"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
