Happy New Year!

Geez Louise. . .it's about damn time you got here 2009.

A quick review of the past year. . .

Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.Hope and Change.

Next!!!

This morning, as I lay in bed and pulled off the two quarters and a nickel that were stuck to my face, I began to think about risotto. But before that I was thinking about cheese and before that, airplanes. This whole random thought process began with the pleasing and virgin thought of trying to drop kick the balls of Billy Mays to planet Uranus.

Many years ago, I worked at a fine Palm Beach eatery known as Cafe L'Europe. Cafe L'Europe is owned by Norbert Goldner and has been a centerpiece of the Palm Beach social elite for many years. On weekend nights we would turn tables at least twice and the whole restaurant maybe two and a half times. 350 to 450 covers on a hot Friday night and we weren't just slinging hash either. This was high-end, expensive food for movie stars, entertainers, billionaire heiresses, and a handful of local jackasses with more money than brains. It was a great time and I worked with a lot of wonderful, talented cooks and chefs.

As with all new jobs, my first days were uncomfortable and everyone eyed me with suspicion. Especially the long-timers like Dominic and Jose, old cooks who had been with Norbert for years and they were rightfully suspicious of any young cock who walked through the door. It's a tough life on the line, harried, sweaty, close-quarter, I'd be rubbing elbows with these guys for hours in a dangerous environment and they didn't want any old hack to come in and start burning pans.

I fit in well. I get along with just about anyone and the way I cope with a new job is just to keep my head down, mouth shut and hands and feet moving. Let the mind take over. Feel the rhythmic zen of a throbbing, hustling, Friday night kitchen.

I had almost been talked out of going to work there, but I knew this was the place for me, especially after my interview with Norbert. I sat at the bar chatting with the bartender finishing my lunch as two gentlemen came in for an afternoon toddy. They requested the wine list and after a quiet chat with the sommelier, one gentlemen purchased the entire vertical of Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon and paid for it with an American Express card I had never seem before. Forget platinum. This was like AMEX Kryptonite. American Express Manganese? Anyway, the bill for the wine was several tens of thousands of dollars. And I knew I was where I needed to be.

It wasn't long before I opened up in the kitchen. My transition was quicker and easier than I thought and I began to be the butt of jokes and jibes, so I knew I was slowly being accepted into this new brotherhood of pirates.

Culinarians have a general culture that transcends locale, ethnicity, age and gender. There are commonalities that you would find in the $100 dollar a plate eateries of Los Angeles or New York, the taco trucks in Houston, or the dirt floor kitchen of a "soda" on the side of a bumpy road in Central America. You never borrow another cook's equipment without asking, you yell out "hot stuff" when moving down the line behind your compatriots with a pot full of scalding liquid and you never ever, never, and I mean never steal someones prep for yourself. That'll get you cut or burned in a hurry. But beyond these customs we all share, there are sub-cultures within each kitchen. Idiosyncratic activities, protocols, games, teases, jokes that are unique to where you are and who you are with.

My days turned into weeks on the line at Cafe L'Europe and I began to notice something odd. Every time someone sneezed, someone else in the kitchen responded with "Sancho!" Not wanting to sound like a total dumbass, I never asked anyone the significance of Sancho, but I laughed along heartily at the joke with everyone else every time it happened. Even though I had no idea what the hell was going on.

A back waiter would walk by, sneeze, and three of four cooks would scream out in unison: "Sancho!!!!" Laughter then ensues, some responsive cursing by the offended sneezer and the busy work would resume. It was an awesome spectacle on a weekend night when at the height of the mayhem, through all the cacophony that is a kitchen full-speed ahead, all work would stop, if only for an instant, the second someone sneezed. Sancho!!!!!!

All the while, I'm still in the dark as to what the joke is.

One afternoon, we were quietly buzzing along, reducing wine, braising Belgian endive, rolling up chinese vegetables in phyllo dough when the inevitable happened. I sneezed.

Jose, stirring a huge rondeau of risotto, turns to me and says in his thick Mexicano accent, "Are joo mar-eed?"

I was flummoxed. What kind of a question is that after a sneeze? Why no Sancho?

I asked, "What?"

"Are joo mar-eed?", he asked

"No. Why?"

"Oh. Den, joo no es Sancho," Jose said with a wry smile showing beneath his graying, bushy mustache.

My frustration must have shown and he continued to grin, slowly stirring the milky risotto and never taking his eyes off me.

Nervous, I sputtered, "Um, no I no es, er I mean, no I'm not Sancho. And I'm not married."

"Ah, then joo no es Sancho. Joo don't know who es the Sancho, no?"

I admitted, sheepishly, that I did not know Sancho. So, Jose explained.

Each time a man sneezes, it means that Sancho is paying a visit to his wife. Servicing her while the husband is away at work, slaving in the kitchen to bring home the proverbial bacon. Sancho satisfies the woman so when her husband returns home she is so brimming with satisfaction that she prepares the man dinner and treats him like a king.

It was then that it dawned on me that only the married men of the kitchen got the Sancho treatment and why it was screamed out with particular gusto when Dominic, the saucier, sneezed. Dominic had been married for forever to a stitch-mean Colombian woman who he hated. Poor guy.

From that day forward I was officially part of the pirate crew at Cafe L'Europe and I gleefully belched out Sancho with the rest of the gang, even when Norbert, the owner, sneezed. Hey, we're pirates, that's what we do!

So, this explains my seemingly random thoughts this morning of risotto, cheese, airplanes and kicking Billy Mays in the nuts.

Happy New Year y'all!!!!!!