Клео Коул - French Pressed

I stepped forward, observed a table-sized cutting board, a pile of small hens piled on one side. Beside the birds, an intense Asian man in his late thirties circled around a young man who was clutching a silver-handled chef’s knife.

“You’re really making a mess of it, dude,” the Asian man said, a note of exasperation in his voice.

“Sorry, Chef Tso,” the young man replied, dropping the bird.

“Don’t be sorry. Just do it right .”

So this was Henry Tso, I realized, the man who’d just been promoted to executive sous-chef, the second-in-command of Solange, the man Tommy himself picked to replace Brigitte Rouille.

Joy had talked about Chef Tso, always with a little awe. She said he was the best chef on the entire line. That was important because, unlike the roasting chef, the vegetable chef, or the saucier, who had the luxury of preparing many of their courses in advance, the sauté chef prepared dishes that were made to order. He had to be on top of his game all the time and possess the ability to juggle two, three, or even four tasks at once.

Joy also said that Henry had the best technique she’d ever seen. And it appeared I was about to see a demonstration.

“Watch closely,” Chef Tso said. He took the eight-inch blade from his young apprentice, pushed the mangled bird to the side. Then he reached for a fresh chicken from the pile. He slapped the fowl onto the board, belly side down.

“Remove the spine first, cutting here and here,” he said, flicking the blade twice. “Cut on both sides, as close to the bone as possible.”

With quick, smooth motions, Henry Tso sliced through the pink flesh on either side of the spine, extracting the bones so fast I barely followed his moves.

His movements were sure, economical, and precise. In under a minute, Chef Tso removed all of the bones except the tips of the legs and wings. At one point he flipped the knife in the air, caught it blade up, and used the handle to break a joint for easy extraction. When he was finished, he placed the perfectly deboned chicken on its belly and set the knife down.

“Think you can do that?” he asked the apprentice.

Gamely, the young man lifted the knife and tried again.

“Chef Tso,” Janelle interrupted. “I’d like you to meet Clare Cosi. Clare is going to help us add premium coffee to our menu.”

Henry Tso faced me. Under his high chef’s hat his hair was shaved so short I could see his scalp. He was a lot taller than I, but his hands were small, his fingers long and delicate. His brown eyes scrutinized me with intensity, and he moved with a contained energy that reminded me of Chef Keitel. Something else reminded me of Tommy Keitel: Henry Tso’s ego and a radiated confidence that bordered on arrogance.

“Coffee, huh,” Henry finally said. “Sorry, I prefer tea.”

“No worries,” I replied.

Henry suddenly noticed another transgression by the new young apprentice and cried out. “Cut the meat; don’t rip it!” he said. “If I served that bird, I’d look like an asshole!”

The apprentice quailed.

“Is that your job description?” Henry asked, getting into the young man’s face. “Make Chef Tso look bad?”

“Yes, Chef…I mean, n-no, Chef,” the apprentice stammered.

Janelle touched my arm, tilted her head, and we moved on.

“Is he always like that?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

“Like what?” Janelle asked. “An arrogant, superior perfectionist who’d do anything to get ahead?”

I blinked.

“Let’s just say that if you get between Henry and his ambition, you’ll probably end up like one of those chickens.” Janelle froze, closed her eyes, and shook her head. “God. I shouldn’t have said that, not after what happened to poor Vinny.”

“It’s okay,” I said, and we continued moving through the kitchen. “Janelle, since you’ve brought it up, did Henry and Vinny get along okay? I mean, did you ever notice any hostility between them? Or maybe there was something else in play. Did they have an especially close friendship by any chance?”

“That’s funny,” said Janelle. “The police basically asked me the same thing this morning.”

“It’s a pretty standard question when someone’s found murdered. The detectives want to know if that person had any enemies…or intense relationships.”

“I can only tell you what I told them. Vinny was a quiet kid. Very private. Didn’t talk much at all. Except for Brigitte picking on him, I didn’t see much in the way of hostility directed toward the boy by anyone, Henry included. And as far as Henry and friendship —” Janelle shook her head. “He’s pretty much all business around here. The other line cooks go out sometimes to hang after work. It’s fun, and I usually go, too. But Henry never joins us.”

Finally, we arrived at an island away from the chaotic activity everywhere else. “Well, here we are. My domain,” Janelle declared proudly.

In the center of the space stood a large prep table, now wiped clean. A gas stove and array of ovens hugged the wall; beside them stood a bakery rack on wheels, holding freshly baked rolls and baguettes. Janelle offered me a high metal stool. She pulled up another to sit beside me.

“I have to tell you, Ms. Cosi, I’m very excited about your coffees. My mind’s already spinning with ideas.”

“Café au lait and beignets, by any chance?”

Janelle laughed. “Joy must have mentioned I come from the Big Easy.”

“Yes.” I smiled. “She really likes and admires you.”

“Well, that’s very sweet. And Joy’s a very sweet girl, very accomplished, too, and at such a young age. You should be proud.”

“I am.”

“It’s funny you should mention the beignets,” Janelle said. “My mother made them all the time, so I practically grew up on them. You can tell, can’t you?” She laughed, patting one ample hip. “And while I do believe it would be fun to offer something as simple as a classic French doughnut, Chef Keitel would kill me if I proposed it. He won’t allow retro to come out of his kitchen. He’s all about fusion, loves new spices, combinations of flavors, aromas, and textures. Explore! Experiment! That’s Chef Keitel’s credo.”

“Is it?” And here I thought it was ‘Sleep with your young intern on the side.’ ”

“It’s no joke, Clare. It’s your entire professional reputation on the line. You start putting traditional chocolate mousse and crème brûlée in your dessert selections, and the gourmands will declare you zombified and send a body bag back to the kitchen.”

“I suppose the same dish, prepared the same way for years and years can be numbing—for the diner and the chef,” I conceded. “Then again, there’s something to be said for paying tribute to the classics. I love what you did with the tarte Tatin, for example, deconstructing it on the plate, adding the cardamom and ginger to the apples. And what you did with the profiteroles, using blackberry sorbet instead of the same old vanilla ice cream. Drizzling casis coulis instead of chocolate sauce.”

“Yes, if you really love something, then it’s worth looking at it with new eyes.”

“Now there’s a credo I can agree with: loyalty . I had this coq au vin recipe that I loved. It was hard to admit that it was getting pretty tired after fifteen years. But instead of throwing it out, I woke it up—literally—by infusing coffee into the braising process.”

Janelle paused a moment, tapped her chin in thought. “You know what, Clare? I could do that with my desserts. I’ve wanted to do chocolate pots de crème—except it’s so retro that Chef Keitel would be unhappy with a one-dimensional approach. But if I were to infuse the heavy cream in the recipe with some of that wonderful Colombian coffee you brought today, I could create a mocha pot that would resonate with the coffee itself. I could serve the dessert in an espresso cup with praline crème Chantilly standing in for the macchiato froth, and place two vanilla-pecan sablés on the side of the saucer.”