Jersey devil food truck story beginning

Chap 1

Amelia Pond stood in front of her mirror, smiling at herself. Amelia Pond alumnus 2012 underneath the crest of the Culinary Institute of America seemed to glow on the jacket she wore. 

Graduated for six months, she had spent the past eleven weeks in Japan, training under Chen Kurihari. But now she was home in New York in the small apartment above one of her father's restaurants.

A knock at the door and a call of "Chef, the order is here!" had her spin around at the snuffling noise. Her dad's best chef and her occasional hook-up lifted himself out of bed, slowed to kiss her cheek with a muttered "you look sexy af," then he was heading into her bathroom.

She shed the jacket then dressed quickly in comfortable trousers and a tee under a jacket then sat to finish her makeup. She had four interviews and only one was setup by her father. The rest had all contacted her through alumni connections at the CIA.

Jake exited the bathroom, pulling a gold tee with the VOID logo of the restaurant downstairs on then gave her another kiss.

"Oh, your dad said if you decide not to keep this apartment, I could have it so lemme know. G'luck at your interviews and come in for dinner with your basics, okay? The chef's table is unpopulated tonight and I love how slutty your bitches dress when there's free food."

Amelia laughed. "Already looking for someone new?"

He winked then was out the door.

  ⁂

She shed her jacket revealing a tee with Heisenberg and COOK underneath in the Obey meme form she had worn and pulled on the restaurant's branded jacket. James Morningstar, a renowned restaurateur in New York watched as she twisted her hair up with a kerchief then pulled a net over it. He smiled at the shirt choice as she began prepping the dish he wanted her to prepare.

"I swear i've seen you in my restaurant before," he said as she chopped celery and threw it in a pan to sweat it. "Your red hair is distinctive. With a dark haired man maybe?"

"My dad has brought me here a few times, he and your old chef were friends. He had dark purple hair the last time."

"Oh, you're Jack's daughter! I've tried to hire him away three times. Then he got that two star three months after opening and he blew up. Why aren't you running one of his restaurants?"

"I wanted to make it on my own before he funds one for me."

He nodded then tasted the finished celery root puree. "What is this finishing salt?" He asked, pointing at the black and gold salt.

"Pompeii lava salt. I made it while I was in Japan. Even if you don't hire me, i'm selling it."

"Well I'll definitely buy the salt from you," James replied. "But I do have a few other chefs to see."

She nodded.

"Most lava salts are just black from activated charcoal, right?"

"Yes. This gets its gold color from real gold."

"Why Pompeii?"

"That's where I was when I first made it. I had some edible gold and didn't know what to do with it. And I had some charcoal from a guy who found about five tons of it in a Pompeii warehouse that had stored wood. I realized how much some people would love that story. So i wired daddy and he bought it all."

"Write up a good blurb for it and I'll help you take it national if you want," he suggested. "If Jack doesn't."

Finally she plated the signature dish of the restaurant, a triangle of celery root mash, three grilled bacon wrapped leeks in a tipi and a salmon steak drizzled with a butter sauce and finished with the salt.

"Shortlist," he told her then shook her hand.

  ⁂

Three interviews completed with one more the following morning, Amelia sat down in the seat nearest the line, laughing at Kendra's too audible drink whisper about the sexy new prep cook bent over in front of her. 

The prep cook stood up blushing and was sent over a few minutes later with their latest tray of samples.

Kendra grabbed his ass then pulled him into her lap and shoved his face between her breasts.

~•~

With her friends gone and slightly sober, she found the new prep cook. "Jim, right? I'm sorry about Kendra."

"Don't apologize," Jake said, coming up from behind her and kissing her temple. "She just made Mormon-boy here a man. He had to go and change his manties."

His face bright red, Jim tried to protest but Jake caught him in a headlock and said, "Admit it, she's so hot you blew it."

"Jake," Amelia chided.

Jake let go and said, "Your pay envelope is in my office. And Kendra left you her knickers and a prescription to get some."

"She's a doctor," she clarified. "And she's not normally like that."

"I'll uh, i'll call her."

Jake grinned. "So, you up for a trip to poundtown too?"

Amelia looked at her phone. Three AM. "Okay."

~•~

She dragged herself out of bed, glaring at the four condoms she stepped on. Looking at the clock and seeing she had gotten two hours of sleep, she turned on her kettle and went to shower. Thirty minutes later dressed and made up, she heard a knock at the door and "Amy!"

She ignored it as she started to make her coffee and a moment later her dad walked into the kitchen.

"Morning Pondwater!"

That drew a smile from her but she kept it hidden by her hair. "Morning daddy. Why're you here?"

"Jake's late, I assume he's here?"

"Oh, yeah, still in bed."

"JAKE!"

A moment later a sleep fuzzed and still dressing Jake rushed into the kitchen. "Sir?"

"If you're done defiling my daughter, we have a new menu to figure out?"

"Oh, right. ... Babe, you feel properly defiled?"

Amelia blushed at that as her father rolled his eyes then slapped the back of his chef's head. "Lunch with your mom and I, angel pie. Two, at Black." His newest restaurant and the one Amy would take over if she didn't find a job she liked.

  ⁂

 Amelia lay in bed, depressed. She had the pedigree—her father and both grandfathers were world renowned. The talent—she had graduated top of her class. The skill—she had won or placed in every contest she had entered, be it blind or with the judges knowing who she was. Her cookbook at thirteen had been a new york times best seller. And yet she was one year out of the CIA and still working for her dad.

