Private Chefdom - Part 9: The Lobster Trap

Part 9 of a 9-part series

Click Here to go back to Part 8

One of the very best things the private chef job for the Quires was the over-all freedom to prepare just about anything I wanted to for them.  Money, truly was no object and they never once said, “Hey you’re sure spending an awful lot of money for food”.  After so many years in the food service industry, an industry often with single-digit profit percentages I can’t describe how luxurious it was not to have a budget to follow.

If I wanted to buy a couple of pints of fresh raspberries in the middle of January at $8 a pop?  No problem!  Fresh morel mushrooms at $40 a pound?  Sure, why not!  Saffron?  Use it like salt if you want to! 

The other nice thing was that The Quires, by and large, had pretty sophisticated palates.  They truly appreciated good food when it came their way.  While one cannot always say that with money comes good taste, it certainly was the case with them.  While there were some exceptions to the rule (I found a stack of full Velveeta “cheese” boxes in the storeroom and while I never saw anyone actually eat it, it must have been there for a reason right?) I found that they were receptive to fine new things and mostly liked them.

So between The Quires interest in good food and their apathy toward setting a food budget I should have been in heaven right?  Unfortunately there were so many other things going on in and around that house that I ended getting caught up in all kind of little Family soap operas.  The Quires were also masters of playing head-games, something I had no experience with or tolerance for, and so I found myself often distracted from the job at hand.  It was almost a “golden handcuff” situation, where despite some of the unpleasantries of the job, I felt I wanted to stay for the benefits and frequent perks. 

Then there came a time when golden handcuffs had really begun to chafe.  It had been a series of really tough days, with more side games and interpersonal conflicts than I could take.  Damit, I was there to cook, not be the football or the referee, or a player at some contest.  I had lost my interest in the job and suddenly its benefits didn’t come close to balancing its draw-backs.  I had even discussed, with my wife, giving them notice to quit but in the bright light of the following day I decided that maybe it wasn’t all that bad and I would go back with a fresh attitude and give it my best shot.  So off I went, fresh as a daisy, ready to take on the day with a smile.

My normal work routine saw me stopping at one or more grocery stores on my way to the estate and that day was no different.  I went a bit out of my way to go to a ritzy (read as pricey!) little independent supermarket which catered to the many wealthy folks in the tri-state region.  Tucked away near the Salisbury CT town hall it stocked the very best variety of exotic foods anywhere around.  It was one of Mrs. Quire’s favorite places and she kept an open account there for me to charge on.  Their produce department was also something special.  They always had plenty of produce men working so that you didn’t actually get to bag or weigh your own produce, they would jump in and do it for you.  Personally I found this rather annoying.  I wanted to be able to check out each piece of fruit or vegetable I bought, but I guess they thought they were offering a service.  Truth be told, I never got so much as a slightly old mushroom from them so I guess they did earn my trust in the end.

Anyway, I went about my business there with the intent of 1) building the finest dinner I’d ever cooked for them as a fresh-start gesture (even if they didn’t know how upset I’d been), and 2) making it the most expensive meal I could put together for them (this was to make me feel better.  I love working with the best ingredients!).  A quick tour of the store to see what specialties they had in, and I had myself a great menu to prepare.  I don’t remember the whole thing,  but there was an appetizer of Fresh Morels in a Cognac Cream Sauce, followed by a Tomato, Belgian Endive, Basil and Roquefort Salad.  The entrée was to be Medallions of Lobster Tails with Saffron, Leeks and Pernod over Fresh Sun-Dried Tomato Linguini with a side of Cilantro-Lime Grilled Baby Vegetables.  For dessert I was going to make my renowned White Chocolate Mousse Torte, served with a warm Frangelico–Bitter Chocolate Sauce.   I was really jazzed and hurried to work.

When I first took the job with them, one of my immediate concerns was to discern if there were any food allergies in The Family which I needed to be careful of (there were none).  I also asked about food preferences at that time and found that, aside from mackerel, refried beans and capers, there weren’t any foods that I needed to steer clear of.   That made my job a lot easier than it could have been.  Anyway, upon arriving at the house, I put all of the ingredients in the fridge.  The two large live lobsters I’d gotten for the entrée were feisty and fresh but they fit fine.  When I saw Karen (the house staff manager) I told her that I was planning a special meal for that night, and told her some of the menu including having the lobster for the entrée.  She thought it sounded great, saying that they both loved lobster then went off, I guess, off to tell Mrs. Quire all about it. 

