An excerpt from a manuscript I wrote a few years ago about my life as a private chef to high profile families in NYC. I don’t plan to publish it, but I thought I’d share some pieces here.
Trial 1 - The knife Situation
‘Oh my god, berries! I love berries. Can you get berries! All types. Oh my god, so good!’
Mrs. Y’s exuberant reaction to berries was almost infectious if it weren’t for the stream of ‘OMG’s cascading from her mouth. For this trial, I would be cooking breakfast and lunch for Mr. and Mrs. Y. Breakfast was to be served at 9am and lunch at 12pm.
Now that I knew berries of all kinds would be on the menu, I moved on to ask about other ingredients. Salmon and shellfish were a go. Everything else, a big sloppy no. All vegetables, yes. No pasta, no grains, no starchy vegetables for her. Minestrone soup was her ‘absolute love’. Her husband, on the other hand, loved pasta, carbs and anything that swam, particularly little crustaceans.
I decided on minestrone soup for both (no pasta in hers), seared salmon with roasted cauliflower, fresh herbs, currants and a preserved lemon vinaigrette for Mrs. Y, and spaghetti with shrimp and a light tomato sauce for Mr. Y.
For breakfast, she wanted scrambled eggs and one piece of buttered wholegrain toast. He wanted an egg white omelet with feta, smoked salmon, spinach and mushrooms, plus two pieces of buttered white bread toast with strawberry jam. She liked her toast, toasty. He liked his to barely yield a crunch. And OMG, berries. How could I forget lots of berries on the side.
I decided to include a muffin as well. Lemon cardamom. Let’s go.
Their expansive and impeccably decorated loft, nestled on a quiet side street in Tribeca, welcomed me and my numerous bags of groceries. A few long minutes later, Mr. Y appeared, dressed head-to-toe in a perfectly matched heather gray sweatsuit.
‘Mrs. Y is getting a massage,’ he said, as he walked me towards the kitchen. A soft, fragrant perfume bombarded my senses as he showed me around their Carrara marble-drenched kitchen, but it was evident he was showing himself around as well. Mr. Y opened each drawer with a surprised expression on his face.
One large stainless-steel pot, one peeling Teflon pan and a box of Fiji water lived in the drawer below the stove. One peeler, a paring knife and cutlery were tucked away in the drawer to the left of the oven. One gorgeous hand-painted bowl sat on an open shelf along with white porcelain plates and soup bowls. A scratch-less teeny tiny cutting board peeked out from behind a gigantic, flickering jasmine candle and a black onyx sculpture.
It was a show kitchen with everything in its proper place. Perfect for a photo shoot, not a place for food to be cooked.
France’s national anthem blared out of the ether and snatched Mr. Y’s attention as he charged to answer his phone, leaving me to attack the kitchen. In a frenzy, I began opening and closing every drawer and cabinet, wishing to find more pots, more pans, more of anything! All I found were more boxes of Fiji water.
No muffin pans. Scratch the lemon cardamom idea.
Where are the knives?
The counters were bare except for the curated cutting board corner. For a second time, I went through every nook, every drawer, every cabinet. I checked the dishwasher, the sink, but no knives were found.
Impossible.
Reluctantly, I knocked on Mr. Y’s office door. I relayed the predicament to him, and we both made our way back into the kitchen. He looked more confused than I did and sheepishly excused himself so he could go ask Mrs. Y.
‘Sorry, we don’t have knives. Can you use this?’ he said, as he pulled out the chipped ceramic paring knife that lived with the rest of the cutlery.
You have got to be joking!
My mind was racing. How the fuck was I going to chop, mince, and slice with a chipped, dull paring knife.
I was to blame because I did not have my knife bag. This was an unexpected trial, and my knives were in another home, in the Hamptons, where I had a temporary weekend job.
‘OMG! Hi! So nice to meet you. Did my husband tell you why we don’t have knives?’
And this is how I met Mrs. Y, in head-to-toe, snow-white terry cloth, on the verge of making a confession.
‘I am so scared of them! I don’t keep them in the kitchen, and in the Hamptons I hide them!’ she said, giggling.
The only words I could find were ‘OMG.’
She sent me a picture later that week from her Hamptons home showing the infamous set of knives hiding under a bunch of pans and a tablecloth. The caption read, ‘Peek-a-boo’.
Eggs. Back to the eggs.
I grudgingly accepted the no-knife situation and began working on the next riddle. One peeling Teflon pan for two different egg orders. One egg dish was going to have to wait on the sidelines as I finished the second. One pot for the soup and the pasta water. Once the egg pan was cleaned, I could use that for the salmon.
But what about the shrimp?
There was a shiny, never-used sheet tray in the oven that would be for the cauliflower, and maybe the shrimp? I would have slowly baked the salmon, but Mrs. Y requested that it be pan-fried because crispy skin ‘is my everything’.
Let the juggling act commence.
I organized my thoughts and methodically prepared the ingredients for the omelet. I threw the mushrooms into the hot, oiled peeling pan and waited until their umami-scented sweat overtook the lingering jasmine. Mushrooms out, and spinach in, for a rapid sauté just until wilted.
