Have Blade Will Travel: The adventures of a traveling chef (24 page)

1 cup (240 mL) chicken Velouté

½ cup (140 mL) heavy cream

¼ cup (60 mL) brandy

2 eggs, beaten

• Rub the flour and butter together until it resembles coarse meal.  Add the water, and press the dough together without kneading.  Cover and refrigerate.
  
• Preheat an oven to 400-degrees F (200-degress C).
  
• Season the pork with salt and pepper, and sear in a pan with the oil over high heat until well browned.  Place in the oven, and roast for 30 minutes or until medium rare.  Remove and allow to cool.
  
• Heat the brandy, pour over the raisins, cover, and set aside.
  
• When the pork cools down sufficiently, cut it into ½-inch (.6 cm) dice, then combine it with the grapes, pineapple, brandied- raisins, rutabaga, sauce, salt, and white pepper.  Season to taste, then spoon into medium-sized oven-proof casseroles.
  
• Roll the dough out on a lightly floured board to a thickness of ¼-inch (.6 cm).  Brush the sides of the casseroles with the egg wash, place a small piece of dough over each casserole, and press onto the sides.
  

 
― ● ―

At one point, a French “stagière” joined us – Francis Klein, a young fellow from Strasbourg, France.  He was well-trained, gregarious, and we invited him into our group, professionally and socially.  I picked his brains about his training, wondered if he might lead me to a “stage” in France at some future point.  He was also gay, which might have explained his choice of San Francisco as the locale for his internship. 

Occasionally, the banquet department would book an evening dinner banquet at the GEU for which I was responsible.  After our lunch service, I would take a short break, then begin preparing the banquet meal, typically Roast Sirloin of Beef, Baked-stuffed Potatoes, a green vegetable, and a dessert.  It wasn’t an enormous challenge, and it added an extra hundred dollars to my paycheck.

The service staff was made up of a bevy of babes of all shapes, sizes and ages – a few were married, and I dated two of the single ones, though nothing every came of it.  There was one waitress, Norma Perez, a Filipino gal who was very extroverted, sexy and gregarious, and wasn’t afraid to exploit her effervescence in a healthy way.  “Hello baby!,” was her standard greeting, always accompanied by a little jiggle of the cleavage.  She was nevertheless well-liked by everyone, and always worked the happy hour cocktail shift as well as my evening banquets.

Years later, Norma married a German fellow, Werner Ewert, and they invested in real estate, eventually owning three homes, two of which they rented out.  They drove high-end automobiles – a Mercedes and a BMW as I recall, and appeared to be headed for an abundant late life and possible early retirement.

Unfortunately they also developed an affinity for cocaine, but they missed J. J. Cale’s warning, “She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie… cocaine!”  Norma and her husband essentially put all their material goods up their nose, ultimately destroying the life they had created for themselves.  Her husband died as a result, and Norma later moved to Reno, Nevada, where she took a job as a cocktail waitress at a casino there.  For those of us who knew her, it remains an extraordinary story and an astonishing tragedy.  

There was another interesting incident involving two waitresses – Angela Atwood and Kathleen Soliah, the latter of whom changed the digit “1” on an American Express credit card slip tip box to a “9,” in order to increase her tip by eight-dollars.  The card owner noticed the unauthorized change some days later, phoned it in, and the girl was fired.  It was later determined that both girls were members of the Symbionese Liberation Party, the radical group responsible for kidnapping Patty Hearst.  Atwood died in a shootout with the police in Los Angeles; Soliah later went underground, remaining undetected for twenty-three years.  She was convicted in May 2001, for activities stemming from her SLA activities in the 1970s, and released in March 2009.

At 3:00 PM, I changed back into my cycling outfit, bicycled up through Pacific Heights, up and across the Golden Gate Bridge, then up to the top of the Marin headlands that overlooked the entire city and the San Francisco Bay.  It was one of the most brea th-taking sights I had ever seen, and I had enough energy then to take advantage of that run every chance I could.  I made the trip an average of four times per week for more than a year.

