Michelin Stars: The Madness of Perfection
As Chef Marcus Wareing looks through the Michelin guide he sees two stars nailed next to his eponymous restaurant, and he can't help but wonder,
"Is that it?"
"All that? For this?"
Of course "all that" is an unworthy two-word summation of decades of training, years of slaving and screaming, commanding, toiling, pushing, grinding and never giving up in the heat of a kitchen. It symbolizes a man's life's work, all the tears, sweat and blood he has poured in to refining a meal. Just a meal, one of tens of thousands we will have in a lifetime, all in pursuit of an intangible idea, a simple yet devilishly deep craft, all out of some misguided passion tinted with nurturing and giving, generosity and integrity.
All that. For this. Two stars. Ordained by some occult and anonymous critics who seem to hold our life's work in the balance, who hold disproportionately great power over us.
Rewind the clock.
It's 2009. I have painfully simple ideas of what success means in the restaurant industry, and I have my eyes are set on one prize: three Michelin stars. The ultimate Holy Grail, the supposed apex of achievement in the restaurant world.
I study the lives of Michelin-star chefs. What it takes, who you have to work for, question how much depends on the kitchen and how much on the individual. And I am nothing short of zealous, firm in my belief that this is my true cause in life, that Michelin stars are the only stars worth reaching for.
Fast forward.
It's 2012. I'm working in a one-Michelin star restaurant and I am near dead on my feet. I'd do anything for a day off, but my partner's called in sick and it's time to slog it out to an 18-hour day in the face of a packed Saturday. I'm fucked. Down a double espresso and hope a cocktail of adrenaline and caffeine can drag my ass through this service without going down in flames. The familiar crank of a ticket printing signals my coming doom, "Order-fire!"
My perceptions of Michelin-starred cooking before and after working at Cafe are as different as Dante before and after the dark forest.
Whereas it seemed such a simple process in theory, now I realize it is not only a path fraught with danger and enough stress to guarantee a diminished lifespan, but perhaps one that isn't worth it.
I have nothing against fine-dining. And the Michelin guide is moving away from only giving credit to restaurants with priceless porcelain, leather-backed seats and endless changes of silverware. You can have a sushi joint in a subway station, or a homey pub with cafeteria forks and drinks in mason jars and still claim a star. But at the end of the day, is it worth it? If you have a packed house every night and people leave with smiles on their faces, does it really fucking matter if a bunch of European pricks want to stroke your dick with some stars? Bukkake your restaurant with macarons?
(The Michelin "stars" are actually called macarons, as in the light, egg-white based French cookie ... just in case you were getting the improper imagery of a Frenchman actually drizzling down the oft-mistaken coconut pastries in an orgasmic fashion, "Oui! OUI! OUI! Noix de coco!")
I'm not so sure. Now, I'm a pretentious and lucky jerk. I've eaten at six of New York's seven three-Michelin star restaurants. I can be a fancy girl. I like to enjoy a meal from a high-octane kitchen operating on a different plane of existence. And to be sure, all those meals have been incredibly enjoyable, some of them life-changing.
But does it matter? Is it worth it?
Sometimes I find myself getting near-equal enjoyment from a really fucking good hamburger. Or fresh-made pasta. Or a really bear-skin-rug-by-a-Canadian-fireplace-while-it's-snowing-out-kind-of-hearty stew. Or fried-fucking-chicken with Crystal hot sauce, mashed potatoes and gravy-from-a-packet.
My point is, I think I'm confident enough in myself and have experienced enough of the glory of Michelin stars to make a realization; I'm a simple guy. I'm a fat kid at heart, I like fat kid food. I like going out to dinner with friends, sharing a ton of different dishes, eating family style, eating with your hands, laughing, drinking and not having to worry you're making too much noise, or acting like too much of an ass. I'm boisterous, I'm loud, I'm casual, I'm sick of wearing suits and I like to have fun. I don't want to see first dates sit in a plush-ass banquette that I know is damn comfortable, but they look like they're halfway deep on a set of anal beads because it's so goddamn frigid in here, and they're afraid the food's smarter than they are, way over their heads.
Michelin-starred dining just isn't that fun anymore. Did Chef Ramirez serve me a fucking incredible meal at Brooklyn Fare? Shit yes, he did! But he stared at me in his silent dining room as I struggled with a fresh-from-the-fryer soft-shell crab that was causing holocaustal pain in my mouth, and all I could think of was "Jesus Christ, Chef Ramirez fucking hates me and if I don't swallow this bite of crab he is going to chop off my dick, deep-fry it in front of me and season it with a $40 case of Roland sea salt." I can only imagine how he would react if he had heard me say to Wilson that this was the most expensive man-date I've ever been on and I better be getting laid later by someone, some way. Or that the wine I brought to this somehow-B.Y.O.B., Michelin 3-star cost me $12 and I roulette-d it off a rack 20 minutes ago. It's from New Zealand, Chef! I'm sorry! I didn't know your sea bass is from Spain, please stop hitting me, oh god, my nuts, whyyyyy?!
To be sure, Michelin-starred restaurants are getting it. Our generation, this lost Generation Y, doesn't like sitting around in dinner jackets, sniffing wine with supposed know-how over a 4-hour dinner. Sure, it's fun once in a while, but no one's going to hit that up more than once or twice a year. Maybe for an anniversary to show the Mrs. you still give a shit, or for the Mistress to show that you still give a shit, and your youth and virility aren't circling the drain of Sunday football and High Life's. But it's just too much expectation, it gives an evening that's supposed to be rarely celebrated freedom; freedom from kids, from work, from a shitty home cooked meal, whatever, it gives that evening so much gravity.
Yes, you in the back, I hear you. Yeah, hit me, brotha...
"Um, how much of this realization is a result of you being a pussy and realizing that Michelin-star cooking is hard and soul-draining?"
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have called on you. You was supposed to be my brotha, man. Fine, I'll answer your stupid-ass question.
Yeah. I won't lie to you. It's hard. Maybe more than I bargained for. But I'm not quitting on that yet.
For all my criticisms, there is one thing that will always remain true about Michelin-starred cooking.
It is the best training you could ever ask for.
Yeah, they beat you in to the ground. They make you realize you are less than a peon sometimes, that a trained Rhesus monkey could pick herbs better and faster than you. And that, yes, this refrigerator is clean but does it shine? Yeah, they will teach you to ask those kinds of questions and do all the little things that everybody thinks doesn't matter, but holy shit does it matter a lot.
I have absolute respect and dedication to the religion of elite cookery. It is akin to being a Marine, a Navy SEAL, spec-motherfucking-ops, minus all the, you know, real world consequences, life and death situations and general importance to the world. Yeah, minus all that shit, the analogy stands.
