Back in the kitchen

Sorry for being gone for awhile. 

I took a hiatus from the kitchen to deal with the hell that is law school finals.  After that and a brief break I am now working as a summer associate at a big law firm.  Given the state of the economy, the work environment is, well, a little stressful.  I guess I am also starting to feel pressured about figuring out exactly what to do after law school.

But I have been back working in the restaurant for two weekends now.  The first weekend was awkward, my unfamiliarity with the place got to me and I started questioning my own actions and became even slower.  At the same time there was a small part of me that was surprised by what I have retained and what I still remembered.  Thinking about how I felt that first weekend now, I am reminded of what Chef B once told me, that there is something to be said about the ability to just enter a kitchen, any kitchen, and be able to work in there.

I took sometime last week during the day and watched the clip of Michael Symon’s guest lecture to CIA students on youtube.  It’s a fairly simple clip and he does not impart any ground-breaking knowledge, but somehow it helped me shape how I entered the kitchen this past weekend.  Instead of being freaked out about being fast, I told myself my #1 goal in there is not to be fast, but to be good at what I do — being fast is but an integral element of being good at it.  But be efficient, be smart about how I do things, be responsive, and be not taking up too much space, and speed will naturally follow (I think, hopefully anyway, right?)

I had a good weekend working at the kitchen. It felt good to be doing something with my hands and making things.

Still freaked out and stressed out as hell about the law thing though.

Tomorrow morning if you wake up, and the sun does not appear….

(a line from a love song I have always adored and that was played at my oldest sister’s wedding)

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But there is something gratifying about skimming a stock…

I apologize for the rambling entry, but I am so exhausted living this double life.  I literally feel like I might collapse any moment (not faint, not feel dizzy, but just collapse because I’ve fallen dead asleep).

Today I had a chance to take a 20-minute nap before class and I fell asleep instantly on the couch in the student center despite the stupid door that beeps every other second, and the ppl walking in and out and talking around me.  After class, I went home and attempted to work for like 15 minutes before I decided that I should just lie down on my bed for awhile.  Usually that literally just means lying on my bed because I always have trouble falling asleep, but today I was out just like that and slept for a good hour and more.

I have beef shin and tendon defrosted in my fridge for 2 days because I was going to make Taiwanese beef noodle soup, but have had no time to get to them.  Instead I have been eating ramen noodle, frozen stuff, junk food, and just consuming a lot of alchie  (as long as I am rambling here…why the hell did we ever drink bailey’s when we were young? it’s disgusting.)

A bunch of little stuff happened this week too, but to sum up: I am exhausted, frustrated, and lost. And all of this is making me feel like I am fighting this battle alone, for no good reason.

But Chef C was showing me how to skim a stock properly this past Monday night, and he was saying how we could just wait for it to cool and take off the top layer of fat after it has solidified.  Then he said, “but then there is also something gratifying about skimming a stock, you know?”

I was slow to respond and I think he assumed I am thinking he is crazy, cuz he smiled and said, “no? maybe its just me.”

Actually, I was stunned by the beauty of it.  It was so eloquently simple, yet true.  There is  something gratifying about what may appear to others to be the tiniest accomplishments in the kitchen.

His comment reminded me of the “lemony-thyme” moment back in December last year that had re-triggered the chef dreams in me and ultimately led me to my crazed, double-life now.  So yes, I still feel like I might collapse any moment, but somehow, thinking about Chef C’s comment made all this self-imposed madness seemed a little less mad (just a tad anyway).

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restaurant internship update 2.24

Last night was so cool.

All the chefs were there. Among other things, the new sous chef (“Chef C”) showed me how to grind and emulsify sausages. We also talked more about the different theories and ways of making an aioli. The other sous chef (“Chef D”), who happened to be the only one with a culinary education background, showed me how to sharpen knives.

Last week Chef D had shown me how to butcher/fillet fish, but last night the head chef showed me how to butcher rabbits…and then I butchered a tray of them.  Sorry if you are an animal lover!

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for better or worst…

I had a turbulent week at my restaurant internship.

Over the Valentine’s / President’s Day long weekend I worked three nights in a row and got to some more talking with the chefs during the afterhours.  Chef A continued to be my mentor and I felt comfortable to share with him my little “chef success” story that had took place earlier that week.  I was having lunch with people at the law school cafe and one of my friends spilled her drink all over her books and chair.  I instantly got up and fetched some napkins and heard the big “oh no” gasp as I was walking away from the table.  And then I thought, that was a chef moment.  I didn’t think. I didn’t comment.  I just reacted.

Chef A heard the story and smiled, giving me a high-five.  “Good job. I am proud of you. Thank you for sharing that with me.”

Monday I showed up to work and found out that Chef A was gone.

I still don’t know what really happened and I never will.  The news traumatized and scared me and saddened me more than I expected.  For starters, I have to admit that I am just naive.  In my past office jobs while the economy was booming no one ever got fired or laid off.  People left for various reasons, accompanied by two-week notices, goodbye parties and happy hours.  I think it scared me how easily someone could just leave the restaurant.  I think it made the chef as a career move seemed all the more risky.  Selfishly, I also feared what would happen to me, the crappy intern who had been mostly working with Chef A?

