseur on the shoulder, ducking down, coming up again with a change-out tray filled with provisions. Flash of a smile—a quick, private joke passing that I can’t hear—and a fast, agile shift in his weight, bumping a door closed with his hip somewhere out of sight. There are raised voices, beleaguered station chefs calling for resupply, and the cook is lifting his burden, moving back toward the kitchen, stopping—a stutter step, just an instant—to turn and look out over the room, the floor, the thrilling, thrumming, high buzz of a busy night when everything is going right and everyone is being fed and everywhere echoes with laughter, muddled voices, the tink of silver on plates.

  In that moment I dream I am flying—back, suddenly, and away from this place, this basement; away from Denver, through Albuquerque; past ballrooms and buffet lines and cramped galleys; a flutter of Jolly Rogers and knife wounds and pan burns (remembered pain so sweet once it’s gone) and joints, snowy alleys and wine bottles, past Florida, Jimmy’s, Buffalo, La Cité, Rochester; snatches of favorite songs blowing out behind me, flurries of tickets on the slide, a thousand smiles, ten thousand nights, blood smeared on an apron, mussels in the pan, butter smeared on fingers, Angelo’s arms dusted with flour, his strong hands holding mine, moving them. “Like this, Jason. Like this . . .”

  Full loop. I’m back again in the restaurant, the basement, heart hammering, swollen with love. And I’m standing, dreaming, walking across the floor, tearing open my dress shirt, buttons popping and scattering like shrapnel, pulling it off, dropping it, stepping out of my uncomfortable boots and kicking them clear, wriggling out of my party jeans, pushing through the swinging door into the back of the house, the locker room, to find once more my death-smelling work boots, my T-shirt, CHARLIE DON’T SURF, my white coat and cook’s checks, my Sharpies, cigarettes, knife kit; saying, “Chef, I’m here. I’m back. What do you need? What do you need?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Laura asked. We were sitting on the couch watching TV, and I’d just asked her if she could help me with the dedication and acknowledgments for this book. “You’ve been working on your Academy Awards acceptance speech for twenty years, but you’ve never thought about this before?”

  I admitted that no, I really hadn’t. Never satisfied with what I have and perpetually longing for those things I never will have, I’ve given some thought to what I would say when presented with my Nobel Prize (for cooking, of course), my Oscar, my Latin Grammy. But this? Not so much.

  In the end, Laura did help—jogging my memory and reminding me of some of the people who, over the years, have helped me come to this weird place where I now find myself; people who deserve so much more than mere acknowledgment, who are owed blood and sweat and bone and (in some cases) money. Lots and lots of money.

  First and foremost, there’s my folks, Mike and Cindy Sheehan, without whom I wouldn’t exist. I’d like to thank them for making me, raising me well, instilling in me a love of words (especially the four-letter variety) and for not just tying me up in a sack and tossing me off a bridge even when the option must’ve been very, very tempting.

  Ellis and Kathy Serdikoff—thanks for doing the same with Laura. If not for one fateful night in Ithaca, New York (and several fateful nights that followed), I would no doubt be standing on a hot line somewhere, watching the sauce, sweating through my whites and wondering what could have been. In a very real way, none of this would’ve happened without your daughter. So again, thanks for that.

  Thanks to La Cocinita Magazine for giving me my first real writing gig, and to Peri Pakroo for explaining to me exactly what it entailed; to Gwyneth Doland for making me a critic and to Patty Calhoun for turning me into a
n actual writer. Chief, I owe you so many beers . . . Thanks to Jane Le, copy editor extraordinaire, for teaching me that there is a right word for everything and for knowing stuff about early eighties punk music, zombies, French gender, Chinese ducks, Sleestak and everything else that goes into the construction of a proper restaurant review.

  A special thanks to everyone at Westword, particularly those on the editorial side, and especially Dave Herrera and Amy Haimerl. While I am very thankful for the help, support, bummed smokes, afternoon beers and kind words offered by all the ink-stained wretches with whom I daily labor, DH and Amy have been there from the start.

  I’d like to acknowledge National Public Radio, where once upon a time host Jay Allison and independent producer Dan Gediman let me write a three-minute radio piece about barbecue for their project, a resurrection of the Edward R. Murrow program This I Believe.

  David Dunton of Havey Klinger, Inc., heard the piece during its original broadcast and was moved enough to drop me an e-mail asking if I’d ever thought of writing a book. For that, I can never thank him enough.

  It’s been a lifetime of luck and good timing and weird coincidence that has led me to this point. I’ve got to thank my editor, Paul Elie, for taking a chance on me (and helping me find a title).

  Finally, I’d like to acknowledge all the cooks and chefs, waiters and dishwashers, owners, partners, dealers, fixers, suppliers, motherfuckers and friends who make up the cast of this book. During the jagged course of my career as a white jacket, I did time in something like thirty different kitchens. Some of them are described here; some of them are not. Names have been changed, timelines screwed with and, undoubtedly, hundreds of small details lost over the years. But good, bad or horrific, there was never a post stood where I didn’t take something away with me or learn a valuable lesson.