But let me worry about how my kitchen runs. Let me make sure that I'm not only performing to high standards, carrying out our humble craft with integrity and that we're training people to be the best they can be not because it really actually matters if you're an excellent cook, but because you're the kind of person that when you do something, you do it the best you fucking can. Let me worry about that shit, I got that shit under control. You guys? Out there in the dining room? You guys have fun. Just because I take this shit too seriously doesn't mean you have to also.
And maybe we, in the back, your faithful culinary peons working for $10/hour in a city that charges about $2500/month for a studio, will have some fun too. There's no point in cooking if everyday you go home and you think "Man, I suck, I should quit" or "Holy shit, I'm going to have a heart attack if I hear another ticket printing." You have to take pride in what you do, and the work environment provided to you should give you the capacity to earn this pride. But maybe we don't give a shit what a bunch of Frenchmen say about us. Maybe we're New Yorkers, we'll let them decide if they think we're worth a damn. And if every weekend, you see lines, you hear phones ringing, you see reservation books stacked with notes and names, maybe that's all you need. Maybe fuck yourself. Fuck your guide. I've been doing this long enough to know that this tastes good, and I've been selling enough of them to know that this tastes good, and I've been cooking it long enough to know it's damned good. So let me push it, let me make it nice, and let me go have a beer afterwards that isn't the first step over the cliff of self-destruction, a night of partying multiplied by the factor of stress I endured this week already, that is probably going to have me palpating my liver in the morning. Let me have a beer that is a toast to the hard work of the crew, that is a nod to our craft and the camaraderie it inspires.
So the direction is still unclear, but the clouds are parting. Whereas once I blindly prayed to a book, believed in its holy message with unerring, unwavering piety, I now have seen the light. There are no miracles, only hard work, passion and integrity.
I haven't given up on you, you spare-tire-loading fat-fuck Book. I will pray to you for quite a bit longer, because my spirit is in need of you. I need you to discipline my life and my skills, make me the best I can be. But once I am free of that nest, I will cast you aside and set my own rules.
I used to wonder. It's so simple in theory. Go to a three-Michelin star restaurant, beg them to let you work, stay there and at that level for 10 years, and then boom. Three Michelin-stars! Right? And maybe that's the gist of it. And maybe that caused me a great deal of anxiety because I realized, I can't be the only asshole that's figured that out.
But it takes so much more than that. It takes so much, so much, SO MUCH sweat and tears. It takes destroying the balance of a normal life, it takes being a little fucked up in the head. If you're the kind of person who is obsessed with the work, needs only the friends he makes back-to-back at a stove, no time to think a little and gain some perspective on what really matters in life, then godspeed. You belong here, shit. You're hell of a lot tougher than me.
But there are other things in life. And call me lazy, call me a dog, but I think happiness and fun are a part of it. And I don't think they're mutually exclusive. To be sure, there still is a great deal of hard work before me. I'm not exactly talking about a regression to 40-hour weeks with smoke breaks. There's still a lot of brick to lay, and a lot of blood to bleed. But in the end, even after all this shit, after all the hate, stress and bullying I experienced, and the sights I saw first-hand about how hard it really is to have a successful restaurant, I still believe that it can be balanced. That there is such a thing as cooking excellent food while having fun and having a life.
It's not about three stars, it's about happiness. That's the goal now. That should have always been the goal. Food is happiness, it's making people happy, it's sharing a part of you with someone else because you hope they can understand what you see. So we shouldn't just serve happiness but also practice it.
Call me crazy. Maybe it can't be done. Maybe this time I really will go down in flames.
But I'll try to keep a smile while I smolder.
EP6
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
The Jungle
When you embark on the path to becoming a chef one generally accepts the fact that their personal life is over. You don't know for sure how this will affect you at first, you only hope that your passion and love for food is greater than the need for any relationships, regular sex, time to get haircuts or holidays. As a line cook you're probably doing 6 days on at 70-80 hours, and if you're lucky enough to have a 5-day week you get two uselessly broken up days off to sleep, sharpen your knives, buy groceries and rigorously masturbate.
Yes, yes I hear you over there complaining from behind your ergonomic desk chair with your lunch breaks. You only get 10 paid vacation days a year and all the federal holidays, I've heard it all before. Oh, and the bankers of course, who indeed work the same kinds of crazy hours but are effectively making quintuple and some of what your average New York City line cook makes. Anyway, you're only in it until you make manager or head to business school, right? It's a high-risk, short-term strategy. No line cook knows how long they might have to remain a line cook. They just hope they can move up before their mind and their body gives in, and the need for a long-term life strategy becomes urgent. Like say, retirement or your kids' college tuition.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that this was a conscious choice. Nobody put a gun to our head and said "Thou must cook! Or may thy flattops be uneven, your pans smote, and your spoons stolen!" I mean there was a time when the lawless and the uneducated were relegated to this life, no other career choices made available to them. But that has largely been eradicated as a bunch of college-educated, white-collar douches watched Food Network one day and thought "Oh hey! This should be fun! And I can be famous!" Career changers and misguided high school graduates now inundate the industry. And while they are the preferred employee in the sense that you don't have to worry about bailing them out of jail before Sunday brunch, or having them bump a line of coke in the staff bathroom, they are a bunch of soft, whiny bitches.
"Oh, I don't wanna stay and clean the walk-ins. I just DVR'ed The Voice and my girlfriend will be asleep."
"Stop yelling at me, I'm trying my best, you're hurting my feelings."
"Why do they have to be so mean? Don't they know I'm working so hard."
While no self-respecting cook would ever say any of that out loud (lest they seriously face the wrath of God/Chef), I can tell a lot of them are thinking it. And thus the basis for my grand Line Cook Half-life Degradation Theory. (Those were the only terms I could remember from high-school physics.)
Professional cooking is hard. Professional elite cooking is very hard. Professional elite cooking in New York City is just about as hard as it fucking gets. But anybody with the a fantastic work ethic, a decent head on their shoulders and fierce determination can do it. A well-mannered orangutan with that skill-set could do it. But what sets the boys apart from the men, the dabblers from the lifers, the kidding-yourselves from the true-born is endurance and the possession of that dangerously close duality of passion v. insanity.
While I believe there is little in terms of talent to being a good line cook (note that I didn't say chef), there is a whole lot to do with endurance. Sacrificing your personal life and giving your self wholly to a kitchen for the sake of learning, perfecting the machine that is your skills should ideally take at least 8-10 years.
