The chef arrived three days before the hotel’s official opening. I should have felt nervous for, as the story went, the Whitesells could never keep a short-order cook for a whole summer. No one could stand the chef’s hostile behavior and the long hours in a hot kitchen, so my job usually had two to three turnovers during the three-month period.
With the chef in charge, the kitchen environment changed drastically. Now the staff ran around trying to please him and avoid getting yelled at. Two of the guys had worked with the chef before. “He will try to keep his recipes and cooking methods a secret,” they warned. “You will never learn anything from him.”
True to their word, the chef did not talk to me. He did not show me how he prepared the food, and he refused to answer any of my questions. A day before guests started arriving, the chef ordered me to fill a tall pot with water and set it at low heat on the stove.
“Chef, what are we going to do with this?” I asked.
He ignored me and proceeded to chop an onion, two carrots, and a stalk of celery, which he threw into the pot. Throughout the day, he continued throwing leftover scraps of vegetables and meat fat into the pot of simmering water. Unable to contain my curiosity, I asked again. “Chef, what are we going to cook with this?”
He still would not answer.
After I asked several more times throughout the day, the chef grew exasperated and snapped, “It is a stock pot to cook soup and gravy. The pot will sit on the stove over low heat all day.” He pointed his finger at me. “You will fill the pot with water every day and adjust the heat. No more questions!”
The next day, the chef announced we would be cooking lobster meat and freezing it for lobster Newberg and lobster bisque. The shipment of live lobsters arrived in a big truck, and as the chef’s assistant dumped the live lobsters into a tub of water, I stared at the green-shelled creatures with snapping claws. To my dismay, the chef’s assistant dropped the lobsters one by one into a large pot of boiling water.
“Kris, you help too,” the chef demanded.
Hesitantly, I picked up a large lobster and dropped it into the churning hot water. Taking a deep breath, I dropped another and watched it move its claws helplessly as it slowly became lifeless. Something inside me cringed. Oh God, I prayed silently, this is my job, and they are asking me to kill lobsters, but I just can’t. It’s against my religion. My conscience is not allowing it.
When I told the chef I could not put lobsters into the boiling water anymore, he looked at me like I was crazy and stormed off to tell Mrs. Whitesell that I was not following his orders. She came to the kitchen and spoke to me.
“I’m willing to do anything you or the chef wants me to do,” I explained. “But I cannot put a live lobster into the boiling water to kill it. It is against my religion.”
Mrs. Whitesell spoke to her husband, and then said, “Kris, you don’t have to do it. I’ll talk to the chef.”
The chef was angry, but there was nothing he could do. I thanked God the situation ended in my favor.
On the opening date, 130 guests arrived, filling 80 of the rooms of the Dorsey Hotel. At this time, more staff came—a coffee boy, a hostess, several waitresses, a busboy, and extra kitchen help. The chef took a liking to Charlene, a black girl who helped in the kitchen pantry. He flirted with her when she cleaned and brought raw food items to the kitchen. She flirted back, but only because she wanted to keep her job. Another guy in the kitchen liked Charlene too. They went on dates, and they always smiled at each other and laughed while they did chores. The chef watched them with jealous eyes and grew more irritated at the rest of us in the kitchen, snapping his orders and picking on the smallest details that weren’t to his liking.
Every day, I listened carefully and asked many questions, so I could help prepare the meals exactly to the chef’s preferences. Maybe my constant questioning wore him down. Or maybe he detected sincerity in my efforts to follow his instructions. After a couple of weeks, when it became apparent I had no intention of quitting my job, he became friendlier and would explain his cooking methods in more detail.
After the first month at the Dorsey Hotel, the Whitesells raised my pay from $250 to $275. They were happy with my work and glad I did not plan to leave the hotel before the end of the summer. For the first time since they started the business, a cook had stayed the entire three months. At the end of the season, they gave me a $100 bonus and invited me to their home in Broomall, Pennsylvania to relax before school started. I thoroughly enjoyed the reward for working long hours in the hot kitchen seven days a week.
Once I returned to Knoxville, I walked from the bus stop straight to the Cheemas’ house to pick up my Oldsmobile (purchased a few months earlier after selling my DeSoto), and my belongings, which they said they would keep for the summer. When I neared their house, my car was nowhere in sight, and their car was not in the driveway. After knocking on the door,
