Knives at Dawn Read online

  Keller nodded his understanding. “I’m sure,” he said. But he didn’t say any more than that.

  And so, on the drive back to San Francisco, Boulud told Kaysen that the time had come to unholster the big gun. The necessary next step in a series of diplomatic gestures and maneuvers required to fulfill Paul Bocuse’s request was to have Monsieur Paul, as Bocuse is known in France, give Thomas Keller a call and formally ask him to take over as president of the Bocuse d’Or USA. Boulud felt that the wheels had been sufficiently greased. He would call Bocuse himself and let him know the time was right to make his overture.

  Keller might not have given his “yes” just yet, but with a request on tap from Bocuse himself, everybody already knew what the answer would be.

  AS KELLER WOUND UP his Epcot remarks, introducing the chefs on hand to serve as judges in the coming days, Jennifer Pelka, an exceedingly extroverted twenty-six-year-old brunette, watched from the back of the reception, savoring a rare break and a sorely needed glass of wine, a respite from a summer of late nights worthy of a political operative.

  With no support staff and precious little direct experience, Pelka had spent the past several months obsessively coproducing this weekend, helping bring to life all aspects of the Bocuse d’Or USA finals from her headquarters in the bowels of Restaurant Daniel, down below East Sixty-fifth Street in midtown Manhattan. There, Pelka operates out of a glass-walled office she shares with A. J. Schaller, Culinary Communications Director for Dinex Group, Boulud’s corporation. The two face each other across two long and cluttered desks, a near-avalanche of reference books bending the shelves built into the wall behind them. A former cook and caterer, Pelka has the title of research assistant to Daniel Boulud, a job that can mean anything from writing the daily menu at Daniel (which can devour up to five hours on some days), to coordinating packaging and messaging with the manufacturer of Daniel Boulud Kitchen Spices, to conducting research and honchoing specific projects related to new restaurants and charity events.

  “When something creative pops up in Daniel’s world, and he wants to work on it, then he will often call me in and then set me off on it,” summarized Pelka.

  While Pelka spends her days below ground, Boulud hovers above it. He shares an office over the kitchen at Daniel with his assistant, Vanessa Absil, herself a native of France, a willowy, bashful woman in her mid-twenties who once studied in Lyon. The office is awash in energy, heightened by the steep, submarine-like steel stairway that ascends to the space, and by the room in which Boulud takes his meetings, called the Skybox: a windowed pen, separated from the office by swinging vented doors, and festooned with framed photographs of Boulud with everybody from Andy Warhol to Robert DeNiro to Barack Obama in his senatorial days—snapshots of more than twenty years in the public eye. The Skybox overlooks the expansive kitchen, all steel and copper by day, a swirl of white jackets by night—an odd, majestic cross between a grand, turn-of-the-century galley and an operating-room theater.

  In March 2008, after a brief stint working in the kitchen of Daniel, Pelka had recently returned to the company in a nonkitchen capacity, and her job description was still being formulated. As the chef was between assistants, Pelka took a turn at the assistant’s desk in Boulud’s office.

  Boulud’s first impulse to move the Bocuse d’Or USA forward had been simply to tap Kaysen for an encore effort, but when he mentioned it to him, his protégé’s response, delivered in his typically quotable style, was a conversation killer: “No problem, Chef,” said Kaysen, “I’d love to do it. I’ll just need six months off and three hundred thousand dollars.” Boulud also found out from Bocuse d’Or Contest Manager Florent Suplisson that the organization prefers that candidates be selected via some form of competition, as was now the case on three continents with the Bocuse d’Or Europe, Bocuse d’Or Asia, and the Copa Azteca in Mexico City.

  On March 7, Boulud, commonly referred to as DB among his staff—a casual touch that undercuts the chef’s French heritage and the formality of his flagship restaurant—told Pelka they were going to need to find a candidate. By her own admission, Pelka knew nothing about Paul Bocuse beyond his famous moniker, and had never heard of the Bocuse d’Or. But before she could do the necessary Googling, she and Boulud had relocated to the Skybox and set about hatching a plan.

