With a few exceptions, there was a bit of a rotating cast of sous chefs as well as line cooks. Rotating sous chefs were a line cook’s roulette as personality clashes were inevitable. The wrong sous chef at the wrong time usually meant a venue change, if not the end of a career.
One that was particularly hard to work with was Dax. Looking and acting like he just strolled out of a Dropkick Murphys concert, Dax was your classic sous chef, a Boston Bruiser with the flappy sad face of a bulldog. This cook-made-sous had worked his way up in kitchens across the country, and had washed up in New Orleans with the excuse of learning Creole cuisine. More in line with reality, the relocation was probably because of a healthy regiment of boozing, which he never quite seemed able to separate himself from.
Dax had his moments of endearment, especially towards the beginning as he was in a new place and actively trying to bond with his cooks, whom he was closer to in age (mentally if not physically given he was part of the same generation, just the previous decade). We would talk about the 80s-90s punk rock scene in Boston, and he would proudly relate his tales. He had seen all the greats and loved to recount the shows and stomping around Beantown in his youth. He would also share food knowledge, an indispensable treat of the trade for a leader in the kitchen. When Dax was having a good day and wasn’t feeling stressed, he would smile and laugh behind the expo line, joke with the wait staff. He could be a real crowd pleaser.
But our new sous was manic depressive, it was soon revealed, so you never knew exactly which Dax you were going to get: the cuddly tattooed chef that loves food and wants to teach, or the bitter, depressed, and frazzled overgrown teenager that could not keep up with his workload. The latter was only exasperated by his hangovers, and towards the end, much to everyone’s chagrin (including his own), this Dax would be the one that showed up to work most often. On these days, our poor sous found it hard to keep his head up. By the end, he’d bury it in his arms in the expo window like a sick puss or the kid in grade school that would climb into his desk if he could.
A kitchen is all about routine and patterns, so some lifetimers feel they have to switch kitchens to change. And change is possible; I’ve seen miraculous back of the house conversions, but more often than not, after a few months of working you see the real problems come out. If Althusser was a chef, he might have even more to say about interpellation, as there are roles just waiting to be played in every kitchen too. Dax assumed his as hard knock sous chef in ours quite naturally.
For instance, on Sundays when Chef was off, spending two well-deserved days with his family, it’s the Dax Show, same as it the Pappardelle Show—as the two sous chefs were left responsible. The first few weeks of Sundays went surprisingly well as Dax was trying to impress Chef Money and everyone else he had to, therefore restraining his other self and his nighttime activities. But without—if this had been a movie—a smooth transition, the Dax Show quickly devolved. After these few good months, odds no longer needed to be laid, us line cooks knew exactly which Dax we were getting on Sundays.
Because of his divisiveness, especially in this state, it would not be an overstatement to say Dax and I had a contentious relationship. But it was one in which we avoided each other for the most part. Punk drunk knows punk drunk. He rode me when he needed to and I would say something smart before putting my head down for the most part. In kitchens, authority is more or less ultimate. Dax might have needed to go through Chef to fire me, but he certainly had the hierarchy to make my life a living hell. He didn’t, for one reason. Besides food, music, and drinking (which to be fair was the major content of our lives at that point), Dax and I shared a complete disdain for authority. It must have been his residual punk mentality. And for me, well, Dax was an authority, a hypocritical one at that. His build may have been stronger than mine, but his mind was gelatin. So I got a few over on him and he would let me slide as he knew he was playing this authority role half-heartedly, and most likely he had enough reflexiveness to know he was grating his credibility as the weeks and months rolled downstream.
Despite our struggles, one evening I spent with Dax was probably the most memorable and creative course I had in a professional kitchen. Remoulade’s was a corporate kitchen with half a dozen locations. It was a Saturday and we were busy, probably around 350 covers, which was about Remoulade’s capacity (I remember one or two nights in the height of our prime, probably both reputationally and functionally, where we tried to turn almost 400). Those nights weren’t too pretty for anyone involved. After that and with the inevitable ebb of talent and teams, we hovered a little above the 325 mark on big weekend nights. But not all guests are created equal.
We took care of our own. You see so often a VIP was someone within the company. I know I got some amazing meals thrown at me at Rem’s, not to mention other locations in the company, especially when the table is full of cooks. I never give too much of a flip for who was the name of the VIP, but I always wanted to impress the chefs. Once you learn food and the ways to prepare and present it in a professional kitchen, it’s not hard to impress people accustomed to grocery store meat and potatoes or folks that regularly eat something frozen. Comparatively cooking for a chef is the ultimate test. If you make a chef drool, want more, or, even more, swallow his ego to the point where he’ll (in those days it was mostly male with the exception of the beloved Susan Spicer) pay you a compliment, then, and only then, you have done something. Well on this particular evening with Dax, it wasn’t a chef we were trying to impress (funnily enough those nights didn’t stick in my memory or make as much of an impression), it was our chanterelle purveyor.
That golden-spored night Dax and I bonded beyond our previous experiences of drunken commiseration and musical ethos allowed. We bonded creatively. It started for me as just another Saturday on pastry, bored out of my mind, essentially warming up ovens. I was already dreaming up the midnight pizza for the crew, a covert nightly mission that had turned me instantly popular with my fellow line cooks. During prep, I would make different crusts and doughs, experimenting alongside bread-making, the only other creative agency I had on the station that consists solely of plating up pre-made desserts (adorned with berries and sticky drizzles of every variety), cutting bread, and scooping ice cream.
