How (why?) I became a cook

A ten quart stock pot given to me as a Christmas present in the mid 70's triggered what I wish had happened long, long before. At the time my life was, to use the then-modern terminology, the pits; I had allowed myself to almost hit the bottom of the gutter.

I had been working in sales for most of the fifteen years that I had lived in the San Francisco Bay area and gone through putting on the whole show of a successful businessman: the finest clothes, lavish entertaining, the Mercedes sedan, the airplane, the handmade Austrian grand piano, you know. And I was living exactly where you have to be very good at putting on the show, because there is a lot of competition: Marin County (of "we want it all now" fame).

When this particular Christmas arrived, I was so deep in debt that I was considering bankruptcy (which I did file only a few months later). The woman with whom I had been living for about two years had moved out just two months before, and I was sharing my rented house with the three children from my first marriage, two dogs and a cat. That holiday season, for my New Year's party I served fried chicken gizzards and wine supplied by my friends; the party ended shortly after midnight, as all my guests, both of them, went home, one of them mumbling something like "thank you for the worst New Year's party I have ever been to".

My new, gleaming stock pot was more beautiful than anything else in the house, and I decided to put it to good use. Somehow I scrounged up the money to buy a book on French cuisine and started preparing recipes from it; after all, business was a little slow, which gave me plenty of time to do something I enjoyed much more than work.

Like most salesmen who are not making it, I used to attend all sales meetings and seminars I could gain entry to; there you usually find many other people in the same situation (the really successful ones are out there making sales), who will sympathize with you and keep you company while you waste away another day. Not all my time in that occupation was quite as non-productive, but through all the years I spent in the business, I consistently took coffee breaks and lunch hours that were longer than a drunk's leave-taking.

During one of these meetings, someone gave a pitch about a "new, revolutionary" seminar on communications guaranteed to make your prospects beat you to death with their checkbooks. And in the following several weeks I heard so many raves about this miracle, that I decided it would be the solution, and made my mind up to take it, even though its cost was equivalent to about two thirds of my rent, which at the time was about three months in arrears.

To my surprise, it was the best sales program I ever attended because it made me realize that I was in the wrong business. Please do not misinterpret my comments; I am not attacking the sales profession; I am only admitting that I was stupid enough to persist in something that was not for me, and I was doing it for the wrong reasons.

By this time, I had gone through most of my French cook book plus two or three others, my three children had decided they could find a better place to live and gone their separate ways, I had been evicted, declared bankrupt, and was renting a studio for about one third of the cost of the house. It was a good time to make a change for the better, and I decided that what I really wanted to do, at least for the time being, was to be a cook.

This was a momentous decision. You see, I was the eldest son in a well to do family in Colombia, grew up surrounded by good music, gourmet foods and lots of books, all of which I enjoyed immensely. But my parents had decided that their eldest son was going to be an executive and run the family business; and there was no way I was going to be allowed to be in a lowly, undignified position, such as that of a musician or a cook. The closest I ever came to cooking anything in my youth was to go in the kitchen and watch our live-in cook prepare our meals; and I don't remember how I ever talked my father into allowing me to take piano lessons, but by that time I was in my Senior year in a private military school in New York state. Even without all these circumstances in your background, it is quite a step to leave your occupation when you are in your mid-thirties, have four children and two ex-wives, and are completely broke.

Anyway, it seemed that the best way to make a connection that would assist me in entering my newly chosen occupation would be to spread the word among all my friends and acquaintances, and, when possible, invite certain people to my house for a meal and let them find out what a fabulous chef I had become. I was friendly with a Swiss couple who owned and operated a small but successful continental restaurant, and I thought impressing two graduates from the famous hotel and restaurant school in Lausanne with my expertise would be helpful in getting a recommendation to a prospective employer, so I invited them for dinner, and they agreed to come on their only evening off one week.

The menu was, naturally, impressive. I do not recall exactly what the names of the dishes were, but it was composed of a soup (made, of course in my beautiful, "new" stock pot), a seafood course with Champagne sauce, duck with some kind of green peppercorn sauce, a green salad, and the coup de grace, a Grand Marnier soufflé. Everything had gone smoothly, we were almost finished with the salad, I was elated about my friends' reactions so far, the soufflés were in the oven.

