The first two chapters aired on CBC Radio's Sounds Like Canada on June 29, 2007 .
Chapter 1:
Neil Flambé took a deep breath.
“Is perfection too much to expect?” he wondered. Then he spoke into his cell phone.
“Gunter, the salmon you sent me is just this side of rotten. I have 20 people expecting Pescado con agristada tonight NOT Pescado con BOTULISM!”
The man on the other end of the call pushed the phone receiver away from his ear. He was Gunter Lund, a three-star Michelin chef in Germany before burning out five years ago in a pitched battle with a stubborn batch of Bierwurst sausages. He’d moved to Vancouver and had started his own seafood distribution business. But clients such as Flambé made him wonder if it wasn’t time to go back to cooking.
“It’s not any 13-year old that can talk to me in that tone of voice,” he thought.
That was certainly true. But Neil Flambé was not any 13 year-old. He had his own restaurant, his own magazine, his own line of cooking pans, and his picture was on the front-cover of the latest issue of CHEF! over the headline “Is there anything this boy can’t cook?”
And Gunter Lund was reminded that Flambé could also make a cell-phone sound like a megaphone.
“Hello Gunter? Are you still there? I need a different fish!”
Gunter wanted desperately to hang up. Instead he said, “Neil, please calm down. The man on the boat assured me had just caught the fish this morning.”
“I have the top food critics from all the major dailies coming for dinner, as well as the Spanish Ambassador. If I serve that toxic tuna to my guests it will kill them!”
“You’re exaggerating Neil,” Lund said, “It was fine when it left here. And it’s only a few minutes to your restaurant. But if you insist, I’ll send over another fish right away.”
“You’ll send two,” Flambé said.
Lund paused. His stomach started to churn and he knew he’d need to pop another Alka-seltzer or five once he finally got off the phone. Flambé was one his best, or at least one of his best-paying, customers. He’d pay hundreds for a good salmon, but he was a royal pain in the Zielscheibe.
Lund rubbed his finger over his temple as he said, “Yes, fine, two.” The line went “click” and Flambé was gone.
“He doesn’t even say Danke schön” Lund said angrily. Then he turned in his chair and yelled out to his partner Rene, who was sitting on the dock fixing his nets.
“I need two fresh salmon right away!” Lund yelled, “still flipping if you can find any like that.”
He burped. “And bring me some Alka-seltzer too.”
Chapter 2
Neil turned back to his chopping block. The fish lay there, its glassy eyes just turning slightly opaque. The fish cost him 260 dollars. But there was no chance this smelly carcass was going to find its way onto his menu.
“Garbage,” Neil yelled.
He grabbed the fish and opened the window. A crowd of well-fed cats stood below, licking their lips. They jumped at the sound of the sliding wood. An open window outside Chez Flambé usually meant good eating.
“Here you go,” Neil yelled, and he tossed the fish onto the alley. The cats lunged and fought to grab any bit of the gourmet dish.
Neil watched them for a moment. He’d tossed a slightly old piece of Kobe beef out the day before. He could still see the little bit of string and bone that remained. That dish he’d actually cooked. At least he hadn’t wasted too much time on the salmon.
“I’ll make the sauce for the salmon later,” he thought. But first, I’ll get the seasoning for the potatoes ready.”
Now Neil Flambé was in his element. He ran his fingers along the handle of his favorite knives. “Which one for this meal?” he wondered. The Kasumi? The Forschner? He decided on an old standby, his old Calphalon. He’d had it since he was 8, and it was always sharp and perfectly balanced. He’d had it custom made at the factory. He ’d had to. No one had even balanced a knife for such small hands before.
He pulled it down from the knife rack and was suddenly like a conductor with his favorite baton. So many things were letting him down today he wanted to make sure he had something to rely on.
His anger disappeared as he started slicing the garlic. He didn’t like chefs who sliced it thin, not for this dish. He liked irregular sizes -- some would give the diner a subtle hint of spice, but others would explode on the tongue with a burst of garlic flavour.
Some salt, sea salt from the BC coast.
Pepper, organically grown not far from his house.
Spices, picked not 5 minutes ago from the rooftop garden on top of his kitchen.
Neil took some olive oil and splashed it with just a slight touch of BC cranberry vinegar, his own brand, first perfected in his basement with the chemistry set his parents bought in him in a vain attempt to have their son choose a less expensive career.
