My first cooking job, when I was 16, was at a Cambridge cafe called The Blacksmith House. I prepared all the food on the menu of soup, salad, and sandwiches, and my fellow staff were a parade of restaurant archetypes. Doris, the tough old Austrian baker who ran the kitchen like a Swiss watch and always made me feel so nervous to steal bites of frosting in the walk-in cooler. And Betty, the cashier who wouldn’t call it the Ari Special even though she ate my chopped turkey sandwich every day for lunch. And Ele, the hot waitress with whom I didn’t have a chance. And the muscled and managerial Curtis, who was also on the hunt. And the head waiter, Steve, who was on cocaine.
I arrived early to make the soup when there was no-one else there but Doris, following the splattered pages of the Moosewood Cookbook in my weekly rotation of Vichyssoise, Cucumber Dill, Hungarian Mushroom, and the whacky but delicious Fruit Soup. But the most popular was gazpacho, which was in such demand that I had to make a double batch when I made it, which I dreaded to do because of all the chopping. And I had to make it a day early to let the flavors marinate.
