The Last Weekend

This is my official last weekend at The Restaurant. It is bittersweet because although I would love to stay there, my bank account is screaming at me to deposit a paycheck from Pacific Northwest Ballet. 

It has been intense these past two weeks, juggling working at The Restaurant with my routine "get your ass in shape" ballet workout: a 1 1/2 hour ballet class, a 45-minute run, and an occasional curl with an oh-so-heavy eight pound dumbbell. Last Thursday, as Chef M hands me my nightly warm vodka shot, I use the excuse that I am not going to drink it because I have to get up early and work out the next day. I must be kidding myself? After working at The Restaurant the normal 12 hour shift, I stay in bed long enough to ignore my phone alarm clock, miss the morning class(es), leisurely take my time getting my tall Americano at the corporate coffee shop, and all of a sudden, poof!, it is 1 p.m. Oops! It is obviously not sustainable to be a Stage and a ballerina. 

So, I am wondering to myself, what I am going to do when I work there every Saturday I can when I am not performing this coming ballet season? 

Yes. I am staying at The Restaurant. I must be temporarily insane. 

A Mood

I knew when I got only 5 1/2 hours of sleep that today would be an off day. I can' t go back to sleep, but the exhaustion is overwhelming. 

I realize I have forgotten my makeup at The Restaurant, so I am basically going to look haggard and lackluster when I first get there. I go to get on the Seattle Metro bus that I normally take, and it is 15 minutes late. Of course. Now, instead of being eagerly early, I look inconsiderately late. I run, up a huge hill, to The Restaurant, to be turned right back around to get sage leaves at the Trader Joe's for The Sous: Halfway to wear I just came from. 

I get back to The Restaurant and start working with Chef M. He, in his usual way, gives me my tasks back to back: pick parsley, pick basil, pick mint, make biscotti, make lemon juice, make a pickling juice, chop horseradish....

I am tired. My oyster elbow hurts. And, I am in a mood. 

It starts with the biscotti. Chef M tells me that I need to put three times the amount of pistachios in the recipe than I did last time. I start mixing the biscotti by hand in the back kitchen, where I prefer to be when I am moody, and finally add in the pistachios: Three times the amount. I shape the pistachio-filled dough into two loaves, and put it in the 350 degree oven, and set my iPhone to check it after 35 minutes. When the timer starts buzzing in my back pocket, I look in the oven, expecting to see what I saw the last time I made biscotti. 

Gross. It is crackly, and baking in a weird shape. Shit. 

So, I take it, stick it on the speed-rack, and wait for it to cool, hoping that maybe it will tighten up in the cooling process.  I am in for a challenge. It is already crumbling around the edges. I can't IMAGINE how it will be when actually have to cut it. 

As I start the arduous task of cutting the biscotti into 1-inch slices, I am getting about a 70 percent return on my investment. Some are breaking in half, and some are cracking just at the tips. Why is this happening? I did the exact same recipe as last time? At least I will have lots of snacks for the emotional eating I predict is going to happen tonight. 

One of the owners of The Restaurant comes in. He was a pastry chef for many years, and I ask him what has happened with my biscotti. He tells me my first problem is that with big quantity recipes, I always should use a Kitchen-aid mixer. Ugh, okay. Then, he tells me that unlike other "doughs", biscotti needs to be worked, for a long time. That is how it gets hard and crispy, and not crumbly. 

This is my mistake! Last time I made the biscotti, I almost left out the pistachios. So, I had to work the pistachios back into the dough, which created more gluten, which made them harder. This makes total sense. This time, I just added the pistachios once the dough came together, and didn't really work the mixture as much as I had before. 

First flub. 

Then, Chef M gives me chopping tasks which I hate. I just have horrible knife skills. I mean, I can chop just fine, that is not the problem, but not into even pieces the size of sesame seeds. 

Chef M is a virtuoso with a knife. He is beyond consistent, and makes a fine dice look elementary. My task: chop horseradish into a fine, fine dice to be pickled. And the most important part? He stresses to me that they all have to be even and homogenous, because they were going to be sitting on top of a Kushi oyster, standing alone as the only ingredient. 

I already feel pressure. 

It just starts out defectively. I can't cut that first dice of the horseradish consistently, which botches the other steps of the dicing. I go to slice the horseradish, and the pieces I am cutting are thinner on top than on the bottom. Again, knife skills. Frustration, and second flub. 

