Knives at Dawn (29 page)

“No,” he said. “You can't get good ones here.”

Henin also asked Hollingsworth if he planned to emerge from the kitchen in Lyon to slice and plate the cod himself, or to avail himself of the option of letting the servers do it.

“Do you think you'll have time?” asked the coach.

Guest, in a rare show of bravado, nodded confidently. “Oh, yeah,” she said.

“If you put it together, you know how to take it apart,” said Hollings-worth.

The team broke. Adina Guest set up in the kitchen alone and began prepping for the next practice, scheduled for Thursday. As she chopped pistachios, holding the handle of her knife loosely in one hand, while dribbling the blade like a basketball over the nuts with the other, Hollings worth pulled his cap over his head, tucked his notebook under his arm, and walked over to the offices of the restaurant to meet with his friend Corey Lee.

Lee leveled with Hollingsworth: the flavors and concepts were solid— as he would have expected—but the execution needed work. In French Laundry parlance, they lacked
finesse
. For first time, Lee detected signs that the Bocuse d'Or was affecting Hollingsworth. Gone was the carefree aura the candidate usually exuded. In its place was a heaviness, a tightness of body and spirit. The mounting pressure was squeezing him out of shape, had forced the California smile right off his face.

When Hollingsworth returned to the Bocuse House, Guest had departed to go house hunting and Hollingsworth and Henin stood in the kitchen and discussed the platters. Henin was especially impressed with the beef tart.

“It's a great idea, the carpaccio, or whatever you want to call it. Like a pizza pie. An American pie,” said the coach, almost swooning with enthusiasm.

Henin also ribbed Hollingsworth about the ubiquitous music he played when he cooked, suggesting that Hollingsworth turn it up real loud in preparation for Lyon.

“When it's noisy, I can think,” said Hollingsworth. “When you're alone
in the kitchen and it's quiet, it's spooky. Maybe it's because I grew up with a lot of brothers and sisters.”

“We never had this music in the kitchen,” said the coach. “You listened to the chef.”

The two cooks kept kibitzing while Hollingsworth broke down a mountain of côte de boeuf. Hollingsworth described how he helped out with a dinner at The French Laundry in December, when Chicago restaurant Alinea's Grant Achatz was in town for the joint cookbook promotion with Keller.

There was no doubt about it: Henin and Hollingsworth were engaging in that essential ritual of male-on-male relationship-building—they were bonding.

“How did you pick Adina?” asked Henin.

Hollingsworth told him the story about how he used to think she was European and didn't even know she spoke English. He also shared the one “con” to the numerous “pros” she brought to the table: as talented as Guest was, through no fault of her own, she lacked on-the-line experience. It's a strange downside to a Bocuse d'Or commis drafted from The French Laundry; as a commis, she was world class, but having never worked the hot line, when it came down to service, there were things she had yet to learn.

“In Monday's practice, she almost served a broken sauce,” Hollings-worth said, recounting how he showed her how to rescue it by whisking in hot water.

Beneath his convivial exterior, there were things Henin had on his mind. One was a nagging feeling that all of this progress might be a little too late. “This is exactly where we should have been at the week before Thanksgiving where we packed up for the Thanksgiving week,” he would say a couple days later. “This is where we should have left it, at this level, and take it from there in early December and have the whole month of December without all the other interference that we are in the process of, unfortunately. Then you imagine where we would be a month later instead of
being today. Not that where we are today is wrong, but it is really a month late. Had we been there we would be in better shape.

“We can still make up some of the time even though it is very short.” To this end, Henin resolved that he'd do what he could to free up things for the team, managing whatever aspects of the travel he could when they were in Lyon.

“It is good at least to be at this comfort level. Where we are right now, even though it is a month late it is better than it not happening at all. We are going to need that comfort level. That trust. That faith in days and weeks to come.”

