*Know Yo’ Place, In Yo’ Face!

Conversation stoveside

The second week of school rolled to a close and I pulled the Chef aside during my mirepoix sweat session on Friday.

“Chef, may I speak with you later about group dynamics?”

He smiled and replied, “I already know what you are going to say.” He munched a celery stalk in my ear for emphasis.

“I betcha I already know what you are going to say, too…” I shrugged my shoulders like Atlas readjusting the globe.

“There is one natural leader in every group, my friend. YOU need to figure it out.”

I nodded and kept my eyes on my pan at the stove, “Yup, thought you’d say exactly that.”

So here it is. I get to contemplate my place in this universe one more time. Its all fun and games when your friends are allowed to ride your ass for being a boss in the kitchen at dinner parties, but another thing when its a real kitchen, with total strangers and you are paying a lot of money to be there.

The classic kitchen is run in a brigade fashion- a Chef de Cuisine as The Boss, the Sous Chef as the Everything Person just under The Boss, and then the next tier of specialty chefs and cooks, line or otherwise, then on down the line. The Chef de Cuisine is easy to identify- they have a clean jacket and a very loud voice (the tone of which is sometimes referred to as “yelling”). They give an order and the only appropriate reply is, “Yes Chef/No Chef”…Yes, really, its just like the Pixar film with the cooking rat.

In school we are broken into teams of three, a mini brigade if you will, and its an odd place to be in when you look up all of a sudden and you realize there are people looking at you as the one in the lead position. One day, you come in to stand at the stove and there is someone slightly behind you and someone who has placed themselves below you willingly, without discussion. From what I gather from my Chef instructor, I think I’m it in my group, folks. Not “It” as in “I’m the shit!”, but “Its all my fault if something sucks.” Case in point, I got to tell one of my Chefs that it was my fault our group’s soup was textured poorly because I did not look at it after someone pureed it, and I assured him I would not make that mistake twice. Lesson learned.

Call me a control freak. Call me an asshole. I  don’t care what you think about ME per se, I  only care about the product I am putting out. Maybe its a maturity thing, maybe its a bit of pride not found in others, but I find myself genuinely concerned about what I ask my Chef Instructors to put in their mouths. My efforts are a reflection of me, and if anyone else has a hand in that production, they better give a damn as much as I do. That is why we are all in this kitchen together, to make a gorgeous product that strikes the diner like a velvet hammer, making them want to come back to the source of that culinary joy over and over again.

Brian and I had a discussion about the dynamics when I got home. Brian sees leadership and ability in me that I don’t. I feel very at odds with taking the lead after so many years- the last one especially, where I was encouraged to curb my natural instincts and sit in the corner quietly, miffing me off to no end. He sees me bearing qualities I am uncomfortable even writing about, but they all boil down to the making of a Chef, apparently, and not just because of my natural vocal abilities akin to a fishmonger’s wife. My discomfort seems to be not unlike the feelings that Anthony Bourdain very evidently tries to reconcile with- his reluctance to be front and center when he still considers himself a line cook deep at heart, almost like being the unwilling recipient of a battlefield promotion. For a front row seat to that discomfort, watch his face and listen to his questions being ignored completely in that disastrous episode on Travel Channel entitled, “At The Table- What We Talk About When We Talk About Food”.

Another sharp definition of the widening chasm between my chums and me became apparent the other day in the kitchen. Plating time came around and  I overheard a brief transaction between my teammates. We had a dish that has a very characteristic presentation, one that is iconic and would be widely unaccepted and unrecognized if not presented in its traditional form. A cheaper looking, faster  idea (read: lazy-assed) was offered up between them and the words, “I don’ F-ing care, really.”, were followed by an echo of the same lack of concern from the other partner. My back to them, I concealed my astounded face. A moment or two later, I caught up with one of the team and spoke softly to them, “Id rather we all not look like we don’t give a shit… Let’s do it up pretty, eh?”  Not perfect according to all of us in the group at the end, but a whole lot more attractive and traditional than originally discussed, and we rolled out a nice product. A product we were not embarrassed to have our chefs consider for evaluation.