  In many ways, Boulud is the unofficial mayor of the New York City chef community. Not only is he one of just a handful of them to hold a coveted four-star New York Times rating, but he also relishes socializing and networking in addition to empire building. From 2000 to 2009, at an age when many chefs are plotting their retirement, he added seven restaurants to his portfolio in locations as diverse as Beijing, and Vancouver, British Columbia. His boundless energy is legendary, as are the occasional late-night dinners he throws, welcoming fellow chefs to an after-hours feast. “Daniel is the life of the party,” said Per Se’s Benno, who worked for Boulud in the 1990s at Daniel, then located in its original space on East 76th Street (now home to Café Boulud). “[He] is up on the bar at four in the morning, dancing, screaming at the top of his lungs, and is back in the kitchen at seven the next morning.”

  Boulud and Pelka created a network of possible “committee” members to help with “influence, expertise, [and] fund raising,” and a list of possible sponsors, which Pelka divided into cash and “see above potential committee members,” meaning for in-kind contributions of products and services. Having expedited these first tasks, Pelka recognized that the job she had just been given was colossal, but she wouldn’t have had it any other way. She found Boulud’s enthusiasm and go-for-broke impulsiveness contagious, and always had.

  THE FRENCH TERM MISE en place refers to having everything in its place. In American kitchens where French terminology still rules, it describes the order a chef or cook desires before service begins. Mise en place means that you are ready to perform, everything is a grab away, and just the way you want it. You are set up for success.

  During the rest of that March, Boulud, Pelka, and Kaysen, with intermittent participation from Keller as his schedule allowed, established what the ideal mise en place would be for Bocuse d’Or USA success. Boulud conceived the plan of action the way a chef approaches a dish, building a base, then adding layers in a carefully considered fashion, each following logically the one that preceded it.

  A few pieces had already fallen into place: once he was on board, Keller had offered up his father’s old house in Yountville, which he had been planning to convert into a research and development facility for his company, as a training center. His vision was to install equipment identical to the competition kitchen so Team USA could practice with the same stoves, ovens, and other equipment that they’d be cooking on in January. The house also had two bedrooms where the team could stay while they trained. Jérôme Bocuse, meanwhile, had suggested making the team trials part of the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, a forty-five day celebration that takes place in the late summer and would provide a built-in audience to cheer on the competitors as they vied for the honor of representing the United States. He phoned Nora Carey, director of the event, who had just left a planning meeting for the next year when he reached her, and had no room in her budget for another event. But this was the Bocuse family asking; she just couldn’t say “no.” So she forged an alliance with some like-minded members of the Disney food and beverage team, and made the rounds until they had secured all the necessary executive buy-in. (For Keller, it would be the second “collaboration” with Disney. The creative team behind the Disney-Pixar film Ratatouille spent time working with the chef at The French Laundry as part of their research, and Keller designed the confit byaldi—the elegant interpretation of ratatouille assembled in thinly sliced concentric rings instead of rough-cut vegetables—that Remy the Rat prepares at the film’s climax.)

  Boulud’s next step was to approach a who’s who of famous American chefs—or at least chefs who worked in America—to ask them to become members of the “US Committee f
or the Bocuse d’Or.” In the last week of the month, Boulud sent out e-mails, “signed” by himself and Keller, asking fellow luminaries to affiliate their names with the effort. “By having your association as a US Committee member,” it read, “we will gain lever-age to:

  Support fundraising and sponsorship efforts

  Increase awareness of the Bocuse d’Or among our peers

  Encourage young chefs to apply to compete

  Honor Mr. Bocuse with your affiliation.”

  With the request coming from Boulud and Keller—and with the reference to paying homage to Bocuse himself—the response from many of the country’s most celebrated chefs was—what else?—“Oui, Chef.” Boulud also pulled off the rare feat of convincing the editors of the three top competing American food magazines—Dana Cowin of Food & Wine, Ruth Reichl of Gourmet, and Barbara Fairchild of Bon Appétit—plus Martha Stewart to sign on as the Media Advisory Board.

