The chef and author on encountering vichyssoise aged nine, practical jokes with his sous chef, and learning to take food less seriously
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I worked in a restaurant where the house speciality was mutton chops, soeverything reeked of fat, penetrating every pore, follicle and piece of clothing, as if I’d been rolling around in sheep guts. It was the first thing I smelled in the morning and the last at night. But I didn’t have any friends outside the business. It’s one of the reasons chefs hang with each other – who else will love our smells?
As a youngster, in New Jersey, I was fed normal pedestrian American home cooking – meatloaf and hamburgers – although I do recall a copy of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking high up on the refrigerator and how on special nights, when guests visited and mysterious adult stuff went on downstairs, the powerful smell of scallops with mushrooms in white wine sauce (Coquilles St Jacques) drifted upstairs.
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