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I had travelled all the way from Australia to Hawaii to take up the position of sous chef at a five-star restaurant, and yet here I was cutting grass. It didn’t make sense. Until I discovered the kitchen was an all-male affair: clearly a girl like me wasn’t welcome.
The “kitchen cabal”, as I called them, hoped that if they kept me in the garden long enough, I’d quit. Three other women had been employed there in the past year and all had resigned. But I was different.
I calmly surveyed the situation and came up with a plan: there were five jerks impeding me in the kitchen and nine push mowers at my disposal. The answer was simple.
The following day, I innocently mowed over a big stick (oops!) and broke the mower.
Over the next week, I found every stick, rock, and tree stump that lay before me – and a few that didn’t. Nine broken mowers later, I was deemed incompetent and sent back to the kitchen in disgrace. So they thought.
But it was then that the cabal made their biggest mistake. They thrust me into the hands of the great Chef Ayatollah. That wasn’t his real name, of course, nor was he as powerful as a real ayatollah – nor as religious, if his prolific usage of profanity was anything to go by. No, this guy earned his “éclat”, as he put it, from being six feet tall, around 120kg and a culinary genius. Since the cabal was terrified of him, they figured I would be, too.
The next day, I approached the chef with all the enthusiasm I could muster. Sure I was scared of him, but I was also smart enough to realise that he was a master of his trade and could teach me everything I needed to know. Unlike the others, I was able to look past his gruff exterior and develop a deep devotion to the man. I think he sensed it, too, and after a few weeks of merely assisting in basic food preparation, he asked me to remain behind one evening and help him prepare the next day’s special: Chicken Cordon Bleu.
Up until this point, his only form of communication with me had consisted of fierce and direct instructions, yet here we were skinning and de-boning dozens of chicken breasts together. I was incredibly nervous. My hands were shaking so much I couldn’t hide it – even though I tried. First I tucked them behind me. Then I pressed them firmly together in front of me. Before I knew it, I’d somehow locked them in a tangle of apron string bondage.
The chef, looking up, saw my predicament and let out a huge belly laugh. I was stunned to hear such a joyous laugh. It seemed to leap from his chest, freeing itself from his usual attitude of semi-anger. I couldn’t help but laugh, too. And through his laughter and my entanglement, an incredible thing happened: the chef began to talk.
Until then, I wasn’t privy to any personal information about him.
I didn’t even know his name. But over the next two hours, as we painstakingly sliced honey-baked ham and cheddar with chives, he told me to call him Oscar and that he came from Italian ancestry and grew up in Florida.
Later, as we laid out the chicken breasts and placed thinly sliced ham and cheese on each, and carefully rolled them up and pinned them with toothpicks, Oscar told me that he was only a young man when the army decided to send him to culinary school. He ended up cooking at the Pentagon for 12 years.
As we rolled the chicken breasts in batter and Italian breadcrumbs and browned them in extra virgin olive oil, garlic and a very expensive dry white wine, Oscar told me he’d cooked for many of the military’s finest, including Dick Cheney when he was US Secretary of Defence, and Colin Powell when he was a colonel. He could see that I had many questions, but he also saw in me a deference that kept me heedful, yet silent. Although, not for long.
As we pulled the covered pans of chicken from the oven and a heavenly smell filled the room, a question burst from my lips: “How is such an aroma possible?” I stammered. Oscar chuckled like Santa Claus over a gleeful child. There was no doubt: he liked me.
The next night, Oscar asked me to help him prepare the special while the rest of the staff prepared the standard menu. The cabal was furious. When the first order came in, the butterflies in my stomach took hold, but under Oscar’s guidance I took a couple of deep breaths and managed to impress him with the very first plate.
Later, around nine o’clock, we became swamped. As we were madly rushing about, without thinking I called out an order to the chef.
“Oscar!” I yelled. “This special has a no-mushroom request!”
There was a collective gasp in the kitchen. The cabal was stunned: how dare I address Oscar by his first name instead of “Chef”! One guy, clearly shocked, dropped a tray of rolled chicken right behind the chef. When Oscar stopped in his tracks, you could see he was fuming. Time stood still as everyone, including me, froze with fear.
Oscar stared at me in disbelief, but calmly bent down and whispered his reply. Then, without turning around, he shouted, “You imbecile!” My skin started to crawl. Here it comes, I thought.
But, to my immense relief, he wasn’t angry at me: it was the guy who’d dropped the tray of dinner specials. “Get out of my kitchen and never come back!” Oscar yelled at him. Through the commotion, another staff member looked squeamish, as if he was about to faint. While he survived the moment and the rest of the night, I never saw him again.
As a matter of fact, there was soon a whole new kitchen staff. Four out of five were women.
The chef, Oscar – as we all now called him – was no longer angry, abrupt or aloof. In fact, he smiled every day. He even made us laugh when he treated us to some of his more infamous stories. As for me, I was the sous chef for another two years, and began to establish what Oscar called my own éclat status. Now and then, I even shared my own stories – starting with how I mowed my way into the kitchen.
Tracy Lee, 42, now lives in Connecticut, US. She writes in her spare time and hopes to become a television producer.
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