When they came out, I knew I had done something wrong because they were the most beautiful soufflés I had ever seen, I mean EVER. They were gorgeous, golden colored, and with the powdered sugar sprinkled on top and the lace doilies under the imported individual molds, they would have qualified for the front cover of Gourmet magazine. The first mouthful and immediate triple "aaaargh" explained it: when beating the egg whites just before folding the rest of the preparation into them, I had added salt instead of sugar! What can I say.

My guests were very gracious.

And for several years after that dinner, these two people were still very helpful at any time I need to consult them on anything related to the cooking and serving of food and, once in a while I had lunch or dinner at their beautiful and quite successful restaurant located in one of the busiest, most popular tourist areas of San Francisco.

Taking the plunge

When my beautiful stock pot was about six months old, I decided I was ready to try the real thing, so I applied for work as a cook in a small English restaurant, after practicing at home the items on their menu, which consisted of "eggs any style", scones, bangers, steak and kidney pie, green salad and a few other not-exactly-haute-cuisine items. The hours were 7AM, when I started baking the fresh scones, to 2PM, time to run home and take a shower; I had never sweat like this in my whole life. The simple menu was a challenge to someone with no experience at all, especially on weekends, when, between the owner (a charming British lady), a dishwasher and me, we served over one hundred customers in a five hour period. The compensation was only slightly above minimum wage, but I was cooking and I loved it.

I was free from 3 PM, wanted to learn more about anything connected with food, and wanted more money. An expensive new French restaurant was opening in town, ten minutes by bus from my studio, and I was able to get hired there as a waiter (don't ask me how), starting on opening night. I will never forget my next door neighbor, a seasoned waiter and good all-around restaurateur, showing me, for the three afternoons previous to my starting day on the new job, how to take an order, how to carry more than one plate at a time, and other not too advanced tricks of the trade.

I had never, even remotely, considered working as a waiter; remember what I was taught as a child about occupations beneath my dignity. I still have not learned enough English to tell you how delighted I was to have taken this job. A waiter, in a way, is a performer on stage and must please many different individuals; it was a challenge, and it was gratifying to discover that I was doing better at it than most of my fellow-workers, some of whom had years of experience in that field.

Reflecting upon this now that I am trying to write about it, I see that many times, the negative experiences that we go through end up being positive, after all. My success as a waiter, I attribute in part to all that time I spent in the sales field , learning how to deal with people - I was in the wrong occupation for me when I was in the investments business, but I did learn how to sell myself to others, which is something all of us need to do, no matter what our occupation is.

Three months after opening day (for me and for the restaurant) I was appointed maitre d'hotel; and about two months after that, I was the new manager, responsible for the whole operation. Theoretically, everyone employed there reported to me; in practice, everyone but the real boss, the chef (this is the case in any fine food establishment).

My beautiful stock pot was now about one year old - no longer new, but still gleaming.

Anyway, things were great: I was having a blast, for the first time in years and years I had money in my pocket and owed nobody, and I was learning more and more about cooking. The restaurant served lunch and dinner, and I was able to arrange my schedule so that I could spend a good part of my time in the kitchen, near food. I would get to work quite early - at around 8 o'clock in the morning - and take care of all the details not connected with cooking, such as ordering wines and supplies, get together the paperwork to send to the owner's office, make the schedules for the waiters and busboys, check the inventories, etc. This allowed me to spend the whole afternoon in the kitchen, "helping" the chef and learning, learning, learning.

Our chef was very well qualified for his occupation, but not exactly photogenic nor too willing to have his picture in publications, so the ads that were constantly being circulated in many periodicals in the area had on them my photograph posing as a chef, which proved to be to my advantage later on, when I found it necessary to substantiate my experience.

The venture was going well; business had progressed to the point of break-even, a steady clientele had been developed, the name was fairly well known in the area and good reviews had appeared in newspapers, newsletters and magazines. Everything looked rosy - or in then-modern English, the scene was mellow.

