There are few things in life that are better than a cold Heineken, or the company of a beautiful, well-adjusted woman or smoking a big, fat doobie on a, er uh, watching the sunset on the beach in Central America. Yet, above all those lovely pleasures, not much gives me greater pleasure as a chef and as an eater than a well-prepared salad.
Sometimes, I just crave a good salad.
Yesterday, I had such a craving. Actually, I craved all of the above, yet life being what it is, I settled for the easiest result. The salad. The Heineken was simply a by-product.
Anyway, I selected T.G.I.Friday's for my salad option, solely because it was convenient and I knew the beer was cold. I arrived at about 9:15, rather late to eat for me, and ordered "to go" because I really was in no mood for late evening drinkers, which there were many.
The bartender was sharp and made an early impression with his quick attention, his refusal to serve a belligerent woman who had no I.D. and the fact that he stopped the waitress from bringing the other appetizer I ordered as she was going to serve it to me ON A PLATE AT THE BAR.
"To go", remember?
I paid the bill, tipped him nicely for his service and returned to the hotel with a house salad with sliced sirloin and an order of steamed chicken pot stickers. The pot stickers were great, for what they are, although the salad. . .well, let me demonstrate photographically:
Any guesses as to what this little tidbit might be?
That thing is a piece of meat.
I think.
I guess it was supposed to be sirloin. It could have been dog shit.
Dog shit jerky.
Sadly, the rest of the salad was phenomenally fresh and crisp and perfectly sublime. See the small, yellow-green, squiggly lettuce below all of the dog shit jerky? Most probably the freshest tender frisée lettuce I've seen in years.
Look at that lettuce, utterly perfect, and accompanied by the refreshing simplicity of a corn salsa to contrast the bitter greens making a delight not often trumped. Except of course, with a pile of cold, hard, dry, stringy, dog shit jerky.
I know how this happens and I shall summarize.
It's late. The cook has probably ruined one or two or ten steaks tonight. The cook is pissed, tired and ready for a drink or a joint or a meth-fueled evening beating his old lady.
Who knows?
But this piece of meat in question has a past. It sat somewhere in a dark nook or cranny around the stove for hours and 'lo and behold, here comes an unsuspecting jerkwad wanting a dainty little salad at 10:00 at night.
Well fuck him and his salad! I'm too busy scrubbing the stainless or dragging out the floor mats to give a damn about your salad. So, I know what I'll do, I'll just grab that medium rare that got sent back twice, once because it was under, the second because it was over, slap some oil on it, heat a second or two on the grill, slice and voila!!! Here you go buddy, enjoy your fucking salad!! Fuck you, I'm going home!
Well, I got news for you my little cook, I've shit out better salads than you've ever prepared and you're gonna slave away in that high volume kitchen, hating your life, wishing for better things until you quit on the afternoon the fat waitress you've had your eye on for months, who finally gave in to your overtures, confides in you that you might be the baby daddy.
And you will forever long for the day that you have your own restaurant where you can kick out anyone you don't like or mistakenly serve bacon in a salad to a Jewish lady on the eve of Hannukah with no real remorse or force-feed low grade cane liquor to people through a spout into their open mouths with heads cocked back. A restaurant where you can write your menu on a chalkboard for the evening showcasing delightful creations such as, "Evel Knievel Never Made It" or "English Peas Are Raggamuffins That Require Constant Attention" and your salad offering contains the accoutrements of, and I quote, "deep fried crickets and extra germs*" which sell like firecrackers until you 86 the salad at 7:30. Until then my dear shoemaker, you are nothing.
I however, may or may not have done all of the above, but what I can do now is forward my rather unappealing findings to the home office of T.G.I.Friday's and complain that I think I found my gall badder in the toilet after I ate your salad and maybe in a week or two, Guy Fieri and I will show up at the restaurant, get drunk, fire the staff, scare off the guests, burn the building down and dance around the inferno singing pirate songs about "pulverizing the pumpkin eaters" because I now own T.G.I.Friday's.
Well, uh ok. It's unlikely. But you, the shoemaker. . .straighten up man. Be proud of what you do and please, save the dog shit jerky for the employee meal. . .because YOU deserve it.
*the salad neither contained crickets nor extra germs but sold out by 7:30 p.m. again proving that human beings are unpredictabe animals. Maybe it was the cane liquor? Right Nils?
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