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HAve I written about this before? I woke up this morning thinking about my time in food service. Now for any aspiring actor or actress time waiting tables or hostessing or bar tending is not odd. I, however, went about it in a slightly different way.
I went to a play. One night a friend from acting class invited me to a play where he new someone–we both may have I cannot remember. At intermission I stood up and made my way to the aisle to go to the ladies room. Standing at the end of the row was a striking man with white hair and a generous smile who opened his arms to me and said in a booming voice, “Did you miss me?” I looked him in the eye and replied, “Constantly!” And swiftly left for the lobby. After the play, the friend from class introduced me to this fellow who owned restaurants. But they were restaurants with a difference. We went for dinner at his place on La Cienega where, along with dinner, there was also a show of female impersonators.
A couple of days later my phone rang and it was Lou. The first of many requests for a dinner date. I turned him down repeatedly but finally thought, “oh what the heck! Maybe if I eat with him he will stop calling, realize I am really young(20) and not be interested. Plus he was the friend of a friend and I didn’t want to be rude. Well, I agreed to meet him for early dinner before the restaurant/nightclub opened and as I headed out the door my mother said, “What do you want to do with the two pieces of cheesecake in the freezer?” I took them with me.
Now I must backtrack, I had learned how to make my godmother’s family cheesecake 7 years before when she burned her hand before a party. I assisted her and then continued to make it for my friends every year at the beginning of summer. As I walked out the door I thought, “Wouldn’t it be funny if…”
I met him at his restaurant and handed him a piece of cheesecake and we had dinner. At the end, he and his business partner and I had eaten together I said, “Now you have to try my cheesecake.” I had just spent two hours with two guys from New York who had grown up in the city and I was offering them cheesecake. I had faith it was good but this was a risk to my ego. He took a bite and before his fork was out of his mouth he passed it to his partner and when his fork came out it was, “How much does it cost, how many does it serve and how long does it take to make.”I had a job. MAking cheesecake for a restaurant, meeting a whole bunch of LA Italians, a bunch of talented chefs and a bunch of talented female impersonators. We spent the rest of the meal with the two of them reminiscing about cheesecakes they had loved. They told a story about one woman who you met by a door in an alley to buy a cheesecake from her. She only sold to people she knew it seemed.  I never dated the man but he remained a friend and now boss. His son asked me out and I didn’t date him either. I made cheesecakes. That’s all.
I would deliver them at cast mealtime. Befriended some of the guys who would arrive for dinner in full female face makeup with no shirt on or in various stages of man dress and curlers. Strange job.