There was that time in the late aughts when a blonde socialite, who’d been given my number by a star-fucking, franks-in-blanks-loving political influencer client, hired me to cater a cocktail party. Overbooked, as socialites often are (I hear), she had a mid-day event which bumped into her own party so she had the doorman of her Upper East Side apartment building let me in.

Though her zip code was impressive, her apartment was teensy and teeming with bejeweled framed photos of her smiling with various political bigwigs. I’m an anti-socialite and I marvel at anyone’s ability to keep a beautiful smile on their face for that many hours in a row. I “huh’d” and nodded at her shiny hair and whitened teeth beaming with the Clintons, the Guilianis, and Wolf Blitzer to name a few.

Arms loaded with food and equipment, I carefully made my way through her claustrophobic living room, its rose-colored walls, shiny maroon trim, and crimson velveted sofa feeling like an expensive decorator’s misstep.

I entered the eensy kitchen and got right to work. I had about 45 minutes before the hostess would return and an hour and a half before her guests arrived.

The first task of any cooking job is turning on the oven. I reach for that knob before I unpack or get set up. I light the oven before I even take my coat off. It’s so automatic that I start to do it when invited to friend’s homes for dinner parties. Every gig no matter what, there’s no easier way to gauge your impending performance than knowing what the deal is with that oven. Is it full of old pans and uneven racks (all the time)? Or is it used for storage of other household items like cleaning supplies (a couple of times), cookbooks (once), or shoes (once)? Is it so expensive and European that no one knows how to work it (at least twice)? Does it not work well (often) or NOT AT ALL (once)? Most often it’s just a little dirty, which is a great reason to get it hot right away. You can burn off any remnants from recent cooking spills way before guests arrive.

The socialite’s weensy flat was not prepared for the amount of smoke that billowed out of her tiny oven that day… and neither was I. It smelled like a spattering holiday roast or a Thanksgiving turkey that had blissfully and explosively juiced all over the oven floor. As people who rarely cook often do, I’m sure she made a mental note to clean the drippy mess and then instantly deleted that note from her task list, leaving the oven cold for months after her celebration.

“No no no no no!” I shouted at the appliance, waving my hands in the air like my crazy grandmother used to do when a chaotic cooking moment occurred.

The client’s kitchen windows would not open wider than 2 inches and her oven fan sounded like a cat with emphysema.

Damp with guilty perspiration I saw a confession as my only option and called the client.

“Hello, it’s Alison, your caterer.” I sounded very grown up, which is not how I felt or feel ever. My voice dropped, “We have a bit of a smoke issue.”

“A whaaaa?” and then she giggled and continued a conversation she was having wherever she was, “I know right, he is so great. I can’t wait to see what…” and she hung up.

There’s no accounting for the peal of laughter that escaped my throat in response to the dead air on my phone, other than my acceptance of the situation. After all, the smoke was not from anything I had done. I hadn’t even started to cook. There was no ear-splitting smoke alarm so none of her fancy neighbors were busting in with extinguishers or water buckets and there was still plenty of time before the party started.

By some catering miracle, with the recognition and acceptance of my non-culpability, the smoke diffused. My hands steadied, the dampness on my upper lip dried, and the chef that I am stepped into the role. I don’t remember a thing about the party once the smoke cleared. It was an average success story. If the client was aware of the chaos leading up to the event, she never said anything to me but thank you.

Then there was this past December when we catered a holiday party in the kitchen of a rec room for a private community in West Linn, Oregon. Not only was there thick black smoke cascading out of the electric oven but actual flames. The previous renter of this event space had left an inch of rendered fat on the broiler pan that caught fire as soon as the oven coils got hot enough to ignite it. Again, there was smoke so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, and again, no smoke alarm went off. My server and I scurried around opening every door and window in the clubhouse—making it so cold that we could see our breath. The client who lived a block away wound up heroically shop-vac’ing the thick ignitable fat from the cooled oven until it was safe enough for us to light again.

