My Dinners with Celery - Part 1
**WARNING** Certain specific names, when recalled by me, have been replaced with their food counterparts to protect the unendingly douchey. I think it's creative. I hope you, dear reader, get it.
My current position as a cook in a high-end national hotel chain has allowed me to cook for many cool people.
I have grilled filet mignon for the CEO of the world's foremost sports-entertainment company and prepared high protein / low carb meals for many of his "Superstars" (read: large goon-like gentlemen who positively wreak of HGH).
I have cooked for entire professional sports teams (who, coincidentally, also wreak of HGH).
A-List movie stars, including an unnamed female starlet, reality singing competition judges and a well-respected character actor or two (none of whom, to my knowledge, are on the juice.).
I'm not trying to brag because - obviously - none of these important and famous people could pick me out of a line-up if I wore nothing but a sign that said "Hey, I'm the underpaid fella who made that Grouper you're eating!!". More importantly, they couldn't give 2.5oz (by weight, of course) of a shit who the hell I am. They just want their steak, well done, no matter how badly it makes my soul curdle.
I tell you all this because, after managing to please all of these A-Listers, B-Listers and even the occasional Q-Lister (not to name names, but the chick from Living Single who was not Queen Latifah OR the funny one... you know, the other one?? Anyway, that one really dug my East Coast Cioppino) I encountered someone who is both famous and powerful, and has proved not only to be difficult to please but extra demanding. In the way of anonymity, lets call this powerful lady Celery Stilton.
So Celery Stilton has been staying with us while frolicking all over the state trying to rile people up via multi-colored pantsuits with matching scarves. She also seems to talk about guns a lot. I think she may have some sort of fetish.
Anyhooo...
Celery and her entourage of hangers-on, press, daughters and black-suited scary guys, apparently like to eat. A lot. Whenever the hell they damn well feel like it. As an example, I present to you the Tale of the Birthday Bash.
Several nights ago, on an uncharacteristically busy Wednesday, my supervisor approached me roughly 15 minutes before the kitchen was to close.
"Celery is throwing a little birthday party for one of her staffers down here in a bit. I'm gonna grab a cake from the back, but it shouldn't affect you guys (read: line cooks), just be on your best behavior because the entire management team will be down here."
"OK," I replied, all the while feeling my stomach begin to tighten with the knot of a late night to be.
Boy was I right.
Apparently Mrs. Stilton's idea of a birthday party is 50 of her closest cronies, plus 20 or so M.I.B's, PLUS another 10 or fifteen press and mass-media whores, all scrambling to watch and snap pictures of Celery dishing out hastily thawed chocolate cake. All this, and Celery's husband, who happens to be a personal hero of mine, is nowhere to be found. Apparently, he was across the state trying to convince rednecks that his wife doesn't use the bill of rights as a tampon.
About five minutes into this little (read: crazy huge) swaree, the Food and Beverage manager approaches the line. Mind you, we are all but ready to leave at this point, and he informs us that they need finger food for 50 on the fly. So, myself and the two other fine pirates I was serving with that night sweat ed our way through a dozen quesadillas, a case of potstickers, enough nachos to fill the bellies of a starving African nation and innumerable special requests-such as:
"Can Celery get some sliced hot peppers?"
"Can we get sour cream and guacamole and do you have any Sarachi?"
"Can we get some hotter peppers for Celery? These aren't hot enough."
"Could I just have some grilled vegetables? I'm a vegan." (NOTE: Had there not been dudes with guns and earpieces everywhere, I'd have strangled this particular hippie.)
"Seriously, are these the hottest peppers you have? Celery likes REALLY HOT peppers."
You get the idea.
So, to wrap up this chapter, lets just say that an easy 8 hour shift turned into a hellish 11 hour shift, and sadly, it was a harbinger of things to come.
