Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain Read Free Book Online Page A

fling bits of it on the floor. 'You dare call this cuisine! This . this is grotesque! An abomination! You. . you should kill yourself from shame!'
    I had to hand it to the old bastard, though, he was fair. Everyone got ten minutes. Even the girls, who would, sad to say, invariably burst into tears thirty seconds into the chef's tirade. He did not let their tears or sobs deter him. They stood there, shaking and heaving for the full time while he ranted and raved and cursed heaven and earth and their ancestors and their future progeny, breaking them down like everybody else, until all that remained was a trembling little bundle of nerves with an unnaturally red face in a white polyester uniform.
    One notable victim of Chef Bernard's reign of terror was a buddy of mine-also much older than the other students-who had just returned from Vietnam. He'd served in combat with an artillery unit and returned stateside to attend the CIA under the GI Bill and had made it through the whole program, had only four days to go before graduation, but when he saw that in a day or two his number would be up and he, without question, would be working the dreaded souffle station, he folded under the pressure. He went AWOL, disappearing from Hyde Park forever. Boot camp and the Viet Cong had not been as bad as Chef Bernard's ten minutes, I guess.
    When my time came to stand there in front of my fellow students, and all the world, and get my ten minutes, I was ready. I could see Chef Bernard looking deep into my eyes as he began his standard tirade, could see him recognize a glimmer of something familiar somewhere in there. I did the convict thing. The louder and more confrontational the authority figure got, the more dreamy and relaxed I became. Bernard saw it happening. I may have been standing at rigid attention, and saying all the right things, 'Oui, Chef! Non, Chef!' at all the right moments, and showing the right respect, but he could see, perhaps in my dead fish-eye gaze, that he wasn't getting anywhere with me. I think the old bastard might have even smiled a little bit, halfway through. There seemed to be a twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he finally dismissed me with feigned disgust. He knew, I think, that I had already been humiliated. He looked in my eyes and saw, perhaps, that Tyrone and the Mario crew had done his work for him. I liked Chef Bernard and respected him. I enjoyed working under him. But the fat bastard didn't scare me. And he knew it. He could have smacked me upside the head with a skillet and I would have smiled at him through broken teeth. He saw that, I think-and it ruined all the fun.
    He was actually nice to me after that. He'd let me stand and watch him decorate the voiture each night, a task he reserved for himself: the glazing and garnishing of a hot roast in a rolling silver display cart. He layered on his blanched leeks and carved tomato roses like a brain surgeon, humming quietly to himself, aware, I think, that soon they wouldn't be doing much of this anymore. My final proud accomplishment at CIA was the torpedoing of a dangerous folly being planned for the graduation ceremonies. The event was planned for the Great Hall, the former chapel in the main building. An idea was being floated by some of my class-mates-all over-zealous would-be pastry chefs-to create a display of pastillage, marzipan, chocolate sculpture and wedding cakes to wow and amaze our loved ones as they were herded into the ceremony. I'd seen the kind of work an over eager patissier can do-I'd seen their instructor's work-and most of it was awful, as so much pastry and garde-manger work is when the chef starts thinking he's an artist rather than a craftsman. I'd seen a much admired commemorative cake, depicting Nixon, painted in chocolate on a pastillage cameo, communicating by telephone with the Apollo astronauts in their space module, also chocolate on pastillage. I did not want my friends and family to have to gaze upon a horror like