Who Writes Cooboos?

Who Writes Cookbooks?

Copyright Catcher78 all rights reserved

Author's notes: This is a story about a man's fall into madness and recovery. It's a work of fiction. Not a lot of sex. There are redemptive moments. It is my story and not for reuse or copying.

I was irritated and realized that was stupid of me. I cater, just the cooking and although booze is a big part of those events, I can't compete with box stores. Being irritated made me focus on what I was doing. I had been asked to put together a cookbook. Eleni Asarkelian who is a fixer for events, agent to people important demanded that I do this. I had catered several events for her, including a wedding, an anniversary and a Mardi Gras event.

Armenian, Greek and Russian cuisines, respectively. Turned out her oldest daughter Sara works for a regional publisher in Seattle and her mother had assured her I was the real deal in terms of my food. So I was preparing several entrees for testing and photography, as you can't just get a bunch of recipes online and give them to the editor. You have to test them and get people to try them and rate them, which is where I found myself this evening.

I thought the idea of me and a cookbook was off, because I've never had a restaurant, but I've done stuff all over the Northwest and did stuff for some very rich software people which was the connection with Eleni and Sara. Eleni is a whirlwind, a publicist, but really a fixer. You have a mess and she fixes it. She said she'd get it published and the money to publicize it, so here I was.

I asked how and she said, "Don't ask."

I thought the book could sell because I knew cookbooks and food, but I was going to go broke before I finished trying the recipes out and getting approval from my panel of judges. I couldn't be catering while I did this, but I was trying to run between the raindrops and make it all work.

It was kind of hard as Sara, who is of Armenian descent, kept stressing that the book and the recipes had to be approachable. That was code for ten ingredients and five minute camera time. The theme was West Coast Fusion, North American and Central American and Southern American meets Asian influences. My first thought was the concept was too big, too broad to carry out in a one hundred and fifty pages.

The approachable thing was what made it difficult. I was heavily influenced by Dianna Kennedy when I started and Rick Bayless in Chicago is so good that he blows me away and the local restaurant scene was packed with prep cooks and line chefs from Central and South America and I drink with them after their shifts specifically to talk about traditional stuff, while I grew up with Japanese and Chinese kids in Seattle, which meant seafood.

Sara says to me, "Can't you use stock from the store? That's on the shelf, in those paper boxes?"

"Sure, but it won't be as good. How not as good, is a function of how important the stock is in a specific recipe."

"What do you mean?"

"Well if it is bouillabaisse, it is out of the question. If I'm braising beef shank where the beef and marrow will assert itself, I could get away with it, as long as it was unsalted."

"Well, "She said, "Time is money and if you waste a day making stock you'll go broke!"

"If I don't, I get no repeat customers. There is a balance point and my stuff is focused on food that was poor food a hundred years ago and time is what makes it better."

"Great recipe creation is art, with your senses as your palate. Recipes for home are much different for a commercial kitchen, catering or restaurant are more complex. I constantly think of combinations that make things work from technique to texture to visual impact to taste and aroma. Bayless is so knowledgeable and the range of regional Mexican food is just astounding. It would be easy to do roasted cricket tacos and they would be good, but nobody is ready for it. Line cooking in a restaurant requires a chef to make things repeatable for a cook thirty or forty times a night. That is different than catering where it's a big group."

"Who is Bayless, she said?

"The best Mexican food chef in the United States. Not burritos and rice and beans. So much more and so good. Anyway his palate is the equivalent of Van Gogh's when Van Gogh did Fields of Flowers at Arles and the extraordinary color he captured. Fresh, hyper fresh ingredients are key, but so are layers of flavor involving time and timing. I had this cartoon image in my head of a plate of sashimi laid out with avocado slices and squeeze bottle applied sauces of mole, tomatillo and aioli in a fan shape. Artful in a Warhol wannabe way, but shitty food, even if the ingredients were perfect or not great food and certainly not honoring the source, fishermen or really the original cultures. The real fusion thing for me was both cross cultural, but also looking to contrast long cooking techniques with quick as well as uncooked, often same ingredients or similar. Slow roasted pork in fire roasted tomatoes on a salad of shredded jicama, uncooked sweet onion rings, avocado and drizzled with a cheap industrial balsamic vinegar reduced to a syrup was an example. Incredible bread must be part of it, too."

