Rules at The Restaurant

As I reflected about my first weeks of Staging on my recent vacation in Hawaii, here are some conclusions I have come to my attention that are just known facts about working at The Restaurant. 

When asked to organize the "sub-zero-like" refrigerator after a huge delivery of produce from Frank's, do not put any green vegetables, especially celery, under the 1 1/2 foot space where the cold blowing fan dwells above the top shelf. The vegetables will freeze. Then, those vegetables that were just ordered, are ruined for anything other than vegetable stock, and have to be reordered again. 

Do not walk in front of the commercial dishwasher on Saturday Nights. The floor is sodden with soapy dishwater. Watching Chef M and The Head Chef reach for you, with panic in their eyes as you are slipping, holding on to the metal sink for dear life, and running on the dishwater like Fred Flintstone in his stone wood car, is slightly humiliating. 

Never throw anything away: be it the butts (or in my case, crumbly and burnt pieces) of the pistachio biscotti, the rounded edges of a crisp-green apple that are unsuitable for a bruinoise, the picked stems from Italian flat-leaf parsley, or the unservable pieces of escolar, hamachi, or fluke that are just not quite big enough for a portion of crudo. These items could be a snack for a server (or yourself), part of a family meal, a component of some sort of stock, or the one ingredient that is added to a dish that gives it that extra "oomph!". Oh! And, if they do accidentally end up in the garbage, don't think that you can pull them out. 

Thou shall not wipe thy hands on ANY apron that thou is wearing; Not even the white bistro prep apron that gets washed each day. That is what the blue kitchen towel that you tie to on the right side of your apron is for. Even if the blue towel has fallen on the floor, as it frequently does because you have not learned how to adequately tie it to your apron, and you thought it was there when you were wiping, you will still get barked at. 

Always, Always, Always use those blue kitchen towels to pick up any pot, or pan. Unless, of course, you want to rock a burnt and swollen left hand all night long. Although it could be sexy, it is not a recommendation of mine. 

When slicing a peach (or anything for that matter), at 9pm on a Thursday night for Chef B (in a panic, of course), curl your fingers under your palm while slicing, for goodness sake. You do not want to have a bleed-out all over your Chef's coat, the hostess, the kitchen, and the peach. I am just saying...

As you are cooking a dish with your favorite giant silver spoon, tasting the dish for seasoning, and finding that it needs a touch more Kosher salt (it always needs more salt), do not stir it, again, with that same giant silver spoon you just had in your mouth, and re-taste the dish, again with the same spoon. The food will be contaminated, and is supposedly called double-dipping. 

After drinking until 2:30 in the morning on your first day, do not, under any circumstances, use the tall garbage can in the kitchen to prop your weary body up the next day while you are observing. Although your brain is convinced it is the latest version of a La-Z-Boy chair, and you can hardly stand on your gold Adidas sneakers, The Sous will admonish you, tell you to wash your hands, and say it is unsanitary. The  embarrassment is not worth the minimal appeasement between you, and your hangover. 

And lastly, wear pants that are high enough to cover your butt-crack when you reach down to get cold ingredients from the lower fridge at the crudo station. The Restaurant customers (and staff) do not need to see your hot-pink-cheetah-print thong hanging out of the back of your low-rise True Religion Jeans right before your shuck four Kushi oysters. This is NOT sexy. 

Blood Spatter Specialist

When we woke up this morning, after the night we had last night, Erik told me he had a dream that I cut all of my fingertips off. They were pouring blood, so I decided to be an artist and paint with the color and spatter from the cuts. Luckily, what I did to myself was NOT that dramatic.

I knew yesterday was going to be an off day when arrived at 1:00 to The Restaurant and nobody was there. The lights were off and the door was locked. After about 20 minutes, The Head Chef arrived having just left just hours ago from the night before, and asked me what I was doing there so early. Um, if I am not mistaken, this is when I got there last week? But, I guess on Thursdays, when it is slow on Wednesdays, it is an unwritten rule that you get to The Restaurant later.

Thanks for the memo.

