You Down with OCD? Yeah, You Know Me.
When a client wanted to keep everything looking like brand new...even their cookware.
Over the years, I got a lot of requests to cook for busy professionals. These folks were my bread and butter. People who lived such busy lives that it was nearly impossible to cook for themselves due to long work hours or constant travel. Such was the case for this young newly married couple of power surgeons. Both of them worked insane hours and had done their residency stints at prestigious hospitals and were now embarking on full fledged surgery on the daily, if not hourly. Ellen, the wife, had contacted me about my service and sounded fairly desperate when she called.
On a beautiful Spring day, I went to their house to do the initial consult with Ellen. Ken was scheduled for surgery all that day, so he couldn’t be there. Ellen, a petite woman with thick jet black hair that was tied in a top knot, was very cordial offering me water when we sat at the kitchen table. After I did the initial intake questions we got into the “meat” of my query.
They both liked to eat healthy preferring almost all meats and fish. They requested that there be many vegetable sides in all future menus. Their diet had been full-on American with burgers and fries and pot roast as staples of their diets. Although, growing up with Asian ancestry their childhood food had been lovingly made by their mothers and grandmothers with traditional meals of rice, vegetables, spicy sambal pastes, fresh limes and many fish dishes.
“Any allergies or dietary restrictions for either you or Ken?”
“Nope. We absolutely love everything!”
“Awesome!” I proclaimed.
“Let’s talk about cuisines. What are your favorites?”, I asked.
“We seriously love all cuisines. But maybe we won’t have you cook traditional Thai things as I’m sure it wouldn’t be able to compete with our Mom’s cooking”, she laughingly said. I agreed wholeheartedly! Food memories are strong. I’ve found that when clients have fond memories of family meals, it’s impossible to even try to recreate them. I mean, NO ONE could ever match the mastery of my Mom’s fried chicken or chicken & dumplings. Not even me. I did, however, promise them I would make them one of my most requested recipes, my Italian Meatloaf, that was loaded with mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomatoes and fresh basil. She sounded super excited!
After we got through the food questionnaire, I asked her to give me a tour of the kitchen.
“Lets see your pots and pans.”, I asked.
“Weeeeell...this is what we normally cook with…if we even try to cook.” she impishly replied as she reached into a cabinet under the large marble topped island in the center of the kitchen. She pulled out a cheap, thin, tin pot with chipped white baked-on enamel with a sad 1970’s puke green and baby poop yellow design painted on one side.
“It was my Grandmother’s, so we usually use this stuff.”
There were more matching pieces. A skillet that would have burned a slice of bacon in a matter in seconds even on low heat. A saucepan that without much effort probably would have scorched a jar of Ragu sauce in minutes. It was probably the worst cookware I had ever come across. Totally unusable. Ellen watched my expression as I eyed her Grannie’s pots and then she quietly said, ”You know, I have a bunch of cookware that me and my husband received for our wedding. We had a gift registry and haven’t ever used any of it. It’s in the garage. Do you want to see it?”
I exclaimed, “Sure!”
She took me to the garage door in the kitchen and opened it. We walked inside and there, in the dim light, I saw two towers of boxes, from floor to ceiling, marked with the word CALPHALON on each of them. Every single piece of CALPHALON cookware, from pots to pans to skillets to roasting pans to grill pans were stacked neatly in a corner of the garage, one on top of the other.
“You have had these since you got married?!” I asked.
“Yes. We just haven’t wanted to use them. Or had time.”
She paused as she looked at me eyeing up the towers, most likely with my mouth open.
“Would you like to use any?” she asked.
“YES!, uh, if that’s ok with you?” I stammered.
“Sure! Pick out what you need and I’ll have them ready for you when you come to cook.”
I picked out five basic pieces. A large skillet for frying or sautéing. A large soup pot for soups and stews. A small saucepan, for well…sauces. A smaller skillet and a small saucepan. She already had baking sheets in her kitchen that were sufficient. I left the house feeling great about cooking for her and was excited to use that new cookware.
A few days later, on the date we had set, I came to the house, key in hand, and unlocked the door. The clients weren’t home and I imagined them in some operating room working diligently on some poor soul in need of expert help. I immediately got started, prepping all the meats and veggies getting them in the appropriate pots, pans, skillets and baking sheets. All went super smooth and I had knocked out a two week menu in just under 3 hours. I left the kitchen spotless with a bouquet of flowers in a vase on her kitchen island. They had forgotten to leave me a blank signed check, but I knew they were good for it and definitely didn’t seem like the kind of people who would stiff me. I would simply reach out to them tomorrow about the payment.
When I got home that evening I did what I always do, I put away my bags and went on my computer to check my email. It was 7pm and I saw that Ellen had sent me an email. It said the following:
“Hey Chef Shirlé! We got home and the house smelled so fantastic! We had the fish dish, as you suggested, and it was truly amazing. My husband and I are really thankful for the healthy and delicious meal that was waiting for us! And thank you so much for the flowers! So sweet! I did, however, want to bring to your attention that I noticed some scratches and dings on our new cookware. My $169 Calphalon 8 qt soup pot had some scrape marks on the bottom. My $149 skillet had a couple scratches on the bottom, too. My $129 saucepan had some marks on the side I hadn’t noticed before.”
