Read Online Beaten, Seared, and Sauced by Jonathan Dixon - Free Book Online
Authors: Jonathan Dixon
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an executive chef. An executive chef is in charge of every aspect of a kitchen. He or she oversees every aspect of a restaurant, approving vendors, paying the bills, maintaining quality control over the food made in the kitchen. He or she outranks everyone. It’s typically his or her vision that fuels the menu. An executive chef is a restaurant’s driving force.
We listened to him. After he left, we had a single question.
“Executive chef? Did he really just tell us that?” Adam said.
“He must have run that lemonade stand with a really tight grip, for those few hours between history class and curfew,” I conjectured.
“What sort of restaurant would he have been at?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m just imagining the phone calls: ‘Mom? Could you please pick me up? The sous-chefs hid my car keys again.’ ”
At another lunch, Don told us about the plan he and Trevor were hard at work realizing.
“What we’re going to do is, we’re in class Monday through Friday, but we’re free Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. We’re looking around to try and find a restaurant space, and we’re going to set it up and open just on the weekends. We’re going to see if we can do our externship there. Trevor’s going be executive chef because he’s already done that. He’s an awesome line cook. I’m not that good a line cook, but I’m the
bomb
prep cook.”
“I can’t see you having any trouble at all getting investors for a plan like that,” I said.
“Oh, yeah—that’s no problem,” Don informed me. “Trevor’s dad might throw some money in, and I think my grandmother might want to invest.”
Our last class before the summer break was on July 2. When we returned at the end of the month, we’d have three more weeks of academics and then begin the meat and fish butchering classes.
Nelly and I spent just a few more days in Rhinebeck. We were set to move into the house she’d bought in a tiny hamlet in Saugerties on thefifth. There wasn’t much for us to do until then, as the two stoned, aging hippie restorers worked their way very, very slowly across the hardwood floors. We decided to make dinner for her parents one night, and we went to a Stop & Shop right up the road for ingredients. The produce section spread itself out right inside the door—a few dozen square yards of fruits and vegetables. None of the signs or labels indicated that these came from anywhere nearby.
Not very long ago, I’d still seen the supermarket’s stock as almost tyrannical—
This is what we have, tough luck, you’ll have to make do. Not up to par? Too fucking bad and, since this is the same stuff that we have shipped in from all the same places, all year-round, how would you even know the difference?
But I had new eyes now. I picked up a cantaloupe and it smelled of nothing; there were light swaths of green all over it. The peppers showed some almost imperceptible wrinkling at the top, near the stems, something I wouldn’t have looked for or noticed just a few weeks prior. The cut stems of the broccoli looked okay, but the flowers on the crown were loose and dry. The fennel’s fronds were limp and sagging. There wasn’t much here that seemed to have ever had a relationship with soil. It was all like a harvested equivalent to a jar of Prego. We left with some herbs and some lettuce, and a compact watermelon that looked nice.
The new house was just a stone’s throw from the Hudson. There were train tracks running a small distance away and we loved the sound of the freights rolling by. From the porch, we could see the crests of some of the Catskill Mountains. I found myself not missing Brooklyn.
I spent my mornings painting the walls, moving room to room and listening to Black Flag’s discography from start to finish, over and over, singing along, painting at a quicker and quicker pace. In the afternoons, I’d read some of the books I’d borrowed from the library just before school ended: M.F.K.
We listened to him. After he left, we had a single question.
“Executive chef? Did he really just tell us that?” Adam said.
“He must have run that lemonade stand with a really tight grip, for those few hours between history class and curfew,” I conjectured.
“What sort of restaurant would he have been at?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m just imagining the phone calls: ‘Mom? Could you please pick me up? The sous-chefs hid my car keys again.’ ”
At another lunch, Don told us about the plan he and Trevor were hard at work realizing.
“What we’re going to do is, we’re in class Monday through Friday, but we’re free Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. We’re looking around to try and find a restaurant space, and we’re going to set it up and open just on the weekends. We’re going to see if we can do our externship there. Trevor’s going be executive chef because he’s already done that. He’s an awesome line cook. I’m not that good a line cook, but I’m the
bomb
prep cook.”
“I can’t see you having any trouble at all getting investors for a plan like that,” I said.
“Oh, yeah—that’s no problem,” Don informed me. “Trevor’s dad might throw some money in, and I think my grandmother might want to invest.”
Our last class before the summer break was on July 2. When we returned at the end of the month, we’d have three more weeks of academics and then begin the meat and fish butchering classes.
Nelly and I spent just a few more days in Rhinebeck. We were set to move into the house she’d bought in a tiny hamlet in Saugerties on thefifth. There wasn’t much for us to do until then, as the two stoned, aging hippie restorers worked their way very, very slowly across the hardwood floors. We decided to make dinner for her parents one night, and we went to a Stop & Shop right up the road for ingredients. The produce section spread itself out right inside the door—a few dozen square yards of fruits and vegetables. None of the signs or labels indicated that these came from anywhere nearby.
Not very long ago, I’d still seen the supermarket’s stock as almost tyrannical—
This is what we have, tough luck, you’ll have to make do. Not up to par? Too fucking bad and, since this is the same stuff that we have shipped in from all the same places, all year-round, how would you even know the difference?
But I had new eyes now. I picked up a cantaloupe and it smelled of nothing; there were light swaths of green all over it. The peppers showed some almost imperceptible wrinkling at the top, near the stems, something I wouldn’t have looked for or noticed just a few weeks prior. The cut stems of the broccoli looked okay, but the flowers on the crown were loose and dry. The fennel’s fronds were limp and sagging. There wasn’t much here that seemed to have ever had a relationship with soil. It was all like a harvested equivalent to a jar of Prego. We left with some herbs and some lettuce, and a compact watermelon that looked nice.
The new house was just a stone’s throw from the Hudson. There were train tracks running a small distance away and we loved the sound of the freights rolling by. From the porch, we could see the crests of some of the Catskill Mountains. I found myself not missing Brooklyn.
I spent my mornings painting the walls, moving room to room and listening to Black Flag’s discography from start to finish, over and over, singing along, painting at a quicker and quicker pace. In the afternoons, I’d read some of the books I’d borrowed from the library just before school ended: M.F.K.
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