Steak & Grape –
Lunch with a friend
I was 26 years old when I went to work for Betz. I was hired as the sole pioneer to go after
the accounts in the Midway Sunset field by Taft, Fellows and McKittrick. Troy worked with a team of technical sales guys
handling the lucrative Kern River account.
They seemed to have a lot of fun together as I heard them talk on the 2
way radios we used back then. I was
struggling in a remote area with customers that didn’t really like our company
much, with products that didn’t perform all the time. Either the cobalt catalyst in the sodium
sulfite didn’t react fast enough to reduce the oxygen in the steam generator
feed water or the emulsion breakers couldn’t produce dry oil in the heater treaters
like my competitors. One time a Unocal
Foreman told me, as I was starting my oil treatment chemicals, “if your
chemical makes my treaters reject, you better be able to eat crude oil and shit
dollar bills, God damn it”. Those old
foremen were a tough breed. And it made
me rough around the edges at a time when I should have been mellowing as I
raised 2 daughters.
I got one of them back one day when a demonstration
backfired. I tried to get the water
treatment business in one particular plant for years. I felt I was close and wanted to go in for
the kill with a demonstration of my desire to do a good job. I got a jar of oysters at the store, the big
Pacific oysters. I trimmed one up so
that it resembled a round fleshy ball. I
put it in a sample jar with alcohol, but the oyster dissolved. So I got another one, trimmed it up and put
it in a jar of tap water. I sealed it up
and took it out on a Friday to one crotchety old foreman that took my cocktails
and lunches for years, but never gave me any business. I put the jar, with the oyster in it, on his
desk and said, “I want your business so bad that I’ll give you my left nut”. And it really looked like a testicle that was
just cut out of a scrotum. He thought that was the funniest this he ever
saw. He put it up on the window sill
behind his desk. But when I saw him in the
field on Monday, he was mad as hell and wanted to kill me.
“What the Hell was that fuckin’ thing you put in that jar?”
“ I told you it was my left nut”.
“You son-of –a –bitch, it exploded over the weekend and my
office smells like shit”.
It was a good thing that the housekeeper cleaned up the
mess, because we both ended up getting a good laugh out of it. Funny thing is that he did award me the
account after years of trying. And the
day that I went to the office to tell my manager the good news, he gave me my
notice and fired me. It was not related
to the stunt I pulled, we all thought that was great. “The numbers don’t work out”, he said. 8 weeks later, I was back out at Unocal selling
Pall filters.
Troy and I talk and laugh about such stories from our young
selling days. We need to do it more
often.
The new Steak and Grape restaurant on Coffee and Hageman in
Bakersfield was a very nice surprise when I met my friend Troy there for lunch
today. The last restaurant in that
location was the Basque Café, formerly Maitia’s Basque. The interior has been tastefully redone with
nice carpet in the dining room, which makes it quiet for visiting, unlike so
many new restaurants with concrete or tile floors that are so noisy that you
can’t even enjoy a conversation.
I had a rare occasion to meet “Troyski” because I made a
wine delivery to him. Along with my club
shipment of Brochelle 2010 Zinfandel, I brought back some extra. I first discovered Brochelle Zinfandel in
2006 when I was perusing the wine at my favorite wine cellar at Luigi’s. I read the back of the label which describes
Brochelle as… “ tucked away on a steep hillside on the west side of Paso
Robles, CA… warm days and cool nights… head pruned and dry farmed vines,
produce low yields and intensely flavored fruit… neither fined nor filtered and
opens up beautifully when decanted…”
That sounds like how Le Cuvier is made. I tried it then and found it to be a rare
wine that hit me with a “WOW” When I tasted it.
I recommended it to Troy and I remember him telling me it was the best
wine he ever had.
Café Med used to carry it also when their wine selection was
more extensive. Betty and I had the
Brochelle 2010 Zinfandel at Valentien Café and Wine Bar recently. It was $50 at the restaurant, which is a
bargain compared to rest of the wine list.
It was the perfect accompaniment to our filet mignon’s that night. The Brochelle 2010 Zinfandel was the
highlight of the meal. Brochelle also produces
a Ridge Top Reserve Zinfandel which is extremely limited and only available to
the wine club members – like me.
With our modest transaction out of the way, we ordered lunch
at Steak and Grape. Troy ordered the
steak sandwich ($13.95), which was served with lovely sautéed vegetables and a
small bunch of grapes. The steak looked delicious
cooked medium rare. I had the salmon
salad ($12.95). I ordered it with spinach
instead of greens. The salmon was a
generous 6 oz portion, pan seared perfectly, almost crispy on the outside and
just done in the middle which left it moist and tender. The spinach was tossed in Champaign vinaigrette
and the vegetables were sautéed. The salad
was also topped with artichoke hearts and sliced avocado. Both the steak sandwich and the salmon salad
were large meals that neither of us could finish. I highly recommend Steak and Grape for lunch
and I look forward to a dinner experience.
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