Turn up the Heat

wedding. Turns out all the chicken is perfectly browned on the outside and still clucking on the inside. The guy in charge of cooking the chicken had the temperature too hot and browned the birds off too fast.”
    “Oh, God. That is really disgusting. The bank guy must’ve been furious,” I said.
    “He was good and mad, and we were shaking in our clogs because the owner was going to know about this, too. So this guy doesn’t hit us or anything, which was lucky, and he ends up just saying, ‘We are done for the night.’ And the whole party left.”
    “Did you guys get fired for that? Or your cook?”
    Digger shook his head. “No, no one got fired. We blamed the cook, but obviously it was our fault, too. We had to accept some of the responsibility, right?”
    “What happened to the cook?” I asked, giggling. “Sounds like it was really all his fault.”
    Josh looked at Lefty. “He’s sitting right next to you.”
    I turned to Lefty, embarrassed for him. “I’m sorry I laughed at you.”
    “Ma’am, it was my fault. There was no excuse.”
    Digger reached across the table to mess up Lefty’s neat hair. “Yeah, but I took him with me when I left anyhow, right, dude? You know when someone deserves a second chance. And he hasn’t undercooked a chicken since. It’s just Pete I gotta worry about now. Who knows what he’s doing tonight? But at least we’d stopped serving when Lefty and I came to meet you guys.”
    “What’re you losers doing here?” Chef Mark Porcaro appeared at our table. “Chloe excluded from that, of course.” He smiled at me and then shook hands all around.
    Mark had the same rough, nearly fireproof, hands that Josh did. Josh called them asbestos hands. Chefs could dunk their fingers into simmering sauces, test the heat on griddles, or pick up hot-from-the-oven food with their bare hands. It never failed to make me cringe when Josh dipped a finger into a boiling pot.
    "Did you guys order yet?” Porcaro asked. Many restaurants stopped serving dinner at ten or offered only limited menus in the late evening. Because Top of the Hub offered a full menu until one in the morning, it was the perfect meeting spot for chefs when they got off work at their own restaurants.
    “Not yet. What should we get?” Josh asked. “I think Chloe might want one of everything you got.”
    I held up my hand to stop him. “Very funny. That might be a little much, even for me. Although I have to try the crispy calamari dish.”
    “You want me to just send out whatever?” That’s exactly what you want to hear from a chef like Mark Porcaro.
    “Anything you want. Thanks, man.” Josh shook Mark’s hand again and let him go back into the kitchen to work on whatever treats he was going to create for us.
    Our server arrived to take our drink orders. We got Heinekens all around.
    “Josh, how’s Simmer doing? Do you guys have steady business yet?” Lefty asked.
    “It’s coming along. Still unpredictable. One night we’re swamped, the next we’re empty. But I think the warm weather is really going to help us, especially with the patio area we have.”
    “Yeah, if those Newbury Street shoppers can put down their Gucci bags long enough to eat anything.” Digger snorted. “I’m just kidding. But I’d think you’ve got an interesting crowd coming in there, to say the least.”
    “You’re not kidding,” Josh agreed. “Chloe, I don’t know if I told you this one, but last week these two couples come in late. At like nine thirty, right, when we’re basically starting to break down. Two business-type men with their wives—all dolled up. So they get liquored up and make it through their apps fine. And the problems start. So one of the men had ordered the swordfish, and I had one piece of it left. Would have been fine except that I wasn’t paying attention, and I burned it. Seriously burned it beyond recognition. Their server went out and explained that, in fact, there wasn’t any swordfish. And this guy just flips out and demands to see me. So I go out covered in grease, I’m all sweaty and smelly, to talk to this group of dressed-up tight-asses. I said to the guy, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I lost your swordfish. What else can I get for you?’ and he completely doesn’t get what I’m saying because he’s had too much top-shelf liquor. He starts yelling at me because he truly believes that I literally lost his damn fish. ‘You don’t just lose a piece of swordfish! It must be there!