Restaurant Three

This is just a tease....for fun...to let you know I AM still writing.

I’ve dreading going to Restaurant Three since the owner and I made our deal. Maybe it is because The Sous and Chef M, had been so negative about it, telling me the restaurant is slow now, and a “boys club” because no women work there at all except for the host. Regardless, I didn’t wake up excited to that first Friday in December. Actually, it was more like dread.

Restaurant Three is the restaurant that started it all in the owner's empire. It won his award for best chef in Food and Wine magazine, and it is where all of the chefs in the company, that I admire, got their start. It is more of a fine dining restaurant than any of his other establishments, with dark orange lighting throughout the dining room and linens on every table and an excess amount of plates for every dish. In its prime, there were five cooks on the line: one on protein, one on pasta and warm starters, one of the vegetable station, and two at the garde manger. There were also two dishwashers, two bussers, three waiters, a bartender, and a bar back. Not so much anymore. Seattle doesn't seem to get Restaurant Three anymore.

I walk to the restaurant, like I have with all of them, from my house downtown. I have been to Restaurant Three twice. Once for a work party when it first opened hosted by the owner’s parents, and the other time for a retirement party for the former chef du cuisine who left at the end of the summer.

I walk in to the door that leads in to the bar, praying as I pull that it is not locked, and am relieved when it gently pulls open and I step inside. I peek through the whole in the swinging brown kitchen door and see nobody in site. Male voices can be heard from a distance, and a Kelly Clarkson song is playing on the radio. A little different sound than my first moments at The Restaurant. Chef E, the sous chef at Restaurant Three, looks at me, shocked, and says, “Hi Stage. What are you doing here?” Chef E and I had met at The Restaurant a while back. I cooked a couple of dishes for him. “Didn’t the owner tell you? I am here for December. Actually just six shifts. Friday and Saturday nights. But obviously not Christmas and New Years....” I ramble. All the boys at this point, three to be exact, have their mouths slightly opened, and are staring at me.

Chef E graciously stops what he is doing and tells me to follow him as he gives me a tour of the upstairs where towels, dry storage, aprons, the office, the freezer, and the lockers are. There is no dressing room. There is no women’s bathroom. This is a boys club. For sure.

I come downstairs after finding a white bistro apron, putting on my chefs coat as they all wear to prep in, and folding my seven blue towels: one for underneath my cutting board, another to wet as a “sponge” to clean everything up, another to tie at my right hip, and the other four as extras. I head downstairs, Chef E motions me with his hand to work next to him, and gives me a huge celeriac and three giant carrots and says, “medium dice.” That is it? No question like, “Do you know what a medium dice is?” Even breaking down the vegetable to show me a trophy piece? I am obviously not going to be babied here. It’s about time! I medium dice a celeriac, a carrot, chop a deep 1/9 pan of shallots (which I have gotten down to 25 minutes from my time at Tavolata), a deep 1/9 pan of chives, and juice 15 lemons.

My knife is sharp, because I finally learned how to properly use my steel. My whole time at The Restaurant, I would have The Sous or Chef M steel my knife until Chef M showed me how to do it one afternoon. Then, I learned how to use a wet stone at Restaurant Two, which changed everything. My knife feels brand new each week, like breaking in a brand new pair of pointe shoes. Everyone in the Restaurant Three kitchen is quiet, you can hear the focus, and things seem to be going smoothly. Surprisingly, I am impressed by my work. To be honest, It is some of the best prep I have done. But, then the soup happened. The celeriac soup, to be specific.

“Sweat two white onions. Add three celeriac. Water. Drain. Puree. Cool,” is Chef E's instruction to me. Easy enough, or so I thought. I do as I am told, sweat the onions, and add the celeriac. Chef E tells me that the celeriac is probably shouldn’t get too much darker so I should add the water now. Yet, the celeriac isn’t cooked. My brain starts to malfunction. I remove the pot with the half-cooked celeriac and the translucent onion over to the area where the vita prep is located to, I assume, blend the half-cooked celeriac and onion with water to make the soup. Sometimes, I just don’t use my skills as a cook. I rely way too much on people’s instruction instead of my own natural cooking instinct. Chef E comes over to me, and tells me I need to cook the celeriac and onion with the water, so that it finishes cooking without getting brown. Yuck, I hate the feeling of humiliation. My ego shrinks a bit.