Soon Mrs. Quire arrived in the kitchen and began asking lots of questions about the meal.  I happily told her everything but I was glad when she left because I had a lot of work to get done.  As I was heading down to the basement for some things from the dry storage room I over heard her on the phone, apparently to her husband who was probably down at the office annex.  “…a real fancy meal with lobster, your favorite.”…”I think so”…”Yes, I could tell him that we need to eat early tonight then”…”OK I’ll do that…”

I wasn’t sure about what she was up to, but it sounded to me like they were plotting to submarine the dinner.  Why would they want to do that?  It didn’t make any sense at all.  If they suddenly disliked me so much why not just fire me?  I must have been wrong about the conversation.  I finished getting the stores I needed and went back to the kitchen and continues work on the meal.  In an hour or so Mrs. Quire returned to the kitchen.

“David, I just found out that my daughters are going to be here this afternoon.  They might  stay for dinner OK?”

Oh boy, I hadn’t planned on doing this dinner for four people but  I could probably stretch out everything enough for two more people.  It just wouldn’t be quite as nice.

“”That’s fine with me.  Anything else?”  I was wondering about the phone conversation.

“No.  That’s all”.  But as she walked away she turned back “Jenny [one of the daughters] won’t eat mushrooms you know”

Well that was odd.  The last time Jenny had visited a month or so ago, she had eaten mushroom and cheese omelets at every lunch meal for 4 days straight.  What was this woman up to?  I tried to shake off that sinking feeling I was getting, reminding myself of my “new attitude”.  I told her I would find something else nice for her for that course, then went back to work.

Maybe 45 minutes elapsed and she was back again in the kitchen.  What now? I wondered to myself.

“I phoned my daughters about the menu for tonight and they are very excited”  I sensed a “but..” coming soon.  She looked around the kitchen airily, “Are you sure that you can have all this ready by 6PM”?

6 PM!!  Dinner had always, always, always been at 8 PM.  It was one of the few things that hadn’t changed even once the whole time I’d been there.  I guess she saw the look on my face.

“Oh dear, I guess you forgot that when Jenny and her sister are here we eat earlier!”

Now that just wasn’t true!  My old attitude was coming back with a vengeance but what could I do?  I thought I could possibly make the earlier time but some of the fancies and special garnishes I had planned would not be happening.  I told her I would be ready and again jumped into the preparations. 

A short while later Karen wandered in to get a beverage.

“Wow, you’re really flying around in here today!  Is everything going OK?”  She seemed honestly concerned.

“Well my special little intimate dinner for two has turned into a Family reunion for four, and bumped up two hours, but I’m doing OK.”

“What do you mean Family reunion?”  So I told her about Jenny and her sister coming for dinner tonight.  “Are you sure that’s what Mrs. Quire said?”

“She was pretty clear.  I don’t see how I could be mistaken.  Why?”

“Well, uhhh, umm”  She tried starting again, “She, ahhh.  You see, Jenny is in Europe now and for another week.  I don’t see how she could be here for dinner tonight.”

I was dumbfounded.  Mrs. Quire had flat-out lied to me and I just couldn’t figure out why.  My old attitude was now in complete control and it was not a happy camper at all.  I said something lame to Karen about there being some kind of mix-up, and not to worry about it.  I didn’t really know what to do next so I headed back down to the basement for another trip to the storeroom as I was now cooking for four (or was I?).  As I was coming up the stairs I heard a crash coming from the kitchen area.  Good grief, now what?

As I entered the room, Mrs. Quire was standing at the refrigerator door with her back to me, looking at the floor.  Around the corner of the cabinets I saw a thick white mass spreading its way across the floor, impeded occasionally by various sized chunks of glass.  I immediately recognized it as having been the bowl of white chocolate I’d melted with the heavy cream.  It had been cooling in the back of the refrigerator in preparation for making the mousse for tonight’s torte.  I was so close to losing it that I just stood there for a moment pressing my lips together so I couldn’t say anything.  Time seemed to stand still for a just moment, before all hell broke.

Karen rocketed into the room through another door, saw me standing like a statue.  She dismissed me with a glance and hurried over to Mrs. Quire to see if she was injured.  As she reached her, the three rat-dogs came scrabbling across the polished cherry wood floor, lost their collective footing and, in unison, careened off a cupboard door before scurrying on toward their mistress.  Mistress turned in my direction as the canine commotion approached her.  Never catching my eye, or perhaps never noticing me, she bent and tried to shoo them away from the mess on the floor even as they made contact with the leading edge of the molten confection.

