Monster's Chef Read online

  DEDICATION

  For my wife: my love and my first reader,

  Jinghuan Liu Tervalon

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  About the Chefs

  Also by Jervey Tervalon

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  SUNNY ORRECHIETTE WITH COLLARDS AND BREAD CRUMBS

  SERVES 4

  3 cups turkey wing stock

  1 pound collard greens

  5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO), plus more as needed for eggs and drizzling

  1 cup coarse fresh bread crumbs

  3 cloves garlic, roasted and minced

  1½ shallots, peeled and “brunoised”

  Salt and freshly ground black pepper

  3 tablespoons unsalted butter

  Four 1-inch-thick slices cured slab bacon

  ¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

  1 pound orrechiette

  4 free-range chicken eggs

  ¾ cup grated Parmigiano

  In a large pot, bring the stock to a boil. Working in batches, cook the collards in the stock until just tender, about 6 minutes. Using tongs, transfer the collards to a medium sheet pan and let cool. Set the stock aside in its pot. Squeeze out excess liquid from the collards; chop the leaves and finely chop the stems; set aside.

  Heat 3 tablespoons EVOO in a small skillet over medium heat. Add the bread crumbs and cook, stirring often, until the crumbs begin to brown, about 4 minutes. Add one-third of the garlic and one-third of the shallots and cook, stirring often, until the bread crumbs are golden, about 3 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper and transfer to a paper-towel-lined sizzle plate; let cool.

  Heat the butter and 2 tablespoons EVOO in a large heavy pot over low-medium heat. Add the chopped bacon, red pepper flakes, and the remaining garlic and shallots; cook about 2 minutes. Add the reserved collards and ½ cup stock. Cook, stirring often, until the collards are warmed through, about 4 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.

  Meanwhile, bring the reserved stock to a boil; add the pasta and cook, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Drain, reserving 1 cup of the stock.

  In a small skillet over medium heat, warm some additional EVOO, add the eggs, and cook until the egg white coagulates. Season with salt and ground black pepper, cover for 30 seconds until the eggs are not runny, and set aside.

  Add the pasta and ½ cup pasta liquid to the collard mixture and stir to coat. Return to medium heat and continue stirring, adding more liquid as needed, until the sauce coats the pasta. Mix in the cheese and ½ cup bread crumbs; toss to combine.

  Divide the pasta among bowls; drizzle with oil; and top with the remaining bread crumbs and the eggs, sunny side up. Drizzle with a little more EVOO.

  CHAPTER ONE

  SILENCE, SOLITUDE, AND BREATHABLE AIR, that’s all I wanted, not exactly a miracle, but I guess this nightmare of a job is what I deserve. I’m the cook; what goes on beyond the locked door of this bungalow is not my concern. I turn up music, keep lights burning all through the night.

  Safe.

  No one cares about the cook, that’s what I count on. I keep the door locked, and I try not to leave, not anymore, not after dark.

  Cold.

  This bungalow is torture even in spring. No matter how much wood I toss into the barely functional woodstove, heat slips away through the walls like mice when I turn on the lamp. I came with few clothes—two white tunics and a couple of thick sweaters, jeans and T-shirts. I wear both sweaters to bed, all the socks I can fit on. Coldest I’ve been is spring in the mountains of Santa Ynez. Some nights I can’t bring myself to get out of bed to use the toilet, just grit my teeth and endure until I can’t stand it.

  You’d think somebody as rich as Monster would insulate these bungalows, might have some idea that his employees are suffering. Even so I should have been better prepared, should have known, paid more attention to what I was getting myself into. A man of Monster’s stature spends his time plotting world conquest, opening a Planet Monster in Bali or something fantastic, not worrying about the frigid temperature of an employee’s bungalow. Maybe that’s why the last chef quit, fingers so numb she couldn’t dice.

