Free Knives at Dawn by Andrew Friedman Page B

with Orlando shimmering on the horizon.)
    And so on Thursday, July 24, the candidates (but not their commis), many of whom had been flown in for the event, filed into one of the demonstration rooms at the FCI and took their seats in the stands. Boulud’s team, ever mindful of the value of media attention, had corralled a few journalists to attend: Florence Fabricant of
The New York Times
, Andrew Knowlton of
Bon Appétit
, and (at the urging of Keller’s public relations agency) Allison Adato from
People
magazine.
    Thomas Keller welcomed the chefs to the Bocuse d’Or USA. As he spoke, Chef Roland Henin stood behind him in a white chef coat with a dress shirt and tie showing between the lapels. Keller explained that the goal of the Bocuse d’Or USA this year was to “establish a strong base to continue to compete in the Bocuse d’Or in the coming years, so we’re really establishing that foundation.” He thanked the candidates for all their hard work getting ready for Orlando and launched into an impassioned introduction of Chef Henin who, famously, mentored Keller, who makes a point of acknowledging Henin whenever he can, in his books and even in the foreword to other people’s books, such as the one he penned for the English language edition of Fernand Point’s
Ma Gastronomie
.
    â€œChef Henin was my mentor,” said Keller. “Up until we met, cooking for me was a physical thing. I really enjoyed the physical aspects of cooking, the camaraderie of the kitchen, the high intensity. Chef Henin made me realize what cooking was all about, and that was a connection to another person, nurturing, an emotional connection that really resonated with me and really began my career as a true culinarian.”

    Ever cautious, Keller said that Henin’s role as coach would be crucial in “I don’t want to say
winning
the Bocuse d’Or, but in our
progression
to win the Bocuse d’Or someday.”
    â€œThank you, Chef,” said Henin as he took the dais.
    For all of the dignity on display, these two men’s initial meeting, in 1977, on the beach of Narragansett, Rhode Island, was anything but high minded. Henin was the chef of the Dunes Club then, and he and his crew took a break most afternoons to play Frisbee on the beach before dinner service. On some days, he noticed a young, handsome stranger always in the company of one—sometimes
two
—beautiful women.
    â€œI said, ‘Look at this guy: He is tall; I am tall. He is skinny; I am skinny. He doesn’t have an accent; I
do
.’ And here he was walking the beach with these beautiful women, and it was, like,
How does he do it
?”
    One late afternoon, with the sun waning on the horizon and the surf breaking on the shore, Henin saw the stranger with two leggy companions and, unable to stand it any longer (and presumably hoping that maybe he could take one of the women off the young man’s hands), “accidentally” flung a Frisbee in his direction. When he went to retrieve it, the two men got to talking. The young, skinny stranger was Thomas Keller, and he identified himself as a chef.
    â€œSo am I,” said Henin and, forgetting his original motives, offered his young colleague a tour of his kitchen, a large, old-fashioned warhorse, with a gigantic rotisserie and an actual office for the chef.
    â€œHe was pretty impressed with the size of the kitchen,” remembers Henin. “I don’t think that he was ever exposed to a kitchen that was like this.”
    â€œHow does a guy get a job like this?” asked Keller. “This might be your lucky day,” said Henin, whose staff chef had just abruptly quit. The staff meals were a constant thorn in Henin’s side because many of the club’s employees were children of locals and club members, “brats” who constantly complained about the quality of their meals.
    â€œThere is only one rule,” Henin