Kitchen Gym
Thursday, January 25 - San Francisco
Thursday was another long, interesting and exhausting day at the restaurant. I started at 10 am and worked constantly before I left at 8 pm without a break. Yesterday, I worked from 12 to about 10 pm. There is always so much to do in terms of prep and clean-up that there are no idle minutes, and if you are idle for a second, the chef will quickly ensure you are busy. I worked with Jason the sous-chef for the day and he was worried as they were short-staffed and there was a tremendous amount of prep that they had to do. There is a regular kitchen prep person called Lupe from Mexico, who speaks very little English but is very nice and can peel, slice and dice almost anything quickly and easily while you blink. There is also another young prep person from Mexico called Jaime who has been at the restaurant for about four years and is amazing. Eric introduced him as the guy who runs the place. The speed that these guys can travel at with their knives is simply incredible. If they had speedometres on their knives they would probably go over the recommended limit and get tickets from the kitchen police. You will look at one moment and he will have about 50 oranges on his cutting board and then when you look over a few minutes later all the oranges have been supremed (skins off and each section of the orange perfectly out of it's holder so it is intact and beautiful with no pith) and he's going on to another task. Sometimes he will look over and give the poor gringo girl some tips to make my life easier and work faster, and I will say a big gratias as he will be saving me lots of time and energy. I love those tips. I also told the sous chef to let me know if I could be doing something easier or quicker as I am really interested in efficiency of movement and conservation of energy in the kitchen, which I found is vital for self-preservation. He's quite a quiet, focused guy but has been giving me tips along the way whenever he can, which I appreciate. Despite the gregarious chefs you see on TV, most chefs I have met so far have been quite introverted and quiet. It's quite the isolating career, working in spaces with no natural light and in cramped hot quarters for long hours, often by yourself, and having to stay focused and present in your tasks at hand so that you can remember everything at one time... what you have in the oven and when it comes out, what you have on the stove tops, what's in the freezer and needs to come out, etc. These guys work often without any timers or written reminders and it's just their brains, instinct and experience in the kitchen that keeps them one step away from chaos and insanity. Coming from a practical office environment of emails, plans, memos and lists, at this point I still find this all this memory and mind and hand co-ordinated work amazing still. I guess that's one of the reasons we are in awe of good chefs. Well, saying is, there are always things that go wrong in the kitchen and mistakes that are made by the chef and others in the kitchen, and after a few heated swear words, they usually always find a way to fix the situation vs. starting over again, which they usually don't have the time or money to do. For example, during a Friday Night Dinner at the school, the ganache on top of the Mexican chocolate mini cakes didn't turn out well and look nice so at the last minute the chef decided that we had to camouflouge this with the ice cream on top of the cake vs. being on the side. She did this with ease and said this happens all the time and you just have to be creative, calm and go with it.
What did I make yesterday? I started the morning making a vegetable stock in one of those large containers and later had to strain this all through a chinoise (large pointed cap strainer) into large buckets. One thing about working in the kitchen is that you have to do so much physical labour of carrying of large items of boxes of produce or other ingredients to work with, or moving things around in the walk-in fridges or storage rooms to find things, or moving large pots with boiling liquids around on the stove or into other vessels. After four days, I am covered with bruises, burns and tired muscles from doing this, but it's not like you can always ask for help and I think it's like a rite of passage. For example, in working with that large stock pot that is about 2 feet tall, I had to use buckets to fill it up, and then had to drain it by using a large pot and scoop out the liquid and ingredients into the strainer. But, for the end of the stock, I had to take this large pot and put it in the strainer. Well, I had to use all my strength to do this and of course had some warm liquid splattered all over my uniform and some on my face. I was shocked at first but went on as no one seemed to notice. The more fuss and attention you bring to what you're doing, the more people seem to notice and you certainly don't want that in a busy kitchen as a newbie. I can barely carry those extremely large saute pans that I have to use two hands and bended knees. But, in the kitchen gym, I feel I am getting stronger and more confident. Who needs a gym when you can work in the kitchen? And sometimes you can even get a facial during the day with all the hot steam from the pots and a cold shower when you are trying to clean your pots and other items with the large strong spray nozzle in the dishwasher area. And, if you need to cool-off after the steam, just head to the walk-in fridges.
So, I made butternut squash gnocci, which seemed to turn out well, and appeared on the menu that night. The chef gave some limited instructions and I just had to make them all the way until I had to blanch and shock them to prepare them for the service line. The chef explained to me that there is so much prep in the kitchen because of the nature of the food they serve, and to ensure consistency of the food presented and have limited staff on the line. You need more staff if you are preparing more a la minute creations and there is less prep work. For example, last night they served about 100 people and there were only 2 people on the hot line doing everything.
I also made a tofu-coconut saag dish that comes with the Seared Indian Spiced Potato Cake Dish. I tried that dish after my shift and was amazed at how beautiful and delicious it was, and so different put together. The tastes of everything are ok on their own but all the different elements combined very well to make the dish superb. So, even though I worked on the different elements over the last two days, I was interested to try to completed dish to see how everything works together... the potato cake on top of the chard and tofu-coconut saag, with roasted pear and cauliflower on the side, and sweet-onion-methi chutney on top of the cake. I also tried the Chioggia Beet "Raw-violi" that I had prepared the other night and was amazed again how everything worked together so beautifully. You really can't know the final result until you try it all together I realized. So, if one element that you are preparing seems to salty, sweet, or sour, it may work well when paired with other flavours. I also made the herb marinated olive dish that they serve as a small plate on the menu and involved quite the complex blending of ingredients and flavours, including fennel, chiles, rosemary, thyme, oranges, etc. and simmering this on the stove.
So, it was quite the full day and my brain and body are getting quite the workout every day in kitchen stadium...
