Trap House Clients - Story One.
You never know who's house you're walking into and what actually happens there.
First, what is a Trap House, you may ask?
Well, the definition of a Trap House is this: a place, especially an empty house, where illegal drugs are sold: as in “She was selling drugs out of a trap house.” It’s also a place where usually the drugs are kept, but the money transaction is done elsewhere to keep them separated, or vise-versa. So…now that you know, this HAS TO BE one of the more bizarre stories I have, and that there were TWO separate times that something like this happened makes it even more unbelievable.
This trap house tale begins while I was shopping at the local Giant grocery store one morning. My phone buzzed with an area code I didn’t recognize. “Chef Shirlé speaking,” I said as I put a bag of lettuce in my cart. A demeure voice replied “Hello. My name is Sascha. Is this the personal chef service?” “Yes, how can I help you?” Sascha then told me that she had a 4 year old son and that she needed help with meals. “No problem, but where are you calling from?” I asked. “We live in Boonsboro,” She replied. “Where is that? Is it in Maryland?” I asked totally perplexed. “Oh, It’s near Frederick,” Sascha said. “Oh ok, I personally don’t cook out that far. I’m in Baltimore, so that would be an hour drive for me just to get out there,“ I gently let her know. I could hear the disappointment in her voice as she responded with a quick “Oh No!” “Oh, But I do have a chef out your way who might be able to take you on as a client.” She immediately came back with an ecstatic “Oh great! You don’t know how much this will help us!” I set up a date to do the interview at Sascha’s house and then called Natalie, my Western Maryland chef, to confirm.
On the day of the interview, I drove out to Frederick to pick up Chef Natalie, a beautiful Thai-Russian woman in her forties, who had been a chef most of her life. She was in her chef coat with note book in hand, ready to go. I was in my chef whites and also had my interview book and forms. We drove about 30 minutes west of Frederick to get to Sascha’s townhouse. The neighborhood had the appearance of very low rent housing. Rows of townhouses in disrepair with trash scattered about on the sidewalks. Old mattresses piled on the brown patchy grass area. We found the house with a parking spot out front. I said to Natalie, “Well, this looks a bit sketchy, but who knows.” We both walked up to the door and rang the bell. We waited about 30 seconds and rang the doorbell again. Just then a man opened the door. He was African American, maybe in his forties wearing an oversized white tee shirt, shorts and black Adidas sandals. With a big grin he said “Hey! Y’all must be the chefs! Come on in!” He led us into the foyer on the first floor. The place reeked strongly with the smell of skunk weed (marijuana) and his eyes were lit up as red as stop lights. He stood there with us for a second in the dimly lit room looking us over and then said "Do you want to see the office? It’s right in that room,“ pointing in the direction of the only door on that floor. “Uh, sure,” I said, holding back a feeling that something seemed “off” from the get-go. Natalie and I, both feeling cautious, walked into the small office that measured maybe 8’ x 10’. It had an beige colored Ikea type desk with a small computer screen and a folding chair. Nothing else. “Cool,” I said as he walked into the room, the man following us. Looking around the nearly empty room I then immediately asked, “Hey, where’s the kitchen, please?” The man, let’s call him Trey, replied in a very stoned voice, “Ah yeah, uh, it’s upstairs.” “Great!” I said. “Can we see it please?” Trey then backed out of the room and allowed us to pass him as he pointed to the one flight of carpeted stairs heading up. “Go ahead. Go right on up, “ he said as we walked past him. He followed behind us and when I got to the top of the stairs I entered the kitchen area. To my left was a glass top kitchen table with four chairs. To my right was a carpeted large living room with curtains drawn, a 50-60” flat screen TV with an X-Box game attached on the carpet and a man laying on the floor, seemingly asleep. There was no furniture except for another folding chair off to the side of the sleeping man. In the kitchen, there was nothing on the counters at all that made it look lived in. There was however, a pipe and a cigarette lighter laying on the kitchen island. In all my years of doing this work I never had any client ever (A) smoke weed blatantly before I arrived for an interview, (B) lay out their drug paraphernalia in open sight and (C) welcome me into an empty house. Both Chef Natalie and I had ALL THE BELLS going off in our heads that something was NOT quite right here. “Where is Sascha?” I asked, sounding as calm and cool as humanly possible. “Oh, she’s upstairs, let me go get her,“ Trey said as he walked into the living room past the sleeping man. He ran up the stairs and left us alone. I looked at Natalie and gave her a look to let her know that this was not normal, AT ALL. Trey came back downstairs without Sascha and I was starting to get more and more nervous. “She sleeping up with our son, but she be down soon,” Trey said as he walked past the dude on the floor, giving him a quick kick on his leg. “Yo, get up. Chef’s here,” he said to the man. Trey returned to the kitchen and I asked if Natalie and I could take a look around to see what culinary equipment they had for us to use. Trey sat down at the table and gave us a short, “Yeah.” We started opening the cupboard doors and all the drawers only to find them empty. Again, alarm bells were blasting in our heads. Chef Natalie then said, “Did you guys just move in?” “Ah, yeah, something like that,“ Trey sleepily replied. “Well, I will need things to cook with,” Natalie said. “Oh, you can buy anything you need and I’ll give you the money now,” he said while pulling out the biggest roll of dollar bills I had ever seen. “Oh no, You don’t need to do that! We can get everything and add it to your bill after she cooks for you” I stated forcefully. “You sure?” he asked while he began pulling off hundred dollar bills, one after the other and throwing them towards us on the kitchen table. “No man, it’s cool. I need to keep my books straight and plus, I don’t take cash.”
