When I’m done he leans back and looks at me in a way he hasn’t done yet, as if from some deeper part of him, his narrowed eyes glistening with some new perspective.
After a pause that’s almost awkward, even after the second cider, he says cryptically, “I knew there was something about you.”
Cole picks up a cannoli, looks at it for a second, then holds it out in front of my face. “This is great. Try it.”
It’s an intimate gesture, feeding me like this, and yet somehow it feels natural to lean forward, toward those calloused hands, and take a bite from the creamy treat, our eyes never leaving each other. I swallow it and smile, deciding to change the subject before the heat inside of me makes me say something embarrassing.
“What do you mean, ‘something’ about me?”
“Something different. Something unfulfilled. Hungry. I noticed it when you walked out the other night.” He stops to spin his glass, frowning at it. “I’m curious though. What do you mean when you say you wanted to cook ‘real’ food?”
“Real food…you know, stuff that isn’t so overelaborate. Pretentious food.”
Cole turns his frown from his glass to me.
“Food like mine, you mean?” he says, a little challenge in his tone.
I hesitate for a second too long before saying, “What? No. No…I mean, Knife is basically a steakhouse at the end of the day, right? Forget I said anything.”
“Come on, say it.”
I look at him for a moment, my pulse racing under his gaze, like I just took a wrong turn somewhere and found myself trapped. Suddenly I remember that he’s my boss, that I’ve only worked at his restaurant for a week, and that I was already inches away from being fired.
“Go on,” he urges again. “We’re both adults. I can take criticism. I’m curious to hear what you actually think.”
I laugh a little nervously, hoping it’ll break the stiff look on his face, but his expression doesn’t flicker, and I know the only way out is the truth. There’s something about how he’s looking at me that makes it easy to forget he’s my boss, that I’m his employee. It’s easy to forget that he’s a household name who most people in the restaurant keep looking over at, and that I’m just a girl from Idaho with a failed restaurant behind her and not enough free time to figure out the next step forward. He looks at me, and I look at him, and we’re suddenly just a man and a woman, with all that entails. More intimate and trusting of each other than our brief introduction should make us, and somehow I feel like it’s the most natural thing in the world to speak my mind.
“Ok. Well…it’s not just your restaurant, I see it in a lot of places. Overcomplicating everything. Taking the simplest dishes and flavors, which are already great, and then dressing them up like they’re going to a prom. Using three different cooking processes on a cut of meat just because it looks good on a menu. Fifteen different herbs so that people can’t tell what they’re even tasting. Covering everything in sauces as if we’re ashamed of tasting something in its natural state. Using its French name, then sticking it on a menu with a five-times mark-up. Sometimes it almost seems as if the only way we can react to a culture of fast food is by going to the other extreme and making everything as difficult and as pretentious as possible.”
After a pause, one in which I can’t quite determine what Cole thinks of my emotional outburst, he says, “Is this the alcohol talking?”
“No. It’s all me,” I say, defiant with the sound of my own words.
“Even though you studied with Guillhaume?”
“Especially because I studied with Guillhaume.”
Cole’s blank face breaks into a laugh, and I watch him in confusion.
“You do realize that’s why your restaurant failed, right?”
Indignant, I say, “My restaurant failed because of its location.”
“No,” Cole says, with a cockiness that annoys me. Slowly, he leans forward. “You’re an idealist. You think too highly of the average diner—and that’s why it failed.”
I grit my teeth, genuinely weighing the option of telling Cole exactly what I think, and the alternative of keeping my job.
“You wanna hear a secret?” he says, taking my restraint as a sign to carry on. “I don’t tell this to many people. It took me too long to figure out for me to hand it out freely, but you…I think you should hear it.”
I fold my arms and ignore Cole’s eyes flickering down to my cleavage for a second.
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“It’s three secrets, in fact. Three secrets that can make any dish taste infinitely better. Doesn’t matter what it is. Starter, main, hell, even a fucking sandwich.”
“I’m all ears.”
Cole looks at me as if he’s judging whether I’m worthy, then, after a dramatic pause, starts to talk.
“First one,” he says, waving a finger, “make the dish look good. Lot of people underestimate how powerful the eye is, but the thing is…we taste with it. A great dish doesn’t start at the first bite, it starts when the waiter brings it to your table and puts it in front of you. You see those Titian reds and Cezanne greens of a salad and you already taste the freshness—even if it isn’t actually there. Never serve a potato that isn’t golden brown and you’ll never get a complaint. We taste with our eyes first. The way a dish looks is a promise, a prelude, it’s like foreplay—”
I almost spit out my drink.
“Foreplay?”
“Exactly like it,” Cole continues, without missing a beat. “Years ago, when I was starting out, working in catering with my partner, we perfected this recipe for ribs. Beer and honey cooked, just right. To this day I doubt anyone on the planet could do them better than us. But every time we put them out and waited for people to try them, all they’d say is ‘they’re good.’ That’s all. ‘Good.’ Well, ‘good’ wasn’t good enough for us. These things tasted flawless, but nobody seemed to get it. Then we figured it out—they tasted exceptional, but they looked like any other rack of ribs you’d find at a backyard cookout. Uneven tones, congealing juices, streaky grill marks.”
Cole shifts in his chair with the vividness of his story.
“So the next time we cook them, we fucking sculpt the things. We treated them like museum pieces, got those burn marks just right. Chopped them up a little to show off that texture, set them next to a chunk of golden cornbread and a pinch of cilantro to make those reddish-browns pop. And you know what happened the next time we brought them out?”
“What?”
“There were gasps,” Cole says, with a sense of aggressive satisfaction. “You bet your fucking ass people had more to say than ‘good’ after that.”
I sit back and look over at the waiter, pointing at my empty glass when he looks over.
“I believe it. What’s the second secret, then?” I say.
“The second one is simple: Charge ridiculous amounts of money.”
Now I’m the one laughing dismissively.
“Come on, seriously?”
Cole’s stern expression leaves no doubt that he is.
“Seriously. You’re right that there’s a problem in the restaurant business—but it’s not the cooks—it’s the diners. You seen people eat lately? They taste the first bite only, and the rest is just filling a hole. Doesn’t matter how good your food is, if you’re giving it away cheap it’s just fuel. You charge a hundred bucks a head for a couple of lamb chops, though? People are gonna savor every bite.”
“I get what you’re saying.” I nod, running my finger around the rim of my glass. “But is it ethical?”
Cole just grins. “Ethical? Hell, I’m performing a service. They’re gonna sit for an hour talking with each other about how complex the flavors are, how aromatic it is, how perfectly cooked it is. They’ll try their hardest to figure out the seasonings like they’re solving a jigsaw puzzle. I’m giving them an experience they’ll never forget. You see, you gotta make people work for something to appreciate it, and if you hit them in the pocket, they’re gonna make damned sure they find something to appreciate.”