Have Blade Will Travel: The adventures of a traveling chef by David Paul Larousse Page A
Authors: David Paul Larousse
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tomorrow. I’ll have some info for you then.”
I thanked him, then headed back to explore Hyannis. Two days later, with the gentleman’s referral in hand, I hitch-hiked to Osterville, a small village eight miles east of Hyannis. I interviewed with Fran Ricci, the manager of East Bay Lodge, an fashionable-looking restaurant a stone’s throw from the bay it was named after. Ricci was arrogant and detached; I was all enthusiasm. We were hardly soul mates, but there was a factor in my favor. The Lodge had recently hired a classmate of mine who had turned out very well. But then, just as the interview seemed over, Ricci suddenly threw up a red flag. “We don’t want any transients here,” he declared.
Transients? What had brought that on? Had I pushed an insecure button? Did my enthusiasm translate into cockiness or flakiness? Transient? The negativity hung in the air like a malodorous scent. I peered at him, thinking, “Hey, yo, this life is about as transient as you can get, at least in my universe. We wander around in our fragile bodies, thinking that our seventy-or-eighty-years of life is a really long time, yet in the grander scheme of things it is less than a split second in the middle of the cosmic ocean.” I knew such levity would probably cancel any chance I had of getting hired, so I smiled and yessed him coming-and-going. All that mattered right now was to get hired, and get down in the kitchen trenches.
Thanks to his experience with Malcolm, the other culinary graduate, Ricci offered me a job. I was to start the very next day, reporting to chef Dave Jacobs at 11:00 AM. The salary was three dollars per hour, which was fine by me. By that point, my financial resources had dwindled to a grand total of twenty-seven cents.
That afternoon, I wandered around Osterville, the quintessential quaint southern New England village. Down the road from the restaurant, I secured housing in the form of a small cottage located directly behind a fine old mansion. The husband-and-wife owners of the stately old home rented out the cottages during the summer to help subsidize the cost of maintaining the mansion. The rental was seventy-five dollars per week, but I convinced her of my trustworthiness, and she agreed to wait for the first week’s installment.
At 10:30 the next morning, I walked into the kitchen at East Bay Lodge, asked for Chef Jacobs, and was directed to a large dark-skinned man, with a neatly trimmed mustache. He was broad and imposing, but I noticed a glint in his eye, with I deemed evidence of compassion, perhaps even a sense of humor. He peered down at me and asked, “What kind of experience do you have young man?”
“Just a little bit, chef. Mostly I just graduated from the Culinary Institute of America.”
“Did you now? We have another graduate here this summer. Maybe you know him.” He called for Malcolm, who strutted over from around a corner. Yes, I did know Malcolm, but only from passing him in the halls at the Institute. We had never been in any of the same kitchens, but we shook hands and acknowledged our acquaintance
“Can you make potato salad?,” the chef suddenly asked me.
“Um, yes, I think so.”
“Well then, make me five pounds of potato salad.”
“Yes sir.” I wondered if there was a cookbook hiding in some corner. There wasn’t, however, so half-an-hour later I brought him a large stainless steel bowl containing five pounds of my best improvisation.
He shook the bowl, and looked at me quizzically. “I said potato salad, young man, not potato soup.” It was certainly wet enough to be misconstrued as cold potato soup, albeit the chunky kind. I stood there feeling thoroughly vulnerable, and convinced that I had failed my first test. Some of the other cooks stood around watching and grinning as the scene unfolded.
In a more kindly tone, Chef Jacobs instructed me to strain it through a
I thanked him, then headed back to explore Hyannis. Two days later, with the gentleman’s referral in hand, I hitch-hiked to Osterville, a small village eight miles east of Hyannis. I interviewed with Fran Ricci, the manager of East Bay Lodge, an fashionable-looking restaurant a stone’s throw from the bay it was named after. Ricci was arrogant and detached; I was all enthusiasm. We were hardly soul mates, but there was a factor in my favor. The Lodge had recently hired a classmate of mine who had turned out very well. But then, just as the interview seemed over, Ricci suddenly threw up a red flag. “We don’t want any transients here,” he declared.
Transients? What had brought that on? Had I pushed an insecure button? Did my enthusiasm translate into cockiness or flakiness? Transient? The negativity hung in the air like a malodorous scent. I peered at him, thinking, “Hey, yo, this life is about as transient as you can get, at least in my universe. We wander around in our fragile bodies, thinking that our seventy-or-eighty-years of life is a really long time, yet in the grander scheme of things it is less than a split second in the middle of the cosmic ocean.” I knew such levity would probably cancel any chance I had of getting hired, so I smiled and yessed him coming-and-going. All that mattered right now was to get hired, and get down in the kitchen trenches.
Thanks to his experience with Malcolm, the other culinary graduate, Ricci offered me a job. I was to start the very next day, reporting to chef Dave Jacobs at 11:00 AM. The salary was three dollars per hour, which was fine by me. By that point, my financial resources had dwindled to a grand total of twenty-seven cents.
That afternoon, I wandered around Osterville, the quintessential quaint southern New England village. Down the road from the restaurant, I secured housing in the form of a small cottage located directly behind a fine old mansion. The husband-and-wife owners of the stately old home rented out the cottages during the summer to help subsidize the cost of maintaining the mansion. The rental was seventy-five dollars per week, but I convinced her of my trustworthiness, and she agreed to wait for the first week’s installment.
At 10:30 the next morning, I walked into the kitchen at East Bay Lodge, asked for Chef Jacobs, and was directed to a large dark-skinned man, with a neatly trimmed mustache. He was broad and imposing, but I noticed a glint in his eye, with I deemed evidence of compassion, perhaps even a sense of humor. He peered down at me and asked, “What kind of experience do you have young man?”
“Just a little bit, chef. Mostly I just graduated from the Culinary Institute of America.”
“Did you now? We have another graduate here this summer. Maybe you know him.” He called for Malcolm, who strutted over from around a corner. Yes, I did know Malcolm, but only from passing him in the halls at the Institute. We had never been in any of the same kitchens, but we shook hands and acknowledged our acquaintance
“Can you make potato salad?,” the chef suddenly asked me.
“Um, yes, I think so.”
“Well then, make me five pounds of potato salad.”
“Yes sir.” I wondered if there was a cookbook hiding in some corner. There wasn’t, however, so half-an-hour later I brought him a large stainless steel bowl containing five pounds of my best improvisation.
He shook the bowl, and looked at me quizzically. “I said potato salad, young man, not potato soup.” It was certainly wet enough to be misconstrued as cold potato soup, albeit the chunky kind. I stood there feeling thoroughly vulnerable, and convinced that I had failed my first test. Some of the other cooks stood around watching and grinning as the scene unfolded.
In a more kindly tone, Chef Jacobs instructed me to strain it through a
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