The dogs quickly realized that they were standing in some pretty yummy stuff and any pea-sized thoughts of rushing to their mistress’ rescue was forgotten in a short-lived feeding frenzy.  Mistress quickly scooped up one of the beasts as it was about to snag a tasty piece of glass and handed it back to Karen who accepted it, but at arms length, trying to avoid its dripping feet.  Mistress then deftly grabbed the other two and oblivious of their goop-covered faces and paws, tucked them one under each arm.  All of this action was happening in front of the forgotten and still open door to the fridge.  As Mrs. Quire and Karen began moving off with their burdens I saw another motion, this time inside the refrigerator.

The two lobsters had managed to get out of their bag and had chosen this diversion as a cue to make their great escape.  As I was noticing the jail break on the top shelf one of the gardeners entered the kitchen.  He had apparently heard the commotion from outside and had come to help.  Mrs. Quire held out the two dogs she was carrying for him to take, which he did and left.  Karen was still trying to step carefully over-around-through the white ganache puddle, holding the dog out in front like it might pee on her.  It was then, for the first time, I think that Mistress noticed me.  I can’t even imagine what expression must have been on my face but when she saw it, it made her get immediately defensive.

“I just opened door to get drink.  It fell on me!  I could have been killed!”  I shook my head in disbelief.  I knew full well where that bowl had been.  It was way behind the box of mushrooms (which I now saw was sitting on the counter beside the fridge).  What in the devil had she been up to?  Taste testing, snitching, or something more nefarious?

“Really”, she continued, “it was right…” and she turned back towards the refrigerator, her finger pointing, getting ready to show me from where my bowl of nascent mousse had attacked her.  My eyes followed the path of the finger and now saw that the lobsters again were on the move.  No one else had seen them as they approached the shelf edge. Then, just as The Mistresses, and Karen (still with the dog), and my eyes locked onto the fridge the lobsters made a jump for it.  It was not a pretty sight.  No style or grace involved, just gravity.

Hitting the floor just a few inches from ground-zero for the mousse they flopped and flailed, trying to right themselves, getting covered in the now-congealing white chocolate mass.  The sight was more than Karen could take I guess.  She hurled the dog in the general direction of the door while trying to make traction in that direction herself.   I finally made out the noise coming from her as “Ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod…”

Mrs. Quire hadn’t moved.  Her finger still pointed in the air, but her wide eyes were riveted to the wiggling crustaceans on the floor.

“What are those?”  I assumed she must have been speaking to me as I was the only one left in the room.

“Lobsters.  Your dinner actually.”  If I can salvage anything from all this mess, I said to myself.

“They’re moving.  They’re alive!  We can’t eat those!”

I tried to assure her that I was planning on cooking them first and that’s when she really lost it.

“No, no, no, no!  No killing in this house!  I won’t eat!  Take them away NOW!  I never eat ever, ever.  No live food comes here.”  She scurried out of the kitchen, leaving a trail of thick milky footprints in her wake out towards the dining room.  Well, so much for my special dinner.  Staring at the mess on the floor I actually laughed.  The two lobsters stared up with their eye stalks, looking amazingly like a picture I’d once seen in a Garde Manger book of a lobster Choid-froid buffet presentation.  It took me about an hour to clean the place to a relatively decent level.  I decided that I couldn’t ask for a better sign to tell me to move on and find another job so I wrote a nice note telling Karen where to send my last pay check and I left.

On my way out to my car I saw Mrs. Quire and several gardeners working on cleaning off the dogs.  They didn’t see me leave.

What happened to the lobsters?  Darned if I know.  I rinsed them off and put them back in the bag in the fridge.  If my observations about the Family’s refrigerator habits are accurate, they’re probably still there today.

Private Chefdom - Part 8: Sourdough To-Go

Part 8 of a 9-part series

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Another irritating thing about the Quire job situation was that it was never “my” kitchen.  In just about every other place I’d ever worked, even when I wasn’t the head dude, there was always a sense of team spirit, sharing, and respect for the other guys’ things.  At other places, if I was working on something, whether it was delicate chocolate leaves or spun sugar garnishes or just a pan of chopped onions for a soup mise-en-place nobody would think of messing with it.  There was no such code in the Quire kitchen.

The Quires loved my Sour Dough Bread so I tried to keep a jar of starter going all the time.  It was a hopeless task.  As many time as I explained it, as many different ways as I came up with to mark it, as diverse places as I found to hide it, the starter regularly vanished.  Always, I’d ask Mrs. Quire what had happened to it.  Usually she’d say something like “Oh, I threw it out, it was all bubbly, going bad”, or, “It smelled funny so I got rid of it”.  Over and over I would tell her that it was supposed to be bubbly or whatever but she always chucked it when I wasn’t there.  I got tired of having to continually bring fresh starter from home so eventually gave up and stopped making the bread for them.  Naturally, Mrs. Quire began complaining that my bread wasn’t as good as it used to be.

