that brought me to America!
What was the dish?
It’s a tortellini of sweetbreads and langoustines with a vierge dressing. I was working in the south of France, on a very luxurious private yacht, which, when it wasn’t being used by the owner it was chartered. The gentleman that chartered the yacht, his name was McCaw and he’s an American billionaire. On the last night, I had cooked him this dish. He told me that it was one of the finest dishes he had ever tasted, and would I be interested in coming to America to be a chef. At the time I thought maybe he had a couple of glasses too many and I said ‘we can talk about it in the morning’.
Sure enough, at breakfast, he asked me to come and talk to him. He asked me if I had any questions or thoughts about last night, and I said ‘listen, I won’t hold you accountable to our conversation last night, because it was your last night on the yacht and you had a great time…’ and he said no, he was perfectly serious! He told me that his friend was a senator, so it would take six months to get me a working visa, and that if I was interested I needed to resign today! Of course I was interested but I couldn’t resign, I had bills to pay! When I told him that, he wrote me out a cheque for six month’s salary and left me a $12,000 tip. So I went back to Glasgow, and six months later he picked me up from Seattle airport. It’s a fairy-tale.
The moral of the story for a chef is that one dish can change your life. Because it changed mine. They’re always saying ‘you’re only as good as your last’ and it really rings true for me.
By Katie Pathiaki