So, I kill about an hour at a local coffee shop (slickly dodging a person I recognized via Twitter) and read "Tender at the Bone" ( this will be ironic later). I stayed a little after 2:00, slowly walked back, as to not look to eager, and put on my apron.

I was working with Chef B, the Thursday chef, at a new station. Not much needed to be prepped, but he taught me how to make Biscotti, and we filled our 1/9 pans with items that needed to be restocked. I made an aoili, soft boiled some eggs, took on my daily task of blanching cauliflower and pea vines, and learned how to break down a Geoduck.

Service started. We were steady. Chef B let me plate many dishes, and I was generally pleased with how the evening was going.

Then, Chef B asked me to cut more peaches for a dish that we hadn't prepped well for because it wasn't selling. Well, it was selling last night.

I went to the back, found my peach, and began peeling the skin with my Wustof pairing knife. I was told to slice each piece thin, and then into mini triangles. Let me first say that EVERYONE in The Restaurant talks to me about having better knife skills. I remember about half the time. And the other half? Well, I will just blame my Kitchen Retardedness.

I skinned the peach without a care in the world. I begin to slice each light pink section from the pit. They were all uniform, which is an improvement, and I go to start the other half. As I am trying to wedge my knife above the pit to slice, my hand slips from the skinned peach and my Wustoff slices right into my ring finger.

It took the finger print off. I looked for a second, shocked at my stupidity, and watched as the pink fruit began to have a more ruby tone.

I had a bleeder.

I immediately went to the First Aid Kit, which I have become very familiar with these past two weeks, and got out a finger bandaid. Before I could even get it on, it was soaked with my blood. Then, I reached for a wet paper towel, and put pressure on it.

This is the best part, I am such a compulsive do-gooder that I continued to cut the peach into triangles! While bleeding!

As it got worse, I stopped, and luckily at this point, the hostess ( who is going to nursing school) assisted me with bandaging my wound. She gave me some gauze while she got all of her supplies ready, and then asked me to take off the gauze so she could bandage me. As I slowly peeled the gauze away from the cut, it ripped the small clot and my blood spattered all over my "not-so-white-anymore" Chef's coat, along with my face. I looked like Dexter after he has killed one of his victims. The Hostess was wearing a white dress. Thank God it did not get on her!

Prepare yourself for the dramatics: I started to feel faint. I am sorry, but I wasn't losing THAT much blood? I think I was in shock, disappointed, embarrased, humiliated, (insert other dramatic feelings here)...

She said she thought I should leave, I took my coat off in a cold sweat, said goodbye to The Chefs and got into a yellow cab.

I raced to the drugstore and purchased forty bucks worth of finger bandaids, finger condoms, gauze, tape, Neosporin, and Shout! (which doesn't work BTW). I came home, chugged two glasses of wine, and waiting for Erik to arrive.

At this point, my finger felt like it was going to fall off. It had already done the whole "heart-beat in the finger" bit, and now it was going numb down to my knuckle and into the palm of my hand. I had dramatic illusions of grandeur where I was losing my whole ring finger and having to wear my wedding ring on a stump.

When Erik got home, I told him I needed him to help me change my bandages. I know he has a queesy stomach around blood, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The blood had clotted on the gauze, but I had to get it off because it was too damn tight. I cut away the huge bandage that made me look like a cartoon character with hair cutting shears, and pulled away the guaze.

HUGE mistake. The blood poured out like a chocolate fondue fountain; cascading down my knuckles and the back of my left hand. Erik lost it.

I am freaking out, he is getting nauseous, I am about to faint, he starts gagging. We were a mess. The dog just laid there. He is used to all of this back and forth drama.

I got another bandage on, Erik went to the bathroom to calm down, and I drank about a liter of water in one sitting.

As we woke up this morning, and he told me of his dream where I was creating art with my blood, I decided that I AM going to take a knife skills class. I owe it to myself, and everyone that ever has to work with me in a kitchen.

And I should probably get up to date on my tetnis shots if I am going to cut myself on a weekly basis. Will this be a tradition? I am two for two right now.

The Mistakes

"Stage! You on vacation?"

I was in hysterics as I got this text message right when I was coming home after working with The Teacher for 8 hours. The Sous thought I had "chickened out" of The Restaurant and wrote me a message making sure I was coming back.

