A La Carte
Contents
1
An empty plate hits the stainless steel deck in the kitchen of La Salle Rouge with a clatter.
“Order up!”
somebody shouts from behind me, and the noise level in the kitchen climbs for a moment as sous-chefs and kitchen assistants step and turn in their quick-paced dance. Servers carrying plates to the dining room weave expertly in among the bussers wheeling trays of dirty dishes away. Along the prep counters, white-coated chefs bend to apply finishing touches to warm platesâa curl of deep green parsley, a swirl of roasted pepper coulis, a scattering of white peppercorns. La Salle Rouge has a reputation for excellent meals.
“Order up!”
“Let's move it, people!” Even though she's yelling at the top of her lungs, our executive chef, Pia Sambath, is in a good mood. I can tell, because none of the line cooks look like they're trying to hide in their collars. Sometimes, when there's a major rush on, the yelling turns into screaming and an awful silent concentration. It's not a good time to be in the kitchen then.
“Order up, table six!”
A red-jacketed server with a pepper grinder under his left arm hustles past with two orders of a creamy soup in white bisque bowls, the steam rising from them making my mouth water. I watch him pass through the chaotic kitchen, imagining him gliding into the dining room, where the walls are a rich, deep red, the floor is old polished hardwood, and the lighting is subdued candlelight in silver sconces on the walls. Maybe the server slides the soup onto a table for two in front of the long, narrow windows that look out onto the courtyard fountains. Maybe he takes the bowls upstairs to the rooftop seating and offers pepper to a young couple who are there to get engaged. It's happened before. La Salle Rouge is just the type of restaurant where people go to propose or mark fiftieth anniversaries with fancy entrees and rich desserts.
From my stool in the back corner of the room, I watch clouds of steam rise to the high ceilings from the metal sinks under the window. Smoky fragrances from a heavy cast-iron grill sizzling on a gas range mingle with the pungent smell of garlic and onions and the deeper tones of coffee. The silvery crash of forks and knives hitting the heavy rubber sanitizer trays almost drowns out my mother's voice calling me over the cacophony.
“Lainey? Lai-ney!
Elaine Seifert!
”
Sighing, I look up to see my mother standing at the far end of the kitchen, wrapped in a huge apron and wrist-deep in some kind of dough. Her close-cropped black curls are covered by a toque blanche, the white chef's hat, and her deep brown skin shows a contrasting smudge of white flour on the cheek, just below her dimple.
“Homework?” My mother mouths the word exaggeratedly, eyebrows raised, and I roll my eyes. Frowning, she points with her chin to the side door that leads to the stairs. I roll my eyes again, mouthing,
Okay, okay,
not needing her to pantomime further what she wants me to do. I hate the thought of leaving the clattering nerve center of the restaurant to wrestle with my trigonometry homework in my mother's quiet office downstairs.
“Order!”
The bright lights and swirl of noise and motion are muffled as the kitchen door swings closed behind me.
It's hard to remember a time when the restaurant hasn't been the center of our lives. Mom used to be a copy editor and wrote food features for our local paper, the
Clarion
, and she met Pia when she did a write-up on the culinary school Pia attended. Pia thinks it was fate that Mom wanted to invest in a restaurant at the same time Pia wanted to buy the old bank building.
La Salle Rouge doesn't serve much in the way of “kid” food, since the menu doesn't cater to people my age on a cheap date, but I've loved everything about it from the first. I started experimenting with being a vegetarian when I turned fourteen, but Pia still found things to feed me and taught me to be creative with vegetables and tofu. I like to think I'm the best-fed vegetarian in the state of California.
Pia's been really good about teaching what she knows, and I decided early on that this is the work I want to doâget out of school and get into the kitchen for good. Mom and Pia have created a popular French-Asian-Californian fusion restaurant that has gotten great reviews from food critics. They took the best of each other's tastesâMom's traditional Southern flavors and Pia's French training combined with her vegetable-and spice-savvy Cambodian tastesâand pulled off what one food critic called “stylized food with unique flavor combinations in an intimate setting.”
Whatever that means.