He started to swish the ingredients around in a stainless steel bowl... the olive green of the oil blending perfectly with the fresh mint and rosemary.
He laid it down on the counter, and waited for the liquid to still.
“Ready for the potatoes,” he said. Neil always said that out loud, like it was a holy incantation.
The potatoes. For most cooks, they were simply a side dish, something added on to soak up the juices from the meat. Maybe they’d whip up a sauce and make a pretend meal of them, but you always knew you were eating something starchy and, on its own, bland.
But after eating Neil Flambé’s potatoes, customers would sometimes forget if the meat had been salmon, steak or even if there had been a meat dish at all.
It wasn’t always like that.
Neil had been unhappy with the potatoes he’d been making, and the potatoes he’d eaten. He knew there must be a better way, and it had to start with a better potato.
For months, Neil had scoured the whole countryside looking for his holy grail of spuds. He refused to look more than 100 miles from his kitchen, that was a given for him.
Neil had tried dozens of different types, from dozens of different farms, but he was never satisfied.
He’d almost given up the search when one day he took a wrong turn on his bike, on a residential street, right in the middle of the city, and he’d smelled them.
He stopped his bike right then and there and stood, like one of those cats, outside the window of a run-down old house. The wood-framed window was cracked. The paint was flaking off.
But inside, he could smell someone cooking the most wonderful potatoes.
“Hmm, too much pepper,” he said, sniffing the air, “and is that lemon juice?” he sniffed again. Yes, definitely lemon juice. Neil was not impressed. It wasn’t the dish that had caught his attention, but the smell of the potatoes themselves.
And someone was about to ruin them. He jumped up on the fence and started knocking on the window.
An old man was hovering over a pot of boiling potatoes, about to drop in a cup full of lemon juice.
“Hey, you in there,” Neil yelled, “Don’t do it!” The man was so shocked, he dropped the cup onto the floor. “Thank goodness,” Neil sighed. But the man wasn’t fazed for long. He grabbed a broom and ran to window. It only took him one swing to knock Neil back onto his butt.
“What are you, some kind of a thug?” the man yelled, shaking the broom in a threatening manner. “You could have given me a heart attack. Now go away!”
“No, wait,” Neil yelled, “I’m a chef, a great chef.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the man said. “You’re just a kid.”
Neil had heard that all his life, and he was sick of it. But he really wanted to get those potatoes.
He looked up at the man. “Look, if I promise to make you the greatest potato dish ever, will you tell me where you got those? That’s all I want to know.”
“Got them?” the man said, “I didn’t get them anywhere. I grow them myself.” And he pointed the broomstick at his own backyard. Neil looked over. The entire backyard was full of potato plants. Hundreds of them.
“So,” the man yelled, “Mr. mini-chef. You gonna make me some dinner? Or do I have to whallop you again?”
Neil smiled as he remembered the deal he and the man had struck over his roasted brie and chestnut potatoes. He’d had to use a lot of subterfuge over the years to keep his secret spud supplier a secret. But it was worth it every time he saw the ecstatic grin on the face of a well-fed customer.
Neil pulled a handful of reddish brown spuds from the sink. They’d been sitting there just long enough to soften the skins. He took his pairing knife and began to delicately remove the eyes. No extra potato should be lost.
His cell phone rang. Neil stopped cold.
It was not his regular cell phone, the one he’d just used to berate that oaf Gunter. This was the cell phone that only rang when something was wrong. He sighed. The salmon would be here any minute and so would the guests... he knew he had no time to have this conversation right now.
He started back at work, but the phone kept ringing. Neil put the potatoes down carefully, and walked over to his backpack. He scooped the phone up and flipped it open.
“Hello,” he said, without much enthusiasm.
“Flambé? That you?” said a voice.
“Of course it’s me, who else would it be?” he said. It was, as he expected, Chief Inspector Nakamura calling.
“Well, sorry,” Nakamura said sarcastically, “Anyway... there’s been another poisoning. We need your help.”
Suddenly there was knock at the back door. “Fish is here,” yelled Neil’s sous-chef Carl.
The potatoes stared back at him from the pot.
He could hear the front door of the restaurant opening. The staff were getting ready for the guests to arrive.
“Flambé? You still there?” Nakamura said. “Flambé!?”
Neil calculated all the possibilities. The salmon, the potatoes, the guests.
“Just give me 20 minutes,” Neil said, and he hung up.