Life, on the Line (9 page)

“Sorry.”

The food began to arrive. I ate. I wondered when it would happen, the moment of revelation.

About four courses through the seven-course degustation it dawned on me: It isn't going to happen. The food was all right. Some was even very good. None of it was revelatory. Cindy could see the disappointment washing over me. “Grant, I'm sorry this isn't what you thought it would be. Maybe Enoteca will be great?”

I was starting to think that maybe what I imagined to exist somewhere in the world simply didn't exist at all.

Then the squab arrived.

I picked up my knife and fork and cut the breast in half. I gently pushed one side of the supreme away from the other and glanced at the cut edge. It was gray. Hugely overcooked. I was staring at it in disbelief when Cindy whispered, “There's the chef!”

We had until this point quietly and dutifully worked our way through the food and wine without much interaction with the service team. Once we had ordered they did a fine job of keeping our glasses full and delivering the food, giving brief descriptions along the way and clearing the plates when we were finished. Now suddenly, at the low moment of the meal for me, here comes the man himself.

I looked up to see Georges Blanc striding through the dining room, greeting tables and shaking hands. I contemplated what to do, growing more nervous as he walked from table to table, slowly making his way toward us. Should I show him the overcooked meat? Should I cover it somehow so he doesn't see it? I knew I was not remotely qualified to question a chef of his caliber and standing, especially in his own dining room. But I was upset. I had come all the way to France, all the way to this restaurant in particular, to experience greatness. I was taught in school that France was the birthplace of all things great in gastronomy. The entire CIA curriculum was based on French technique. All the chefs I had worked with waxed poetic about the great French kitchens they visited or worked in. Even Trotter told the staff about his experiences eating at Girardet and Boyer, placing them on a pedestal. He told the staff how we should strive to be as great as they are.

I had come all this way to find something that I had lost.

Chef Blanc approached the table and I stood to shake his hand. His English was difficult to understand through his French, but I made out, “Where are you from?”

“Chicago,” I said.

“Ahhh. Chicago. I know a chef there. Charlie Trotter,” he replied.

“Yes, I worked for him,” I said.

“Really. Very good then. How has your meal been?”

“Good, Chef,” I replied. I took a long pause trying to decide what to do. “Chef. The squab breast. Is it supposed to be, uh, cooked through like this?”

I took the fork and impaled a section of the breast and tilted the cut side up so he could see the gray color in the dimly lit room. He looked at it closely but quickly, looked me in the eye, and said, “Yes. That is a pigeon.”

Georges Blanc turned and walked away.

I sat there frozen, fork in hand, still holding the meat. I tossed it down.

“Look, man. I might not be a Michelin three-star chef, but I do know this meat is overcooked. Look at it, Cin!” I picked it back up and held it aloft in her direction.

“Grant, it's okay. I am sure he's making another one right now.”

The captain arrived at our table.

“It there a problem, monsieur?”

“The squab is overcooked,” I mumbled, not really paying much attention to him. I was saying it to the gods, to myself, not to him. I didn't care about the meat. The bubble had burst.

“Monsieur, this is why I asked you about the pigeon earlier. Most Americans are not used to eating this bird. Shall I remove it, monsieur?”

“Yes.”

Cheese came quickly, followed by desserts. No further mention was made of the squab, no replacement course was offered, and no deduction was made on the bill. We went back to our room.

“I'm done here,” I said to myself.

We made it to Florence after spending time in Venice and Rome to find the meal at Enoteca Pinchiorri good, better than the two meals in France, but certainly not at the level I had imagined. My culinary tour was over.

We only had two days left in Europe, and we planned to explore Florence by foot. We wandered through Piazza della Signoria on our way to the Ponte Vecchio and stopped in at a small café for an espresso. Pinned to the wall, in English, was a piece of paper that read:

Cindy pointed to it and asked me if I was game. I had been so glum and self-absorbed that it was the least I could do. She grabbed one of the tear-off phone-number tabs at the bottom.

We wandered around Florence for the rest of the afternoon, taking in the sites and art. Cindy called the number that night and set up a tour for the next morning while I scanned the guidebook trying to figure out where to eat that night. We opted for a pizza.

We woke up the next morning and met a group of four other Americans at a coffee shop and waited for our guide. A van pulled up with seven bikes strapped to the top. We piled in, drove to the other side of town, and started unloading the bikes.

“The hard part of this trip is getting there,” Tom the bike guide said. “It's all uphill. At the halfway point we'll stop at a winery where they make their own olive oil and wine. If you get tired before that, just stop and rest. There's only one road, so you can't get lost. Just look for a wooden sign for the winery.” We huffed our way up the hillside, leaving two of the other four well behind us.

The winery was as magical as you might imagine. Storybook stuff. Two dogs rolled around the front lawn, light poked through a leafy canopy. The owner had leathery skin from years in the sun and spoke no English, but exuded warmth and calm. We walked the property, saw the old stone olive press still used to make the oil from the trees that lined both sides of the driveway, and tasted the unfiltered version on crusty pieces of bread. We had a few glasses of Chianti straight from the barrel to wash it down.

Mellowed by the wine and sun we climbed back on our bikes and continued our trek upward toward a towerlike ruin at the top of the hill. We arrived forty-five minutes later. “This is as far up as we're going,” Tom said. “Take a few minutes to look around, take some pictures, and then we're going to head back down. We can stop for lunch on the way back if you're hungry.”