But being a line cook for 8-10 years is a rough gig. Giving up so much to get $10 an hour back is harsh. That's just one of the reasons why this is a young man's game. If you've got a family or a biological time bomb AKA a serious girlfriend, prepare for them to leave your broke ass or earn some serious bread-winner points plus pants-wearing rights. Even if you're exceptionally frugal, have a loving partner willing to suffer through your indentured servitude, you then have to ask them to suffer your horrendous lifestyle. Minimum 12-hour days, all weekends and major holidays devoted to the kitchen, plus obligatory kitchen-crew bonding (read: misery drowning in copious alcohol) ... honey, you sure that nine-to-fiver at Happy Hour with the 401k isn't better for you? Debbie is totally willing to talk to his ugly friend for the team, and Joanna's boobs are out to play. He probably runs a lower risk of heart disease and of "getting-fat-disease" than that asshole in the kitchen.
So while theoretically anybody can cook, as we learned from the timeless tale of Ratatouille, it takes an exceptionally crazy and tough asshole to do so for any respectable amount of time. Though I suppose the suburbs should be thankful for harboring so many half-finished chef refugees who found an investor, a low-competition environment and a yard-with-a-dog. Otherwise I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any decent restaurants outside of major metropolitan areas.
That's LCHLD Theory Part I; cooking is hard and non-conducive to a healthy lifestyle, most people will eventually bail before getting the proper training to either start building their own brand (impatience, but some exceptional talents will soar), or bail because the toll on their personal life is no longer sustainable (giving in to reality, the desire to reproduce, not be alone with your knives and alcohol), or they jump ship for corporate to get reasonable holidays and a greatly inflated salary (what Nas would call Jay-Z, i.e. being a punk-ass nigga that sold out).
Part II to this formula is the counterpoint. While we have witnessed that this lifestyle is highly draining and taxing, it can be less so or even the exact opposite if you're...
a) insane,
b) just that passionate,
c) have no personal life to concern yourself with,
d) all of the above.
It is my firm belief that chefs in the (D) category are the most successful.
I think there's really no other way to cut it. Being a line cook sucks. The only thing that makes it suck less is if for some god forsaken reason it energizes you, makes you feel alive, turns you on, makes you hard, gives you the fucking rush during your successes and crushes you in your failures, only you keep going back for more, more, more, and baby burn me, slap me, choke me...
Ahem. Excuse me.
Yes, cooking is not unlike a really abusive girlfriend. That girl with whom you know you have no sustainable future with, but god DAMN is it fucking great right now. You treat me like shit, you flirt with other guys in front of me, and then at home you want me back and you tell me you love me, and then it gets weird...
And frankly, you either break up with this girl because you grow up and realize "WOW, this doesn't make sense," or one day, eight years later you think "Wow... I want to marry this woman."
It all depends on what kind of crazy you are. If you're the normal kind of crazy, then god bless you and all your future, healthily socialized children. If you're the fucked-up kind of crazy... then god save your wretched soul.
What a lot of it comes down to is this; are you an adrenaline junkie? Do you love pressure, dire situations and the need to fucking PUSH every day of your working life? Do you love seeing the clock blur by, have people breathing down your neck telling you you're not worth a thing, cook hard, move fast, test the fire, burn your hands all just to SERVE. SOME. FUCKING. FOOD?!
We try to make it better by telling ourselves that. "It's just food, guys." But yet we know, deep down, it's so much more than just food, than just a meal, than the $300 shit you're about to drop down that toilet later (we probably don't provide much fiber, and we use a lot of butter, so let the mudslide roll). It's about yourself, it's about integrity, it's hating yourself but loving the process of making yourself better.
You either got it or you don't. You're not a bad person for not being the stuff line cooks are made of, as you can see those aren't exactly qualities we look for in a friend or lover. But you will be yelled at nonetheless. It won't make sense, sometimes it will be so clear that someone's lashing at you just cause, it will hurt sometimes and make you feel like an asshole, but whether you come back for more is what determines if you've got what it takes. The environment is harsh to test you. There is no room for tears, appealing to other's humanity and being soft is not tolerated. While some chefs are wholly capable of sympathy, and human understanding, there simply isn't time. Cooks live a life of efficiency. The most efficient way to whip someone in to shape and see what they're made of is to break them open and look inside. If they come back together, looking for more with a smile, then damn you've found a tough nut.
I'm still not sure where I lie. The jungle that is a high-level kitchen is exhausting. If you work the AM shift, like I did, you wake up every morning in the dark, under-rested and miserable. Every hour of your free time is devoted to "Shit, I should be sleeping" and eventually you hit that point in the season where you never see the sun. You get one day off, you use most of it just to sleep. You're not sore, you don't got a case of the D.O.M.S., but the work is fatiguing. You run up and down stairs carrying big containers of chicken stock, you do hundreds upon hundreds of knee dips to get shit out of your lowboys, you focus and accelerate your hand speed to cracked-out-zergling-status for hours at a time. Let's just say there's no energy left to go to the gym. If you work the PM shift, you may get enough sleep to battle back a hangover, but suddenly there isn't time for anything else in your life. You're never going to see your civilian friends again, everything as mundane from a haircut to doing your laundry becomes a huge ordeal. You have cleaning and polishing your lowboys to look forward to on a Saturday night.
But yet, here I am. On vacation. And while I am thankful for the sleep and the time to organize my life, it has become ... boring. It's too peaceful, you start worrying about the stupid little shit in life. Maybe it's been exacerbated by the storm shutting us in, but there's no push, there's no drive, there's none of that crazy-tinted fever you hit every day.
I'm not saying this is some Hurt Locker scenario, where I leave a child, a domestic life and Evangeline Lilly for the life-or-death tension that is bomb defusal. Because who the hell would ever leave her for bomb defusal? But life has somehow lost a great deal of its challenge, of its edge. I don't think I'm in that certain category of crazy, the kind that becomes energized by the fury. But maybe I have left this job fundamentally different. Maybe I am not the same, maybe they've not just made me better. Maybe it's made me crazy. Maybe I've fallen in love, and yet found more hate and exhaustion. Maybe none of it makes sense and it never will, food is so visceral, so emotional, so primitive. All I know is we're together. Maybe one day, I'll sell out. Go to the suburbs, call it quits, cook under control and in peace, make sandwiches for grandmas. Or maybe I'll continue the grind. Working for an elusive and oft-failed dream, cook with legends-to-be and flirt with greatness.
I don't know if I'm that tough. But I know the job makes you tougher. We'll just have to see what I'm made of.