But most importantly I mourned the loss of the chance to work with Chef A.   I recognize that I have been tremendously lucky to have met great mentors in the different jobs that I have held and treasure those relationships dearly.  I know how fortunate I am to have people who have been there that are willing to share their knowledge and experiences with me.  While other mentors may come along, so far, Chef A had filled that role for me in the professional kitchen.  I was not afraid to ask him questions, both about technique and about the industry generally.  And though I saw how militant he was with everyone else, I knew part of that style came from his passion for the place and respected him for it.

I felt the same way that I had felt before when I was leaving my old jobs, leaving my mentors there.

But I also, again selfishly, knew that there was a silver lining in all this.  No more Chef A.  Now I can see if I really do love the kitchen.  Now I can experience working under a different, new authority.  Now I can try to slice and dice my emotions and try to make sense of this internship experience.  This is the reality: the high turnover rate in the industry.  I am getting the full “restaurant” exposure — the good, the bad, and the unknown.

This past Saturday rolls around and I find myself hanging out with the chefs (minus Chef A) after work like nothing had happened.  I respect them and find them to be amazing individuals, each of them.  I don’t know what the working dynamics will be like for me going forward, but I realized that, for better or worst, I still want to learn from them.  I still need to figure this out.

So I say, “Thank You, Chef A.”  Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.   Thank you, Chef.

The Pasture by Robert Frost

I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long.–You come too.

I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long.–You come too.

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A late-night conversation sparked by scissor skills

I worked at the restaurant last night. It was a pretty routine Monday (if there is such a thing as routine given that I’ve only been there 2 weeks).  Anyway,  I got in and started helping out with different prep work for the evening.  Then service began and Chef A got me working on knife skills and doing some mirepox.  Later I got into the line and worked the salad station.  Part of the difficulty that I am having is that different people work the salad station on different nights, and they set them up slightly differently, which I completely understand, but then I have to figure out each person’s set-up.  I was also just slow generally.  I need to get quicker and more agile so that I don’t waste as much time wiping my plates before sending them out.

As we all sat down to dinner after closing, Chef A (who was cutting paper with a pair of scissors, I don’t know why) commented that he had poor scissor skills, which completely cracked me up…you see, earlier this year, I once again tested my mother by saying, “I think I might still want to be a chef” when she asked me “what kind of lawyer do you think you want to be?”  My mother had replied, “chefs need good motor skills, you were never really good with scissors in kindergarten.”

I told the chefs the story and we all laughed about it, but then Chef B started telling me about how he knew after college he either wanted to cook or teach.  He talked about the other jobs he held and how, at the age of 35-40, he decided that he wanted to cook for the rest of his life.  We started talking about being a chef.

I asked them if they think the job requires some sort of natural talent and a certain type of personality.  “Yes,” they both responded immediately.  Chefs are people who strive on high stress, love getting yelled at and constantly feeling like they are never quick enough nor good enough.   (Chef Pardus’ comment in Michael Ruhlman’s The Making of a Chef comes to mind — chefs “get there”).  Chef B also candidly discussed the sad financial outlook, lack of social life and personal time.

I thought I would ask them if, from what they’ve seen, I have the natural talent and personality.  Part of me wanted to tell them that I spend my week yearning to get back into that kitchen and how I wish I could spend more than just two days there because I want to get better and quicker at everything.  I wanted to ask them: does that I mean I have the passion to be a chef? I wanted to know if I am a natural.  But I held back.

I am afraid to find out…what if they already think I don’t have what it takes?

I have plenty more to digest from our late-night conversation, but I will always remember Chef A’s face as he said to me (pointing to the kitchen), “This makes sense to me.  I suck at relationships; I suck at everything else in life…but in there, it all makes sense to me.”

I replayed the conversation in my head as I was walking home from the gym tonight.  My head has been in the clouds since I started the restaurant internship, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion.  What the hell am I doing here? What am I trying to find out? Is there even an answer? And what do I do when I find it?

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“This is what happens when you work with crazies…

…and YOU want to work at a restaurant?” The head chef said to me this past Saturday. After one of his sous chef screamed gleefully, “yay, I made pasta!” (The buzz of the day was word that they’d be getting a pasta machine and so there was experimentation with different dough recipes to produce pasta in-house in the future.)

Can I just say, so far (twice a week for the past 2 weeks), the answer on my part has been a very enthusiastic, wholehearted: Yes, I do!

The first week went by like a blur.  I was (and still am) a nervous wreck.  Things are foreign to me, on so many levels.  The language used in the kitchen.  The level of testosterone.  The pace and the speed at which everything was happening. When I left at the end of the first day I thought to myself, “to survive in there I have to drop all my middle-upper class, private school niceties.” And I mean that with no disrespect but simply as an observation.

But there is love in that kitchen.  There is love for the food.  You sense it when people talk about the ingredients and the dishes.  There is also love for the craft — respect for the proper way to treat ingredients and a very strong sense of pride in the food they produce out of that kitchen…I get that from everyone there but I also sense that most strongly from one of the sous chefs (“Chef A” from now on).  It’s wonderful to be in that environment.

And everyone helps me.  That’s what has made the experience so great thus far.  Sure, there is my poor knife skills that need work, but it’s amazing (and humiliating) the number of people that stop to show me their technique/approach.  They also take the time to explain things to me and to make sure that I get a variety of tasks.  From chopping onions to shucking oysters to how to make an aioli and to sometimes working the line (salads baby!), they are dutifully observing me, correcting me, teaching me, and trusting me.

At the end of the first week they said, “welcome to the family.”

I sound like I am high and drunk, I know. That’s kind of how I feel. Who knew free labor can make you feel that way?

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third week in the professional kitchen.

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