I’ve done my best to get him good and nervous for haggling with suppliers, but in reality, so long as he can put on a smile and chat without making a total ass of himself, there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve already put in a good word with some of my favored suppliers, so today should go pretty smoothly.
I give Wilks a quick call to make sure he’s up, moving, and ready to pee his pants when I tell him that he’ll be taking the lead negotiating prices today. It’s nothing personal; I just love fucking with the guy.
He’s suitably tense by the time I hang up the phone and I smile my way to the apartment door.
When I open it, a small envelope falls to the ground. Curious, I bend down and pick it up.
The front of the envelope has my first name on it, but no postage. I open it up and find a Polaroid inside with a very familiar redhead, legs-spread with the caption “Wish you were here” written on the bottom.
This might be funny or arousing if it weren’t so sad.
The idealist in me wants to figure out a way to help her realize there are other things in life worth exploring, but the pragmatist in me realizes that I’m not fucking Superman. She’s been a coitus aficionado long before I ever met her, and while I would love to think that I’m capable of bending women’s wills with my mind, I’m not stupid enough to believe it.
I didn’t ask for the picture, and I certainly didn’t take it myself, but I’m not about to just toss it on the kitchen counter for Leila to find either, so I put it in my pocket and lock the door as I leave.
Wilks is waiting outside his building when I come around the corner. He sees me from a distance but still doesn’t have the confidence to just walk up to me.
This has to be stopped.
While I am effectively useless at influencing women’s actions, I am a savant when it comes to molding people in a kitchen. Wilks is technically my boss now, although I have a feeling that particular fact might slip my mind while I’m trying to build the guy’s confidence.
I get within ten yards of Wilks and stop.
I know he sees me. After all, the guy’s waving.
Our destinations lie in the opposite direction, and this is the perfect time to impart lesson number one of having your own staff:
If you can’t approach
Someone, you can’t possibly
Utilize their gifts.
Yes, lesson one is a haiku.
Yes, all of the lessons are haikus.
When I got my first head chef job a few years back, I had to learn all of these lessons the hard way. The haikus just help me remember them and, I feel, give me the air of a guru whose every word must be followed.
Okay, that and I find the practice hilarious.
Wilks isn’t coming, so I turn around and start walking toward the first stop on our itinerary.
He catches up in a matter of seconds.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“Lesson #2,” I tell him with no explanation whatsoever. “Questions whose answers you know are a complete waste of my fucking time.”
That one was particularly helpful in building staff resilience or, occasionally, weeding out people who can’t bear hearing one of my very favorite words on a frequent and often hostile basis. This was a must for my kitchen.
“Lesson number two?” he asks. “What are you talking about? What was lesson number one?”
“We’ll cover the lessons as the need arises,” I tell him. “Didn’t you write down our shopping list?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling a notepad out of his breast pocket.
I tell him, “We’re going to start at the top and make our way down to the bottom: simple.”
“All right,” he says. “I just didn’t know if you had a particular order in which you liked to make your stops.”
“I do,” I tell him, laughing. “It’s the order I gave you. But hey, lesson number eight: It's your restaurant. Do things the way they work best for you. Screw the staff.”
He chuckles, and I know exactly what he’s thinking. Sadly, he’s still too anxious to ask the question.
This should be a fun morning.
As we’re walking, I remember the contraband in my pocket and I deposit it in the next trashcan we pass.
“What was that?” he asks.
I take a moment to count the syllables before I answer.
“New lesson: If it's coming out of my pocket, it's none of your damn business, Wilks.”
“Oh,” he says, “okay.”
“Wilks, for god’s sake, loosen up, will you? You’re the fucking executive here. I’m just the washed up bastard who’s filling in the gaps for you,” I tell him. The glory of always being that unassailable character starts losing its luster. “If you’re going to run a kitchen and keep it running, you’re going to need to work on your confidence.”
He lifts his head a little as he walks, but just as quickly lowers it again.
“All right,” he says.
“Okay, we’re coming up to our first stop,” I tell him. “Now, we’re going to go in there and get some fresh monkfish, and whatever he quotes you on price, I want you to talk him down by at least ten percent. I’ll help you a little on this first one, but you’re taking the lead.”
What he doesn’t know is that I’ve done almost all of the shopping for the next day or so, only leaving the items which absolutely must be same-day fresh for him to find his sea legs.
A lot of chefs nowadays like to set up contracts with suppliers that will ship wholesale ingredients right to the restaurant, but it’s a lot better for everyone if you take the time to give a shit what you feed people. Fortunately, Wilks already knows that much.
“Shit,” he says just loudly enough for me to hear. “All right.”
We walk to the fishmonger’s shop and walk up to the counter.
“Ah, Mr. Paulson,” Martin, the sixty-something, perpetually scale-flecked proprietor says. “Come in for to teach the new chef today, huh?”
“You know it,” I tell him. “Don’t go easy on him, Marty. He’s got to learn how to deal with crooks and swindlers like you.”
“With all the fish I give you so cheap, you should be nicer to me, Daniel.”
No, Daniel’s not my name, but for the finest fishmonger in the city, I’m willing to suffer a few small indignities.
Wilks, naturally, is unaware of this.
“I thought your name was Dane,” he says.
Now, Wilks has gone and pissed Martin off.
This was expected.
Most of the time, these people are really easy to work with, once you get to know them. Everyone has bad days, though. In order for those bad days to not transform into profit-margin-killing price hikes, one must learn how to negotiate a sour mood.
“You let him talk this way to me, Daniel?” Martin asks. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
The only difficulty I’m having in this moment is keeping a straight face.
“Don’t piss off the seller,” I tell Wilks, “or it’s caveat emptor to a degree which I seriously doubt you can even imagine.”
“Isn’t it always caveat emptor?” Wilks asks.
“Make the buy,” I mutter and nudge him.
“Why doesn’t he answer?” Martin demands.
I just shrug my shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Wilks says. “I must have been mistaken.”
Martin eyes him, but slowly unclenches his fists.
If Wilks knew exactly how ferocious Martin can get, and how close he came to getting his ass kicked by a senior citizen, he probably would have run out of the store screaming.
Never—and I mean never—mess with a fishmonger.
“Eh,” Martin says, “it’s all right. What do you need?”
“What do I need?” Wilks asks me and I’m about ready to kick his ass myself.
“Monkfish,” I tell him.
“Monkfish,” Wilks repeats. “Fresh monkfish.”
“Now you’ve done it,” I mutter in Wilks’s ear as I walk past him for a better view of the action.
“You think I sell anything that’s not fresh?” Martin snaps. “You think I sell garbage?”
“That’s not what I—”
“I build this business from nothing. Everyone who comes in knows I sell the freshest fish in the city. This is why I’ve been here thirty-five years. Why are you so stupid?”