EP6
Yes, yes I hear you over there complaining from behind your ergonomic desk chair with your lunch breaks. You only get 10 paid vacation days a year and all the federal holidays, I've heard it all before. Oh, and the bankers of course, who indeed work the same kinds of crazy hours but are effectively making quintuple and some of what your average New York City line cook makes. Anyway, you're only in it until you make manager or head to business school, right? It's a high-risk, short-term strategy. No line cook knows how long they might have to remain a line cook. They just hope they can move up before their mind and their body gives in, and the need for a long-term life strategy becomes urgent. Like say, retirement or your kids' college tuition.
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that this was a conscious choice. Nobody put a gun to our head and said "Thou must cook! Or may thy flattops be uneven, your pans smote, and your spoons stolen!" I mean there was a time when the lawless and the uneducated were relegated to this life, no other career choices made available to them. But that has largely been eradicated as a bunch of college-educated, white-collar douches watched Food Network one day and thought "Oh hey! This should be fun! And I can be famous!" Career changers and misguided high school graduates now inundate the industry. And while they are the preferred employee in the sense that you don't have to worry about bailing them out of jail before Sunday brunch, or having them bump a line of coke in the staff bathroom, they are a bunch of soft, whiny bitches.
"Oh, I don't wanna stay and clean the walk-ins. I just DVR'ed The Voice and my girlfriend will be asleep."
"Stop yelling at me, I'm trying my best, you're hurting my feelings."
"Why do they have to be so mean? Don't they know I'm working so hard."
While no self-respecting cook would ever say any of that out loud (lest they seriously face the wrath of God/Chef), I can tell a lot of them are thinking it. And thus the basis for my grand Line Cook Half-life Degradation Theory. (Those were the only terms I could remember from high-school physics.)
Professional cooking is hard. Professional elite cooking is very hard. Professional elite cooking in New York City is just about as hard as it fucking gets. But anybody with the a fantastic work ethic, a decent head on their shoulders and fierce determination can do it. A well-mannered orangutan with that skill-set could do it. But what sets the boys apart from the men, the dabblers from the lifers, the kidding-yourselves from the true-born is endurance and the possession of that dangerously close duality of passion v. insanity.
While I believe there is little in terms of talent to being a good line cook (note that I didn't say chef), there is a whole lot to do with endurance. Sacrificing your personal life and giving your self wholly to a kitchen for the sake of learning, perfecting the machine that is your skills should ideally take at least 8-10 years.
But being a line cook for 8-10 years is a rough gig. Giving up so much to get $10 an hour back is harsh. That's just one of the reasons why this is a young man's game. If you've got a family or a biological time bomb AKA a serious girlfriend, prepare for them to leave your broke ass or earn some serious bread-winner points plus pants-wearing rights. Even if you're exceptionally frugal, have a loving partner willing to suffer through your indentured servitude, you then have to ask them to suffer your horrendous lifestyle. Minimum 12-hour days, all weekends and major holidays devoted to the kitchen, plus obligatory kitchen-crew bonding (read: misery drowning in copious alcohol) ... honey, you sure that nine-to-fiver at Happy Hour with the 401k isn't better for you? Debbie is totally willing to talk to his ugly friend for the team, and Joanna's boobs are out to play. He probably runs a lower risk of heart disease and of "getting-fat-disease" than that asshole in the kitchen.
So while theoretically anybody can cook, as we learned from the timeless tale of Ratatouille, it takes an exceptionally crazy and tough asshole to do so for any respectable amount of time. Though I suppose the suburbs should be thankful for harboring so many half-finished chef refugees who found an investor, a low-competition environment and a yard-with-a-dog. Otherwise I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be any decent restaurants outside of major metropolitan areas.
That's LCHLD Theory Part I; cooking is hard and non-conducive to a healthy lifestyle, most people will eventually bail before getting the proper training to either start building their own brand (impatience, but some exceptional talents will soar), or bail because the toll on their personal life is no longer sustainable (giving in to reality, the desire to reproduce, not be alone with your knives and alcohol), or they jump ship for corporate to get reasonable holidays and a greatly inflated salary (what Nas would call Jay-Z, i.e. being a punk-ass nigga that sold out).
Part II to this formula is the counterpoint. While we have witnessed that this lifestyle is highly draining and taxing, it can be less so or even the exact opposite if you're...
a) insane,
b) just that passionate,
c) have no personal life to concern yourself with,
d) all of the above.
It is my firm belief that chefs in the (D) category are the most successful.
I think there's really no other way to cut it. Being a line cook sucks. The only thing that makes it suck less is if for some god forsaken reason it energizes you, makes you feel alive, turns you on, makes you hard, gives you the fucking rush during your successes and crushes you in your failures, only you keep going back for more, more, more, and baby burn me, slap me, choke me...
Ahem. Excuse me.
Yes, cooking is not unlike a really abusive girlfriend. That girl with whom you know you have no sustainable future with, but god DAMN is it fucking great right now. You treat me like shit, you flirt with other guys in front of me, and then at home you want me back and you tell me you love me, and then it gets weird...
And frankly, you either break up with this girl because you grow up and realize "WOW, this doesn't make sense," or one day, eight years later you think "Wow... I want to marry this woman."
It all depends on what kind of crazy you are. If you're the normal kind of crazy, then god bless you and all your future, healthily socialized children. If you're the fucked-up kind of crazy... then god save your wretched soul.
What a lot of it comes down to is this; are you an adrenaline junkie? Do you love pressure, dire situations and the need to fucking PUSH every day of your working life? Do you love seeing the clock blur by, have people breathing down your neck telling you you're not worth a thing, cook hard, move fast, test the fire, burn your hands all just to SERVE. SOME. FUCKING. FOOD?!
We try to make it better by telling ourselves that. "It's just food, guys." But yet we know, deep down, it's so much more than just food, than just a meal, than the $300 shit you're about to drop down that toilet later (we probably don't provide much fiber, and we use a lot of butter, so let the mudslide roll). It's about yourself, it's about integrity, it's hating yourself but loving the process of making yourself better.
You either got it or you don't. You're not a bad person for not being the stuff line cooks are made of, as you can see those aren't exactly qualities we look for in a friend or lover. But you will be yelled at nonetheless. It won't make sense, sometimes it will be so clear that someone's lashing at you just cause, it will hurt sometimes and make you feel like an asshole, but whether you come back for more is what determines if you've got what it takes. The environment is harsh to test you. There is no room for tears, appealing to other's humanity and being soft is not tolerated. While some chefs are wholly capable of sympathy, and human understanding, there simply isn't time. Cooks live a life of efficiency. The most efficient way to whip someone in to shape and see what they're made of is to break them open and look inside. If they come back together, looking for more with a smile, then damn you've found a tough nut.
