Hatched (26 page)

Sarah burst into the kitchen, fearing Tina’s wrath. She didn’t need to worry, for Tina barely paid her any notice, as she rushed towards the kitchen to make her own preparations of the garnishes that she knew were almost as attention-grabbing as desserts. Amy, the redhead, who on the sole basis of her hair could sometimes compete with Elizabeth’s breast-fed tips, walked in her usual professionalism. She was quiet, highly trained, and perennially a little girlish and thus appealed to a surprisingly large number of married men. Tina got to count all of the tips that were assembled in one large pot at the end of each shift, and the contents thereof was a remarkable window into the world of men’s perverse mentalities.

Unexpectedly for this early in the evening, there was a clamoring at the door. Tina’s questing gaze revealed that the ruckus was caused by the owner of a long-board skateboard who managed to trip on the one small step that led up to the front door of Fabergé Restaurant. It was Jude. Tina felt mildly excited at the thought of this boy, on this night, in her dining room. She watched him as he scanned Fabergé Restaurant for an out-of-the-way spot; but actually seemed a bit more audacious than usual, somewhat less out of place than usual. “Was he planning on actually eating something substantial tonight?” wondered Tina. Perhaps he won the lottery?

Tina didn’t see John near the entranceway, thinking he had certainly settled into his beloved kitchen for the evening. Curious as to whether there might be some late deliveries, she headed for the Yolk, an unusual action on her part at this hour when so much was to be expected, and done, in the dining room.

When she penetrated into the Yolk, she saw that John had convened a kind of kitchen meeting at the prep table. There stood Jessica, always by his side in such occasions, along with Nate, beside her—of course!—and then Johnny, Nicky, and finally Boris, who stood at a bit of a distance, as though he feared John’s words. She approached, but her tiny presence, her china-doll self, the softness of her gate and the translucence of her very skin, seemed to render her invisible, and so she stood in this inner circle and observed the kitchen huddle.

The only activity that Tina could perceive, other than this discussion, was what looked from a distance like a boy stroking himself, but in fact was, she was sure, the new guy. What was his name? Oh yes, Russ. She realized in looking more closely that he was polishing the handle of a stainless-steel cupboard that contained one of the endless iron or aluminum pans that John had purchased with the profits, and the debts, of Fabergé Restaurant. The fact that Russ was polishing a door handle rather than chopping vegetables explained why Boris was there. Tina knew that John had undoubtedly decided that Russ wasn’t up to even the most trivial of tasks, like cutting onions. In fact, he’d be lucky if he landed up scrubbing pots that night, no matter how many guests were seated, because John would never run the risk of a dirty pot during a busy shift.

“We will make it all for them tonight,” declared John. “The inspectors are to come ’round, and even if,” John cast a glance, a kind of hateful momentary stare, in the direction of Boris, “we aren’t impeccable, they will know that we mean to be.” He winked at Jessica. “But we will be impeccable.”

Jessica nodded.

John loved to utter threats via inspectors who, even to this date, had never shown their faces in Fabergé Restaurant, and like a magician, or a priest, John used their absence as evidence of their immanent presence, or indeed their unperceived presence.

“We are going to do the Spanish poached egg,” John said, looking over first at Tina, presumably to acknowledge her presence but also to give a sense of the portentous nature of this evening. “We are going to do the Spanish poached egg, and Jessica will be making it.” John looked over once again at Jessica, and she half expected that he’d add “and I will be assisting her.” But he didn’t, and so she knew he wouldn’t.

The Spanish poached egg was a mythical creation, the very first dish that John had made for the journalists, dignitaries, and former guests of his old restaurant on the night that Fabergé Restaurant opened. He had learned this recipe after a visit from Juan Mari Arzak, who hearkened from the town of San Sebastian, on Spain’s Basque coast. Juan was a cooking celebrity, the master of his many-Michelin-starred restaurant. If John was planning to feature his Spanish poached egg, then indeed this was a momentous evening.