Three years ago, when I started high school thirty pounds heavier than everyone in my class, Mom and I came up with a light menu for La Salle Rouge, and it's been such a popular idea that Mom lets me come up with tasty, low-calorie desserts, which is one of my favorite things to do. It hardly seems fair that I have to walk away from all of that just to do trigonometry, but my mom says I have to finish school before I concentrate on cooking. She says it's smarter to have a “backup plan,” and she's made me apply to plenty of colleges and check out business majors just in case I ever want to do anything else with my life. I guess that makes sense if you're anybody other than me. When I turn eighteen, I already know what I'm going to do.
First, I'm going to buy a plane ticket to D.C. and go to Julia Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian and leave roses. They don't let you walk through it, but somewhereâI don't know whereâI'm going to leave a bouquet and a little note for her. Julia Child is my patron saint. She's the queen of all reasons people can do anything they want in life. Saint Julia didn't start cooking until she was practically forty, and she went on to do TV shows and make cookbooks and be this huge part of culinary history. She never got too fancy, she never freaked out, and she was never afraid to try new things. I want to be just like herâexcept maybe get famous faster.
The second thing I'm going to do is buy myself a set of knives. Pia swears by this set of German steel knives she got when she graduated, but I've seen the TV chef Kylie Kwong use a phenomenal-looking ceramic knife on her show on the Discovery Channel. Either way, knives are what the best chefs have of their very own.
The third thing I'm going to do, after I get back from Washington and get my knives, isâ¦get discovered. Somehow. I know I'm going to have to pay my dues, but I'm so ready for my real life to start. It's not something I admit to a lot, but my real dream is to be a celebrity chef. Do you know how many African American female chefs there
aren't?
And how many vegetarian chefs have their own shows? The field is wide open for stardom. Every time I watch old episodes of Saint Julia, I imagine that I have my own cooking show. The way celebrity chefs do it now, I could also have a line of cooking gear, cookbooks, aprons, the works. People would know my name, ask for my autograph, and try my recipes. All I have to do is finish my trig homework and get back into the kitchen.
Â
It's six-twenty when I leave our house next morning for my Vocal Jazz class. Mom sleeps in late, so I take breakfast to school. I pull on a hoodie, yank my ponytail through the back of my Redgrove Razorbacks cap, grab my bakery box, then jump down the stairs from our building to the sidewalk. It's freezing cold, but I actually like walking to school. It's better than waiting for the city bus, which comes late more often than not.
“Why would anyone want to take a class at six-fifty-five in the morning?” my mother groaned at the beginning of the semester when I started getting up in the pitch-dark to get to school.
“It's a privilege to be invited to join,” I explained. Ms. Dunston's Vocal Jazz group at Redgrove High has won all kinds of awards and has traveled to Austria and South Carolina, and there's a rumor we're even going to the White House next summer. And even though it's a zero-period class, we take our time getting into things. Ms. Dunston lets us snack and listen to something from the blues and jazz greats like W. C. Handy or Sarah Vaughan to get our heads in the right place.
When I walk into the room this morning, the music on is the Count Basie Orchestra.
“Good morning, Elaine.” Ms. Dunston smiles as I walk past her music stand.
“Hey, Laine. Whatcha got?” Syria, a bubbly junior in the alto section, looks up from her coffee and follows me eagerly toward the back table.
“Hi, Elaine. I got you a chai latte.” Tracey, a soprano in my section, sets down my cup next to me. “What did you make this time?”
“Thanks.” I gesture toward the box. “Meyer lemon shortcake.”
“Yum. Save some for me,” Ms. Dunston calls from across the room.
“Laine, this is so good,” Alma, another soprano, sighs as she bites into the shortcake. “You're an amazing cook.”
“Hey, I brought almond scones.” Christopher Haines, a tenor, sidles up, holding out a bag. “They're from Copperfield's.”
“Anything left?” Bill, a bass, pushes up his glasses and peers over our shoulders.
Since Christopher actually holds the bag out to me, I take a scone, just to be polite. It's a little dry, hardly up to Saint Julia's standards, but it's almost passable.
Ms. Dunston comes for her piece of shortcake, and a few latecomers rush the table to be sure they get theirs. I grab a seat and sip my chai.
