Christmas had come early for Anne that year. I had inadvertently given her a gift that she enjoys to this day, a choice moment to call on whenever she feels the need to exact her revenge for all those moments of her youth that were spoiled by her little sister.
Thirty years later, Anne and I are closer than we ever have been. I love her to death, and vice versa. But she'll never love me too much to remind me, with a twinkle in her eye, of the day my culinary vanity came crashing down to earth in her airy Rhode Island brownstone.
For the Birds
TAMARA MURPHY
Tamara Murphy worked in a number of New York City restaurants before moving to Seattle in 1988. She worked at Dominique's, then became executive chef at Campagne, near the Pike Place Market, where she was nominated for the James Beard Foundation's Rising Star Chef of the Year Award. While at Campagne, Murphy was named one of the Best New Chefs in the United States by Food and Wine Magazine. In 1993, she became executive chef of Cafe Campagne, a sister restaurant to Campagne, and in 199 S, she was named Best Chef/Pacific Northwest and Hawaii by the James Beard Foundation. In 1999, she partnered with Bryan Hill, the former general manager and wine director of Campagne, to open Brasa, which has been honored by both Food and Wine and Gourmet magazines as one of Seattle's top tables.
IT HAPPENED AT my very first job in Seattle.
I had lived in New York City and had worked for some very fine establishments, the dream of most young cooks. But wouldn't you know it, I was on my way to fame and fortune in the Big Apple when I was struck by the travel itch, a condition that's been known to inflict many of us in this transient profession.
I was young enough to act on such whimsical notions, so I packed my bags and off I went with a friend. Taking to the southern region, we ate and drank our way through the states of Bliss and Oblivion, and in time, landed here in Seattle, as far away from New York as you can get without crossing an ocean. It was September, and despite the picture painted by popular opinion, it never rained in Seattle that month. I thought it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen: it was sunny all day, stayed light out until almost ten o'clock at night, and then turned perfectly cool and breezy. Life was sophisticated but laid back—people actually hung out on their stoops and drank locally brewed microbeers with their neighbors, just like in the movies.
And the food! The Pike Place Market alone was a revelation, where farmers set out their fantastically enormous fruits and vegetables for sale, and the fish guys tossed monkfish around like baseballs. It wasn't long before my inner chef was reawakened: I envisioned salmon jumping right into my saute pan. I had to stay.
You'd think—at least I thought—that a young cook with New York chops would have no problem landing a job in Seattle. But you'd be wrong. It proved enormously difficult to find employment of the culinary sort in my adopted home. Turns out that a New York resume was not in my favor—not at all. My least favorite quip was, "Honey, get some experience here in Seattle and then we'll chat."
Chat? I was from New York, where cooks don't chat. They growl, sweat, and curse their way through the evening service, and often through life in general. But I'm adaptable. I have to be: adaptability is the key to being a great cook—which is kind of the moral of this story, but we'll get to that in a minute . . .
Eventually, mercifully, I was hired by a Frenchman who was an incredible chef and a terrible businessman. This combination is pretty common, owing, I guess, to right-brain/left-brain dynamics. He was also a brilliant teacher. My cooks have heard this story a hundred times, so if they pick this up, they'll skip right over this part. But they should read it, because it keeps me from screaming my head off trying to drill this kind of performance into them, and I don't think they can hear it enough.
When I started that job, I was at the bottom. It was a small restaurant with about forty-five seats, and there were only three cooks plus my chef. As the new kid, I was low person on the totem pole and, trust me, the lowest of three is way low. I had to sweep and mop the kitchen at the end of the night, which was extremely humbling. I was from New York, after all, where cooks didn't clean; the guys who didn't speak English—those of "don't ask, don't tell" immigration status—did that.
Despite my lackey role, the chef liked me. Empowered by the sense of belonging, I asked him one day to teach me how to make his pate. "When you clean my floors properly, I will teach you," he said.
"Please explain," I softly asked him, carefully probing so as not to set him off; French chefs tend to explode like a cheese souffle baked at too high a temperature if you push them.
"Every day the crumbs and grease continue to build in the corners of my kitchen floor," he said, pointing to the crusty corners of the room. "If you make my pate every day with the same diligence that you clean my floors, my pate will look the same!" He curled up his face in distaste at the thought. "So, when you learn that a perfectly clean floor, which requires no skill at all, is your most important job, only then will I begin to show you the art of charcuterie!"
How much lower than that can you get?
Okay, big surprise: I took his words to heart, gave him the immaculate floors he needed to function, performed the rest of my tasks with renewed vigor, and three months later I was his sous-chef.
I was well into my tenure in this position when a party of ten reserved two weeks in advance for dinner at the restaurant. (This is tremendously early by Seattle standards, the equivalent of calling a year ahead in New York or San Francisco.) The guest of honor adored pheasant, so the party requested a pheasant dish. Since we didn't have one on the menu, I ordered the birds special, just for them.
My chef had a previous engagement on the evening in question, and would not be on the line. But this was no problem. I had proven myself by then, and he was completely comfortable with me handling the birds, the special table, and the rest of the night's affairs. We had been through a lot in a short time, and in addition to getting my work done, I had learned to inspire my successors on the bottom rung to sweep and mop the floors as though their lives depended on it: the floors were spotless.