I would regularly come into work and not be able to find some prep, ingredient or item I had been working with the previous day.  It was just gone.  If I was lucky there would be more raw product to start again with, but sometimes I’d have to re-plan a whole days menu because of it.  Mrs. Quire was always rearranging the refrigerators “organizing” or straightening things around in the kitchen.  I  really don’t have a clue about why she would even have a call to go in there between 10 PM one night and 10 AM the next day, aside from getting a glass of milk or an egg for breakfast.  I know it was her kitchen and all but she was paying me to do a job and then making it as difficult as possible for me to do a good job at it.  Very frustrating indeed.

(Continued here)

Private Chefdom - Part 7: The Diet Challenge

Part 7 of a 9-part series

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Family Dieting was another on-going series of loosing battles for me.  To some extent I brought the grief on myself by making such a big deal about my familiarity with the Diet Analyzer computer program and by even using it to enhance my audition dinner with them.  Apparently both of the Quires were concerned about their weight and health and had been stalled in their weight-loss programs for, well, a really long time.  Suddenly it became my responsibility to make something happen for them.  Now, I can understand that as their cook, if they gave me a list of foods to prepare or, conversely, to avoid I could do that.  If they told me that they wanted a low-fat, or low-sodium, or low-cholesterol diet I’d give it my best shot.  I’m no dietitian but I could, with some work probably, make passable cuisine even with most common restrictions.  Unfortunately, what they wanted was to keep eating like they always had but for me to magically make their poundage disappear.

Alright, maybe that’s not completely fair to them.  Mr. Quire was on his version of the Scarsdale Diet while I worked for them.  I’m not too familiar with it but that was OK because with his version of the diet, he only followed it for breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday.  I was never there for breakfast, and he took his lunch on weekdays over at the office building so I didn’t have to deal with it.

There were also a couple of weeks when Mrs. Quire seemed seriously interested in losing weight.  She came to me and appeared genuinely sincere about having me help her.  We decided that the best thing to do was to set a daily caloric intake for her and for me to plan meals with that as a goal for her.  This sounded like a good plan so I worked hard, using my home computer and software to design special menus.  I would come in everyday with my little print-outs for her, so she could see exactly how her calories were being counted and I think she was actually beginning to get a feel for the caloric values for some of the foods she had been eating.  I was impressed with her commitment and I promised to work hard at it for as long as she did.

It lasted two days.  She didn’t cave in all at once but began cheating on the third evening.  “It’s just one glass of wine” with dinner.  Sure, just one glass, but it was holding 10 oz if it was holding a sip.  Probably at least 180 calories, “Bang”, just like that.  The next day at lunch she told me she “needed” a piece of bread to go with her meal.  I tired to explain that a slice of bread was not included in my calculations for her.  She was not interested.  She said, “it’s not so many calories.  It’s just a push”  When she could see I had no idea what she was talking about she repeated “Push, push, you know to push the food onto the fork”  she then lopped off a big chunk from a crusty loaf on the counter and left.  She skipped counting calories at all on Sundays to “have a day off”.  By the 6th day she was nibbling cookies in the morning, having little plates of cheese and dry sausage and bread in the afternoons, and back to drinking wine with evening meals.  After 12 days she complained to me that the counting-calories wasn’t working, she wasn’t losing any weight.  At 2 weeks after starting the “diet” she brought me her favorite full-cream ice cream recipe to make for them for dessert that night “with some nice chocolate cookies”.  After that I didn’t even bother to try to help anymore, but she still complained that she wasn’t losing weight for the rest of the time I worked for her.

(Continued Here)

Private Chefdom- Part 6: Waste Not

Part 6 of a 9-part series

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As outrageous as the feeding-of-the-dogs situation sounds, The Quires were, in general, not overly extravagant where food was concerned and could be downright miserly at times with their food stuffs. 

I should rephrase that.  They were very consistent about talking about being miserly and having Rules about being economical, but they were not very good at following through with their actions.  It was very important for the Quires to feel as they were being as frugal as possible ( I'm sure this had a lot to do with their impoverished youths and the unimaginable hard times and horrors of their Nazi concentration camp interment).  Conversely, they also liked to enjoy many of the fine and fancy things that their independent wealth allowed them, sometimes in quantity.  For example…

They insisted that I keep the refrigerator looking full.  

