Serious Eats
Served: Goodbye to a Good Cook and Good Friend
I blog by day and wait tables by night. I'm excited to bring you Served, dispatches from the front of the house. Enjoy!
The restaurant biz is incredibly transitory. People come and go, quick.
Saturday was K.'s last time coming to work in his snappy yellow bandanna and chef's whites. But as he told the owner, "see you tomorrow," at 3:30 a.m., I knew that I would be seeing plenty of K. around the restaurant.
In the year he's been there, the place has come to be a home for him. He has also left his mark on the restaurant: the place has a little bit of K. lurking in all the nooks and crannies.
The Great Footwear Rescue
At 4 p.m., it seemed like a great idea to rock my green pointy-toed flats at work. At midnight, I worried that if I slid off my shoe, I would find my toes blue-black and falling off my feet. Every step was excruciating.
Hobbling to the basement for a few bottles of wine, I remembered that the lovely folks in the kitchen keep some belongings on shelves downstairs. That includes chef's clogs. Stealthily, I slipped off my torture chamber footwear (all my toes were securely attached!). K.'s clogs fit like a glove.
There are few things more miserable than waiting tables in painful shoes. (And hostessing in painful shoes. I should have learned this lesson by now.)
Likewise, there are few things more beautiful than liberating your feet into the squishy, comfy orthopedic bliss that is a pair of kitchen clogs. I bounded upstairs with wine and a new found joie de vivre.
K. cooked at another restaurant part-time in addition to the one where we worked together. He often came by at night after he finished service at his other place. He would have a drink, dart outside for endless cigarettes, and hang out. I always looked forward to his visits—they were a sign that the night was coming to a close, and it was good to have him around.
That night, he arrived to find his shoes happily on my feet and my steps downright bouncy. "Thank you, thank you!" I told him. "Your clogs saved my life." They certainly had saved my night.
Brunch Buddies
K. and I first worked together during a slow brunch. Brunch was so slow, we eventually got rid of the whole operation. This one was no exception. It was just us two upstairs, tending to a sparsely populated dining room.
K. used to be a barista at Starbucks, so he gave me a milk-frothing demonstration.
A ruddy-faced man with a lopsided gait came in. It was just after noon, and he looked plastered. A piece of wisdom I've cultivated from my restaurant jobs: when it comes to feeling out people, trust your instinct. Usually only hardcore weirdos have the effect of making you feel deeply weirded out within a few seconds of meeting them.
This guy was a definite weirdo. He would neither leave nor sit down. He requested a glass of water (I complied) and proceeded to deliver a monologue about why I should marry him. I refused his proposal at first kindly, then sternly. But he seemed to think persistence held the key to our happily ever after.
I had tables—well, one or two—to attend to, espressos to make. His presence was getting awkward. I hoped if I ignored him, he would get bored and go. I folded napkins. I tried to look busy.
Eventually, he left. "I'll be back," he promised. It was an empty threat. Thank God.
"That was kind of uncomfortable," K. said upon my admirer's exit.
"Thanks for your help."
"What was I supposed to do?"
At the time, I had no clue. In retrospect, K. should have announced our matrimony. Clearly.
Cook and Rockstar
K. is fun to work with. He puts up with my annoying and unstoppable desire to scribble "K. is a rockstar!" on his prep list and on his containers of sweet duck sausage and chevre.
We are chatting behind the bar one night when an order comes in for two endive salads. I challenge K. to an endive salad throwdown. It was K. who taught me how to make our endive salad. Side by side, we put on our latex gloves and clobber endive with roaring forties blue, mandolined slivers of pear, macadamia crumbles, and a squirt of sherry vinaigrette. My endive salad is stacked higher on the plate, but it is also quite crooked. His is symmetrical and squat.
I carry the endives to their table.
"I made one and the cook made the other," I say to the endive-orderers. "Can you guess which?" They can't, so I fill them in.
It is not K.'s role as a cook, though, that I will miss. He has come to be a good friend. A friend who far surpasses endive salad.
We've eaten many memorable meals together and made a mess out of pork chops in my kitchen. Mostly, we've had a lot of very long talks very late at night. Sometimes, we watch the sunrise over the concrete. We watch the garbage trucks rattle by, still perched on the steps out front of the restaurant, K. with a cigarette.
Who knows whats next for K. Selfishly, I hope it includes late night visits. I miss them, and him, already.