Do I really seem like that type of girl that would give up that fast? The Sous has no idea.

But, I do have to say, the work with The Teacher and the work at The Restaurant could not be different. The Teacher gets frantic at times, having to plate meals for 12 all at once, timing large quanitites of food, and having to manage most food related problems all by herself. However, at The Restaurant, it is a well-oiled machine, and everyone has their specific task and nothing faulters from that. The Teacher basically is working a miniature restaurant all by herself. And, boy, does she do it well.

Yesterday, my first task for The Teacher was to bake a flourless cake.

I am thinking, oh great, all I have gotten to actually cook for this woman is a gazpacho that I messed up and now a baking item, which I will surely mess up. This is a great way to start the day.

Let me first just tell you, I dislike baking more than anything. I have a sweet tooth, don't get me wrong, but I just hate the process of having to be so exact and reading a recipe over and over and over again making sure that you are doing the right thing. Although I enjoy specific direction, there is a little more room to fudge when you cook.

The Teacher and I were talking as I made the cake. My first mistake. This made me nervous because I had to multi-task in my mind as I separated eggs, zested oranges, chopped Callebaut chocolate, and perfectly toasted blanched almonds and pine nuts. I kept re-reading the same lines again and again: unable to move forward, even though I already knew what it said.

I was obviously distracted.

She taught me how to heat eggs, gently, over a pot of shallow simmering water to bring the cold ones to room temperature. I whisked them with a mixer that sounded like a 747 was taking off in her kitchen, and then folded the Callebaut chocolate batter inside. Then, I also heated the cold egg whites over the simmering water, forming them into stiff peaks with sugar. Then, slowly folding each half separately into the dark brown batter.

She had buttered and parchmented a round cake pan, she preheated the oven to 350 degrees for me because I forgot to do that (second mistake), and we stuck the cake inside.

That was the last time I thought about it (third mistake).

All of a sudden, The Teacher realized that she had not set the timer, and to be quite honest, I didn't even remember that I MADE the cake.

She took the cake out, and luckily it was not yet burnt, but it was definitely dry and not as appealing as it had the potential to be.

Right after she had originally put the cake in the oven, just seconds before I would forget that I have created it, she had told me that she would be telling her clients that I made the cake (her 1st mistake).

Well, shit. Now, because I am not an intuitive baker, and we forgot to set the timer, my cake was going to taste like a piece of construction paper with whipped cream on top. I had to think fast.

Really fast.

I decided that just in case because it was really dry, we should poke holes in it with a toothpick, make a simple syrup and gradually drizzle the syrup over it for the next couple of hours. That would salvage it. She like that idea, and let me do it.

I made a simple syrup, equal porportions sugar to water, and slowly drizzled the syrup over the cake. I would have to wait hours at this point to see if this solution would actually salvage my cake.

The rest of the night seemed to also be filled with faux pas. She let me make a brown butter (which I have now perfected because of The Restaurant) that she wanted it tossed with her homemade angel hair pasta, Dungeness crab that was just cracked by one of her diners, and blanched local asparagus. I took the lead on the dish.

I knew if was not a good sign when the angel hair was looking sloppy as I was tossed all of the ingredients together in the giant All Clad. Normally, I would have tasted the pasta like I learned at The Restaurant, but I had to plate it as quickly as possible with the biggest tongs that I had ever seen. I am talking GRILLING TONGS. Not condusive to methodical plating.

The angel hair slipped multiple times from the tongs as I tried to swirl the pasta precisely onto the plates. The crab and the asparagus were difficult to pick up with the giant tongs, and so some plates had more and some had less.

As the plates were given to the diners, I just thought to myself: that needed more lemon, I should have tasted it for salt, why did I not have a wet rag to clean the sides of the plates? The Restaurant has ruined me.

Later that evening, after washing way too many dishes, and listening to her diners get louder as they filled their glasses with perfectly balanced Cabernet, it was finally time for the flourless chocolate cake.

