Have Blade Will Travel: The adventures of a traveling chef (17 page)

Simone Beck’s nickname was Simca, and the following dish appeared in the New York Times Magazine on July 14
^th
, 1974.  In it Beck lamented the diminished flavor of mass-produced chicken in both the United States and in France, which motivated her to search for a way to restore that lost flavor.  She claimed that her roulade was her greatest success in that effort, and though I had access to excellent local, free-range chickens – the best that a chef could possibly want back then – I put the dish on the menu anyway.

The Roulades are quite labor intensive, requiring that the bones be completely removed.  The bird is then filled with a cooked stuffing consisting of mushrooms, eggplant, chicken livers, garlic, and bread crumbs, seasoned with thyme, oregano, basil, and Cognac.  The bird is stitched up around the stuffing, then roasted.  For service it is sliced, and served with a simple gravy.

Chicken Marengo

This is one of the most corrupted dishes in Western cuisine, created by Napoléon Bonaparte’s chef, Dunand, after the French army defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo on June 14, 1800.  Though the Austrian army held the element of surprise when they attacked the French, Napoléon was victorious, thanks to the return of a previously detached force under the French Major General Louis Desaix (who was killed in his counter attack).

At the end of the battle, Dunand had little in the way of provisions, but after foraging in the area, he came up with a chicken, some eggs, wild mushrooms, onions, garlic, herbs, olive oil, and crayfish from a local stream.  Using a fallen soldier’s saber, Dunand sacrificed the chicken, gutted it, plucked its feathers and cut it up.  He then created a dish as best he could, using only the ingredients he had on hand - using a bit of brandy from the emperor's flask.  Napoléon appreciated the effort and told him, “Dunand, you must feed me like that after every battle.”  Dunand would later attempt to make improvements to the dish, when serving it in more relaxed venues – but the emperor insisted on the same dish he had dined upon at the battlefield.

Like Caesar Salad and Crêpes Suzette, both originally created as tableside dishes, I believe it is important to honor the history of a dish, and the efforts of those involved, and thus prepare certain dishes as close to their original form as possible.  Even for those who disparage the ambiance of modern warfare – as in the case of Chicken Marengo – if we are going to prepare a dish innovated during a specific event, person or locale – it should be done in the spirit of the original creation, or not at all.

One night a waiter came in and asked if I could prepare a birthday cake.  Since “No” was not a word in my gastronomic vocabulary that summer, I said, “Sure, no problem.”  Today I would have a couple of plain sponge cakes in my freezer for just such an eventuality, but at that moment, I had no such gâteau in my freezer. 

No matter – for right there, right in the midst of our regular production, I whipped out, by hand, a classical genoise – what is commonly referred to as sponge cake. 

When I think of this incident today, I am nearly exhausted at the very idea of beating egg yolks and sugar in a bowl until thick and light yellow; folding measured and sifted flour into the eggs, pouring the batter into a greased and floured pan, and baking it. 
Where did I get all that enthusiasm, you ask? 
Well that is what it was – youthful enthusiasm, for there wasn’t anything that I could not prepare, even on a moment’s notice.

After the cake had been out of the oven for ten minutes, I removed it from the pan and slipped it into the freezer to cool it down ASAP.  Of course there was no time to prepare a butter cream, so I deemed it a Gâteau Chantilly – a whipped cream cake – whipped cream being one of Fritz Karl Watel’s most notable creations for the Prince de Condé in 1661, ten years before he impaled himself onto a sword  after a series of near-disasters spoiled a birthday celebration for Louis XIV.

I have often wondered if the ghost of Vatel
returned to the earthly plane after discovering that the
French appropriated his 17
^th
-century life and transformed him into a Paris-born, melodramatic Frenchman in a film in his namesake, released in 2000.  If so, did he haunt the nights of Gérard Depardieu, the French actor who played the Swiss catering steward?  Of did he haunt the bedroom of Uma Thurman, who played Anne de Mautausier, a fictitious king’s mistress, whose false tale of romantic interest in Vatel contributes to his dramatic exit?  (Had I been the ghost, I would have been all over Thurman!)

