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The Brunchies
Lunch cooks come in a variety of flavors. There are the serious ones planning careers, seeing the drudgery of the day kitchen as a necessary evil on the road to that exec job in the sky and the ones who have habits, measured in grams, shots or chips-- potato or poker. The best, though, are the old experienced cooks with nothing to prove. The ones who are there to make sure that the Chef's Salad goes out with all the trimmings and that the fries on the Special House Burger are at least close to crisp. Jim was my favorite, Tom Waits on a shingle-- burned and rolled. He was old enough to be thinking retirement, but as a longtime hardtime cook he hadn't a prayer of ever getting out. He had squandered whatever money he had on all manner of mischief and mayhem. Jim had serious glaucoma, a sad and dangerous disease, which required that he constantly wear dark glasses. Not some trendy attitude tints, mind you, what we are talking about here is black welding glass in military issue frames. Wearing those things you or I could look straight into Nevada on a test day and not even blink, but Jim's brow was permanently furrowed from squinting out the painful light. The best thing about working Sunday brunch with Jim was the fact that he had a prescription. A special script for his glaucoma. He was allowed medicinal marijuana and being a good cook he took pride in making good things taste great. His triumph was the sticky, oily black hash he baked into double fudge walnut brownies that tasted like freedom. Jim liked a happy kitchen. When we arrived in the early am each and every server, busser, bartender and cook would troupe past the line and say good morning to Chef Jim as he prepped his egg bennies. Jim would whisk his Hollandaise and nod at the dead ticket basket on the line. It was filled with little foil cubes the size of dice. After the brownies kicked in during the second seating there was always enough laughing and story-telling to make the morning scoot. Jim had done so many brunches he could automatic pilot it even when we couldn't. At three when we had pushed the last Ramos Fizz and sunnyside out the door we all sat down to a feast. The very stoned staff tucked into all the exotic muffins, fruit, sausage, blintzs and pastry that wouldn't keep until the following Sunday. --Gary Epting |
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