Oh, right. This is when I remember that I am not a professional cook, and just a Stage. I am working with amazing talent, and I have been doing this for, oh, six months. I laugh at myself, to lighten their mood, and mine, and add the water and put the soup back on the stove. Once the celeriac is cooked, I bring the large pot, now much harder to maneuver being filled with gallons and gallons of water, and bring it over to the Vita Prep. I pack the vita prep full with celeriac onion and a little bit of water so that it will blend. Chef E has told me not to use too much liquid because it is easier to add liquid then take it away. I press on the rubber lid, cover the hole with one of my spare blue towels, and turn the machine on. A wretched sound comes from the machine, and I quickly pull the plug from the socket to make it stop. “Can someone teach her how to use a Vita Prep?” the garde manger cook, J, says to nobody. I turn to him, offended, and say sarcastically, “I know how to use a Vita Prep.” “Well, first you need to turn it down to low, and on interval rather than high speed” he says after ignoring what I had just told him. He begins to take over my project, telling me to get the heavy cream from the walk in as the liquid in the soup. Chef E didn’t tell me to add cream during the blending process. I take over what J has started, slowly adding batches of white onion, white celeriac, and white cream to the vita prep, blending, and repeating. After it is all done, I begin to strain the mixture through a chinoise.

J, looks at me and says, “That is not a chinoise. That is a China man’s cap.” I look down, and he is right. I do know the difference, but honestly I couldn’t find a chinoise. I mean, we are talking about a ridiculously pureed soup here that probably doesn’t need to go through a chinoise to purify it further. He finds me a chinoise, dumps the soup into it, and lets me begin pushing it around in a circle to strain any large lumps that have not gotten perfectly blended. It is taking longer than it should. Jim looks over at me, and takes the large metal spoon from my hand and uses the tip of the spoon to chop at the center of the chinoise. The soup gently flows through. I have always swirled my spoon around the chinoise, but his method is much faster. I will be doing it that way from now on, that is for sure. I put the soup in a large metal hotel pan and season it with salt and pepper and more cream. I place it on the speed rack in the walk in and the chefs will serve it in a bowl with a sliced green apple salad and roasted chestnuts.

Again, like every other restaurant, 5:00 rolls around and everyone is frantically trying to gather up the last of their tasks for happy hour that goes from 5-7. I take my place in the back, with J who runs the garde manger. The place I am taking used to be a line cooks spot. I am told that I will toast all the breads for the bruschetta, cheese plates, shuck all the oysters, and plate all the desserts. This sounds manageable.

Mistakenly, I should have read the menu before I started working at this station. I do not know any of the sets, and because I didn’t prep for this station, I don’t even know what most of the ingredients are. I read all the tickets that are printed, but don’t know the difference between a bar bruschetta and a regular brushcetta. I just slice the bread, drizzle it with olive oil, and season it with salt and place it on the panini press. The first bruschetta got topped with a duck liver pate and a watercress and pickled shallot salad. The second bruschetta was topped with meyer lemon ricotta with the same salad set. But, which one was which?

At this point, I still have not seen the owner emerge from the upstairs office. One of the main reasons I was so eager to work here on Friday and Saturday nights was to get to learn from him on the line. Yet, I don’t even know if he is cooking tonight. Just as I am thinking that, he emerges from the upstairs office. Dressed in all white, with a light khaki pant and clear rimmed glasses, I always forget how young he is for having four restaurants. He nods at me, and takes his place in the front of the kitchen at the pasta making station.

That night, I shucked many oysters. Probably one hundred. They were topped with an apple, chili, chive, and olive oil set or a grapefruit, celery, and lemon juice set. And, my elbow did not hurt. Oh yes. I guess my elbow is in shape enough now to not be susceptible to oyster elbow.

I am also supposed to be responsible for the desserts, but there is one problem. I can’t do a quenelle for the ice cream. An order for a pecan tart comes up. J gets the plate out from his side of the station and drizzles dulce de leche in an asymmetrical line across the plate. He tops the round tart in the middle, and asks me to scoop a quenelle of whiskey gelato. I pull the quart container of gelato from the small freezer, and give it to him. “You can’t do a quenelle?” I could have made up an excuse like “I didn’t work this station at Restaurant Two” or “at The Restaurant we used a standard ice cream scoop”, but decided to say, “I’ve never tried.” He quickly pulls his spoon in a J-shape up the side of the frozen container and pulls his spoon to the lip on the side swirling the gelato until it is in a cylindrical egg shape.

He moves on to a meyer lemon mouse with vanilla meringue and pickled huckleberries as I try to experiment with the whiskey gelato to create a quenelle. Being a lot harder than it looks, I make two attempts, and then smash the gelato back into a smooth shape and return it to its freezing home.

The owner only speaks to me once that night. Sort of. As I am brunoising bacon for a duck confit and frisee salad, he says, “What is J making you do? A brunoise of bacon?” And then he walks away, laughing. I put my nose and eyes as close as I can to my brunoise, making sure it is as perfect as I thought it was, and it looks good to me. Phew! I know he looked right at it. Everyone looks at each person’s knife skills and mise en place. It is a resume, of sorts, of your ability and technique.