I'm still not sure where I lie. The jungle that is a high-level kitchen is exhausting. If you work the AM shift, like I did, you wake up every morning in the dark, under-rested and miserable. Every hour of your free time is devoted to "Shit, I should be sleeping" and eventually you hit that point in the season where you never see the sun. You get one day off, you use most of it just to sleep. You're not sore, you don't got a case of the D.O.M.S., but the work is fatiguing. You run up and down stairs carrying big containers of chicken stock, you do hundreds upon hundreds of knee dips to get shit out of your lowboys, you focus and accelerate your hand speed to cracked-out-zergling-status for hours at a time. Let's just say there's no energy left to go to the gym. If you work the PM shift, you may get enough sleep to battle back a hangover, but suddenly there isn't time for anything else in your life. You're never going to see your civilian friends again, everything as mundane from a haircut to doing your laundry becomes a huge ordeal. You have cleaning and polishing your lowboys to look forward to on a Saturday night.
But yet, here I am. On vacation. And while I am thankful for the sleep and the time to organize my life, it has become ... boring. It's too peaceful, you start worrying about the stupid little shit in life. Maybe it's been exacerbated by the storm shutting us in, but there's no push, there's no drive, there's none of that crazy-tinted fever you hit every day.
I'm not saying this is some Hurt Locker scenario, where I leave a child, a domestic life and Evangeline Lilly for the life-or-death tension that is bomb defusal. Because who the hell would ever leave her for bomb defusal? But life has somehow lost a great deal of its challenge, of its edge. I don't think I'm in that certain category of crazy, the kind that becomes energized by the fury. But maybe I have left this job fundamentally different. Maybe I am not the same, maybe they've not just made me better. Maybe it's made me crazy. Maybe I've fallen in love, and yet found more hate and exhaustion. Maybe none of it makes sense and it never will, food is so visceral, so emotional, so primitive. All I know is we're together. Maybe one day, I'll sell out. Go to the suburbs, call it quits, cook under control and in peace, make sandwiches for grandmas. Or maybe I'll continue the grind. Working for an elusive and oft-failed dream, cook with legends-to-be and flirt with greatness.
I don't know if I'm that tough. But I know the job makes you tougher. We'll just have to see what I'm made of.
EP6
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
The Pain
"Ordering a soup no dairy, salad S.O.S. followed by a beef medium and a hali!"
The brigade responds in unison.
"Oui!"
At culinary school we used to jest about all the "Yes, Chef" and "Oui, Chef" business. We gleefully resounded with faux French accents and let the seriousness play off of us in our smiles. We were no true brigade, just an amalgam of misguided students.
Now... I can't stop saying it. When cashiers ask me if I'd like to pay credit I respond "Oui." When my girlfriend asks me if I'd like a glass of water, I respond "Oui, Chef." When waitresses ask me how I am doing today I respond "Oui." It is so painfully ingrained in my response protocol, drilled in to my being. All the whimsy and enjoyment has been siphoned from the phrase. Instead it has become representative of the cold and brutal training of a real brigade system. It is the only response expected from your mouth and you are to deliver it with eye contact, with gravity and with respect.
"You fucking suck, you know that? It's 11:30 and you're not set up for service. What happens when I get a salad fired at noon and you have no fucking garnish and your dressing is broken, huh? Do they fucking teach you anything at culinary school?"
"Oui, Chef."
...
"Don't fucking touch my mise en place! This is my fucking station now because you fucked it all up. All of this? Merde. Fucking shit, man. Now I gotta clean up your shit so guess what this is MY station now. If you want me to do your mise en place everyday, I'll come in at 10:30 and be ready at noon, because I'm not so fucking slow as you. Do you understand?"''
"Oui, Chef."
...
"I told you I don't want to serve shit, alright? You do realize you work in a one-Michelin star restaurant, right? You CAN'T. SERVE. SHIT. This lettuce is shit. What do you mean you didn't think to look through the greens? This is your station, do you fucking care at all? If I was like you, didn't care about anything, you and this kitchen goes down.
"Oui, Chef."
...
"How long have you been working on this station, man? Two weeks? Everybody else figures it out in three days. You don't fucking care that's why you don't get better. You're fucking slow and your food sucks. You sure you want to be in this industry? You can't fucking make a soup."
"Oui, Chef."
...
You respond. You respond confidently even though there is no conviction in your voice. Your eyes get that tremulous quiver that hints your composure is about a hairline fracture away from complete crumble; waterworks fucking everywhere. You try not to look dismayed, you try to accept your lashing with defiance, images of Denzel Washington in Glory come to mind. But it doesn't work. The only thing you know with complete sureness is that you never, ever, ever say you're sorry.
"Sorry, Chef."
"Oh, don't be sorry! Never, ever fucking say you're sorry! What, you want me to know that you feel bad about fucking this all up? That you threw away a whole tray of micro(greens)? What does your "sorry" bullshit do for me when I'm staring at $90 in the trash? Huh? It doesn't fucking do anything for me, you want me to appeal to your humanity I don't have the fucking time nor patience. Never, EVER, say you're sorry."
And that lesson stuck. Firmer than anything else.
Chef Jeff used to always say "Don't be sorry." I never really understood what that meant. I thought it was some idiosyncrasy of his, a way to say "It's alright, I'm just pissed." Now I get it. And so much more.
As this blog is evidence of, I had a fascination with the old French brigade. A take-no-prisoners style of cooking where the food was of the utmost importance, and there was just too much emotion and money on the line to allow for mistakes. It was militaristic, it was precise, it was disciplined. It necessitated integrity and revealed character. I felt it was the only way to become a good cook. Everyday you were put on the line under fire, and any straying from the order got you a furious response. It sounded bad-ass, it's what teenage boys think when they see action movies or play Call of Duty. The glorification of the soldier mindset, a sort of heroism inspired only under the influence of danger and ferocity.
But then like so many boys who grow up to become soldiers, they learn the reality is far more harrowing than what their frenzied daydreams had promised.
Every morning I stare at the clock. I wish it would stop. I'm running out of time. I got here an hour and a half early and there's still just not enough time to get it all done.
The first year of culinary school has come and gone without having been introduced to my writing. But all that you need to know is this. They can not and have not prepared you in the least for what it takes to cook at the highest level.
It's a sad realization. In some ways it makes you wonder why you're doing it. What good is it for? Culinary school builds your confidence up so high, and then the real world promptly rampages through it like Godzilla through Tokyo.
What it really does is make you ask questions?
Can you handle this?
Does it have to be this way?
Is this what you want?
Is it worth it?
Fuck... it's ten o'clock already. I'm never going to make it.
I see what they are trying to do. And as the success of the restaurant makes you see, the system works. I just don't know if it works for me.
