"Here."
It's a simple command made simpler as Chef hands me a spoon.
Fuck. Chef doesn't give you a spoon because he wants you to share your earth-shattering-consomme-of-orgasms with him. He gives you a spoon because it's a nicer way of saying "Taste this. Because either you didn't taste it before or your palate went full retard today."
"Yes, Chef."
I dip a clean spoon in to a consomme that is a curious mahogany brown. I was a bit confused as to how that happened. Despite a deep understanding of the chemistry behind consomme, I've never fucking made one. It did seem a bit dark but it tasted all right. At least it did before...
"And?"
"It's a little bitter, Chef."
"Why would that be?"
"Because it's burned, Chef."
"Yes. It is most certainly burned. Please bring me your pot."
My heart drops. This is kind of like your girlfriend dumping you. Not because she's cheating on you, but because the girth you've gained in middle-age isn't as boisterous in the sack as it once was. Because you've gone lame and unable to produce. It hurts.
I obediently retrieve the pot I made my consomme in. A cute little gallon soup pot with the sad remains of a consomme raft jiggles around in the bottom.
A consomme, by the literal definition, is a refined French broth. Completely clear and devoid of fat, so clear that you should be able to read the date on a dime at the bottom of a gallon. It should, by all impossibilities, be clearer than water.
This is achieved with a "raft." A mixture of ground meat, egg whites, tomato and aromatic vegetables that is simmered in a flavorful broth. The albumen proteins in egg whites coagulate at 155 degrees Fahrenheit and form a raft at the top of the liquid. This protein mesh, with the assistance of a convection simmer, captures all the impurities in a broth rising to the top, thus making it clear. This also draws out some flavor though, hence why we add ground meat and vegetables to the mixture, to reintroduce some flavor in to the soup. Tomatoes are an acidic component that denature proteins, facilitating the coagulation process.
When your consomme is finished, you ever so carefully ladle it out of the pot through a coffee filter to really capture any invisible crud left in the broth. Finally, a dry paper towel is dragged over the surface to capture any stubborn fat that has remained. Then you serve it hot, piping fucking hot because the soup has very little garnish and fat and thus loses heat rapidly.
I knew all of this, even before we went over it in lecture. What I didn't know is that when you make consomme in such a small pot the "raft" is very much in contact with the bottom, vigorously interacting with the hottest part of the burner. It doesn't really do much floating. You counteract this by stirring constantly until the raft begins to form. Failure to do this will result in, you guessed it, a burnt raft. This was practical experience I didn't think to prepare for.
Chef takes a spoon and reveals the bottom of my raft to me. Black. Charred, burnt beyond repair.
Son of a bitch. In two years of professional cooking, I've never burnt something. I've had three dishes sent back to me ever. One was an underseasoned mushroom tagliatelle (guilty). Another was an undercooked ravioli (guilty, they were much more frozen than I had accounted for). And finally, the last was an undercooked salt-crusted sea bass (guilty, first time cooking with a salt crust). Other than that, in the hundreds of dishes I sent out, I was proud to say I only had three sent back and never because something was burnt.
But here was proof of my fallibility. A blackened consomme raft that produced a broth deep mahogany brown. I mistook this for a proper development of flavor. I was wrong.
Chef grimaces. He's not upset, he's disappointed. I was voted in as the group leader, the sous chef of our class, I am one of the oldest and most experienced cooks in the kitchen and here I've gone and made the most elementary of mistakes. He knows that I know better, knows that I can do better ... far better. The disappointment hurts more than any other sort of reproach. I'd prefer it if he hit me.
He scribbles down a 60. The worst grade I've gotten so far. By all respects, it should have been a zero. This would never go out to a customer. This would even be unworthy for a dishwasher to sip on as a snack during a Saturday crush. It was fucking garbage.
He sees how my face goes from somewhat hopeful to a mask of complete defeat. I was never very good at hiding my emotions, hence why I don't feel I belong in the front of the house.
"Now, Eric. It's not the end of the world. You guys still have a lot of work to do. Tomorrow's another day, and I can guarantee that you'll never make that mistake again."
"Yes, Chef."
It's the most commonly uttered phrase in the kitchen. Yes, Chef. Carry on, orders understood. Continue to perform adequately. Move on.
And he's right, there is a whole lot left to do.
When I signed up for the group leader position, I figured it was kind of a joke. Like being the class president of your high school. It's a resume padder, you don't really do much, it's a false title. I was very, very wrong.
A pin in the shape of a golden toque is adorned on my jacket collar. One in every 20-30 students wears this pin. Students are selected to group leader by popular vote. Such a whimsical process for a fairly serious position. I figured it was more a popularity contest. Wrong again.
