They’d sell out. Every night.
But even if they’d let me fancy up a classic like that, that recipe is mine. I’ll lend out my creativity and my tips and techniques. Hell, I’ll even create an entire fresh and inspiring dessert menu for a restaurant that has a yearlong waitlist for a table. But the classic recipes, the ones I’ve honed for the last fifteen years, the ones that make your body melt into a sigh as soon as the sugar touches your tongue, reminding you of home, those are mine.
No one is asking for those recipes anyway. They aren’t what I’m known for.
But I’m fairly certain that the only thing I’m going to be known for is the mental breakdown I’m about to have in the middle of this Miami kitchen, simply because for the past three weeks, I haven’t been able to create a single new dessert.
“Montgomery,” one of the line cooks calls out. He, for some reason, doesn’t feel the need to call me by my title, so I haven’t concerned myself with learning his name. “Are you coming out with us after our shift tonight?”
I don’t honor him with eye contact as I clean up my workstation and pray that the soufflé in the oven makes it through without sinking. “I’m going to assume you forgot my title is Chef,” I say over my shoulder.
“Sweetie. You just bake cakes. I’m not calling you Chef.”
As if a record scratched, the entire kitchen goes silent, every prep cook freezing with their tools in hand.
It’s been a while since I’ve been disrespected in my profession. I’m young, and at twenty-five, it’s not easy to stand in a kitchen of adults, typically men, and tell them what they’re doing wrong. But over the last couple of years, I’ve earned a reputation, one that demands respect.
Three weeks ago, I won the James Beard Award, the highest honor in my industry, and since being named Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year, my consultation services have been booked solid. I’m now sitting at a three-year-long list of kitchens I’ll be spending a season at, including this Miami stint, fixing their dessert programs and giving them a shot at earning themselves a Michelin star.
So yes, I’ve earned the title of Chef.
“You coming, Montgomery?” he starts again. “I’ll buy you a beer or something with an umbrella you’ll probably like. Something sweet and pink.”
How this guy isn’t picking up on the fact his co-workers are silently begging him to shut up is beyond me.
“I know something else sweet and pink that I wouldn’t mind a taste of.”
He’s only trying to get a rise out of me, to get the one woman working in the kitchen to snap, but he’s not worth my time. And luckily for him, my timer beeps, pulling my attention back to my work.
Opening the oven door, I’m greeted by blazing heat and yet another sunken soufflé.
The James Beard Award is only a piece of paper, but somehow, the weight of it has crushed me. I should be grateful and humbled that I won an award most chefs strive for their entire lives, but the only thing I’ve felt since winning is a crippling pressure that’s caused my mind to go blank, rendering me unable to create anything new.
I haven’t told anyone I’m struggling. I’m too embarrassed to admit it. All eyes are on me more than ever before and I’m flailing. But there will be no hiding in two months’ time when I’m featured on the cover of Food & Wine magazine’s fall edition, and I’m sure the only thing the article will have to say is how sad the critics are to see yet another new talent unable to live up to their potential.
I can’t do this anymore. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I can’t handle the pressure right now. It’s just a bit of burnout, a creative rut. Like writer’s block for a pastry chef. It’ll pass, but it sure as hell isn’t going to pass while I’m working in someone else’s kitchen with the expectation to teach others my craft.
With my back to the staff so they can’t see my newest fuck-up, I plop the soufflé ramekin on the counter, and as soon as I do, a hand lands on my waist, every hair on my neck standing up in alarm.
“You’ve got two more months here, Montgomery, and I know a good way to pass the time. A way to get the staff here to like you.” The line cook’s hot breath brushes the back of my neck.
“Get your hand off me,” I say coolly.
His fingertips dig into my waist, and they feel like my breaking point. I need to get away from this man and this kitchen. I need to get away from every kitchen.
“You’ve got to be lonely, traveling around the country the way you do. I bet you find a friend to keep you warm in that little van of yours in every city you visit.”
His palm slides down my lower back, heading towards my ass. I snatch his wrist, turning my body and kneeing him in the balls, hard and without a second of hesitation.
Instantly, he keels over in pain, a pathetic whimper escaping him.
“I told you to get your fucking hand off me.”
The staff is silent, letting their co-worker’s cries echo off the stainless-steel appliances as he remains folded in half. Part of me wants to make some comment regarding how little his dick felt against my knee, but his actions made it obvious that he’s overcompensating already.
“Oh, come on,” I say, unbuttoning my chef’s coat. “Get off the ground. You look pathetic.”
“Curtis.” Jared, the head chef, turns the corner in shock, staring down at his line cook. “You’re fired. Get the fuck up and get out of my kitchen.”
Curtis, as I’ve come to learn his name, keeps holding his balls and rolling around on the ground.
“Chef Montgomery.” Chef Jared turns to me. “I am so sorry for his behavior. That is completely unacceptable. I promise you, that’s not the kind of culture I’m cultivating here.”
“I think I’m done here.”
For a multitude of reasons, I’m done. The line cook who will never be hired in a high-end restaurant again was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back, but I know in my bones I won’t be any help to Chef Jared’s menu this summer.
And I sure as shit don’t need others to learn that I’m struggling. This industry is cut-throat, and the moment critics learn a high-end chef, let alone a James Beard recipient, is drowning, they’ll start to circle like vultures, blasting my name in every one of their food blogs, and I don’t need that attention right now.
Chef Jared cowers slightly, which is strange. The man is revered in the food world and is twice my age. “I completely understand. I’ll make sure you’re paid out for the entire contract, including the next two months.”
“No. No need to do that.” I shake his hand. “I’m just going to go.”
Curtis is still on the floor, so I offer him a simple middle finger as I make my exit because yes, I’m an awarded pastry chef who sometimes still acts like a child.
As if my inability to do my job wasn’t suffocating enough, the moment I’m outside, the late June humidity chokes me. I don’t know what I was thinking when I agreed to spend my summer working in a South Florida kitchen.
Quickly hopping into my van parked in the employee lot, I crank the AC to full blast. I love this van. It’s completely renovated inside and out with a fresh coat of deep green paint on the exterior and my own little kitchen on the inside.
I live in it while I travel the country for work, hair down and without a care in the world. Then when I get to my destinations, I turn on work-mode and spend the following months with my tattoos covered, being referred to as “Chef” for ten hours of my day.
It’s the weird juxtaposition that I call my life.
And if we’re being honest, it’s not exactly what I saw myself doing. I had once dreamt of running my own bakery, making all my famous cookies, bars, and cakes that I had baked for my dad while growing up. But I was lucky enough to be plucked fresh out of school to train under one of the best pastry chefs in Paris, followed by another internship in New York City.