I toast bread, shuck oysters, and I can’t do a quenelle. Welcome to Restaurant. A boys club where nobody speaks to me.

The next day, I come in at 2:00 again, and who do I see? My friend Chef B, who actually spent Thanksgiving with me that year and seared of a lobe of foie gras and made an amazing stuffing, and the cook who worked with me on the first day at The Restaurant. He tells me he is helping the owner with a catering, which means another day that owner will not be there to teach me anything. Frustration starts to set in. I mean, it is not like I think the owner needs to teach me. He is a busy man. Stressed, I am sure with four restaurants to maintain. A little “stage” is not on the forefront of his mind. But, I have been there for six months. And, I have only worked with him twice!

I get ready for my day, steel my knives, and make my way to the same place I worked the day before. I start with the usual suspects: shallots, carrots, celeriac, chives. But, then I start to help the owner out. I supreme one 1/9 pan of oranges, and a deep 1/3 pan of shaved brussels sprouts. The only thing he says to me is “That’s probably enough” as I get to the top of the 1/3 pan. i almost cut my fingers off twice on the mandonline.

Then I am told to roast chestnuts. Oh wow. I am actually going to learn something today! I have never roasted chestnuts before! Unfortunately, though, I have to admit this to the chefs when they tell me to roast them. Chef E tells me to put them on the grill. Another cook tells me to put them in the oven and cover them with foil. I chose the grill. I enjoy burning my hands and arm hairs off. I am told to score each chestnut at the tip, and drop all of them all over the grill. By the time I am done, the light downy arm hair on my right arm is completely gone and my fingers ache with heat. I even used long tongs to rotate the chestnuts, but it was unsuccessful. The burning is inevitable.

That night, I do the same tasks as the night before. Toast bread. Watch J do quenelles. Shuck oyster after oyster. The only wrench in my boredom is that Chef E makes me cook family meal. At first, it is gonna be sloppy joe's, or meatloaf. But, I settle on spaghetti and meatballs in red sauce. I make my meatballs from prosciutto and beef chuck with fennel, red pepper flakes, parsley, ricotta, egg, and parmigiano reggiano. The sauce is spontaneous with San Marzano tomatoes, a load of garlic, sugar, sherry vinegar, lots of salt, and tons and tons of basil, thyme, and leftover scraps from whatever needs to be re-prepped the next day for service.

I cook five nests of spaghetti and reduce my sauce as much as I can until the spaghetti is cooked. My meatballs are baked in the oven. I toss the pasta with the sauce, that need to still be reduced, and then stir the meatballs in the mixture. I take a very large, almost unmanageable hunk of parmigiano reggiano and grate it on to a plate, struggling from the first grate on the microplane. “Want a bigger hunk of parm, Stage?” one of the cooks says to me. He peels the hunk of cheese from my hands, and shows me a more efficient way to grate the cheese. Regardless, his hands are bigger and he is stronger, so it will always be easier for him.

I plate the pasta on a large platter, and let it to be devoured by the staff. I get insecure, at first, knowing that this is not the best representation of my cooking, but at the same time, what am I supposed to do with the elements I have to work with? I am not going to plate a seared duck breast with fingerling potatoes, salsa verde, and a roasted Brussels sprouts for ten people. Pasta is perfectly suitable for family meal. Right?

After scrubbing almost everyone’s station so I could get the hell out of there, I leave at 11:45pm, fifteen minutes before everyone else. As I exited the building, and felt the crisp air on my face, I decided I would walk home instead of cab it. I needed to cool off at my waste of ten hours away from my husband and my life to toast bread and shuck oysters and make family meal for ten people who don’t say thank you, and scrub the entire kitchen. For everyone’s information, I quit my successful ballet career to learn how to cook, not to be a slave. But, I remind myself, step after step, that I am just at the beginning of my new career and I am not going to get the respect I deserve. Not yet.

My second weekend at Restaurant Three reminded me a lot of the first, except this time I got to work the position that J worked all last weekend. It isn’t intentional at first, the Pacojet is broken and it can’t whip the ice cream. So, I take over the station making salads that have slightly changed from the week before. But, before that I have to run out in the freezing cold Seattle winter and pick up more celeriac and a 1/4 lb. of mint at Frank’s, the local restaurant purveyor. My chefs coat and my clogs are a dead giveaway that I work in a restaurant, but when I tell the man at the counter to put the produce on Restaurant Three's account, the worker looks at me like I am some kind of crazy person. “What do you do at Restaurant Three?” This is my least favorite question. I mean, how do I respond? Well, I work for free so that I do not have to pay for cooking school and can get a job as a chef fifty-five hours a week at next-to-nothing for pay. But, I keep my irritation inside, and tell him politely that I am a “stage” for Restaurant Three today. “He treating you good?” the guy says to me. I smile, “Of course!”

