01/15/2012 A Week of Short Stories — The Chopstick Murders by Sanae

When I was younger, my mother and I would leave Tokyo for a few days and stay at an inn with a rotenburo (hot spring). There was one inn that kept small bears in a cage. I would pass by them every time we went to the baths, they were often sound asleep in their bamboo cages. It seemed that the little bears were once allowed to swim in the hot springs with the guests. They liked the hot water. But then a newly implemented hygiene law prevented the bears from swimming with humans. In the ryokan (Japanese inn) lunch was never served, the two important meals were breakfast and dinner. My mother says that we ate bear stew for dinner. I don’t remember the meal, but she told me it was not so good. I wrote this story while thinking about the small bears at this Japanese inn.
 


 

The Chopstick Murders
by Sanaë Lemoine

 
My mother called me the other day while I was washing dishes. She asked me about the chopstick murders. There haven’t been any this month, I said, but we’ll see in December. These things come and go. She seemed rather satisfied with my answer and quickly ended the conversation. I’m late for my swimming lesson, she said.
 
The murders started at the end of the summer during the high season. The inn was full with guests and my husband was up at five in the morning to clean the bathrooms. The last stragglers of the night crawled to bed at that hour, and I would step over their weak limbs on my way to the kitchen. There were just three murders on the first day, the twenty-seventh of August, and then as the weeks went on, the deaths accumulated. By October we had hired a second gardener to dig graves. I established a good relationship with the town at the bottom of the mountain and the mayor helped me with small matters such as making sure the bodies were correctly incinerated. In the evening I strolled through the makeshift cemetery, dipping in and out of the small houses we had built. I counted the leftover urns, still resting unpacked in boxes.
 
My husband feeds the bears in the morning. We keep them in a bamboo cage by the baths. They look like big black dogs but mostly they stay quiet, drowsing in the afternoon sun.
 
The guests still come en masse despite the murders. They don’t seem to mind, and they ignore the few journalists that fall upon our hot springs. The curious ones prowl around the baths at sunset, but I shoo them away before dinnertime. I designed a new bathrobe for the guests this year. It has blue lotus flowers on the sleeves and reaches my ankles.
 
The first body I found was that of a woman. She must have been in her thirties, and there she was, unclothed, arched over a rock by the hot spring. Her feet were in the water and when I felt them they were warm. Two chopsticks jutted out of her chest and blood ran down her body drawing red lines on her white skin. From the wound I picked stray splinters. I washed her first before calling my husband.
 
My mother came to visit soon after and stood by the hot spring, threw open her bathrobe and yelled out: You spirits come take me away, as well! But nothing happened. I watched her rounded belly and the thinness of her thighs before she closed her bathrobe and snapped at me, So, how do we stop this? I shook my head.
 
There are days when I worry that my husband will be found, fallen by the baths, stripped naked and stabbed with chopsticks. Ever since the murders began we have banned chopsticks and now I only cook with forks and sharp knives. I ache for the feeling of chopsticks in my fingers. In the mornings I prepare elk stew and rice to be served with deep metal spoons.
 
We decided to open the inn with the hot springs after we sold our ramen restaurant. My husband wanted to leave Tokyo and I thought, why not, it would be pleasant to run an inn. There are fourteen rooms, a bar and sofas in the entrance. We built two baths with covered paths leading to the outdoor hot springs.
 
The murders have stopped since last month and I look out of my window through the morning mist. From here I can see the bears rattling in their cages. The knife is heavy in my hands but I continue to chop green onions. My husband goes out to feed the bears and he doesn’t return. Two hours later I pull on my rubber boots and step outside. It is cold and silent; the bathers drift in the hot springs like pale fish. I wave at them and continue down the path, calling my husband’s name. I search for the rest of the day, and by nightfall I return to the inn empty handed.
 

Illustrations by Hugo Yoshikawa

 

01/12/2012 A Week of Short Stories — Julienne and Her Friends by Basak

This week, The Walkin Kitchen will be posting a compilation of short creative works, written by some talented creative writers out of the Columbia MFA program, Forsyth Harmon, Basak Ulubilgen & Sanaë Lemoine. The works will vary in length and style, but all have some relation to food: the process of cleaning cooking equipment, the occupational hazard incurred by those who cook for a living, and the potential dark side of the utensils we use to eat it.

