This book might seem terribly dated to some of the more recent generations. But for those of us seeking an education and an escape route out of being a grunt labor line cook sweating one’s ass off in a Key West, (zero air-conditioning) kitchen it finally occurred to me that while I was not going to afford going to a cooking school I could, dammit, read!
So I began that. And … it has never ended. I was working in a hotel at this time. The primary guests were tourists and some of the more well off folks in the Island town. They expected menus laced with French terminology and traditions to some extent. Mercifully for me they were not hide bound by the notion and due to the munificent mindset of, in particular, a man named David Wolkowsky who was the owner of The Pier House he encouraged some more ‘American dishes’ as well. This meant things like Conch Chowder and Key Lime Pie. That being said we also needed to know how to prepare proper sauces like béchamel, mornay, béarnaise and the like. That is where Georges Auguste Escoffier comes in to the scenes of my life back then. Not the human. No he passed in 1935. But… his culinary guide lived on! It was there that I found myself no longer held back by a lack of funds to go to a fine school. I dug in deep, making notes and plans like anyone who saw a larger world I might work in and get paid better to do so … on the other side.