When I come back, J is still working on the Pacojet, and I begin to take over the tickets that come to the station. I ask J questions, and he tells me I need to get in the habit of reading the menu and knowing what is changed. “Didn’t you do that at the other restaurants?”, he says. “Yes,” I say curtly, “But at the other restaurants, I always prepped the station I was working.” The ticket read Endive Salad, and I scanned the menu to find the salad, panicking because my eyes couldn’t scan the paper fast enough. I assembled the salad with chunks of pears, crushed hazelnuts, shallots I had chopped earlier in the day, and a huge handful of freshly washed arugula. I make a dressing in the bowl and toss it with my hands, lightly, as if I am picking up egg shells. I find a stark white square plate, the only plate used for this salad, and place three endive leaves face up and two stacked on top of it, face down. Then the hazelnuts, pears, and arugula are tightly mounded in my hand, and then mounded on top of the endive platform.

J looks over and says to me, “higher and tighter.” I try to manipulate the salad with my hands, which doesn’t really work, and I decide to re-plate the entire salad. “That salad gets arugula now, not watercress, too.” I remake the entire salad, saving the large chunks of pear and the endive. Chef E comes in to help J with the Pacojet, and I continue to plate every dish that comes out of the garde manger, as they curse at the broken machine.

It is definitely more interesting than last week, that is for sure, but the garde manger at Restaurant Three is the rookie spot. I have been lucky enough to cook at both Restaurant Two and The Restaurant on the line. Most chefs at Restaurant Three don’t even get to touch a burner until after a year, or so. At least my arms will have the ability to heal this month.

The next evening is much the same. J steps to the side to let me plate salads. I can’t practice my quenelles because the Pacojet is officially broken, and J has had to whip all the ice creams in the Kitchen-aide mixer with the whisk. I feel like I am living in ground hogs day. Doing the same task, and feeling bored and underwhelmed with this restaurant. To top it all off, the owner is still not at Restaurant Three. He has another catering, which has taken him away from the line this evening as well.

As the evening slows down, my legs start to get tired. Nobody drinks at Restaurant Three, and this is about the time where I would be downing a beer to make the pain in my legs stop. I hoist myself on the mini freezer and let my legs dangle, with my clogs half off the back of my heels. One of the line cooks walks by and says to me, “Counters are for glasses, not asses.” I open up my eyes really wide, and much to my surprise, I back talk him. “He doesn’t plate anything on here,” I say. The line cook comes back around the corner, gives me an evil stare, and walks back to the line. Where did that come from? Why am I back talking chefs that I want to respect me? Stupid and snarky. What am I thinking!

Chef E comes around the corner and says, “Stage. Family meal,” as he points to me. I take it as a punishment for my back-talking explosion. I ghetto gourmet some twice baked potatoes, and again, nobody says a word.

That night, I leave at 11:20 after cleaning everyone’s station. Again. This is the one thing about being a chef. You clean just as much as you cook.

The next day doesn’t get much better. Ice explodes all over the kitchen when the top flew off of a broken food processor as I am grinding it for the oyster platers. I drop a 1/3 pan of watercress all over the ground after I explicitly remember closing the refrigerator door. It must have not closed all the way, and the 1/3 pan slipped out, cascading the frilly lettuces all over the hole marked brown kitchen map. It is almost worst than wearing a blue finger condom after you cut yourself. Almost. We have tons of dishes to go, and I can’t sweep my area. So, I am just stepping on watercress repeatedly, reminding me of my klutziness. But the worst mishap is when I heat up two hot chocolate desserts on two of the burners on the line in two small eight ounce copper All-clad pans. To get them hot enough, you have to turn the flame on high. Well, the flames are not even in heat, I learn. One of the pans starts to bubble over and the smell of burnt chocolate starts to permeate the room. Instinctively I grab it from the flame without a prep towel in my hand. Oh. My. Gosh.

It is as if I had stuffed my hand in a fireplace and closed the latch. It burned and burned and burned. Long past when the server came to pick up the warm hot chocolate with the vanilla bean marshmallows bobbing in the thick chocolate. Long after I scrubbed the burner that night where crusted burnt chocolate lingered from my mistake. That night, after I was home, as I brushed my teeth, my hand still burned from the hot metal handle, reminding me that I should hold on to humility, and be receptive of what Restaurant Three has to teach me, no matter how disappointed I feel that I am not working intimately with the owner and getting to work on the line.

Maybe I should just stick to the cold station for now. It might be safer for me, more at my speed, and can help me heal my poor little arms and hands that are slowly starting to look like my former wounded dancer feet.

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. 

Practice Makes Perfect

The comments have been made, and suggestions have been offered.  And, yesterday, on a whim and maybe a homework suggestion from The Sous, I bought $23.46 of produce at Whole Foods, and decide it is about damn time. 