I set out the smoked salmon and crumbled the feta. Each in their appropriate bowls. Two slices of bread patiently waited in the toaster for Mr. Y, one slice waiting in the wings for Mrs. Y. Strawberry jam went into a delicate little jade green bowl.
I set the table, dropped the shrimp into the gorgeous hand-painted bowl with garlic, lemon slices and olive oil, then into the fridge until lunchtime. With that bowl out of commission, I needed another to whisk the eggs. I used a white porcelain soup bowl.
Six cracked eggs, a glug of milk, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper later, I was ready.
First, I would pour half the egg mixture for the scrambled eggs, then, when they curdled to perfection, quickly clean the pan and pour the remaining mix for the omelet. My concern for the inevitable cooling of the scrambled eggs seized my omelet-making thoughts, and I scurried to fetch a plate to cover them.
Table set, omelet done, eggs scrambled, toasty toast buttered, not so toasty toast buttered, berries washed, dried and mixed, and now the wait.
I despise having to serve food that is anything less than piping hot, especially eggs that you can’t really reheat. As each minute dribbled by, I accepted that they were going to be munching on a lukewarm breakfast.
Mr. and Mrs. Y leisurely sauntered into the kitchen at 9:22am and apologized for their lateness, muttering something about a work call with so-and-so gone awry. The emphasis that they were on a first-name basis with so-and-so was apparently supposed to impress me.
I served them their 22-minute-old eggs and looked ahead to lunch.
The berries were a big hit.
The shrimp marinated while the cauliflower scorched in the oven. Without cutting myself, I managed to mince, kind of mince, okay, chop the fresh herbs with their one and only paring knife and finished the prep for the minestrone soup.
I precooked the ditalini so I could just chuck some into Mr. Y’s soup, then sautéed minced onion, carrot and celery with fresh thyme and a gush of peppery olive oil. Once they were browned and slightly sticking to the pan, I added garlic, a plop of tomato paste and cooked it for a few minutes longer.
In went the vegetable stock I had made earlier, followed by chopped tomatoes, a Parmesan rind and a bay leaf.
Simmer simmer simmer.
Then came handfuls of spinach, some cute little cubes of zucchini, white beans and a generous pinch of salt and pepper.
I finished Mr. Y’s bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and a little grated cheese.
They were on time, and I was relieved.
They slurped while the shrimp sizzled and the pasta water boiled in the now-cleaned soup pot. They chatted a bit about the position and how they were down-to-earth people.
Mrs. Y went on to explain her parents’ taste in food, which now added another dimension to the job.
‘I am the only one that eats meat and I have a big, sweet tooth,’ Mr. Y chimed in.
‘Yea, like, me and my mom don’t really eat dessert. And for real food, we like light things. My dad and my husband will want to eat more hearty dishes, like potatoes, and stuff like that with their dinner. My dad does not like spicy things, but my husband does. And pasta, we don’t really eat, but my dad and husband love it. My mom and I eat mostly the same, but she has a bunch of food allergies, so…’
Mrs. Y lost steam, so I let her recover as she finished her soup.
From where I stood, they all had different tastes and requirements, which meant each day would be just like this trial. Serving different dishes to each member of the family.
Her slight giggle, accompanied by an even slighter nod of her head when I asked if this would be the case, seemed to confirm my assumption.
Cauliflower came out of the oven, shrimp came out of the very popular peeling Teflon pan, and the salmon went in.
I tossed the cauliflower with the fresh herbs, chopped preserved lemon and currants, then sprinkled it with toasted almonds and lemon zest. I drained the spaghetti and tossed it with the shrimp, garlic-infused olive oil and the cherry tomatoes I decided to burst in the still-hot cauliflower oven. I scattered torn fresh basil and a blizzard of Pecorino.
I plated the salmon, removing the lemon slices and thyme sprigs, then the cauliflower, then the pasta.
Lunch was served.
‘Delicious!’ Mrs. Y sang as she leaned over to steal a bite of her husband’s shrimp.
‘I have more shrimp here if you would like some?’ I asked.
‘Oh, that’s okay. Food tastes better on someone else’s plate,’ she responded.
I fake giggled and moved on.
As I waited for Mrs. Y to transfer my payment and grocery reimbursement, she again talked to me about how normal they were.
Normal this and normal that.
Blah, blah, blah.
Normal.
‘Like, we don’t own a bunch of cars in the Hamptons,’ she said.
‘We are just a normal family who likes to eat good food.’
Normal, as I stood in her massive duplex loft spanning an entire city block. Normal, as she told me I would have my own private wing in her Bridgehampton abode. Normal, as her parents lived in a 10-million-dollar home in California. Information she casually dropped while she was waiting to be served her lunch.
I smiled politely until I had confirmation that I received the payment, then skedaddled out into the real world.
The recruiter who sent me for this job called me that night, revealing the client wanted to hire me but couldn’t pay my rate. She wanted to pay $200 less because they were ‘really nice and normal people’.
Normal.
I declined and explained that my rate reflected my experience, and I don’t negotiate on the premise that a client is ‘normal and nice’.
Because in two weeks, I can guarantee you they will be anything but.