"Great speech, "She looked at the camera guy, "Did you get that?

"Yes I did", he said.

I said, "This is how it goes. I'm doing prep work through plating, testing and photo shoot."

"Alright Bill, can you tell me something about your approach?"

"So I feel that there are interesting similarities between regional Mexican and Chilean cooking and Northwest Native American cuisine as well as differences that make fun counterpoints, so that was my game plan that I was working in my mind as I started this. Today I had two of my favorites going, but I thought that both were great but the tasting of them together was not an additive event. So I was sort prima donnying it, by insisting that it be done sequentially and not concurrently. I insisted that it be broke up with bread and wine. The first was a salmon filet seared off in a very hot skillet and finished in an oven, seven to eight minutes top. Plating meant putting a blackberry-mint coulis, with the salmon next and topped with crème fraiche and salmon roe.

"The other was a presentation of scallops. Big divers scallops. I roasted sweet potatoes, Serrano and jalapeno chillis, garlic and sweet onion. Whipped them with some extra-virgin olive oil and cumin and smoked paprika. The mixture was placed in a mold in the middle of the plate. The scallops were simply cooked in a very hot skillet with peanut oil. Turned once at three minutes. I put toasted sesame seeds around the dish and drizzled a sauce of tomatillo, molasses and soy around the edge. If I wanted to close a deal I'd do this or another version and it never failed."

The two sauces I felt clashed, which is why I wanted the separation for the tasters and Sara brought me back.

"It's no big deal. They'll both be good. Come on, I'm on the hour with the camera and the kitchen."

"You either believe in me or you don't. Together will ruin it!", which I delivered with almost a yell.

My first tantrum. It felt good. I could get back to my business or do it right.

They were eating the salmon now. One portion had been set aside for the photo work. The colors worked because the blackberry coulis had a brilliantine sheen, which the lights caught and the variety of salmon I chose was Sockeye, both for its vibrant orange and its incredible flavor and then the crème fraise and the roe were subtle shadings. The testers and Sara were into their second bite without comment. Their faces were turned inward, a good sign.

Sara was first, "This is unbelievably good, I thought it was a weird paring but the berry both cuts the richness of the salmon and highlights it and the roe jumps in your mouth."

"Well, "I said, "The local tribe is the S'Klallam tribe and they've been doing that for a long, long time. Everything is from here. In the spring I've substituted the native strawberries with a more subtle salmon, the Coho, which is smaller and milder."

I refilled the glass of one of the testers, a friend, McGeorge Brainer by name and builder by trade and he asked, "What was the wine."

"Andrew Will is the producer and Ross Andrew is the winemaker. It's a big Merlot, their 2019. Pretty fruit forward, but it's got enough structure. Columbia Valley grapes, which is from Tri-Cities up to the I-90 bridge at Vantage. The last six or seven years the vineyards have produced some extraordinary Cabs, Syrahs, Merlots and some Sangiovese. Red Mountain and Walla Walla both are better, but this is I bought for $20 dollars and I have paid $75 for less from Napa or France."

"Whatever, it's just good, can you leave the bottle?"

"Let me get back to you on that."

My daughter Coral started bringing bowls of bread and then some sparkling water to the four eaters.

Sara said, "Is the fish blackened? Its surprisingly good."

"Surprisingly? "It's not blackened."

"No it's just that it's awesome!"

"Well the only real fusion thing happening is crème fraiche, which alters the dish as the diner progresses, actually warms the palate. The rest is all North coast Native American. I do a version with seabass and the sauce is roasted chillis, pumpkin seeds and boiled cane sugar where I put ground cumin on the skin, but it's not really blackened like Paul Prudhome."

It was time to plate the scallops. Take them from the skillet place onto the sweet potato mousse, sprinkle the seeds and squirt bottle the sauce on and place the display item for the photographer and then serve the gang of four. Pour a Riesling from Lake Chelan Cellars, which was a rare, flinty crisp treatment that provided a cleansing and allowed the palate to be assaulted anew.