The day of the pheasant dinner, I spent a good part of the afternoon carefully prepping the birds and the accompaniments I had selected. I was going to roast the pheasants, then debone them, marinate them in a mixture of balsamic, grapefruit, cloves, and garlic, and finish them on the grill.
The reservation was for seven o'clock. At five o'clock, I rubbed the two-pound pheasants with olive oil, tossed them with herbs, and placed them in the oven, planning to roast them for twenty minutes. But soon the evening's dinner service began, and it was busier than usual. We were quickly slammed and I forgot about the pheasants. When I opened the door of the pheasant's oven at six forty-five, dark smoke billowed out. As I hurriedly fanned it away, I saw that these were not just overcooked birds; they were as black and shriveled as carbon paper!
The moment that I was taking this in, a waiter entered the kitchen and announced the arrival of the party of ten, including the pheasant-loving guest of honor. I believe I have never felt my stomach drop and churn as it did just then. I know that all the color ran from my face, and I was sure I was about to faint. There was no other restaurant nearby that was going to have pheasant. No pun intended, but my goose was cooked.
The only bird I had remotely close to a pheasant was a chicken. I grabbed four of them, removed the breasts, leaving the wings partially intact so they resembled pheasants, and threw those babies in the deep fryer. My two cooks looked at me like I was nuts, but this was a trick I had picked up from an old-school line cook in New York City. Once, when I had forgotten to fire a lamb rack that was supposed to be cooked well done, he took one and threw it in the fryer where it cooked in less than eight minutes, saving me the wrath of the very cranky chef.
After a few minutes, I took the breasts out of the fryer, slapped the marinade on them, tossed them on the grill, then plated them with apricots and foie gras. I sent the mock pheasant out to the table, where it was pro
mptly declared the plumpest and most delicious pheasant they had ever tasted. Personally, I think the foie gras acted as a decoy. I mean, who would serve foie gras with chicken?
Please don't misunderstand my intentions. I wasn't trying to pull a fast one, or get away with something. It was all for the happiness of my guests. They enjoyed their pheasant, even if it was really chicken, and I know my chef would have been proud—if only he knew.
Chef's Table
CINDY PAWLCYN
After receiving her bachelor's in restaurant management, and studying at Le Cordon Bleu and La Varenne in Paris, Cindy Pawlcyn moved to California in 1980 to work at MacArthur Park. She became opening chef at Meadowood, worked under Bruce LeFavour at Rose and LeFavour, and opened her own restaurant, Mustards Grill, in 1983. Since then, Pawlcyn has been involved in conceptualizing and opening more than a dozen restaurants, including Rio Grill, Fog City Diner, Bix, Roti, Buckeye Roadhouse, and Tra Vigne. She currently operates Mustards Grill and her Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen, in St. Helena. Pawlcyn is an inductee of Who's Who of Cooking in America, has been nominated for the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef/California twice, and her Mustards Grill Napa Valley Cookbook won a James Beard Award.
THERE ARE LOTS of ways to keep tabs on what's going on in your own restaurant. You can install hidden cameras. You can walk around like a prison guard. You can hire a company that dispatches anonymous reviewers who send you a written report detailing everything you and your team got right, and wrong.
Me? I like to take a seat in the dining room and eat a meal in each of my restaurants at least once a week. Sure, the staff recognizes me, but even so, there's nothing like seeing things from the customer's point of view to get a sense of how you're doing, what's working, and what isn't.
I don't dine alone in my restaurants—sometimes my mom will join me, or one of my stepkids. In many ways, it's like going out to dinner anywhere else: I dress incognito, in my civvies, engage in typical lunch or dinner conversation, and always manage to enjoy myself.
But it's never quite the same when the chef is in the dining room—it's not the same for my customers, it's not the same for the waiters, and it's not the same for the guys in the kitchen.
First of all, it's often apparent to the other customers that I have some relationship to the restaurant, because the waiters and managers talk to me like I was one of their own. Real observant guests might notice that I often order without the aid of a menu, and don't receive a check.
There's another way I sometimes get found out: when I see something wrong—water glasses that aren't being refilled, dishes that aren't plated correctly, or any other egregious mistake—I can't sit still.
Sometimes this passes without incident: if there's a manager nearby, I'll wave him or her over and whisper the situation, then let things get resolved without any further involvement, although I won't take my eyes off the problem until it's been fixed—admittedly not the most flattering way to treat my dining companion.
But if there's no manager within sight, then I'll take matters into my own hands. And that's when things can get messy.
My regular companions know when this is about to happen. They recognize the way I start to fidget, growing more and more anxious. "Don't get upset," they say, but it's hopeless advice; I'm already boiling over and leaping into action.
Like the time I spotted a couple, out for dinner on their anniversary, presented with their meal. Even from my distant vantage point across the dining room I could tell that the liver one of them had been served was cooked to death. It happens—the guys in the kitchen fall behind in their work, then leave something on the heat for too long while they're trying to catch up.
I excused myself from my table, marched up to the couple, and asked what was wrong.