I lock myself in my kitchen (even though it is an open kitchen), and for two hours I get to know the characteristics and personalities of the likes of white onions, shallots, fennel bulbs, long bulk carrots, cantaloupes, and navel oranges. I chop, and chop, and chop until my back hurts and my knives are dull. My job is to teach myself, by shear will and practice, how to mince, dice, julienne, and brunoise all of these vegetables. It is time. 

My goal is to figure out different approaches, like pulling through the length of my Chef's knife blade when mincing onions, rather than just pushing down on the bulb with my Santoku. Or to finally create a consistent 1/8 inch brunoise out of a carrot, and dice a melon into the same size pieces as The Owner and Chef M did this past weekend for the Escolar crudo. 

I became insecure about my knife skills on the first day at The Restaurant, when I butcher a red onion unrecognizable. They are in shapes that not even a Geometry major could attempt to describe. I obviously am also using the wrong technique to cut the onion, as well, hence the abiding scar on the tip of my ring finger from a battle with a peach pit and my paring knife. 

You would think after a couple of weeks I would catch on. But even this past weekend, I am mincing chives for The Sous and The Head Chef, and The Sous looks at my knife work and says, "Stage. What are you doing? Is this your first day of school"? I whine, telling him that my fingers are curled, and he retaliates by reminding me that my knuckles are not resting on my blade like he showed me that very first day, and that puts me at risk of cutting myself (which we know I do), even when my fingers are curled.  I have to admit, having that security of your knuckles on the blade helps me to guide my knife where it needs to go, with both hands, not just one. I also hate to admit that it helps me with the consistency of the chop because I know exactly where the knife is going. I see that I am not going to win this battle. 

He also explains to me that I have to be methodical in my cutting technique. Cutting chives, for example, is a rhythm, like the breaths and strokes of a swimmer. Each time your blade finishes swooshing through the chives you have given it, you then re-adjust your hands, so that you can cut more of those chives in that same rhythm, using that same technique, and having those same knuckles on your left hand gently resting on your blade. 

The same goes for a brunoise, or a dice. You square your produce off, be it a melon or a carrot, cut that shape into planks, cut the planks into sticks (julienne), and then rotate the sticks so that you can create a fine dice (brunoise). Just as consistent as those long crawl strokes of a swimmer. 

I also learn this past weekend that when you mince parsley, you pick the leaves all off of the hard stems (which I would have never done before). Then, you take a bunch of the large dark green leaves and bunch them up into a small ball in your fingers. Then you chiffonade the parsley so that it creates small, fluffy ribbons. Once you are done chiffonading all of the parsley, then you go back and run your knife over the parsley so that it turns into tiny confetti. It is much easier than just running your knife all over the cutting board trying to find the miscellaneous pieces of parsley that you didn't get the first time around. I have been chasing damn flat-leaf parsley around my freaking cutting board for the majority of my cooking life. 

I also have to work on efficiency in my knife work tasks. Last weekend, I was supreming three oranges and two grapefruits for The Owner, yet, I was just working on one piece at a time. The Sous points out that he would take those five pieces of citrus, and cut each of the fruit's tops and bottoms off, all at once, then cut around each one, back to back, and then work on supreming them individually. 

So, after being cooped up in my house for two hours on one of the most beautiful Summer days Seattle has given us, and knowing I could have been laying out on Lake Washington listening to the clinking of sailboat masts in the wind, and reading some of my new A-16 cookbook, I felt pleased with my attempt at anal retentive, and methodical chopping skills. 

From far away, like an impressionistic Monet painting, the mise en place came together, and I could have been mistaken for Eric Ripert. But up close, there were inconsistencies which I will one day improve. I just have many, many, many more hours of homework ahead of me with those pesky vegetables, and my knives. Sharpened like a razor blade, of course. 

The Banquet Squiggle

Banquet Squiggle- A short wavy twist or line, similar to a curlicue, that was used at Hotel Banquets starting in the 90’s to garnish a plate

 

There are many tools used when plating and garnishing a dish. You have your microplane to grate fresh horseradish over Kumamoto oysters, or to grate Mojama over a deconstructed carbonara. You have your ceramic mandoline and your vegetable peeler to cut thin crisp slices of a green apple, or shave a small Persian cucumber. But most importantly, you have your opaque 12 oz. and 6 oz. squeeze bottles for sauces and dressings. Maybe they have a lovage puree, or a creamy anchovy dressing. Or they contain a thick lemony aioli, or a frothy watermelon broth. 

There are many options for plating these sauces and dressings: you can spoon the sauce in a corner and run the back of your spoon through it to create a sort of teardrop like arrow, you can drip consecutively bigger dots next to each other down the side of the plate, you can draw a straight line on the edge of your plate, or splatter the sauce, Jackson Pollock style. 