And then, suddenly, like the appearance of The Big Depression and for reasons extraneous to the operation of the business, I was in line at the unemployment office and the restaurant was permanently closed and put on the market for sale.

By now, my two-and-a-half year old stock pot was still gleaming, now surrounded by a few others, mostly made of copper.

Just to keep some money coming in, I accepted employment as a line cook in The Obscure Little Place, a restaurant near my home, making sure that my schedule would allow me at least half the day free to look for a job at the high level that I felt I was ready for. I made up a resume that would have won an award for creative writing; it circulated, and I was actually offered three different jobs, but I refused them, still working as a cook in The Obscure Little Place, waiting for the good offer to come.

Meeting The Big Man - My first mentor

One Sunday I spotted an ad in the Help Wanted column for a chef for one of the best known quality restaurants in the Bay area, the kind of place where you go to work just to be able to say you did, a restaurant known, in fact, all over the country. It had a phone number to call to make an appointment, which I promptly did on Monday morning, and finally got through on about the eleventh attempt, when I didn't get a busy signal.

The bored voice on the other end explained that their chef of over ten years was leaving and was seeking someone to replace himself, that three people had been hired within the previous six months and were no longer there; then proceeded to ask me several questions about my background and experience and "please don't call us, we'll call you, maybe, sometime".

Three weeks passed and I heard nothing.

The Super Restaurant was located accross the bay, where I seldom went, approximately a half-hour drive from my home. It was a Monday, my day off from The Obscure Little Place, and my girlfriend's constant "you never take me anywhere" had prompted me to take her for a ride somewhere outside of the neighborhood where she lived.

At the time, I thought "coincidentally", but now, as I write these lines, I think "intentionally" would be a more accurate term, as we "aimlessly" drove around that day, we just happened to pass The Super Restaurant and recollect my telephone call and their response. And then, "why not?". It was two o'clock in the afternoon; "maybe the owner or the chef is there; I'll knock on the door and find out what's happening with the chef's job, maybe I can get to meet The Big Man and shake his hand so I can say I have seen him and exchanged ideas with him".

The timing was right that day: I had not even been waiting five minutes, when monsieur Le Chef came out - he must have really been looking forward to getting out of the place after ten years, because as I began to say "I phoned the other day about the chef position and I just happened to be driving by and.....", I was asked to wait a few minutes to sit down and have a chat with Le Chef and The Big Man -. I was about to meet a celebrity, someone who appears on TV regularly and whose name is known all over this country and abroad.

It wasn't long before The Big Man, Le Chef and I were sitting at a round table in one of the dining rooms and I was answering a lot of questions. Fortunately, this was not one of the places where I had sent a copy of my resume, and, realizing that I was talking to two rather intelligent men, I decided to forego some of the embellishments to my experience. The meeting lasted over one hour, I had to describe what sort of dishes I had been doing, answer questions about subjects ranging from what time of the day I was born to what would I do if the Israeli delegation showed up for dinner and all we had on hand was pork.

The Big Man gave me a condensed job description: restaurant open for dinner only, seven nights a week; special dinner every Monday night, advertised by newsletter a month in advance featuring a different country or region each time; preparation of many of the items sold in the gourmet store next door, also owned by The Big Man; the season was just about beginning for catering and food would have to prepared for private parties each weekend for between 50 and 2000 people, prices ranging from the minimum to $600 per person, customers could select practically any dish from anywhere in the world, as long as they were willing to pay the price.

The Big Man also told me about the people who had already been hired and not made it, and about the chefs with 20 or more years of experience who had been so awed by the job description that they would not even consider trying to do it, and was I still interested?

"Yes".

"OK, in that case we will discuss it and get back to you, maybe, please don't call us, we'll call you, to tell you the truth , we don't think you can make it, but I like the fact that you were in the printing business fifteen years ago because I was in the same business and the restaurant business is in some ways very similar, thank you, it's been a pleasure talking with you, goodbye".

Of course, when I left The Super Restaurant, I knew that I wouldn't hear from The Big Man, but I really did not care; I was happy to just have been able to shake his hand, and, by the time I reached my car and girlfriend, all I could think of was where in my resume I would list the handshake and how long I would claim I held The Big Man's hand. On the way back home, I told my girlfriend all about the interview, showed her the copy of the beautiful menu, and we tried to decide where we would apply for the loan to have dinner there sometime.