One of the first things I did while settling in to the job was to clean out the big Sub-Zero refrigerator and freezer boxes.  There was a lot of stuff that could not be identified, it was very cluttered and would be much easier to keep organized and well-cleaned if I weeded it out a bit.  The next day Mrs. Quire was apoplectic.  Horrified, she asked me where everything had gone.  I told her that I had just thrown out the bad stuff but she would hear none of that.  “It looks like we are going to starve to death in there” she moaned, completely ignoring the fact that the two other refrigerators and freezers, the 200 square foot dry-goods storeroom and the 100 square foot , climate controlled, meat and cheese “locker” (all located in the basement adjacent to the wine cellar)  were still filled to overflowing.

On their frequent trips into “The City” (New York City, of course) and overseas, the Quires would often take the opportunity to shop.  More often than not exotic foods were a big part of their shopping.  They would bring back (and sometimes have shipped or delivered) car-loads of specialties from Dean & Deluca, or cheeses, sausages, dried meats from across the globe, or breads from little ethnic bakeries or bags and crates of fresh fruits and vegetables from various farmers’ markets.  All of this would be dumped in the kitchen with great flourish and excitement.  “Here”, they would challenge me, ”make something interesting from all of this”.  

Now that is exactly the kind of challenge most chefs love, and I’m no exception.  The next day I would have a game plan for some of the most particularly tasty-looking ingredients.  I would present my menu.  Invariably Mrs. Quire would say some thing like “Oh, no.  Let’s save that for a special meal.” or, “I just had some of that in The City”, or (my personal favorite), “We don’t really care for it that much, we have to be in just the right mood”.  Who cares that it was some $20 a pound perishable that would be inedible in a few days.  The end result of all their shopping sprees was that, often, much of it went to waste.

I found myself having to sneak into the various store rooms or refrigerators and surreptitiously discard copious quantities of food.  If I just left it there and got real nasty, it was my fault that it hadn’t been used (and my problem to clean up the stinky mess too, of course).  If I got caught discarding it, I was either being wasteful (“Don’t throw that away, it’s still OK”) or, again, it was my fault that it hadn’t been used in time.  The key to happiness for them was an overflowing larder that they never had to eat from, which always had more room for new purchases and which maintained the illusion that nothing in it ever went bad or to waste.

(Continued Here)

Private Chefdom- Part 5: Goin’ to the dogs

Part 5 of a 9-part series

Click Here to go back to Part 4

Another of the house rule sets which directly impinged on me was that regarding The Family pets.  The pets I dealt with were the three dogs.  A trio of some small, shaggy, noisy, and obnoxious breed, no doubt of impeccable pedigree and ridiculous cost.  Papers or not, “Oopie”, “Doopie”, and “Poopie” (I have no recollection of their real names) were as annoying as can be.  I tried to hide it but didn’t like the little rats one bit. 

I think Mrs. Quire saw through my mock tolerance of them for soon they became my responsibility to feed.  And feeding these critters wasn’t just throwing some dry kibble in a bowl or even opening a can of “Stinky Treats”.  Heavens no, nothing like that was good enough for them.  I had to cook for the dogs.

So now every day I would have to prepare meals for not just the people in the house, but the pets as well.  Of course, they didn’t just get a small portion of what ever I was making for the two-legged Family members.  That would have been too easy.  They had to have their own menu.  It was made out periodically by Mrs. Q. including a meat, a vegetable and sometimes a starch of some sort (what, no desert?).  She designed them with the thoroughness of a dietitian working on balancing a school lunch program. 

My job was to prepare all the components, put them on a special shelf in the big Sub-Zero refrigerator.  She would then come in at their meal times, pull out the various ingredients for that meal, cut them up into little bite-sized pieces, and toss them lightly together.  She’d then put the food into their individualized little silver bowls and take them to where ever it was that she fed them.  Mrs. Quire made a major production out of this, invariably spreading her little project out over most of the whole kitchen, indifferent to anything that I was trying to get done there.  When she was finished she would breeze off to feed the dogs, leaving me with her huge mess to deal with.  My daily mantra of “This is her kitchen, she can do as she pleases. (repeat as often as necessary)” wore thin pretty quickly.

One of the regular menu items for the pooches was chicken.  Mrs. Quire would always have me buy fresh (never frozen or “hard chilled”) whole chickens.  Free-range and organic ones were preferred when available.  She then had me “Kosher” the chickens.  This is a process of salting down the carcasses for an hour or so, letting any juices be drawn out, adding more salt as necessary.  After the Koshering I was permitted to poach the whole birds (no cutting up was permissible) in a seasoned court bouillon (with a nice mire-poix, of course).  Once poached, the birds were cooled and the breast meat removed.  That was the only part that the dogs got.  I was not allowed to use the rest of the meat for The Family so the household staff got a lot of poached dark meat chicken meals.  From time to time I uesd some of that wonderful chicken stock in a dish for The Family, but I don’t think they would have approved, if they had known.

