FOURTEEN

Forbidden Fruit

Whack!

I slammed the narrow row of white plastic pyramid molds onto the edge of my stainless steel table—the full extent of Scarabée’s basement pastry station—and crossed my fingers. I carefully lifted the molds to find that only three of the five chocolate mousse pyramids had come out of their molds.

I’d used the same kind of molds (production molds, they were called; each tray held seven rows of five and fit perfectly on a full sheet pan, making it easy to produce desserts in volume) at La Côte Basque, but there I’d used ovals that were bottomless and topless, which made them easy to unmold: I simply lined each oval with thin strips of plastic before filling the cavities with mousse, froze them, and then pushed each oval up and out. I had picked out the pyramid-shaped molds a few weeks earlier, thinking that a pyramid-shaped dessert would fit perfectly in a restaurant that was, after all, named for an Egyptian beetle. I immediately planned on filling each mold halfway with dark chocolate mousse, then piping in a secret center of white chocolate mouse, and finally filling in the bases of the pyramids with a thin, even layer of dark chocolate ganache made crunchy with crushed, roasted cocoa beans and crumbled halvah, a sesame candy. I had not, however, thought about how I would get the pyramids out of the molds. I started to worry: What kind of a pastry chef was I going to be if I couldn’t even unmold my desserts?

I had tried brushing the insides of each cavity with melted cocoa butter, which made absolutely no difference. I’m not even sure how I came up with that stupid idea. I thought about lining each one with tempered chocolate, treating each pyramid like a giant individual bonbon, like the ones Jemal used to make. Not only would that take a lot of time (and chocolate), but it would work only if the chocolate was perfectly tempered and I didn’t have enough faith in my tempering skills. Using a propane torch to heat the outsides of the pyramids was out of the question; the plastic would melt. I finally settled on running hot tap water over the pyramids just long enough to warm the mousse, then ran back to my table to—whack!—bang them out. Like most things I came up with at Scarabée, I figured out how to unmold the pyramids through trial and error. Over time, though, I was sure the trays would not be able to stand the beatings. But I would worry about that later. Only one week remained before opening day, and I was determined to prove myself, especially to the owner, a habitual name dropper, who had suggested that his “friend” François Payard consult on the menu. I had to prove that I did not need any outside help.

I had been working at Scarabée for weeks already before I started to work on the desserts. Frank and I had been helping Joey with the myriad preparations involved in opening a restaurant. We functioned like cocaptains, and Joey included us in nearly every decision he made, allowing us to see the process firsthand. We met at nine every morning, bringing coffee back to the restaurant, still a construction site, where we spent most of the day. Joey ordered the large equipment (ovens, refrigeration, mixers) and designed the layout of the kitchen and prep area. We had to anticipate what kind of small wares (small tools and equipment) we would need, things I’d taken for granted in previous restaurants. How many sheet pans would we need? Half sheet pans? Whisks? Would we need four-ounce or two-ounce ladles or both? At twenty dollars each, could I make do with just six silicone baking mats? Yes, I probably could. We didn’t want to forget anything: rubber spatulas, fish spatulas, bains-marie, slotted spoons, sauce-pans, sauté pans. Compiling one list was mind-boggling and tedious.

Once the nitty-gritty of equipment was taken care of, we moved on to more exciting things like menu ideas and talked through every item, every garnish. We would have nine appetizers and nine entrées, Joey said, but we needed to balance the heavy dishes with the light, with foie gras at one end of the spectrum and a plain green salad at the other. We hated the generic mesclun salad—it was boring and unchallenging—but we knew that some people always expected it to be available, so we put it on. Joey had the same philosophy with the entrées, so we begrudgingly included an entrée for those customers afraid of straying too far from the familiar. We referred to those unadventurous diners as “the chicken people.”

Entrées decided, we wrestled with the menu wording: smashed vs. mashed, pan seared vs. pan roasted, housemade vs. homemade, crusted vs. coated. Written presentation was everything; if something didn’t sound good, it wouldn’t get ordered, no matter how delicious.