I was completely caught off guard by the later half of her email and racked my brain as to how ANY of these damages might have happened. I had only used plastic or wood cooking utensil, so I was completely confused. I immediately called her to see if I could come over to see for myself. And I was worried that they would be the first clients to not pay me for the service. Why would she have written the prices of each pan? It just struck me as strange…or a way to get out of paying the bill. I immediately drove back over to their house.
When I arrived at their house, I rang the doorbell. Ken, the husband, answered and said, “You must be the Chef?” I nodded yes. He left the door opened as he turned to walk into the house with me following behind.
“Honey!!! Chef’s here!” he yelled while laughing. I walked into the kitchen to find the three pieces of cookware laid out on the kitchen island under three pendant lights. Ellen came into the kitchen and was smiling brightly. “Oh hey, I forgot to leave you a check. Here it is”, handing me the payment in full. I thanked her and then said, “Ok. Let’s see these pans.”
She then picked up the one closest to her and began holding it up on an angle close to the light. “There!” she pointed while still moving the pan in a circle motion. “No, wait!…It’s there!…Wait, hang on…I swore I saw it on this one.” I was hovering behind her trying to see anything at all in the way of a scratch. Nothing. She then picked up the second one and flipped it over. “Uhhhh, ok. Now where did I see that ding?” Again, I was trying to see what she might have seen, but nothing was there. Just then her husband walked into the room. “Hon, did you tell Chef about your OCD?” to which she immediately barked back a rapid fire “NO!” I caught his eye as he was opening their mail on the counter. “You’ll have to excuse my wife. She has terrible OCD and thinks she sees things that aren’t there, specifically on brand new things. Like, when she goes to Barnes and Nobles, she will buy three of the same book, bring them home and then inspect them under that light. She’ll keep the one that seems the most perfect and return the others. It’s a thing with her.” I suddenly realized what I was up against.
“You know Ellen, these pans really love getting used. The more they get used the better they will make food taste. They may get marks on them, or as we call it “seasoned”, with oil that has layered itself onto the pan, but believe me, it will make your food taste soooo much better. And I promise, I will never use metal utensils inside of them”, I said calmly. She turned to me to say she was sorry. It would be hard for her to see them not looking as perfect as when they were just taken out of the box. But, she agreed that she would let me continue using them. I left feeling good about our relationship and now had an even better understanding of their needs and what was expected of me.
Two weeks later, I returned to make another round of meals for them. Everything ran smoothly again. Although, when I opened the fridge to put away that week’s meals, I saw I needed to rearrange their refrigerator to make it all fit. They had a large rectangular Brita that was filled with a mysterious blue liquid. I assumed it was kool aid or a powerade type drink. It had a spigot on the front for easy dispensing. I moved it to the other side of the fridge to make things fit. I loaded up the fridge with the meals and then started cleaning the counters. When I turned around, a few minutes later, I noticed blue liquid all over the floor in front of the refrigerator. “OMG! WHAT THA?!” I yelled, running over to open the door. Somehow, when I moved that Brita container, I must have placed it where the shelf on the door had pressed the spigot, releasing the entire contents of the blue liquid. It was all over every shelf, all the way from the top to the bottom, and all over the floor. I quickly looked around for a mop, paper towels, ANYTHING that I could use to clean this up. I talked out loud as if I was speaking to someone, just in case the clients had a camera on me I didn’t know about (Some clients would actually watch me in their kitchen from work, a few admitted, so I knew this was a possibility). “Hey there…just looking for a mop and a bucket. Had a spill and need to clean it up”, I said as I walked into spaces I hadn’t been in before like a mudroom and the laundry room. No luck! They must have had a cleaning person bring their own cleaning supplies because I couldn’t find anything to clean the mess up. The only thing they had was one roll of paper towels and some counter spray under the sink.
I began pulling out everything from the fridge placing each item on the counter. I tried to scoop out the liquid into a metal baking pan so that I wouldn’t use all their paper towels trying to sop up the mess. After I got most of the blue juice removed, I then sprayed it down with counter cleaner and wiped it dry. Next up was the floor. They had an off white vinyl floor, that no matter how much I sprayed and wiped, it was still sticky feeling under my sneakers. I had to wedge paper towels under the fridge as well, trying to get up as much of the liquid UNDER the fridge. I knew that if I tried rolling out the refrigerator I would possibly damage their floor or worse, pull the water line out from the back. So, on my hands and knees, I opted to just wedge paper towels under it instead.
After an hour, I was finally able to feel somewhat OK with the clean up job I did but, was late in getting to the next client’s home. I left Ellen a note to let her know what had happened and hoped for the best. After all these years, I honestly can’t remember cooking for them after that experience, but am sure I did. And one thing I am most certainly sure of, as a surgeon, she was probably one of the best with her attention to detail.
Until next week, Thanks 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 Lisa Deemer Sethi and Claudia L Sanders! Thank you all soooo much for your support!
-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.
Thank you all sooo much for supporting me in this endeavor. I am truly grateful for you.
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