About two weeks later, after a particularly bad day at The Obscure Little Place , I got home tired and in a mood to be nasty to anyone that would come in touch with me. I pushed the "phono" button on my stereo set, sat down to relax, and, before the first five bars of Brahms' second piano concerto had sounded, the stupid phone rang: "Hello". "Carlos?" "Yes". "This is The Big Man; remember me?" "Who?" "You know, The Big Man at The Super Restaurant". "Oh, yeah; what can I do to you?" "I had a talk with Monsieur Le Chef about you, and I have decided to offer you the job; can you start next Monday?" "Well, I don't know....." (I didn't want to seem too eager, so I hesitated for about one quarter of a second). "YES, OF COURSE!!" "OK, we'll expect you between 1:30 and 2:00, bye".

I changed my pants and hurried to my girlfriend's house to give her the news in person.

"You've got to be kidding". "Hell, no, I`m serious". "Really?". "Goddammit, yeah!!". "Wow! We've got to celebrate; will you go to the store and get a bottle of Champagne? Here's five bucks". "Yeah, but let me make a quick phone call first. Hello? Is this The Obscure Little Place ?" "Yes". "This is Carlos, please tell el senor manager that I quit and to mail me my paycheck, bye".

Working for The Big Man

On Monday, I was there at 1:28 and by 1:40 I had changed into my whites, checked out the dressing room facilities, the shower, the pantry girls, and learned the combination to my locker. Monsieur Le Chef was already busy putting together that night's special dinner and planning the preparation for the coming weekend's catering, and that day and the following two, I spent mostly following him around, becoming familiar with the whole operation. The plan was that, by the beginning of the third week, I would take over his functions completely, and he would be no longer there on my third Monday.

Things went much more smoothly than I, or for that matter Le Chef and The Big Man expected, but several incidents I will never forget took place during this period of indoctrination. I will relate a few of them so that you can appreciate how much I was sweating but having fun at the same time.

I was asked to run some mushrooms through the "Buffalo chopper" (a contraption that looked like something right out of a museum auction and broke things up into little pieces). I asked one of my cooks where this contraption would be when I was standing about six inches away and right in front of it.

The weekend was busy in that dining room, and the preparation for it usually began on Thursday, when most of the produce was delivered. Le Chef instructed me to go to the walk-in refrigerator and bring out a loin of veal to clean and cut into medallions . "Where are they in the box?". "Just go get one, you can't miss them". Russian roulette would have been much more appealing to me when I came out of the box holding this thing in my hand, because I had no idea what a loin of veal was supposed to look like. I was lucky: I brought out the right item, but I did not know that for sure until I came back to the working area and nobody looked at me funny.

I placed my first produce order. One of the items on the list was one dozen beefsteak tomatoes, which turned out to be just tomatoes, but big ones - but I had to research the matter because I wasn't sure about whether to order a vegetable or some kind of meat. But the way I placed the order, we were delivered twelve cases instead of twelve tomatoes. I don't recall how I explained that, but I managed to talk the produce supplier into taking them back.

On my third day, the head waiter was giving me a tour, during service, showing me how the silver platters were arranged and garnished before being picked up to be brought into the dining room for carving at tableside. The menu read something like this: "A young duckling grown especially for The Super Restaurant, roasted to perfection, flamed with cognac and served surrounded with a bouquet of fresh vegetables". My guide's description: "Carlos, here is a duck going out now. You put it in the middle of the platter, all these vegetables go around it, and make sure somebody shoves a bunch of watercress up his ass before he takes it out there".

Monsieur Le Chef turned this whole mess over to me on schedule and disappeared when he was supposed to. By my third Monday,he was gone and I was on my own.

My beautiful pot was now just over three years old, had only one tiny dent in it, and I was already, officially, the chef in one of the best-known restaurants in this country.

To my amazement, things were going rather smoothly, and I was feeling comfortable and more and more secure about my ability to handle what I had committed myself to, except for one phase of the job, the catering.

