for you every morning out of those hothouse jobs you’re tossing in the trash every day. I’ll even do it on my own time.” I’ve got plenty of it to spare now—what do I care? “And please, no more bottled lemon juice. Isn’t this the friggin’ citrus capital of the world? I mean, you’ve got six-hundred-dollar pendant lights hanging over every table but you can’t swing a three-dollar bag of lemons?”
Chuck rolls a shoulder like he’s loosening a kink. “You know a lot about Italian food for a guy with an English heritage.”
I flinch a little. Ah, right: Martin.
He sighs and rubs his temples. “How do I know what people like? No one ever says anything. I go to the tables and ask how they like their meals, but they just nod and smile, just pay their checks and leave.”
“They’re telling you every day, Chuck. Take an hour each night and stand at the door to the kitchen and watch what remains on the plates when the busboys bring ’em back in. Your customers are gonna eat what tastes good.” He nods a little. “Tell you what, you let me make my Caesar, anchovies and all, and we’ll serve it to one half of the room, while the other half gets the chemical mayonnaise, and let’s watch what makes its way back into the kitchen.” As we walk out and turn the lights back off, I add, “And if I win, you gotta agree to buy some new knives.”
The playful competition between me and Chuck, between my homemade offerings and his cost-cutting factory-formulated food products, has served as a wonderful distraction from my obsession with Melody. Every night and every morning remain the same, but when I arrive at work, if for just an hour, I focus my attention on something else, indulge in the camaraderie of the kitchen and my subtle instruction (tear the basil, I tell my peers; don’t cut it or half the flavor remains on the knife and cutting board), enjoy the task of cooking without having to worry about things like personalities and profit and paychecks. Over time, I plan out what I’ll be trying next, what imitations can be replaced with the real thing.
I’ve had some great successes. My Caesar had an 88-percent success rate (that remaining 12 percent still baffles me) and a near 100-percent success rate with the sausage we began having shipped down from Satriani’s, a place in Brooklyn that used to make biweekly deliveries to Sylvia, a tip I gave to Chuck after pretending to randomly find them on the Internet.
Now, at the end of my third month, Chuck sits me down, opens a pair of icy Heinekens, and hits me with, “How would you like to manage this place?”
I swallow a mouthful and look away, wipe the moisture from my lips.
He hits me again: “I’ll give you a thirty percent increase.”
I take another drink to avoid answering, but the gap in silence wears me down. “I’m just a cook.”
He sits back and drops his hands to his lap, seems genuinely surprised at my apathy. “You’ve got to be kidding. You know everything about this industry. I don’t know how a produce guy could have such a broad grasp on the ins and outs of this business, but you’re a natural. I mean, I’ve never seen someone take the remainders of the day and turn them into salads and antipasto the way you do. What nonurban restaurant gets busy at nine at night?”
Chuck’s referring to an idea that morphed into a decided success about a month ago. I suggested that instead of preserving or tossing the vegetables and meats and breads opened for the day, we use them up, make salads and antipastos and bruschettas—and serve them free to folks who just wanted to stop in and grab a beer or bottle of wine. The first night I took an eggplant left unused from eggplant parmigiano and diced it up and sautéed it in olive oil, then added all of the ill-fated chopped vegetables—onions, green peppers, olives, celery, tomatoes—and a cup of the gravy that had nearly thickened to paste, a little salt and pepper and there you go: caponata. Folks in the bar scooped it up and piled it onto hunks of bread and drank alcohol until closing. The next day: sliced tomatoes with garlic and fresh basil and oregano. Every day it was something else. Last week, there was no room in the bar after nine for five