The special ingredient of this dish, which is actually called the ‘
Flor de Huevo y Tartufo en Grasa de Oca con Txistorra Datiles
,’ is some combination of surprise and faith because, like the egg that John had fried in butter for the education of Russ, this special dish was basically just, well, an egg. People traveled all the way to the Basque country, known by most as a break-away, independence-minded place, or, for the more political, as a home to the famous Basque Mondragon co-ops, because it’s an exotic and quite beautiful destination. But some savvy culinary travelers, if their pocket books allowed for such indulgences and their planning had anticipated this detour, visit the restaurant where this complex dish was born.
Flor de Huevo y Tartufo en Grasa de Oca con
Txistorra Datiles
was the very pinnacle of the
nueva cocina vasca
, an approach to cooking that emphasized freshness and the elimination of the superfluous, like sauces and flour, in favor of lightness and explosions of sentiment that are the result of the first scents, licks, and, finally, tastes. This was a love affair with the scent, the texture, and the remarkable taste of an egg.

John eventually visited Juan in the Basque region, and by then he was already obsessed by Fabergé’s eggs and by Peter Carl Fabergé. In creating and recreating egg-inspired and egg-based masterpieces, John fancied himself embodying the exoticism and sublime austerity of Juan Mari Arzak. He also believed that Arzak captured the very essence and timelessness of Earth’s bounty, just as Fabergé did.

Peter Carl Fabergé’s masterpieces endure on account of their exotic beauty, their breathtaking craftsmanship, and the absolute dedication to perfection that each one of them embodies. Fabergé’s masterpieces, and in particular his Easter eggs, transport those who indulge in their folly to the Romanov dynasty, to the audacious and illfated lives and loves of Nicholas II and Alexandra, who, like Juan Mari Arzak in his rarified Basque kitchen, were cocooned, cut off from the harsh realities of a fast-changing world that was endlessly rocked by encroaching forces of darkness. Arzak’s culinary creations are archetypically Spanish and Basque, and, moreover, taken from nature herself. Fabergé, by contrast, was profoundly cosmopolitan. He was French, in his artistic sensibility, but he was uplifted by his poetic Russian soul.

John, who was almost the same age as Juan Mari Arzak, and born almost exactly one hundred years after Fabergé, was oddly similar to the jewelry master, for he, too, was apprenticed to his father and mesmerized by the intricate precision that went into creating treasures. Unlike Fabergé, though, or Arzak, John traveled rarely and only made the trek to Spain once. Nonetheless, each of their creations bore the imprints of extensive cultural obsessions garnered from every culinary corner of the globe because eggs, like precious jewels, are recognizable and sought around the world: from St. Petersburg to the Basque coast, from Boston to Wall Street, from John’s gaze to Jessica’s eyes, and all the way around this odd, oval restaurant called Fabergé Restaurant.

Inspired by this thought, John looked over to Jessica with those steel-blue eyes, in admiration, but without depth, a kind of cold admiration, the best you could get from John. It meant respect. It felt like death. It was the cold sparkle of a blue sapphire on a czar’s imperial crown.

“Jessica, in addition to garnish, you will oversee production tonight of the
‘Flor de Huevo y Tartufo en Grasa de Oca con Txistorra Datiles
.’” It was as close to a tender utterance as might leak out from John’s mouth. Uttered with the odd Spanish accent that he used for the special occasion of reciting this dish, it sounded like some kind of ritual mating ceremony.

Jessica, once again, nodded, but said nothing.

“Nate,” said John, reluctantly releasing his gaze and directing it upwards to her awkward former lover, “you can help out.”

Everyone at Fabergé Restaurant, except of course the new guy, knew what this meant. John, the chef-tactician, was putting Jessica and Nate together, naively, in a sacred task. This didn’t mean that there’d be reconciliation, but it did mean that in addition to the many activities demanded of Nate on a busy night like that to come, he would also be painting the top of the recipe with edible colors, to create the
trompe-l’oeil
. To paint this creation was an insane, ridiculous, outrageous, and time-consuming act in a busy restaurant on a Saturday night. It was in fact as crazy as the idea that Nate and Jessica would ever be reconciled. Nonetheless, there was the virtue that the ensuing creation would be magnificent.

