A New Kitchen

Kind of like "A New Hope" but minus the space smugglers and whiny bitch protagonists.

Boy, we're already starting this one off on a nerdy note.

Anyway, don't let the title fool you. I haven't gotten a new job yet. But I did asked to brave the crucible known as the "stage" (pronounced stAHge, since people keep asking).

Sometimes a stage is much like the kind I did at Oceanique and Va Pensiero. An extended period of employment in which it is understood that you work unpaid in exchange for an education. I worked part-time at Oceanique for about 6 months. I worked part-time at Va Pensiero for about 4 months before I got a job.

Sometimes people consider a stage a short tryout that lasts maybe 1-3 days, and the intent is that it is an unpaid trial period that is meant to assess your viability as an employee. It's a trail where you hang around a kitchen, work and hope for a job. That is what we'll be talking about today.

A stage is part athletic tryout, part audition. You work longer and harder than the rest of the staff, you do everything they don't want to do themselves, you have to prove you're fast and competent, and that you're a personable enough human being that the brigade would enjoy being around you 10-12 hours a day. It's unpaid, punishing and doesn't bear any tangible rewards over the course of the day. That is, unless you get the job. (Well they were kind enough to treat me to as many PBRs I could want. Which is not that many.)

I've only worked in a few kitchens, and they all have followed a fairly similar pattern. You do your prep on the line with a few cooks, dry goods in the back, perishables in the big walk-in cooler, maybe some soft music in the background for morale purposes and a little fun (more often than not, traditional Mexican folk music and polka).

So I was pretty shocked when I was thrown in to the kitchen at Lula. I was introduced to the sous-chef, a wiry guy with patchy facial hair and a Southern twang on his voice, who gave me the grand tour. He's a very nice guy, he clearly gets stages fairly often and has a rehearsed means of crash-coursing them on the kitchen. He leads me downstairs and my brain is having issues taking everything in and processing it. Like many city kitchens, the line and the prep kitchen are separate. All the prep is done in the basement where there are an array of stainless steel tables, and then prepped produce is brought upstairs to be cooked during service. He leads me to the locker room to get me suited up and on the way I pass a whole variety of faces. There's Modest Mouse blasting off an iPod dock and I can barely hear people's names as they introduce themselves, and there are people running around everywhere with ice, vacuum packed goodies, and big pots of braised pork. It is alive, this kitchen is buzzing and I know I'm about to HALO-jump onto a breakneck, no-stop prep train. (In this instance I don't mean the video game Halo, I mean a High Altitude Low Open parachute jump that is used in the military to quickly and quietly insert yourself into a situation from the air. See, I'm not always a nerd.)

So Hunter (the sous-chef) leads me to the locker room (did I mention that the basement kitchen is just about 6'1" high, meaning I bump in to every ceiling fixture along the way? Yeah, way to make myself look clumsy already) and points,

"Jackets, pants, put your shit down where there's space, grab a knife, suit up, get rollin'."

And I do exactly that. Except I probably take 10 min. too long to get dressed. Why? A couple of reasons.

1) I have yet to need to use my own knives in a kitchen, so it takes me a while to decide what I should take, and get them ready to slice and dice. I decide on a chef's knife and a paring knife. Guns up, let's do this.

2) On the way in to the kitchen I acknowledge that for the first time I will be working with women. A lot of small women. Every jacket I seem to find is a tiny garb that would barely cover my thigh in chef whites. Without a mirror, I am self-conscious that my rippling biceps are probably too accentuated by the small jacket. But I risk looking awesome for service and get down to business.

And away we go! Prep time. Whatcha need, chef? Let's do this!

I look over at the white board and I am struck with both awe and fear. It's a beautifully organized board with print-out templates checking prep statuses of items between lunch and dinner, every cook's to-do list, any 86'd items. Everything is accounted for. And I even have a cute little section dedicated to me. Under the word "Stage" is a laundry list of to-do items that I know are going to suck. The words "Shell green almonds" and "Clean stinging nettles" pop out at me. Oh, balls.

Green almonds are under-ripe almonds. They come in compact, fuzzy green shells and need to be cut away with a paring knife, but be careful to not damage the tender nut (actually stone fruit seed) inside. They need a quart of them. I see two sheet trays (big, rectangular metal trays that probably measure about 36x24) in the walk-in loaded with green almonds. Well this should be fun. Too bad I drank a hipster cup of coffee and am jittery with caffeine and nicotine. Coupled with my slightly rusty knife skills, I murder a handful of green almonds before I start shelling them cleanly. Oh what I would do to cut some onions.

And then stinging nettles. Without going to Wikipedia, what I know about stinging nettles is that they are a North American plant that does exactly what its name implies. Sting you. It's covered in hairs and irritating oils that give you a painful case of the minor burn-sies and powerfully itchies. You need to double up on latex gloves to clean them. But once they are washed and cooked, the poison is inoculated and they are a hearty, tasty green vegetable. But staring at a giant box of them, and the possibility of a wicked case of hives, I am a little disheartened.

But prep work is refreshing. It's been awhile since working with food. The basement is hot, there's a huge staff of young, fun-loving restaurant workers joking around, but getting down to business (culinarily). The sous-chef is taunting people with a butchered lamb's head. A 5 foot Mexican woman is tending to a most delicious pot of braised pork shoulder, and is making quesadillas for staff meal. The very attractive intern from culinary school is making chef's whites look good (I guess a fairly passive action), and sharing the workload with me. And a whole slew of cooks are bustling around, and I am shaking hands and smiling a lot, dodging hot pots of stock, and banging my head on the fridge door.

It's good to be back. Back in a kitchen, experiencing new things, talking, learning, thinking about nothing except expertly extracting an almond from its furry pod (alliterations, high school English!). Being in a place where the clock blurs away, and the application of manual labor releases stress. Focusing on nothing except trying to absorb every smell, taste, sound, and sight of the kitchen.

Yes, it's good and what a wonderful kitchen to experience! Two staff meals a day. A staff meal, as I've described before, is usually an amalgamation of scraps and a meaningful application of economy, but here it just seems so good! Quesadillas with pork trimmings, black beans and rice with cilantro. For after-service meal some leftover BLTs, turkey sandwiches, guacamole and a fantastic chicken and black eyed pea soup, and a mediocre potato salad made by yours truly. There's PBR cases stacked to the ceiling, staff enjoying a smoke and a drink after scrubbing down the kitchen. This place has a reputation as being a place cooks love to cook in, and I can see why. It's foreign for me to work with people my age, speak English, to work with women (only kind of distracting), in a casual environment that really puts out great food. It only reinforces my desires to open casual restaurants, places minus pretension but plus great food, great wine.

It is an eye opening experience. Even if I don't get the job I think I need to start setting aside my weekends to work in kitchens again. I forgot how much I missed it. Perhaps I can spend my time doing just that. Being a mercenary cook whose price tag is just a little education, a chance to work, a chance to practice. Maybe it's possible to do a little time in a lot of restaurants, collecting experience and compiling an education from the whole city of Chicago.

So what did I learn? The importance of staff. The universally integral, absolutely essential importance of having good staff and treating them well. I could go on and on, but basically if you have good staff, you treat them well, you hold on to them, they are more valuable than anything else your restaurant has. And if they love to show up to work, if they have the energy and passion to put in their best day after day, then that is the hallmark of a great restaurant, a great chef. Someone who can lead, create an environment both welcoming and challenging.

It's also nice to have plenty of beer on hand.

Even if it's dirty hipster wine.

Sorry, Brendo, no offense.

Mua haha!

EP6