prix fixe : restaurant au [678 words]
happy birthday @anxioustential!!! a little gift that i hope you enjoy <3 (disclaimer that i know nothing about this industry beyond what 'the bear' taught me)
The restaurant is silent. Valentino blinks at the clock; a pearlescent face illuminated only by decorative corner lamps and car headlights beyond their front window. The cleaners left thirty, maybe thirty-five minutes ago. Pecco has not risen from his seat at the centre table, next week’s menu set out on sample plates before him, picked at and scrutinised.
“Sometimes things just take a while to build momentum, Pecco,” Valentino says. He reaches, hands itching, for a creased table cloth. It smoothes easily beneath his fingers. Pecco’s frustration is sour — curdled milk, the acrid scent of sweat and hard work with not enough to show for it. Not as easy to dewrinkle.
Valentino, when he was Pecco’s age, had already done this three times over. It’s a terrible standard to want to live up to. Enough Michelin stars to build his own sky, a book and a TV show and critics who actually liked him, beyond his food.
Pecco snaps, “I know that.” The cut of his voice suggests he is thinking but it happened for you — right out the gate.
A door swings open and closed somewhere far off, within the kitchen. Likely Bez coming back in out of the cold, fingers warmed by a joint smoked to its end.
Valentino thinks Pecco — Francesco Bagnaia, the chef, rather — is several things. Tightly wound, for a start. And then overinvolved. Too caring, too precise. A perfectionist. Unable to see the forest for the trees. Hundreds of hours spent perfecting each menu, choosing the right cutlery, the nicest chairs.
Valentino had just done all this like himself. But Pecco is trying to do it like Valentino.
“People liked the food. They were happy. You —”
“We had empty seats. You don’t, maybe for you, that doesn’t matter. But for me — I need it. I need this to go big.”
“It is not like you will haemorrhage money if things don’t work out, Pecco. I said I would —”
“I do not want to rely on your fucking money. This is my restaurant. This is — it’s my food. My fucking menu. But they look at me, at the sign, at you — fucking — lingering and they — that’s all they see!”
Pecco lifts out of his seat, hands curled into fists and shaking. There’s a sucking swoosh, the kitchen door opening. Bez is listening.
“I know. I know it’s yours.”
Pecco jabs an enraged finger towards the window, lips curling.
“They don’t,” he snarls, “the reviews, I know what they’ll say. Valentino Rossi’s protégé. Falling short.”
There’s nothing Valentino can say that Pecco doesn’t already know. He will seethe, and then he will go home and take a scalding shower, and the anger will harden inside of him until it is a crystal the size of an atom spinning at his core. Pecco’s frustrations are always just a waiting game. The man is too reasonable to let anything grip him for long.
“You had seven stars at my age,” Pecco adds, voice low. Some of the acid has bled from it, and his shoulders have gone round.
Valentino shrugs.
“Things were different, then.”
Pecco slumps, strings suddenly cut. He drops back into his seat and drags a trembling hand through his knotted hair.
“Don’t say that. Don’t say things like that.”
He looks like a boy again, like when Valentino first met him. The urge to tighten his fingers in Pecco’s collar and yank him to his feet arises from nowhere, and with it the need to hiss have some fucking perspective. Bez, in the kitchen, who had cooked steak and fish and stupidly intricate little potatoes for six hours, doesn’t have his name on the restaurant. Doesn’t get the acclaim, the attribute of genius. Mig and Franky and Celestino and everyone else who has taken it upon themselves to bend to Pecco’s immutable will, the same.
The fall out will come for Pecco like it had for Valentino. They will have that in common — losing people for it. A rung out, bled-dry type of loss. The kind Valentino thinks about every single day.
Kevin came to my volleyball game last night so I asked him to take some “flattering action shots” of me if he wanted to :) So here you have me just about to serve, and yes - I totally got it over the net! That serve actually got us the game point for our first win of the night!
Our team shirts arrived so it was so fun to all be coordinated in purple. I was totally stoked for the shirts until I read the back message of, “be funner.” The word snob in me can’t handle it, thankfully it’s on the back so I try not to think about it.
*Edit, just looked it up and apparently “funner” is in the dictionary. There goes my high horse.
After the games (which we won ALL THREE) the team went out for drinks at a bar in downtown Norfolk. Unfortunately, the neighbors, Kevin and I arrived last because we parked at my work and walked to the bar and so I was seated behind this huge column and couldn’t hear any of the conversation. It kinda sucked but instead I just talked to my neighbors who were seated near us thus furthering our developing friendship! In the interest of relaxing and socializing I did get two beers (Sierra Nevada’s Otra Vez gose! SO GOOD) which were definitely not in my macros but was enjoyable all the same. I did resist taking bites of Kevin’s gigantic club sandwich and only ate a few of his remaining fries. All in all it could have been much worse, especially given the carb-fest the night before.
Woke up this morning to another pound gained but amazingly my body fat has stayed the same? I’m channeling @zerocarb and reminding myself that body fat loss is all the matters. Speaking of which, @zerocarb‘ IS GETTING MARRIED RIGHT NOW. SEND HER ALL THE LOVE!!!!
Today was a farewell luncheon for my boss (cue all the tears) and we had a prix fixe menu where I chose the pumpkin and lump crab soup, chicken saltimbocca with zucchini fettuccine and the warm bread pudding with salted caramel. Again, not great keto choices but they were also small portion sizes so maybe it’ll work itself out. I plan on going for a walk tonight so that should counteract something!
Prix fixe lunch.
Amuse.
Local Melon Soup (Right)
The Mouse got slices of melon with basil and Balsamic vinegar, because the melon soup contained cheese. Kind of savory. The Mouse liked.
Starter.
Roasted Vegetables, Clam and Taro Chowder
Entree.
Fresh Island Fish (Ahi Belly) Sandwich and Fries
Because the ahi belly was fatty, the battered fish was not crispy, kinda soggy.
People’s Choice…
