Le Chef

I’d like to thank the man who sat next to me on my flight to St Louis on Tuesday: because of him, I must blog.

It was clear immediately that he was French and that he was a talker. He was a large man, with big tree trunk legs and a larger tree trunk torso. Olive complexion and a shiny bald head and face with interested bulging eyes.

He started with the normal chit chat: do you live in St Louis or San Francisco? What do you do? How long is your trip?

He lives in San Francisco (but hates it), he is a chef and was going to St Louis to be a guest chef at a restaurant there the next day.

“Right above us,” he told me conspiratorially in a pretty thick French accent, “I have 300 Dungeness crab.”

“What, in the overhead compartment?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes yes!” He was emphatic. “On ice, of course. Gel packs. It is part of my special menu.” (It became clear later that he had 300 dollars worth of Dungeness crab, not 300 whole crabs. The crab was in a small cooler on ice packs, just like my breastmilk. We almost had something in common.)

It was just as well that I had forgotten to bring a magazine for the prohibited-electronics portions of the flight. I was up for an entertaining chat, and I had the time. So I asked him, the chef, if he had a favorite food.

“Ahh!” he cried. “All of it.”

Then he continued: “I love beans. Have you ever had a fresh garbanzo bean? They are green! And so delicious.” [smacking lips and a sort of cooing sound]

“It is all about what is in season,” he further confided in me. “Me, [gesturing towards himself] I L O V E… love love love love love tomatoes in season. In August, I give myself diarrhea eating so many tomatoes.”

“What about cheese?” I asked once I had recovered from almost choking when he said the “d” word.

“Ahh! Cheese!” he cried. “I recently lost 26 pounds just by eating less cheese.” (I could sort of relate: I gained 26 pounds just by eating cheese when I was pregnant with Emerson.)

The chime went off signalling I could get my laptop out so I told him it had been nice chatting and that now I had to work. He spent the remaining 3+ hours of the flight talking to every other person in earshot for as long as they would tolerate him. He disappeared for about 30 min at one point: I looked back and he was talking the ear off the flight attendant at the back of the plane.