Ratatouille: the diary of Chef Colette
The strangest two weeks of this chef's life.
Monday
Debuting my new bob tonight. Maybe the men in the kitchen will stop seeing their mother when they look at me, and instead they will see the toughest chef in the kitchen, and the rightful heir to the role of chef de cuisine at Gusteau’s. Or at the very least, a sous-chef.
Tuesday
Nobody noticed le bob. All they could notice was the new garbage boy’s soup—somehow, it was a big hit with a food critic. And somehow both the garbage boy and the soup were left unattended for something like ten minutes! Skinner says he is going to make the boy recreate the soup tomorrow, when what he should really do is make sous-chef Horst explain how he thinks a kitchen should run. It is not with garbage boys making soup in secret, I can tell him that much.
Wednesday
So now I am to babysit the garbage boy. So much for the men not seeing me as the kitchen mother.
Thursday
I will say this for the garbage boy (named Linguini, improbablement)—he is the only one here who listens to me. He seems grateful that I am training him, and a little bit scared of me, which I like. I wish someone else would notice that I am now effectively working two jobs—rôtisseur, and mentor. Meanwhile, Chef Skinner seems to think that his two jobs are claiming credit for our work, and diluting Chef Gusteau’s legacy with all of his frozen foods. Will we ever get a real chef de cuisine again, I wonder.
Friday
Last night, some customers asked Mustafa what we had that was new. Somehow, Gusteau’s most perplexing recipe is what we offered them. Sweetbread à la Gusteau…the recipe reads as though Gusteau wrote it in a fever dream after reading Alice in Wonderland. Geoduck egg? Dog rose puree? And finished with an anchovy licorice sauce? Dégoûtant.
But of course, since it involves sweetbread, I was the one who had to help little chef Linguini. And I suppose he is a real chef now, too, because he refused to listen to a single one of my instructions. I was trying to follow the recipe, but he appeared determined to defy and frustrate me. The pièce de résistance came when he made a white truffle sauce out of nowhere and, a second before Mustafa took it out, poured it on top of my sweetbreads! Now, all of a sudden, Sweetbread à la Gusteau is the most popular dish of the night. And instead of a thank you, Linguini spent the rest of his night getting drunk with Skinner. He got what he needed out of me, I suppose. So now, he is the rising star, and I am the fool who keeps grinding away for a kitchen that will never appreciate me.
Saturday
Well.
I confronted Linguini about his disrespectful behavior. He was so unexpectedly rude that I slapped him—not my normal behavior, but I was so vexed. Vexed enough, I suppose, that I let him follow me behind the restaurant and babble some kind of apology/explanation at me. To be completely honest, he was freaking me out, so I reached for my pepper spray. But then, all of a sudden, he attacked me with a surprise kiss!
I cannot quite explain my reaction. I was scandalized, and confused and then…kissing him back. I did not realize until that moment how lonely being a chef can make you. A woman chef, doubly so. And this weird boy, with his erratic movements and sad, sweet eyes, has made me feel less lonely.
I do not know where this is going—nowhere, probablement. But for now…it is nice to be seen, even if it is just by one person.
Sunday
It’s a rat.
It’s a rat?
His secret chef instincts…this whole time, it has been a rat? Hidden under his toque, controlling him like a human marionette. Ça veut dire, this whole time, I was being out-cooked by a rat. This whole time, I was mentoring a rat. When he kissed me…was I kissing a rat??
Monday
I cannot tell Linguini this, but I’m the one who freed the health inspector from the pantry. My father was a health inspector; I could not face myself if I abandoned that poor man to whatever fate Linguini’s rats had in store for him.
I know that means that Gusteau’s is doomed. But the restaurant has been doomed since long before Linguini and his rat showed up. To be quite honest, I believe we have been doomed since Ego wrote his negative review. We have been doomed since Gusteau died. It has just taken this long for our doom to find us.
Tuesday
I took a vacation day. My very first in my career as a chef. I needed a day out of the restaurant, out of Paris, away from Linguini and his rats. So I went to visit Maman, who lives just outside the city in the cottage I grew up in. Imagine my horror to find the cottage riddled with shotgun damage, and the old chandelier in the foyer entirely collapsed on the floor.
“What happened?” I asked, frantic. “Burglars? A rampaging bull? What??”
“Rats,” she replied.
Wednesday
Gusteau’s is closed. Even Ego’s beautiful review, all about the unexpected genius of a rat chef, could not save us from the righteous ire of the health inspector. When I am with Linguini, I am appropriately heartbroken. And perhaps my heart is broken. But my spirit is relieved. There is a relief in meeting one’s doom. And the worst is over. It has to be.
Thursday
The rat wants to start his own restaurant. And he wants me to be his sous-chef. He and Linguini have already found an investor—Ego, the man who plunged a dagger of hateful words into Gusteau’s heart. There will be no other rats in the kitchen—my demand. But they will have their own dining room above the restaurant—the rat’s stipulation.
I believe there are not enough cigarettes in the world.
Friday
One creeping doubt I cannot shake…who was it who kissed me behind the restaurant that day? Was it Linguini, or was it his rat? If it was the rat, where did he learn to kiss a human? (…Why is he so good at it?)
Saturday
…I must admit, I like it better when he keeps his toque on.
I do not know when exactly this happened, but something has definitely cracked inside me. I am unrecognizable to myself. Was it le bob? Is that where it all started? Is that when my doom found me?
Sunday
I am staying at the rat’s restaurant. I am surrounded by rats every waking moment, and even more rats every sleeping moment. There is no more silence; just constant rustling, constant squeaking, a constant pattering of tiny, filthy feet. I do my job, the job I have always wanted. I am never alone.
“Anyone can cook,” I repeat to myself.
But does that mean that anyone should?
I think this is what this website was made for
This is the best thing I have read in months! Chef’s kiss!