"Yes, Chef."
He moves on. Screams at the line cook about the vegetable prep. Throws a towel at the dishwasher for running the machine too loud. Normal Tuesday.
Sarah catches my eye across the kitchen. The look says:You okay?
I give her a tight smile. The smile says:Fine.
Neither of us believes it.
I redo the coulis. It comes out identical to the first batch because there was nothing wrong with the first batch, but Gordon tastes it, grunts, and moves on without comment. That's as close to approval as he gets.
The event prep accelerates. Two hundred plates, each one requiring a mousse, a tuile cookie, a coulis drizzle, a mint garnish, and a dusting of powdered sugar. My hands move on autopilot — plate, unmold, cookie, drizzle, garnish, dust, next. I can do this in my sleep. I have done this in my sleep. Last monthI dreamed I was plating desserts and woke up with my hands making the motions against the mattress.
At noon, two hours before service, Gordon changes the dessert.
"Scratch the mousse. Client called. His wife is allergic to raspberries."
I stare at him. "The mousse is chocolate. The raspberry is just the coulis. I can substitute—"
"Scratch it. Do panna cotta with a passion fruit glaze. Individual ramekins."
"Chef, panna cotta needs at least four hours to set."
"Then you better work fast."
Two hundred panna cottas. In two hours. When the mixture alone needs time to bloom, heat, pour, and chill. It's not physically possible to do it properly. Gordon knows this. I know this. Every person in this kitchen knows this.
"Yes, Chef."
I pull it off. Not the way I want to — the panna cottas aren't as silky as they should be, I had to use a flash-chill technique that sacrifices texture for speed, and the passion fruit glaze is more of a sauce than a proper glaze because there wasn't time to reduce it. But they're plated and pretty and out the door on time.
Gordon walks the client through the dessert course. I watch from the kitchen pass. "Our signature panna cotta," he says, like it was always the plan. Like I didn't just perform a minor miracle in his kitchen with no notice and no support. "My recipe. Passion fruit from our preferred supplier."
His recipe. His supplier. My hands, my sweat, my two hours of controlled panic.
The client compliments the desserts. Gordon takes a little bow.
I go to the walk-in cooler, close the door behind me, and stand between the shelving units shaking. Not crying — I don't cry at work, that's a rule — just shaking. My hands, my jaw, the backs of my knees. The cold air burns my lungs and I count to thirty and then I go back out and finish clean-up.
Sarah finds me scrubbing pans at the end of shift. "The panna cottas were incredible, by the way. I don't know how you did that in two hours."
"Barely."
"Robin." She puts her hand on my arm. "This isn't normal."
"It's the industry."
"It's not the industry. I've worked four kitchens before this one. None of them were like this."
I keep scrubbing. The pan is already clean but my hands need something to do. "He's not always this bad."
"He threw a towel at Danny today."
"He throws towels all the time."
"Last week he threw a whisk." Sarah's voice is quiet. "And the week before that it was a sauté pan. At the wall, but still."
"At the wall. Not at anyone."