Thursday, February 23, 2006

Masters of Food and Weirdness

Cachagua chefs…..Masters of Food and Weirdness…..

A break in the political action. This is theoretically a food blog.

Brendan is back from Prague, having sold his bar. He needed to come home or die…..too many supermodels, too many nights closing the bar at 6am…..actually, closing the bar every night at 6am. So now he is puritanically virtuous, and teutonically hardworking: he has been beating us with sticks. It is brutal.

The Pub is moving into The Store space, and The Store is moving into the Pub space. The Kitchen is now twice as big as BB (Before Brendan). Well, no wonder: at Mugaritz, the kitchen was 5,000 square feet, and the dining room about 1,500. So, we have a little catch up.

Expanding the kitchen, switching Store for Pub…..this is all hugely traumatic. But, the kid is organized. All the supplies and materials were in place. Adrian, the proud new dad, was giving us his day off with his kid for the construction work. All the pre-prep was done by Brendan while I played with the rich and famous at the Masters of Food and Wine at the Highlands.

Sunday morning, Brendan and Adrian were tuned up to move the wall and finish the sheetrock in the new kitchen. Of course, we have Sunday Brunch at the same time. My backup chef was on call for Peninsula Septic Tank Service (you think I am kidding…..), so I had to pass on the early prep with Cat Cora at The Highlands and do my own brunch. This is where I think about the difference between pretend chefs and real ones…..hollandaise on the construction site. Bring it Rachel Ray…..Come to think of it, bring it Cat Cora.....she makes Rachel Ray look like Kirstie Ally. Think Katherine Ross with a Granton-edged Santuko knife…….

Anyhow, the boys left about ten minutes before me for The Store. Just as I got to the top of Cachagua Grade my phone rang. Terrible reception, but there is reception: “Dad…..the….crackheads…..stole…the 4x4’s…..” “What?” “Dad…..the….crackheads …….the 4x4’s…..”

Fuck. The goddam crackheads. They will steal anything in Cachagua. They used to cut up my garden hose to make siphons to steal the gas from the catering vans. I finally cut lengths of garden hose and hung them from the front of The Store, just so I didn’t have to keep putting new endpieces on my hoses. Then they stole the snowshovel I use to turn the compost….and that was a nasty-ass shovel. And…. what the hell does a crackhead need a snowshovel for in Cachagua? Is there THAT much meth?

Now, just when we are trying to make something nice in Cachagua, and bring them a real bar and restaurant with an actual pool table to go with the lighted Hillbilly Bocce by the Creek…..they steal our construction supplies. I passed Brendan and Adrian going back towards town, probably to go to Orchard to get more supplies.

I was boiling. I was gonna muster the troops and search the camps for my 4x4’s. Heads would roll.

I got to The Store mad as hell. Sure enough, the 4x4’s were missing. I stomped around The Kitchen doing my prep for the ungrateful assholes of Cachagua, when Brendan and Adrian came in. “They stole the fucking 4x4’s?!?” I asked.

“Stole the 4x4’s? No, we put them up in the rafters, out of your way. I was calling to ask you to pick up the “brackets for the 4x4’s” We left them in the driveway……We had to go back.....”

Brackets for the 4x4’s……Crackheads stole the 4x4’s……..

Easy now, Big Shifter……..

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