But, no matter what is in those squeeze bottles, do not ever, ever, EVER use them to create a banquet squiggle.

 

I feel uninspired as I begin to plate a crudo dish that I had already finished slicing and prepping on my cutting board. In a loss for creativity and lack of experience, and maybe eating at too many “trendy” restaurants in the 90’s when my influences started to take shape, I start to complete the final element, which is to create a garnish with the mint puree from one of the squeeze bottles.

I am sure you can imagine what happens next. 

I create a short wavy twist with that 12 oz. squeeze bottle in the corner of the white square plate, feeling at that exact moment, as I lift the bottle into the air to finish, that it was the lazy way out. Immediately I sense Chef M’s eyes bore into my plating. 

He says to me in his slight southern accent, “Oh, Stage. Stage. Be Careful there. We do not want this establishment’s food looking like some kind of hotel banquet, now, do we?” At that, he quickly picks up my plate to show The Sous and The Head Chef across the Boos Block what I have done, laughing hysterically. Then he says, “Stage gave you a little banquet squiggle.” 

All I can do is laugh, hard. At myself, and with the other Chefs. I take the plate back and assure him I can fix it. I wonder if anybody has a toothpick lying around? I plan to just create a pattern from the squiggle that I have seen those same Hotel Chefs do with berry coulis. 

Can you feel this getting worse? 

I pull some lines through the squiggle with the end of my fork, but at this point, the mint puree has settled, and all that is left on my plate is a verdant rectangle of slop. It looks like an ironic grass stain lying there on that white square plate. It reminds me of the grass stain I had in middle school, on the butt of my favorite pair of white Calvin Klein cut-off shorts, that I adamantly wore because I was too prideful to throw them away. He says to me, “Now you are just making a mess.” 

Maybe this is my hint to get myself a food plating book. But, I can assure you, It will have the banquet squiggle in there. 

It is a classic. 

But, regardless, the Chefs are never going to let me live this one down. 

As Simple as a Shallot

The Head Chef, quiet and innovative, finally taught me something at The Restaurant over the weekend. Usually, I don't ever get to work with him. His skills are far beyond anything I am able to do right now, or ever, and I know I would just get in his way. I watch him often though, desperate to see his artistic statements on stark white plates. He is always relaxed, and subtle, yet produces the most immaculate dishes. I know that in years to come, I will wish I knew how talented he really is right now. I don't even have the knowledge base to admire all of his gifts, and I am unaware that I am taking him for granted.

But, on Saturday, he asked me if I would help him out, for the first time. His task for me: finely mince shallots. My eyes grew wide.

Although a simple task for most cooks, mincing a shallot is rather difficult if you do not know the correct technique. And, I am just assuming that I don't. He asked me if I knew how to do it, and I said, I know how I would do it, but teach me how you would do it.

He says that everyone knows how to cut a shallot, but he has a slightly different technique. He peels the shallot and slices it in half so that it is more sturdy. (Never done that before). Then, like he was swooshing a wand, he slices the shallots horizontally upwards, making the cuts as close together as possible. (Hmm. Never thought about making them smaller or bigger that way). Then, he does the same vertically, rotates the shallot 45 degrees, then again vertically. Off of his shallot comes the smallest pieces of onion I have ever seen, all consistently minced. I could have stacked them one on top of each other, and it would have created a consistent tower of purple squares.

Then, he tells me not to run my knife back over the shallot because they get watery and don't last as long. (Oh...I always do that. Eek!) I nod my head at him, ears and eyes wide open to his lesson, and he leaves me be.

I leave his half cut shallot on the right hand corner of board, like a trophy, and begin to delve into my task for The Head Chef. I am nervous, and want to do it right. I can't go back, and rock my knife all over the shallots like I would at home to make them smaller. He will know, because by the end of his night, they will be watery.

So, slowly, I begin to recreate the example he just showed me. I swipe my pairing knife down the length of the shallot five times horizontally, as close as I can get the knife, and eight times vertically. Then I rotate the purple bulb and with a bigger knife, begin pulling it down the shallot. A confetti of onion begins to fall off of my knife. While not as consistent, it looks similar to The Head Chefs, which is far better than I thought for my first time trying his technique.

After about 4 shallots, and lots of onion tears, I have aquired a massive pile of minced purple and white confetti. I notice that some are bigger and some are smaller, but over all, the cuts are much more consistent that I have ever chopped a shallot before, and I didn't have to rock my knife back over it!

The Sous walks by, looks over at my cutting board, and says excitedly, "That's what I am talking about!" He obviously wasn't looking too closely, but I will take the compliment.

I put the shallots in 1/9 pans, sifting through the shallots with my finger tips to discover any long pieces I need to remove, and I quietly place them at The Head Chef's station.

