A Love of Cheese , An Oven Fire & Some Salt.
The day I witnessed my "Silent Bob" assistant chef save the freaking day.
Andrew, my assistant chef, was a veteran of the line-cook life. He had worked many a greasy spoon as well as a few high end haunts in and around Baltimore. His demeanor was a cross between a judgy Millennial combined with the character Silent Bob in the movie “Clerks”.
This particular day, Andrew and I were cooking at a client’s house named Julie. She lived in a lovely wooded Baltimore city neighborhood in an old bungalow style house. She was a strict vegetarian, almost vegan in fact, except for her love of cheese. That was the one thing she would never part with. Even the faux formage I would sometimes try in her meals couldnt cut it for her.
One afternoon while we were dicing, slicing and listening to one of our “Stories” as Andrew mockingly called our podcast choices, with that afternoon’s selelction being ‘Serial’, I began making Julie a zuccnini gratin casserole. Layers of sliced, salted and drained zucchini, cut on the bias, topped with a cheddar-rosemary cheese sauce that would be topped off with a layer of buttered breadcrumbs. I popped the casserole onto the lower rack in the preheated gas oven, closing the door and getting onto the next main dish on her menu. As I was stuffing a butternut squash with a Moroccan minted quinoa salad, Andrew and I were thouroughly focused on the story at hand, a tale about a highschool girl who went missing one evening while her ex boyfriend was being acused of her murder. About 30 minutes had passed and as I turned to walk to the oven to check on the gratin casserole I noticed a bright light emmanation from within. I opened the door to see a raging fire coming up through the slatted vents on the bottom of the oven.
“HOLY SHIIIIT!, I yelled, Andrew turning around to see the fire blazing. “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! WHERE’S A GODDAMN TOWEL?!! I yelled, moving like a chicken without a head. As I started running around the kitchen to find any kind of towel I could use to tamp down the flames (which, by the way, would have been one of THEEE worst ideas, beside maybe throwing a bucket of water on it), Andrew ever so calmly, picked up the box of Kosher salt with brought with us and nonchalantly walked to the oven, dousing the flames as he generaously poured almost the entire box, completely squelching the fire.
“Oh My God! Thank you A!”, I said, trembling like a leaf on a tree as I had seen, within 30 seconds in my mind’s eye, Julie’s house going up completely in flames and it being all my fault. “No worries,” he mumbled as he turned off the oven and returned to dicing an onion.
“Ok, we are going to have to totally clean this stove out,” I said as I looked at the white powder now coating eveything inside. Andrew glanced over but I could tell he was NOT going to help in the clean up.
Once the oven had a chance to cool down, I pulled out the now kosher salt-crusted casserole and set it aside to cool before having to trash it. I realized that the bottom of the oven had a plate where the flames had come up from, it being screwed into place. “Shit!” I said to myself. Luckily. I traveled with a leatherman tool, a swiss army knife all-in-one set with various screw drivers, a bottle opened and allen wrenches galore. I pain stakingly unscrewed the 6 screws that held the lower plate in place. Once that was removed I had to scoop out the burnt remnamnts of molten cheese that had bubbled up and over the sides of the dish, dripping into the bottom where the fire of the pilot light and burners were. It was a total mess and took nearly an hour to scape, scrub, clean and replace. Luckly, Andrew soildered on with that week’s menu, cooking what he could manage on the stove top while stepping around me. Anything that needed baking or roasting had to wait until I was done cleaning. Back in business, we cooked off the last items in the oven with me warily looking over my shoulder every 5 minutes, just in case I noticed a flame or bright light coming from the oven.
Now two hours behind schedule, but with a fully clean and safely working oven, we finished Julie’s menu. And thankfully, soley due to Andrew’s quick thinking and cool headedness, she was none the wiser about the near miss of catching her beloved house on fire. She did ask however, why I hadnt made her that famous Zucchini Casserole.
Until next week, thanks so much for following along on this journey!
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Thank you again,
- Shirlé
PS: All names, places and occupations have been changed to protect the identity of all clients.
A Shout Out to this Weeks Paid Supporters:
A very special shout out to the following paid subscribers:
Robinlee Garber, Chef Lynn Warlick Wells, Jake Brokaw, Miyuki Furtado and Spanky Wilson, . A special shout out to new paid subscribers Myra Ruppe Schwartz, Lisa Deemer Sethi and Claudia L Sanders, Laurel Estabrooks and Leela Montella,! Thank you all soooo much for your support!
-Leela is a person I have known since kindergarten. She has made a lovely life for her and her family and I love watching her kids success stories.
-Myra is an old NC friend who I recently got to see here in beautiful Lisbon with her partner Scott. Maybe someday they will become expats in this fair land.
-Robinlee is a childhood friend and all around renaissance woman, living and playing music in Chicago.
-Chef Lynn is a fellow Personal Chef buddy and owner of Thyme Well Spent, Personal Chef Service, based out of Greensboro NC. When not cooking for clients or food styling for cookbooks, she can be found hobnobbing with tastemakers and culinary shakers all over the country.
-Jake and his wife Brigitte have long been huge supporters of my cooking and are also huge supporters of the arts in Baltimore, Maryland. Jake also has an Orthopedic practice I have had to use a few times.
-Miyuki has been a lifelong friend and bandmate of mine from days long past. He’s also one of the best fathers and husbands I know and has raised one of the coolest kids, his daughter Mino along with his sweet wife Tricia. Miyuki currently plays music in his Alt-Country band, Divining Rod. You can listen to Divining Rod out on all music platforms. (Chef Lynn, I think you would LOVE his music!)
-Spanky has been a huge supporter of my cooking from my NC days. When not fire fighting you might find Spanky hiking the Appalachian trail.
-Lisa has been in my life since the early 90’s. She’s a huge music supporter and a lover of all things delicious.
-Claudia is an old friend from my days in North Carolina. I met Claudia at a pig pull back in 1998, when I first moved to Chapel Hill. Since then, Claudia has started a successful Personal Chef business, Good Intentions Personal Chef Service in the Hillsborough area, as well as serving the Durham and Chapel Hill area.
-Laurel Estabrooks is a new expat friend, recently becoming a Portuguese resident. Parabens!! Someday I hope to meet up face to face. Muito Obrigada Laurel!!
Thank you all sooo much for supporting me in this endeavor. I am truly grateful for you.
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