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Private Chef POV Episode 1: The Captain and Mrs. X's snowy escape
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Private Chef POV Episode 1: The Captain and Mrs. X's snowy escape
Before joining Team Meal Ticket, contributor Marie "Lucky Porkchops" DiFeliciantonio worked as a private chef for a prominent area family. As you can probably imagine, she's got a few stories.
The recent snowfall reminds me of a particular blizzard two years ago. Let us turn the clock back roughly 730 days to find me sitting in the kitchen of an estate in the tri-state area, where I worked as a private chef. I was roasting tomatoes with olive oil, thyme, salt, pepper, shallots and garlic, preparing them to meet their fate in a large stock pot via immersion blender.
I kept peeking out the window at the elaborately fashioned stone bird bath in the center of the courtyard. Snow piled and piled. Even as the nasty winds blew, the height of the snow never seemed to diminish. Without realizing it, I began pacing, worrying about how I would possibly mount the steep, quarter-mile driveway before tackling the hour-and-change drive home in my old Honda Civic. On my tenth trip to and fro across the kitchen, I came face to face with Mrs. X.
"Maaarrrie, what arrrre you doing?" (She LOVED to accentuate the long "A" sound in my name and roll the "R" as though she were French. She was not.)
"Oh, I, uh ... I'm making roasted tomato soup for your lunch, Mrs. X. Oh, and I am chilling some hard-boiled eggs for the egg salad you requested. And I have just brewed some … "
"That will no longer be necessary. The Captain [this was her pet name for her husband, as he was a champion sailor] and I will be leaving for the afternoon."
"Of course, Mrs. X."
With that, she turned and walked away. I wanted to ask so many questions. Where the hell were they going in this weather? Did they really think their luxury sedans would get them past the garage door? Was I done for the day?
Lesson one of private chefdom, at least in my experience: Never ask questions. So I continued pacing. I finished the soup, packaged it and brought it down to industrial freezer in the basement that held another 25,000 soup varieties, along with back-ups of Mrs. X's favorite bread, muffins, ice cream, cookies, and Cryovac-ed meats. (Perhaps, in the future, it would also house disobedient employees?) I returned to the kitchen, prepared the egg salad then left it in the refrigerator neatly wrapped and labeled in a pretty crystal bowl.
I puttered around the kitchen organizing drawers, researching recipes and cleaning crevices for about an hour or so. Later, as I started getting a few dinner items thawed and prepped, I kept peeking out at the bird bath. I noticed another few inches of accumulated snow and an open service garage door, minus Gardener's SUV. Interesting. Hopefully, Office Manager was still around. I found her frantically ruffling through papers on Mrs. X's desk. "Office Manager, Mrs. X left pretty quickly and I didn't get a chance to ask her what she wanted for dinner. Did she mention anything to you? " I asked.
"Dinner? They left for the weekend. Gardener took the X's to a hotel downtown. Captain has a meeting tomorrow that he cannot miss. Everyone is gone, what are you still doing here?"
This where my eyes got all wide and my voice got all high-pitched. "I wasn't aware they were GONE gone. It would have been nice if someone let me in on the plans" — especially since it was getting downright nasty out there. "I already started thawing the steaks and preparing the gratin for dinner. Mrs. X came into the kitchen and canceled her lunch. Would it have been so hard for her to add, 'By the way, Maaarrrie, we won't be back for supper'? What is with these people?"
Office Manager stopped ruffling for a second. "I'm sorry. You know how things change around here."
"I do. But apparently not as soon as everyone else knows about it." I turned and stomped down the long corridor back to the kitchen. As I passed pictures, statues and antique vases, I fantasized about knocking them all down with a swing of my arm. But then I would be tasked with cleaning all of that up, I'm sure.
I'll save that move for my last day.
I love hearing about these kind of stories because i can totally relate since I work in food service too, I look forward to more!
I look forward to more of these stories--the soup you made sounds good. Too bad no one eat it that day.
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