Have Blade Will Travel: The adventures of a traveling chef (27 page)

In 1867, police officer Armand Barbier arrested Norton for the purpose of committing him to involuntary treatment for a mental disorder.  The arrest outraged the citizens of San Francisco and sparked a number of scathing editorials in the local newspapers.  Police Chief Patrick Crowley speedily rectified matters by ordering Norton released and issuing a formal apology on behalf of the police force.  Chief Crowley observed of the self-styled monarch "that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line."  Of course Norton was magnanimous enough to grant an "Imperial Pardon" to the errant young police officer. Possibly as a result of this scandal, all police officers of San Francisco thereafter saluted Norton as he passed in the street.

In the 1870 U.S. census, at the age of 50 years old, Norton’s occupation was listed as "Emperor."  Norton issued his own money on occasion in order to pay for certain debts, and this became an accepted local currency in San Francisco.  Typically these notes came in denominations ranging anywhere from fifty-cents to ten dollars, and the few notes still extant are collector's items.  When his uniform began to look shabby, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors bought him a suitably regal replacement, and in return, the Emperor sent them a gracious note of thanks and issued a "patent of nobility in perpetuity" for each supervisor.

Norton collapsed on the corner of California Street and Dupont Street (now Grant Street) in front of Old St. Mary’s Church, on January 8, 1880.  And though a police officer called for a carriage to take him to the Hospital, he died before it arrived.  The following day the San Francisco Chronicle published his obituary on its front page: "Le Roi est Mort" ("The King is Dead"). 

Contrary to the rumors, Norton died virtually penniless, with five-or-six dollars in small change on his person, and a single sovereign coin worth around $2.50 found in his boarding house room on Commercial Street.  An estimated 30,000 people lined the streets to pay homage, creating a funeral cortege two-miles  long.  Buried at the Masonic Cemetery in 1934, Norton's remains were transferred to a grave site at Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma, with a large stone inscribed "Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico"

Norton’s legacy was immortalized in the literature of Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson, who based characters on him.   He was also something of a visionary, and among his many edicts and "Imperial Decrees" were instructions to form a League of Nations; and to construct a suspension bridge and tunnel connecting Oakland and San Francisco (September 17, 1872).  President Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations did not last long (1920-1946), but laid the foundation for the United Nations.  And it took some years, but the Oakland-Bay Bridge was completed in 1933 after three years of construction, and the BART trans-bay tube in 1972, also after three years of construction.

The legacy of Emperor Norton set a standard of eccentric behavior that significantly influenced the culture of the city, and there are hundreds of stories, big and small, about the many characters who were drawn to this open ambiance of civic freedom of expression.  One such character was Albert Butterworth, a round, gregarious, well-dressed man who rolled into the city in 1980, or thereabouts, and announced his intention to open an exclusive private Opera Club, ostensibly for the well-funded residents of the city.  Maxine Lockley recommended me as the caterer for his coming-out party intended to announce the forthcoming opening of the Club, and I subsequently agreed to prepare the food for this event, held at a private residence in Pacific Heights.  Everyone who was anyone was invited, especially those who were potential investors in Butterworth’s enterprise.  Unfortunately, the invitations had the wrong date printed on them, which seriously diminished the turnout and ultimately put the kibosh on the entire project. Though Butterworth’s check bounced initially, he did make good on his payment shortly thereafter. 
And of course he soon departed the city, never to be heard from again.

During this same period I worked occasionally for Armando Arroyo, a flamboyant Mexican entrepreneur who had started a catering business, and soon had established himself as the premier caterer in the city.  At one point Armando had made so much money that he bought an island off the coast of Mexico and single-handedly transformed its sleepy economy into a small, blazing economic miracle.

I worked occasionally as a server for Armando’s events, including a fundraiser for ACT – American Conservatory Theatre – for which Macy’s had donated the top five floors of their department store for the event.  The theme was an ancient Roman Bacchanal, and it began with a full bar up on the fourth floor.  On the fifth and sixth floors was a multi-station buffet, in rolling wooden carts – featuring a roasted pig, and endless stations of all manner of magnificent food.  A dessert emporium was stationed on the seventh floor, and at 10:00 PM, a three-piece band with portable dance floor began setting up on the eighth – the top floor. 