Is it worth it to dread coming in to work every day? Not just dread like "Oh man, this is going to suck how boring it's gonna be" but dread as in complete and utter fear, heart palpitations, cold sweat and panic.
If you can survive it, I think yes. Stress is good, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But this is unlike any sort of gauntlet I have run before, and my energy has been exhausted already in the beginning.
I have quit on too many things in life to give up on this. I am under contract, I will see this through. But it has opened my eyes to the world of cooking. Elite restaurant level chef-dom. It is as much about having the skills and the smarts as being maladjusted and pathological enough to endure the daily shit storm.
Everything I ever presumed to know about the industry has been forced back down my throat. I am beyond humbled, I am broken. My confidence is at rock-bottom.
But there is hope. A faint glimmer, a wavering prayer that perhaps if I survive this that I will be a stronger man, a better cook. That it will all be worth it. That a true victory lies at the end of this road.
...
"Ordering 2 salad, a Lyonnaise, soup..."
That's all I have time to hear. I have no board, there are no tickets for me to go back to in case I lose my place. It is extremely important that I remain mentally organized and remember the orders as they are called and to give them out in the proper sequence.
My only hope to remember everything is to put down plates on the pass. If I become terribly lost I can at least look at the plates and have a rough idea of what I need to put out.
Quickly now, three salad plates and a soup. Lunch time sees our prix-fixe menu so when chef says soup or salad, it can only mean that. Along with the two prix-fixe dishes there are three additional soups, two additional salads, a charcuterie and a cheese plate totalling four possible soups, three possible salads and a couple of X-factors.
In the industry it's called "hand speed." You either got it or you don't. It's how fast you can move your hands in decisive actions to plate, cook, move food. It's less about actual hand speed and more about confidence and efficiency. You are always going for the ideal of "no wasted movement." You are tight, like a machine, doing nothing but the absolutely necessary.
Open the lowboy drawer, throw two handfuls of gem lettuce in one bowl and a big handful of frisee in another. Throw in the garnish, season and dressing and hold until you have to plate. You don't have time to put on gloves, but you also don't have time to wash your hands. After you mix a salad by hand, you can't be running to the sink every time. It is the last thing you do.
Put a pot on the induction burner, pour our 6 oz. of soup and add a 2 oz. ladle of chicken stock to thin it out and...
"Ordering Lyonnaise, two all day and a pea soup..."
Okay, tuck that away for later, except I'm going to make two Lyonnaise salads at once. Making two separate salads, one at a time would be utter failure on efficiency. Pot for soup is on, it's heating, induction burners can flash to 900 F on a ferromagnetic pot, you have to watch it. Open a drawer, pull out eight chicken livers, dry them on a C-Fold towel and season with fine sea salt. Not kosher, the large flakes in the salt draw out too much blood and discolor the liver. Put a small saute pan on, crank the heat, you want to sear the fuck out of these livers. Grapeseed oil, high smoke point allows for high heat, in the pan. Livers go in and ...
"Ordering bar cheese and a mini-comp soup 9-1-1!"
Okay, shit. 9-1-1 means there was some kind of mistake in the dining room and the dish tagged with the emergency call has highest priority. A mini-comp soup is what it sounds like; a miniature complimentary soup. What soup that is is up to me, but it needs to be out fast. I don't know what's gone down but basically the soup is sent out to customers who are going to be expecting a big time gap before their food comes out or the mistake is rectified. I choose a cold soup. There is absolutely no time to heat up a soup for a 9-1-1 fire.
Open a lowboy, pull out a quart of spring onion veloute, delicious. Shit, it's too thick. It happens sometimes when soups are put under chill, their texture changes dramatically. Pour out 2 oz. in a pint container and ladle in 2 oz. chicken stock, run on over to the immersion blender and buzz it quickly to re-emulsify...
"Eric! WHAT THE FUCK!?"
I sense a cataclysm of light behind me. Fire. The liquid in the livers has jumped out in to the hot grapeseed oil and the fire of the burner has ignited the grease. It happens all the time but that's why it's important to really dry out anything you're going to saute. Usually you can just blow it out and go on with your day. Not at a Michelin-star restaurant.
"It tastes like gas now, pay the fuck attention. Throw them out, start again!"
Okay, first; finish the soup. Cold onion soup, in to a chilled bowl, three dots of chive oil (you never plate components in even numbers... you can't plate perfectly and even numbers encourage forced symmetry that will look wrong when coupled with human error), a sprinkle of freshly minced chives and a smear of garlic cream. Out it goes. Now for the livers.
Back in a pan, nice color on each side, flip and remove from the pan. Pour out the excess grease, throw in a knob of butter, sweat a tablespoon of minced shallots. Put two poached eggs in the water, get them heating up. Deglaze the pan with sherry vinegar, reduce by half, ladle in 4 oz. of chicken jus, reduce slightly, fold in a tablespoon of minced chives and hold warm. Once the eggs are ready (one minute, thirty seconds, no more or you tread too closely to the danger zone of overcooked eggs) you are ready to go with everything. Salads ready to plate, soup is hot, go-go-go!
Everything's plated, next order. What was it? A Lyonnaise and a pea soup? Get the garnish on, emulsify the pea soup, plate the second Lyonnaise and go...
"Eric, what the fuck? The second Lyonnaise and the pea soup go with the octo from GM, you're too fucking early. Start over, everything's at the wrong temp. Hey Ben, hold on that octo, Eric's been eating shit all morning..."
Shit. You have to listen to the rest of the ticket to know what you're going with. Dishes have to be presented to the pass within 30 seconds of each other, or the temperature and the vibrancy is lost. Go again...
"Eric, how do you look on a Lyonnaise and a pea soup?"
"Uhhh... anytime, go!"
"Go-minute!"
Go-minute is the final call for a synchronized course. The highest ranking cook (it goes Roti - Poissoinier - Entremetier - Pasta - Garde Manger - Soup/Potager from highest to lowest) initiates the call for all the dishes to come to the pass. If one station needs time to complete they call for 30 seconds or 1 minute, tops. If you call for 2 minutes, you are seriously fucked up and need to catch up with the team. When the sous chef hears "Go-minute!" he knows to expect all of a table's course to come up to the pass, and consequently calls for runners to pick up the food.
The blitz continues for two more hours. The rush of two hours blinking by in seemingly 15 seconds can be exhilarating. If you win. But if you're losing, or as they say, "eating shit," then there are few worse feelings in the world. No one likes to go down in flames and it usually requires some serious assistance to pull you out of the weeds.
The initial rush has been survived, but barely. ("Congratulations, Eric. It took you twelve minutes to put out a fucking salad. Hope you feel good about yourself.") The orders start slowing down and then the magic words...