The caramelization of the scallops next to the sweet piquant combo of the sweet-potato chili thing with the sauce brought quick exclamations from the chewers.

"Wow," was wafting from mouth to mouth. Which, was the best part of cooking for me, at its core a connection between people, but artful too. Which is why I kept at it despite an aching back, feet and thieving customers and help.

From Sara, "How many more recipes like this do you have?"

"Well you know, I have thousands of recipes. Which I have used probably two thirds, but I know the others are good. The book concept is to do this in ten twelve ingredients, which as you try to do fusion with Central and South American traditions is difficult, because they layer flavors from so many different sources that are not North American, but are freshly available now. We will need fifty to sixty to have one hundred and fifty pages. So if you work to dumb down or substituted stuff you lose the recipe and its Wolfgang Pucket pizza bullshit. I mean I could do easily twenty-five fusion things based on corn, maybe a hundred. But I'd have to use both fresh American and maize, dried and new, pumpkins, chillis, chocolate, bananas, plantains, and then mix in more Native American and China and Japan, which are all over cuisines in Mexico and Chile and Peru and have been for over a hundred years. It's doing it in ten ingredients available at the grocery store that's the deal."

"Whoa, slow down Bill, "Sara said, turning to the photographer, "Did you get that?"

He nodded.

"That was great, the food was incredible and beautiful, you're awesome! We've got enough to get a deal which will set our start time."

I exploded, "We already had a deal, what do you mean?"

"Well, "Sara said, "Yeah, but this will cement it and get us the budget we need and probably help get us the distribution we need. Just relax. What you need to do is work on talking about your food to interviewers that don't get it. So that they get interested in thirty seconds."

"I don't understand a thing you said except that there really was not a deal and I turned away two prospects and one customer to do this, which means $25,000 up in smoke. I'm out of here. Coral come on."

"Dad I gotta go, "Coral said.

"Did you pack up my knives and pans, "I asked.

"Yeah, they're there, "she said.

"Come out to the truck with me, please Coral."

"Bill, wait, you don't know this business." Sara was spiking after me in her heels, Click, click, click.

"Sara, your mom is a long term friend and customer, so I'm going to be nice. I've been screwed by experts and I used to get excited about the foreplay and the promise to come. No more, my back hurts and I'm out of here. I'm done; I'll send you a bill for the food."

As we walked out to my old Isuzu Trooper four by four, Coral started to chew on me.

"You were mean to her and you didn't have to be, Dad."

"She's just a hustler, this is all bullshit. She'll never pay for the food, I probably lost $25,000 in not talking to potential customers this afternoon so I could be the big star."

I continued, "Jesus, not a day goes by that I don't get a chance to show myself that I'm such a wannabe dumbshit. I'm forty-nine, when am I going to stop being fooled?"

Coral said, "Prolly when you stop breathing."

"You should not be so disdainful of your dear father."

"It's not that. "she said, "Somebody could drop you in the deep Sahara in your shorts and you'd find some spin that'd get you moving towards water."

"That's just survival, " I grunted.

"Very fine line between that and being compelled towards success, " she said.

"Look, "I said, "Come over. I've got a Cayuse Syrah that I want you to taste."

"Can't stay long, "she said.

"I got to meet with Justin Henry's parents first thing. He's got to get married in three weeks."

"Why are they meeting with you? The girl's parents are in jail."

"I don't know, maybe she's from Venus."

"Get the money up front."

"I can do something for a hundred people and charge them $500 hundred and make $100, "I said.

"That's on the food only. Why are you doing this? It doesn't cover any of your time and you're yelling at her about a single remark."

"He treated Jack well. So he should have at least one day that is good before his nightmare starts. He's already a drunk," I said.

"See you at your place, "she said.

My name is Bill Havlicek. My daughter is Coral and my two sons are Jack and Tom. We're from Kingston, Washington and the location of the room, actually the Kingston Yacht Club is where the testing was done. I drove south towards a little arts, hippie, rich lawyer community on the western shore of Puget Sound called Indianola.

The community clings to the cliff-side at one extreme to beachfront along the water and extends further to a spit dotted with ex-patriot Californians who huddle inside their enormous residential blights from October to May.

