Where I Come From Part 3: The Craftsman and a Punk

This one is gonna be hard to write

Where to even begin with this stage of my life/career? This was the longest I had ever put in anywhere to this point, an old Colonial Tavern on yet another New England Island. It was the nicest food I had ever made, and it was the most technically sound, to this day, food I have ever prepared. I learned all my technique at, the Tavern. All my deep French. Sauce making, charcuterie, braising, butchery, how to cook fish the proper way, the list is endless. I also, to give you the who dies at the end first, fucked it all up because I was a shithead twenty something who couldn’t light a candle to get out of his own ass.

I was working at a pub at the time. The hotel I was working at was sold off and my chef’s set me up to work at a converted Portuguese American club with an old friend of theirs. The pay was shit, less than I was making before, which should have been the first red flag. To make a long story short it was a failing venture. Deliveries were on COD, cash on delivery, and after two weeks of working there, my first check bounced. The “chef”, an old Caribbean burnout, paid me out of the Keno machine drawer. It became perpetual; if you deposited your check, it would bounce, if you cashed it you could maybe get your money. I started waking up every Saturday at 6am to make it to the bank at 7am to cash my check. I would then get a text from one of the other cooks saying “fuck you dude, you got there first!” meaning there was no money left in the account for them. One week I didn’t make it there first. I went to work and lifted 3 whole strip steaks, several sauté pans and some tongs and took them home after my shift. I figured it was worth the 750 dollars I was owed. The Chef called me and said he caught me on camera stealing. I said I caught them stealing when my check bounced. He offered to pay me out of the register in exchange for the meat and pans back, I said I’ll take my check and I’ll keep the steaks in exchange for not reporting them for wage theft. I quit the next day. I ate steaks for a week, I still have the sauté pans 13 yrs later, and I took a job as a Garde Manger cook at the Tavern the following week.

The chef at the Tavern was a large and intimidating man, we’ll just call him Chef, since to this day, whenever I say Chef, to my wife or anyone, I am referring to this man. Never his name, never chef followed by his name, this motherfucker will always be, Chef.

He was fair with me from the start, didn’t have me stage as he knew the places on my resume to be good places. He made sure I got paid on time, and gave me time off during the week to teach and finish grad school.

He also, as it became clear quickly, demanded perfection. During my second week I had deviated from his Caesar dressing recipe, I assumed all Caesar dressings were made the same way, and he laid into me like I had just kicked his dog and spat on his wife. But, he didn’t yell. He gave me what I deserved, I responded with a yes chef and explained I wasn’t trying to subvert him I just didn’t know.

There would be a series of fuck ups and near firings in the weeks and months that followed but I kept with it. I never made the same mistakes twice and that kept me alive. I showed up to work on time and never called out sick and Chef liked that. I wasn’t reliable because I respected him, mind you, I just had rent to pay.

I was in over my head regardless. This was the first legit restaurant I had every worked in. We bought nothing. We made everything. Each scrap of meat was repurposed into force meats or pates. Asparagus ends were made into soup. tomato butts were diced to the stem for salads, we wasted nothing. Not a single thing was sand bagged, every piece of fish was fired when ordered, every steak seasoned and cooked when needed. The other cooks were light years ahead of me and they knew it. I was a pretender and there was no hiding it.

I didn’t much care at the beginning but the more lashings I got the more determined I became to avoid them. That was my sole focus, how not to get yelled at. I made sure to clarify the butter before poaching lobster, to avoid getting yelled at. I made sure to measure my butchers twine before wrapping filets, to avoid getting yelled at. I made sure to chill my canola oil before emulsifying, to avoid getting yelled at. I took a torch to crème Brule to pop the air bubbles before they set, to avoid getting yelled at. I steeped peppercorns in hot water before making Au Poivre, to avoid getting yelled at. And so on and so on.

Fear ruled me. But I was learning technique. Whether I knew it or not. I was becoming better every day. Whether I knew it or not. I still didn’t want to be a cook. But I was taking pride in my work every day. Whether I knew it or not.

After two years there I had gotten to the point where Chef rarely, if ever, yelled at me. But I yelled at others. Anyone who didn’t stock their station, have at least three back ups of everything, who couldn’t finish their prep before service, who put out a plate of shit food, I destroyed with verbal hell fire and everything short of physical violence. I had earned the respect of every other cook, became their leader, and whether I knew it or not, instilled the same fear that motivated me, into others.

But, this story doesn’t have a happy ending. I was still a cocky little kid. I still thought, despite my loyalty and my attention to Chef’s detail, that was better than even him. That I knew better. The new sous chef he hired didn’t help either. Looking back, Zach (I won’t change his name because fuck that guy) wanted to take Chef down and I fell for his propaganda. Like Darth Vader I turned on the man that, although it might not seem it here, taught me everything I know about real actual cooking. All my butchery, all my knowledge of pates, rillettes, and charcutiere, all my real line cooking skills, sauce making, everything. I fell for the trappings of a devil tongued sous chef who I would meet again someday and he would do the same thing back to me. But I didn’t know that at the time.

I grew to resent the menu, the lashings, the hours, the technique. I walked out on a Friday night. No notice, no warning. Chef had promoted me to Chef Tournant the week before. He even considered me a friend. And the punk I was, I just left. Luckily the and maybe fatefully the job I left The Tavern for was the one that really got me to where I am now. But at the time I was just an angry kid who screwed over the first mentor I ever had. A punk.

This story is hard for me to tell. I spent 4 years at the Tavern. I still hate reminiscing about how it all ended because it was all on me. A stupid twenty something kid. But, not all is lost. Before I left for Texas, a story for another time, I called up Chef; I apologized. He forgave me, sincerely, and we have been close friends again ever since. I’m sure he is sick and tired of me thanking him and apologizing every time we talk but it’ll never stop. I wouldn’t know how to cook if it wasn’t for him. I wouldn’t know how to do what’s right without him and I certainly wouldn’t understand the ramifications of respect, without him.

I didn’t realize his impact on me until a few years later, when I would recall recipes from memory. I still make his chowder recipe and whenever anyone gives it praise I tell them it isn’t mine. I guess it takes the ultimate amount of disrespect to really appreciate some things, or something more poetic perhaps?

Anyways, sorry if this isn’t some detailed high light of Where I Come From. I had planned to tell some stories. The Guatemalan cooks there deserve their own entry, and the waiters are still the best I’ve ever seen, but, I don’t have the energy for it, to do a deep dive into something that still hurts despite the healing that came after it. Just know that this small part of my journey is the foundation for everything that comes next. And, also, to never take your teachers for granted.