In truth,
Fritz Karl Watel (1613-1671) was not French, but Swiss, the son of a farm laborer – confirmed by the fact that the “W” in Watel is pronounced as a “V” – which is unique to the German tongue, and not to the French.  The name has thus been spelled with a “V” ever since the notorious incident, as described herein.

During his adult service as Steward to Nicolas Fouquet (1615-1680; Louis “the Sun King” XIVs Superintendent of Finances), the Prince of Condé lured him into his employ.  This turned out to be auspicious, because Vatel created “Crème Chantilly” – whipped cream – at Condé’s Château de Chantilly in 1661.  But Vatel became even more infamous in the Spring of 1671, when the Prince hosted a birthday party for the King. 

Louis arrived from Versailles on April 23
^rd
1671, with an entourage of 200 guests and servants.  In an age when roads were unpaved and extremely difficult to navigate, the logistics alone for a group of that size was an enormous challenge.  In addition, procuring sufficient food supplies to feed 200 guests during a 4-day weekend, organizing the service staff, stoking the fires of the ovens, then preparing and serving the food – at a time when there was no refrigeration – was also no doubt, a challenge of frightening enormity.

The party began on Thursday, April 23, 1671 with an early evening hunting party for the King.  Overseeing the production of a light supper for the hunting party – consisting of Turtle Soup, Fried Trout, Creamed Chicken, Roast Pheasant, and assorted accompaniments – Vatel was mortified when he saw that there was insufficient food for the guests.

In planning his feast for Friday, he made sure there was plenty of food for his guests, but Vatel couldn’t win for losing – for on Friday, an overcast sky obscured an elaborate fireworks display.  The disaster continued on Saturday, when a storm over the English Channel delayed the early morning delivery of a shipment of Dover Sole, a key ingredient for Saturday night’s feast. 

It is here that we find one clue for the French appropriation of Vatel as one of their own, since Swiss stewards are known to be well-trained and possessed of a calm demeanor that can handle virtually any unexpected disaster.  But Vatel was very much the drama queen, and was unable to overcome a sense of disgrace and hopeless despondence as a result of these assorted bumps in the catering road. 

It is believed that Vatel wrote a brief note to the Prince to the effect of "The shame is too much to bear, and I shall not survive it."  He then retired to his room, set a sword handle into the door jam, closed the door, and impaled himself upon the blade.  According to a letter written by Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, the Marquise de Sévigné, Vatel’s initial attempts were unsuccessful, and he had to repeat the run two additional times before he finally expired.

Two centuries later, during an interview, Auguste Escoffier was asked what he would have done if he had been in Vatel’s shoes, and he replied, “I would have made a mousse of chicken breasts, covered it with a fish Velouté, and no one would have known the difference.”  As for the Dover sole, it arrived – albeit late, but fresh and ready to be prepared for the banquet.

My cake was ready on time, artfully decorated, garnished with strawberries, fresh-grated nutmeg, and a circle of birthday-cake-candles.  Vince the waiter returned later in the evening to thank us for our effort, offering to purchase us an after-work beverage.  It was a reasonable gesture, in light of the fact that he had received the extraordinary gratuity of $100 – an enormous sum for serving a table of two during the summer of 1974.   And it made me wonder what the hell I was doing slaving away in a hot kitchen night after night, taking home a measly $200 per week, while my food waiters were raking in close to that amount in cash on a busy Friday-or-Saturday night?  After all, it was my cake that had topped of a perfect evening.

At night Moon-the-restaurant morphed into Moon-the-discotheque. 
Adjacent to the restaurant dining room was a large, enclosed space, filled with bleacher-style seating running up to the 12-foot-high ceiling, all covered, from floor-to-ceiling, with a thick, brown, shag rug. 
It was an amazing place.

In the center of the room was a wooden dance floor, and off to one side was a music booth, within which a DJ played endless dance tunes until the break of dawn.  And that place rocked like the QE II in the middle of a Force 11 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean.

One of the most popular songs that summer was “Who’s That Lady?,” the Isley Brothers 1973 hit, featuring Ernie Isley’s extraordinary Hendrix-tinged lead guitar solo – a song that is ranked #348 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  I must have expended 100,000 calories that summer dancing to that one song alone…  and man alive, did I dance up a storm in the early morning hours.

