Spiced

After leaving Q56, I worked part-time for Moomba, a celebrity hot spot that had recently turned mostly lukewarm. Moomba’s pastry chef had left, so they hired me to maintain the mise-en-place for the desserts. I worked just three days a week, mostly on my own, since the restaurant was closed for lunch. On the heels of the antagonistic atmosphere at the hotel, the solitude and silence were bliss, as was the low stress level. I was not expected to come up with anything new; I simply had to maintain what was already in place. It paid enough to cover my rent and gave me a much-needed break. I even took a vacation: a four-week trip to the Philippines and Thailand with Les.

I wasn’t counting on Joey to find me my next job (in fact, leaving Q56 gave me a much-needed break from Joey, too), but when I heard his voice on my answering machine once again—Gimme a buzz, Doll. I got something to talk to you about.—I knew he had something in the works. While I was off in Asia, Joey had signed on to be the new chef at Tonic, a restaurant and private party space that had opened a few years earlier. Tonic had received a glowing two stars from the Times early on, but its chef was moving on to another project (as chefs tend to do). The owner, Steve, a Greek man in his early sixties who had been in the business for years and owned a handful of restaurants, wanted to breathe some new life into Tonic, whose business had begun to wane. Joey got his team—me and Frank—back together for the job. He even hired some of the better cooks he’d hired at the hotel.

At both Scarabée and Q56, Joey hired me as his pastry chef with no contest from owners or management; they simply trusted his judgment. This time, though, Joey’s word on my behalf was not enough for Steve. I was asked to do a tasting: prepare some of my desserts so he could get a realistic idea of what I would serve in his restaurant. The taste, the style, the look—all of these things would be judged.

I needed surefire desserts (trying out new things was too risky), so I stuck to things I’d done before: banana tarte Tatin, milk chocolate pot de crème, lemon blast (a frozen lemon soufflé). I brought each plate out to Steve, his wife, and Joey, who sat with them, as though he were part of the judging panel. I described each dessert as I imagined it would appear on a menu: This is the lemon blast, with blueberry frozen yogurt and vanilla shortbread. Then, I retreated down to the basement to work on the next one, happy not to have to face their reactions, their critique. That I had complete faith in my desserts (as did Joey) was no guarantee and of little comfort. People have different tastes, and, for all I knew, Steve might have hated the hint of whimsy in my lemon blast: It was an oval frozen soufflé that had a peephole cut through one end, on which I leaned a small, round scoop of frozen yogurt. I decorated the plate with a swirl of sauces. The other restaurants in Steve’s small empire were more traditional. Maybe he would think it was stupid. Conversely, maybe he wanted something outrageous, like the towering, architectural, overgarnished look that was popular in some high-end restaurants. I found that the taste of those desserts rarely lived up to their visual spectacle, but some customers loved them nonetheless.

But Steve did like my desserts. His only question, Joey told me later, was a trivial one. The girl, he asked Joey, does she know how to use the machine? I was twenty-nine at the time, far too old to be thought of as a girl, even if I did still look like one. I hated that my appearance could undermine my ability or talent, but at least I had Joey to back me up. He assured Steve that not only could I use the ice cream machine, but I had plenty of high-volume experience to handle the production necessary for Tonic’s two private rooms, which could hold up to two hundred people. I was in and determined to prove myself to be much more than just “the girl.”

Working at Tonic meant a return to “normal” restaurant life: We worked six-day weeks, shared family meals, and spent too much time together. Tonic had a pretty big staff (though still significantly smaller than that of the hotel), which consisted of the usual hodgepodge of personalities who managed, despite their differences, to get along and joke around.

Working in such close quarters and with mostly young men encouraged sophomoric humor. I always stored my tart shells in the same place: bottom shelf of my walk-in refrigerator. Quite regularly I would grab the plastic-wrapped half sheet tray and realize that something was different. My handwritten, blue ink labeling had been altered. My T for “tart” had been turned into an F. Again. Using words for body parts or body functions was considered hysterically funny: butt as in butt milk for “buttermilk” or box for “refrigerator.” If a body part, especially a private body part, could in any way be substituted for a kitchen word, it was. Fart was the funniest at all times and in any application. Any sound resembling a fart? Also funny. For instance, squeezing the last bit of honey out of its bottle so it made a spitting noise. Blaming someone for it with a chorus of accusing eeews? Very funny. Turning the pastry chef’s tart into a fart? It didn’t get any better.

Thanks to my French predecessor, who had designed the pastry station (he was less than pleased to learn that he was being replaced by a “girl”), my area was a dream; it was well equipped and well organized. I had my own end of the basement kitchen, complete with double convection oven, sink, burners, lowboys, mixers, and freezers. I even had a lot of “pastry-only” equipment—chinois, Robo Coupe, blender—which meant that my desserts could not be mistakenly adulterated by some other cook’s garlic or fish stock. There is nothing worse than innocently puréeing some fruit in a Robo Coupe only to discover, too late, that it tastes like the garlic that has stubbornly sunk into the plastic body of the food processor. There was plenty of space for both me and Ali, my assistant, who came in every day at two and worked until closing.

