Bigfoot Bouillabaisse

Sweat stuck to Sue. It stuck to her smooth skin, her hair, her toque, her whites, her apron, everything. Her sweat intermingled with that of her fellow chefs, humans like her and monsters alike. The odours of wet fur, ripe fruit, almonds and petrichor emanated from the canidens and the bigfeet. Mixed with the sizzling of steak, peppers and hot oil in the pan, broiling onions and stew in the pots, and the baked aromas of cheese and pastry wafting from the ovens, it filled the kitchen with a musky miasma.

Sue loved it. It sucked to feel like a smelly sardine, but she liked the way it sucked too. It smelled like effort. Being in a kitchen was nothing but effort, effort, and effort, and a dash of luck. Being in Lisieux Garneau’s kitchen, however, there was no room for luck.

Lisieux was a snake-like lacertan whose long neck swayed side to side as he sauntered around the kitchen. His red uniform stood out like a stop sign amidst a sea of off-whites. Each click of his claws across the tiled floors sliced through the tense air. He scrutinised the table of a neighbouring bigfoot chef, Wick, who cleaned mussels for his bouillabaisse — one of Lisieux’s signature dishes. Lisieux turned without uttering a word. Wick got off easy.

“Sue,” Lisieux said, approaching her counter, “your mise en place makes my soul weep. Clean it up at once.”

Sue scrambled to re-arrange her utensils and trash the potato peelings.

“Oh, and—” Lisieux craned his neck—“one hour left! I better see asses moving!”

“Yes, Chef!” everybody shouted back.

Not many could say Lisieux Freaking Garneau mentored them at The Fishbowl, one of Eagalia’s most popular restaurants, but Sue could. It was a privilege to be here.

If she didn’t get Lisieux’s thumbs up to qualify for his scholarship, he would take away that privilege.

Sue observed her counter. The naked potatoes in the casserole dish waited to be roasted in the roaring oven. Sue grabbed the mandoline and started slicing the spuds into thin strips, fingers millimetres away from the guillotine. She had used it enough times to know not to cut herself on it. One potato, two potato, three potato, more, five potato, six potato, seven potato—

“Hey, Sue!”

Shnk. Sue yelped, clutching her hand. Blood trickled down streaks on her pinky and ring fingers. Steve stood in her station, hands in his trouser pockets.

“What the hell, Steve?” she yelled.

“The mandoline’s sharp, by the way,” he said.

Sue ignored him and pushed past the chefs to get to the first aid kit. She bandaged it up as best as she could, mummifying her finger in gauze wrap. It wasn’t terribly tight, but there was no time to fiddle around with it. Once she wiped the blood off her station, Sue stomped to the communal fridge, hoping to get on with her work, but Steve had followed her there.

She groaned. “What were you doing back there?”

“Just thought I’d check on you, sweetie.”

Ugh.

“Okay, but did you have to shout?”

“You can’t hear a thing in here otherwise.”

“So you ruined my flow, and now you’re stalking me.”

“Hey, I need the fridge too, you know.” Steve flashed a cheesy grin as he grabbed a bowl of clarified butter. “That lizard’s gonna love my lamb shank.”

Sue merely hummed as she searched for the dish containing the gruyère and garlic cream. Steve’s eyes were on her.

“What?” she asked. “Is there something on my face?”

“Nah, nah, nothing wrong with it. Well, except for that mole.”

Sue traced the mark below her right eye. “It’s a beauty spot.”

“Whatevs.”

Sue tried to reach for the cream cheese combo, but Steve grabbed it first.

“There you go.”

“Thanks?” She snatched it off his hands. “I didn’t ask—”

“I don’t know what you’d do without my help, Sue, really.” Steve smiled and leaned forward, getting a little too close for comfort. Sue backed away.

“There are lots of sharp knives in this kitchen, you know.”

“You’re such a flirt.” He aimed a finger gun at her. “Good luck with all that. See you after the judging’s over.”

