Notes From a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi & Joshua David Stein

Author:Kwame Onwuachi & Joshua David Stein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2019-04-08T23:00:00+00:00

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Without that revenue stream and with Coterie still just a side hustle, I needed a job fast and figured I may as well look for work in a restaurant. One day I found myself in Union Square, walking north on Broadway. I peered down the cross streets looking for opportunities. Close to Park Avenue on the north side of the street, I caught sight of the warm glow of Edison bulbs shining through large plate-glass windows. I crossed the street hoping it was a restaurant and not a high-end interior design store. The space was awash with earth tones, warm leathers, and wood. There was no sign on the window but there was a menu, illuminated in a glass box mounted on the wall.

I remember thinking it had to be a good restaurant because the paper stock for the menu was so thick. The dishes were listed in plain English. The offerings were divided by techniques—braised, grilled, and roasted—and under each were proteins, from rabbit and sirloin to monkfish, with only a few accompanying ingredients listed. Amish chicken, I thought, that’s funny. They don’t say Jewish lamb or Episcopalian pork loin. Then I came to the bottom of the menu: Chef / Owner: Tom Colicchio.

Beside the door was a buzzer for deliveries. I pressed it, and a woman’s voice crackled through, “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a job. Can I fill out an application?”

“Come on up to the office,” said the voice, and the door clicked open.

I walked past the coat check, past a massive floral arrangement, and peered into the dining room. I clambered up a flight of stairs into the restaurant’s office, where I found Renée sitting behind a desk.

“Hello,” I said, “I’m Kwame Onwuachi.”

“Hello, Kwame,” Renée said in a friendly, businesslike way, “Do you have a résumé?”

I handed her one of the crisply folded copies I’d been carrying around with me all day and she gave me a form.

“We ask all our potential new hires to fill it out,” she said.

It was a standard application, but aside from biographical information—name, address, age—the last question was, “If there was one dish you could eat right now, what would it be?” Two things about the question checked me. First, I was excited that this was an important enough question that they put it on the job application. Clearly, they cared about food here. That was a good sign. But I also knew it was a loaded question. What did I want to eat, and how honest did I want to be about it? What I really wanted was the comforting warmth of my mom’s gumbo. The last time she cooked for me was a farewell feast the night before I left Louisiana. Her small apartment kitchen in New Orleans was filled with the pepper-tinged seafood smell of gumbo, the faintly chlorinated scent of shrimp, and the spicy meatiness of andouille. But that’s not what I wrote.

Instead, I came up with the most sophisticated and fancy-sounding combination of ingredients I could.

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