There was a weekly meeting to discuss the week's catered parties, to ensure that everyone concerned was informed and to coordinate all phases of the operation. The Big Man, the catering manager, his assistant and I would sit down for about two hours, everyone would be sipping on a glass of wine or mineral water, and all the plans would be made, all the way up to the day and exact time when a truck would come by and make the pick up for each function. My responsibility was, of course, to make sure the food for each party was done up to The Big Man's high standards, ready for pick up in the designated area and at a certain time, very often critical; in this business, you cannot be one hour late when a truck and six people are outside the door and one hundred people are waiting across the bay to be served a meal more expensive than in most fancy restaurants, right after the president of the association's speech, which has already started. (Because of the nature of food, especially the expensive kind, one hour too soon can sometimes be a disaster).

I dreaded the weekly meeting, in fact, I detested catering or anything connected with it. Or, perhaps, that was my way of telling myself what I have to admit I knew deep down: I just could not handle it. Several errors I made in this area cost The Super Restaurant a lot of money and caused me a good deal of embarrassment, and now I knew why The Big Man had made it a point to tell me, during our first meeting, that many experienced chefs had not even wanted to get involved in this job.

But nothing, of course is all good or bad. For me, personally there were positive factors. The obvious one, experience - I now consider myself very lucky that I was allowed to take a shot at this phase of the business that I "disliked" so much - in dealing with people who depend on you and have others depending on them, and in organizing and coordinating - skills very useful in any business endeavor.

Another positive, from the standpoint of cuisine, the fantastic exposure, learning about dishes and methods of cooking that most people have never even heard about. I will just mention some examples.

One hundred and fifty orders of duck had to be cooked in the style of a certain region of Pakistan. They were marinated for two or three days; the marinade was then mixed with other ingredients to make a thick sauce in which the ducks were baked (this was one of the courses for a party that was already in progress; the truck came at 9AM sharp, the ducks, still in the baking pans, went straight from the ovens to the truck, driven over to the party location, and still hot, served to the guests right out of the same pans, as a second or third course).

There was a summer dinner party in somebody's back yard (I did not go to the location myself on this one, but from the price of the order, I have a hunch the "back yard" had a swimming pool bigger than most whole back yards, guest house and at least one tennis court). We ordered four whole lambs and hung them for a certain number of days, until they were aged properly, then skewered them. They were cooked over the charcoal pit carved and served right then and there, as the wine steward and assistants uncorked and served "a little red wine" from the host's cellar.

We served an outdoor meal to a party of about two hundred in a vineyard, about one hour's drive North of the Bay area. One of the items was a preparation similar to a custard, the main ingredient being corn. Each individual portion was wrapped, cooked and served in banana leaves - a rather exotic dish for this part of the world, and it was priced accordingly. This party I could not miss; in Colombia we called these things "Bollos de Mazorca" and the maid used to make them at least once a week, because my mother loved them. I couldn't stand them.

My stock pot was three and a half years old, almost to the day, when I worked my last shift at The Super Restaurant.

I shall always be grateful to The Big Man, who allowed me to take advantage of an experience that thousands of aspiring cooks dream about, but discount as too remote a possibility. Not many people are fortunate enough to get the best possible instruction, pay no tuition and be paid better than most corporate executives.

And I shall always appreciate his sincerity and graciousness. He did not pull any punches: "I won't be needing your services anymore, here's your check" is a rather simple, blunt statement. But he also discussed the matter with me, gave me advice and encouragement, not just as a "good luck" pat on the back, but based on what I told him my plans and aspirations for the future were (all this on his time), and offered me his permission to use his name as a reference.

I went to The Super Restaurant for dinner on several occasions after that last meeting. The first two or three times the maitre d' insisted on submitting no bill for all the food and wine for me and my guests, orders from The Big Man. This was not some kind of discount for business reasons; it was genuine - he knows a person who loves food when he sees one.

Now you know why I call him "The Big Man".

Yes, I regard Narsai David in my highest esteem and shall always be proud of my association, however short, with Narsai's Restaurant, Kensington, California.