Thursday was another long, interesting and exhausting day at the restaurant. I started at 10 am and worked constantly before I left at 8 pm without a break. Yesterday, I worked from 12 to about 10 pm. There is always so much to do in terms of prep and clean-up that there are no idle minutes, and if you are idle for a second, the chef will quickly ensure you are busy. I worked with Jason the sous-chef for the day and he was worried as they were short-staffed and there was a tremendous amount of prep that they had to do. There is a regular kitchen prep person called Lupe from Mexico, who speaks very little English but is very nice and can peel, slice and dice almost anything quickly and easily while you blink. There is also another young prep person from Mexico called Jaime who has been at the restaurant for about four years and is amazing. Eric introduced him as the guy who runs the place. The speed that these guys can travel at with their knives is simply incredible. If they had speedometres on their knives they would probably go over the recommended limit and get tickets from the kitchen police. You will look at one moment and he will have about 50 oranges on his cutting board and then when you look over a few minutes later all the oranges have been supremed (skins off and each section of the orange perfectly out of it's holder so it is intact and beautiful with no pith) and he's going on to another task. Sometimes he will look over and give the poor gringo girl some tips to make my life easier and work faster, and I will say a big gratias as he will be saving me lots of time and energy. I love those tips. I also told the sous chef to let me know if I could be doing something easier or quicker as I am really interested in efficiency of movement and conservation of energy in the kitchen, which I found is vital for self-preservation. He's quite a quiet, focused guy but has been giving me tips along the way whenever he can, which I appreciate. Despite the gregarious chefs you see on TV, most chefs I have met so far have been quite introverted and quiet. It's quite the isolating career, working in spaces with no natural light and in cramped hot quarters for long hours, often by yourself, and having to stay focused and present in your tasks at hand so that you can remember everything at one time... what you have in the oven and when it comes out, what you have on the stove tops, what's in the freezer and needs to come out, etc. These guys work often without any timers or written reminders and it's just their brains, instinct and experience in the kitchen that keeps them one step away from chaos and insanity. Coming from a practical office environment of emails, plans, memos and lists, at this point I still find this all this memory and mind and hand co-ordinated work amazing still. I guess that's one of the reasons we are in awe of good chefs. Well, saying is, there are always things that go wrong in the kitchen and mistakes that are made by the chef and others in the kitchen, and after a few heated swear words, they usually always find a way to fix the situation vs. starting over again, which they usually don't have the time or money to do. For example, during a Friday Night Dinner at the school, the ganache on top of the Mexican chocolate mini cakes didn't turn out well and look nice so at the last minute the chef decided that we had to camouflouge this with the ice cream on top of the cake vs. being on the side. She did this with ease and said this happens all the time and you just have to be creative, calm and go with it.
What did I make yesterday? I started the morning making a vegetable stock in one of those large containers and later had to strain this all through a chinoise (large pointed cap strainer) into large buckets. One thing about working in the kitchen is that you have to do so much physical labour of carrying of large items of boxes of produce or other ingredients to work with, or moving things around in the walk-in fridges or storage rooms to find things, or moving large pots with boiling liquids around on the stove or into other vessels. After four days, I am covered with bruises, burns and tired muscles from doing this, but it's not like you can always ask for help and I think it's like a rite of passage. For example, in working with that large stock pot that is about 2 feet tall, I had to use buckets to fill it up, and then had to drain it by using a large pot and scoop out the liquid and ingredients into the strainer. But, for the end of the stock, I had to take this large pot and put it in the strainer. Well, I had to use all my strength to do this and of course had some warm liquid splattered all over my uniform and some on my face. I was shocked at first but went on as no one seemed to notice. The more fuss and attention you bring to what you're doing, the more people seem to notice and you certainly don't want that in a busy kitchen as a newbie. I can barely carry those extremely large saute pans that I have to use two hands and bended knees. But, in the kitchen gym, I feel I am getting stronger and more confident. Who needs a gym when you can work in the kitchen? And sometimes you can even get a facial during the day with all the hot steam from the pots and a cold shower when you are trying to clean your pots and other items with the large strong spray nozzle in the dishwasher area. And, if you need to cool-off after the steam, just head to the walk-in fridges.
So, I made butternut squash gnocci, which seemed to turn out well, and appeared on the menu that night. The chef gave some limited instructions and I just had to make them all the way until I had to blanch and shock them to prepare them for the service line. The chef explained to me that there is so much prep in the kitchen because of the nature of the food they serve, and to ensure consistency of the food presented and have limited staff on the line. You need more staff if you are preparing more a la minute creations and there is less prep work. For example, last night they served about 100 people and there were only 2 people on the hot line doing everything.
I also made a tofu-coconut saag dish that comes with the Seared Indian Spiced Potato Cake Dish. I tried that dish after my shift and was amazed at how beautiful and delicious it was, and so different put together. The tastes of everything are ok on their own but all the different elements combined very well to make the dish superb. So, even though I worked on the different elements over the last two days, I was interested to try to completed dish to see how everything works together... the potato cake on top of the chard and tofu-coconut saag, with roasted pear and cauliflower on the side, and sweet-onion-methi chutney on top of the cake. I also tried the Chioggia Beet "Raw-violi" that I had prepared the other night and was amazed again how everything worked together so beautifully. You really can't know the final result until you try it all together I realized. So, if one element that you are preparing seems to salty, sweet, or sour, it may work well when paired with other flavours. I also made the herb marinated olive dish that they serve as a small plate on the menu and involved quite the complex blending of ingredients and flavours, including fennel, chiles, rosemary, thyme, oranges, etc. and simmering this on the stove.
So, it was quite the full day and my brain and body are getting quite the workout every day in kitchen stadium...
posted by Caroline at 9:00 AM
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