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

“I’m Grant. Here for a tryout today and tomorrow.”

“Another one,” he mumbled toward Kevin with a slight smile.

I helped organize the produce while cooks started to arrive and walk by us. A few would make sarcastic remarks at Kevin or DJ and the guys would fire back. It was in good fun, but there was an underlying tension to the place. It felt competitive. After the produce was put away I moved inside.

The kitchen had eight cooks in it now, each quietly producing the mise en place for their station. I helped Kevin roll and shape a batch of russet potato gnocchi while we quietly chatted. “So, where are you coming from, Grant?”

I hesitated. I remembered chef Trotter’s admonishment, “If you don’t work here a year, you never existed.” But I could tell that Kevin was sizing me up. “Trotter’s,” I said.

“Oh. Trotter’s. How was that? How long were you there?”

“Not very long,” I said. “It wasn’t what I expected.” Thankfully, that ended the conversation.

We finished up the gnocchi and he put a cutting board down for me right next to his. “We’re going to cut some brunoise. You okay with a knife?”

Kevin demonstrated the tiny dice, pushed the pieces over to the far corner of my board and said, “Leave those there for a reference.”

I began cutting the turnip, carrot, and green leek tops into the miniature cubes at a good clip. Another cook approached my cutting board, looked at my work, then back at me. He spoke very slowly, making sure the others around us heard him. “Hi. I’m Josh.”

“Grant is from Trotter’s,” Kevin spoke up on my behalf.

Josh immediately looked down at my board, poked his finger into a pile of my carrot brunoise and pulled out a single piece from the hundred that was cut on a slight angle to form an inconsequentially uneven cube.

“Kevin, you had better watch this guy. His knife skills aren’t so good.” Josh looked me in the eye and said, “You might want to start over.” He slowly walked away.

I looked at the pile of carrots, dumbfounded. Kevin could see me thinking “What the hell?” and decided to encourage me. “They’re fine. They look good. He’s just trying to intimidate you. Josh is a friend of mine, but he can be a prick sometimes. He worked fish for Bouley and now he thinks he’s a god.”

“Where is everyone else from?” I asked.

“Well, all over the place, really. The poissonnier over there, Phil Baker, is a Jean Georges alum. The saucier, Jeffrey Cerciello, worked in Spain at some place called elBulli. Ron Siegel, today is his last day, but he’s from Daniel.”

The kitchen was loaded with talent.

As we finished up the brunoise, Kevin headed over to chef Keller, who was busy cleaning foie gras for torchon, and inquired what he should have me do next. “Have him peel and slice tomatoes for Eric,” he said.

Eric Ziebold was manning the garde manger station, working on the components for a sliced tomato salad. We exchanged introductions and he instructed me to blanch, peel, and slice the Early Girl tomatoes using a deli meat slicer.

I made quick work of peeling them and headed to the slicer.

With every stroke across the slicer the tomato juice would run down toward the bottom of the blade then violently spray at me. I sliced thirty tomatoes, seasoned each layer with minced shallots, olive oil, sel gris, and black pepper, then meticulously stacked them back together so that they would appear to be a whole tomato. In the process, I looked like an ax murderer, my chef coat covered with tomato-juice splatter.

Chef Keller walked by, looked me up and down, and deadpanned with a wry smile, “Hey. Next time why don’t you try to get a little more tomato all over yourself?” He paused a few beats for effect and smiled again. “Go change your coat.”

I couldn’t help but smile, even though I was embarrassed.

This place felt different. It felt good.

The day progressed into service, and I ended up camping out next to chef Keller, mainly observing. He was expediting and working the canapé station at the same time. It wasn’t a particularly busy night, at least compared to the pace I had experienced at Trotter’s. Plus, everything here felt calmer and more methodical. Chef Keller would move slowly and gracefully as he placed giant slabs of foie gras in a hot pan, turn back to expediting, and then turn back to the stove only at the very moment when the liver was ready to be flipped. He was able to carry on a conversation with me while working multiple pans on the flattop and serving as air-traffic control to the rest of the cooks in the kitchen.

“Why did you write me a letter every day?” he asked.

“I wanted a job, Chef,” I replied.

He smiled. “So you thought that would do it?”

“I thought that might get me here, and I knew if I could get that far, then the chance of landing a job was good.”

“So why did you leave Trotter’s?”

I let out a sigh and tried to think of how to put things politely. “It just wasn’t for me. It’s a different place.”

“Different than here?”

“Way different, Chef. Way different.”

I sensed that he knew that before asking and wanted to see if I recognized the differences between the two kitchens. It was fine that I didn’t articulate what exactly was different.

No chef should bad-mouth any other.

He finished sautéing a spoonful of julienned abalone, drained them on a towel, and seasoned them with salt and parsley. A brioche crouton was sautéed in the fat that had rendered off the foie, and after it was golden brown and crunchy he placed it in the dead middle of the oversized plate, gently laid the foie gras on top along with a few pieces of Meyer lemon supremes and fried abalone. A cordon of sauce was poured around and a pluche of chervil crowned