Steve thankfully left Sue the hell alone. The dish shook in her hands, spilling cream over the rim. When she returned to her station, she took a few deep breaths to steel her nerves. Her fingers trembled. Her wound throbbed beneath the bandage. She had nicked herself with the knife here and there, her palm laced with pink lines, but she’d never injured herself this badly before. All because of that guy.

The clock on the wall far away ticked on. 50 minutes left. They would’ve laughed her out of the kitchen if she took a break for any injury that didn’t send her to the ER, but it was too tempting to sit this one out.

Steve whistled at his station far away, turning the simple act of chopping leeks into a one-man circus act.

Sue’s fists tightened. She was going to shove some humble pie down his throat.

Sue had to make another trip to the fridge to take the raccoon confit out — the most important part of her dish. Getting through the kitchen was cramped enough, but it became an obstacle course when carrying a massive tray swimming with congealed fat. Sue tiptoed over water and oil spills and manoeuvred past the shuffling of paws and big bare feet. She had to be careful, but she couldn’t afford to waste time. In her rush, she bumped into Wick’s side.

“Sorry!” she said.

The bigfoot turned, towering two feet taller over Sue. Stew snaked down his apron like elongated slugs. A bear-like growl escaped his maw.

“That dish better be worth spilling my soup.” Wick huffed, dabbing at the stains with a hand towel. “I’ve never seen a human prepare raccoon correctly.”

“Okay, sorry again!” Sue turned back to her station. Her take on their staple meat was bound to turn some hairy heads. But she pressed on, draining the fat from the meat into a baking tray then mixing the julienned potatoes with the cream mixture. She popped both the dishes in the oven. Both would take what remained of the hour to cook.

What else needed doing? That tray sat in the way. It was better to clear it now to make way for the asparagus she had to cook later. She grabbed the grease-covered dish, putting more force on her bandaged fingers. They continued to throb as she danced the cramped kitchen tango. Her hand really started to ache. Sue was about to dump the tray in the sink when she flopped to her knees. Fat exploded all over her apron.

Sue didn’t get up. She didn’t want to see the other chefs staring at her, especially not Steve. She looked at her trembling fingers. Her bandage leaked. How was she losing so much blood? She was so tired. Her knees hurt. It was too hot in here. Too smelly. All this work was too hard. Did she even belong here?

A scaly hand grasped her shoulder. Lisieux knelt down, handing her a glass.

“Drink some water,” he said. “Oh, and your first aid is sloppy, let me fix that.”

Sue downed the glass and sat on the damp, sticky floor. She took a few deep breaths as Lisieux replaced her bandages.

“Don’t give me any special treatment,” Sue said.

“Get over yourself.” He tightened the gauze around the wound. “I’m not having you bleeding all over my kitchen. You’re going back up there as soon as you’ve wiped yourself down and straightened yourself out. Alright?”

Her fingers still ached, but she wasn’t as dizzy any more. Sue met Lisieux’s gaze and nodded.

“Get back to your station.”

Sue did as she was told. With a brand new apron and a properly bandaged hand, she cleaned her counter and filled her pot with salted water. The clock said 20 minutes left. The other chefs looked increasingly panicked as they deglazed pans and drained boiled veggies. Sue had more leeway to relax, periodically checking on how browned her dishes were. Still not ready. Before she knew it, the minutes ticked down, and Lisieux stomped to the centre of the kitchen.

“10 minutes!”

Sue turned the gas on to boil the pot. While she waited, she pre-heated a frying pan, then fetched the asparagus from the fridge.

“Five minutes! Tick tock, tick tock!”

Finally, the water bubbled. Sue chucked the asparagus in, taking extra care not to scald her battered fingers.

The rest happened in fast motion. Potatoes out of the oven. Plated up, arranged in a circle. Confit laid on top of it, cooked to perfection. All she needed was to serve the asparagus.

“One minute!”

