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

My ambitions were returning.

Nick was unusually quiet. Really quiet. And when we got back to the hotel he looked at me and said, “Why the hell do you want to build a restaurant in New York when you can barely function and still can’t taste?” He had been the one pushing, and now he was disengaging again. It seemed that his earlier enthusiasm had been fake—something to keep me motivated—but now that it was a distinct possibility, his real thoughts became evident. And that just ticked me off.

I told him that my taste was coming back, slowly for sure, but definitely. And of course every chef would want to own a restaurant in New York. New York and Paris are the dining capitals of the world. People go out to eat in New York at 11:00 P.M. We would kill it there.

“It’s about your ego, then,” he said. “It doesn’t get us anything. And with all due respect, who’s going to put up the money at this point? Everyone is enthusiastic now, but will they write a check for a guy who just survived stage IVb cancer and can’t get an insurance policy? Do you think the landlords will give us an out-clause on that?”

“So we never build another restaurant?” I said rhetorically, getting angry.

“We might. But only after you’re healed. You need to take care of yourself. You can fake it with others, but I see the case of lidocaine you packed. I know what you can taste, and I know why you want to do this. But it’s a loser, even if you assume we do it right. And right now, we can’t do it right.”

“So you don’t want to do it?”

“It isn’t about ‘want.’ I get the desire. I came to this city as a trader when we were riding high and it was a blast. My ego was every bit of yours. But no matter what we do here, we lose. If the restaurant here is better than Alinea, then our flagship suffers. If the New York place is worse than Alinea, then obviously that’s a failure. If we do the same thing, well, that’s a loser, too. Those are the three possibilities, and I know you don’t want to come here to build a three-star concept. So it’s a lose-lose-lose, existentially, as those are the only possibilities—same, better, or worse.”

He was making sense and pissing me off at the same time.

We got back to Chicago and Nick made virtually no effort to move things along. I realized quickly that he had no intention of putting together a New York restaurant. Every time I brought it up he turned the focus to the book. “Let’s just get the book out, Grant. Better opportunities will come along.”

Nick talked to Keith, who was disappointed. He expressed surprise that the investors seemed willing to invest, that the Vegas developers kept calling too. Maybe he knew too much, or maybe he had just lost faith a bit.

Either way, I began to feel that he was in my way.

The New York and Vegas deals fell to the side. We explored them, and each time we came to the conclusion that they weren’t right. I wanted to push, to move on, but on some level I agreed. We should be getting something more, something better. But nothing came along that we were genuinely excited by. Odd TV shows based on American Idol but with cooking, restaurants in Dubai, and endorsement deals for pans were all shot down.

I arrived at the University of Chicago at the one-year mark of my remission and got the full body scan and physical exam. I still weighed less than 145 pounds, but the scans were clean. And six months later, at eighteen months, they were clean too.

The Alinea book came out and we did events in New York and Chicago. Nick also called Thomas and asked him if he would do a series of dinners with me. One at Per Se, then at Alinea, and then finishing at The French Laundry. The planning and dynamics of the dinners were difficult, the costs astronomical, and the press was not terribly kind given the economy and the $1,500 per ticket price—on which we barely broke even. But Nick’s heart was in the right place. He simply wanted to force me and Thomas to cook together again after I nearly died, to get a moment to reflect on our relationship as mentor and apprentice. The dinners went off well. We had pizza in the Alinea kitchen after service, Nick and Thomas shared a bottle of cheap pinot, and at TFL the whole staff got In-N-Out burgers. It all felt like family.

The book sold very well and introduced our cuisine to thousands of people who would otherwise have missed it. Martin was recognized with a Communications Arts award for the design, a huge honor—especially considering it was his first book—and Alinea won a James Beard Award, beating out the likes of Under Pressure by Thomas, who was gracious to invite us to what would have been his victory dinner at Per Se with the entire team that made his book. As always, he was as excited for me as he would have been for himself.

My taste buds came back in waves. First I could suddenly taste sweet. Then it would retreat and salty would come back. Then I would get a wave of savory, meaty taste that would be fleeting but real. I would rush into the kitchen, grab a tasting spoon, and go down the line to see what worked and what didn’t. It was an amazing education to get these building blocks one at a time. Finally, on a trip to L.A. to meet with some TV producers for a documentary, Nick and I ate at Spago after literally bumping into Sherry Yard, the longtime Spago pastry chef, on the street. She dragged us in