In chatting with the Chef last week, I told him my feelings- I was here to learn, here to make a product and make it as fine as I am able for my customer. I told him that I had a job to do and it was my duty to get it done, and I wasn’t too sure if my other teammates had the same feelings. I expressed my desire to not offend- having been the recipient of many an eyebrow raising  for my communication methods in other professional arenas. Again, I hear those parting words, “You need to figure that out.” All part of the learning process, I suppose.

In the kitchen so far

Well, I survived Carbohydrate week pretty well. Nothing remarkable to report about it except the remarkable discovery that Chef T really is right about baking spuds and scooping them for mash. They suck up butter and cream like Julia Child, my friends! I made a fabulous batch with smoked paprika and sauteed onions for mini-knishes to bring to the next door neighbor’s house the other night. Filled some pie crust with the mash, eggwashed them, garnished with a little Salish smoked sea salt and let ‘em rip. Pretty good as cocktail snacks.

Its been Soup Time at school, and the weather has cooperated fully. With TWO (count ‘em! TWO!) snow storms in one week. The clam chowder, Cream of U Name It, Minestrone, split pea and various spud and leek creations have been a very timely and comforting presence. Day three into soup making, Chef B and I took a whack at cream of cauliflower, knocking it outta the park with a fabulous curry version, smooth as a baby’s bottom and finished with a little thinned yogurt instead of cream. I think it rocked the house, because there was not one drop left and Chef B actually wrote down what he helped me create so he can make it again for the restaurant. I am having a total blast, tweaking the soups and playing around… I still sleep cook, but its hard to really hang your ass out there with New England clam chowdah. But I’m working on a cunning plan…!

Whats in the books

I had no idea this was going to be so time consuming. Seriously. With brilliant writing from Harold Mc Gee and my Labensky/House book, On Cooking, I have tons of homework every night. From the ground up, its memorization of measure, equivalents, conversion factor formulas, Mother and small sauces, cooking temperatures, cooking methods for every kind of food there is, safe temperatures and handling and storage, vegetables and their molecular characteristics… shall I go on? I haven’t even started proteins yet! I’m realizing that basic cookery is all science, not craft at this beginner level. Learning how a starch converts to gelatinized molecules becomes so vital to the process of cooking that just boiling up a pot of dried pasta becomes a huge experience to be examined and dissected.

Knowing which vegetables need a pinch of baking soda or vinegar to keep them gorgeous or how to keep the obnoxious ones from off-gassing becomes a valuable part of a dish’s succes on the plate and on a menu. Bringing a bland vegetable to the forefront of a dish becomes a skill to be reckoned with. Reading The Flavor Bible at night, the loaner book from Chef W, has been an ass-saver and an inspiration. It also makes me try that much harder to please my chefs as I think outside the box a little more every week.

Adding salt- the most in demand seasoning in the world, and having to repeatedly learn how it turns up the volume of a dish the hard way, by failing to add enough time and time again, becomes a stress point in every presentation. If I had a nickle for each time I heard or said, “I just put a shitload in there!” and “Put MORE in?!”, I’d pay my tuition in no time.

I am realizing that there are two kinds of cooks- home and professional. In that beginning stage of realization, I am seeing more how my dishes at home were only partially rounded out, not fully complete. Sure they tasted dandy enough for a few friends, but I can take my cooking one step further by using all the elements of flavor to my advantage. Because of the physiological makeup of the human palate, I realize that adding salt, sugar, acid- they all make a dish WHOLE. Its subtle, but it can be taught and learned. Add someone with a very acute sense of taste, like Chef B, and you have a master at the stove. From one realm to the other, I don’t think the lines will be that distinct once I get further into the program. Granted, there will still be Home Food, but it will probably be totally Bionic. Like…well, like ME!