Speaking of which:
Tomorrow, my proposal for the next presidential campaign attack add.
and Later,
My Dinners with Celery Part II-Room Service (or, How To Lose Potential Votes For Dummies)
Excelsior,
Chef Derek
My current position as a cook in a high-end national hotel chain has allowed me to cook for many cool people.
I have grilled filet mignon for the CEO of the world's foremost sports-entertainment company and prepared high protein / low carb meals for many of his "Superstars" (read: large goon-like gentlemen who positively wreak of HGH).
I have cooked for entire professional sports teams (who, coincidentally, also wreak of HGH).
A-List movie stars, including an unnamed female starlet, reality singing competition judges and a well-respected character actor or two (none of whom, to my knowledge, are on the juice.).
I'm not trying to brag because - obviously - none of these important and famous people could pick me out of a line-up if I wore nothing but a sign that said "Hey, I'm the underpaid fella who made that Grouper you're eating!!". More importantly, they couldn't give 2.5oz (by weight, of course) of a shit who the hell I am. They just want their steak, well done, no matter how badly it makes my soul curdle.
I tell you all this because, after managing to please all of these A-Listers, B-Listers and even the occasional Q-Lister (not to name names, but the chick from Living Single who was not Queen Latifah OR the funny one... you know, the other one?? Anyway, that one really dug my East Coast Cioppino) I encountered someone who is both famous and powerful, and has proved not only to be difficult to please but extra demanding. In the way of anonymity, lets call this powerful lady Celery Stilton.
So Celery Stilton has been staying with us while frolicking all over the state trying to rile people up via multi-colored pantsuits with matching scarves. She also seems to talk about guns a lot. I think she may have some sort of fetish.
Anyhooo...
Celery and her entourage of hangers-on, press, daughters and black-suited scary guys, apparently like to eat. A lot. Whenever the hell they damn well feel like it. As an example, I present to you the Tale of the Birthday Bash.
Several nights ago, on an uncharacteristically busy Wednesday, my supervisor approached me roughly 15 minutes before the kitchen was to close.
"Celery is throwing a little birthday party for one of her staffers down here in a bit. I'm gonna grab a cake from the back, but it shouldn't affect you guys (read: line cooks), just be on your best behavior because the entire management team will be down here."
"OK," I replied, all the while feeling my stomach begin to tighten with the knot of a late night to be.
Boy was I right.
Apparently Mrs. Stilton's idea of a birthday party is 50 of her closest cronies, plus 20 or so M.I.B's, PLUS another 10 or fifteen press and mass-media whores, all scrambling to watch and snap pictures of Celery dishing out hastily thawed chocolate cake. All this, and Celery's husband, who happens to be a personal hero of mine, is nowhere to be found. Apparently, he was across the state trying to convince rednecks that his wife doesn't use the bill of rights as a tampon.
About five minutes into this little (read: crazy huge) swaree, the Food and Beverage manager approaches the line. Mind you, we are all but ready to leave at this point, and he informs us that they need finger food for 50 on the fly. So, myself and the two other fine pirates I was serving with that night sweat ed our way through a dozen quesadillas, a case of potstickers, enough nachos to fill the bellies of a starving African nation and innumerable special requests-such as:
"Can Celery get some sliced hot peppers?"
"Can we get sour cream and guacamole and do you have any Sarachi?"
"Can we get some hotter peppers for Celery? These aren't hot enough."
"Could I just have some grilled vegetables? I'm a vegan." (NOTE: Had there not been dudes with guns and earpieces everywhere, I'd have strangled this particular hippie.)
"Seriously, are these the hottest peppers you have? Celery likes REALLY HOT peppers."
You get the idea.
So, to wrap up this chapter, lets just say that an easy 8 hour shift turned into a hellish 11 hour shift, and sadly, it was a harbinger of things to come.
Speaking of which:
Tomorrow, my proposal for the next presidential campaign attack add.
and Later,
My Dinners with Celery Part II-Room Service (or, How To Lose Potential Votes For Dummies)
Excelsior,
Chef Derek