Cesar and The L

Picking flowers had gotten old.

My first job here in the city involved a crew of five slipping into abandoned lots in New Jersey to collect flowers and plants for sale at the now defunct wholesale Chelsea Flower Market. The job consisted of long drives into the alternating scenery and horrifying chemical waste dumps that make up that diverse bountiful wonderland just across the Hudson. Sure, my boss did the flowers at Studio 54, and spending my Wednesdays driving through Manhattan blaring house music and making deliveries made for a very epic summer, but the job would wind down with Mother Nature, and food and music were more of what I had in mind while emptying out a 3 story house in the dead of winter by candlelight to move 350 miles away with a day's notice.
I faxed out some resumes, crossed my fingers, and smoked as many cigarettes as I could manage. And one cold November night, the phone rang with an unfamiliar number on the Caller ID screen. It was Gene calling from the L Cafe in Williamsburg. He noticed that I was from Buffalo, and wanted to know if I could come in and trail. It was the usual Buffalonian banter, blue cheese dressing and all. We bonded right there, Gene and I. I would be happy to trail on Monday with Juan and Cesar.
I will go so far as to say that in spite of being a clunky and doofy gringo, I did Cesar proud that day. I was to be Juan's replacement, and I had better live up to his legacy. Juan was fast. He and Cesar worked like champs, effortlessly picking up all of the slack of the pot-smoking, beer-smuggling night staff: a tattooed and "free-thinking" bunch who waited until an order came in to waltz into the kitchen, their "The Postal Service" cd in hand, ready to pump out sub-par fish and chips and any and all variety of sandwiches slathered in avocado and chipotle but never made the same way twice. Inconsistancy is my enemy,
I wanted to save the place. I wanted to show them that boiling chicken for chicken salad sandwiches was as effective as boiling ice to make water. I wanted to get them past the very much passe portobello mushroom, sundried tomato, and goat cheese thing. Apple slices on a sandwich? Dill in the tuna salad? Whole cumin seeds? Small changes with big results. Maybe I could even eliminate the need for the microwave.
For about a solid year, I became Cesar's right hand man. I took over Gene's day shifts, much to the relief of the entire restaurant, as Gene's Pabst comsumption began at about 9 AM and lasted well into the slurs, slips, and occasional falls by dinnertime. My once lost Spanish fluency came back, moving from scattered high school Spanish to the full-fledged Mexican inflected kitchen Spanish so essential to the line cook's life in New York. Cesar taught me everything I know about brunch. He taught me the technique of making hollandaise (however unlike hollandaise it was). He taught me when and when not to pitch a fit, and who to pitch a fit at. He also taught me a Bible's worth of Mexican hangover cures.
Like clockwork, Sunday morning would come, and as I walked from the serenity of an empty Bedford Avenue into that filthy, roach-infested hole of a kitchen, my hangover would dissipate into the accordions of the Ranchero music that played as we worked up our mise-en-place, bad-mouthing whomever we could aim and fire at. And when the day was in full swing, the board overflowing with tickets, the pancakes and breakfast burritos would hit the heat lamps to the beat of the old-school salsa that Cesar and I both loved (i'm not too crazy about ranchero myself), and the feeling of being in complete sync carried us effortlessly through one hellish rush after another.
Lunchtime was a breeze for the two of us. I carried a dream come true of what was basically a nice-to-five job. It was the hideously homophobic but undeniably funny "La Mega" morning show for a few hours while we dealt with our regulars, most of whose orders I could still probably produce on cue. I would get reign over the music during the lunch rush, mostly disco at the time. Things like "Just A Touch" by Slave, and "There But For the Grace of God" by Machine. We would dance around making sandwiches heaped high with potato salad. Making soup became an adventure. And night shifts, though Cesar-less, meant my best kitchen friend Jesse and I would pump Evelyn "Champgne" King and sing along, slugging beers in the walk in cooler, putting out orders faster than the waitstaff could keep up, and transforming a vermin-ridden restaurant on the brink of extinction into the best disco in town one dinner rush at a time.
But as the the scent of death in the air grew and grew, our tempers shrank and shrank. Cesar, God love him, had himself anger issues like no one I have ever worked with. Full saute pans would often land forcefully on the rubber mats, thrown out of terrifying anger, only to be increased as penne splattered the oven door and Mexican expletives spewed forth from that dear sweet man''s mouth. And as I realized the prospect of a lifetime of breakfast sandwiches loomed ominously on my horizon, my mood dropped as well.
And so, almost exactly a year and a half after prouldy marching into the place promising tapenades and asiago cheese, in the midst of one of Cesar's signature explosions, I gently placed my eight dollar serrated knife on the cutting board and permanently excused myself. To say that I left Cesar in a lurch would be an understatement. To walk out of a Friday lunch service at 11 AM is to subject one's self to a lifetime's worth of bad kitchen karma. And though my Catholic upbringing taught me to feel guilt and shame, I spoke frankly to our poor illiterate dishwasher that "yo no puedo trabajar con El Enojado", put on a fresh shirt, and walked proudly out into a grey February day with the weight of the world off my shoulders. And aside from screwing poor Cesar for a day, I never looked back.

And mysteriously, days later, I received an offer to trail at what was my "dream restaurant" at the time.

Here's an ode to Cesar, with my own twists. A nice, warm, brothy soup.

Cesar's Pozole

1 bag dry large White Hominy (Pozole) Corn, soaked overnight and germ removed (Goya is best)
Fresh Water to Cover
2 cans or about 1 liter homemade chicken stock
1/3 bunch fresh whole thyme
2 bay leaves
1 T whole black peppercorns, tied in cheesecloth or a teabag
1 chicken, preferably a small organic bird
sea salt and pepper
2 T butter or oil (not straight olive, blended okay)
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded
2 medium yellow cooking onions, small dice
3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
1/2 bunch fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
3 avocadoes, ripe, amd sliced at the last minute for garnish
lime wedges, for garnish

1) soak hominy and remove brown germ at the base of each kernel. (time consuming). Rinshe and boil in fresh water unti fully cooked.
2) meanwhile, season chicken (whole or quartered), and poach gently (just below a boil) in chicken stock. Skim fat and foamy impurities off occasionally. Remove chicken to rest and cool to touch. Reserve broth and strainif possibility.
3) Replace broth to pan and begin to reduce slowly to develop flavor Add thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns. Meanwhile, when chicken is cool to touch, remove skin and pick meat off bones as if for pulled pork. Shred meat with fingers.
4) Heat fat to low heat and add onions, garlic, and jalapeno. Sweat down as much as possible without color or browning.
5) Add cooked pozole, chicken meat, and enough stock to cover. Cook without a cover, replacing stock as needed, being careful not to overseason as flavor will intensify as it reduces. Add cilantro during last 5 minutes.
6) Serve pozole and chicken in bowls with broth, topped with avocado slices and with a lime wedge or two.