After about 15 minutes of struggle, Chef M comes back, needing the product to be pickled for service, and I have not even gotten half-way. He just takes what I have done, not commenting on the apparent inconsistency, and tells me I know must chop smoked tuna for the soft-cooked eggs. 

Of course, tuna is a flaky fish, especially when cooked, and a fine dice just doesn't work for this. I do the best I can, but it is crumbling in front of my eyes. Just like my psyche. 

After all of my chopping tasks are complete, I go to juice lemons for all of The Chefs for their stations. At my last lemon, the bartender comes in and asks if there are anymore lemons left. Usually, I leave one lemon just in case. But, like I said, my brain is off today. The bartender has no lemons for his drinks tonight. Not only am I holding people up, but I am preventing customers from getting lemons in their drinks. Good one, Stage. Third flub. 

Service starts, and of course, my first task is to shuck Twelve oysters: Six Kushi and Six Kumamoto. My elbow feels like it is going to shatter just like my oyster shells. The Sous helps me out, saying he doesn't want the customers to have to wait forever to get their oysters (because I am slow) and the order goes out. I have shooting pain down my arm and into my chess. 

Am I having a stress induced heart attack? Chef M just laughs at me. 

The shift goes on, I am getting by, but I just don't feel like myself tonight. It is not all bad, though. I finally figure out how to scoop Gelato and Sorbet! Thank goodness. I get an opportunity to slice some yellow-fin tuna for a Crudo dish because Chef M is busy. I also plate a few dishes that I usually wouldn't get to touch, which is exciting. 

But, at the end of the night, when we all usually get our Friday-night pizza at 1:00 in the morning, I take my routine celebratorial vodka shot with The Chefs, clean my station, apologize for my "off-day" and head home to dog puke on my white rug and an incredibly exhausted husband who is sounds asleep.

Nobody but my pillow needs to be dealing with this mood. 

Tomorrow I start a new station, and I get to work with The Sous. I need a fresh start, and some new tasks to botch. 

From Beginning To End

When I woke up this morning at 9:30, I already wanted to go back to bed. The exhaustion was unparalleled and I couldn't imagine have to get up and cook for another 12 hours again today. But, all The Chefs do it. Five days a week.

Today has been spent reliving all of the amazing memories I have had over the weekend. I can't get them out of my head. They replay like a broken record, skipping to the same places over and over again. Some are funny, like watching a really drunk woman stumble out of The Restaurant with her boyfriend in tow. Some are humiliating, like when one gnocchi dish that I made was sent back about a minute after I had said, "Service, please. Table 10." Their scallop had been under-cooked.

It was cooked to me.

I met Chef M for the first time on Friday. I was appointed to work with him because he was going to be at the same station that I had worked at the night before with The Sous. He made the same dishes, but in a different way than The Sous. He didn't care about the order of things, he just wanted the dish to have all of the components that made it what it was. He told me everything else was just artistry. The Sous is more exact. He taught me the way he made the dish, and wanted me to replicate EXACTLY what he had done. I definitely feel more comfortable having exact directions, but the fun part of cooking, I have now learned, is mastering the method, and refining it, to create the best dish possible.

Last night I was given two dishes to focus on, one was the gnocchi I had been making for the past two nights. Chef M asked me right before service which dishes I felt the most comfortable with. I told him the two I thought I was the "best" (haha!) at, and he told me that those were mine the whole evening. No matter what. If an order for gnocchi came in, he wasn't even going to look at it. It was my responsibility. From beginning to end.

How often do you make a dish about 15 times IN A ROW? Never. Well, at least I haven't. I now know the two recipes I made last night like the back of my hand. Each time, I would refine my method more, and more. I was learning what I didn't know the time before. I am sure there were victims along the way. A couple of pieces of burnt garlic. Maybe a scallop that was slightly cold in the middle undercooked. But, I didn't hear any customers complaining.

Well, except for that one table.

I found that for the gnocchi, the front left burner worked the best. That burner heated the olive oil and the finely diced pancetta to the perfect temperature right before I would throw in the blanched potato gnocchi. The little gnocchis seared brown on one side, and right when the oil started to bubble, I would add in the mandoline-sliced garlic and bright green favas. I would cook those for almost a minute, and when the garlic started dance inside the pan, and then I would ladle in the homemade vegetable stock to cool down the garlic. A trick The Sous taught me. I would add a handful of kale and a little square of butter to finish off the sauce.

