In It For The Long Run

I miss The Restaurant. It has been two weeks since I have worked there and while I have had a fantastic vacation, it is bittersweet to stop in the middle of something you really want to be doing. 

It has also made me reflect on my time there, what I am getting out of it, and my food life in general, not to mention the importance of keeping my standards high. Like ballet, at first, nobody ever believed that I would be a dancer. My childhood ballet teacher in my hometown of Virginia gave me the run around, playing with my mind, turning it into egg scramble of verbal abuse and discouragement, and attempting to prevent me from becoming a dancer on a daily basis. But, because of her disbelief in my potential, I basically showed her my really long middle finger by being accepted to the School of American Ballet in New York City at the highly mature and responsible age of fifteen until I was invited to join to this "little" company in Seattle called Pacific Northwest Ballet. Thus becoming the first professional dancer from my childhood school to ever get a job as an honest-to-goodness professional ballerina. The rest is history. 

Not an easy history, but a fulfilling one at that. 

I don't feel discouraged in the same way at The Restaurant. Well, not yet. But I do feel like people don't believe I am serious about wanting to become a Chef. People ask me, with a subtle laugh that I can see on the inside, if this is really something I want to be doing. Well, yes. I think so? But, like many others, the chef world is largely a male dominated profession, and I am starting at the bottom, naive and ignorant to the amount of work it requires, and talent pool I am joining. I feel like the runt of the puppy litter, hoping that someone will pick me, believe in me, and guide me as I grow. 

I learn new things. Daily. Stupid things that The Chef's would assume to be common knowledge, but not so much as a "home cook". I burn my arms while taking giant pans of biscotti out of hot ovens, forget even the most basic recipes (rather, methods) that I thought I had known intimately like my eye color or shoe size, and constantly, constantly, constantly make mistakes. More mistakes than I have ever made before. 

The other night The Owner came in to The Restaurant. I am immediately flustered because my station is not busy, and I must look stupid standing there like a wallflower twiddling my thumbs with nothing to do. He says hello to me, and gives me a vigilant look.  Maybe he is thinking they are not keeping me busy enough? Is he wondering if I am actually learning anything from The Chefs? He walks away, and sits at the seven person bar with The Reviewer from a magazine that is writing an article about The Restaurant. I immediately ask Chef M what I can do to keep busy. He has me change clean out the ice pans in the fridge, and replace the ice. Relief.

That only took me ten minutes. Now what?

I come back to my station and an order has come up for The Owner and The Reviewer. Chef M starts the order taking careful time to create lines from squeeze bottles filled with herb sauces, slice heirloom cherry tomatoes and Persian cucumbers on the ceramic mandoline, and clearly plate the dish as if he is painting on canvas. I watch, mouth slightly ajar, no drool. 

A few minutes go by, and Chef M tells me to take the next order. It is a monochromatic dish I have plated many times: hamachi, prosciutto, and marinated grilled mission figs (which tastes as amazing as it sounds). I start to slice the fish, something I have just started to get a hang of with his long Sashimi knife. I salt it, and start to plate it as I always do. Chef M looks over and tells me we are going to plate this dish differently because he didn't realize it was also for The Owner and The Reviewer (and who wants The Stage cooking for them!). As he goes to rearrange the fish from a fan stack, to individual pieces lined up on the plate, he discovers that I have not sliced the fish all the way through at the very bottom ends. They hold on like a seedling root in a Spring garden. Oops. I guess I knew that this could have been a possibility when I first sliced the fish, because it has happened before. But for some reason I let my standards go, and did not check it to make sure I had sliced it all the way through.  What if they had given that to The Reviewer? Would she have noticed? 

I am horrified. 

Luckily, besides a little well-deserved sarcastic comment, Chef M handles my "mess" up pretty well. He saves me from being the lead in a my own personal horror flick. One in where The Owner yells at me, and tells me to get out of The Restaurant in the middle of service, because quite frankly, I can't even slice a damn piece of fish correctly.

Horrors.

But, when I finally ate at The Restaurant the other night after working there all summer, I realized the importance of every plate looking and being perfect. It was by far one of the most stunning meals I have eaten in a long time. It was odd being in the front of the house, removed from the action and banter in the kitchen, having my friends serve me, and wondering and imagining all the hours of preparation that went into each dish before The Restaurant opened. 

My group ordered everything that The Head Chef made. I never get to work with him, so I feel like I know his cooking style, and palate the least out of everyone. I was stunned with every dish that came out; each one different in flavor and style. And, each one cooked to perfection, plated with elegance, yet understated. I told you in was in awe of The Head Chef. 

Crazy as I am, this made me want to become a Chef even more. The jubilation that I had, eating the food of The Chefs I think so highly of, made me understand the difference between The Restaurant I "Stage" at, and the plethora of other places who do not have the same standards. I yearn to be able to create the same experience I just had when eating in The Restaurant. It reminds me of the stimulation I get while watching another ballet company, and itching to jump on the stage, and dance with them. 

Through these moments of horror and self doubt, though, nothing has changed. I am still in it for the long run, and I am eager to get back to The Restaurant like I am eager to get on that stage while watching a show. 

I just need to practice slicing that damn fish.

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. 

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.