The kitchen closed at 11:00 PM, which meant that by 11:45 we were cleaned up, food was stored, and the kitchen closed for the night.  I jogged over to my summer abode, took a quick shower, returned in slacks and a fresh shirt, and prepared to unwind.  Unwinding after an intense evening of feeding the hoy-paloy of East Hampton’s summer crowd was an essential part of a full day’s work.  In fact, the lovely Miss Harriet and I had discussed that exact subject at length one evening, concluding that unwinding was an essential step after long hours in the intense and stressful environment of a production kitchen.  We determined that the best way to unwind involved an interaction with friends and co-workers.  Conversation was an important facet, a glass or two of wine helped, though a few hours of disco dancing with some of the most gorgeous women in the world was also quite effective. 

And so it would go, night after night – after shutting down the kitchen, showering and changing clothes, I would dance like a wild-man into the early hours of the morning.  Sometimes the hours would fly by, until 6:00 AM arrived, and the DJ and any remaining guests would stumble out of the club and head home to sleep.  On one occasion, the restaurant manager asked me if I could prepare breakfast.  Without batting an eye I knocked out a huge platter of cheese omelets accompanied by home fries and toasted baguettes, and of course Bloody Mary’s from the bar.   These were very special moments, and I cherish the memory of those times with great joy and delight – my work compatriots seated at a family table after a long night of revelry, as the sun rose in the early morning sky.  In a word, I was living the dream.

The Hamptons in the summertime represents a great congregation of notable celebrities – authors, actors, movers-and-shakers – and more than a few dazzlingly gorgeous women.  But the one who stole my heart that summer was a sweet, brown-skinned seventeen-year-young Earth Angel with an easy smile and a glint in her eye – and my heart skipped a beat, literally, the moment I met her.

Gayla Gibson worked at the door to the disco, collecting the four-dollar cover charge as people entered, then marking their hand with a “Moon” stamp.  I invited her over for dinner, and one evening, on a day off, I prepared a vegetarian dinner for the two of us – Cabbage Rolls stuffed with brown rice, raisins, toasted almonds, and fresh herbs, a bottle of crisp Macon Blanc, a green salad, and a perfect Tarte Tatin.  And I did everything but ask her to marry me right on the spot. 

Gay hailed from Brewster, in upstate New York, and over the years that followed I visited her every chance I could.  For some time we fell out of touch, then crossed paths in St. Thomas, USVI, in 1987.  I saw her in the super market just outside Yacht Haven, and she was as sparkly-eyed and effervescent as ever.  I was working as chef on a hundred-foot private yacht moored on a nearby dock; Gay was traveling on a small sailboat with Hank, a fellow who had been one of my dishwasher’s during the summer in East Hampton. 

Gayla later married and divorced – the latter a fact that to this day I find utterly astounding – though I fully admit that I am a very biased fan.  Around the turn-of-the-millennium, I wrote her a long love letter, recapping everything we had every done together, including the day we were hiking in the woods in Dutchess County and a fabulous rainstorm opened up on us – and which was followed by an even more astounding Rainbow. 

I didn’t hear from her for two years, so I concluded she had no interest in me at that point.  There was really nothing more I could do, short of kidnapping her, taking her to Paris in my private jet, and wining and dining her until she acquiesced.  (If only I had my own private jet!)

Later she confessed that she had been so blown away by my love letter that she did not know how to respond – which was as good as saying “I’m not really interested in you after all.”  So l figured that it never came together the way I wanted because it was never meant to be.  Still, if I had ever managed to marry my favorite earth angel – the sweetest, most genuine, most loving gal I have ever known in this life – there was as much chance of that union ending in divorce as the Pope smoking hashish on a street corner in Rome.

Gay was simply the girl who got away – and there wasn’t a thing I could do to change that.  As Richard Russo wrote in Empire Falls, “Lives are like rivers – they eventually go where they must, not where we want them to.”

I must mention my all-time favorite waiter – Teddy Digiacomo – of whom I was extremely fond.  He returned to his city life after the season, and later married a very lovely waitress from that summer, Nancy.  Some years later, she found him in bed with another woman, that was the end of that.  It was quite the tragedy – for they were a near-perfectly-matched couple.