Validated!

Only took about ten years, but you're getting the idea, aren't you?

A long time ago, in a lifetime far, far away someone left me in charge of the kitchen. And one night, in a fit of creative frustration over the evening's seafood special, I dug deep in the ol' tool chest of the gray matter and came up with (in my own mind) a genius idea.

We were heavy on Chilean Sea Bass and needed to move some product. I racked my brain and the brains (arguable) of my line cooks for a great idea to no avail. Time was running out quickly and I needed to turn over the specials to restaurant manager/goombah/resident slapdick, Tony, so we could collectively memorize the line of bullshit that would be floated tableside.

Something like this:

"Tonight's fresh fish presentation is fresh, line-caught Chilean Sea Bass, sauteed perfectly to a crisp crust and moist, flaky interior served over a warm gathering of fresh braised doodads, fresh flash fried dilly-dallies in a warm foamed emulsion of fresh micro whatchamacallits, organic thingamajigs and farm fresh gizwhammies.

And during the zen which is the clusterfuck last hour of prep before restaurant service, my great idea was born. What would the toothless old Palm Beach geezers who frequent our restaurant like to eat more than anything with their crispy fresh line-caught sauteed sea bass?

Braised Belgian endive?

Organic cherve and tomato confit tartlet?

Ragout of white beans, wild chanterelle mushrooms, pearl onions and arugula?

How about a big ol' helping of fresh fucking macaroni and cheese! Jesus, I was a bloody genius.

When I finally turned over the menu to Tony, he read through it slowly, mumbling the prose as I picked over a bag full of chervil for garnish at my station. I kept a quiet eye on him as he got to the bottom of the menu and I saw him seize up in his stance when he read the sea bass creation.

Slowly and with his thick Brooklyn-Italian accent he said, "Fucking macaroni and cheese? You can't serve no fucking macaroni and cheese in dis' here fucking Ritz-Carlton."

"Yes Tony, we will be serving macaroni and cheese," mimicking his accent, "in dis' here fucking Ritz-Carlton."

His face flushed and he stormed away muttering something about finding the executive chef to stop me. Yeah ok, whatever. I didn't say it, but I thought, "you'll probably find him doing rails of shitty cocaine off the boxes of whole canned tomatoes in the back of dry storage."

I knew it was going to grind Tony's gullet to approach the tables of the rich, ultra-rich and walking dead of Palm Beach and give his nightly special spiel, ending it with macaroni and cheese. Ahhh, the sweet justice.

The front of the house/back of the house feud has been going on for as long as restaurants have existed and the battle between us and them was no different. FOH and upper management didn't, wouldn't and couldn't see it our way and although we, the chefs and cooks, were generally treated with kid gloves on most occasions, there were some things, no matter how innocuous we may have viewed them, that were clearly unacceptable in a five-star, five diamond hotel. Macaroni and cheese must have been one of those assaults against the sensibilities of a fine hotel.

Anyway, Tony The Blowhard we called him, was a real dickhead and he adapted the art of back-stabbing to levels unknown to man and alien alike. I had myself convinced that he was connected, so there was no direct threat you could make to cool this guy off, thusly, we crafted and perfected a new art of subversive retaliation within the daily specials menu. Every now and then we would slide in some cockamamie creations just to get his wheels burning and then at the last minute, provide him with the real menu, items that gilded well with the staid luxury of our hotel.

Nils and I used to do the same thing at my restaurant, thinking up the wildest names for our nightly culinary delights. The only difference is we actually used these names on the chalkboard menu.

Examples:

The obvious: There Is No Pot In The Pot Roast

A meat and potatoes spread: Evel Knievel Never Made It

Or for the salad: Ruffage, Just The Way Your Mother Likes It

Or the vague: Dorado GPS, which was Mahi Mahi served with a green pea sauce. And when asked by staff or patron what GPS meant, Nils or I with a deadly serious straight face would reply in slow cadence, "Boop. Boop. Boop."

Now, I know some of you are thinking, what kind of an idiot serves macaroni and cheese in a place with an average check of roughly 70 dollars? Well, here he is right here.

I got to work on my mac 'n cheese while Tony pouted downstairs in search of our fresh in from the Kapalua property, alcohol-fueled and drug-addled executive chef. Jacques? Jean-Michelle? Fuckhead? Can't remember.

