Cooking for Gucci

This story is based upon true events. Some of the names were changed for accuracy

Cooking For Gucci

I picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hello”

“Hello, Mr Anderson, this is Bianca Nappi.” She had a deep, smoky voice with a slight Italian lilt. “We saw your ad in the trade paper about preparing a dinner in our home. Sorry, this is so last-minute. But are you engaged this Friday? We are planning a dinner party for twelve. We’d like to employ your services.”

I let out a silent gulp. “Hum,” I stalled, “Let me check my calendar.” “Yes… I, ah, I can do Friday. Can you share a few details, please?”

“Lovely,” she cooed. “The chef we normally use is back up north in the Hamptons this week.”

“The Hamptons,” Jeez, I thought. The Hamptons is a very upscale community located on the eastern end of New York’s Long Island. It almost always meant money, and lots of it.

“Might you be a dear and come by the store tomorrow?” Bianca asked. “That way we can meet, chat, and put a menu together.”

I paused again, my mind racing. “Sure, “I said, “How about 3 o’clock?”

“That will be fabulous,” Bianca replied. “You know where we are, right? 170 Worth Avenue, in Palm Beach. It’s the Gucci Store.”

# # #

Okay, so this requires a little background. I was staying with my old friend Buzz and his girlfriend Liz at their place in West Palm Beach. I’d known Buzz since we were 14. We caddied together at the local Country Club in small town Ohio. Later, we were roommates all through college.

Buzz was a landscape architect. Liz was a court stenographer. Her job was making sure all testimony flowing forth in the Palm Beach County court system was transcribed accurately as the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I was escaping the middle of a long Alaskan winter, where I was building a home. Winter daylight was in short supply. My bank account was in tatters, so Buzz invited me to his place for a ‘working vacation.’

After only two days in this South Florida mecca, I landed a very nice job tending bar at a swanky, very high-end club in Palm Beach. The place was a Casablanca-themed club. The servers wore safari-type skimpy dresses and Jungle Jim hats. I was making a boatload of money on tips, tending to the needs of the rich and famous. Money was never a problem for these people. Folks danced the night away to the sounds of a DJ who spun records half the year in NYC, and the winters in Palm Beach. The club attendees’ attire was Brooks Brothers casual for the guys and plunging low-cut dresses for the women. The dresses flowed like parachutes as the couples danced and spun their way across the dance floor, into the wee hours of the night. It was the height of the Disco craze, think Studio 54. This was the South Florida version.

On a lark, and probably not fully thought out, I placed an ad in the local weekly trade papers: The Palm Beach Sands. (This was well before Google or mobile phones.) It read: A fine meal prepared in your home: Enjoy a dinner with a rural French flair.

I’d been in the restaurant business for four years, bouncing around the country. I had trained with a French Chef in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was a sous chef at a resort in Santa Barbara, and cooked at a fancy-schmancy dude ranch in Colorado. I still liked to cook, and thought it might be fun to cater for a party and make a few extra bucks.

Buzz thought I was nuts. “What are you going to do if someone calls?” he asked.

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. “Shit, I guess I’ll have to, wait, what does the ad say again? Prepare a fine meal with a rural French flair, “Don’t worry, Buzz, nobody’s gonna call.”

Two days later, I got the call from Bianca

Going to Worth Avenue the next day was intimidating. Putting things in context, there was Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, long before there was Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Palm Beach is OLD money. -- Think, The Rockefellers, The Kennedys, Merriweather-Post . These are some of the names that set the standards for opulence in South Florida.

As I strolled the avenue looking for the Gucci store, I knew I was breathing rarified air. It took all my strength to pretend I belonged. All the big-name stores were present: Prada, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s. This was obviously the major leagues of fashion. The lure of placing a trade journal ad to cook a meal in someone’s home might have gotten me in over my head.

I was wearing a sports coat borrowed from Buzz, and I had ironed my best shirt for this meeting. I carried a notebook, hoping it added a bit of respectability. I was trying for “casual chic,” but I still felt woefully underdressed.

I spotted the Gucci logo on the storefront. The store’s entry was two massive arched glass doors, trimmed in silver. The magic letters GUCCI were scrolled in gold leaf on the front door. Once inside, I was swept up in an almost obscene opulence. The floors were large beige Travertine tiles, running in a diagonal pattern. They were tastefully covered with colorful Persian carpets. The shelves were adorned with leather handbags, clutches, and shoes. Items that catered to the well-healed clients. The staff flittered around the store dressed like they were straight out of Vogue Magazine. A tall, beautiful man dressed in an Italian suit (of course) was making cappuccinos along the back wall. It was all so breathtaking. It screamed money.

I spotted Bianca the second I walked in the door. She looked just as I had imagined. She had wavy shoulder-length dark hair, a flawless Mediterranean olive complexion, and dark eyes. Her smile was captivating, and at three inches taller than me, I had to look up. She was wearing Miss Dior, a fragrance I knew from an old girlfriend. I felt a little weak in the knees. I thought women this beautiful existed only in airbrushed photographs.