I would return home around 6:00 PM, boil up some cabbage and garlic in vegetable bouillon – my typical dinner fare in those days – slap some butter on a sourdough baguette, and dine like the King of the Gypsy’s.  I had no television in those days, and spent my time reading instead.  I lettered a sign one afternoon, after returning from my 12-mile bicycle workout, and posted it in my kitchen:
Bicycling is Redemption of Earthly Sin
– which was a way of expressing my great affinity for bicycling in those days.  Oh my yes, I was living the healthy bachelor’s life indeed.

The Bachelor’s life is a good life, and it is important that one savors such moments early in life.  Still, there are times when the Inner Romantic within the Outer Bachelor may pine for some genuine female companionship.  Such was the case when I prepared the dish above. 

 
― ● ―

Bachelor Blues Chicken

1 fresh whole chicken, well rinsed and cut into 10 pieces

salt, pepper, olive oil and flour as needed

1 medium leek, well rinsed and trimmed of stem and outer leaves

1 medium carrot, peeled, end trimmed, and cut on the bias ¼-inch thick

2 stalks celery, cut on the bias

1 small rutabaga, peeled, squared, and cut into ¼-by-½-inch julienne

1 bottle (750 mL) dry white wine

4 ounces (120 mL) fettuccine, cooked al dente

• Season the chicken with salt and pepper, dust lightly with flour, and sauté in the olive oil until golden brown.  Remove from the pan, and keep warm.
  
• Sauté the vegetables in the oil for 5 minutes, return the chicken pieces, add about a cup of wine, and blend well.  Cover and simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, adding more wine as needed.  Serve in a shallow bowl on a bed of al dente fettuccine, accompanied by a large glass of wine.
  

  
― ● ―

Drunkard’s Noodles
(Pad Kee Mao)

For the sauce

2 tablespoons (30 mL) each, oyster sauce, fish sauce, brown sugar

1 tablespoon (15 mL) each, mirin, rice vinegar, & Maggi or Golden Mountain sauce

1 teaspoon (5 mL) sambal (Thai chili-garlic paste)

juice of ½ lime

For the noodles

8 ounces (240 mL) wide rice noodles

3 tablespoons (45 mL) peanut oil

1 clove garlic, pressed

2 jalapeño peppers sliced very thin

3 scallions – cut into 2-inch-long julienne

2 cups Napa cabbage, cut into ½-inch thick slices

8 ounces (240 mL) chicken thigh meat

1 ounce (30 mL) each basil leaves and cilantro, roughly chopped

lime wedges for garnish

• Combine sauce ingredients, blend and set aside.
  
• Soak the noodles in cold water for 15 minutes. 
  
• Sauté the garlic, jalapeño, and scallion in the peanut oil.  Add the cabbage and continue cooking.  Add the chicken, basil and cilantro, and blend thoroughly. 
  
• Drain the noodles, then boil for 8 minutes.  Drain, toss with the sauce, and serve with lime wedges.
  

― ● ―

Occasionally, on Friday afternoons, the GEU staff would all congregate at a nearby bar – sometimes O’Brien’s, one flight up on the far side of Pine Street; other times at Vic’s on Belden Alley, that intersected with Pine Street across from the B-of-A building.   Belden Alley was the trash pick-up lane behind the stores and restaurants that faced out onto Kearny Street – which made Vic’s seem all the more secret and exclusive.  These were marvelous and memorable times, and the camaraderie fostered a close ambiance – like a family away from home. 

In the fall of 1977, a pretty, auburn-haired waitress by the name of Linda Bazan announced that she was going to run for office in the upcoming Local 2, the Hotel-Restaurant Workers Union election.  She joined forces with Charles Lamb, a tall, handsome, blond fellow who pushed a rolling coffee-and-snack cart from floor-to-floor at mid-morning in the Bank of America building that loomed above us 60-stories.  Together with two other restaurant workers, David MacDonald and Winston Ching, they formed ARF – The Alliance of Rank and File – and began organizing and campaigning for the 1978 election.

