Restaurant Lifers

Happy New Year. Belated. Very belated.

The holiday season for restaurant workers is the true grind of the year. Every friggin' holiday of every color and creed assaults you violently, almost everybody else has plenty of free time to go out and eat dinner, and then you contend with the universal celebration that is New Year's Eve. The hours are punishing and the long stretches of prep work seem to blur the clock away.

Basically, that was me making excuses as to why I haven't written in a long time.

But I have thought about it! I swear! I've got all sorts of developments and things to talk about that I would love to share with those who still read me. And I've got the time to write about it now, because frankly the most important development is that now the restaurants have come to an abrupt halt in business.

I don't know anything about economics other than that our current economy has a big boo-boo and that is affecting the restaurant business. My buddy Rob fails to divulge any details, despite his closeness to Lord-General Bernanke. White tablecloth restaurants are hit especially hard. Only the biggest and the best are comfortably afloat, and many of us are treading water, dangerously close to going under. For instance, today, Thursday the 7th? The weather in Chicago blows, Va Pensiero has 4 covers on the books that will likely cancel due to the snow storm. The executive order is given; we close for the day. I wish they could have told me that before I took the train all the way to Evanston, but alas I figured out some work to do. In fact I'm thankful I can put in a few hours, cooking and cleaning at a relaxing pace and earning a little money, because a lot of us are getting our hours cut down. I'm the lowliest toad spawn on the food chain, by all means I should be getting cut first, but thankfully I am still getting time on the clock. (For certain reasons I'll talk about in the future)

And when we do work? Well the pace is certainly different. The four days leading up to New Year's Eve was a mad buzz of activity. Getting in at 11 AM, prepping your station for dinner service as fast as humanly possible, and then immediately switching focus to prepping the tasting dinner for NYE. Curtain call at 530 PM, dinner service through 10 PM, any free time during service devoted to more prep, more organization, clean up and break down, head home around 11 PM. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. New Year's Eve itself? 10 AM - 130 AM, the single craziest day of work in my life.

But now, it's downright lethargic. We're averaging 15-25 covers a night, and I'm at a point I can handle that with ease, almost boredom. That leaves a lot of time for idle chatter. My espanol has improved exponentially. Well at least my kitchen Mexican (After "learning" Spanish in school for quite some time, I've come to the conclusion that the Mexican dialect is it's own language). It's difficult to have any conversations of substance with my broken Spanish, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what kind of people restaurant work attracts.

But it isn't fair to make a conclusive statement, because despite all stereotypes of restaurant workers, I've already found that we are a diverse group of people. Chuy, our sous chef defies any preconceptions you might have about cooks. Not only can he work circles around the saute station, but I've discovered he's one of the most wholesome people I've ever met. He crossed the border at 17 and has been working in kitchens in Chicagoland ever since, starting at dishwasher, like so many other immigrants from his country, and moving on up. Though I've found not all make a natural progression up the culinary ladder. They really have to have a genuine curiosity and aggressive drive to want to learn French culinary technique in the English language. He owns a house, married his childhood sweetheart, takes care of his family of 7 siblings who are now all in the Chicago area, and has 3 children of his own. Every morning he gets up at 730 to walk his two oldest kids to school, making sure they don't get tied up with the wrong crowd and ensuring them a safe journey. He doesn't really drink, only on holidays where he says he often has "too many cervezas," and his only real vices are gambling small sums on Manny Pacquiao (not a bad bet honestly, the man is a monster) and his hometown soccer team, Chivas. Oh and he loves Chinese food and is disappointed I'm so bad at making it. (If he would just order some soy sauce and ginger from the purveyors, we'd be in business)

He's a very fatherly figure to me. He's never really gotten angry with me, and he's always there to give me advice. He, more than anyone, is responsible for my culinary education and is almost painfully observant, noticing my slightest errors. This is the best situation I could have hoped for. His culinary technique isn't perfect. He learned with an emphasis on speed of action, rather than precision of completion, if that makes sense. He often can't explain why something should be done this way, but he's very confident that it should be done that way (and he's right). But I always feared the stereotypical kitchen with the angry chef at the helm. In fact I was expecting it early in my career, but thankfully it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure I will encounter it at some point, but hopefully I will have the skill and confidence to weather the verbal abuse. For now, Chuy is an excellent and appreciated mentor.

But not all are quite so kind or squeaky clean as he. The sushi chef at Blu was a true anomaly. I'm still not totally sure how to spell or pronounce his name, but I think it was Cheten Nepali (It's Tibetan). We all just called him "Tee." He hated me at first because I was hired over the attractive waitress with no serving skills or experience. He was out to get me even though I had extensive knowledge about sushi, Japanese and a genuine interest in restaurants. But as he scrutinized my work as a server he finally came over to the other side, realizing my enthusiasm and knowledge was doing the restaurant a lot of good. Then he would teach me a bit about sushi, about fish, about cooking, but unfortunately his English was almost unintelligible to me. I came to like Tee a lot, and was sad to see him leave after we shared our last cigarette in the alley between Blu Sushi Lounge and Flattop. But he was a very unpredictable person, and I found it was because that cranberry juice he perpetually enjoyed at his station turned out to be sake and cranberry juice. (The pink hue was suspicious.) He follows the pattern I've seen in many sushi chefs over the years. Many of the ones my mom hired had an ingrained tradition from Japan of sipping sake while working with sushi. It's just a part of the trade in many circles, I don't blame or judge him for it. But he remains one of the more bizarre and darker characters I've encountered in my career.

Which brings me to my closing point. Tee left rather abruptly after Blu Sushi Lounge switched hands to a new owner, not liking the new guy's management style. And just like that, someone you spend hours working and hoofing it out with is gone from your life, likely forever. I can be a nostalgic and sentimental person, and I don't like the idea of "never again," whether it be friends, lovers or coworkers. It hurts me deeply no matter how shallow the connection. But that is the reality of the restaurant business. It is transient at best, employees coming and going like the wind, serving their own interests, because after all, it's just a job and your skills are applicable almost anywhere. People you come to like for their eccentricity leave, and fresh faces take their place.

This new guy at Va Pensiero is a very fresh installment in to the kitchen. He is the first American line cook I've ever worked with. Born and bred in Evanston, he also was in to music but somehow found his way to Kendall College and gained a sharp interest in food. It's refreshing for me to be able to talk to someone who chose this profession as a lifestyle, as opposed to being forced to rely on it as a means of earning a living. I talk to him about all the restaurants he's worked in, Quince in Evanston, Spiaggia in Chicago (wonderful Italian restaurant that the Obamas went to for Valentine's Day... but he didn't cook for them). We talk about what kind of food we like, he gives me some tips on cooking, gives me insight in to American fine dining. Generally we've had a good relationship so far, us being almost the same age. Our favorite subject of discussion?

"Hey, have you ever been to Hot Doug's?"
"Dude ... please. He opens up again on the 5th. You game?"

I can tell that we are gonna be friends.

EP #6