 

 

Julienne and Her Friends
By Basak Ulubilgen


An eight-inch Wüsthof Grand Prix Chef’s knife. My favorite. With its tall, black handle, a silver round W at the tip and the curves. Oh the perfectly placed curves which make it easier to grab. Curves in all the right places. Like a woman’s body. Not a model, not an actress but a real woman with real curves. The line cook at the first restaurant I worked at had ‘em. Her name was Miss Fitz and – I don’t know why – but nobody called her by her first name. It was always Miss Fitz. I think she was the first woman I fell for. She was in everyone’s top five. She’d wear these tight pants that made her curves stand out even more. But she’d cover them with her apron that she managed to keep white and clean all the time whereas I always ended up getting Sauce Béarnaise stains on mine. Her spiral tattoo on her back would be exposed when she bent over to get something from the mini fridge. And my heart would beat faster.
 
I always thought about her when I was cooking. I’d wonder if Miss Fitz would like this Beef Wellington or which wine she prefer. She seemed like she’d enjoy a good Pinot Noir, the difficult grape. So I cooked everything as if Miss Fitz were to eat it. Maybe that’s why people thought I was so good. Maybe that’s why younger cooks in fancy culinary schools came up to me on the street and told me I was the Escoffier of the new generation. But he invented the kitchen brigade system and I… I invented nothing, I thought. I never knew how to react to their outrageous comments. I’d say my thank yous and take an obligatory picture with my so-called fans and carried on to wherever I was going.
 
When I first started out, one of the line cooks in the garde-manger station once said to me:
 
    “If you’re gonna work in this kitchen kid, forget about your little play dates.”
 
I was sixteen. He continued.
 
    “If you want to stay in this kitchen, or any kitchen for that matter, forget about anything that includes socializing with anyone else. We are your friends now.”
 
He then pointed to Ramon, the middle-aged dishwasher, who was vigorously placing clean plates into the hot plate machine and said:
 
    “And he is your girlfriend.”
 
I thought he was full of shit, but it turns out, he was as right as the law. Everyone thought I wouldn’t last a week in there. To their surprise, I lasted ten more years in the business.
 
And then I killed myself.
 

KEEP READING & EATING

01/09/2012 A Week of Short Stories — Washing the Omelet Pan by Forsyth


 
I think of my father whenever I make eggs, or get caught in a lie.
 
On returning from Vietnam he was hired and fired as a short order cook in less than an hour. He claimed to have been a mess sergeant with the Marine Corps, but The Salty Dog kitchen staff knew the truth after one omelet.
 
    “Tom washed the omelet pan!”
    “He what? Impossible!”
 
Having been, rather, a sharpshooter, Tom didn’t know that one does not wash the traditional carbon-steel omelet pan between orders, but rather rubs it clean with a dry cloth, scouring the sticky bits with salt and vinegar.
 
This morning I pull the pan from the rack and lay a pat of butter at its center. I crack three eggs into a mixing bowl, add sea salt and pepper, and beat with a fork. I crumble feta, dice onion and chop tomato. I turn the gas on high, push the pat around, and just as it disappears I pour in the beat mixture, add the cheese, onion and tomato and watch the egg cook, the feta melt. Once it’s done I fold the egg, slide it onto a plate, sit down and eat. The omelet’s good and salty.
 
I got a job bussing tables at the Michelin-starred Fleur de Lys because I knew the maître d’. I only lasted one night. The draped walls and tented ceiling did not muffle the clatter as I cleared dirty dishes. I splashed the table linens with water and dropped bread on the plush rug. An older diner in pearls asked: “How on earth did you get a job here? After all, this is Fleur de Lys!” I didn’t answer, just lowered my head and filed back into the kitchen.
 
I finish the omelet and clean up after myself. The pan is one of those newer nonstick kinds, so I can just rinse it off and throw it in the dishwasher.