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

“Chef! Welcome back, how are you? I want you to meet chef Angus Campbell. He is the culinary instructor at the Grand Rapids Community College that I was telling you about. Angus wanted to meet you face-to-face before he started making any calls on your behalf.” Apparently chef Stallard was as serious as I was.

After the formalities, I settled into a chair and the three of us started to talk about the range of opportunities abroad. Angus was set on sending me to a hotel in Edinburgh. He was born in Scotland and had worked there for many years before coming to the States. Heck, his name was Angus! He knew the chef of the hotel well and said it would not be a problem getting me an apprenticeship there. I couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t already started organizing my trip. The connection seemed like a lock and chef Stallard had to know that. Further, why Scotland? I had been dreaming about the Michelin-starred restaurants of France that Stallard had waxed poetic about.

“How long do you think it will take to get this together?” I asked, not wanting to sound unexcited.

“Likely six months or a bit more by the time you get all of your visa requirements in place,” said chef Stallard. “If we secure the position and everything falls in place early, I will let you go when it does.”

I couldn’t argue with that, but I had never imagined Scotland. When I read about the great restaurants and cuisines of the world I couldn’t recall Scotland being mentioned even once. Italy, sure. France, of course. Scotland, not so much.

Jeff and the Cygnus kitchen looked the same. We exchanged greetings and caught up quickly before we started talking shop. Jeff explained that Mike Martin, who was running the sauté station when I was there last, was the only guy left from the team from a year ago. Mike was a solid cook who really cared about the food he was putting out, had an even temper, and took the time to explain things to me. Through both his talent and the attrition he was now sous chef, though still running the sauté station.

Jeff wanted Mike to train me on sauté so he could become more of a floater, picking up some of the tasks that Jeff had been doing so he could spend more time with his young son and work in his massive vegetable garden. It sounded good to me—sauté was the hardest station in the kitchen and the one I had worked in the least during my externship.

Jeff seemed more relaxed than I remembered him, and the three of us had long conversations about food and cooking during prep and slow periods on the line. Mike was going through a divorce and was blaming it on the long hours, stress, and low pay of the kitchen life. He talked constantly about parlaying his culinary knowledge into other potentially more lucrative facets of food service, like creating an ice-cream brand or a host of other pipe dreams. They both knew I had very high aspirations and could sense my impatience. “Why do you need to go to Europe anyways?” Jeff asked. “There are plenty of great restaurants and chefs here in the U.S. now. I was in Borders the other day and saw this new cookbook I bet you would like. It was very modern. Trotter. Charlie Trotter from Chicago. Ever hear of him?”

“No.”

“Right up your alley. All froufrou and composed with elements and ingredients from all over the place. Kinda fusion, kinda not. Multiple sauces, organ meats. I was going to buy it for you until I saw the price.”

The next morning I woke up early and went to the cookbook section at the nearest bookstore. A group of burgundy books sat on the shelf like a red siren flashing at me—Trotter. I grabbed one, sat on a bench, and started paging through it. I didn’t move for forty-five minutes. The book was amazing. Every recipe was incredibly detailed but yet somehow abstract. The food was at once complex and simple. Jeff was right. This was right up my alley. It was exactly what I suspected existed somewhere but couldn’t find.

Over the next month Jeff let me create a different special or two each night, each of them influenced by Trotter’s book. I would stay up late at night reading the introductions to each dish. Chef Trotter would explain how the dish came together a certain way or why a particular ingredient was selected. He wrote about achieving excellence at all costs. The book was like a drug for me. What started as a weekly check-in with chef Stallard to assess progress on the Scotland front turned sporadic. I lost interest in Europe and became infatuated with Trotter’s philosophy. And Chicago wasn’t that far from Grand Rapids.

One day I saw chef Stallard talking to his executive sous chef Larry Johnson. I walked up to them and said hello.

“What’s up, Chef?”

“Well, Chef, I have been thinking. Do you remember that Charlie Trotter book I showed you a couple of months ago? I was thinking that maybe I should just go work there. You know, instead of going to Scotland.”

A smile broke over his face. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.

“It’s supposed to be a great restaurant, that’s for sure. But there is something about being trained in Europe. I tell you what—if you want to try to get a job there, go ahead and pursue that. We will continue to work on Scotland. I bet it will be really hard to get into Trotter’s, and realistically it may never happen. So we’ll work on both fronts and if one hits, you can decide what to do then. Sound good?” Chef Stallard couldn’t have been more supportive.

“Yes, Chef. That sounds good.”

CHAPTER 5

I wrote a cover letter to Charlie Trotter’s and sent in my résumé. A few weeks went by, and I thought