I very much am at the helm. Chef, other than evaluations, demos and the occasional roaming instruction, will sit at his desk and watch me run the kitchen. He wants to see my feet put to the flame. He wants to see if the student who so boldly declared himself the most qualified candidate for leadership can actually fucking lead.
Have I ever run a kitchen? God no. I've never even "told" someone else to do something. I've been a minion, a slave for the past two years. What right do I have to command? Yeah sure, I ran the floor at my own restaurant but that's front-of-house. The back is a whole 'nother beast to tame.
But earn and believe in this right I must. Because it's 10:15, and if we want to eat lunch we've got to start cleaning now.
Two quick lessons in leadership I learned.
1) Leading by example is important, but you can't do everything yourself. What really makes a strong leader is making your team believe in your standards and carrying them out in unerring and passionate fashion.
2) If you want something done, you need to find someone and directly make the order, make them responsible. When you ask "Can somebody...?" or "Is anybody...?" that's effectively the same thing as asking "Can nobody...?"
So with those two lessons tucked away after Day One it's time to clean.
If there's one facet of leadership I've been blessed with, it's a battlefield voice. All those years of my housemates telling me they can hear my voice at all times, and that my normal speaking voice is uncomfortably loud ... now they pay off. So you'll have to imagine me yelling across the spanse of a 5-range kitchen.
I've divided our class of 20 in to five teams of four and assigned them to various tasks ranging from stock production, vegetable production to sanitation.
"Team One! Degrease and skim stocks, mirepoix goes on in 5!"
"Team Two! All burners off! Flat tops and burners in the soak!"
"Team Three! Compost bins and countertops wiped! Garbage in 10!"
"Team Four! You're on dish! Team Five! Bring all the boards and pots to dish!"
"The mark is 11:30! We have about an hour to make this place spotless, let's rock!"
A chorus of "Heard!" echoes back at me. It's the most succinct way to communicate that you've heard it, you've understood it and you are now in the process of executing it.
Same shit, different day. But yet the thrill of command is a pleasure, day in and day out.
I'm not addicted to the power. I don't get hard over telling other people what to do. I get adrenaline and energy from the reciprocation of command; pushing my team to go harder, seeing results and having them force me to be on top of my game and work harder. It's a feedback loop and it's more exhilarating than any of the various narcotics I've ingested in my sordid past. It's the kind of shit that drags you out of bed at 4:30 on a freezing, upstate New York day. It's better than sex and coffee ... combined.
Time flies in a kitchen. We've been here since 5:30 and other than my brief moment of self-reflection-leaning-on-suicide after I burnt my consomme, I haven't really had a thought that wasn't about cleaning something, cooking something or wiping something. I don't often settle down to one task because I have to roam around and supervise. I like to lead by example and thus my horrid obsessive cleanliness is something I force upon my team at all times. After they wipe a countertop, I follow them with another rag and get all the bits they missed. They see what I do, they know what's up, hopefully they won't do it again.
This system works decently so far, and for the amount of power I actually have it's fairly effective. But occasionally, the bad cop emerges.
We're 45 minutes in to cleaning and now on sweep. We call sweeps every 25 minutes, three cooks in one direction to maximize efficiency and minimize the amount of times we need to sweep and mop. All the crap that has accumulated on the floor is now in a neat pile by the trash .. only there are no trash bins.
"Who the fuck took out the trash without checking with me?!"
Chef raises an eyebrow and grimaces at me again. I'm not supposed to curse. I sheepishly grin. I don't usually slip, I know it's a classroom, but my natural vocabulary is saturated with profanities and crude analogies. When I get angry, it slips.
"I think Larry, Moe and Curly took it out."
Motherfuckers. Now I have trash piling up and being dispersed by everyone's movements. We've wasted time and all the efficiency we gained from a coordinated sweep. I'm pissed.
"All right, leave it here, I'll take care of it when it when they get back. Leave the sweep, start rubbing down the flat tops with oil!" (We use a lot of cast-iron... it rusts, hence it requires lube)
We are in what I like to call "full-tilt boogie-woogie." We had a whole lot of dishes to prepare today and consomme is a motherfucker of a preparation. Not only is it time and attention consuming, but it requires a motherfuck-load of pots and bowls. And any assholes that burned their rafts, like me, will have a pot crusted in sticky, burnt proteins. A nightmare to wash out, especially since we don't get any steel wool pads. Dish is behind and if we don't finish everything else and help them out, nobody's getting a lunch break.
Larry, Moe and Curly return with the trash. I am really pissed.
"Who told you to take out the trash!? Look at all this trash we still have to throw out, and what the hell took you so long?! Now you have to do it again, so do a complete sweep and mop and take out the trash again, it takes 5 minutes. Go!"
