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

research on my externship early. Don kept trying to convince me that this was an opportunity to head to a warm-weather climate for a season, so I applied to a series of large hotels and golf clubs around Florida: the Fontaine-bleau, The Breakers, and the Sawgrass Country Club, amongst a host of lesser names. None of them bothered to respond to my inquiries.

I sent fifteen letters out. I got exactly one response: the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I wasn’t thrilled. Grand Rapids is definitely not Florida, and certainly not warm. I had never heard of the Amway or heard any talk about its culinary reputation. But it was close to home, it was close to Cindy at Michigan State, and it was my only option.

I picked up the phone and called the executive chef of the hotel, Steve Stallard, to confirm the details of my externship. He seemed cold, distracted, and wholly uninterested when I reached him. “Another inexperienced CIA extern that we’ll throw in the banquet kitchen,” is all he could be thinking. Midway through the call he suggested I speak with the current CIA extern at Amway, Ray Cuzmak, who was halfway into his six months. Chef Stallard put me on hold to transfer the call.

“Hello, this is Ray.”

“Hi, Ray, my name is Grant Achatz and I will be starting as an extern there in a few weeks. Chef Stallard suggested we chat for a minute so you could give me an idea of what to expect.”

“Yeah, okay. Well, what do you know about this place?”

“Not much. I noticed there are two fine-dining restaurants there. That’s why I applied.”

Ray chuckled. “Well, Grant, you’ll never see those. They’ll shove you in banquets or down in veg prep. I spend most mornings peeling potatoes and carrots. Tomorrow there is a banquet for nine hundred that I’ll work. I don’t know, man, this place is not what I expected.”

I hung up the phone deflated. I went to the CIA to become a chef, not peel spuds. This was going to suck.

In August 1993, my dad helped me move into a small one-bedroom apartment in Comstock Park, about a fifteen-minute drive north of Grand Rapids. I entered the massive hotel the next day and headed to the human resources department. They shuffled me over to an all-morning orientation program that was incredibly dull. It all seemed so foreign and corporate.

After they dismissed the batch of new employees I made my way to the main kitchen so I could find chef Stallard. It was like a maze. I wound my way through the labyrinth of hallways and finally found the giant set of super-wide double doors and entered the football field-sized kitchen. Cooks were everywhere. There were guys using what looked like shovels stirring food in giant tilt skillets. A conveyor belt ran down the back of the space, and ten chefs stood on each side of it adding one component of the plated dishes as they slowly crept by. Mountains of dirty pots and pans were stacked up next to enormous pot sinks.

I had definitely never seen anything like this before. As I was soaking it all in, I nearly bumped into a cook pushing a hot box through the kitchen, swerving like a drunk driver.

“Hi. Sorry. Where is the chef’s office, please?”

“Over there, kid,” he said pointing.

I approached the door, took a deep breath, and knocked.

Chef Stallard lifted his head and slowly stood up out of his chair. He reached to shake my hand and welcomed me to the Amway.

He was quiet and deliberate as he spoke, pausing slightly as if to take a breath before he started each sentence. He was intimidating, a giant version of Charlie Sheen with no smile. And he exuded professionalism—his chef coat was flawlessly white and pressed, his jet-black hair was combed back, and his face was perfectly smooth.

“I am afraid there has been a change of plans, Grant. Originally we were going to put you in banquets, but a cook in Cygnus quit yesterday and they need a hand. So we are going to send you up there instead.”

“Yes, Chef.”

Chef Stallard gave me directions to the tower elevator, told me to ask for Jeff when I arrived, and sent me on my way.

I caught a lucky break.

If it were up to chef Jeff Kerr he would have continued to follow the Grateful Dead from city to city, partying with the Deadheads and trading bootleg cassettes along the way. Instead he ended up as the chef de cuisine at Cygnus.

Cygnus was one of the two fine-dining restaurants in the hotel and was located on the twenty-seventh floor of an all-glass tower. It was definitely the best restaurant in Grand Rapids and was considered among the best in northern Michigan. But it is fair to say that there was not a whole lot of competition for that title.

The restaurant was aiming to be more modern than its counterpart in the hotel, The 1913 Room, which was heavily rooted in classic French fare.

When I entered the kitchen I immediately looked for the telltale sign of the chef in charge: the colored stripes on the collar of the chef coat. I spotted a small man moving quickly around the kitchen giving instructions to a handful of cooks. He had red and blue stripes on his collar, but with the odd addition of a tie-dyed T-shirt poking up from under his neckline. He turned, spotted me, and came directly over.

“Hey, man, I’m Jeff. You Grant?” It seemed like he was panting the words out. He didn’t make much eye contact. He was distracted.

“I am. I just started my extern today from the CIA. Chef Stallard sent me up here.”

“Wow, man. That sure was nice of him,” he said sarcastically. “We had a guy walk out of here yesterday. We’re totally in the shits, man. I’m going to have you work in the back doing some prep for us. Cool?”

“Yes, Chef.”

“Whoa. Hold up there