Content warning: drug and alcohol abuse, illness
Seven-ten,
Ben Cardoso rued as the shrimp in his pan did a synchronised dance in the air as he tossed them, then tossed them again.
Such a long way from the fucking finish line.
The Saturday night dinner service was just getting its push, and he couldn't imagine that any of the other line cooks who bustled around him were having a better time.
Nell's was quickly becoming the hottest spot to eat in Ottawa's bustling Centretown, largely due to the diligence of its owner and chef de cuisine who demanded her kitchen function like the inner workings of a clock.
"Cardoso," Chef Nell called out as Ben was plating. "Ben!" her voice boomed loudly enough to shake Ben's arm from across the kitchen. He couldn't decide whether to be grateful to her for giving him the opportunity of his life, or to wish she get hit by a snowplow. He gathered himself and turned around to face his boss.
"Well?" she asked as the noise in the kitchen dropped to a roar.
Seven-twenty, goddammit.
"Yes, Chef?" he offered out loud.
"That's what you should have said the first time," Nell reprimanded. "Finish what you're doing and then chiffonade some basil for me. Not a fine cut like you usually do—chiffonade."
I did that before the service started, you fucking bell pepper! How much fucking basil are you garnishing with when everything was mise'd and ready to go??
"Yes, Chef," he said, determined to keep his head down and keep working, at least until he'd rounded out three years in her kitchen. It felt like an impossibility to count down the months when he could barely deal with counting the minutes. Then, he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder.
"Don't worry about it, man, I got it," his best friend, Tyler, said from behind him on his way to the back. Tyler, the floor manager, was how he even got to meet Chef Nell a little over two years ago. She was already a celebrity chef, which Ben found was a bit of a laughable term because no one outside of the industry had actually heard of Canadian celebrity chefs.
He'd initially thought his parents would be upset he wasn't working in an office like his siblings, but it made sense that a pair of immigrant parents with five kids were content one of them could start a career without incurring student loans.
He'd been nervous when they'd simply stared at him as he told him he was going to culinary school in Toronto. He panicked a bit when his mother wordlessly got up and left the living room. Upon following her into the kitchen, however, he was relieved to see her breaking out the peppercorns and bay leaves.
"You will not learn to cook other people's food without first learning our Filipino food," she'd told him in Tagalog. Then, she patiently instructed him on how to stew the meat for
adobo
in vinegar and soy sauce, while she cooked the rice.
Ben made a different dinner for his family every night in those last two weeks before leaving for Toronto. It was after coming back home to Ottawa, then meeting Tyler and cooking for him a few times, that he learned who his friend worked for.
"Ty, no, you have enough going on," Ben gestured with his chin toward the dining room. "Besides, the harpy is expediting right over there in the window so she'll see me not licking the ground she walks on."
"Nell's not that bad," Tyler laughed.
"You're not working the line, jackass," Ben said, stealing a glance at his boss scrutinizing his shrimp dish before deciding whether to send it out. He swore he felt a migraine coming on the moment he saw her let out an exasperated sigh.
Seven-forty-five, good god.
"Kendra!" she bellowed at one of the waitstaff. "How is your pick-up already cold?!" The pretty, blonde waitress Ben had dated for two months nearly dropped her stack of empty plates when she heard her name shouted. "Your section isn't any fuller than anyone else's!" Nell beckoned toward Ben's fellow line cook. "Letti, flash it in the salamander for me."
"Yes, Chef!" Letti shouted back.
Seven-forty-eight.
"Why is this lamb dying on the pass? We're losing the
soigné
!" Nell hollered to the waitstaff, who were too slammed at the moment to pick it up.
If she says swan-yay one more fucking time, I swear I will shove that lamb up her ass.
Ben wondered for the millionth time what the draw of this industry had been when he dedicated his life to it several years ago. He only felt he could take a breath again at about 9 p.m. as the service began to slow down, and then like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when he saw his boss leave just before 10.
"Finally," he said, ripping off his apron and sinking beside Tyler in a booth that was decorated with half-empty liquor bottles. Without needing to ask, Tyler poured him a shot of rye. They waited before most of the staff had already left, with the exception of a couple of other guys on the line who were just about to grab their coats. Then Tyler took out a tiny glass vial from his pocket.
"Oh, thank god, I almost thought you didn't have any on you," Ben exhaled, by now on his third shot. It was a bit of an effort to steadily hold out his hand as his friend placed a dot of white powder on the back of it.
"What, me?" Tyler grinned, sipping his own scotch neat. "How could I not when this is the only stuff I have? We can't all be like you, bedding every waitress from here to Toronto." It was when Tyler's 'Toronto' came out like 'Trawnna' that Ben knew his buddy was at least buzzed. "But we can't all look like you, can we?"
"Dude, the last person I need to have come on to me right now is you. Actually, Nell,
then
you."
"I'm not kidding! You're what, 5'10"?"
"Stop it, man," Ben laughed.
"And you've got that hot Asian guy thing going on."
"I'm gonna tell your white ass this for the last time. We're not all 'Asian,'" Ben said, a little too high to really be annoyed with his friend. "You know there's billions of us in Asia, right? I'm Filipino."