She rolled over and held her stuffed pig Mr. Gordo above her. "You think i'll get a job right?" She squeezed him and the little device inside selected a phrase and repeated it in Mae West's voice. "Outlook not so good."

A growl and Mr. Gordo was banished into the closet with the rest of her stuffed animals.

She looked at her new calendar. July fifteenth. Her ex—Jake had met a woman and had decided to go monogamous with her—was the centerfold for July for the CONY—Chefs of New York—Island calendar and she regretted the lack of cock currently in her life. They had airbrushed his bulge to look a little smaller she noted again as she imagined him tied to her bed.

Annoyed, she opened Tinder and looked for someone worth getting under in hopes of getting over him.

~•~

Sex scene

~•~

 Sitting in her favorite coffee shop, a small pre-fab diner that had been craned onto the top of a five story ISO container building of day use cubicles for the tech sector, she looked at an email on her iPad from an alumnus of CIA. She didn't know him but had contacted the school and had been told he had graduated fifty years before and took the various extended education classes every five years. He was at the school now but had a job offer for her, at twice what her dad was paying her, even including the share of profits she got: the offer was nearly two hundred thousand.

She looked at the location of the restaurant. No name for it but it was in the richest county in New Jersey. She opened her guide to New Jersey restaurants and tried to guess which one it was. She had eaten at all of them over the years and only two or three could afford that sort of salary. Then she remembered Tony Soprano. After a few minutes thought, she made a note to ask her dad about mob owned restaurants. I don't want to be paid with coke money or something, she decided.

Done, she closed the case for her iPad and sipped her salmonberry latte. Every year the owner went to Alaska, picked hundreds of pounds of salmonberries, then made syrup, jam, and salmonberry taffy to sale. She and her mother had gone with the group just after her fifteenth birthday.

She picked up her iPhone and sent a text to her mom about dinner on Sunday then Replied to the email she was interested.

~•~ 

 The old chef smiled at her as she entered the kitchen. It was a commercial kitchen in New York, one of those rentable units for food vendors who didn't have a fixed location but needed a kitchen occasionally better equipped than their home.

This one had wood fired stone pizza ovens, stone bread ovens, and smokers and barbecues outside. Amelia thought it might be slightly outside her comfort zone if it was some sort of comfort food truck: she had been informed it wasn't a fixed locale for a reason she'd learn later and assumed food truck.

She studies him as he studied her. He was ancient looking. As if he had aged ten years for every year he normally aged. But his smile was like her grandfather's, as warm as the sun. 

"Welcome, Miss Pond. I am Alonzo Mandias, they call me Ozzy usually, you may as well. The instructors praised your work and I was shocked to hear you hadn't found a position. But I hope you'll accept this one. This is a sample menu of what is served. The menu varies due to availability. We use nothing frozen."

She nodded at that. That's how Black worked. She went shopping at five AM at the docks and a couple farmer markets, dropped off the items and the menu, got a couple hours sleep, then opened for lunch, closed to prep and nap again, then opened for dinner until two am. She got eight hours occasionally but usually subsisted on six hours six days a week and slept hard on Mondays, their dark day.

"But, you won't have to shop. We have a person for that. And your prep cooks are incredible. They get their shit done in no time.

"But, your test. This is a common dish for our restaurant, though we'll be utilizing beef instead of the usual meat due to unavailability at the moment. I've tasted it with both so know what to expect. Please, prepare your station."

She accepted the menu. A pan seared steak in a curious mix of spices that clashed to her mind, with naan style flat bread made with wild garlic, wild greens and brussel sprout slaw, and a salmonberry lime chili chutney: a taco but curiously made in her opinion.

She did her mise en place and got the oven fired up then began assembling the ingredients.

Ozzy put earbuds in and turned on his iPod as she worked, humming along to  what she was sure was Carly Rae Jepsen.

She wasn't as sure on the grill—her father's was more like a kitchen due to sinking nearly fifty thousand into his outdoor setup—as she would like to be but she got the fire going how she wanted and soon was searing the steak, covering it with a garlic butter sauce, then covered it with the rosemary, thyme, fennel, and what appeared to be dust from a bottle labeled 'vitamix' as called for in the recipe.

When she finished the meal, she placed the taco in front of him and waited. He took a bite then spat it out.

Her smile of expectation fell away.

"Oh, you did it flawlessly. The vitamix is not safe for me to eat," he told her, taking a sip of water then washing his mouth out before drinking from the bottle of lemongrass filled vodka. "Monday you meet the owner. He'll extend the offer officially but you've got the job. If you want it."

Amelia nodded, wondering what the vitamix was exactly.

Chap 2

"Nah, angel. The mob doesn't use restaurants. They used to but it's easier to run money through laundromats, car washes, stuff like that. With debit cards, most things are done by plastic. But a laundromat? Still primarily cash. Best way to launder money is a laundromat."

Amelia made a face at his expectant look for the joke while her mother rolled her eyes. "Dad!"

"Dear, stop with the jokes and go grill dinner."

When he returned, he set the grilled tuna rolls, sushi, and sashimi on the table then went back to the kitchen as Amelia and her mother started to eat.

"Any idea what restaurant it might be?" Candice asked her husband.

"Blume's or Lafayette's are the only ones I know of that could afford a 200k a year chef. Hey, if it is Lafayette, I expect a table more than once a year."

"And I expect a suitable bribe," Amelia replied to her mother's laughter snd her father's faux outrage.

"I sent you to the CIA, Cordon Bleu, and on a trip around the world to expand your skill-set, angel pie. And i didn't smother you when you were colicky. Your bribes have been paid, ya li'l brat!"