(Continued Here)

Private Chefdom - Part 4: Rules, Rules, and more Rules

Part 4 of a 9-part series

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Having taken the job, I began recalling some of the many oddities and familial strangeness from the night of my audition dinner.  I wondered if things at that household could have really been that screwy.  Even if they had been, I argued back to myself, probably it was just a fluke, an aberration of circumstances because of the audition, having a stranger romping around their house and such.  I mean, these folks were obviously intelligent, successful and wealthy.  They must be OK right?  How weird could they be?

That was a question whose answer I never fully learned, but I did get glimpses of the whole.  During the time I worked for the Quires I found myself growing more and more amazed that a couple so obviously messed-up could become so successful.  A tribute to this country’s systems I think, or perhaps, it was that their personal forms of imbalance just happened to mesh with their chosen career paths. 

At any rate, I soon came to realize that the Quire’s ran their house like a boot camp for dysfunctionalism where I, and the rest of the staff, were the raw recruits, there to be broken, shaped and molded into something smaller.  If there was a Drill Sergeant at this boot camp it was certainly The Wife.  While the rest of The Family had each their role in the chain of command (Mr. Quire the General, the daughters the lieutenants), it was she who  had the primary contact with the troops and was tasked with the training.  Her training tool of choice?  The Rule Book.

The was no actual, written rule book.  That would have made things too easy, of course.  The Rule book was in Mrs. Quire’s head and she had the freedom (and inclination) to change the rules at will or whim.  Woe be it to he who was not up to date on the rules.  For me, quite naturally, the rules governed everything to do with the kitchen and food. 

One set of rules covered the use of pots, pans, utensils, and equipment and dictated which should be used for what applications, and in what manner.  Mrs Quire was obsessive about cleanliness and order so there were lots of rules about that too.  All of the lovely copper pots and pans hanging from the big rack in the middle of the room had to be arranged “just-so” in order of size and by type.  Each had to be facing the same direction, at the same angle.  If any pot was used, even for boiling water, it had to be put through an incredibly thorough and  time-consuming cleaning and polishing regime.  

I’ve already mentioned one of the Cutting Board Rules, another had to do with Potato Pancakes. Potato Pancakes were one of the Quires' favorite foods and they often wanted them in accompaniment to just about any entrée.  I made a pretty good Potato Pancake, but Mrs. Quire had her way she wanted them made.  She went as far as to come into the kitchen one afternoon and walk me through her whole process and recipe.  Who was I to argue?  They were the ones paying the big bucks so even if I couldn’t tell any difference in the end result, I followed her recipe.

One Sunday afternoon following a nice brunch meal for them which included Potato Pancakes with freshly-made apple sauce and sour cream, Mrs. Quire entered the kitchen.

“Did you enjoy you meal today Mrs. Quire?”

“Very good potato pancakes.  Nice and crispy, just like I showed you how to do.”  She was speaking to me, but her eyes were roving all over the kitchen, looking hard for something.

“I have some lovely fresh prawns from the market.  How does that sound for dinner?”

“Do something lighter.”  Now she was starring at the pot rack over the granite slab counter top.

“How about a nice vegetable quiche?”

“OK.  That’s fine.”  But she didn’t look fine.  She was positively glaring at the pot rack.  Her voice ratcheted up several notches of volume and intensity.  “Vat pan you use for pancakes?”  I had already learned that her English deteriorated in direct proportion to her state of agitation.

“That one.”  I pointed to a heavy-bottomed stainless steel one in the sink.

“No, no, no, no.  This pan, this pan.”  She was now wildly gesturing at a large copper sauté pan in the rack.  “I tell you.  I show you.  This is pan for Potato Pancakes.  Pancakes not so good today.  Better this pan.”

“I thought you liked the pancakes today?”

“No.  Not so good.  You use this pan for Potato Pancakes now on, like I show you.”

Easy for her to say.  If I had used that pan I would have had an extra 30-40 minutes of clean-up time (not to mention that she’d never be happy with the polishing job I’d do any way).  Regardless of the pay scale I’d never been one to want to take longer at a job than absolutely necessary.  I mean, I had a life besides work.  I simply nodded an “OK” which seemed to appease her. But I never made Potato Pancakes for them again.

(Continued Here) 

Private Chefdom - Part 3: The Audition

Part 3 of a 9-part series

Click Here to go back to Part 2

Over the course of the next week I worked hard on developing three impressive, balanced menus.  I was trying to show off what I considered my specialties while incorporating them into well-rounded, harmonious yet diverse menus meant  to demonstrate my flexibility.  At last I had a trio I was proud to present.