Linda was a well-meaning, egalitarian-driven, radical socialist – whose core driving-wheel was to lend a hand to the “worker’s struggle” and to help the proletarian masses find decent treatment in their working lives.  Before I joined the GEU as chef, Linda had gone on a government-sanctioned and government-controlled three-week “vacation” in The People’s Republic of China – which was exactly the kind of liberal, free-thinking, activist behavior that Chef Manfred loathed – he being a politically conservative, old school, traditional Teutonic immigrant.  Personally, I have no issue with anyone who is driven to lend a hand to others in this world, for whatever reason, as long as there isn’t any preaching involved – and Linda Bazan never preached.  She just tried to make a meaningful difference in the world, and I say more power to her.  Without at least a few “do-gooders” on our calamitous planet, we’d all probably be extinct by now anyway.

As for Local 2, I have never seen a more laughable bunch of wanna-be hooligans than the agents and officers of the Hotel-Restaurant Workers Union.  Before I arrived at the GEU, I had seen them in action, walking into various restaurants carrying a briefcase in their left hand, with their right hand resting inside the left lapel of their double-breasted suit, gazing around squinty-eyed and nervously as if they were a bunch of mafia lieutenants in a 1940s film-noir gangster movie – with Alan Ladd, John Garfield and Dick Powell standing in the shadows waiting to pump them full of lead.   Give me a break!

During the few times I stopped into the Local 2 offices to check the job board (now that was a real joke!), the union “officials” were typically sitting in the back room playing poker as they chewed on fat cigars amidst a toxic cloud of smoke.  And I thought to myself, this is what I am paying $85 monthly dues for?... and local restaurants whose employees are union members pay the union $63 per month per employee – supposedly for health insurance and a pension.

I also went to a union meeting that same year, after a contract had been negotiated by the union and the local hotels and restaurants, and some of the rank-and-file felt that it was not favorable for the workers (it wasn’t).  When a member stood up at a microphone to address a concern to the governing board of the union – all seated at a long table at the front of the room – the union officials began whispering to each other and otherwise ignoring the union member’s presence, indicating that they had as much interest in hearing from their rank-and-file members as they had in visiting a leper colony.

The president of Local 2 was Joe Belardi, an acutely arrogant, balding union hack with a very condescending manner, cut from the mold of Johnny Friendly, the Union boss played by Lee J. Cobb in the 1954 film
On the Waterfront
.  Belardi was just as corrupt and worthless as Friendly was, but with maybe one-tenth of his personality.

Yet in early 1978, the most amazing thing happened: Joe Belardi and his entire staff of thugs were voted out, and the new ARF coalition voted in (Association of Rank and File), and by a significant margin.  That evening, Belardi made his sole appearance on the evening news, thoroughly demoralized and openly weeping, stunned that his workers had the impetus to vote him out.  What a jerk.

Unfortunately, the officials at the AFL-CIA home office in Cincinnati did not take kindly to a bunch of young, idealistic rabble-rousers taking over their union, nor getting their hands on the cash the Union derived from their members and the local hotels and restaurants.  Several months later they flew in, and put the union into what they called “Receivership,” which essentially negated the results of the election.   As for the courageous young visionaries who had been elected, the union bosses kept them in place, but they had no power to negotiate contracts or have any influence over the future of the union.  Too bad for them.

As for Local 2, they staged a couple of mass strikes in the coming years, but after the unseating of Belardi, the union never returned to the power it once had.  And so much the better.

San Francisco has a reputation of being a great restaurant town – and interestingly, there are more restaurants there per capita than in any other city in the nation – roughly one café, restaurant, trattoria, tapas bar or burrito joint per 100 residents.  But relative to other great restaurant towns, like Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Montreal, New York, Seattle, Toronto, Washington D.C., and so on – it lacked any sense of sophistication.   Not that San Francisco did not have it share of notable eateries – but many were quite over-rated.  Nevertheless, early on, I relegated most Friday and Saturday nights to exploring the restaurant culture.

My focus in the early days of my career, when I dined out, was multifarious.  Of course I had interest in the local competition – as a professional and educational experience – but it was also a form of entertainment, during which time I spent quality time with my significant other. 

Nevertheless, my primary focus was on the food – the quality of preparation, the plate arrangements, choice of colors, textures, and other presentation elements, while the service was always a secondary consideration.  Years later my attitude changed, and the quality of the service became just as important as the actual cuisine.