"Our food is overcooked," the man said, hesitantly, because I looked like just another customer, and he wasn't sure why I was so concerned.
I took their plates and headed straight into the kitchen to remedy the situation. I didn't identify myself. I never do; I want to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible, and introductions just eat up time. But I probably should.
"Wow," people like that couple have been heard to say, "I've never had a fellow customer do that for me."
But I'm not always the masked stranger riding into town and anonymously saving imperiled entrees. Some of my most memorable chef-dining moments have involved customers who know me, like Robin Lail, daughter of the family that for years owned Inglenook wine, and who now runs her own Lail Vineyards in Napa Valley. Recently, she and her husband, Jon, were having dinner at my newer restaurant, Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena.
I've known Robin for years—she's a very active community member—and if I were in my whites, I would have dropped by the table to visit. She's a charming and elegant woman and I always enjoy speaking with her. But as I was doing the observation thing, I stayed put.
Until the Tabasco sauce arrived.
Robin comes in for dinner all the time and often orders Chicken Polio Loco, a spicy, marinated chicken cooked under a weight to expose as much skin as possible to the heat of the oven, crisping it beautifully. Chicken Polio Loco is made red hot by a variety of chili peppers, but as hot as it is, Robin always shakes a little Tabasco sauce over it, probably more for the vinegar than the spice.
On this particular night, when she asked for the sauce, the waiter dutifully retrieved it for her. No problem, right? Well, it wouldn't have been, except for one tiny but very significant detail: the waiter took the Tabasco sauce from the kitchen rather than the waiter station.
A lot of the guys in my kitchen remove the spigot-stopper from Tabasco bottles to facilitate pouring large quantities onto their french fries. So when Robin delicately inverted the bottle above her chicken, about a quarter cup of sauce, instead of a few drops, gushed out. Her face immediately crumpled, like a little kid who just dropped her ice cream cone on the sidewalk.
I guess Robin and Jon were trying to make it in time for a movie at the little theater next door, because she didn't say anything; she just took a knife and fork and began eating the Tabasco-soaked chicken as her husband looked on incredulously.
That's when I intervened, swooping in to steal her dish, then returning with a fresh one in record time.
The entire transaction took place without a word, except her whispered "Thank you" when I deposited a Tabasco-free Chicken Polio Loco before her.
Then there was the time when my presence caused one of my best staff members to call it an early night.
This was at Mustards, and one of my favorite waiters was looking after my table for a celebration dinner. We treated ourselves to a bottle of champagne. When our glasses got low, she refilled them . . . with sparkling water, diluting the champagne in the glass enough that they all had to be dumped out.
I was so fond of this waiter that I laughed off the mistake. And were this any other table, she simply would have treated us to a new bottle and moved on.
But she was mortified. So much so that she left for the night, too embarrassed to return and serve us any more.
She needn't have been, she's a total pro and—I believe—one of the finest waiters in the universe.
But that's the kind of thing that can happen when, for better or for worse, the chef is in the house.
Our First Friday
NEIL PERRY
Neil Perry opened Sydney's Rockpool restaurant in 1989 with his business partner and cousin Trish Richards. Through his Rockpool Consulting, he heads a team of consultants to Qantas Airways and created a range of Neil Perry Fresh food products in conjunction with Woolworth's Supermarkets. He is the author of Rockpool and Simply Asian, and is working on a third book and four classical/recipe CDs. He is also a television presenter on The LifeStyle Channel. Before Rockpool, Perry worked at Sails restaurant at McMahons Point and in Rose Bay, then became head chef at Barrenjoey Restaurant in Palm Beach and Perry's in Paddington. In October 1986, he opened the Blue
Water Grill at Bondi Beach. Rockpool won the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide's Restaurant of the Year 2004 award and is a perennial member of the Top SO restaurants in the world ranking by UK magazine Restaurant.
OPENING A NEW restaurant is a stressful business. It doesn't matter how many times you've done it, how much you plan, or how many experts you surround yourself with, there will always be surprises waiting around every corner.
Some surprises aren't really surprises, because you learn to expect them: it's likely that one cook or another will quit at a highly inconvenient time, often the week of your launch; some piece of kitchen equipment will give you trouble, either because it doesn't function properly or because it's an unfamiliar model and there's a struggle to master it; and your opening day will be rescheduled at least three times.
But there are certain surprises you simply can't anticipate, no matter how active and boundless your imagination. The debut week of my restaurant Rockpool, sixteen years ago in Sydney, was proof positive of this statement. In addition to the intensity of construction, dining room design, menu planning, hiring, and training, once we opened, we were faced with the daily drama of getting the place up and running for lunch, then shutting down, going through a whole new round of prep, and reopening for dinner.
For kitchen professionals, doing lunch and dinner is like cramming two workdays into one calendar day. It was very hectic and difficult, an extreme test of physical and mental stamina, for both me and my crew of twelve cooks, all of whom worked both shifts back to back. If you were there in the morning, you were there when the restaurant closed after midnight.
A nice break in the day—the eye of the storm, so to speak—was our nightly staff dinner, served about thirty minutes before the first customers arrived each evening.
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