She cut the cake, and slyly gave me a small taste. I anticipated tasting a cotton ball like substance in my mouth that I would probably have to spit out on my kitchen towel, but somehow the cake was moist. She smiled at me, and said, that it was definitely going to be good!

I felt a sense of pride, and let out a huge sigh of relief. She let me plate the dish on little white plates. We cut the cake in half, and set them on top of each other to make a bow, and topped it with whipped cream and first of the season strawberries. The diners had no idea the cake was an overbaked-disaster salvaged by a simple syrup. All they could think about was the chocolate and orange combination.

I think I am finally earning The Teacher's trust. This might be her mistake.

The Pine Nut Dressing Project

"Hey Stage", Said The Sous. "In about a minute here, I am going to need you to make a pine nut dressing for me". Dumbfounded, I couldn't believe that he actually wanted me to make something for a dish he was serving. I was wondering what this dressing entailed. Did I get to be creative? Or, did he want specific, as The Sous always does. After I finished my present task of finely, (beyond finely) chopping chives, I asked him for more detail.

He told me to make the exact recipe that I made the other day for the anchovy dressing with Chef B, but to substitute pine nuts for the anchovies, sherry vinegar for the lemon juice, and make it more watery. So, basically I needed to change the whole recipe except for the canola oil. Creative or Specific? It was obviously the latter.

It was coming time to open the restaurant. I still had my black tank top on without being suited up in my "Chef whites". The staff was frantic tonight. There seemed not enough time to get everything done that needed to be done. The waiters were quickly folding napkins, the dishwasher seemed to have more dishes than usual, and all of The Chefs were finishing up on their final details of their dishes.

And, of course,there was no station for me to do my project. Except for The Head Chef's station, which had already been cleaned and organized for the evening.

I was frantic, slightly shaking, and trying as quickly as I could to create the perfect pine nut dressing for The Sous.

I didn't think to ask him if he wanted the dressing thick enough to hold it's own on a plate, or thin enough to drizzle. So, I had to go back multiple times and ask him to taste it, look at the consistency, and give me corrections on the porportions. All the while, I was hogging The Head Chef's station. At this point, He was anxiously hovering, waiting to set up for the evening.

At The Sous last taste, he said it was perfect (but could always use more salt) and told me to put it in squirt bottles and set it by his station. I got two bottles (forgetting the lids) and made my way back to The Head Chef's station. As I began to fill the squeeze bottles with the dressing from the food processor, Chef M told me I needed to "wrap" up this project so The Head Chef could get to his station. Nervously, I scraped the dressing out, smoothly, still shaking, and moving as fast as I could. I went to quickly gather up the remains of the project: the large can of Dijon mustard, the egg shell and shallot peels in a small work bowl, and the dirty food processor canister. I was moving rapidly, and once I had gathered everything into my hands, I made a quick manuever with my left elbow to clear the meat slicing machine that was in my way.

At that moment, my longer than usual appendages, filled with the remaining ingredients from the dressing, hit one of the uncapped squeeze bottles of pine nut dressing.

As if the world had been in super-slow motion, the dressing flew all over the meat slicer, the floor, the till, and of course all over The Head Chef's pristine station. I mean: ALL OVER. It covered his cutting board I watched him sanitize, his knives that he sharpened and buffed, and all over his clean kitchen towels. And, as all this was happening, customers were coming in the door.

The one good thing was that all of The Chefs were in the back, wrapping up the last of their prep work. I screamed profanities in my head as I cleaned as much pine nut dressing as I possibly could from The Head Chef's station, changing out towels and wiping down his knives. I perused his station, hoping it looked how he left it, and brought the dirty containers to the dishwasher.

I got TWO lids, as I should have done originally, carefully placed them on top of the dressing containers, wiped them clean and stored them at The Sous station. Phew!

Much later that evening, as The Head Chef was slicing prosciutto for a dish, I saw a beige glimmer on the side of the meat slicer. I surreptitiously decided to clean the spot as he turned his back to plate the dish. I wiped the final remains of MY disaster from everyones knowledge.

Maybe they knew, maybe they didn't but, either way, they never said a word.

My hunch is that I will continue to see the remains of my disaster, and I will continue to slyly cover my tracks.