Once I had my reputation, I came back to the States for a while. My parents smiled politely when I told them about what I'd done. One of my sisters, you see, was studying to be a neurosurgeon - and my mother simply didn't understand why I needed to "show off" by cooking for someone other than family. I should get a nice stable job and find a nice girl, and cook for her. And of course, our children.
I stayed for as long as I could stand it. There were a few good jobs in Boston, and a few bad ones, but it was one of the bad ones where I met someone with deep enough pockets to finance my first restaurant, back in London.
Much as I loved the city where I grew up, it was time to return to my roots.
I missed my father's funeral while I was opening my third restaurant, this one in Paris. My mother didn't bother telling me until afterwards, and it took me years to forgive her. By the time Beckett called me to tell me that she was in the hospital, I had six Michelin stars, and - if you believe the industry articles - the world on a silver platter.
I got back to Boston in time to say goodbye, but barely.
After that, I spent some time drifting in the city, visiting some of the famous restaurants and some of the not-so-famous ones. The first time I met Jillian I was angry, not at her, but at her circumstances. I was angry at her boss and angry at the fact that he had no choice but to cut corners in order to survive. I was angry at my mother. I was angry at myself.
It wasn't my best moment, but as always - I'll stand by what I said.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nouvelle Cuisine
While I don't favor slavish devotion to any one philosophy of food, the ideals of nouvelle cuisine appeal to my sensibilities. Fresh, light, and simple, with an emphasis on attractive presentation and letting the food be its own advocate. But at the same time, sometimes you simply need a good cuisine classique staple. What would a lasagne be without béchamel? Innovation, however, is always welcome in my kitchen.
- Excerpted from Dylan: A Lifetime of Recipes
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Jill
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Unbelievable.
What an insane, arrogant psycho jerk. No, that didn't even cover it. I didn't even have words in my vocabulary to describe the kind of man that Chef Dylan was.
And now you're working for him.
I fumed the whole ride home, but by the time I got there, either the passage of time or the slow rocking of the train had lulled me into complacency.
I'd just walked in the door from walking Heidi, barely kicking the door closed, when my phone rang.
"Ms. Brown? This is Lydia Allbright, I'm handling the hiring paperwork for Chef Dylan's Trattoria. How are you doing this evening?"
"I'm great. Thank you." For some reason, I hadn't actually expected Chef to move this quickly. "How are you?"
"Good, good." Her keyboard clacked in the background. "I just want to go over a few preliminary things with you, and then I'll email you a few things to fill out and sign. This would be a little easier in person, but I'm not going to be in the area for a few more weeks, and Chef made it very clear that he wanted to fast-track you."#p#分页标题#e#
I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "That's fine," I said. "I, uh, I don't have a scanner, though."
"Oh, it's all electronic signatures. Don't worry about it." She made a few soft tsking noises. "It'll just be a few minutes, this thing's still trying to load. Congratulations on the new job, by the way. We were so close to opening I was starting to worry he wouldn't find anyone."
Flipping a pen around in my fingers, I tried to picture how some of the failed interviews might have gone. Those poor people. Or maybe they were the lucky ones. "Were there a lot of applicants to go through?"
"Oh, you have no idea." Lydia laughed. "I had to do the first round of screenings. I thought it would never end. After he got ahold of your application, I don't know who was more excited - me, or him. It was just one more position off the checklist, but it felt like a minor victory. I don't think I have to explain why the positions working most closely with Chef can be the most difficult to fill."
"Sure, sure," I said. "Speaking of, do you have any idea what's going on with the sous chef position? He didn't mention anything about it."
Lydia clicked her tongue. "I wish I could tell you - but he hasn't mentioned it to me, either. I've learned by now not to question the way Chef Dylan goes about things, even if it doesn't seem to make any sense."
I had a feeling that I was going to be following that principle quite a bit, whether I liked it or not.
When she finally managed to pull up the files on her computer and started rattling off numbers to me, my jaw dropped. Chef Dylan hadn't been kidding about his salaries being competitive. My heart started beating faster at the mere thought of having a decent paycheck again. And really, this was beyond decent. I'd be able to pay off those credit card bills. Get my cable turned back on. Maybe even buy a TV that didn't have so many dead pixels that it looked like a half-finished jigsaw puzzle...