Trap House Cooking - Story Two
Unbelievably, another couple of drug dealers who wanted a Personal Chef and who ended up being the last dealers we would cook for.
If you just stumbled across this story, I advise you to go to the story prior to this one, Trap House Clients - Story One, and read that tale first. If you aren’t aware of what a trap house is, I’d also suggest reading the first story. since this is a two part series.
A man called me one morning in late Spring telling me he wanted to give his girlfriend the gift of a Personal Chef. They had recently moved to Walkersville, MD after a long stay in Florida, where his girlfriend had lovingly been the caretaker of the man’s elderly and dying father. His father had been a lot to deal with and had passed a few weeks ago, he told me, and they had just relocated to Maryland to “get away”. He wanted to splurge and have someone cook for them so that she could take it easy and get the rest she so deserved. Sounded like a legit request, right? What a nice partner for thinking of and thanking his Dad’s caretaker/girlfriend by getting them custom made meals. What a sweet act, indeed, I thought.
Because I only served the Baltimore metro area, I contacted my western Maryland Chef, Natalie, to see if she could take them on. She said she could, so I set a date to go to the client’s home to do the interview along with her. We would drive separately and I told her we would meet at 1pm outside the house. As I pulled up to the block of ancient rowhomes, most likely dating from the 1800’s, I noticed the windows had ripped or tattered curtains in them. The second floor window had a bed sheet simply tacked up. This did NOT look like a typical client’s home.
Natalie pulled up and we met on the sidewalk, both in our chef coats with our binders in hand. “Are you sure this is the right address?” Natalie asked, looking around and eyeing the house. “I think so,” I replied looking back at my notes. We walked up to the front door and I knocked. A ferociously sounding dog was barking from the other side of the door. A man opened the door while trying to hold back the large German shepherd that was lunging towards us. “Hold on while I put her away, “ said Mark, the man who had contacted me.
Mark was an older guy in is fifties, scruffy and disheveled looking wearing baggy jeans and an ill fitting t-shirt. He looked like he had just woken up. Once Mark returned he welcomed us in. The living room was nearly empty. A plastic folding beach chair and a large dog crate with “Cujo” now locked inside and growling. “Come in the kitchen,“ Mark said. Natalie and I looked around and we both were wondering why the house was so empty. “This is my girlfriend, Lynette,” Mark said as he introduced us to the frail thirty-something blond haired woman sitting at the kitchen table with a 7-11 cup of coffee in her hand. “Oh, hiya!” Lynette said, looking like she had also just rolled out of bed. “I can’t wait to eat all your food!”, Lynette exclaimed in a rather manic fashion. Mark then interjected and said, “This is gonna be such a blessing to have good food for us to eat, especially after we were taking care of my sick Dad for so long and just worrying about him all the time.” Lynette then looked up from lighting a cigarette at the table and said, “I hope we have enough stuff for you to cook with. We just moved here from Florida a few weeks ago, right after Mark’s Dad died, and we really dont have much stuff. We just got out of there quick-like. Left everything behind,” she said. The kitchen was a real mess to be honest. There were dirty dishes in the sink, bags of trash piled up and empty cardboard cases of beer stacked by the back door. The floor was filthy with paper, crumbs of food and dirt. “Well, let’s have a look around then,” I said as I got out my check list. I started rattling off all the things Natalie might need to cook with and with each thing I requested Lynette said “no, I don’t think so”. As the sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window, scattering the rays through the dirty vintage curtains, Natalie then stepped in and said “Ya know, this isn’t orthodox, but I could cook for you at my place and deliver the meals to you if you are OK with that.” Lynette looked happy about this idea, took another drag off her cigarette and said “Sure! Aw, that’d be great!”
Just then a knock came at the back door of the kitchen. Mark opened the door and invited a young tweaker-looking guy into the kitchen. “Oh hey, this is our chefs. They are gonna cook us some good food,” said Mark to the man. “Ah, yeah.. niiiiice. Cool, man..Uh, yeah, uh yeah man” said the tweaker scratching the back of his head while his eyes shifted all over the room. “Excuse us a sec,” said Mark as he and the sketchy guy walked into the living room and up the stairs. Natalie and I glanced at each other, seeing that both of us felt that something DEFINITELY wasn’t right here.
“Ok, Lynette, let’s get started and see what all you guys like to eat.” Natalie said, while pulling up one of the three chairs at the old table. I sat down at the other one. The cigarette smoke was hanging in the air and started to give me a headache. We began asking our usual questions and getting an idea that these two had simple palettes and simply wanted homestyle meals. Meat and potatoes, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, no fish unless it was fish sticks…just plain old American down-home cuisine.
Five minutes after the guys had gone upstairs we heard them coming back down. Tweaker boy walked right out the back door, no goodbyes or nice to meet yous. Just straight out the back in a rush. Mark came into the kitchen with a roll of cash that he was binding with a rubber band. He seemed a bit dazed as if he had just taken a hit of weed, but I couldn’t smell anything on him, just the cigarette smoke from Lynette’s chain smoking. We discussed pricing and gave them an estimate for the amount of meals they needed. They said that would be fine and asked if they could pay by check. I said that was ok and that they could simply mail me the check after Natalie cooked and they had the invoice.
We got done the interview, set a date for Natalie to deliver their meals and went outside to discuss. I told her that I was getting a vibe that they were most likey hard core drug usuers/alcholoics, maybe trying to restart their lives here. They seemed sincere about their need for meals and Mark seemed to want to lavish his girl with this gift. I asked Natalie how she felt about cooking for them at her place and delivering and she said she felt ok, as long as Lynette was there when she delivered.
Natalie had them as clients for about 3 months, cooking once every two weeks, delivering the meals on Fridays. At first they were good with paying on time, sending me a check right after they received the meals for the first two months. Then I didn’t get a check from them for a week after Natalie’s last cook. I called Lynette and she said she had forgotten and would mail one the next day. Then another week passed and I wrote to Lynette and said that Natalie couldn’t deliver another round until the previous weeks bill had been paid. Then I received a money order 4 days later. Natatie delivered another round to them after that and again, I didn’t receive a check. I called Lynette’s number over and over, numerous times each day, but no answer. I called Mark and still no answer. I emailed daily. Day after day for a month or two I wrote or called to no response. They had simply ghosted me. There was no use in trying to hire someone to try to collect because I knew that it wouldn’t be worth it.
In the end, I don’t know if they left town, were arrested or even worse, but they were the ONLY people who didn’t pay me for my service in 22 years.
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.
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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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