Service Tops

Okay so my friend Frankie has been begging me to tell her about this dinner thing Andre and I started doing, and I figured an email was easier than trying to explain it over the phone while her toddlers scream in the background. Here's basically what I sent her.

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Frankie,

You asked what we've been up to since Andre got let go from Bellecroix, and honestly the answer is kind of insane but here it goes. We cook. That's it. The hobby is nothing more than that. Every Saturday and Sunday we pick one restaurant-grade menu and we make the entire thing from scratch in our tiny apartment kitchen, which by the way is about the size of a closet, and we act like it's actual service.

This weekend it was bouillabaisse. Real bouillabaisse, not the fish stew people pretend is bouillabaisse. Fourteen hours of prep, Frankie. FOURTEEN. We started Friday night at seven making the fish stock, and I'm not exaggerating when I say Andre treated that pot like a newborn. He strained it through cheesecloth three times. Three! Then Saturday was rouille and croutons and cleaning all the shellfish and slicing the fennel paper thin because apparently I hold views about fennel now, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say at twenty-nine.

He's thirty-one, by the way, and he's been a line cook since he was twenty-two, so this whole project is sort of him taking me seriously as a kitchen person for the first time. When we met at the farmers market three years ago I complimented his knife work at a fish stall and he got this look on his face like nobody had ever noticed his hands before. That's basically our whole origin story. Anyway.

The dinner itself? Perfect. Like, note perfect. He said the broth tasted like Marseille and I almost cried into my bowl. We sat down at eight and didn't get up until almost eleven and somewhere in there I realized I was happier than I've been in a long time. Weird, right? We didn't even go out. We just ate soup we'd killed ourselves over.

More soon, I promise. The next menu is going to break him, in a fun way.

Nicole

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So that was the email. But here's the part I didn't tell Frankie, because it felt too new and too weird to say out loud yet. The cooking stopped being just cooking somewhere around week three. And it's partly my fault because I started doing something I probably should have mentioned to him first.

It started when I texted him from work on a Tuesday.

Me: so I have a confession Andre: oh no Me: last saturday I timed your knife cuts Andre: you WHAT Me: like, your brunoise. I counted your cuts per minute the way you'd get timed on the line Andre: and?? what was my number Me: 118 cuts a minute. That's fast, right? I looked it up Andre: that's fast for home kitchen with dull-ish santoku. Why are you timing me Nicole Me: because I like watching your hands and I needed an excuse that sounded scientific Andre: lol Andre: ok next menu what are we doing Me: duck two ways. And I'm timing your julienne Andre: yes chef

I stared at that last text way longer than a grown woman should stare at a text that says "yes chef!" Because what I was only starting to figure out was this: I liked him being on the clock. Not in a mean way. In a way where every cut he made was for me and he knew I was counting. And the texts kept going.

Andre: also you reorganized my knife roll. I noticed Me: I sharpened them too Andre: you sharpened my knives??? with what Me: the whetstone you never use. Watched like six videos first Andre: nobody has touched my stones since culinary school Me: is that bad?? do you hate it Andre: I'll answer saturday. Bring your timer

I put my phone face down on my desk at the insurance office and got absolutely nothing done for the next hour. My coworker Raj asked if I won the lottery. I said sort of, which made no sense, but whatever.

Then Thursday night I called my sister Destiny and left her a voicemail she still brings up at family dinners, because of course she does.

"Hey, it's me, don't screen me, I know you're there. Okay so you remember Andre, obviously, my boyfriend, the cook, the one whose job got cut in March when the sous chef position got eliminated? Right. So I did something and I need you to tell me if it's insane. I sharpened all his knives. Like secretly, while he was at the diner, I spent two hours on the whetstone getting his blades to a fifteen-degree edge. And I didn't do it to be nice, Destiny, that's the confession part. I did it as a challenge. Because a dull knife is slow and a sharp knife means he can't hide behind the tool, he has to be fast and precise and I'll SEE it. It's like I dared him to be his best self in front of me. Is that a normal thing to do to a person you love? Don't answer that. Actually answer that. Call me back. Also tell Mom I said hi and no I didn't forget her birthday, the card is coming. Okay bye."

She called back and said, and I quote, "You two deserve each other, you absolute weirdos," which I chose to take as a compliment.

Saturday came. Duck two ways. He julienned like a machine while I stood there with the timer on my phone, and I could tell he was showing off, hips planted, shoulders loose, that little sound he makes when a cut goes exactly right. Afterward we ate on the couch because the duck confit ran late and neither of us cared.

And that's when I found the letter. He'd left it propped against the knife block, which should have tipped me off immediately because Andre communicates in grunts and plate gestures, not paper.

It said:

Nicole,

You timed me. You sharpened my knives. You set the mise en place in my order, not the book's order, and you did the mirepoix yourself for the duck stock and it was perfect. I measured it. Nine millimeters, every single cube.

Here's what I need you to understand, because I'm bad at saying this out loud before coffee. When I got fired I felt like a pair of hands that didn't matter anymore. Like the only thing anyone ever wanted from me was the output. Speed, consistency, feed the line, don't be a person.

But when you timed me last Saturday, you weren't testing me. I know the difference. I've been tested my whole career. You were watching me. You paid attention the way nobody does unless they want the person, not the product. Your mirepoix made me feel seen and wanted at the same time, which honestly has never happened to me in a kitchen before, and kitchens are the only place I've ever really lived.

So yes, time me. Count me. Compete with me. I'll bring everything I have every single weekend if it means your eyes stay on my hands like that.

I left you the good chocolate. Second drawer. That's not a metaphor, I just know how you get around hour ten of prep.

A.

I read it twice. Then I went into the bedroom where he was folding laundry and said, "Nine