So I’ve now been at my dream for the past three months and I have learned so much. As you’ve seen and experienced with me I have completely immersed myself in something that is so incredible at times I need to give my head a shake. As always, without love, my beautiful and talented C, I would not have had the strength, courage or ability to go after my dream. You are a true companion, partner, confidant and best friend. Thank you for everything my love. You are the penultimate of all that is right, just, beautiful and wise in this world.
I have stated in an earlier post that it was my fervent desire (read goal) to make it to the line by May of this year. I want to be Garde Manger so bad I can taste it (pardon the pun). Yesterday, after seeing the new menu specs and going through them with the team it seemed obvious to me that this was an unrealistic goal. Unrealistic in that Executive Chef and Head Chef have taken a huge chance on me. They are imbuing in me a classical culinary education while at the same time paying me to work. When we first sat down at that fateful meeting they laid out to me what the next couple of years would look like. Excitedly I forgot to take into account a few things in making my goal. That said I now realize that I will not make it to Garde Manger until fall.
Yet in that time I will get some needed experience in our sister restaurants kitchen as well as when the patio opens I will be working those as well. You see, it doesn’t matter sometimes how badly you want something. What matters is that you allow time and experience to develop you into what you want to become. Hard work, patience, practice, all of these things are the cornerstone of anyone who is serious about what they are doing.
At first, when I came to this realization I was a little upset. Not with them and not with myself. More that I had not accurately been able to analyze my growth and myself. Which is not to say that my growth has not been great because it has. Executive Chef pointed out to me that my advancement in my short time there has been great and widely noticed. Moreover, he made it quite clear that in the arrangement we have (my words not his) that he does not want to do anything that would stifle my love, my passion or my ability to be a great Chef. It does not serve him nor Reservation if I get to the line prematurely and can’t handle the heat (thus getting out of the kitchen). He assured me that I would get to the line and that it would be when it was not a time that could crush me. He said that in the fall I would get closer to the line and be able to start my formal line training.
Thus, that means that I need to double and redouble my efforts. I need to continue working on my prep skills, knife skills and all around knowledge. I am taking this opportunity to look within myself and set goals that are workable for me. The end goal is to own my own restaurant by the time I am forty. No small feat I assure you. It is also a stated goal for me to make Saucier within two years. The next natural stage in development at that point is to become Chef De Cuisine or Chef De Partie.
I also spoke with Head Chef about my realization. He calmed my fears which he could see written on my face and let me know that I was doing everything well. That my development was plain to see and that my enthusiasm is infectious. I ask you, how do you feel, is my enthusiasm infectious. I believe it is. He also said that consistency was something that I need to strive towards, with my stock, my cuts, etc. Consistency is the mark of a true professional.
I’ve grown a lot as a man in the past three months. I’ve learned about myself and my position within the world. Where I was once confused and scared I am now certain and laser focused. Of course, life is filled with ups and downs but now my life seems to be filled with far more ups. I get excited, like a child on Christmas morning, each time I get a new knife, each time I learn a new skill, each time I gain some knowledge and insight into the kitchen, an ingredient, a mentor, the past and the future and in fact am giddy like a school child on the first day of school every time I walk into the kitchen.
I have already started working on what my restaurant will be. I am creating pictures in my mind of what it looks like. What the menu is like. What is on it. What the staff will wear. Signage! All of it. I find that looking into my dream with this amount of detail helps to keep me grounded and motivated. On a daily basis I explore my dream and my very apparent happiness and find that the answer to all my problems was to first find myself and then to apply the same attitude I have in helping others to help myself. As a result of this I smile genuinely all day. I laugh. I sing. I chop, cut, dice and just all around feel certain of what my future will bring.
I am excited for the summer. For what it will throw at me. To be sure there will be some curve balls but for the most part I am excited to see what the full out production is at a venue as big as ours. It will give me insight into the next few years and indeed my own life as a restaurateur.
So that’s where we stand. Me, a student and liver of life. Constantly striving for the stars because that’s where I belong. And I don’t say that with even the slightest amount of arrogance and I hope that you all see that. I decided to go this way to be the best and I will not settle until I am. My dream (and my love C) are what keep me grounded in reality, in life and in my dream itself.
C gets back on Friday and I am playing Iron Chef C. The secret ingredient is Tuna and man am I going to prepare a feast for her on her triumphant return from NYC. I can hardly wait to show her the new skills that I’ve developed and give her the most amazing sense of the love I have for her and the life I now forge on a daily basis. With a good attitude and a smile. Attitude is the key ladies and gentlemen. That and asking the universe the questions that you have to in order to determine for yourself who you are and what you want.
That said, I will be back as I’ve promised with a little bit of knowledge pulled from Food in History by Reay Tannahill.
I think this is rather on point to what I’m speaking about. John D. Rockefeller once said; “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.” And as Frank Lloyd Wright says; “I know the price of success: dedication, hard work and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen.”
So I continue on, smiling, shining, developing, learning, showing, explaining and practicing because I know where I belong and it is quite rightly and beautifully with my darling C and the kitchen. Soon to be my own kitchen (soon in the scheme of things anyway).
What about you? What is that place for you? Are you dreaming inspired? Are you working today toward what you want tomorrow? I am and you should be because that is what sets us free.
A la prochaine
SDM
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