I can't wait for the next lesson.

When The Doors Close

I have always wondered why I have never met a Chef before working at The Restaurant. When most people are wrapping up their nights of debauchery at around midnight, The Chefs are just taking off their coats and aprons and starting their wind down from the past 12 hours of intense work. 

At The Restaurant, closing servers, the hostess, and The Chefs all convene around the seven person bar. The bartender pours me a glass of an opened bottle of Prosecco that will not keep, or a well vodka shot from a bottle that is about to be done. The Sous and The Head Chef don't come right away. They stand, hunched and motionless over the giant Boos Block, intently fixing their eyes on the puzzle called the menu; deciding what to change and what to keep depending what produce Frank will bring in tomorrow. 

The music at the bar gets turned up a couple of notches. Last Thursday, it was Michael Jackson tunes over and over again, that turned into a rather mild dance party with some of the staff from a restaurant down the street. We all proceed to fill our empty bellies with distilled liquor, and laugh, or bitch, about the day, and get to know each other a little better than during the 12 hours that we just worked together. Some people subtly dance in their chairs, some go for a smoke, others are pensive and observe the room, The Head Chef crunches numbers from the day while drinking a Perroni, and I just soak it all up. 

I can't get enough. 

On Friday nights we get a pizza (that is not on the menu) from one of Chef M's best friends, or we meet with some other Chefs and continue drinking at their restaurants, depending on the amount we drank the night before. On Saturday, if you were awake, you would have found us at IHOP on Capitol Hill at 3:30am. 

We sat around the table- two Sous Chefs, a lead server, a hostess, and a Stage- at the chaotically busy restaurant, inhaling Sausage Gravy covered Chicken Fried Steaks and Strawberry Jam filled Crepes thinking how amazing it all tastes. The Sous convinces me to get the appetizer sampler. My stomach lining is screaming from the inside, asking me what the heck I am thinking mixing Dark and Stormy's, Vodka Gimlets, and Prosecco, and then eating processed ConAgra food. But, I was hungry. 

This is a huge lifestyle adjustment. I am a morning person who likes to go to bed early and get my solid 9 hours of sleep. I generally never eat late, unless I am performing, and certainly don't drink on a daily basis. Well, actually, the drinking part is a lie. 

Yet, for some reason, I yearn for this lifestyle and for these people. 

It's another family. One that understands your schedule, your mood, and your passion. It is a familiar feeling only known by people who are in intimate environments for many hours at a time. It is just another confirmation for me that ballet and Chefdom are similar worlds; A feeling that I am obviously attracted to, and seek out. 

I now sleep in past 10:00am, don't drink enough water for my kidneys, eat dinner at around 1:00am, and don't want to cook on my days off. I am a changed person.

I adore all of the people I work with, and all the new people I meet through them, I am so glad that I have finally stayed up late enough so we could finally meet. 

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. 

At The End of The Night

I make a prep list on the back of an old menu from the previous day. Items like aioli, blanched cauliflower, and avocado puree frequent the list, and comfort me. The Chefs trusts me enough to not be babysat, but don’t worry, I am still on a constant running video surveillance, as I should be. 

I start the day by making aioli which I know is egg yolks, lemon juice, a garlic clove, a splash of water, and finished by a constant stream of vegetable oil. I am planning to use three egg yolks, cracking each yolk in my prep bowl, and straining the white protein through my hands. The Sous enters the walk-in, looks over at me, and says, “Whoa, Stage. Easy on the egg yolks.” I take the one I am presently perfectly straining in my hand, dump it in my prep bowl and begin making the aioli with two egg yolks. 

The aioli breaks. 

The Sous smirks, and gets me another egg from the fridge. I pour the broken mixture back into the empty oil pitcher, add the yolk he gets for me into the empty Robot Coupe, pour the broken mixture back as if it were the vegetable oil, and it forms into a fluffy cream mixture. First task complete. 

Tonight, I am working with Chef B, The Thursday Chef, at the same station I was working at last Thursday: The day I cut myself. My goal today is NOT to repeat the mistakes of seven days ago. He asks me to cut a peach for the same recipe, in the same way. That dreaded peach. I figure, hell, why not? At least I can redeem to myself, and to others, that I am not always full of blunders. I learn from my mistakes this time, square off the peach for stability, REMOVE the pit, make sure my hands are curled and protected, and slice thinly. Success. 

After all of those improved knife skills, that peach ends up becoming a puree. 