Away from the water the land rises gently into fir and cedar forests. The homes range from Harry homemaker influenced by the Timothy Leary School of architecture to Craftsman structures from an earlier period to mobile homes to enormous custom structures owned by lawyers. One of my free time delights is to have morning coffee at the Indianola Country store and guess at whether the traffic is software worker, aging hippie or the odd Californian braving the mist. Clothes and type of smart phone are usually the giveaway.

The Californians dress like they've prepared for the Iditarod of morning walks, layers of tights and shorts with windbreakers all with homage to Oregon Shoemaker paid from shoe to headbands. They tend to have Bluetooth buds, and huge phony white teeth. The software types are split into two groups; longer hair is an architect or code-banger, ponytails pervade. Project managers tend to get a bit more button-down. Cell phones tend to hang at their belt. Hippies also have long hair. If they're driving a Range Rover they're either an artist or have a plantation of pot or have arranged with some local tribal members to import the preferred powder from Columbia. If it's a beat up old four by four, pickup or Isuzu, they're probably a struggling hippie resonating on some spiritual vibe that only rings their tuning fork.

I turned my Trooper down my long driveway to what I call home now. I designed the place and with some help from some friends got it built and it passed code and I got to occupy and actually got a bank to finance it. The driveway is lined with second growth fir and cedar and some first growth spruce and hemlock. The house is not visible from the road because of the trees and is in about two hundred fifty feet towards a little mud bay that empties out with the tide and is perfect for oysters, both Quilcene's and Kamamotos. Facing the road it looks like a one story small place, with a couple of small windows and a solid metal door. The exterior is an undulating corrugated metal, painted forest green. The roof is metal too.

When you come in the front door there is a landing with a table and coat rack and then an open stairwell with wood risers bleached blond on a set of iron stairs down to the first basement, more really a daylight basement, unlike the dug basement below it. When you descend the stairs at the foot you see a wall of tinted windows looking towards the mud-bay.

Coral had beat me and already gone in, the trunk to her old Volvo wagon was open. The house was a paean to my brief illusion of wealth when I was working for the big software company in Redmond, Washington. I was an Internet Evangelist for a few years spreading fear and disorder amongst the Redmond Software company's deadliest enemy, since died, Netscape.

They hired me and I knew spit about computer or software, but I could give a speech in front of people and use PowerPoint to preach to the discontented IT managers as they were called in those days. I build the place to some muse only I heard. I thought I talked to my wife, but I guess I didn't much listen to anything she said about the place.

When ready for occupation my then wife Betty, refused to move to it and after a series of cathartic, for her, dialogues in which she screamed at me for what seemed like a month, but was really only a couple of weeks, she left me with the boys and my daughter. That was about ten years ago. Most of my liquidity left with her too, along with the previous house to boot.

Shortly thereafter Redmond Software company said thanks and have a nice day. I really didn't know software any more, but most of the money I made got dumped into the new house.

Sooooo, to sum up I had a house and an aging Isuzu Trooper, no family although I could see the boys who were in high school now, two days a month. The four foot eight inch female defense attorney had established with the court that my software work, which now was defunct, which had taken ten to sixteen hours a day and lots of travel constituted mental cruelty and since I collected wine I was obviously a drunk.

I was required to give scheduled and unscheduled urine analysis for ninety days and there was a restraining order for the first six months so that I could only see my kids in the presence of a representative of the Child Protective Services. I could not watch my sons play basketball or baseball or my daughter play fast-pitch.

The fact that I was not a drunk, nor had struck or yelled at my wife or children was ever established was not material. I had in fact loved her and been convinced that she was going through some changes and everything would come back to normal.

After the divorce was final she called me and apologized for the inconveniences this had caused both her and me. I inquired as to how she had been inconvenienced, as I had not mounted a counter suit in hopes it would cause her to come to her senses. There was silence on her end. She then said that it was our duty to make the family work in the changed circumstances. I had not seen her or my kids in over eight months at that point. I had been told that I was allowed two days a month, but her attorney had let slide the arrangements for that since the divorce for two months. I said that if my attorney had not heard from hers in a week, I would seek a modification in the terms, which had begun to assert itself in my mind as the right step.