High Season

H
I
G
H
S
E
AS
ON

  

A MEMOIR OF HEROIN
& HOSPITALITY

JIM HEARN

First published in Australia in 2012

Copyright © Jim Hearn 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone:    (61 2) 8425 0100
Fax:        (61 2) 9906 2218
Email:    [email protected]
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www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the
National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 841 1

Typeset in 12/14.5pt Bembo by Midland Typesetters, Australia Printed and bound in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Alice

Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

Acknowledgements

1

So I'm standing in front of my six-burner stove at Rae's on Watego's in Byron Bay and our head waiter Scotty wants to know if I'll cook a soft-shell crab for Paris Hilton that isn't deep-fried. I'm no killjoy so I say sure, it'll be wet and soggy but it'll taste like crab. Besides, it's New Year's Day and I'm feeling generous. Scotty, who knows what he's doing, takes care of her security guys with two whole fish, wok-fried vegetables, lotus-leaf rice and a couple of Peronis, then tells Paris he'll send a few things out. Scotty has a certain arrogance which goes down well with most customers.

The thing about girls and eating, particularly if they're celebrities or wannabe celebrities, is that they want the following three things when they go to a restaurant: first off, they want to have fun, which is why they travel in packs; next, they want to try a whole lot of different food, which they often share; and finally, they like all the food to look great. And what has become apparent this week with Paris Hilton, last week with Elle Macpherson and at Christmas time with Megan Gale, is that they actually have human bodies that require sustenance. The best of them know this much about themselves but many don't, and in the latter case it can mean the first rule of going out to lunch gets broken; which is to say, no one's had fun at a restaurant if they're still hungry after the meal. Doesn't matter how good the view is or the service was.

So Scotty goes all out and orders half a dozen entrees for the six girls, doubling up on two so effectively they've got eight. When it becomes obvious Paris and her little sister can really eat, Scotty, who's seen it all before, puts a rush order in for a cooked-through rib-eye steak with sweet potato mash and shitake jus, two fish of the day, three leaf salads, a main-size lemongrass-pasted Moreton Bay bug dish and, to keep the party going (as much for the other punters in the restaurant who are all busy texting their friends about who's sitting near them), we get the mains out the door as soon as the entree plates start coming back in. A share menu is a great way to eat pan-Asian cuisine anyway. It's not on a lazy Susan so you need a good waiter, but a share menu—maybe fifteen dishes for six—is a rocking good idea if everyone's there for the food rather than the Cristal. And these girls eat everything we throw at them.

The last thing they need in order to feel the day has come together for them is a great bathroom. And the bathrooms at Rae's are small but fucking great. So the girls all trip past and pile in and do whatever six girls do together in a tiny bathroom before they stumble out, giggling as they pass the kitchen where the crackhead apprentices are lined up to catch a glimpse—which is all they're going to get because the security guy, who in this instance manages things pretty well, stands in the doorway of the kitchen because he's seen what apprentice chefs are capable of. He knows that the three freaks in my kitchen, Jesse, Choc and Soda—all of whom are under twenty-one and have more body art and piercings than the Illustrated Man—are much more of a potential threat than any paparazzi. Just looking at the security guy I can see he's worried about the boys. I figure he's stood in doorways like this all over the world to deter smart-arse apprentices from yelling out, ‘Paris, you want my phone number?' or ‘Paris, I loved your video' or ‘Paris, how were the crabs?'

But the thing about Jesse, Choc and Soda is that while they may look like punks and act like punks, they cook like angels. Not everyone can stand the heat, sweat and abuse of a busy five-star restaurant. Not all kids have the necessary survival skills to see out one busy lunch service let alone the three or four years it takes to qualify as a chef. And these kids mess up. Sometimes they're late, sometimes the police ring looking for one of them, and sometimes they crumble and cry under the pressure, but if one stuck a paring knife between another one's ribs during service, the one with the knife tickling their lungs would finish plating up their order before removing the steel from their rib cage. Okay, I exaggerate, but only slightly; these kids are tough, they can stand the heat . . .

That said, I'm starting to worry about Jesse, who looks less than pristine. He's been going hard for a couple of weeks now and although he hasn't let the line down yet, he's starting to piss everyone off with his bad attitude. Jesse is the oldest of the three apprentices and the leader of the pack. It's important to the smooth running of the kitchen that Jesse doesn't get too messed up because if and when he does, he takes the other kids to hell with him. Even though I'm chef—or the old guy at the stove with a speaking part—these boys have their own subculture in which Jesse is the leader, and where he goes they follow. And right now, because it's high season in Byron Bay, nothing else matters other than getting through the next few weeks with whatever self-respect people can drag along behind them. The stakes are high; fuck up and walk out now, or push things too far until one of the kids break, and we're finished in this part of the world as chefs. That wouldn't matter if we'd been here six weeks or even six months, but after a couple of years we're a team and there's a certain level of expectation. Besides, Vinnie Rae would cut off our runaway legs.

Vinnie's a real treat. He's like our older brother who grew up and got rich and famous and now . . . now he's like our very rich and very demanding older brother. He looks like a blond Bob Dylan—who can surf. He came from the same kind of working-class neighbourhood as the rest of the guys in the kitchen, had the same sort of parents and same public schooling. But Vinnie was never going to stay a working-class drone. If his first job had been in the transport industry, he'd be a trucking magnate by now; if he'd started out in the fashion industry he'd be an international design star. But he didn't, he started in a kitchen, and now we live with the consequences of that fateful day.

The kitchen at Rae's is hot, even though the pass is open through to the bar and you can see the pandanus trees framing the blue-green sea of Watego's Beach. And it's hotter than usual lately because a heatwave has blown across town and settled into the neighbourhood like a passive-aggressive, all-seeing bully. The temperature is messing with people's heads.

Rae's is a seven-room boutique hotel with a sixty-seat restaurant and a kitchen that was never designed for commercial use. Rooms are a thousand dollars a night or more and it's not for everyone; it's expensive, but for some the value of the experience doesn't come together. That's partly because the whole time you're there you sort of feel like you're at someone's house, which is what the building was originally—a Mediterranean palace by the sea, but a house nonetheless. So the heat in the kitchen builds up. And when the breeze stops in the galley where the dishes and pots are washed, the air thickens into a vaporous steam that clings and climbs, building pressure and pushing sweat, until eventually even the toughest have to escape to take a few breaths and replace fluids.

Today it's Soda's turn to be punished; he knows he's been bad. Soda's done plenty wrong in his short life, but beneath a chemical cloud of burnt pots redemption is at hand. Soda got his weirdo name from the character in
The Outsiders
. Apparently he got called Soda at school when everyone had to read the book and it stuck. No one besides him and his family actually knows what his real name is any more. To us he's Soda and, like the fictional character, he has that wild, movie-star handsome face and easy smile that manages to keep him floating just above the grease and grime of the galley. Grandmothers, pet dogs, pussy cats—well, just about any female with a pulse—are particularly partial to Soda. Once they've looked into his sea-blue eyes and seen his winning smile, they all know who's boss in the lovable stakes. Not that he tries it on with any of us chefs. In here he's just a line cook; a kitchen slave like the rest of us. But having him around, like a colourful bird in a stainless-steel cage, somehow makes it easier for us all.