Cooking as Fast as I Can (21 page)

I grabbed my knives and busted out through the back door, Donna on my heels, yelling the whole way. It was the first and last time I've ever walked out on a job. I was raised to be on time, work hard, treat your employers with respect, and give proper notice. I didn't believe in quitting because a job proved to be more than you'd bargained for, or because you were tired. But this situation was poisonous, and I needed to get out before I'd absorbed too much of Donna's low opinion of my abilities.

I peeled off, drove around all morning through the Napa Valley mist in that Land Rover Donna had insisted I lease. I'd never leased a car before, and who knew what would happen to it now that I was unemployed. It drizzled a bit. A single run-on thought looped through my head.
I'm done, I'm free! I'm done, I'm free! I'm done, I'm free!
I called my mom and she said, “Thank God and hallelujah.” Finally, the mist lifted. It was going to be a crisp, cool Northern California day, and I went home, lit a fire, poured myself a glass of good wine, and wrapped Christmas presents.

I felt I'd excelled in my executive chef position. With Donna and Giovanni's help, I jettisoned that tired old Italian restaurant menu circa 1970 and introduced them to hip, light Mediterranean fare (which they still serve as I write this), helped them create a signature olive oil, and got them on the Net. Still, it had ended so badly I felt a little ashamed.

Not long ago I called Donna. I had heard from a friend that she'd been diagnosed with brain cancer, and I called to see how she was doing. Almost twenty years had passed and I felt my old fondness for her energy and even her histrionics. She had made me a big part of her life, had been generous in so many ways. And she had brought me to California, where I finally set down roots. I owed her a lot, and I was genuinely sorry to hear she was sick.

She caught me up on everything that was going on with the restaurant and our mutual acquaintances in Napa. She was still obsessed with redecorating and replacing the bistro's chairs every other year, and wondered whether I'd had a chance to check out Per Se, Thomas Keller's newest restaurant in New York. Before I could fill her in on what I was doing she said, “I'm just so proud of you, Cat. It doesn't surprise me one bit. You were always so good at showboating.”

Showboating.

This wasn't the first time she'd accused me of this—wanting to be out in the front of the house instead of back in the kitchen where she felt I belonged. My impulse was to snap back that I loved being in the kitchen, but it was so much water under the bridge, and I didn't bite.

I wanted to connect with her and felt I had reached a place where I could afford to accept her as she was, backhanded compliments and all. The conversation stumbled a little, then we got to talking about how tough it was to maintain any sort of balance in your life when you worked in the restaurant business. We reminisced about Giovanni, the old crew, and old friends, and the Bistro Don Giovanni olive oil, made from the loose olives that fell in the driveway.

Not long after this conversation I heard she'd died. I felt sadder than I ever imagined I would. Hannah, who still
lives in Napa, texted me with the news. At her funeral, her best friend, Barbara, took me aside and said that despite our rocky past, Donna loved me. I felt a sense of closure I hadn't expected. I loved that woman and she drove me mad, and I felt guilty for whatever part I played in our difficult dealings with each other. I was grateful that during our last conversation we seemed to have found peace with each other.

fourteen

N
othing quite ruins the high of quitting your job than the first overdue bill. It was 1997. I was thirty years old and had no job and no prospects. I'd split from the one person who'd loved me and put up with my shit. I had eight hundred dollars in my savings account. My rent was nine hundred dollars, and it was overdue.

My parents would have starved to death before allowing the thought of unemployment to even enter their heads. “That's one thing you never want to do,” my mother counseled me once. I can still see her in the kitchen, pointing at me with a wooden spoon. “Do not go on the dole. You will lose your pride if you start taking from the government.”

Three months passed. I spent my days working out, sending out résumés, beating the pavement, then working out some more. Thomas Keller over at The French Laundry was sympathetic to my situation. He offered me an internship, which paid something like $7 an hour, and which I turned down on the spot. I was grateful—also terrified—but I wasn't about to go backward. I drove around up and down the valley in the Land Rover until I couldn't afford the gas. When I was down to a meal a day I gave in and applied for unemployment.

I'd canceled my appointments with Robin the day I quit,
feeling that therapy was the ultimate luxury. After a month or so she called to check up on me, suggesting I schedule an appointment.

“Robin, I don't have a job. I can't pay you.”