Chef B and I are working in tandem, like a dance, sharing a cutting board and knives, and as always at this station, fighting for ineffectual light and limited square footage. He lets me slice some fish with his beautiful Japanese sushi knife. As I am salting the fish after my mediocre attempts at cutting, he stops me, and tells me that I ALWAYS have to put His knives back to where I got them from, on a blue prep towel folded to the right of the cutting board. Chef B, tongue in cheek, says that when the knife is not in its place, It will either cut me because it is not in a safe place just laying on the cutting board, or He will “cut me” (if his knife happens to drop on the ground). That knife goes back to its place the entire night, as if a magnet is pulling it there. 

I do my best cooking on a stomach full of Fried almonds, sips of Kombucha, and Peronis. But at 6:00p.m., I have none of these in my belly. The Restaurant is still kind of dead and the sound of the ticket printing out to my right can only mean one thing: an order for Gelato or Sorbet. Hmm. Did I mention I need a beer? 

I know it sounds trivial, yes. But I can’t scoop freaking ice cream to save my life. It either ends up consistent to a "7-11" Slurpee, or in the Gelato’s case, a minefield after it has been detonated. Tonight, there is a brand new Hazelnut Gelato, just delivered, and never been scooped. The perfect victim. As I am creating my first curls into the Gelato, it is crumbling into my scoop like sand. The spoon is not hot enough, and the Gelato is too hard. I know. Excuses, excuses. The Gelato should scoop smooth, like a long river, and look even and calm, when you are finished with it. 

By the end of my torturous experience, I have The Sous and The Head Chef watching me, as they sometimes do when The Restaurant is not busy. This flusters me even more. They observe as I butcher out ridges in the Gelato like I am some force of nature. The Sous looks over and says, “Wow, Stage. Are you trying to go for the Grand Canyon?” I respond, “Well, I was thinking more of the Sierra Nevada Range.” Chef B gives me a tip after I completely destroy the untainted Gelato: Use steaming water from the espresso machine to heat the scoop. This man is brilliant. 

The funny thing is they want me to be able to run this station by myself someday. I would get stuck at the first Gelato order, every time. By 6:00 p.m., I would probably have a toddler's temper tantrum, stomp out of The Restaurant, and throw my apron down on the pavement.  

This damn Gelato is not getting the best of me. 

I love that The Chefs don’t let me get away with anything. Well, almost anything. The Sous and Chef B keep testing my food every forty-five minutes, or so, like a required emissions test; Only letting me serve the food if I "pass". I get a correction from Chef B to not put a small mixing bowl, filled with Kumamotos, on the ground by the mini- fridge. The bottom of the bowl sits on the floor, and the dirt from the floor gets on the cutting board. Oh, yes. Common sense would benefit me in this profession. 

Later, The Sous looks over from his station and asks me if I salted the soft-cooked eggs? Have I put aioli individually on each one? 

I show him how I am salting the eggs, delicate and snug, so that the salt only touches the top of the egg. He shows me that I need to salt from ABOVE, and on the cutting board, not on my plate. He takes his hand, filled with Kosher salt, and puts it almost even with his ear, and in a circular motion, salts a prep plate to show me the technique. I look over and there is a perfect coating of salt all over the silver disk.  “Even, Stage. Even.”, he repeats. 

At the end of the night, Peroni in hand, I begin wrapping the stations 1/9 pans and changing deli-containers filled with pickled radishes and mint puree. I have already overturned a 1/9 pan of toasted pistachios all inside the mini fridge, and I accidentally break 3 out of 10 grissini Chef M made yesterday. (His were better, by the way. He ends up using more yeast, and rolling them smaller and shorter.) They are obviously more delicate than mine were. Shut! 

I see The Sous efficient method for wrapping his 1/9 pans. He rolls out the plastic wrap still in the box, covers the container airtight, and then with a swift movement with the side of his right wrist and forearm, he swipes to loosen the plastic. He quickly seals the the edges, and moves on to the next. I would say it takes three seconds, maximum, and as he says, with pride: “airtight and stackable”. Easy enough. I try to attempt this technique with a small bowl of ground black pepper. I take the plastic out, and wrap one side of the small bowl. As I go to loosen it from the container with “my version” of the swipe, the small container of black pepper tips and spills all over my clean cutting board and the floor. Classic. I look around, subtly, nobody sees, and I laugh: OUT LOUD. I will be putting that item on my prep list tomorrow. And, while I am at it, I’ll add the grissini, too. 

At the end of the night, while listening to P.Y.T and Billie Jean to honor the late M.J., I have a conversation with another intern at another reputable restaurant down the street. He is fresh out of culinary school, and in the same position as I am; Just a Stage. I realize, right then and there, I am one lucky Bitch. I have been working at The Restaurant for six and a half days (remember, cut finger). I get to watch, and learn, from one of the most talented, and humble, Head Chefs in Seattle, and work with his amazing team of Chefs who are willing to teach me. I have worked two stations, not gone to culinary school, and the best part: I am not auditioning for the job like the other Stage. 

I’m just here to learn.