  Another glass of 2005 Rutherford Hillside Reserve Cabernet and I’m still feeling the cold, though it’s not as sharp. I told myself I was through with Twelve Step anything; I can’t feel good about getting wasted. Numb is good and warm, but numb turns sour, numb gets you arrested, numb gets you a judge deciding what’s best for you, and I can’t stand to live through another diversion program. I pour the rest of the wine down the drain. I swore to myself that I would get high on life only, and leave killing myself a little each day alone.

  I KNOW THESE EXTENSIVE, meandering grounds well, but on a moonless night it’s almost impossible to stay on the trail. A step in the wrong direction and you’re in the middle of scrub brush and poison oak that rib all sides of Monster’s estate. Easily enough you can end up blindly wandering in the wilderness among coyotes, black bear, mountain lions, whatever.

  See.

  You must walk away from the light into the darkness.

  The other direction isn’t an option; the closer one gets to the big house, the more likely the lights will go on, blinding lights that’ll make you feel like a frog ready to be scooped into a sack. Then you’ll hear the sound of the heavy steps of Security as they converge, shouting commands. It’s been worse since some nameless stalker managed, after repeated attempts, to sneak into Monster’s Lair on some psychotic mission. Someone, maybe even Monster, came up with “Lair” as the name for this place. Heard it’s trademarked and he’s going to use it for his next CD, whenever he gets that done. Clever, I guess, but I don’t know. Supposedly, he’s been having a hell of a time—the music won’t flow at Monster’s Lair. Maybe it’s the name; it’s not conducive to creativity. Try telling someone you live and work at Monster’s Lair and they laugh and ask, With that lunatic? How is that? What kind of craziness goes on there?

  I can’t answer.

  They never did catch the trespasser, supposedly a loser from Monster’s past who’s plagued him since long before he built the Lair playland. I used to enjoy my nightly walks, but that was before enhanced lighting and the dogs. Security lets them run the grounds to get the lay of the land.

  Once, I saw Monster walking alone in the middle of a pack of trained attack dogs like he was fucking Saint Francis of Assisi. Security trailed behind him, skulking near the bushes, maintaining that illusion of privacy he demands. The dogs smelled me, and though I was trying to back away from the encounter, too late, they charged forward, frothing and churning sod. Monster looked for a moment like he had no idea who I was, the man hired to cook for him and his family. I raised my walking stick to bash a dog before the others mauled me, but an impulse of self-preservation kicked in and I shouted my name just as the dogs charged.

  “It’s me, Gibson! The cook!” Security shouted something in German to the dogs, which stopped midstride. I heard Monster’s voice, high and nasal, a near whine. “Oh, you scared me.”

  “Sorry,” I said, and hurried on in the opposite direction. I caught a glimpse of him in the moonlight, bundled in a parka, though that night the temperature was mild, walking with hands clasped behind his back, serenely in thought. Security caught up and escorted me back to my bungalow, which was more and more a jail cell and less the attractive per
k of a rent-free cottage in the beautiful mountains to compensate for a modest salary. Security looked me in the eye and told me to watch it, don’t forget who pays the bills.

  “Monster does,” I said, nodding to show, even if Security wasn’t buying it, that I was a team player. It didn’t go well. He looked for a second as though he thought I might be jerking his chain, then turned to go, but not before jotting something down in a small gray notebook that I’m sure was a notation scheduling another background check. I didn’t mind.

  When you work for someone with great wealth, you learn quickly that you really do serve him. You learn to be blind, deaf, and dumb if that’s what they need.

  Monster needs all of that.

  Sometimes I see things that don’t add up, that make me nervous. I wanted isolation, but not like this. The night sky has too many stars; the moon hangs like a gaudy lantern illuminating a path to my bungalow. I’ve never felt so alone. I know what goes on there, behind those hedges, those walls, gates, and sensors.

  He’s a monster and every day I serve him.

  I’M NOT INCLINED toward depression; upbeat and all of that is how folks describe me, but that was because of the drugs.

