Episode 243: In the Kitchen of Brown’s Lunch Counter
Betty Buxhilde has been employed as a cook at Brown’s Lunch Counter for five years. She is an anti-social sort. Some say it is her great physical beauty; she shuns the attention of leering men, staying amidst the relative solitude of the kitchen, where she reigns with an artful touch to the dishes served at this landmark Warhaven café.
Over the decades Brown’s has employed scores of good cooks. Betty follows a long line of culinary artists to command the kitchen. However, she is the first to proudly wear the head cover of her craft, the chef’s hat. This change made quite a stir, especially among the vocal and curious members of the Retired Fire Fighters Association, who remain prone to gawking.
She was born and raised in our town, the only child of Gus and Lena Buxhilde, who likewise were children of Warhaven.
These parents, while very much visibly in love, were a study in opposition. He was serious and academic, she lackadaisical and random. He was an Episcopalian and she an avowed agnostic. His tastes in the arts included classical violin and Rembrandt whereas she favored the fiddle of mountain music and the work of fashion photographers. In short, they had their disagreements. He could be dour and intractable, as the following gives proof.
One night after Betty had left home to attend culinary school in Portland, Ore., he had a coughing fit, which kept them both awake. In the morning their collective grumpiness erupted into an incendiary argument.
He rose from his kitchen chair, from his corn flakes and declared, “From now on, missus, I’ll be sleeping upstairs.”
And that was more than 10 years ago! It’s hard to heat the whole house in winter, so in the cold months he sets up a small pup tent on the bed and in that way keeps warm. The upside of this sadness is that both sleep very well and wake up quite refreshed, consistently.
Betty excelled in school and worked for a while in fine West Coast hotel restaurants, and like so many who leave Warhaven, she eventually longed to return to the Rushing River Valley where most folks are just darn nice. However, because Betty was so strikingly beautiful, many folks just ended up staring at her, which naturally made her feel objectified and hollow. She returned to town a neighbor of Debbie Dacnic, with whom she became a close confidant.
Betty crafted a refuge in the kitchen of Brown’s Lunch Counter. Chefs are like lords of a fiefdom and so she treated her short order cook and her dishwasher like the vassals that they were and it was understood by waitress Beatrice Dombledock that the kitchen was definitely not her turf, but another’s. Beatrice always tread lightly inside the swinging door.
Betty had been known to point a sharp object at an intruder as if it were a kind of hilted steel middle finger.
“Out!” she would clearly say in raised voice. “We have rules of sanitation in this place!” And as her victim departed she would mutter something to the effect of, “Rules of sanitation against vermin like YOU!” And yet she could be happy and of light mood, especially when a new recipe came out of the oven or wok or broiler flawlessly.
Think back to the most recent Great Chowder Chow Down. Imagine Betty deftly with her fine knives dicing the steelhead fillets, communing as she does with the meaning of quality, of harmony with oneself, with nature’s bounty of flavors, colors, and textures. She works trance-like, some would say. For the corn chowder she included corn chicos, which she procured from New Mexico. She would soak these kernels that had dried in a pueblo horno and add additional world-wide spices. Some would say she was a magician for what she could do to corn chowder. Her critics called her a witch. They were simply jealous, don’t you know.
Betty inherited a bit of the stubborn, and trespassers who entered the kitchen did so at their own risk to peril. One day Stanley Humphley had been disappointed in the level of saltiness in a mac and cheese dish which was the lunch special that day. He entered, partly saunter, partly waddle, and cleared his throat. Before he could speak one critical cantankerous word, Betty raised the paring knife she was holding, pointing it at Stanley.
“Old man, I don’t give a rip if you’re the grandfather of a Night Raven. You’d better put your keester in reverse, or you’re going to find this little ole knife sticking out of your dumbass forehead! Scoot, Stanley!”
His jaw dropped, he turned as swiftly as he was able, and retreated. Beatrice came to his rescue and pulled him through the swinging door.
Betty relaxes, placing the knife on the cutting board, remembering the dream she had the night before in which she lounged in the sun in a hammock in her bikini in a world without men.
•••
The City Council is a work of fiction, written by Jim Tindall, appearing every other week in Columbia Gorge News.
Commented