Tickets were priced at $250, with sixty-percent of that going to ACT, the remainder for the catering.  All the servers were dressed in mid-thigh-length brown togas, sandals, and a leafy wreath upon our heads.  It was a great party, with sumptuous food and first-rate service, presented in an exclusive environment, with special touches – such as leopards and other exotic animals from the San Francisco zoo paraded around on leashes – just the kind of decadent thing that went on in the late years of the Roman Empire.

When my work for the evening was finished, I changed back into evening attire and joined the partying up on the eighth floor.  I quenched my thirst with a beer, and danced up a storm for the next three hours.  As I said, it was a great party.

About 3:00 AM I headed back down the locked escalators, waved good-bye to the guards, and walked out onto Geary Street.  And at that very moment Kathy Peterson, one of the cocktail waitresses with whom I worked at the Clift Hotel, was driving by.  She saw me just as I exited the front door of Macy’s, pulled up in her green VW bug, and inquired, “Hey, chef.  Going my way?”  She dropped me off at my home – making the perfect ending to a perfect evening.

As for Armando, he was one of the most charming and hard-working entrepreneurs I have ever known, and of course he partied hardy with the best of them, often burning the candle at both ends.  In the late 1980s, after being diagnosed with the HIV virus, he liquidated his possessions, and moved to New York to live out the time he had left.  His was a flame that burned bright and fast – and he was one of the good who died young.  He will be missed.

In 1982, Ed Moose’s wife Maryetta, asked if I would come in and take on the duties of Sunday Brunch Chef.  Moose was willing to pay me cash for the day, and my day rate then was $90.  At a time when cook’s station pay was $65 per shift, and given that Moose and I had never really gotten along very well, I know he did not like paying me that amount, but he could not find a responsible chef to handle the job for any length of time, and I always took care of business – which is to say that I was well worth the expense. 

Several months into my one-day per week job preparing brunch, I entered a food-art show sponsored by the University of California at Berkeley.  The show, a fundraiser for U.C. Berkeley’s Art Museum, was entitled “Eat Your Art Out.”  I asked Ronnie Barber, the regular day chef, if he would cover my Brunch shift on that Sunday, then three weeks away.  He was glad to help me out, and I made sure that the Moose’s were aware that I would be taking the day off for the competition.

I entered one of my Mukimono bouquets – a sculpture made up of fruits and vegetables carved into flower forms.  The competition was intense, and I did not receive an award – which though disappointing, I was still glad to have had a chance to participate.  Two entries were so remarkable, that I remember them to this day: 1- a pair of U.C. Berkeley art students dressed in 16th-century Florentine costume, complete with hats, painting Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper onto a 5-by-3-foot-by-2-inch slab of white chocolate using food colors for paint; and 2- a 12-inch-tall pair of hands in prayer sculpted from cheese, holding a sprig of thyme, above a small congregation of green peas, with a caption that read, “Cheeses Praying for Peas in Our Thyme.”  Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

The following Monday, Ed Moose left a message on my phone machine, informing me that my services were no longer needed. 

It is most intriguing to point out that about 15 years after the GEU crew had frequented Vic’s bar on Belden Alley, a French entrepreneur by the name of Olivier Azencot opened Café Bastille on the far end of Belden Alley, which became a very popular place.  Sometime later, an Italian restaurant, Tiramisu, opened next door; followed by a sister restaurant to Bastille – Plouf.  Within a few years, the alley was full of restaurants: another Bastille-funded operation, B-44, with a Catalan menu; and a handful of other eateries.  Olivier was very modest about his accomplishment, but he had sparked the creation of a small restaurant zone that has come to be called “The Latin Quarter.”  Two of his former waiters, David Mega and Thierry Collomb opened their own place on the alley – the Voda Lounge – which became the hot spot for Gen-Xers and others who liked to immerse themselves in the culture and the latest innovative varieties of vodka.

Olivier also began petitioning the city to make some improvements, and about a decade after Café Bastille had first opened its doors the city agreed to fill in the street with a layer of asphalt that evened it out, bringing it up to what had been the sidewalk curb.  It was a huge improvement, and by eliminating the unevenness of the previous street, the outdoor café scene became far more secure and comfortable. 