  Married, living on the Lower East Side in a nice co-op, part owner of Euro Pane, a restaurant with witty, angular (the publicist came up with that), Puglia-inspired cuisine that people wanted to spend good hard cash on—you’d think I’d have been more than happy, but in truth it was too much for me. Maybe I couldn’t stand prosperity, and with things going so well I knew my luck couldn’t continue; something would give and I’d find myself flat on my face. Instead of waiting, I went for it, leaped for the pipe and returned to a long-dormant cocaine habit. If I needed to make an excuse, more to myself than anyone else, I could offer that the restaurant was overwhelming, and I needed relief from the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month relentless grind, the kind where you wake yourself with the sound of your own teeth grinding. Yeah, it’s the kind of stress that makes a man long for a hit off a crack pipe.

  Ten years ago, when I indulged in smoking a little cocaine, I handled it. But now was different. Then it was about staying up to dawn for the second day, clubbing until I was sick of the whole idea of clubbing. Working and playing, trying to have everything, and it worked until I couldn’t stand living like that. I gave it up, put down the pipe and cocaine easily, proved to myself that cocaine didn’t have me by the balls. Suddenly I noticed I had so much more money in my bank account, and then I met Elena, fell in love, and that was that. It really was a good thing, and I handled it smoothly, so smoothly that I had it in the back of my mind that I could do it again. It wouldn’t be no thing. But I guess shit has a way of catching up to you after a while. My addiction was like a cancer cell, dormant; I was kicking it until the conditions were right. Probably the truth is I don’t have the same discipline or constitution. I’m not that young man who could do that, keep it going, burning myself out in every direction. Soon enough I lost the restaurant to my partner and my wife found my fucked-up, vulgar habit reason enough to leave me. I don’t blame her. She didn’t marry a fiend, I became one, and it just took time for me to discover it, my inclination toward self-immolation. I call it that, the suicidal impulse to consume myself with a Bic lighter. I’d see myself burned out, gone, a neat pile of ashes, but that’s more acceptable to my imagination than the vision of myself as a pathetic cracked-lip panhandler, a martyr to the pipe. Maybe I wanted to fail, see how far I could fall.

  Far and hard—Lucifer had nothing on me. Being broke is like having a bloody mouth and loose teeth, and there’s not a thing you can do about it except stand it.

  How does that song go? “You spell New York with a nickel, dime, and fork, cocaine, Jim,” something like that. But I’m not judging. I thought I could master my high. I wish I’d had the courage to stay in the city, for everyone to see me living in a halfway house, trying to reassemble the remaining shards of my self-respect. What if I ran into her, Elena, my wife? It’s wrong to say that, we’re more divorced than married, but far as I’m concerned she still is. Funny how memory works; when you don’t fill it with anything new, it replays what maybe you don’t want replayed. My mind replays Elena.

  Short, with hair like the blackest ink, strong legs and ass, a delicate face; almost Japanese, like a geisha in an ukiyo-e print; and passionate about love and making money and everything else, passionate about hating me. I still love her, though it’s hopeless to think she’ll ever love me again. I want her back more than the restaurant, a reputation, everything, but it will never happen, not in this life and not in the next. Left with nothing other than to lie in bed and think about what I’ve done, hurt the woman I love and lost her; didn’t consider the consequences back then, didn’t have bouts of guilt, didn’t consider anything. It was about me, about what’s good for the head. You know, the head. A selfish bitch, that’s the truth about me. About me, that’s all it ever was; my love was a fraud, my professionalism a joke, my self-respect delusion.

  And I’ll never get it back. You’d think I’d find the courage to do something dramatic, maybe kill myself or find God, but no, I indulged in self-pity while waiting to be saved from myself.

  ELENA PARTIED HARD, but you know it didn’t get to her. She did it all—heroin, coke, ecstasy—but when she was through with it, she was through. Maybe it was yoga or the StairMaster, but mostly it was because Elena wanted a baby, and she’s that type of person. So directed and focused that she didn’t stop to think that the rest of the world, and by that I mean me, might not be able to live the way she managed to. It took forever for her to see that I had a weakness. Never raised an eyebrow when, after sharing a few lines, I excused myself to go to the bathroom to do a few more lines. She even laughed when she saw me fumbling to put everything away, hastily brushing white powder from my face, more evidence of my lack of control. It was funny in a way. She should have noticed that I was craving, fiending, whatever you want to call it. I had started my downward journey, my decline; in it to win it, a new life consisting of one long sustained need to stay high.