Just then Sascha came into the kitchen by herself. She was a petite African American woman wearing a blue head wrap as well as a long flowing day dress. “Hello,” she meekly said while sitting down at the table. “Hey there Sascha. I’m Chef Shirlé and this is Chef Natalie, who will be cooking for you,” I said, feeling more comfortable now seeing her there. “So nice meeting you Sascha!,” Natalie said brightly. “Ok, so let’s do this!” Trey exclaimed.
Sascha and Trey both sat at each end of the oval glass table while Natalie and I sat across from each other. My back was to the kitchen and the living room was to my left. Natalie had full view of both. We started the interview, both opening up our books and getting out our pencils to start taking notes, trying to act as though this was the most normal setting in the World. First, I asked all the basic intake info: names, phone numbers, who the main contact would be and email addresses. Then we got into the food portion: their likes, dislikes, favorite cuisines, favorite meals for their child and so on. Sascha had been mainly quiet the whole entire time with Trey answering most of the questions. As we continued with the questionnaire, Trey suddenly yelled loudly to the man in the living room who was now playing a game on the Xbox. “Yo! You need to get in here. You gonna be eating too. Yo, get yo ass in here!!” The man, who Trey then introduced as Sascha’s brother, but with no name given, walked into the kitchen and stood directly behind me. Natalie and I gave him a chipper “hello” but he didn’t really reply, simply leaning against the kitchen island with his arms folded looking at Natalie. Sascha then brought up to us that Trey travels a bunch and so we would be mainly cooking for her, her child and her brother. I asked Trey what he did for a living. “Oh, I’m a DJ and a rapper. I tour all over the place. Been all over the planet. I’m 100% big time!,” he boasted. “Wow!” Natalie exclaimed. “Would I have heard of you?” she asked smiling. “My husband’s a musician!” she included. “Ahhhh, I don’t think so. You gotta be on a certain level. I do private parties for the elite. Fly all over in lear jets and shit, where ever they need me. I make 10K a show. I get paid!” Trey said, pulling out his roll of cash again. Natalie then turned to Trey and said in the most gentle and kind voice, “May I ask you a personal question Trey?” to which he replied “Sure.” “You don’t have to answer, as it’s really none of my business, but may I ask you why you are living here in this house then?” My stomach dropped. I never usually asked people what they did, and felt that this was a super personal question. Ballsy even, but the way Natalie asked was from a place of love and true curiosity. “Oh, this is just temporary while we finish our mansion we are having built up aways,” Trey said. “Oooooh. I see, “ Natalie said smiling. “Yeah, all this is just for now. But wait till you get to cook in that kitchen! Marble counters, two stoves… Ima get you ALL sorts of people to cook for! Only the richest people, too. You be cooking for the elite and Ima fly you all over with me sometimes. Have my personal chef with me! Yo, that’s what Ima talkin’ `bout!”, Trey shouted, while looking out in space daydreaming. “Oh, wow!” Natalie laughed. “I don’t think my husband would let me do all that, plus aren’t the meals for Sascha and your little boy? I assume I’ll be cooking here for them, right?” Trey looked down and didn’t reply.
At this point I was thinking that NONE of this made sense. I then said, “Well, I think we have enough info here to get started. Chef and I will get a menu together and email it to you Sascha for your OK. Does that sound alright with you guys?” to which Sascha quietly shook her head yes.
We gathered our stuff and walked back down the stairs to the dark front door area and I quickly found the door knob with Trey following behind. “Ok, I’ll be in touch soon,” I said as we walked out.
As soon as Natalie and I got in the car I turned to her and said, “Hey, just so you know, you will NEVER have to go in there to cook for them. I don’t know what’s up with that situation, but something was off,” to which Natalie said “THANK YOU!”
Two days later, while I was cooking for another client, I was telling my full-time assistant chef, a young rapper named Drucifer, about our interview and how they had nothing in the house except the TV and Xbox and minimal furniture. D said laughly, “Yo, that’s def a trap house!” I was like, “What’s a trap house?!” Drucifer then explained, that it is either the pick up place for the drugs or the pay out place where the cash was kept and in his personal opinion their whole story was complete bullshit. He also asked me the name of the man and said he had never heard of him before, and that unknown MC’s definitely don’t get asked to be flown places with “elites”.
I then had to figure out a way to get Natalie out of this situation, as they only had my contact information. I emailed Sascha and told her that Natalie had quit cooking because her and her family had to move out of town suddenly and that I was at a loss for a chef near them. Sascha never replied.
Until next week, Thanks so much for following along on this journey! If you enjoy Secrets and Spice please make sure you subscribe to get each weeks story emailed directly to you. Also, if you would like access to any of my recipes please consider a paid subscription. It’s one of the perks of becoming a paid supporter. (it’s only $5 a month or $50 for the year)
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Thank you again,
- Shirlé
**All names, places and occupations have been changed to protect the identity of all clients.
Please leave a comment or two…I’d love to hear from you!
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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