My Funny Sous Chef

Not that I would know beans about the world of celebrity cooking. But it seems to me that the business gives scant attention if at all to the legions of folks slaving in the background to make culinary miracles happen. So, even if I don’t inhabit that rarified world, I want to my own small share and devote this piece to my sous chef of roughly 18 years: Funny:

OK, that’s her name. Some refer to her by Funnushka. She even has her own Facebook page under that moniker. But she’s Funny to me. Way back before she arrived in my soul food kitchen, I think she was actually called “Fanny.” But say that with an Israeli accent and viola, Fanny became Funny.

Her sense of smell: fucking phenomenal. On our trips to the neighborhood markets, Funny could not go more than 5 feet without checking out a smell that attracted her: grasses that all seemed the same to me, various flowers whose efflorescence was lost to me, fresh produce that had just been delivered and left curbside by neighboring restaurants. Smell was everything. In fact there was a period of time when my son was the night shift manager for a popular pizza joint nearby. On our early morning walks, she loved to come into their kitchen just before closing time (4 am) and chat up the chefs about various ingredients. The inevitable result: a doggie bag of various cured meats and hams for her to snack on.

I can’t say that Funny embraced all that enthusiastically the wave of vegan cooking that has engulfed Tel Aviv recently. Her thing: meat. BBQ briskets, sous vide salmon, oven-roasted chicken. Funny had an unerring sense for the staples of southern cooking. And amazingly enough, her weight never varied much at all, something I don’t understand to this day. Perhaps it has been all that hours working alongside me in the kitchen, although that doesn’t seem to be working as well for me. Perhaps it’s because she’s always been a bit picky about what to taste and what to turn her nose up at.

Of all her fond places, I think at the top of the list would have to be her perch right next to the stove where all the action always is. I think this had much less to do than her keeping a sharp eye out for how each dish would be plated. And more to do with just her innate love of the camaraderie in the kitchen, enjoying the sociability, wanting to be part of the action, part of the gang.

What can I say? She’s a funny sous chef. But she’s mine.