When I started at Tonic, Ali had been a dishwasher and a good one (being a dishwasher is hard work and a good one should not be taken for granted), but whenever he had a free moment, he would stand at the edge of my station, watching intently as I arranged berries on a tart, spread out tuile batter over a stencil, or scooped cookie dough. After a while, if I was doing a simple task, topping hundreds of miniature pistachio cakes with a single whole Sicilian pistachio, for example, I would ask him if he wanted to help, and he always nodded. He worked diligently and quietly, barely looking me in the eye. When my nighttime plater (the very job I’d had at Nobu so long ago) quit, I offered Ali the job.

It was rough going at first. Ali was from Mali and spoke both Arabic and French. His English, however, was only as good as my spotty French. But Ali always carried a small notebook in which he recorded everything I taught him. With naturally deft hands, he easily rolled out even logs of biscotti dough, and his tuiles were always thin and uniform. When his plates looked a little bit sloppy or just plain wrong, I tried to be patient, remembering how horrendous my own fruit plates and “Happy Birthdays” had been at Nobu when I first started. And just as I had improved over time and with repetition, Ali improved exponentially. I eventually learned to trust him completely. Not only did Ali become an amazing assistant, he started taking English classes and even earned his green card. Eventually, he arrived at work one day with a new identification card complete with his given name in an African dialect. We “fired” the old illegal Ali and “hired” the new legal one, the one with a name none of us could come close to pronouncing. It’s okay, he said, you can still call me Ali.

Watching Ali grow in so many ways was wonderful, and I liked to believe that I played a tiny part in his achievement, but he was more likely inspired by some of the other cooks around him. It is not uncommon for a dishwasher, the lowest position in a kitchen, to gradually work his way up through the hierarchy until finally becoming a chef. It is one of the aspects of kitchens I like the best: They are great equalizers. Hard work and diligence pay off, regardless of class, race, or school transcripts.

Part of Ali’s daily responsibility was steadily laying out tuile batter over the thin plastic stencils I’d cut out of old plastic fish tubs. Over time, he did just as good a job as I did. Once he mastered something, I taught him something new, building on his skills. Ali and I fell into a routine: He came in every day and prepped the station for dinner service, and I spent the bulk of my time producing the more complicated items and coming up with new ideas. It was not until I finally relaxed into the more normal and supportive environment of Tonic that I realized how much the frustration and stress of the hotel had affected my outlook. I had forgotten how much I loved creating desserts and even working in a restaurant.

Q56 had been a disaster, but the desserts I developed there were not, so many of them reappeared on my Tonic menu. I kept the buttermilk crème brûlée and served it this time with miniature blueberry scones. The brûlée was so popular that I baked them almost every other day, which should have meant that I could not only bake them in my sleep but bake a batch without burning myself. But burns remained a constant though less frequent fact of my life. I was checking on my buttermilk crème brûlées one afternoon as they baked in my top convection oven. They were reaching that critical stage: nearing the point at which they would obtain that exact and perfect wiggle, not unlike Jell-O, that indicated doneness. A few too many minutes past that point and the small white ramekins of custard would be rendered useless, pots of sweet, scrambled egg.

I balanced on my toes, craning my neck toward the crème brûlées to make a proper assessment. My eyes were trained on them as I nudged the pan to check for that wiggle, my depth perception thrown off as I focused more on my desserts than on the hot rack, getting closer and closer until finally the hot oven rack and I shared a quick kiss.

By that time I’d burned myself so many times that I could easily judge the impending severity and outcome of any number of different burns. Just-boiled milk spilled on the delicate top skin of the foot? Redness, possible blister (luckily, I was wearing thick socks on the day that happened). Hot oil splattered onto the forearm after I’d dropped an order of fries into the fryer? In addition to a Jackson Pollack-style pattern of burn marks, there would be an annoying throb every time the newly tender area came within a few inches of heat. Happily, I spent far less time over the fryer since becoming a pastry chef, though I often got roped into helping the hot line when they were short staffed. Accidentally placing a palm on the freshly burned sugar of a crème brûlée? Palm-sized, caramel-coated, thick-skinned blister that renders that hand temporarily useless. Bumping mouth into a 300-degree oven while checking crème brûlées? Redness, potential blister, and, of course, embarrassment. I knew what was coming.

Charlotte was one of the Q56 cooks who had followed Joey to the Tonic, and it wasn’t until she landed at Tonic that I really got to know her, once I finally let go of the thick layer of skin I had developed at the hotel. Charlotte was a good cook and a very hard worker. She had a tendency to talk—and tease—as tough as she worked. Normally she chose the waiters to torment and even bragged about making at least one waiter cry each day when she’d been the chef at a well-known pub downtown.

I’d had more than my fair share of burns, so I knew that the teasing, especially in response to carelessness, was as predictable as the blister itself and there was little I could do in the way of defense. Part of working in a kitchen with a “family” meant accepting the good-humored ribbing that permeated every moment and every aspect of the workday. “We tease because we love” was our mantra, and nothing was sacred, certainly not burns. I deserved a little teasing, and I took it all in stride. I was happy to be back in a restaurant where family meant something.