Life, on the Line by Grant Achatz (book club reads .txt) 📕

hazelnuts, avocado, and tarragon to incorporate and thought about doing a hazelnut oil and BLiS sherry vinegar dressing. Then I wanted to confit eggplant in a ton of garlic and olive oil, adding mint and pine nuts, too. “Uh, how many courses are you making, Grant?”

“Well, I want to stay busy. I made some Southeast Asian-inspired soup too—coconut milk, ginger, basil, lemongrass, fish sauce, that sort of thing. For dessert I was thinking of spice-roasted peaches with vanilla ice cream. Something simple like that. Oh. And I also made a cocktail base—Watermelon-Hendricks-Hibiscus. It’s in the freezer.”

“Man, you have been busy.”

I was happy among her friends—cooking, sharing a meal, and getting to know them. It felt normal. But everyone knew why I was in town, and given the booze and wine someone had the courage to ask, “So, why spend the eve of what is surely one of the most important days of your life cooking for us?”

“You know, it’s what I do. It just makes me really happy. That’s all there is to it.”

Heather and I walked into the waiting room of Memorial Sloan-Kettering to find Keith Goggin already there, sitting on the edge of a couch staring at the floor. He stood up as we approached him, his face expressionless and with no evidence of the boyish grin that is normally present. Keith is one of the investors in Alinea and lives in Manhattan. He and Nick went to college together, then years later discovered that they were both working as traders. They began collaborating on some long-distance projects, and when one grew into quite a big deal, they merged their firms. Keith got us the hookup at Sloan on short notice, and Nick suggested it would be useful to have Keith along, since Nick was going to stay in Chicago to seek out the best treatment options there. “He’s really, really smart, analytical, logical, and when he needs to be, dispassionate. It’ll be good to get his opinion.” I couldn’t argue with that.

I introduced Keith to Heather, and he perked up when he realized that I wasn’t going to keel over. We walked down the hallway to the carbon-copy examination room, where Keith and Heather sat in the two metal folding chairs against the wall while I made my way to the patient chair. We didn’t chat much as we waited for the doctor to come in, and the silence was as awkward as it was inevitable. Keith asked me if there was anything I wanted him to ask the doctors as he pulled out a typewritten piece of paper from his pocket. He had come prepared. “Not off the top of my head,” I told him. “Let’s see what he has to say first.”

I had been through this once already when Nick and I visited Masonic. I knew what was coming, although I hoped somehow it would be different. But I was really more concerned this time about Heather. How would she react to what the doctor was about to say? I knew she would keep it together—that wasn’t my fear—but the thought of her sitting there while the doctor told me that they wanted to split my jaw in half, take out my tongue, and then a few months later I might very well die was . . . unsettling. I felt bad for her.

The doctor finally walked in carrying some papers and a CD of my scan results from the previous day.

“Hello, my name is Bhuvanesh Singh. You must be Grant? How are you doing?”

“That’s a pretty stupid question to ask,” I thought. I paused, cocked my head sideways a bit and deadpanned, “You tell me, Doctor.” We all chuckled uneasily.

For a moment, I let hope creep back in.

Then Dr. Singh started to speak.

“I have the results from your PET scan. The one piece of good news, if there is one, is that the cancer has not metastasized to your lungs or brain. However, it has found its way into both sides of your neck.” This was not a surprise, as the other doctors had predicted that it had invaded my lymph nodes. As he said this, he began to feel my neck, below my ears, and under my arms. Then he pulled out the latex gloves, put them on, and asked me to open my mouth.

Having someone’s hand in your mouth is never a pleasant thing, but when your tongue is 80 percent tumor, it is agonizing. Tumor tissue is firmer than regular tissue, so Dr. Singh used pressure to determine the size, shape, and texture of the tumor. He took steady notes, indicating density so he could track any changes. Since the cancer had engulfed the majority of my visible tongue, it was difficult to find where the tumor ended until he had his hand pushed firmly down my throat.

He sat back, snapped the gloves off, and looked at the three of us.

Keith was the first to speak. “Well?”

“It is as we expected from looking at your scans. The cancer has been very invasive. I cannot feel where the tumor ends as we move from the oral tongue to the base. You cannot wait, cannot delay, this needs to be treated immediately.”

“And what do you recommend for treatment?” Heather asked.

“We will remove most of the oral tongue, the lymph nodes in both sides of your neck, and I would like to take a portion of your lower jaw, to be safe.” Just like that.

Keith lowered his head for a moment, then he snapped back. “Well, Doctor, let me take a second to tell you who this guy Grant is. He is a world-famous chef. His restaurant was named the best in America by Gourmet magazine. His tongue is his livelihood and his passion. You can’t just cut it out.”

The doctor paused for a moment, stared at me for a second, then did a double take. Clearly, by the way he was looking at me, he didn’t think it was possible that