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

Alinea was less than two years old. We had a ton left to prove.

I had attended a few culinary congresses that were popular in Spain over the previous couple of years, starting with one in Barcelona when I was at Trio, and then a couple in San Sebastián after Alinea was up and running. I always found these events enjoyable. It’s never bad to travel to Europe, especially Spain, and professionally it was a chance to meet some of the world’s greatest chefs and gain inspiration from their cuisine and restaurants.

Held every winter in Madrid, Madrid Fusion is one of the largest and most highly regarded events of this type in the world. Chefs fly in from as far as Brazil and Japan to take the stage and show their peers their innovations. In January 2007 I decided to take sous chefs John Shields and Curtis Duffy with me to Madrid Fusion.

During the four-day-long event the congress is generous enough to organize a series of dinners for the presenting chefs in various restaurants in Madrid. These dinners were a chance to connect on a personal level with the media, the sponsors, and the host chefs.

Toward the end of the congress, John, Curtis, and I decided to go to the last of the organized dinners. When we arrived we were seated with a group of American journalists and chefs that included Joyce Goldstein. I immediately found myself engaged in conversation with Joyce as she told stories of cooking “back in the day.” I was fascinated by her tales of Alice Waters and Judy Rodgers and the origin of what would become known as California Cuisine. It was way better than any history gastronomy class that I had attended at the CIA. I barely noticed Curtis and John hovering around the table next to us in between courses. As the meal was winding down, John literally pulled me out of my chair and away from Joyce.

“Dude, what are you doing? You should hear these amazing stories she’s telling over here.”

“Yeah, well, read it in a book,” he said with a smile. “There are some people over here I think you should meet.”

As I approached the table I recognized a woman with whom I was all too familiar: Antoinette Bruno, the CEO and editor in chief of the culinary webzine StarChefs.com. Antoinette and I had had a bit of a run-in during StarChefsʹ rising-star award search in 2005. She had approached us about coming to the restaurant for a tasting, which after the Mariani incident translated to “free meal” in my mind. I hadn’t really heard of StarChefs at that point, and her personality was, well, let’s just say demanding. She wanted to come in during off-hours, eat tasting or reduced-size portions, and take pictures. This is not what we did. We politely declined, and she insisted. We declined again and she insisted. And then I turned it over to Nick to be the bad cop.

Nick explained to Antoinette that we didn’t feel like I should be positioned for a rising-star award from StarChefs since Food & Wine had given me one of their ten Best New Chef awards more than three years earlier, the James Beard Foundation had given me their rising-star award in 2003, and I had won countless local awards. Just for good measure, he quoted the New York Times in a September 2005 article: “Astonishingly self-assured at 31, he will be, I believe, the next great American chef, up there with Trotter and the French Laundry’s Thomas Keller.”

Losing his patience with the assertive Bruno, he simply said, “Grant’s star has already risen, you missed the upswing, and we’re looking for bigger things.” Nick then went on to diplomatically suggest our pastry chef Alex Stupak, which she willingly accepted.

I had no real interest in chatting with her, and I was about to walk away from the group when I heard John say, “Chef, this is Heather.”

I turned to see an attractive young woman with long wavy brunette hair and sleek glasses standing with her hand extended ready to shake mine.

After the introduction we pulled some empty chairs from a nearby table over and the four of us sat down. Antoinette said hello, and I couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t that I disliked her or had any bad feelings toward her or StarChefs, but the way things had gone down, it wasn’t exactly like being reunited with a long-lost friend. Nevertheless, that was two years ago, we were in Spain, and all of us had had a few drinks by this point in the evening. Will Blunt, Antoinette’s partner in StarChefs who I had met a few months earlier while I was cooking at Trotter’s nineteenth-anniversary dinner, was at the table as well. As we started talking about that event, he asked if I would be willing to do an interview and submit a recipe of one of the courses that I had prepared at Trotter’s. After some good conversation about food and the industry, the group decided we didn’t want the night to end just yet and opted to go out for some Cava. One bottle turned into several, and before I knew it I found myself in a tiny dive bar in Madrid watching John and Will go head-to-head in a Jameson consumption contest.

After our late-night foray into the streets of Madrid, Heather and I went back to my room and stayed awake talking until the sun came up. Heather and Will headed for the airport a few hours later, while my group stayed for another night. I tried to talk her into changing her flight and staying an extra day, with no luck.

When I woke up the next morning, I immediately went to my computer, found the StarChefs website, and tried to locate Heather’s e-mail address. I wanted to talk to her more. Again, no luck—it wasn’t listed. I decided to e-mail Will when I returned from Spain to