That's a fact, actually. I timed it. Even with precipitous weather and a line at the dump, it takes on average 5 min. and 27 seconds to dump out trash, compost and recycling, rinse out all the bins and bring them back. I know those assholes like to take out the trash because it gives them an excuse not to clean, one of them definitely sneaks a cigarette and they generally goof off for 12 minutes thinking I won't notice. Too bad for them, I noticed.
But the better question arises; when did I become such a dick?
At some point here I decided I no longer cared what people thought of me. What was of supreme importance was staying on schedule, having a spotless kitchen, and making sure everybody improved day to day. A great majority of the students in my class have very little hands-on cooking experience. They burn and cut themselves regularly, just as I did when I first started out. They don't finish their knife cuts that get graded every day, they simply can't do it all in 45 minutes. And their production items, whether it be consomme or cream of broccoli soup don't usually turn out very well either. This is all good and fine, that's why you're in school after all; to learn. The important thing is to get better everyday, to never regress. If we can do that and keep a good attitude, I'm all sunshine.
But when people act like shitbags looking to skirt out on work and generally find every excuse to sit down and talk, then I bubble over with Krakatoan rage.
Well, Krakatoan might be a bit hyperbolic. It's not nearly that bad. I'm still restrained by the confines of the classroom and the big German Certified Master Chef that sits at the desk. This is a good thing, it's forced practice for controlling my temper. But regardless I've developed a borderline chaotic/ruthless attitude. If you're going to work against me, then I'm going to throw you under the bus and make you feel like an asshole.
So a few of them probably hate me. That's fine. I welcome it. I don't want their adoration, I just need their respect. If they won't give me that, they can take a walk, I'd rather not have them in the kitchen.
A rather stark change from the neurotic creature who obsessed over his general likability for 24 years. Now I'm on the warpath and ready to claim heads.
But I'm not alone. The people who really want to learn, really want to work, they're with me and I know it. I have the solid loyalty of the people who matter and that's all I need to get through the day. With those 7-8 people, we could do the work of 20. Easily. And such will be the case in the classroom where you can't choose your coworkers.
But what we've got is pretty good, and I must say better than anything I've ever had.
What I kind of expected but didn't fully understand about culinary school was being immersed in an environment of passionate, passionate food obsession. Not everyone's on that page, there are a great deal of people here who aren't really sure why they're here. But the people who are on the bullet train to progress, working harder every day, thinking about the best marinade and brine for a pork chop as they go to sleep... those are the kids that are fun to work with.
It's just so much positive energy. After working with industry-lifers who were forced in to the restaurant world, it's nice just to be with people who actually want to be here. They love it. They love the food, they love talking about food, they jerk off to the new Eleven Madison Park cookbook, they like washing dishes because it's cathartic and they like getting slammed with prep because when they win you feel like an unstoppable machine.
In short, they're like me. And maybe it's weird to say I've been looking for someone like "me," but I'm glad to say that I've found a whole lot of "me's."
I do another cursory sweep of the kitchen to make sure things are getting done, no one's standing around like an asshole and then I see the predicament dish has gotten themselves into. There are simply too many pots and pans and cutting boards lining up and poor Ant over there is soaked in sanitizer and sweat. I pull up beside him and take off my horrendously awkward toque, a 15-inch monstrosity of a hat that towers above my head.
"Scooch. You good?"
"I'm good, baby. Let's go Man-Bear-Pig on these dishes, dawg."
Man-Bear-Pig, for those who don't know, is the mythical beast that Al Gore tried to prove the existence of in the South Park universe. Its appearance is legendary and utter destruction follows in its wake. It's our fun little way of saying, let's fucking rage on these dishes.
"Alright, I'll set up with you. Team 3! Make sure the kitchen is spotless, do last round checks and scrub the stock kettles! It is 11:05, the mark is 11:30, let's push!"
The water is steaming healthily and is painful to hold your hands in for longer than few seconds. I channel my best "fight-through-the-pain" mantra and convince myself that deadening my nerve endings is a good thing for cooking. It most certainly is.
Ant does his best Gordon Ramsay impression as our hands turn to angry red raisins. I definitely am sporting a wound from an errant sharp chicken bone when I dumped 120 lbs. of the stuff in the kettle. It stings like a motherfucker as the hot, soapy water makes a mess of my chef's coat.
But yet, I'm laughing. This is the most fun I'll have all day. I love it. Washing dishes with a crazy motherfucker who loves masochistic labor as much as you do, fighting the clock every day, trying to win... my heart races in the pursuit of victory, and if there's a meritocracy left in this world, if there's a place where everyday you are made aware of winning and losing, and the amount of blood and sweat you've poured in to the sand means something ... it's here. In the kitchen.
And today... it looks like we might just win.
EP6
