Reducing gastrite (sugar and vinegar) for duck sauce while the Dead
Boys play "Sonic Reducer" on the boom-box, I have to squeeze over for
Janine, who melts chocolate over the simmering pasta water. I'm not
annoyed much, as she's pretty good about staying out of my way, and I
like her. She's an ex-waitress from Queens, and though right out of
school, she's hung tough. Already she's endured a leering, pricky French
sous-chef before my arrival, the usual women-friendly Mexicans, and a
manager who seems to take personal delight in making her life
miserable. She's never called in sick, never been late, and is learning on
the job very nicely. She inventories her own supplies on Saturdays, and
as I hate sticky, goopy, sweet-tasting, fruity stuff, this is a great help to
me. As I've said before, I greatly admire tough women in busy kitchens.
They have, as you might imagine from accounts in this book, a lot to put
up with in our deliberately dumb little corner of Hell's Locker-room, and
women who can survive and prosper in such a high-testosterone universe
are all too rare. Janine has dug in well. She's already managed to
infuriate the whole floor staff by claiming she inventories the free
madeleines we give away with coffee. I'm pleased with her work, making
an exception in my usual dim view of pâtissiers.
Next to me, Omar, my garde-manger man, is on automatic. I don't even
have to look over at his station because I know exactly what he's doing:
loading crocks, making dressing, rubbing down duck legs with sea salt
for confit, slowly braising pork bellies for cassoulet, whipping
mushroom sabayon for the ravioli de royan. I rarely have any worries
about his end. I smell Pernod, so I know without looking what Carlos is
up to: soupe de poisson.
Segundo is downstairs receiving orders from the front delivery ramp. I
hear the bell every few minutes, as a few more tons of stuff arrive. He'll
have my walk-in opened up like a cardiac patient by now, rotating in the
new, winnowing out the old, the ugly and the "science experiments" that
sometimes lurk, forgotten and fuzzy, in dark corners, tucked behind the
sauces and stocks. He's a mean-looking bastard. The other Mexicans