“So, this is how the other half lives,” I told myself. Nervously, I glanced at the floor as I nervously pinched the bridge of my nose. “Shit, I forgot to polish my shoes,” I chuckled to myself. “Maybe they will ask me to leave.”

Bianca smiled and said, “Ciao, Buongiorno.” As she extended her hand. My head did a quick nod. I returned her smile, and for some unknown reason, I kissed her hand. “Prego,” I said. “Jesus,” I thought, rolling my eyes, “did I really just kiss her hand?

I’m such an idiot.”

“Come with me, please,” she chuckled, batting her dark eye at me.

Bianca was the store's General Manager. She may have been one of the Gucci grandchildren and had full authority to decide things. We spent an hour working on a suitable menu. When I left the store, I was walking on a cloud. I had $500 check.

in my pocket. “OK, I told myself, you have made it this far. Don’t screw this up.”

When I returned to the condo, I told Buzz and Liz about my afternoon. Buzz had to ask me to slow down. He laughed and said,” You are hosed, buddy. These people are going to see right through you, and they are going to throw you out the front door onto your ass.”

But then Liz chimed in. “No!, No!, “I think we can do this. You are going to need a server, right? I’ll help. There is a costume shop about fifteen minutes from here. I’ll get a tasteful French maid’s outfit. I’ll put on my stilettos, paint my face, and Voila. This could be fun,”

Liz was a tall blond beauty in her own right. She had bright blue eyes and a smile that could light up a room, and she was a notorious flirt. She knew her way around a short skirt.

D-day arrived, and I was surprisingly calm, despite a few butterflies, but I somehow knew that I had this. It was my show now. I was in charge.

I arrived at the Gucci compound with my groceries at 3 o’clock. Drinks and hors d’oeuvres were set for 7:00. The house was to die for. It looked like it belonged on the Italian Riviera. It had nine-foot-high windows with flowing arches. The soft golds and pale butter yellows of the home set a tone of comfort and elegance. There were two boats parked at the dock. One was bigger than the house I grew up in.

The house staff was warm and friendly, and the kitchen was a showpiece of culinary wares.

There were cabinets full of Tiffany Silver serving trays and a Spode China table setting for 25. Just the dinnerware was worth more than my car.

I spent the afternoon chopping, dicing, and sautéing. I shucked three dozen oysters and peeled four pounds of fresh shrimp.

Liz arrived about 6:00 pm, looking spectacular, mischievously so. She had her blond hair in a classic French braid, a Chanel dark red lipstick, and a very short jet- black maid's outfit, trimmed in white ruffles... I hesitate even to call it a dress. It was a statement.

Bianca floated through a few minutes later on a brief inspection tour. I handed her a glass of white wine. “Che Bello, she laughed when she saw Liz clip-clopping her way across the tile floor in a pair of cherry red six-inch stilettos. She gave me a big smile, shook her head, and laughed. “Si, this will do quite nicely.”

The hors d’oeuvres were three luscious platters of Oysters Rockefeller and a basket of fresh Gulf shrimp with garlic butter. They were a delicious hit. But the twelve Gucci folks were in their own world. They barely noticed the perfectly grilled New Zealand Lamb dinner. Instead, they air-kissed one another, drinking $400 bottles of champagne one after another. They spent the evening telling tales of San Remo on the Riviera and making plans for a trip to ski in San Moritz later that month. A cork launched out of a Champagne bottle bounced off the 10-foot ceiling, ricocheting down and knocking the toupee loose from one of the guests’ heads. Liz made a sultry effort to help reposition the tilted hairpiece and tend to the gentleman’s bruised ego as the room exploded in laughter.

Truth be told, this was not the best dinner I had ever cooked. But it didn’t matter. The food was delicious. A flambe’ here and cognac there and an almond raspberry chocolate torte smoothed the evening. Liz, in her French maid's outfit, did cut quite the fashion statement. One of the elder Gucci gentlemen was quite impressed. I think marriage was even discussed a few times.

The Gucci clan and their guests were great folks, appreciative and very fun, even though they were from a completely different economic stratosphere. It was warming to know that a fun party is a fun party, no matter how much money you have.

When we were back at Buzz and Liz’s, we jabbered for two hours, as we replayed the night over and over. Liz and I were like characters in a play. I think I may even have manifested an Italian accent by the time we left. “Ciao,” I yelled as we left the party.

The next day, I pulled the catering ad from the trade paper. The money was very good, but considering all the fun we had, I almost thought we should be paying them. It didn’t seem like work at all.

Looking back on all this, I will paraphrase a Mark Twain proverb.

“Providence truly does protect children and idiots.”

To which category I belong should be left to the reader.