The butter had not always been a part of the recipe. It came from refinement process. I hadn't always done that, but I found it made the sauce have more beautiful sheen, and well, it just made the dish taste better. I would frequently see Chef M put in a little nub of butter.

That was his secret.

To finish the gnocchi, I would season the sauce with a decent amount of kosher salt and add just a splash of freshly squeezed lemon juice. The lemon juice, I discovered, made all of the flavors pop.

Meanwhile, while all of this was cooking, I was searing a scallop that I had rubbed with olive oil and seasoned with salt. Putting it presentation side down, I would put it on the grill, and squeeze a little vegetable oil to sear it. The olive oil was just for flavor. Once I flipped the scallop over, I would put my plate in the oven to warm it. It was the perfect amount of time to not get the plate too hot, but also warm enough to keep the gnocchi at a good temperature as it went to the customer. Then, I would take the scallop off of the grill, slice it in half and take the plate out of the oven. I would tilt the pan and spoon, (not dump from the pan, as I WAS doing) the gnocchi onto the warmed plate, ladle any extra sauce around the gnocchi, top with the sliced scallop, drizzle with finishing oil, season with more kosher salt and call for service. I would quickly take a damp towel, and clean the sides of the plate in case I had gotten a small drip of sauce on the side.

Repeat.

Sometimes it would be 4 orders of gnocchi in a row. So, I would cook two orders of gnocchi each in dueling pans. It was beyond exciting. The rush is similar to dancing on stage. No wonder I like this profession.

It was fun to watch the recipe come to life from beginning to end. Earlier in the day, Chef M had taught me how to blanch the favas and pop them out of the tough membrane that they come in. He taught me how to make the gnocchi I would be using from a heavily-salted baked russet potato, combining it with one egg yolk, and a handful of flour. I squeezed lemon after lemon to fill squeeze bottle with fresh juice. I watched as they made vegetable stock out of scraps of vegetables like parsley, a bit of celery, carrots, onions, peppercorns, and dried chickpeas. I chopped kale, removed the little foot from each scallop, and refilled small bowls with kosher salt.

Ocassionally I would watch my dish go to a customer. I loved watching their face light up as it was presented in front of them. At the end of the night, by the dishwasher, I would see the gnocchi bowls licked clean, with maybe just a few pieces of pancetta that couldn't be picked up with the tines of a fork. I assume that means people liked their meal.

I didn't hear otherwise, except for that damn scallop.

At the end of last night, I decided I would make the gnocchi dish for Erik. It is the first recipe I have learned from The Restaurant that I can see myself creating at home. Making the gnocchi, blanching the favas, freshly squeezing the lemon juice, finely dicing the pancetta, and making homemade vegetable stock.

From Beginning to End.

The Exhaustion

I have limited time right now, because I am headed to The Restaurant at 1:00. I have decided to get the full experience, and instead of my hours being the whimpy 2:00pm-10:00pm, I am keeping the hours that the other chefs keep. They work from 1:00pm-1:00am.

Yes. That is 12 hours. Prepping, chopping, creating, cooking, cleaning, and planning the menu for the next day. Repeat.

And the other 12 hours away from the kitchen? They are spent eating, socializing, drinking, and sleeping.

You literally live and breathe cooking. I am exhausted, and I love it.

I have so many more stories. Some good, some bad. I was definitely not on my game yesterday. I had stayed out too late the night before, and the adrenaline high I was riding on ran out of gas. I struggled yesterday to keep up the energy and enthusiasm.

I also cut my left thumb. Really bad. Which was not only embarrassing, but painful. It was bound to happen, I just didn't realize it would be so soon.

I had to wear a little blue condom-like cover over my thumb the whole night. It was a proclamation of my worthlessness that said, "Look at me! Look at me! I am the doofus that cut my thumb!" It was also a reminder that I am in a world that I totally do not feel comfortable in.

But, today is a new day. After my amazing 10 hours of sleep, I feel refreshed and ready to learn.

Now, off to The Restaurant. On the agenda today: knife skills, braising the "right" way, and handmade tortellini pasta.