This was not an optimistic assessment, but “I am not pessimistic either,” he said. “I am just saying, look … I think it is all in preparations. Same as if you were to become a master chef.” This was a reference to the Certified Master Chef exam that he had taken years earlier. The CMC tests all aspects of a chef's culinary knowledge and prowess over the course of several days, and Henin believes that you cannot study for it—you either know your craft or you don't. “It is all what you have done in fifteen to twenty years. You can't make up that time. If you sat on your butt for five hours a day watching TV, you weren't progressing towards the master chef. [The Bocuse d'Or] is the same thing.… If you don't do your homework—training, practice, and preparation … to the hilt, it will come back and bite you. Whatever portion you didn't do will come back and bite you in the butt. It will. Even if you are a genius. No matter what field it is, swimming or cooking, it will come back and bite you.”

Henin also had some concerns about specific items from Hollingsworth's platters, especially the fish. For example, the beet under the boudin had leached some juice into the mousseline on which it sat. Not enough to have been problematic in a restaurant, but point-costly for sure in Lyon. Henin knew that you only needed to cook the beets with a few drops of vinegar to arrest that bleeding, but he didn't bring it up for fear of disrupting the fragile peace with Hollingsworth. “I want to protect this. We can work on the garnish another time as opposed to me coming on strong and
saying this garnish sucks and we need to rework it. Because that would take us back to where we were in November and I cannot afford that.… He takes it as I am a master chef and I am telling you what to do and you better do it for whatever reason I don't know. He gets on the defensive. I don't want to do that. I am not going to do that because it sets us back too far and it takes too much to come back and I don't want to put him on the defensive. I would rather bite my lips and have bleeding beets.…”

The coach didn't share any of this with the candidate that afternoon. Instead, he retired to his room to rest and Hollingsworth turned his attention to the kitchen. The facility appeared clean to the untrained eye, but Hollingsworth knew there were imperfections: streaks on the counter, microscopic detritus in the carpet, grime in the shadowy well of the sink. And so he set about deep-cleaning the room.

For the seven years he'd been working for Keller, cleaning the kitchen had been a part of his daily life. It was the way he decompressed after a night on the line, processed the day, organized his thoughts before sitting down to menu meetings as a cook and then as a sous chef.

He cleaned the same way he cleaned his station at the end of every working day. He scrubbed the counter and the doors of the refrigerators, leaning into the motion, putting the full force of his weight behind the effort. He wiped under canisters and equipment. As he did, he thought about how much work still lay ahead of him. He thought about the previous day, about cooking for Paul Bocuse. All those notes everybody threw at him ricocheted around his head like numbers in a bingo tumbler. He needed to silence them, and this was the way to do it.

Before he knew it, Hollingsworth was lost in his cleaning, almost to the point of dancing. It was a solitary time, and it was clear that he didn't want company. Coach Henin, seeking a dinner companion, periodically emerged from his room, then retreated, not saying a word.

As evening descended on Yountville and cold darkness enveloped the little house, time's merciless march propelling him ever closer to Lyon, Hollingsworth continued to clean. He straightened the stacks of pots and
pans on the utility rack until they were as neat and orderly as the items on a Bocuse d'Or platter. He thought about the shrimp garnish. He wondered if there was too much honey in the marmalade, or too much vinegar, or were they just right?

He vacuumed the carpets, then wrapped the cord tautly around the cleaner's neck and parked it in the corner.

After three hours, the kitchen looked as spotless and orderly as it had the day it was first outfitted with the Bocuse d'Or equipment. Hollings-worth stood in front of the freezer and surveyed his handiwork. He still needed one more garnish for his fish platter. He still had a lot of practice to do. But he had accomplished something that day, and accomplished it to perfection.

He was ready for tomorrow.

O
N
W
EDNESDAY
, J
ANUARY
7, with twenty days until the Bocuse d'Or began, Hollingsworth and Guest tried some slightly rejiggered items in the kitchen. Seeking more of a visual punch, he wanted to revisit the rectangular form of the beef with bacon that he had employed in Orlando; a thinner cylinder of cod with diced preserved Meyer lemon incorporated to add acidity and sweetness to the scallop mousse; and the scallop tartare with a smaller melba, that would fit
inside
the glass instead of on top, to keep judges from picking them up like crackers when the intention was for them to break them up, so they'd fall into the consommé and custard and be eaten with the spoon.

