When I was young it was more important
Pain, more pain, though I laughed so much louder, yeah
When I was young
I'm cooking dinner for Rita and the local daughter tonight.
Rack of lamb
Braised red potatoes
Green beans w/ bacon
Strawberry shortcake
Roasting lamb always reminds me my first job cooking in a french restaurant, Tony Ridgway's Chef's Garden. During the late 70's it was one of the best nouvelle cuisine restaurants in Florida.
Rack of lamb, salmon en croute, sauteed veal, boneless chicken stuffed with artichokes and black olives. One side of the menu never changed, on the other side we experimented. Sauteed salmon steaks in watercress fume, Steak New Orleans (A NY stuffed with oysters), tournados King Henry the 8th, Sea Bass in fennel.
All the line cooks had been recruited because we knew how to work as tradesman. Paul Carter was a house painter, Tony Penny was a mason, Mike Etienne had worked construction and I had been an iron worker. Most of us had cooked before, but not at this level. Tony Ridgway and Gary Johnson taught us how to cook and how to make a kitchen run smoothly. We were taught the techniques, the methods and the importance of consistancy.
If you've ever read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain you have pretty good idea of what our kitchen was like.
Sex and drugs and rock and roll is all my body craves...
Mix that with some drawn butter, bechamel, veal stock and a little chou paste, stick a bottle of vodka in the salad crisper then go to the dumpster for a doobie break and you have a more complete picture.
We had a pair of dishwashers from North Carolina, The Wall Brothers, who were unique. Steven (Slim) had been electrocuted a few times, once by a high tension wire and twice by lightning. He had some facial tics but was otherwise fairly normal.
RC on the other hand, was as cantankerous a fellow as I've ever met. He had taught mathematics at one of the schools in NC (Duke or NC State, I think) and had quit. An extremely bright guy, he contented himself with drinking and washing dishes for a living. He would stand at the dish machine, bitching about women in his nasal North Carolina mountain accented voice...
"...buy me a beeer... buy me a beeer... that's all these bitches want... they want to know what kind of car I drive and then won't talk to me because I drive a beater... damn car gets me where I want to go, why should it matter to them?... buncha cum drunk whores... "
... so one night I'm at the bar, getting shift drinks for the kitchen crew and as the women's bathroom door opens behind me, I hear RC's distinctive voice wafting from inside the ladies room... "... buy me a beeer... stupid bitch didn't know who she was askin'..." and at that moment I could see the airconditioning grill over the dish machine and realized that it must open on the other side into the ladies room... and for at least three years, RC had been "entertaining" our female patrons with his observations on women's dating motivation...
That week the AC was reconfigured so that the kitchen was on a separate duct... it was cheaper than finding another good dishwasher.
Posted by Mike S at May 31, 2003 09:48 PMThat was uncalled for. No need to brag about a delicious meal like that and not have enough to share with everyone.
:P
Posted by: Da Goddess on June 5, 2003 05:30 AM