  In mid-April, with the first members of the committee (in time it would be renamed the Advisory Board) secured, Boulud approached the all-important sponsors with a letter inviting them to participate in the undertaking. Again, the yeses came fast and furiously: All-Clad Metalcrafters LLC, Krups, Diageo, Enodis, and Moët Hennessy USA all ponied up what Pelka refers to as “substantial financial support” as well as in-kind contributions of goods and services, for either training, hospitality in Orlando, or both. For example, Enodis, the company that installs the competition kitchens in Lyon, would furnish the equipment for the team trials and the Yountville training facility. Other sponsors followed in waves: Avero, which sells data-tracking software to restaurants, and American Express made financial contributions; Brandt Beef, a Brawley, California-based purveyor popular with top American restaurants, provided meat for the candidates to train with, and Pierless Fish, also a favorite among acclaimed U.S. chefs, did the same with the seafood; Rougié, the Périgord, France, foie gras company and a sponsor of the Bocuse d’Or mothership in Lyon, provided foie gras for events; Chefwear came through with jackets for candidates and judges; Petrossian Caviar provided caviar for a planned gala dinner at Epcot; and on and on.

  Finally, after nearly three months of accelerated preparation, the Bocuse d’Or USA went public on May 28, 2008, with the launch of a Web site that greeted visitors with thunderous music (a hymn composed especially for the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon by Serge Folie in 2003) and a video montage of Bocuse d’Or moments. It was more ESPN than Food Network, depicting screaming fans, a media pit packed with photographers, and a medal ceremony.

  Press attention was swift: By two thirty that afternoon, New York magazine’s Grub Street blog was up with a post entitled “Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bocuse d’Or Competition But Were Afraid to Ask” detailing the involvement of Boulud and Keller, partially listing the Advisory Board, and linking to the application. “If you think you have the stuff to represent the United States in the so-called cooking Olympics,” wrote blogger Josh Ozersky, “just fill out the application, send it in to Bocuse d’Or USA, and cross your fingers. You might be the one who brings the glory back home.”

  Not all members of the inner circle welcomed the attention. Kaysen, who knew what was required to win, place, or show at the Bocuse d’Or, was concerned that it raised expectations that would be difficult, if not impossible, to meet. “If we didn’t walk out of that stadium with first, second, or third, people were going to take their shots at it,” he recalled later. But Boulud insists that publicity was essential to raising money and attracting the best candidates. To that end, the same day the Web site launched, a call for applications went around as Boulud disseminated e-mails and letters to about three hundred restaurants—James Beard Foundation award winners, top Zagat-rated restaurants in key markets, possessors of Michelin stars, and so on—not necessarily urging the executive chefs themselves to apply, but rather asking them to encourage a talented staff member to get in the game.

  The application itself was much more than a name-rank-and-serial-number affair—it was the first elimination round, contested on paper, and it was a daunting document comprising several parts: biographical information on the candidate and the commis, plus a one-page resumé, a four by five-inch matte-finish recent photograph (in chef’s whites), two letters of recommendation, and a “letter of motivation” (750 words or fewer) described as “a personal statement for representing the United States at the Bocuse d’Or World Contest.”

  The applicants were also directed to share descriptions of the food they planned to prepare for the competition if they were selected: fish and meat dishes, each featuring the main protein plus three garnishes. “Harmony of flavor will be deemed very important, but we impose no constraints on competitors’ creativity in terms of preparation or presentation.”

  So that the Orlando event would double as a dry run for the Bocuse d’Or in Lyon, the teams were to use many of the same proteins that would be used in France. The selections change every two years. In 2009, they would be seafood from Norway (Norwegian fresh cod, Norwegian king scallops, and Norwegian wild prawns). The beef would be Scotch Beef Aberdeen Angus (oxtail, côte de boeuf, beef cheeks, and one whole fillet [tenderloin]). The Bocuse d’Or USA candidates would not be using the same brands of fish and beef, but they would be required to employ a similar combination of types and cuts.