There was a strange feral but plasticky taste in that smoke that my tongue can recall easily.

I think I shaved years off my life with my level of anxiety that night, but in the end, we got the food cooked and served with only a half-hour difference from our scheduled meal time.

These triumphant and terror-evoking success stories are impossible to convey to clients. And of course, in both of these examples, the smoke alarms had been disabled before I arrived.

A month ago, I was hired to cook an intimate birthday dinner for 4. The young mom and dad opened the door to their starter home together, grateful that I’d actually shown up, bowing and grinning to put me at ease as they ushered me into the kitchen.

“We’re so happy you were able to fit us into your schedule. We’re so excited about everything!” the dad beamed.

“I am too,” I said, sounding as smooth and confident as Barry White. “I’m going to take great care of you tonight. I’ll have your appetizers ready in about an hour.”

“That’s perfect! Our friends will be arriving right around then,” the mom said, her unwashed hair pulled into a sloppy pony and her shirt covered in stains. It looked like the thought of a relaxing night was something she hadn’t let herself think about for a while. “Oh! One thing, we have a VERY sensitive smoke alarm so if you could please take special care not to set it off. Our baby just got to sleep and if she wakes up we’ll never be able to get her back down. Thanks!”

And, as if in slow motion, my hand reached for that oven knob…

I had my work cut out for me that night, as they had ordered what I might call the smokiest of all meals: porcini-crusted pan-seared filet mignon. Pan-searing a steak at a hot temperature is the only way to start the Maillard reaction, which is a chemical reaction between sugars and amino acids. It’s what makes the incredibly delicious brown crusty layer of a steak. The Maillard reaction doesn’t happen without a blazing hot pan, which is a big fat troublemaker if you’re not cooking in a kitchen with a jet-powered venting system.

I heated my carbon steel pan on a medium-high flame and then squirted a little avocado oil in. Then came a generous pat of butter, I do a tablespoon for every steak. The filets, previously salted and then dredged in ground dried porcini mushrooms with a little bit of brown sugar (which helps with caramelization and flavor), sizzled when set into the hot buttery pan. I turned the temperature down to medium heat and then let the meat cook for 6 minutes, occasionally using a spoon to baste the steaks with the buttery juice in the pan. Sure, they were smoking a bit, but not like Truman Capote and the Swans smoking. It was a manageable amount because I had turned the heat down. Then I flipped the steaks, basted a few more times, and slipped the whole pan into the preheated 425-degree oven for 12 minutes. They sizzled and smoked inside the oven, but not enough to wake any sleeping babies. Thank god.

The clients were beside themselves with how perfect the steaks were, and I chuckled to myself, grateful I’d gotten away with it once again.

Porcini-Crusted Pan-Seared Filet Mignon

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 4 teaspoons ground dried porcini mushrooms
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 4 filet mignon steaks
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon avocado oil
• Salt and pepper

1. An hour or two before you cook the steaks, season them well with salt and pepper and set uncovered on a plate in the fridge.
2. When you’re ready to start cooking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and take the steaks out of the fridge. Mix the ground porcini mushrooms with the brown sugar in a bowl and spread half of it over a plate. Dredge the first side of the steaks in the mixture, then pour the second half of the mushrooms onto the plate and dredge the flipside.
3. Heat a cast iron or carbon steel pan over a high flame and drizzle the avocado oil in. Add the butter and let get hot. Set the porcini-dredged steaks into the hot pan and then turn the heat down to medium/ medium-high. You want it to be as hot as possible without creating a ton of smoke. Swirl the butter around the sides of the pan and then baste the meat by spooning the butter over the meat as it cooks. Cook the first side for 6 minutes.
4. Turn the steaks over and sear for 1 minute, basting. Turn the burner off and put the pan into the oven. Roast the meat for 12, or when the steaks hit 130-140 degrees when jabbed with a meat thermometer (I’ve found that most of my clients like their meat around 140 degrees which is still really red and juicy). Let the steaks rest for 5 minutes and then serve with buttery juices poured on top.