First off C on this our 6th Valentines day, I love and miss you but grow ever more in love and appreciative of just how truly wonderful and special a woman you are. Hope you had a great day!
The day started off normal enough, stock and remi combines and starts to reduce! That was no problem.
Finally realized what I was doing wrong with my knife skills. Rookie mistake is to actually take the word chop and intuit that you have to with strength... Chop! So I'm working on my brunoise and doing a piss poor job of it if I don't say so myself. My fingers were amuck with that nervous energy that comes from uncertainty. And I have a new cut today to show for it.
Then the eureka moment, buy a good knife and it will do what it is supposed to do. Make cutting less of a chore and more of something that is easy. Sure enough my fingers found their eventual stride and though I was no Man o'War nor was I first, second or show, I certainly became more comfortable with the knife and what it could do when used properly. After chopping three litres of shallots it hit me like an anvil dropped by the Coyote. The first three litres took me about an hour, the next two took me about twenty minutes. Still to everyone there it seems like a perturbing slow sand through the hour glass but for me it was in the words of Borat; "great success..." Or at least a moderately good one for a newbie like me.
Hey I'll take small victories every day over one big score when it comes to the kitchen.
After that I was tasked with doing all kinds of little stuff to get ready for tonight. Everyone had things that I needed to tend to.
So then (here come the weeds... Cue March of the empire and my impending doom at the hands of Darth Potato) I was asked to prepare Potatoes Duchess and believe me this duchess owned my ass. First you have to boil the potatoes, then put them through the ricer, then break enough eggs to procure their yolks that you actually start wondering why the hell the chicken did cross the road anyway.
I was told that I needed to add some butter and cream. Given the fact that (remember impending doom doom da doom) I was working with about fifteen to twenty pounds of potatoes I figured about a half pound (perhaps less) and maybe a cup of cream was right. Well let me tell you. Darth potato was not impressed. The "storm" flour now was on the rise but the death potato was unleashed. Sorry for the Star Wars references but I needed a little laugh. Cue chuckle.
At any rate I learned some very, neigh, extremely important lessons from this experience. First follow instructions CAREFULLY! If you are UNSURE or even if you think you know ASK. Better to ask and not screw up hours of work thus at the very least annoying (read I'm sure if I hadn't been a rookie I probably would have been spade and neutered and then fed myself with a nice Mad Dogs & Englishmen).
However true to form Head Chef rather than berating me or belittling me lifted me up. What had taken me a couple of hours from start to disaster he proceeded to do with me again from start to finish.
If you believe in past lives or some kind of universal confluence that enables ridiculous feats, watching this man work with a knife, would conjure up images of either a wise Japanese ninja or perhaps, though not in a twisted sense, Sweeny Todd. For every potatoes I peeled with a peeler he peeled two or three with a knife. While I chopped one potatoes into fine slices to enable them to cook faster he did three. But no (at least not that I've seen yet) he can't leap over tall buildings in a single bound though truth be told I really wouldn't be all that surprised.
He then proceeded to explain each step. First running in water to drain off starch. Then boiling in two pots, the first to remove more starch and then again one more time to finish the cook through.
After that I ran them through the ricer (as I had before) and we proceeded to try and tell that Duchess bitch that this was our block. All the way along he was pointing out the texture, the reaction of the starch and sugar. It really is quite amazing to start breaking food down to its base levels.
Again another first was attempting to pipe the mixture into the desired shape. I don't know the shape name but I will get it for my weekly round up of terms. Piping, yet another skill to add to the practice file. (Read get real good ASAP though time and experience are the best teachers.)
After all that, everything was back on track and again my day improved. I started moving quickly to meet the demands of the line all the while performing my own line duty (however small) which I mention as a special Valentines Day laugh for my lover. Tonight I was in charge of the Amuse Bouche! Yes babe, that's right I WAS IN CHARGE OF THE AMUSE BOUCHE. I love you!
For those of you who don't know, an Amuse Bouche (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amuse_bouche) is a small morsel sent out by the chef to literally amuse the mouth and prepare it for the taste sensations it is about to receive. Tonight the Bouche was a leek and potato soup topped with truffle confetti. Oh YEAH!
Obviously tonight was for me, in a word, awesome (though lonely). It feels rewarding, fantastic, inspiring and I get to do the three things I've always said I wanted to do; create, implement and fix. Though I'm not really doing them yet (on my own) someday I will be.
Towards the end of the night I started cleaning and putting everything away as I do every night. I was going to go for a beer but as I have to be back at work soon (read I need to leave here in less than seven hours AND I didn't much feel like going out on Valentines without my love) I thought I'd come home and write here (or at least on my Blackberry on the way home). Plus a little more when I got home.
I did apologize profusely for my rookie mistakes and Head Chef let me know that it is far better to do something slow and right than fast and wrong (disastrous for me today my words not his). In his own way he reassured me. Both through his words and his actions. Both Exec and Head Chef are great mentors and I feel privileged.
I also let Exec Chef know how honoured I feel to be working under both he and Head Chef. With that awesome attitude he shot me a smile, shook my hand and said have a great night. We'll see you in the morning.
On that note, Charlie Trotter once said; “A jazz musician can improvise based on his knowledge of music. He understands how things go together. For a chef, once you have that basis, that's when cuisine is truly exciting.” True, thus making Exec Chef Dizzy to Head Chefs Byrd. Maybe someday I’ll be Miles!
Do something that scares you today and laugh about the fact you USED to be scared tomorrow. Be inspired.
A la prochaine.
SDM
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