The Truth about Restaurant Food

I always wanted to be a world famous chef, but that changed when world-class Chef Andra Pierre Mullins hired me as his third assistance chef at the Cafe de Bordello. I had worked there only three days when an incident occurred in the kitchen that changed my life and career forever. In the twenty-five years since, I have become the infamous Sybilla True Chef to everyone who reads my column The Truth about Restaurant Food. That isn't the surname on my birth certificate, because if my parents knew what I did for a living they would disown me.

The incident happen on Valentine's Day one of the busiest days of the year for Cafe de Bordello. The Cafe was overflowing and there were two food critics waiting to be served. The food critics, and just about every other customer, order the restaurant's signature dish whiskey soaked fillet of gosling with sauteed artichoke hearts, what those of us who worked there called The Hooker's Delight. Chef Mullins insisted on making this dish himself, which may have been the problem.

Chef Mullins finished preparing an order, placed the fillet of gosling on the plate and started to take it to the pick up window. He dropped the order on the floor, I swear that man must have been a sailor in a former life because he cursed like one. He picked the gosling and artichoke heart up, brushed them off, put them on a clean plate, and took the order to the window. Assistant Chef one and two quit immediately, but I was so disport for a job that I remained and got a promotion. I continued working for about an hour and then we heard an ambulance in front of the restaurant.

Chef Mullins sent me out to see what was going on. When I got outside I saw one of the restaurant critics being loaded into the ambulance. After a few inquiries, I learned the name of the critic was Jonas Simpson and he had cut his tongue on in his whiskey soaked gosling. Apparently, his wife thought it best that he go to the hospital to make sure he didn't swallow anything deadly. I took off my apron, when back into the restaurant and handed the apron to the hostess.

"Marie," I said, "give this to Chef Mullins and tell the bastard I quit." I left the Cafe de Bordello and went to St. Joseph's Hospital to see if Simpson was all right.

Simpson almost died, it seems he had swallowed something that cause internal bleeding. His wife was beside herself, she didn't know what to do. She wanted to stay at the hospital, but she had to turn in his latest column before the 3:00 P.M. deadline, and it was already 1:30. I offered to take the column to Daily Journal myself. I gave Mrs. Simpson my name and phone number, then I took the column and went down town to the Journal.

When I got to the newspaper's office, everyone wanted to know how Simpson was doing. I couldn't tell them because the hospital wasn't giving out that information. I gave the column to the editor and he offered me a job. It seems that, since I took the column in, he thought I was one of Jonas Simpson's friends. He offered me the chance to write the food critics column until Mr. Simpson could return to work. The only stipulation was that my column have a different name. Since I need job, I took the offer.

I informed Editor Johnson, that I would prefer to write under a pen name. I planned to apply for another chef's job after Simpson got out of the hospital and I felt that having the reputation of a food and restaurant critic might not be a good reference for a chef. That's the day I picked the name Sybilla True Chef and decided that The Truth about Restaurant Food. I didn't intend to write about Chef Mullins dropping the food, after all, I like every other assistance chefs signed a nondisclosure agreement when I took the job.

That was before I knew Jonas Simpson. Before I found out that he swallowed enough crockery splinters to tear up his stomach and intestines, which cause him to change professions. After the incident at Cafe de Bordello, Jonas Simpson could no longer eat the foods he could before. Then there was the way Chef Mullins responded to Mr. Collins, Jonas' lawyer. Mullins refused to take responsibility, he insisted it was all a con.

When Collins took Mullins to court, the lawyer tried to get two of the assistance chefs who witness Mullins dropping to food to testify. Mullins' lawyer got a gag order, which prevent them from testifying. Then Mullins ruined their careers, so I did the only thing I could do. I interviewed the other two and then wrote the column as if it were an interview between Sybilla True Chef and myself. I stated only the facts that all three witnesses could agree on and took the column to Editor Johnson.

Since Johnson knew I was the third witness, he had no problems agreeing to print the column. Mullins did attempt to sue the Daily Journal, but his complaint was thrown out. This is how I became an infamous restaurant critic and closed the Cafe de Bordello at the same time.