The Importance of Hollandaise

My mother, a single parent by the time we moved to South Florida, managed restaurants. After I graduated from high school, I washed dishes at one of them, the Palm Beach Yacht Club in West Palm Beach. When the chef there quit, Mom told me I was the chef. I called up one of my buddies and asked if he wanted a job. First thing we did in the morning was clean the bathrooms. Then we’d clean the dining room, then set up for lunch. Dinner too, on weekends. Together we ran the show—we did everything.

My older brother, Joseph, was a cook at an upscale French restaurant nearby, and when we were growing up, Joseph tried to keep good food on the table for Mom and my four brothers and, eventually, a stepdad and half-sister. But other than Joseph, no one was especially interested in food. As far as a trade, I tended toward carpentry, if toward any one way at all.