"Fire the board! Beef medium rare, duck medium, MC tort and a scallop! BREAK DOWN!"
"Oui!"
The last order has been put in. We are done. For now. Since almost all of my dishes are for first course, I can safely start cleaning my station and licking my wounds. My apron is a bloody mess. The floor is littered with bits of salad greens. Chef evaluates me and sees only complete chaos. It is a disdainful yet understanding look. He knows I got fucked. I was Bobby in Deliverance. I was tied to a tree with my own belt and taken out back. Beyond the stern look is a bit of understanding though. I can sense there is a fraction of understanding; he's just a student, he's learning, he's trying. But it is shut away quickly. There is no mercy for you as there was no mercy for me. This is how the world of elite restaurant cookery operates. It may be wrong, it may not be for you, but while you choose to participate then you will obey. There is too much to deliver upon, too high of standards to uphold. There is no time for compassion and it is you who must learn to accept it, not we who must change.
Maybe I'm brainwashed.
Maybe I'm crazy.
But crazy is exactly what this industry attracts.
EP6
The brigade responds in unison.
"Oui!"
At culinary school we used to jest about all the "Yes, Chef" and "Oui, Chef" business. We gleefully resounded with faux French accents and let the seriousness play off of us in our smiles. We were no true brigade, just an amalgam of misguided students.
Now... I can't stop saying it. When cashiers ask me if I'd like to pay credit I respond "Oui." When my girlfriend asks me if I'd like a glass of water, I respond "Oui, Chef." When waitresses ask me how I am doing today I respond "Oui." It is so painfully ingrained in my response protocol, drilled in to my being. All the whimsy and enjoyment has been siphoned from the phrase. Instead it has become representative of the cold and brutal training of a real brigade system. It is the only response expected from your mouth and you are to deliver it with eye contact, with gravity and with respect.
"You fucking suck, you know that? It's 11:30 and you're not set up for service. What happens when I get a salad fired at noon and you have no fucking garnish and your dressing is broken, huh? Do they fucking teach you anything at culinary school?"
"Oui, Chef."
...
"Don't fucking touch my mise en place! This is my fucking station now because you fucked it all up. All of this? Merde. Fucking shit, man. Now I gotta clean up your shit so guess what this is MY station now. If you want me to do your mise en place everyday, I'll come in at 10:30 and be ready at noon, because I'm not so fucking slow as you. Do you understand?"''
"Oui, Chef."
...
"I told you I don't want to serve shit, alright? You do realize you work in a one-Michelin star restaurant, right? You CAN'T. SERVE. SHIT. This lettuce is shit. What do you mean you didn't think to look through the greens? This is your station, do you fucking care at all? If I was like you, didn't care about anything, you and this kitchen goes down.
"Oui, Chef."
...
"How long have you been working on this station, man? Two weeks? Everybody else figures it out in three days. You don't fucking care that's why you don't get better. You're fucking slow and your food sucks. You sure you want to be in this industry? You can't fucking make a soup."
"Oui, Chef."
...
You respond. You respond confidently even though there is no conviction in your voice. Your eyes get that tremulous quiver that hints your composure is about a hairline fracture away from complete crumble; waterworks fucking everywhere. You try not to look dismayed, you try to accept your lashing with defiance, images of Denzel Washington in Glory come to mind. But it doesn't work. The only thing you know with complete sureness is that you never, ever, ever say you're sorry.
"Sorry, Chef."
"Oh, don't be sorry! Never, ever fucking say you're sorry! What, you want me to know that you feel bad about fucking this all up? That you threw away a whole tray of micro(greens)? What does your "sorry" bullshit do for me when I'm staring at $90 in the trash? Huh? It doesn't fucking do anything for me, you want me to appeal to your humanity I don't have the fucking time nor patience. Never, EVER, say you're sorry."
And that lesson stuck. Firmer than anything else.
Chef Jeff used to always say "Don't be sorry." I never really understood what that meant. I thought it was some idiosyncrasy of his, a way to say "It's alright, I'm just pissed." Now I get it. And so much more.
As this blog is evidence of, I had a fascination with the old French brigade. A take-no-prisoners style of cooking where the food was of the utmost importance, and there was just too much emotion and money on the line to allow for mistakes. It was militaristic, it was precise, it was disciplined. It necessitated integrity and revealed character. I felt it was the only way to become a good cook. Everyday you were put on the line under fire, and any straying from the order got you a furious response. It sounded bad-ass, it's what teenage boys think when they see action movies or play Call of Duty. The glorification of the soldier mindset, a sort of heroism inspired only under the influence of danger and ferocity.
But then like so many boys who grow up to become soldiers, they learn the reality is far more harrowing than what their frenzied daydreams had promised.
Every morning I stare at the clock. I wish it would stop. I'm running out of time. I got here an hour and a half early and there's still just not enough time to get it all done.
The first year of culinary school has come and gone without having been introduced to my writing. But all that you need to know is this. They can not and have not prepared you in the least for what it takes to cook at the highest level.
It's a sad realization. In some ways it makes you wonder why you're doing it. What good is it for? Culinary school builds your confidence up so high, and then the real world promptly rampages through it like Godzilla through Tokyo.
What it really does is make you ask questions?
Can you handle this?
Does it have to be this way?
Is this what you want?
Is it worth it?
Fuck... it's ten o'clock already. I'm never going to make it.
I see what they are trying to do. And as the success of the restaurant makes you see, the system works. I just don't know if it works for me.
Is it worth it to dread coming in to work every day? Not just dread like "Oh man, this is going to suck how boring it's gonna be" but dread as in complete and utter fear, heart palpitations, cold sweat and panic.
If you can survive it, I think yes. Stress is good, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But this is unlike any sort of gauntlet I have run before, and my energy has been exhausted already in the beginning.
I have quit on too many things in life to give up on this. I am under contract, I will see this through. But it has opened my eyes to the world of cooking. Elite restaurant level chef-dom. It is as much about having the skills and the smarts as being maladjusted and pathological enough to endure the daily shit storm.
Everything I ever presumed to know about the industry has been forced back down my throat. I am beyond humbled, I am broken. My confidence is at rock-bottom.
But there is hope. A faint glimmer, a wavering prayer that perhaps if I survive this that I will be a stronger man, a better cook. That it will all be worth it. That a true victory lies at the end of this road.
...
"Ordering 2 salad, a Lyonnaise, soup..."
That's all I have time to hear. I have no board, there are no tickets for me to go back to in case I lose my place. It is extremely important that I remain mentally organized and remember the orders as they are called and to give them out in the proper sequence.