Sue rushed to drizzle olive oil over the pre-heated pan. The asparagus went in straight from the boiling water. Water and oil spittled onto her bare hands, but Sue couldn’t stop. She counted down the seconds in her head, praying that she sautéed them enough to achieve that oh-so sought after texture: firm yet soft.

Ten. Brown. Nine. Serve. Seven, six, five, four, three, season with salt and pepper.

Lisieux bashed a ladle and pan together, belting “time’s up!” at the top of his lungs. Everybody scrambled to bring their dishes to the shelves under the heating lamps and gathered around Lisieux.

“Now, listen up!” he snapped, “I better not be disappointed by this! You’ve been given plenty of times to fuck up at my restaurant, but now is the chance to properly prove yourselves. I will not mince words when I tear apart your dishes, and I expect you to take it like a champ when I give you the dressing down of your lifetime and slam the door on your tails.” He snorted. “Those lucky enough to receive my praise and stay here, savour it, because I do not hand it out like candied flies.”

Sue squeezed her moist hands.

Lisieux squinted at a clipboard. “Matthew? Show me your bourgeois take on steak frites.”

Matthew, a golden caniden, presented his dish to Lisieux. Sue thought it was a safe choice for a dish at first glance, but the closer she inspected it, the more she found to pick apart. To call the steak well done was to call a tirefire slightly warm, and the potatoes were cut any old how Matthew fancied, in odd misshapen lumps or razor thin fries with nothing in between.

Lisieux stuck out his long tongue, squinting as he took in the smells. Everyone stood still. Lisieux scraped the beef and a few of the fries together and tasted it. He crunched, stopped, and swallowed with a face like he just ate sawdust.

“Matthew, is it?” Lisieux leered at the caniden, whose ears perked up.

“Yes, chef?”

“This is… disssgusssting!”

Everyone stepped back. A student was in serious trouble if Lisieux started hissing.

“I have never been more insssulted in my life! You ssserve thisss burnt, misssshapen ssslop to me, you… you… mutt! Do you alssso eat your own ssssssshit? You repulssse me! I know tadpolesss who can cook better than you!” He huffed and puffed, gathering himself, and stabbed a claw into the rubbery steak. “You don’t know how to cook medium, you can’t cut potatoes, you can’t even fry the fries properly! Can you even sleep at night knowing you’ve butchered something so rudimentary? My mother used to make these for me, and now she’s turning in her grave! Well done, ten out of ten, you witless fleabag!”

Matthew’s tail wagged like a doorstopper.

“Well, I thought it tasted good!” Matthew lolled his tongue. “If you’re not having it, can I eat the rest?”

Lisieux groaned, shaking his head.

“Whatever. Go, take it and get the hell out of my kitchen.”

Matthew wolfed the plate down as he walked away, leaving behind a trail of lumpy potato sticks in his wake. One bigfoot laughed. Lisieux grabbed her beard.

“Oh, you think I’m done, you flat-footed oaf?” He flicked his tongue at her. “Why don’t you bring out your dish? Roasted raccoon, was it? How original, bring that vermin to pest control right at once!”

Lisieux went through the whole pecking order. For every student he complimented, he verbally eviscerated two more. Some clenched their teeth through the tirade. Others tore out clumps of their fur. All the while, the number of chefs remaining dwindled.

Eventually, it was Steve’s turn. He smiled as he brought his lamb shank out to Lisieux, apparently unshakable in his conviction. It looked nice enough from the outside, tastefully prepared and garnished with scallions and parsley. But when Lisieux cut through the meat, it was pink.

Lisieux took a bite and immediately spat it back out. Steve’s face crumpled like paper.

“That’sss raw! Raw!” He gagged. “You dare darken The Fishbowl’s door and you can’t even cook lamb? You have flussshed your career down the toilet!”

Steve’s legs shook. “But I—”

“No buts!” Lisieux jabbed a claw into his chest. “You are a disssgrace! A disssgrace! You’re nothing but a slab of pasty white meat masquerading as a chef! If I were you, I would spend the rest of my life in a cave before bringing even further shame to my family, you waste of human ssskin!”

