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

had no furniture or even a security deposit made it as easy as moving my clothes, books, and knives once again. I moved in with Angela—and then we started dating. Pretty much the opposite of what most people do.

Chef Keller treated each of us like specialists, delegating the responsibilities of the kitchen to us based on our strengths and personalities. Greg led the morning team and did most of the ordering, Eric would oversee the entire operation but concentrate on the meat and butchering stations, and I spent most of my time looking over the fish and canapé sections. The creative process was always collaborative, but it became clear that Chef appreciated my imaginative spirit. He knew that while I respected the idea of flawless repetition required in the pursuit of perfection, I grew bored easily. I found making the same thing the same way monotonous, and I commonly pestered him to change my dishes.

In a menu meeting, Chef threw out a challenge to the group: to come up with a new summer-focused caviar dish. We’d run the same two—“Oysters and Pearls” and “Cauliflower Panna Cotta”—for a long time, and even though the former dish is amazingly delicious, it is very heavy for the summer months. I went home that night and sat down with a few books and a pad of paper to figure out a new dish.

I wanted a cold preparation, something that was light and refreshing—the complete opposite of the rich, hot sabayon in “O & P.” As I started to think about caviar my mind naturally drifted to champagne. It is a classic match, and the cold effervescence of the wine is energizing. I next thought of things that paired well with champagne. I imagined a cocktail reception with people wearing fine clothes, sipping champagne, and eating . . . prosciutto-wrapped melon on a toothpick.

Cantaloupe, champagne, and caviar. It makes sense.

I called the produce purveyor at 3:00 A.M. and added a few cantaloupes so I could play around the next day.

I arrived early with a condensed page of notes and an annotated sketch I drew up showing each of the components and their composition in the finished dish. After giving it more thought, I wanted to create a dish that highlighted the texture of the caviar itself. I decided to turn the melon into a bavarois, or mousse, so it would gently dissolve in the mouth and give a textural priority to the eggs. A thin layer of champagne gelée would form the barrier between the caviar and the mousse, and a paper-thin slice of ripe melon would act as a foot to prevent the bavarois from melting if the plate was not super cold.

I began to prepare the dish as John Frasier, the canapé chef de partie, walked past. “Oh, God. Now what are you up to?”

“The new caviar course you’re going to be picking up tomorrow. You might want to watch how I do this so you don’t go down in a couple of days.” John and I ego-jabbed each other all the time.

“Is that melon? You’re making a caviar dish with melon? Yeah. That ought to be good. Can’t wait to hear what Chef has to say about this one.”

I finished plating the prototype, placed the dish on chef Keller’s desk, and handed him a spoon.

“Cantaloupe Melon Bavarois with Champagne Gelée and Osetra Caviar.”

He looked down at the dish and slowly lifted his head up to meet my eye. With a raised eyebrow he smiled. “Uh, you put caviar on dessert?”

I laughed. “No, Chef. It’s not desserty sweet. It’s just as sweet as the melon is naturally, about twenty Brix. But it balances really well with the acid from the champagne and the salinity of the caviar. Try it.”

He skeptically dug his spoon in and took a bite.

“Wow. It’s really good. Really good. I never would have thought . . . Is it producible?”

“Yes, Chef. I can train John in a day or so, no problem. Can we put it on tomorrow?”

“Yes.” He paused for a moment and continued, “But you know the minute we put this dish on the menu it’s no longer a Grant Achatz dish. It will be a Thomas Keller dish. You won’t be able to use this when you eventually become a chef. People will think you are stealing from me.”

I thought about it for a moment and decided to say what came to mind. “That’s okay, Chef. Plenty more ideas where that came from.”

I arrived at The French Laundry early one night so I could get some prep done for a table of regulars—we called them VIPs—when I saw chef Keller gliding through the kitchen directly toward me. Every morning he would greet each cook with a handshake and usually, depending on the day, a smile. On that day, I noticed something in his hand. He placed the October 1999 issue of Gourmet magazine on the stainless pass and asked me to open to the page marked with a yellow sticky note.

I thumbed to the page, finding an unfamiliar, gruff-looking chef surrounded by floating oranges. “Who is this guy?” I wondered. “And why is he juggling citrus fruits?”

That guy was Ferran Adrià, the chef at a restaurant in Spain called elBulli. “Bulldog?” I thought. “A restaurant named Bulldog?”

Chef Keller looked down at the magazine and almost whispered at me, “Grant, read this tonight when you go home. His food sounds really interesting and right up your alley. I think you should go there and stage this summer. I’ll arrange it for you.”

Seven months later I landed at the Barcelona airport. I hadn’t planned very well and had neglected to make arrangements for traveling to elBulli, two hours north of Barcelona by car.

While walking through the airport I ran into a group of American chefs. Wylie Dufresne, Paul Kahan, Suzanne Goin, Michael Schlow, and a couple of journalists had been flown to Spain by the local tourism board to promote Spanish gastronomy. I recognized them