I labored over the desserts, wanting to create a varied menu that included something for everyone. Joey’s idea for a rose petal crème brûlée meant there would be one custard. I wanted something frozen, a warm fruit dessert, and something light, like a fruit soup. I didn’t want anything too generic or any overlap—if raspberries appeared on my chilled mango water with raspberry cream granita, then they would appear only on that dessert. And I had to have something chocolate; every dessert menu must have something chocolate, preferably something rich and decadent because that’s what people want in a chocolate dessert. My desserts had to be simple; my skill level and experience demanded it. At that point, I simply had not yet amassed a giant tome of recipes to draw from like Glen and Jemal had, nor had I grown truly proficient at a lot of the more advanced techniques, like tempering chocolate. After working for only two pastry chefs, there was so much I did not yet know. But that didn’t mean quality and taste had to suffer.

Once the kitchen was completed and in working order, we peeled off the protective plastic coating that covered every stainless steel surface, cleaned off any dust, and unpacked the small wares. Finally, I started bringing my dessert ideas to fruition. I obsessed over every garnish, asking Joey and Frank to taste each version over and over. Was the cranberry compote I made to garnish the warm pear tarte Tatin sweet enough? Should I candy organic rose petals to go with the crème brûlée? Should I use more black olives in the focaccia? After a few attempts (my time at MSLTV proved to be invaluable for teaching me how to keep track of changes while developing a recipe), I came up with a great focaccia, one that turned out to be good enough to be served nightly.

It was hard work, and we spent every day, all day, working together. The restaurant became our existence and its success our only goal, while everything else in our respective lives took a backseat. It was exhausting and exhilarating; I actually felt that my contributions to the restaurant were important, that my ideas could impact its success. We worked so hard on every tiny detail in the hope that by the time diners finally sat down, their experience would be flawless, the food effortless.

“Doll,” Joey said, surveying my tray of unmolded pyramids, “those look amazing! You were right about those molds.”

“Thanks, Joey,” I answered, not mentioning my trials with getting them out. I wanted him to think I knew what I was doing.

“We got less than a week left, Doll. Why don’t we clean up and get out of here, enjoy what’s left of the night? Frank’s already on his way out,” he offered.

I didn’t argue. I knew that once we opened, our free time would be reduced to nil. I cleaned up, and we left the restaurant together.

“Hey, Doll,” said Joey as we headed to the downtown subway. “You wanna see a movie tonight?”

We’d been spending so much time together that I was no longer intimidated or afraid of my boss. Maybe we actually could become friends, or work friends at the very least. A movie sounded great.

I met him at a small independent theater downtown, and afterward we walked for a few blocks, enjoying the warm summer evening. When I felt his hand on my back a few times, I chalked it up to subtle chivalry; he had four older sisters, after all. I thought nothing of it when he invited me up to his apartment for a Heineken and we sat on his couch and let out some of the frustration that had been building up over the previous weeks. We complained about some of the owner’s decisions. We thought he spent far too much money on an interior designer, money that might have been better saved as working capital to get us through slow times, if they came. I complained about his insistence on listing every menu item in French first, with a translation below. He thought it lent an upscale feel. I found it not only pretentious but also tedious. Who wanted to sift through all that French to find out if they wanted striped bass or snapper? And he wore acid-wash jeans and cowboy boots. Who was he kidding?

Somehow, amid the laughter and the exhaustion, Joey’s strong hands were rubbing my shoulders. Somehow, we were kissing. Somehow my shirt came off, and he carried me into his bed. I woke up the next morning at daybreak and sneaked out before he woke up so I could shower and change clothes at home before heading in to work.

I never thought anything like that would happen. He was my chef. My boss! Sure, I thought he was handsome, but I didn’t want to date him. Did I? Then again, I hadn’t stopped him that night, either, and I’d had a million reasons to do so. I put it out of my mind and figured we had an unspoken agreement to simply pretend it never happened.

“I hope you’re okay about the other night, Doll,” Joey said two days later as we were leaving work. Doll. Somehow my nickname took on a new subtlety since we’d slept together. I looked up at him.

“Yeah, sure,” I answered, with all the nonchalance I could muster. “I’m okay.”

“Good,” he said, “because I really like working with you, Doll. I’d hate to mess that up.” I took that to be definitive: It was just something that happened, a tiny bump in the road of our professional relationship and our potential friendship.

“Sure,” I agreed.

“I mean,” he went on, “I’ve always found you really attractive.”

Maybe it was more than a bump? Why did he have to add that? I tried to ignore it.

“Thanks,” was all I could muster.

That was the end of the conversation. We returned to business as usual. We talked about food, made decisions, worked on menus, prepared for the opening and the crucial first weeks. I let it go, determined not to let it interfere with my work.