TWO

Seeds of Inspiration

I had always wanted to be a chef. Even still, I had not planned on spontaneously quitting my publishing job that day, a week before I’d even heard about the possibility of trailing at Nobu. I’d enrolled in culinary school a month earlier, but it was a weekend program only, and I’d planned on staying at my office job while in school. Once I’d taken that step into the restaurant world, though, my job began feeling less and less important, even if it did provide a steady paycheck and health insurance. With cooking now firmly in my future, I was eager to escape the small office where I spent my hours staring alternately at the glare of my computer screen and out through my window at the city below. The pile of uncomfortable work shoes I’d stashed beneath my desk (I had no need for them outside of the office) depressed me. They seemed to serve no valuable purpose.

My parents were generally supportive of my decision. Maybe it was their Danish background: They had different and more flexible ideas about career and education, and they saw nothing inherently wrong with my decision to drastically switch careers—my Danish cousins did it all the time. They made no case in favor of the “security” of an office job with a large company. Neither one had exactly followed an orthodox career path. My mother started college at thirty-four and eventually became a computer programmer after being a stay-at-home mom. And my father left home at thirteen after being given an ultimatum by his mother: Go to school or get a job. He went to sea, became a sea captain, and did not retire until he was sixty-six years old. It was my father who ultimately encouraged my step away from office life for good.

“Dad,” I lamented on the phone one day from work, “I just don’t feel like any of this stuff matters. The reports, the trade shows, the promotional materials. People only care about bottom lines. It’s not interesting. It’s not me. I feel stifled.”

“I’ll tell you one thing I know for sure,” he’d said. “You only have one life. Whatever you decide to do, you should try and be happy. Don’t be afraid to take risks.”

And that’s all it took. I hung up the phone and immediately gave my two weeks’ notice. I figured I’d find a job waiting tables for the next nine months while in culinary school. At least I’d be in a restaurant and not staring at a computer.

A week later, I heard about the job opening at Nobu through Linda, a friend of a friend. When she revealed that she was a cook at Nobu, I excitedly told her about culinary school, my recent decision to quit publishing, and my plan to wait tables. Linda told me that Nobu was looking for a nighttime pastry person, an entry-level position. “You should check it out,” she said. It had to be kismet.

A few days later I met with Mika, and I liked her immediately. I was encouraged by her kind tone.

“I’ve wanted to cook for as long as I can remember,” I told her, banking on my enthusiasm, my only credential.

It was the absolute truth. I have always loved to cook. At five, I stood on a chair at the counter next to my mother and helped her with the many Danish dishes she prepared, shaping frikadeller , peeling potatoes for bikser mad. For dessert, she showed me how to sprinkle bread crumbs, toasted with butter to a deep brown, in a fat layer over the apples she’d cooked down the night before. I watched intently as she magically whipped cream into a fluffy cloud and used it for another layer of the æblecage. And when she made bread, I waited anxiously for the ball of dough resting in a glass bowl on the stovetop to puff up until finally it would be time for my tiny fist to punch down the plump, airy pillow. Then she would knead it again, shaping most of it into two loaves and giving me my own bit of dough to shape in any way I wanted: a short braid, a pretzel, a turtle. And when the bread was done baking (my small shapes were always done first) we gobbled it down as soon as it was cool enough to handle, slathering it with plenty of butter and sometimes a sprinkle of brown sugar. For my thirteenth birthday, I received Anne Willan’s Grand Diplôme Cooking Course cookbook as a gift and read it over and over. Mesmerized by the photos, I attempted some of the less complicated recipes. After graduating high school, I still wanted to cook, but I was interested in so many other things, too. I wanted to study languages and literature, so I went to a conventional university. I kept cooking, but only as a hobby.

“I spend all my spare time baking and cooking at home,” I told Mika. I still routinely pored over cookbooks, using my roommates and boyfriend as guinea pigs for elaborate dinners and brunches.

Sitting across from Mika that day, I felt overdressed in the pale yellow linen pantsuit I’d worn to work that day—like an imposter. Mika seemed so at ease in her baggy white chef ’s coat. I made sure to tell her that I was starting culinary school in just a few weeks. As luck would have it, I had enrolled in the very same school that Mika had attended.

 

 

ON MY SECOND TRAIL, I worked with Nobu’s other pastry chef, Jemal, in the hours preceding dinner service. Jemal was a good foot taller than Mika (and me) and not nearly as soothing. He gave me orders and corrected my mistakes—all business. We worked down in the basement, where all the preparation for the upstairs service kitchen was done. He gave me simple tasks like peeling Asian pears (much rounder and crunchier than regular pears, with a texture like that of jicama), picking mint sprigs for garnish, and weighing ingredients. He said we were doing mise-en-place, getting all the ingredients together. Every task, every dessert, it seemed, had its own set of mise-en-place.

After a few hours of work, Jemal led me outside the restaurant, where we sat on the ledge of an old loading dock.

“Your main responsibility if you work here,” he told me, “will be plating desserts—like what you did the other night with Mika. You’d also be responsible for setting up the mise-en-place for the station—all the little things, garnishes and stuff. In addition to that,” he went on, “you’d be doing some light production—simple cakes, phyllo cups, things like that. We’ll teach you that stuff.”

So far, neither Mika nor Jemal seemed to mind that I had no experience and hadn’t even started school yet. They didn’t even seem to mind that I had enrolled in a culinary program that did not include pastry. The program at school that combined savory and pastry was too expensive, and I’d been forced to choose. I chose savory, thinking I’d be better at it.

“Your lack of experience doesn’t bother me,” he said finally. “It just means that I can mold you any way I want. That you haven’t learned any bad habits yet.” He smiled, almost maniacally . I just nodded. I wanted him to teach me everything, especially since I wouldn’t be learning it at school. It was the perfect situation.

“So,” he finally said, “the job pays four hundred dollars a week—that’s before taxes—and you’ll work Monday through Friday starting at two p.m. every day. You’ll work until the last dessert has gone out and the station is cleaned and closed down, which will rarely be before midnight. I want you to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.” He paused while I took it all in. I couldn’t believe it. I was actually being offered a job, a cooking job, in a real restaurant. And not just any old restaurant but a great one. One in the spotlight.

“You know,” he finally added, almost grudgingly, “Mika really likes you. We’re willing to give you a chance.”