When it was all done, with
Masters of Rap
—an eighties-era compilation—playing in the background, the team, including Coach Henin, discussed them.

Hollingsworth was still worried that the judges would pick up the melbas, perhaps using their spoon to tip and grip them.

“Maybe mark it in quarters, so as soon as you touch it, it cracks,” said
Henin. To illustrate his concept, he set a melba on a cutting board and gently pressed a serrated knife blade into it, perforating it.

Hollingsworth nodded. This was the kind of exchange he was always looking for with his coach. “Like saltine crackers,” he said.

Regarding the cod, the entire team found the pistachios a bit gummy, due to the natural oil in the nuts. Hollingsworth wanted to try cutting them with something crispy or drier.

“I still need one more garnish,” said Hollingsworth. “I don't like the boudin.”

“What happened to the artichoke from Orlando?” asked Henin, referring to the artichoke gratin Hollingsworth served at Epcot. Henin hadn't been a judge there, but others had told him that garnish was a knockout. “Everybody loved that.”

“I got bored,” said Hollingworth. Henin smiled. He understood.

“You need a big piece of protein,” Henin said. They never made a chart, but he was clearly keeping a mental tally of colors and textures and “meaty” was a void.

By way of brainstorming, Henin held up a section of an artichoke heart and stood a shrimp up in it. It was way too old-fashioned for Hollingsworth, but he didn't want to dismiss it out of hand.

“Adina does love turning artichokes,” he said. In other words, unlike many previous suggestions from his coach, he'd think this one over.

I
N THE MIDDLE OF
the night (between Wednesday and Thursday), Hollingsworth and Guest received the following e-mail from Daniel Boulud:

Dear Timothy and Adina,

First I want again to congratulate you on your dedication, talent, and hard work you have been putting into everything in preparation to the Bocuse d'Or in Lyon and you made Monsieur Paul very proud of the American Team!!

I know that it is not an easy task and now we gather as much information and advice about what to expect in Lyon and how well prepared we have to be.

I can say that you have done a fantastic job with both proteins pulling together in time and in harmony. They are two very interesting dishes with a good balanced palate of techniques, textures, taste, seasoning, and look, with delicate flavors. The
cuisson
was overall very satisfying and the full presentation has great potential but remains a work in progress. The counter clock is on and you have exactly 8 days left in the US and about 8 days in France to finalize all the details. Your dishes are very strong and promising and we are looking forward to a great competition in Lyon.

Mr. Paul, Jérôme, and I were very impressed by the almost real replica of the Bocuse d'Or kitchen you will have in Lyon and of course they like the charm of Yountville—TK's father's home is a perfect stage for training. We want to thank Thomas again for making this possible. Thomas, we missed you, but our trip was very spontaneous based on the fact that this was one of the first complete run-throughs. We were all very happy to have been there and Paul is very confident that the team is very strong and has great podium potential. We also are sorry to not have been able to stay that night as we didn't want Paul to stress in the morning to catch our plane. Of course I will have given you these observations in person if I had stayed overnight.

So, now this is my personal observation of my day with you on this run, and believe me I was expecting a full run with still plenty of details to work out. The strongest points overall were that you were very well organized, had a good timing schedule, and worked very well together as a team with Adina. You use original technique for your garnishes and show a lot of good technical skills with your work. You have selected some really great flavor combinations and the seasoning in general was very good. The
cuisson
was basically perfect for the beef and need a little more on the cod but between curing and timing it right it should work well.

Your goal for the next weeks is to refine each preparation to perfection and make sure that you can accomplish what you wish by following your time
table rigorously and make it more accurate every full training run. Actually, it will be good to film one full run to be able to take note of your timing.… Jennifer will bring a video camera if you think it can help. You did very well for the first 4 hours but the last one was and is the most challenging in the competition, you should build a more detailed timetable for that period. As they're a lot to put together between the 2 platters.