  My recollection of conversations with Elena replay themselves and I listen to myself ruin my marriage.

  “We’re four months behind on the mortgage?” Elena asked.

  “No, I don’t think it’s that far along. Maybe two months,” I replied.

  “What happened to the money? We’ll lose the apartment.”

  “Things got away from me. I’m sure we can put something together to work this out.”

  “What are the chances of that happening?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to lie to her.

  “Do you know what you’re doing to us, the fact that you can’t control yourself? Why don’t you admit it, stop being in denial?”

  She looked at me with smoldering black eyes.

  “You need professional help.”

  “I don’t have that kind of problem.”

  “You’re forcing me—no, you’re giving me no choice but to leave you.”

  “Come on,” I said. “We’ll work this out.”

  This time she laughed bitterly.

  “Sure we will,” she said, but we both knew that was a lie.

  AFTER THAT SHE MOVED IN with a friend and refused to talk to me, but that particular humiliation didn’t sting much because later that week at court I pled guilty and was sentenced to nine months in a minimum-security prison.

  In some sense I was happy to be going, having done enough damage to my self-esteem that I wanted to crawl away into a corner and wait for the room to stop spinning. And, when it did, I woke up to the humiliation of getting processed, prepared, prepped, and more to go to the place to do my time. My only regret is that I wasn’t high during that humiliation.

  The days inside prison weren’t totally unpleasant; they had a good enough library, and I spent time lifting weights for the first time in my life. That’s it, I thought, do positive things for yourself while incarcerated and avoid being raped, but in
a minimum-security prison the only thing I had to worry about was getting athlete’s foot in the shower.

  I had hoped to hear from Elena at some point, but after months passed, I began to wonder if I would. After I was released and moved to the halfway house, she wrote and said she would be coming to visit for me to sign divorce papers—that I later learned she didn’t file.

  I tried not to allow those words to rise to the surface. I waited with far too much hope on that moment when she’d appear at the door of the halfway house to be shown inside by one of the workers, who would sign her in and bring me out to sit across from her on the worn couch. Me, smiling stupidly, thinking, feverishly hoping, that her seeing me again would jar something loose and make her want to forget about the divorce. It was what it was, paperwork.

  She wore all black. Tight wool skirt and a sweater that looked good on her. But she kept her arms crossed, probably remembering how much I liked her small breasts.

  I don’t think she ever smiled. Talked to me about some issues, bankruptcy, insurance policy. Nothing I was interested in; I was interested in her, but that was dead.

  I was dead to her.

  She took it personally, like I had rejected her for cocaine, but it wasn’t like that.

  How did she ask it?

  “How could you be so fucking stupid? Getting yourself arrested buying heroin on the subway?”

  I shrugged. I guess if it were the first time, she might have been able to excuse it, but it wasn’t. To this day I don’t know how stupid I am. I don’t think I’ve plumbed the depths of my stupidity, and when I do, I plan to get back to her. I’ll have charts and graphs, a PowerPoint demonstration. I ruined my life, I know that; the last thing I wanted to do was betray her, but I was good at that too, excelled at it even.

  ASHA, THE WOMAN who ran the halfway house, realized I could cook South Asian. Being Gujarati, she was surprised that I made a better bhindi-spiced eggplant than her mother. She discovered that I could stay in seclusion in a sweltering kitchen, cooking meals for the dozen or so parolees who lived at the halfway house. I labored away in silent grief, working with old vegetables, day-old bread, not much meat (which pleased Asha because she didn’t like the smell), some chicken, beans, lots of beans. I came up with meal after meal through backbreaking efficiency and invention. When I wasn’t cooking, I cleaned. I scoured that kitchen, boiled water, added cupfuls of caustic soap, cleaned the filthy ceiling, cleaned everything. Made it spotless, and kept it that way as long as I was there, my six months climbing out of the black hole of my life.