A whimper escaped Steve’s lips. He crawled to the floor, breaking out into violent sobs, then threw up in his chef hat. All of the other chefs flinched as if it was contagious. Sue watched every second of it.

“Steve!” Lisieux shouted. “Pick yourself up off the floor and pass your waste somewhere else! We’ve got food to eat!”

Steve carried his bulging toque out of the kitchen, still snivelling.

Then it was Sue’s turn, the last one left. No pressure.

Lisieux squinted at her dish. “This is your… raccoon confit, correct?”

The raccoon meat, crispy on the outside but dark and tender on the inside, was thinly sliced and laid atop a healthy dosage of dauphinoise potatoes and asparagus sprigs. Sue had spent ages in the kitchen at home, shelling out for all of that raccoon meat sourced from the local bigfoot-run delis, perfecting the dish’s cooking time and its presentation. All this preparation, leading up to one fateful minute under Lisieux’s knife.

Lisieux smelled with his tongue, cut up a forkful of raccoon meat, and guided it slowly to his maw. He chewed at a molasses speed, as if toying with his prey, then swallowed. Sue gulped, bracing herself for the worst.

Lisieux took another bite. Then he bit into the potatoes. And another potato. And the asparagus too!

“Sue.” He held his hands behind his back. “Confit is a very tricky dish to get right, even traditionally. Raccoon meat wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it isn’t bad prepared this way. I would like the sauce on the potatoes to be a bit richer. But the idea is executed well enough.” He smiled. “If you keep it up, you’ll get to cook this at The Fishbowl.”

Sue tensed. She expected him to end it with ‘just kidding’.

Lisieux clapped his hands.

“That’s all, chefs. I expect to see you all tomorrow for our first lesson. Now, make sure these dishes don’t go to waste, at least the ones that won’t poison you.” He pointed a cigarette at the group. “And don’t forget to wash up! If I see one leftover plate, I’m going to make you eat my skin shavings!”

And just like that, he left.

Before Sue could bask in her glory, the remaining chefs broke out into conversation, gathering around the piles of food. In contrast to the breakneck pace of the kitchen and the tense air of the tasting session, they were smiling, cracking jokes, affectionately punching each other in the arm, and the cold atmosphere dissolved. Wick stood beside Sue, eyeing the dishes on the table.

“Er, sorry about earlier,” Sue said, trying to hide her fear.

His face brightened up. “It’s no problem, sorry for growling at you. When I get in the zone, I get really grumpy.”

“Don’t sweat it.” Sue eyed his bowl of bouillabaisse — an ocean of seafood swam in a pool of brown liquid. “Can I try your dish?”

“Only if I get to try yours. And don’t hold back.”

Sue savoured the bigfoot bouillabaisse. Wick qualified just like Sue did, and Lisieux wasn’t as harsh on his dish as the others, but he also said it was only serviceable at best. Sue didn’t have the same level of cynicism trying it — the stock was thick, the bread was soft and crunchy, and the seafood was tender.

“It’s a bit salty,” Sue said, “but other than that you’ve made a nice dish.”

“Thank you.” He dug into the confit, dregs of fat sticking to his hairy chin. “That’s an honour coming from you. I was sceptical about your raccoon cooking earlier, but you’ve converted me.”

“I tried my best to do your dish justice.”

“You’d make a very proud bigfoot.”

Sue bowed, heat rising to her cheeks.

Steve’s pink lamb went untouched. Once everybody had their fill, they salvaged what they could for leftovers, washed a mountain of dishes up, and cleaned the kitchen for future use, Sue included. She wouldn’t get a free pass from not washing up even if she got Lisieux’s stamp of approval.

Oh right. Lisieux Freaking Garneau just praised her. Never in a million years did she think it would come to this. But that was the moment she lived for, sharing her cooking with people who respected her craft. She would have a lot to learn from Lisieux, as well as everybody else. But Sue knew that The Fishbowl was where she wanted to be.