The purpose behind the elaborate
trompe-l’oeil
was to trick the client into thinking that the egg was open, when it in fact remained closed, a challenge that Nate, in his scorn for a clientele upon whom he relied for his livelihood, loved to perform. And although a weird and useless activity that stalled crucial kitchen staff during busy times, it was a part of the simplest and most complex egg recipe at Fabergé Restaurant, a $220 special that intrigued clients by its very name and shocked them, eventually, by its experience. This egg, unbeknownst to the uninitiated, is the parting volley in a revolution, a pounding shell in a battery of assaults upon what we might expect of our food, a blast that is borne out of the taste buds that force us into submission, if we so let them, to the passion, the momentary pleasure, the last, and indeed the first, true sensation we’ll ever have.

A poached egg.

It had taken Jessica almost one full week to master the ritual required to make that famous Fabergé Restaurant specialty, and she was a very gifted chef. And she admittedly still had never created what John did when he chose to put his almost spiritual, yes, she had often thought, spiritual, culinary talents to making it. But now he was reduced to washing dishes, and so although Jessica was the earth goddess of Fabergé Restaurant, of Manhattan, of New York, of America, of the world, and of the galaxy within which Fabergé Restaurant spun, she could but make a poached egg taste like a revelation, and not, as should have been the case, a revolution.

But Fabergé Restaurant clients wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the earth goddess and the magician, and, for this night at least, it wouldn’t matter.

The recipe that John inherited was originally published in a Basque region book called
Arzak and Adrià
. It found its way to America in the solid hands of John, for they who had perfected it feared not that it could be reproduced by the hands of mere mortals.

They were right.

But then, John, for whatever else he was, was certainly not a mere mortal.

For today’s meeting, Jessica had brought with her the scrapbook collection of recipes, which she clung to in her warm grasp. The scrapbook that Nate referred to as “the rack,” because, in his words, it’s a device for carrying eggs that she would usually embrace against her ample breasts, a kind of secret manual for deliverance from the everyday. She held it just so on this fateful evening, and on the news of her chosen task, brought it downwards to her waist and opened to the very first well-worn page:
Flor de Huevo y Tartufo en Grasa de Oca con Txistorra de Tatiles
, written out in a script well-suited to its religious stature. Open to Jessica’s gaze was the following sacred text:

Flor de Huevo y Tartufo en Grasa de Oca con Txistorra de Tatiles

Ingredients:

For the eggs:

4 chicken eggs

20 grams of duck fat

10 grams of truffle juice

For the egg yolks:

3 egg yolks

1 cc extra virgin olive oil

For the mousse of dates and chorizo:

120 grams of dates

150 grams of chorizo

100 grams of agua (100 ml water)

1 gram of ginger

For the tablespoon of mushrooms:

30 grams
xixa-hori
mushrooms

30 grams
hongos
mushrooms

1 clove of garlic

a pinch of salt

a handful of chopped parsley

For the bread crumbs:

60 grams of minced chorizo

60 grams of minced bacon

½ clove of garlic

300 grams of finely minced bread (sans crust)

100 grams of truffle juice

100 grams of water

a pinch of salt and a smidgen of black pepper

For the grape vinaigrette:

50 grams of white grapes, seeded and cubed

30 grams of black grapes, seeded and cubed

100 grams of extra virgin olive oil

30 grams of rice vinegar

a handful of chopped parsley

a pinch of salt, a smidgen of black pepper, and a cloud of powdered ginger

a sprig of chervil

a small quantity of chopped chives

Preparation:

For the eggs:

Spread out a sheet of plastic wrap and coat with a little oil.

Deposit 1 egg on the plastic sheet with 6 drops of truffle juice.

Add 3 drops of duck fat and a little salt.

Pull the edges together and tie tightly (may rest in the fridge for 1 day).