My only hope to remember everything is to put down plates on the pass. If I become terribly lost I can at least look at the plates and have a rough idea of what I need to put out.
Quickly now, three salad plates and a soup. Lunch time sees our prix-fixe menu so when chef says soup or salad, it can only mean that. Along with the two prix-fixe dishes there are three additional soups, two additional salads, a charcuterie and a cheese plate totalling four possible soups, three possible salads and a couple of X-factors.
In the industry it's called "hand speed." You either got it or you don't. It's how fast you can move your hands in decisive actions to plate, cook, move food. It's less about actual hand speed and more about confidence and efficiency. You are always going for the ideal of "no wasted movement." You are tight, like a machine, doing nothing but the absolutely necessary.
Open the lowboy drawer, throw two handfuls of gem lettuce in one bowl and a big handful of frisee in another. Throw in the garnish, season and dressing and hold until you have to plate. You don't have time to put on gloves, but you also don't have time to wash your hands. After you mix a salad by hand, you can't be running to the sink every time. It is the last thing you do.
Put a pot on the induction burner, pour our 6 oz. of soup and add a 2 oz. ladle of chicken stock to thin it out and...
"Ordering Lyonnaise, two all day and a pea soup..."
Okay, tuck that away for later, except I'm going to make two Lyonnaise salads at once. Making two separate salads, one at a time would be utter failure on efficiency. Pot for soup is on, it's heating, induction burners can flash to 900 F on a ferromagnetic pot, you have to watch it. Open a drawer, pull out eight chicken livers, dry them on a C-Fold towel and season with fine sea salt. Not kosher, the large flakes in the salt draw out too much blood and discolor the liver. Put a small saute pan on, crank the heat, you want to sear the fuck out of these livers. Grapeseed oil, high smoke point allows for high heat, in the pan. Livers go in and ...
"Ordering bar cheese and a mini-comp soup 9-1-1!"
Okay, shit. 9-1-1 means there was some kind of mistake in the dining room and the dish tagged with the emergency call has highest priority. A mini-comp soup is what it sounds like; a miniature complimentary soup. What soup that is is up to me, but it needs to be out fast. I don't know what's gone down but basically the soup is sent out to customers who are going to be expecting a big time gap before their food comes out or the mistake is rectified. I choose a cold soup. There is absolutely no time to heat up a soup for a 9-1-1 fire.
Open a lowboy, pull out a quart of spring onion veloute, delicious. Shit, it's too thick. It happens sometimes when soups are put under chill, their texture changes dramatically. Pour out 2 oz. in a pint container and ladle in 2 oz. chicken stock, run on over to the immersion blender and buzz it quickly to re-emulsify...
"Eric! WHAT THE FUCK!?"
I sense a cataclysm of light behind me. Fire. The liquid in the livers has jumped out in to the hot grapeseed oil and the fire of the burner has ignited the grease. It happens all the time but that's why it's important to really dry out anything you're going to saute. Usually you can just blow it out and go on with your day. Not at a Michelin-star restaurant.
"It tastes like gas now, pay the fuck attention. Throw them out, start again!"
Okay, first; finish the soup. Cold onion soup, in to a chilled bowl, three dots of chive oil (you never plate components in even numbers... you can't plate perfectly and even numbers encourage forced symmetry that will look wrong when coupled with human error), a sprinkle of freshly minced chives and a smear of garlic cream. Out it goes. Now for the livers.
Back in a pan, nice color on each side, flip and remove from the pan. Pour out the excess grease, throw in a knob of butter, sweat a tablespoon of minced shallots. Put two poached eggs in the water, get them heating up. Deglaze the pan with sherry vinegar, reduce by half, ladle in 4 oz. of chicken jus, reduce slightly, fold in a tablespoon of minced chives and hold warm. Once the eggs are ready (one minute, thirty seconds, no more or you tread too closely to the danger zone of overcooked eggs) you are ready to go with everything. Salads ready to plate, soup is hot, go-go-go!
Everything's plated, next order. What was it? A Lyonnaise and a pea soup? Get the garnish on, emulsify the pea soup, plate the second Lyonnaise and go...
"Eric, what the fuck? The second Lyonnaise and the pea soup go with the octo from GM, you're too fucking early. Start over, everything's at the wrong temp. Hey Ben, hold on that octo, Eric's been eating shit all morning..."
Shit. You have to listen to the rest of the ticket to know what you're going with. Dishes have to be presented to the pass within 30 seconds of each other, or the temperature and the vibrancy is lost. Go again...
"Eric, how do you look on a Lyonnaise and a pea soup?"
"Uhhh... anytime, go!"
"Go-minute!"
Go-minute is the final call for a synchronized course. The highest ranking cook (it goes Roti - Poissoinier - Entremetier - Pasta - Garde Manger - Soup/Potager from highest to lowest) initiates the call for all the dishes to come to the pass. If one station needs time to complete they call for 30 seconds or 1 minute, tops. If you call for 2 minutes, you are seriously fucked up and need to catch up with the team. When the sous chef hears "Go-minute!" he knows to expect all of a table's course to come up to the pass, and consequently calls for runners to pick up the food.
The blitz continues for two more hours. The rush of two hours blinking by in seemingly 15 seconds can be exhilarating. If you win. But if you're losing, or as they say, "eating shit," then there are few worse feelings in the world. No one likes to go down in flames and it usually requires some serious assistance to pull you out of the weeds.
The initial rush has been survived, but barely. ("Congratulations, Eric. It took you twelve minutes to put out a fucking salad. Hope you feel good about yourself.") The orders start slowing down and then the magic words...
"Fire the board! Beef medium rare, duck medium, MC tort and a scallop! BREAK DOWN!"
"Oui!"
The last order has been put in. We are done. For now. Since almost all of my dishes are for first course, I can safely start cleaning my station and licking my wounds. My apron is a bloody mess. The floor is littered with bits of salad greens. Chef evaluates me and sees only complete chaos. It is a disdainful yet understanding look. He knows I got fucked. I was Bobby in Deliverance. I was tied to a tree with my own belt and taken out back. Beyond the stern look is a bit of understanding though. I can sense there is a fraction of understanding; he's just a student, he's learning, he's trying. But it is shut away quickly. There is no mercy for you as there was no mercy for me. This is how the world of elite restaurant cookery operates. It may be wrong, it may not be for you, but while you choose to participate then you will obey. There is too much to deliver upon, too high of standards to uphold. There is no time for compassion and it is you who must learn to accept it, not we who must change.
Maybe I'm brainwashed.
Maybe I'm crazy.
But crazy is exactly what this industry attracts.
EP6
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