The Chefs

In my 2 years at the Store, I came across 3 chefs and their Sous Chefs  The first executive chef was female.  She was unpleasant and cooked things like egg salad for lunch.  How old am I, 7?  She never made homemade pasta.  Her pasta was all dried from a bag that was delivered weekly.  How can you work for a celebrity chef and not make your own pasta?  I never understood.  Under her were two Sous Chefs, one of whom became Chef #2. 

Chef #2 was an odd guy.  He’s a family man.  I didn’t really know enough about him except that he wasn’t very nice, but his food was filled with cholesterol goodness.  He made mammoth sized Fred Flintstone ribs and kicked up our standard day-old chocolate cake by frosting it with peanut butter.  Chunky!  He left to make lunch at another famous chef’s place around the corner.  I heard he didn’t last long there.  The other Sous Chef was fun to be around.  Ellen made the best desserts and loved to cook.  One day she made potato leek soup in the middle of the day for the heck of it and gave me and Stan some for dinner.  I liked her a lot.  She likes to feed us and I like to eat.  She said, “no one likes to eat here.  “Um, I do!” She also lets me have sliced prosciutto and salami.  Eventually, Ellen went to work at another of the celebrity chef’s restaurant as a line cook. 

I spent more time with the third Chef and his two Sous Chef’s.  Chef had just come from a NYC restaurant that had Michelin stars acquired while he worked there.  He was a big, goomba of a guy with big, meaty hands.  Oddly, he was really soft spoken.  During our parties, the Chef was required to tell the guests what they would be dining on.  No one could ever hear him.  He practically had panic attacks when he had to speak in public and therefore whispered when he spoke.  When he spoke to us, he mumbled.  But, he was a brilliant Chef and had a great team. 

In typical The Store history, Boss never told Chef that he was also responsible for cooking lunch.  Lunch was the company family meal and he kicked and screamed every time he had to be in early to make it.  I’m not sure why he was so bothered with this, since in a typical day, he made only this meal and maybe one or two other meals (maybe as many as 5 during the holidays).  When he was done cooking and serving, he just left for the day leaving the Sous Chefs in charge to clean up. 

When you worked an event, Chef was awesome about putting any leftovers in the walk in pantry.  We would grab a fork from the main kitchen without the guests seeing and hiding it up our sleeves and proceed to the walk in.  There was usually a plate of pasta so if you were there at the Store for the long haul, you had a free dinner.  Unfortunately, Chef was mainly responsible for cooking the awesome food that I had to cram down my throat and made me pack on the weight.  In my last few months, I brought in healthy pre-packaged meals, never went down to family meal and always ate of these meals before my Sommelier time.

I have two strong memories of Chef that always make me laugh.  Both of them have to do with pigs. 

One day Chef came in with a whole pig on his back.  Like he was carrying his kid so he could see the parade from a better height.  He just paraded it through The Store to the kitchen.  I’m sure he walked all the way from the market with it!  He just decided to make a suckling pig for family meal for the hell of it.  I enjoyed pig cheek for the first time that day.

The other time, I went into the walk in refrigerator which is accessible by way of the walk-in pantry.  As I opened the refrigerator door I let out a muffled scream!  There staring at me was a dead suckling pig.  Now, you have to understand that the refrigerator is the size of a Manhattan apartment.  He could have put that thing anywhere. Instead he chose to leave it where it could immediately greet people when they opened the store.  He was sick, but in a funny way.

The female Sous Chef was delicate.  English was her second language and she went to school to learn how to speak better.  She made wonderful, healthy dishes and dainty cookies from scratch.  When a batch wasn’t quite right, she’d let us eat her mistakes.  It was also her job to slice the meats from the salumeria on the hand slicer in the store.  She let us eat any slices that looked less than perfect, too.  Best part of the day.  She also had a hankering for bubbly.  At the end of the night, we’d be waiting for some diners to finish up and she’d be swilling back the bubbly.  I loved her. 

The other Sous Chef was younger and had worked under Chef in their last job.  English was also his second language and he helped me hone my Spanish speaking skills which were really bad.  He was a sweetheart and his food was amazing as well.  He made us Mexican dishes for lunch and his hand rolled pasta made me cry.  

I recently made a trip back to the store and he was still there, remembered me and seemed the same, humble Sous Chef.