On the road up all we saw were a few homes, the winery, and trees. I didn't remember any restaurant. We headed quickly down the hill, and fifteen minutes later we followed Tom into a small driveway just off the main road that led to what appeared to be an abandoned stone building. We hopped off the bikes and I could immediately smell grilled meats, herbs, and the strong scent of roasted garlic. Our group looked at each other skeptically as we ducked through the tiny wooden door.

“I found this place by chance,” Tom said. “I was taking a group up here last year when my chain came off and got lodged between the sprocket and the frame. So I walked up here to see if they had anything to help me fix it. I started talking to the owner and we worked out a deal to make this part of the bike tour. There she is . . .”

He stood up and greeted her loudly in rapid-fire Italian, waving his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. She bear-hugged him back. The woman appeared to be eighty years old, even though she was probably sixty. She wore a blue dress with small white flowers scattered across it and a white apron loosely tied around her rotund midsection.

A man who I assumed was her husband walked over, plunked down wineglasses and a plate of crostini with chicken liver, bean, and tomato toppings. He filled our glasses with a hefty pour of red wine.

“She usually just cooks, well, whatever!” Tom said. “Today she's made chicken under a brick, some gnocchi, wilted greens, and
fagioli al fiasco
. You guys know what that is? Basically a very typical Tuscan way of cooking white beans. She'll place them in a glass flask over a dying fire until they're creamy. They're pretty awesome.”

“Yes they are,” I thought. “Yes they are.”

I peeked around the corner and saw the woman bent over a makeshift grill with glowing embers beneath, pushing a plain old brick on top of our chickens. Four glass flasks filled with beans were positioned around the edges.

We ate and drank for two hours. I didn't want to leave. Everything was more perfect, more delicious, and more inviting than any of the three-star restaurants we'd been to. Even the service was better.

At the end of the meal the woman brought out a plate of almond cookies and we dunked them in Vin Santo.
“Grazie,”
everyone said.

I left the restaurant in a daze, and not because of the wine.

I realized immediately that I had just had the best meal of my life.

T
he meal in Tuscany was a wake-up call to what was most important in a kitchen—passion. Even though the Michelin three-stars in Europe fell short of my expectations, I felt that somewhere fine dining must meet with a genuinely passionate chef.

I dug out the March 1995 issue of the
Wine Spectator
that I purchased while I was at the Amway. That month, the magazine listed its picks for the ten best restaurants in the United States, and it had Trotter at the top. Now I wanted to examine the other nine. I read about each and jotted down the addresses and names of the chefs so I could send them my résumé.

A few pages past the feature was a small picture of a simple brown building and a short description of the restaurant it housed:

I read that and somehow knew I had to work there.

Perhaps it was the romantic lure of Napa or its similarity to Tuscany. Whatever it was, I never sent a résumé to any of the “top ten restaurants.” Instead, I wrote a letter to Thomas Keller, explaining how much I wanted to work at The French Laundry.

Then the next day I wrote another. I changed it slightly, added a bit more about my experience, and sent it off. Then I did that again and again over the next twelve days—fourteen letters in all. Perhaps chef Keller would think I was nuts. Or perhaps he would recognize my persistence and think he could use that in his kitchen. But either way, he could not ignore me completely because he would realize that the letters would keep coming.

After two weeks I got a call from chef Keller himself inviting me to Napa for a two-day tryout. I didn't freak out this time like I did talking to Trotter. He was matter-of-fact and had a slight laugh in his voice. It must have been the letters I sent, though he didn't mention them.

I told my parents about the tryout and we decided that it would be nice for my mom to come with me. More than anything, it would be an opportunity for us to spend some time together, even if the job didn't work out. We flew to San Francisco, rented a car, and made the drive to Napa.

We checked into a hotel in the town of Napa and then set out to find Yountville, so we wouldn't have to search for it the next day. The drive up Highway 29 was stunning. Exiting the town and entering the valley reminded me of the hills of Florence. The light was soft and the smell of eucalyptus and vines was fresh. We turned off on Washington Street and drove slowly through the tiny town of Yountville.

I knew from the
Wine Spectator
mention that the building was probably unassuming, but we couldn't find it. I was expecting a sign of some sort, but we didn't see one. We came to the end of the town, turned around, and went back again. Nothing.

Finally my mom spotted a brown building with exhaust-hood covers on the roof. “That looks like it could be a restaurant,” she said. We parked the car, stepped out, and saw the tiny sign on the wall: The French Laundry. “You want to move all the way to California to work here?” It looked barely more impressive, from the outside at least, than the Achatz Family Restaurant. I scurried away lest I be seen lurking around a day early.

 

Chef Keller told me to arrive at the restaurant at noon. I showed up at 11:30, making sure I was on time. I unlatched a small wooden gate and walked through the entryway, past a walk-in cooler, through another screen door, and onto what looked like the porch of someone's home. Baskets of vegetables were arranged on small shelves and the savory smell of veal stock filled the air. I approached the doorway to the kitchen and was nearly run over by a cook wheeling around the corner. “Hey, man. How are you?”

“I'm okay. I am here for a tryout. Is chef Keller here?”

“Yep. He's right inside.”

I entered the French Laundry kitchen and saw a tall lanky man sweeping the floor. His back was toward me and he didn't hear me enter, so he kept doing his job for a few seconds. I peered past him looking for chef Keller, waited a few seconds for the sweeper to notice me, and when he didn't, approached him. “I'm Grant Achatz, here for a tryout. Is chef Keller in?”

“Yeah. That's me,” he said, letting out a laugh. “You're early, Grant.”

He stuck out his hand and shook mine vigorously with an exaggerated up and down motion.