I called Karen on the phone and read my menus to her (this was well before faxes were so common), making clarifications as necessary so that she could present my ideas to The Family.

A couple of days later she called me with their choice.  Choices actually.  They had used my carefully designed meals like columns on a Chinese restaurant menu, “one from column ‘A’, two from column ‘B’…” and so on.  So much for well-rounded harmony and balance, but we certainly had diversity well covered.  Frustrated, but anxious to get on with it I said “fine” and we re-confirmed the audition for the coming Friday evening.  She said that there would be The Husband, The Wife, she (Karen) and two of the grown children (who lived elsewhere)  at the meal.

“Total of five people, beginning the appetizer course at 7PM, this Friday”, I double checked all the particulars.

“Right, and don’t forget about the diet analysis of the menu, OK?  I  told her OK.

The night of the audition came quickly but I was well prepared.  I had pre-prepped as much as I could figure out how to at home so I didn’t have to arrive until just an hour before service time.  I pulled up, parked, grabbed the first milk crate of ingredients and headed for the door.  Before I got there, Karen came out.

“Don’t use the front door, go around back”.  She pointed around the left side of the house.

By the time I had completed the detour she had gone through inside and was holding the kitchen door open for me.

“Where have you been?  The Family thought you weren’t going to show up!”

“Why would they think that?  We didn’t set a time for me to be here, just a time for the meal to be served.”  I was truly puzzled.

“I know, I know, but they fuss about these things.  They thought you’d have to have been here hours ago to be ready.  They were sure you weren’t coming.”

“Well, I’m here, and dinner will be on-time.  Give me a hand bringing in a couple more boxes of stuff OK?”

We got all the crates into the kitchen and as I unloaded things Karen pointed to where the various utensils, serving plates, mixing bowls etc. which I inquired about were located.  Once I had found everything I’d brought and made sure it had made the trip in one piece, I took a minute to put on my chef-ing togs.  I had been wearing the nicely creased black pants so all I really had to do was slip into the crisp white double-breasted jacket (with my name and “Executive Chef embroidered on the pocket), attach my kerchief, pop on the toque, tie on the good-old four-fold apron and I was ready for business.

No sooner had I finished dressing when Karen strolled in and about fell over looking at me.  An absolutely tremendous grin stretched across her face ear-to-ear.

“Wow!  You look so…so…official!  Fantastic!  They’re going to love this!” 

After getting a couple of things into the oven and refrigerating the dessert components, I collected all of the serving plates, bowls, and underliners I would need to plate up the food.

As I was setting up a plating station at the end of that magnificent granite slab countertop, Karen breezed through.  She was carrying a couple of bottles each of red and white wine (and darned fine ones too I could see).  She saw me and stopped mid-stride.

“Um, ah, you’re not going to put any food on that counter top are you?”

“No” I said lightly, “I’m going to try really hard to actually put it on the plates!”

She just stared at me for a couple of seconds then turned away muttering something like, “dear, dear, dear” and scurried off.  In seconds she was back again minus the wine but with a large, thick table clothe tucked under her arm.

“Let’s just play it safe and put this clothe down to cover the counter.  You have no idea how upset Madam would get if we got this granite stained.”

“You mean that this entire, gigantic kitchen counter top, (which is nearly the size of my whole kitchen at home by the way) can’t be used for cooking or food prep?”

“Well, no.  Not really.  They were going to have it sealed but decided it might mute the colors too much.  Isn’t it pretty though?  One time somebody spilled a little spot of something greasy on it and it took us months of work to get it so you can hardly tell.  There!  See that spot there?”  She was pointing now.    “You can barely tell it’s there now.”  Oh brother, what next?

We put the cloth on the counter and I re-set my serving station, stacking piles with five of each of different the service plates, in the order they would be used.

“Oh”, Karen said.  She was wiping all the silver (and very nice sterling silver it was). “Didn’t I tell you?  The kids aren’t going to be here for dinner, but might show up for dessert”.

“So now it’s only the three of you?”

“Yes.  That’s right”.

What a pain in the butt these people were turning out to be!  What was I supposed to do with the other two peoples-worth of food I had already prepared?

“Can’t you just divide it between the other plates?” Karen asked, sensing that I was beginning to not have a very good time now.

I could have done that, of course, BUT if I did then all that work I had done with the diet analysis  of the menu would have been worthless.  The analysis, naturally, depended on portion sizing for its calculations.  It also would have made for a lot of food to serve on each plate.  I told Karen that since they were paying for all the food anyway I’d just wrap anything left-over and throw it in the fridge for the next day, or when ever.