So, the base for mac 'n cheese is the classic mother sauce Bechamel to which, once cheese is added, becomes Mornay sauce, which for some reason always makes me think of Rebecca de Mornay. Go figure.

To my Bechamel and in keeping with the Ritz-Carlton standard of making shit really expensive, I added 5 cheeses: creamy Fontina, $300-a-wheel pecorino sardo (not casu marzu, mind you), tangy fromage de chevre, zippy aged "Extra" Appenzeller and a slight smattering of smoked gouda. Cause Gouda is gooda! I also spiked the cheese sauce with some delicious Armagnac, nutmeg, fresh ground black pepper (dead French people are convulsing in their graves on that note) and finished it off with mother nature's greatest flavor enhancer, truffle oil. Add that to some whole-wheat rotini and you've got mac 'n cheese fit for a king. Or someone with no teeth.

Tony never got his wish to rat on me. Jean-Claude was probably passed out somewhere after slamming a bottle of Pernod, so I proceeded with Plan X.

We prepared the proper garnishes for the dish, a subtle, herbed bread crumb topping that would be applied to the mac for the short ride in the salamander, a red and yellow heirloom tomato relish to top the bass and balance the creaminess of the cheese. And the final gaaarneeeesh, an herb salad of micro beet tops, micro red amaranth and micro basil for some color balance and a nice blast of earthiness to go with the tang of the tomato, cream of the cheese and sweetness of the sea bass. Solid gold baby. Five-star comfort food, whether the FOH liked it or not!

About 5:30, we mocked up our daily specials for the waitstaff to try and I swear to God even though I'm not supposed to, that waiter Bart, my main man and Rush Limbaugh's long lost Puerto Rican brother, picked the deep bowl up and licked the cheese sauce out of the bottom.

Tony was nowhere to be found and I assumed he was still hunting our perennially-MIA executive chef Marcel Claude or whatever. Had I seen Tony again before service I would have suggested he check the hedges north of the main entrance to the hotel. That's where they found the executive chef's running buddy, chef de cusine Mike, after a night out with a couple of hotel guests. Passed out in the daisies, 9:30 in the a.m. In his chef whites, no less.

The orders started rolling in around 6:15 with the earlybirds that cohabitate in South Florida. Golden Corral or Ritz-Carlton, doesn't matter, some people need to be in bed by 7:30.

Fire that well done Chateau!! On fire chef!

Has a well-done chateaubriand taken a ride in the deep fryer at a high-end hotel before? Ummm, could be.

I also seem to remember four frozen turkeys doing the quick-fire deep fryer ride under careful instruction from our resident-drunk executive chef.

The first mac 'n cheese order came in a little after 7:00 and that made me feel a little better. You never want to strike out on your specials, it gives you a way to depart from the mundane repetition of the dinner menu and to showcase your creative inventiveness. I was getting worried early on though because I expected the Poly-Grip crowd to go nuts on the easy chew food. I felt a little better after the first order came through and like magic, once the first one went out and the other patrons caught a whiff of the pungent cheese augmented by truffle, the dominoes fell. And rapidly.

We sold 37 sea bass that night. And on a 85 cover night, that's one helluva statement. And at $33.50 a plate, not a bad bottom line either.

Proudly, when the printer would spit out another order, I barked it out as loudly as I could:

ORDER IN: 2 MAC AND CHEESE!!!!

The line: 2 MAC AND CHEESE HEARD!!!

We made it a point to be particularly loud and annoying when Tony would pass through the kitchen. You could feel his disgust with our revel and celebration and we were awash in the happiness of his unhappiness. His shoulders hunched ever more as more orders rolled in and eventually he hunched his way right out of the kitchen to never return for the remainder of the service.

One word: panocha.

So, I shared this story with you to share another story. About an hour ago, I was watching RFD channel on the tube and there is a program called California Country and on today's broadcast they highlighted a goat cheese production farm of which I have an interest in, but shortly thereafter, they featured a chef from the Ritz-Carlton Marina Del Ray property making none other than truffle infused macaroni 'n cheese.

A little behind the curve fellas, a little behind the curve.