To illustrate its popularity, a couple of pals and I went down to the alley on July 13
^th
 1998, the day after the French Soccer team had beaten Brazil in Marseilles in the World Cup soccer competition, 3-to-0.  Belden Alley was packed solid, literally, wall-to-wall and end-to-end with people, while three enormous TV screens hung above the crowd, showing the celebrations of more than a half-million Parisians 6,000 miles away on the Champs Élysées.   Another great party indeed.  And fascinating that it took a French entrepreneur to turn a trash alley in San Francisco into a small, thriving restaurant zone

On November 27, 1978, a rumor spread through the city like wild-fire – that Mayor George Moscone had been assassinated.  The rumor turned out to be true, and the city was stunned to learn that Supervisor Dan White had climbed into City Hall through a basement window – in order to avoid detection of a loaded handgun he was carrying – and had subsequently shot and killed the much-liked Mayor George Moscone.  He had also made a detour to Supervisor Harvey Milk’s office, and shot him five times before fleeing the scene of the crime.

Dan White was an uptight and emotionally unstable minor politician, whose life and life-style were identified with by the blue collar segment of working-class San Francisco.  These were the firemen, the police, and the city construction workers who could identify with White’s anger – even if it was rooted in an emotionally-damaged man.  Harvey Milk was the first openly gay Supervisor in San Francisco, and it is not too much of a stretch to conclude that not all residents of the San Francisco bay area were in accordance with the gay constituency of their city.  These were the “family-oriented,” white-Christian, heteros-in-denial segment of San Francisco that abhorred the rowdy, untamed, hedonistic, sex-driven lifestyle of the gay population of the city.

Prosecutor Tom Norman and District Attorney Joe Freitas cooked up what would later be termed the "Twinkie defense," which saved Dan White from a first-degree murder conviction – contending that White had eaten Twinkies that morning, which had affected his blood-sugar levels, which affected his behavior.

On May 21, 1979, White was sentenced to seven years for manslaughter, which sparked the White Night Riots – an enormous, violent demonstration by the gay community in response to the verdict.  Of course the careers of Norman, Freitas and Police Chief Charles Gain were finished, and they were never heard from again.  (Freitas died from lung cancer in Paris, April 2006 at the age of 66).

The Dan White prosecution sham was quite the scandal, and many felt it left a stain on the character of San Francisco.  Yet the truth of the character of Dan White would eventually become painfully evident.  He was paroled after five years of imprisonment, though California Corrections Officials feared that a murder might be attempted in retaliation for his crimes.  He was thus secretly transported to Los Angeles where he served a year's parole.  His release from parole also prompted another round of demonstrations, in which protesters publicly ate Twinkies.  When White announced that he planned on returning to his hometown of San Francisco, Mayor Dianne Feinstein issued a public statement asking him not to return.  But return he did, in an attempt to restore his former life.  Unfortunately for White, his wife had little interest in any restoration, and his marriage soon fell apart. 

On October 21, 1985, White committed suicide by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the interior of his car, while Paddy Reilly’s “The Town I Loved So Well” played on the car's cassette player. 

In May 1977, I decided to explore Europe.  I stayed at the L’Université de la cité – a version of our Community Colleges – which set me back a whole five bucks per night.  I remember lunch in the cafeteria at the college the day I arrived, finding it filled with mostly very angry Muslim students, which was quite unnerving.  Combined with a very bad case of jet lag, the energy in the cafeteria turned me into a paranoid foreigner, and I spent the next eighteen hours shaking it off by walking endlessly and without direction in the City of Light, as a spring rain fell upon the city. 

Soon, I telephoned Madame Bourdier, to whom Maxine Lockley had given me an introduction.  Madame was a sixty-five-year-old widow whose husband had left her an apartment building for her retirement.  She was utterly charming, and I dined with her on three occasions.  I will never forget those meals – absolutely fabulous – from Aperitif-to-Soupe-to-Poisson-to-Salade-to-Dessert, all moistened with some very fine white wines.