Ciao, bambino

I have had many friends over the years that are chefs. Not ones going after the cheap glory, not looking to see their face on the cover of a book, or a tv screen - just people that have that fire the belly and humble stories to tell on the plate. Their work veers towards being thankless and they work harder than anyone I can think of. The profit margins are paper thin, but they are often the most satisfied, happiest people I know. Ok, firefighters work harder, and make less, risking life and limb before lunch on any given day. (And isn’t it fascinating that firefighters also tend to be amazing cooks?) A chef faces the fear of a rent hike, a sous chef calling in sick at the last minute, a shitty review, or a cheaper place opening next door. They live on the edge of their own volcano and somehow find the way to dance.

My place was to be their best customer, the regular who tips well and gets excited about every single special, bringing a date or sitting by myself, soaking up the juices and feeling outreougly good about the world. It took me ages to understand that art and food fit parallel demands - people need nourishment in so many ways to remain human. A good cup of coffee, a poignant paragraph - they both make the world just a tiny bit better, word by word, bean by bean. We recite prayers, which are just a bunch of words if you want to get very simple. We slurp down soup, which is really just water with some stuff boiled in it if you want be crude. But what is the legacy of this hot water, these lines in a book? It is what keeps us afloat.

In my next baby step towards becoming a working chef, another event is in the works for the end of the week. Most of the dishes are tried and true, and do not require testing and tweaking, but the focaccia is a wild card - something I have always cooked one way, but out of humility I decided to try some new approaches, and they all failed. Maybe it is the protein content of the flour. the temperature of the water, the age of the yeast, the tahzhong and the biga being fussy. Every night I measure and mix, and leave things covered or uncovered or half covered - in the morning peeking into containers, smelling the bubbles, and then more flour, salt, water and good olive oil -mixing by hand, resting and strength folding, eventually making another flabby sheet that tastes good enough but looks sad. This chase, this transformation of the humblest ingredients is tricky as hell for me, but I am not discouraged.

There are trips to kitchen stores with N, where we finally buy portable burners, staring at Pisa-leaning stacks of bowls and platters, wondering if the blue ones that are on sale make sense, or the ivory ones that look like what an old Italian lady has on her shelf (but they are not on sale). The conversation runs obtuse and theoretical, trying to nail down an ambitious idea that has no good name, as we tuck what we think are the right serving plates carefully into the shopping cart and roll around the quiet store. A little voice in my head says “remember this moment, maybe you’ll look back on it in a few years and smile.”

Easier days take me to the local stores, pressing tomatos between my fingers, poking into a rare bag of fresh basil. They know me here, and I am always greeted with a nod and a smile. Writing is lonely business and chefs meet everyone and anyone in their travels. Between the vegetable people and the meat people, the cheese people, the olive oil people and the people that sidle up to a table to eat your food in tiny bites or great gulps, you are rubbing shoulders with the world every damn minute. Writing a book in a quiet room is a sad affair compared to this. While I adore cooking, and get excited about wild black pepper from Africa, it is the human contact that fuels so much of this second act as a chef, this changing of horses far after mid-stream, these moments in makeshift kitchens with my daughter next to me, plating as fast as we can, elbows bouncing against each other, smiling like we just robbed a bank.

The young man at the counter at the vegetable store has a messy beard, and rings me up. For some reason, today he decides I must be Italian. They just know I am not Georgian here.

“Ciao, bambino.” He says, conjuring the only Italian words he can muster, knowing it is pretty silly.

“Grazie mille!” I reply, keeping it going.

I shake his hand.

“Irakli.” He says in a big voice

“Marco.” I say.

“Nakhvamdis*.” He calls, as I leave.

* literally “Until we see each other again” but also “goodbye”