“The Family isn’t really very fond of anything left-over.  They would prefer not to see anything a second time…”

“Whatever.  Give it to the maid for lunch if you want to.  It’ll be in there.”

Things started to come together better after that.  Everything was on schedule and I was ready.  I gave the printed menus and menu analysis sheets (all five sets) to Karen for distribution as she saw fit.  

The food smells that were beginning to waft about were great and I think it prompted The Family to finally come in to meet me.  As the older-looking couple came in Karen jumped up to introduce them.

“Mr. and Mrs. Quire, this is David.  David, these are the Quires”

I shook both sets of hands.  Mr. Quire seemed preoccupied and disinterested.

“Smells good in here”

“Wait until you taste it” I returned, but he was already half way out the door, shuffling a little, staring down at the floor as he moved.

I turned to see Mrs. Quire had maneuvered behind me and was looking into pots and bowls and poking through some of my prepared garnishes on the counter.  With a twinkle in her eye she snatched up from its ice water bath, one of the intricate curled carrot flowers I was planning on using for the salads, and popped it into her mouth.

“Ummm, that was pretty” she said.  She had an interesting guttural “old country” accent.  Suddenly her eyes got wide and she quickly bulled past me shouting, “OY!  no, No, NO, NO!…”

Her destination was a cutting board on which I had the shrimp all lined up, ready to go into the pan for their appetizer.  She snatched up the cutting board and with surprising agility, flung the crustaceans unceremoniously into a nearby bowl.  Within a second she was at the sink with the cutting board scrubbing it with bleach water.

“Never, ever, the fishes on the boards!”  She turned away from the sink long enough to shake an admonishing finger in my direction.  “Stinky, stinky phew!  Always will stink now.  Forever!”  She scrubbed furiously.  “Have to throw out and get new one now.”  Scrub, scrub, scrub.

Satisfied that she had either scrubbed all the shrimp smell off the cutting board, or resigning herself that she was going to have to throw it away, she eventually stopped, tossed the cutting board into the dish drainer and dried her hands.  She then turned to address me.

“Always the saran” she said in a now patient tone, as though addressing a child, “Always saran before fishes.”  Now she was making a smoothing motion with her hands over and over, miming herself  pressing the plastic wrap onto the cutting board.  “OK?, Yes?”

“Yes” I said, and she was on her way like a tornado, slowing only long enough to snitch a piece of warm bread from its basket on the counter before disappearing toward the dining room.

“Wow”, I turned toward Karen, “Are there any other minor little house rules or laws I’m apt to break in the next couple of hours that I should know about?”

“Actually, there are a few, but let’s not worry about them for now”.

“If you say so…”  I had the feeling that this was probably the only meal I was going to be cooking for these folks anyway.

I checked the time and it was a little past 7 but The Family still wasn’t seated.  Karen said not to worry, just make up the food and they’d show up to eat it.  So that’s exactly what I did.  Starting at the top of the menu I started making and serving each course.  Karen would bring in the plate when they were done with a course and I’d get the next one out.  They seemed to be enjoying everything but I noticed that one of the entrée plates came back almost untouched.

“Was there a problem with that one?” I asked Karen as she was unloading it near the dishwasher.

“Oh, not really.  That was Mrs. Quire’s plate.  She says she’s getting full.  Don’t worry, it was probably just the sandwich she had before.”  Or the bread, or the garnishes or who-knows-what-else she had snitched before the meal I thought.

“What sandwich?”

“Well, I told you that they didn’t think you were really going to show up right?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, at about 5:30 she had me make them some cheese and salami sandwiches.”

“At 5:30 they were already so convinced that I was a no-show that they had you make them dinner?”  She shrugged as if to say “Yup, that’s the way it is around here, it’s no biggie” and left.

At last, the dessert course went out, fresh strawberries in puff pastry with Bavarian cream, and I was done.  Actually there was a fair amount of clean-up to do but I was done performing. 

 While I was packing and cleaning, Karen came in with the last of the table clearings.  She brought with her the remnants of the two wines the Quires had been drinking and asked me if I wanted a glass.  Of course I did.  I had a little of the white, a rich Pouilly-Fusse that was really wonderful and a little bit more of the deep, mellow Cotes du Rhone red.  I’m sure that I didn’t get near enough of either of them for my tastes. 

Perks like that would be very interesting but, while the food that went out was near perfect, I thought my personality and theirs was too much of a clash to work.  I wasn’t going to hold my breath, waiting for them to call with an offer .

As it turned out I didn’t have to wait.  Karen called the next day and said that the Quires were "most impressed" with last night’s dinner and that they were pleased to offer me the job.  A short time, and a bit of negotiating later and I was a full-time Private Chef.

(Continued Here)