In pastry’s beginning lull of service, while waiting for guests to dawdle towards dessert, I dreamt up pizzas and fiddle fucked around with whatever triviality or diversion I could find. There was at least an hour before any dessert tickets were popping out of the station’s printer (yet another sign of pastry’s inferiority; it didn’t even require or deserve a chef expeditor). The poetic justice of this lag is at close when all the other cooks are cleaning up, goofing, texting their friends, dealers, and distractions for the evening. While all the other cooks were anticipating momentarily being off and hitting the city, orders to pastry incessantly print. It is not uncommon to look at that little black box and see a projectile vomit of perforated tickets reaching the floor. Even though it’s probably the diners’ indecisiveness, I blamed the waiters for sending things in one at a time. Their lack of consolidation evidenced their stupidity. Death by a thousand pastry tickets. Luckily break down and cleanup of this station could be accomplished in a flash, albeit a sticky one.
It was one of Dax’s good nights. I knew the moment Dax came up to me. Remember I tried to avoid him, and while it’s difficult to avoid your sous chef for the evening on the line, it is entirely possible on pastry, and it became my specialty. His eyes were yogurt-white and reflective as a stainless steel bowl. He had showered and his apron and toke were pristine. Even his skin seemed to have a faint glow, all of which led me to believe he’d probably gotten laid that afternoon before coming in. Regardless this is the Dax I enjoyed working with as he comes with a provocation: “Wanna freestyle some poor fuck out of his mind tonight?” Which reminds me of another classic Dax line, where he described the first time he tasted Humboldt Fog cheese: “That cheese changed my whole perspective on shit.” There is only one answer to a question like that from a sous chef: “Fuck yea.” The kitchen wasn’t often a place of eloquence.
The challenge, or Battle if this was Iron Chef America (which aired a year after this dinner was prepared): “chanterelles for each dish.” And at Rem’s that meant: 1 amuse bouche, 1 gueule, and 5 courses, the last of which was dessert. If it was a VIP or chef, the last two usually consisted of a copious sampling of our goods in house termed “a meat wheel” and “dessert storm.” But our mission tonight was a little different. We weren’t just showing off the menu and specials. We were to kill this purveyor with his own product—to redefine what he thought of as his essence. No simple task, and to impress the weight of the challenge Dax dropped a wooden case full of the most golden orange freshly-foraged chanterelles sourced locally from North Louisiana on my wooden table, the most coveted possession of pastry besides the ice cream maker. This bestowal was akin to Prometheus handing down fire. I stared into the living embers before me prepared to harness them to the best of my abilities. The funny thing is only one course seared into my memory, the dessert. I recall Dax gave me free reign but we compared ideas collaboratively. No do this or that. More of this herb or cheese combines better with chanterelles than that. Don’t do a butter sauce; do a cream. That sort of thing. We prepared chanterelles in every way imaginable that night: fried, blended, marinated, confited, sauteed, roasted, and grilled. But we really tried to avoid the obvious things, always searching for a way to as I would later learn the poet Ezra Pound would dictate to, “Make it new.” Tiny tweaks on expectations, a creative playfulness really bonded Dax and I that evening as we half-heartedly juggled performing all our regular service duties given we were completely consumed by this chanterelle tasting. For the last course, Dax was too busy with other parties and expediting that he just delegated to me. “Cheesecake,” he wished.
I had to execute a chanterelle cheesecake from scratch and honestly I could never replicate it nor have I tried since, but I remember slightly roasting the chanterelles, cutting and ricing them, making the cheesecake molds out of paper cups and the bottom crust from graham and cinnamon, putting in the water bath to cook on the bottom oven. I fretted the entire time that it wouldn’t set, or the consistency would be off. Or as soon as I took off the mold it would sob into a dairy puddle. I continually checked the bottom oven just peeking and tapping the damn things, for any indication that they would hold. I waited for the tiniest bit of color and then pulled them out. I tried one with a long toothpick. Not gooey. I held my breath as I peeled away the mold and released a sigh of relief when I saw the small towers had integrity. The purveyor’s table was a 3-top, so I had made six. I tasted one. Dax tasted it. Dax brought it over to Chef Money to taste (this was a Saturday). Even Chef agreed, this oddity was prepared to the height of succulence. In Rem’s, the highest compliment we ever gave each other was something was: “ROLLIN.” For garnish, I’m sure there was a zig zag of Johnny Walker Red caramel involved and maybe several black berries or a sprig of mint, but I’ll never forget the result: a semi-sweet, but also semi-savory chanterelle cheesecake—that defying all odds was actually delicious. It was one of the most rewarding experiences I ever had creatively or professionally since, and honestly it must be credited to Dax. Dax checked himself into rehab a few weeks later and we never saw him again.
Vincent A. Cellucci wrote Absence Like Sun (Lavender Ink, 2019) and An Easy Place / To Die (CityLit Press, 2011). His most recent release is ~getting away with everything (Unlikely Books, 2021), co-authored with Christopher Shipman. After 18 carnivals, he left Louisiana and moved to the Netherlands. He currently works at the TU Delft Library and combines poetry and technology at the Leiden University, while writing a memoir based on his experiences cooking in fine dining in New Orleans.