Lynch - Out of line: the unlikely education of an improbable chef

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Copyright 2017 by Barbara Lynch

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Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe

Jacket design by Declan & Co Studio

Jacket photograph by George Baier IV

Author photograph Pat Piasecki

Names: Lynch, Barbara, 1964- author.

Title: Out of line : a life of playing with fire / Barbara Lynch.

Description: New York : Atria Books, [2017]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016029684 (print) | LCCN 2016040375 (ebook) | ISBN 9781476795447 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781476795454 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781476795461 (ebook) | ISBN 9781476795461 (eBook)

Subjects: LCSH: Cooks--United States--Biography. | Women cooks--United States--Biography.

Classification: LCC TX649.L96 A3 2017 (print) | LCC TX649.L96 (ebook) | DDC 641.5092 [B] --dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029684

ISBN 978-1-4767-9544-7

ISBN 978-1-4767-9546-1 (ebook)

To my beautiful daughter, Marchesa, with love and protection

Where did you come from? my mother shouted, Benson & Hedges twitching between her fingers. She meant, Didnt I raise you better than that? She wished.

My friends and I were canningknocking on doors in Old Harbor, our South Boston housing project, with tin cans labeled BAND UNIFORMS , to score spare change. Then my pain-in-the-ass neighbor stuck her nose in: I didnt know Barbara played an instrument.

She doesnt, said my mother. What the hell? What band?

Busted. We were scrounging cash to get the fried Tendersweet clams at Howard Johnsons, which I loved. My mother dumped out my hard-begged loot and made me give it all back. I burst into furious tears at the injustice. It was all my idea! I raged. And now everyone but me is eating clams.

Years later I learned the secrets of those HoJos clams from the chef who perfected them: Jacques Ppin.

Old Harborand most of Southiewas solid Irish. My one non-Irish friend, Tina, who is Italian, lived in Old Colony, the adjoining project. All of us project rats grew up hard and fast. From ages twelve, thirteen, fourteen, we were drinking, drugging, and stealing. My friend Tinas mother forced her into Alcoholics Anonymous, fearing that, even by Southie standards, she was too wild.

Id tag along to meetings to check out the better-looking guys, who, unlike my friends, were sober (more or less), seemed old enough to have jobs (cash), and had no missing teeth. To get to know them, we planned a little party. I wanted to make pesto, which Id never tasted but must have come across in my mothers treasured stash of womens magazines.

Fresh basilthe main ingredientwas exotic in Southie. To buy it I had to go to the Italian neighborhood, the North End, where I also got olive oil, boxed spaghetti, and a hunk of Parmesan cheese. Then I needed pine nuts. Christ, were they expensive. I palmed a few packets and shoved them down my pants.

When I served my spaghetti with pesto, all the guests went, Ewww! Whats the green shit? You eat that?

The brave ones tried it and were shocked. They loved it. That was an aha! moment, when I first realized that I could surprise, even excite people with food. But no way could I revel in the victory. No one ever let you get too jumped up or full of yourself in Southie. The tone was more, Lynchie, who the hell do you think you are? Where did you come from? someone cracked.

When I got established as a chef, I went back to J. Pace & Son to pay for the stolen pine nuts. I apologized, and we laughed. But that was just one stop. I also had to confess at the shop where I boosted a rolling pin and pie panno way could I bake a pie in some tinfoil piece of shitand few other stores where I sticky-fingered this and that...

When I got a James Beard Award nomination for Best Chef: Northeast, I was reminded of where I come from (as if I could forget). Dying to tell someonemaybe celebrateI went down to the Quiet Man, a classic Southie pub co-owned by my brother Paul. It was right across the street from Triple Os, the bar where Stephen the Rifleman Flemmi, a partner, ran crime boss Whitey Bulgers loan-sharking operation, along with deadlier schemes. Once, Triple Os bouncer Kevin Weeks, a Bulger mob enforcer, flung an ax into the back of a brawler with what Weeks called Irish Alzheimersthe disease that drives out all memories except grudges. The place was packed, but Southie Alzheimers, the code of silence, kept patrons from calling an ambulance or the law. The guy survived.

The Quiet Man served a less volatile, cop-and-politician clientele, as well the Triple Os riffraff. It was a beloved neighborhood joint with America/Love It or Leave stenciled on the windows. Its food was great: incredible steak tips, roast turkey, and twin boiled lobsters stored in a white Igloo cooler on the floor. For serious eaters, there was the John Wayne Platter, with three meatsgrilled sausage, chicken, and steak tipshot pickled cherry peppers, and thick-cut steak fries.

But mainly it was a homey neighborhood pub, where guys hung at the bar reading the Herald and drinking beersalways with an sfrom plastic cups. You could get your cup chilled, meaning that the barman would shove it down in the ice bin and give it a twist. On Fridays, when I took my aunt Mary there for lunch, shed bring her own vodka so they could make her a martini, and Id lug a bottle of wine with my own glass.

As we ate, union guys would come by to pay respects: Hello, Jim Kelly, Sheet Metal, Local Seventeen; Mrs. Lynch, Billy ODonnell, Iron Workers, Local Seven. I know Stephen. Say hi for me. Stephen Lynch, my cousin, was their herothe youngest-ever president of the Iron Workers Union before he went to law school and then to Washington as our congressman from Southie.

When I got to the Quiet Man the night of the Beard nomination, half the neighborhood was there. It was all kisses and backslaps and Hey, Barbara, whats going on?

Well, I said, I think Im up for a James Beard Award.

BeardI dont know him. Did he live in Old Harbor?

James? Jimmy? What? Some guy you slept with?

I think she said Jimmy Fucking Beard... right?

Who the fuck is this Jimmy Fucking Beard?

I had to laugh.

The Quiet Man was the place where, a few years later, I staked my claim to Southie. Over lunch, my landlord asked, Is it true that youre opening a restaurant in New York?

God, why would I do that? I have five restaurants now. I dont need any more.

Thats a shame, he told me. Because I have more than a million square feet of warehouse space in Fort Point Channel. It was a stretch of Southie waterfront that I hadnt explored in years. In spite of myself, I was curious.