I was thinking in Pino's dimly lit private office was that my Great
Opportunity was slipping away fast—and before I'd even gotten started.
I was completely flummoxed, but I did manage to assure Pino,
truthfully, that as far as pot or drugs were concerned, that would never be
an issue, we would never have to have that conversation. He waved the
matter off, boring in more on who could hate me so much as to find out
his private number, take the time and energy to call him up and
badmouth me, hoping to torpedo my Great Opportunity. I couldn't think
of anyone.
Pino suddenly smiled warmly. He looked . . . well . . . pleased. "You
know, Anthony," he said, "I have many, many enemies. It's good,
sometimes, to have enemies—even if you don't know who they are. It
means you are . . . important. You must be important . . . important
enough to have an enemy." He clapped me on the back on the way out
the door. I was thoroughly charmed—if damn near shattered by the
experience.
In the opening weeks at Coco Pazzo Teatro, I lost 11 pounds. These were
not pounds I had to spare, I'm a bony, whippet-thin, gristly, tendony strip
of humanity, and after two weeks running up and down the steps at
Teatro from prep kitchen to à la carte kitchen—like some hyperactive
forest ranger, always trying to put out brush fires in order to avoid actual
conflagrations—I looked as if I'd been breathing pure crack in some VC
tiger cage for the last ten years. I had twenty-five cooks, plus
dishwashers, porters, visiting specialists, moonlighting pasta makers,
managers, assistant managers, waiters, runners and other entities to
contend with, deal with, schedule and replace. The New York Times
reviewer had already been in; we had someone who knew her by
appearance staked out at the door full-time, just to be ready. Celebrities,
friends of the house and Pino himself were all dropping in at all hours.
The cooks worked entirely on a call system—no printed-out dupes—and
managing the crew alone was a full-time job. My second sous, Alfredo,