  The last page of the application was a pledge form in which the candidate promised to be available for all events related to the Bocuse d’Or, and to “train intensely” for the Bocuse d’Or, working “closely with chef coaches (provided by Bocuse d’Or USA) to perfect all aspects of my dishes, including their timing, presentation, and taste.”

  ON COMPLETING HIS REMARKS, Keller turned the floor over to Michel Bouit, the man who had served as the executive director of the Bocuse d’Or USA for the past twenty years, and whose energetic stride to the center of the room concealed a bruised ego. If the new Bocuse d’Or USA had jettisoned anybody on its way to the future, it was Bouit, who was not consulted about the change of stewardship until things were well under way. Although he later said that he had no hard feelings about how things played out, Bouit didn’t appreciate that the first moves were made without his knowledge while he and Bergin were gearing up for the selection of the next American team. He was also outraged when he found his name slotted in alphabetically with the other members of the newly formed advisory board, which he took as a slap in the face, albeit an unintentional one, after twenty years. According to Bouit, he made his upset known and was elevated up away from the pack and listed as “Honorary President,” a role in which he would advise the new guard and assist with logistics and lodging on the ground in Lyon.

  French-born but an American citizen since 1975, Bouit put the politics of the past few months aside as he greeted the room with the unbridled enthusiasm of a ringside announcer: “Good evening!” he exclaimed. “Are you excited?” Then he summarized the twenty-year history of the American effort at the Bocuse d’Or. In 1987, there was no competition to represent the United States; Chef Fernand Gutierrez of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago had simply tapped a sous chef from one of the hotel’s cafés, Susan Weaver. “Fernand went to her and said, ‘Susan, guess what, you are going to Lyon.’ That is how it happened.”

  In reality, Weaver’s Bocuse d’Or saga was a bit more complicated than that. According to Weaver, who today is chef-partner in several restaurants owned and operated by Lettuce Entertain You in Chicago, Gutierrez’s vision “was for me to be able to prove myself as a woman.” To avoid any pushback from the event organizers in those unenlightened days, Weaver and Guitierrez filled out all of her candidate paperwork under the name S. Weaver.

  “It was the only way to do it,” recalls Weaver. “Because if they had known that I was a woman chances are it never would have happened … they did not know I was a woman until I went.”

  In preparation for the Bocuse d’Or, Weaver did five practice runs of her fish platter (salmon was the main protein selection) but only three
of her meat (Bresse chicken), because “I never expected to go to the final.” (Whereas today all teams present both fish and meat platters, in the first year the fish platters served as the initial round, dubbed the “semifinals”, and only the top eleven chefs went on to prepare their meat platters in the finals the next day. This was changed after many eliminated candidates groused over rehearsing two courses only to serve one.)

  “Honestly,” Weaver said, “I thought, Okay, this is the semifinal; let’s really work this and make it really strong and if by some fluke I get into the finals I have something prepared. But it wasn’t detailed and finessed.”

  When she arrived in Lyon, although nobody outright dissed her, Weaver remembers that she wasn’t treated seriously. “But I think at that point in my career, it wasn’t new to me. It was part and parcel of how things were. For me, it was put your game face on, put your head down as best you can, and try not to embarrass yourself. At that time I was a sous chef at the Ritz-Carlton. I was making burgers and French onion soup. I was up against the top chefs in the world … I was working hard. I did not have the experience or the position of the [other] competing chefs.”

  When Weaver shocked the Sirha and landed in the top five on Day One, qualifying for the finals, “all hell broke loose.… It was hilarious. It was almost like—gotcha!” she laughs today. “Paul Bocuse and all the disciples were all of a sudden with me, getting their pictures taken with the utmost respect.” For Weaver, the mission was already accomplished. “I wasn’t doing it to win; I was doing it to gain credibility and validity as a woman chef, and sticking my head outside of the kitchen.”