“Copperfield's scones aren't as good as yours, huh?” Christopher is watching me, perched on the edge of the table.
“I didn't say that.” I feel defensive, embarrassed that Christopher read my mind.
“Well, I can just tell by tasting them,” he says, and smiles shyly. “Yours are best.”
I smile weakly, embarrassed, but Syria grins and pokes me with her elbow. “He's right. You've got the touch, Laine.”
“Well, homemade is always better thanâ”
“Don't be modest, girl!” Tracey laughs. “We'll all brag for you. Yours are better, okay?”
“Thanks.” I smile. “Maybe I'll make scones for Friday.”
“Oh, good.” Ben pokes me on the shoulder as he passes. “Make blueberry, okay?”
“No, make that dried-apricot chocolate-swirl thing you did one time,” Alma insists, and the group erupts in good-natured argument until Ms. Dunston drains the last of her coffee and turns off the CD. Then it's time to do our breathing exercises and warm up for those tricky chord progressions in “Isn't She Lovely?” I stand with a little warm feeling in my stomach.
It's funny that I like being in a choir so much when I'm pretty much a loner the rest of the time, but I think the reason I do is that jazz choir is like its own little conversationâonly better. The basses go back and forth with the altos, the tenors argue with the sopranos, and everyone sings the right thing so it's all in balance.
Ms. Dunston rolls a chord and then instructs the altos to hold a B-flat, and so we do, sitting on the edge of our seats, backs straight, our voices a perfect blend. Unlike actual conversations, where it's easy to embarrass yourself and everyone else, singing with my section means I'm kind of anonymous but still part of the group, holding my own, singing my part.
Altos are like the salt in a dishâthe sopranos are too bland without usâand the tenors are herbs that would try to overwhelm the piece without the solid meaty notes of the basses. I love being just a part of the mixânothing that stands out but important enough to make things balance.
As always, hearing our voices as we finally get the piece rightâall the elements of the song coming togetherâgives me a huge sense of accomplishment. I glance over at Alma as we hold the final note, and her eyes smile like mine must be doing. Tracey holds up her arms, and we all laughâthe vocal harmonic gives her goose bumps. Ms. Dunston beams at us, and I find myself smiling a little too as I walk out of class. Jazz choir is almost as good as making a souffléâalmost.
The problem with choir, though, is that it's over too soon. Before I'm ready, I'm back at my locker, getting ready to face physics. Ugh.
“What is Murphy's law? Does the worst thing that can happen always happen? What is Newton's first law of motion? Does an object in motion continue to be in motion all the time?” Mr. Wilcox bellows questions, and I slide down in my seat. Mr. Wilcox is about six foot six with a blond surfer cut, and he paces as he teaches. He's convinced that he can make physics fun and exciting, but he's
embarrassing
. He sort of leaps around the room and bellows at us to “Ask questions! Get involved!” For some reason, the more he wants us to be comfortable, the less comfortable I get.
Today we're doing a “will toast land jelly-side down?” experiment, which makes me groan silently even while everyone is cheering that we're doing something interesting. “Grab partners, people,” Mr. Wilcox bellows, and there's a general scraping of chairs as people move around the room. The usual couples and friends pair off, and I find myself glancing toward Simeon Keller's seat before I can stop myself.
Stupid, Lainey.
Simeon Keller
used
to be my best friend, but he's not anymore. Anyway, he cuts this class all the time, and he isn't here, so I don't know why I'm looking.
“Soâ¦wanna do this?” The tall girl across the aisle, Cheryl Fisk, stretches out her legs and runs her fingers tiredly through her deep red hair.
“Sure.”
I like Cheryl. Like me, she's kind of a loner, so we usually get pushed into being partners in this class. She actually went to middle school with me, but she's so quiet I hardly know anything more about her now than I did then.
Mr. Wilcox pulls another loaf of doughy white bread out of its red and blue polka-dotted bag and continues putting slices in his battered silver toaster. The smell of warmed bread fills the air, and my partner breathes it in. Her stomach rumbles. Cheryl ducks her head, digging into her pocket with an embarrassed expression.