“I'll tell you what. We can do this. You give me some cooking lessons in trade for therapy.”

Robin came to my apartment once a week. We began with roast chicken and talking about why I'd been so susceptible to Donna's charms and manipulations. We moved on to making a stock from the carcass and examining how much of it had to do with the sexual abuse I'd suffered all those years ago. From the stock we made
rivithia
, Greek chickpea and roasted pepper soup, traditionally eaten during Lent, and explored the additional anguish I'd endured when my parents discovered the abuse and more or less let it go.

Some nights I would lie awake and wonder how long I could survive without a job. What would happen to me? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine moving home to Jackson, getting my old job back at the University Club. Was the executive chef who'd taken me under his wing still there? What would he make of my travails? It seemed possible that I might pass out simply from contemplating the potential for humiliation, while at the same time acknowledging that I was getting myself into a state for no reason. I was an experienced chef. I was a
good
chef, and somehow I would make something happen.

One day, when I was about an inch away from destitute, the phone rang. It was Michael Chiarello.

“I hear you're looking for something,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. Hope stirred.

“I've got a great restaurant opportunity in the East Bay. You'd be the perfect chef.”

I wasn't quite sure where the East Bay was, and I only knew
Michael through reputation. He was a fellow graduate from the Culinary, and the founding chef of Tra Vigre, a restaurant in nearby St. Helena. He was charming and entrepreneurial, had won a slew of prestigious awards, including Chef of the Year by
Food & Wine
magazine and the Robert Mondavi Culinary Award. His new venture would be owned and managed by his restaurant group. I liked the idea of being the executive chef at a restaurant that was not someone's doted upon only child, but purely a business venture.

I searched for quarters beneath the couch cushions and in the pockets of the winter coat I hadn't worn since Old Chatham to put together enough money to buy gas to drive to the East Bay. It turned out I did know where it was—Oakland, Berkeley, all the great little towns east of San Francisco.

The place had formerly been called Tourelle and was a local landmark in Lafayette, California. The town sits among rolling hills covered with wildflowers and scrub. There's a pretty reservoir, a terrific school system, and a well-off populace that enjoys fine dining. Berkeley is just over the hills, due west.

Built in 1937, the restaurant was once Lafayette's post office—hence the new name, Postino, Italian for postman. It was the most beautiful place I'd ever worked, and that was saying a lot. A flagstone walk led up to its atrium entrance, and ivy and jasmine vines grew up the brick walls. Inside there were five or six smaller rooms, also lined with brick, and on the small patio, a few “personal” fire pits around which guests could gather on cool evenings.

The challenge in opening a restaurant there was getting people to come not just from neighboring Berkeley to the west, but from as far away as San Francisco, which would mean a drive across the Bay Bridge and over the hills to Lafayette. But my situation was dire enough that I would have
snapped up the job even if it were in a ghost town in the middle of a desert.

It turned out I had no cause for worry. From the time it opened in May 1998, Postino was a hit. I could not have lucked into a better situation. Michael generously offered me profit-sharing, which means that unlike the equity partners, I would receive a portion of the earnings without sharing the risk. Because this time I was a bona fide executive chef, and not in name only, I brought on my own cooks, including my great friend from the Culinary, Lorilynn, the Julia Child–size redhead with the infectious laugh, whom I appointed my sous chef. I'd always been impressed with Lorilynn's organizational skills and also her palate. She's a gifted baker, an expert at classical technique, and her dishes were always both whimsical and satisfying. But more than that, she was like a big sister, the great friend who would always answer the call to go into battle with me.

I'd helped open the Sheepherding Co., but Postino was four times as big and located on busy Mt. Diablo Blvd. Everything involved in opening this restaurant was more expensive, more complex.

By now I was experienced and confident enough to have fun with the menu. Crisp onion rings, Meyer lemon and rock shrimp, fried in rice flour with buttermilk and served in a paper cone with spicy mayonnaise. Asparagus with pancetta. Homemade crusty calzone stuffed with prosciutto, sheep's cheese, and truffle oil. Halibut crusted in cheese and served with roasted potatoes and a sweet corn zabaglione sauce. Fresh pulled mozzarella with local heirloom tomatoes. Garganelli pasta rolled by hand with braised rabbit, pancetta, and local
wild mushrooms. Michael's connections in the wine industry contributed to a great list of which I was proud.