Hello all my loyal readers. How are you? Living your dreams I hope, or at least on the road to discovering what they are. So another weekend down I am now preparing for my weekend from hell. This coming weekend we are going to have 20,000 drinking people on site and as we all know nothing goes better with your fifth beer than a burger. Although I have already spoken with Head Chef about it and he let me know that I was going to have L with me out on the grill. I miss working with L all the time. He and I get along really well, work well with each other AND over the past six months he and I have grown to like each other.
This past weekend was for the most part the same as every other. Filled with the roller coaster ups and downs of serving hundreds of people a day. One moment frantic and ready to rip out my hair (though maintaining a level head because you have to if you want to be successful in this business) and the next staring at the stage watching my buddy Ben Clost who is not only a Dora nominated actor but also an incredible singer. Ben really is the trifecta of performance, he can sing, act and DAZZLE. Loved your performance this weekend Ben.
This weekend I actually did most of Mise en Place so well that I only started having shortages on Sunday. While speaking with Head Chef on Friday I had let him know I was a bit upset that I was on the grill as there was nothing that I am learning beyond speed and organization. Now granted in this industry if you do not have these things you are dead in the water before you even leave the dry dock. But I feel as if I have learned the lesson I explained to him to which he said that this weekend would be the real test. I agree but at the same time that dangerous feeling of stagnation has popped into my head. Even if it is for only the next month and a half that I am on the grill it is a month and a half that I feel I could have been better used and learned more had I not been relegated to the C leagues. That’s how it feels. I’m not saying that it is really true, but my feelings certainly are.
I also feel, to a degree, that while I am paying my dues, that I have stuck through some of the crappiest jobs, worked the longest hours, done the same thing over and over and over again all without complaint because I wanted the opportunity to learn from two men that I felt were the best suited to get me to where I need to go. I know that what they have taught me so far is absolutely essential in my path to becoming a chef but somewhere inside I find myself thinking that I am not like the freckle faced kid that is fresh out of school that has twelve years to waste. I am 33. I’m not saying lets speed up but I AM SAYING LETS GET ME OUT OF STAGNATION. Lets start living up to the implied agreement on both parts. On my part to work ceaselessly and without question for what the job is and to do it to the best of my ability. And on their part, to teach me. To lift me up, push me down to the mutual benefit of all. But enough about that rant for the moment.
On Sunday when I did get into trouble at the grill with regard to Mise I had told M who gave over to check on me that I had enough Salsa to get through approximately the next hour of ‘service’. Well that hour came and went and I found myself at zero. I called over to Head Chef and asked if M had come back to tell him that I would need Salsa portioned. The phone pressed tightly between my shoulder and my ear a I was plating five hamburgers at the same time. He told me that M had come back and said that I wasn’t busy and as such I could have done it myself. I WAS FURIOUS. Wasn’t busy. For the past two hours I had done on average an order every minute and a half. No breaks. No going to the washroom. No cigarette AND CERTAINLY NO TIME TO PORTION SALSA. I tersely hung up the phone with “whatever.” I plated my food and then cleared the board of the six chits I had up. I looked over to the bar to see if I had an possible impending orders. Decidedly happy that I didn’t I walked, more trotted, over to the restaurant to grab a bottle of Salsa and portioning cups. As I trotted I passed M who was lazily walking down the path and said something to the effect of; “You told Chef I wasn’t busy huh?” To which he responded, “What do you need?” I didn’t stop to answer for fear that I would throttle him.
I was steaming. It was almost as if I was Herman Munster and I was about to blow my lid. I pushed by L aggressively and grabbed the bottle of Salsa. I walked back down the narrow corridor and stopped by the Chefs’ Office. “I’m not busy!” BIG MISTAKE. I saw Head Chef go from perfectly fine to I was about to get it. “GO AWAY” he yelled to someone that was behind me. I was about to get it. And I knew it. I said something and then looking at Head Chef’s face made the right decision to both shut my mouth and be contrite. GOOD DECISION. Through his anger Head Chef explained to me what M had said and I asked if he had said what I said. He explained the information that he got to which my only response was AND IS; “Oui Chef, Sorry Chef!” With my head bowed and my contrition now flowing through my veins like ice I continued to say; “Oui Chef.” I was the victim of my own culinary avarice (best word I could think of but has nothing to do with money). I was the instigator of my own verbal attack and realizing this I immediately changed. I became the soldier, the private first class getting berated by his beloved Drill Sergeant. Again I said; “Sorry Chef, Oui” and walked back to my station with my tail between my legs.
As I portioned my Salsa I thought about the events that had just happened. I have spoken before about the necessity for a cook that desires to be successful to abandon his or her ego and keep your eyes on the ball. This is not an easy feat to say the least. As I explored the exchange (though one sided) that happened between Head Chef and myself I found myself realizing that I had learned a great lesson. A lesson about myself. And what’s more a lesson about where I am going and how I am going to get there. I don’t need to be some mindless drone but at the same time I do need to be willing to get beyond myself. To see the grander picture of my own creation. Day by day that picture is becoming clearer and ego has no place in it.
Later Sunday Head Chef and I had a conversation about what had happened. I apologized again for my misguided and misplaced anger and told him of my epiphany that was the result. He agreed with me that it must be hard at 33 to be doing what I am doing in terms of abandoning my ego, etc but he reminded me that I choose to be here and that my willingness to endure is what is ultimately going to be the decisive factor in whether or not I become a great Chef. It was nice to have that conversation to abandon any residual anger I had and to end the weekend on a high note.
So by now you all must be wondering to yourself what does any of this have to do with the blog headline. And now I will answer;
Sleep Deprived, Manic Considerations, Malcontents and Miscreants (file under I’ll take what are cooks for 2000 Alex)
When you are working 12 hours minimum and up to seventeen hours a day plus two hours of travel time you get very little sleep. The sleep that you do get is well deserved and solid.
The manic considerations are contained in the paragraph in which I talk about my stagnation. It is real and palpable to myself. Though I am certain that to the uninitiated it may seem that there has not been any stagnation I can assure you that there has been. I know that I am not going to get there in five minutes but every five minutes that passes represents five minutes that I am not going to get back. I do feel the very real (personally real) stresses of my age in an industry in which I am a relic. I am an old man running with the young bulls. But for those who are wise they will understand the following story. A young bull and an old bull are standing at the top of a hill looking down at a pasture filled with cows. The young bull looks at the old bull and says; “Lets run down there and fuck one,” the old bull, ever wise, laughs and looks at the young bull and says; “No, lets walk down and fuck them all.”
In terms of Malcontents and Miscreants, the restaurant industry, is filled with them. I don’t think that I ever would have called myself these things in the past. But I also feel that when you are in Rome you have to be a Roman and do as they do. I have always operated on some ill defined fringe that I tip toe between. Somewhat uncertain as to where I belonged and why. And yet now that I am here, where I am today, where I choose to be, I find myself oddly comfortable with the heavy drinking, chain smoking, and swashbuckling pirates of the kitchen. Those that are more concerned with the quality of someone else’s enjoyment than they are in their own appearance or some outmoded societal structure that is utterly meaningless. I draw comfort from where I am. Pleasure even. And I do wake up everyday… Happy. What a concept? Can you say the same?
At any rate, I hope you all see that I am reaching for the stars. Aspiring to be something that through my research I have only found two others that have done it. I WILL DO IT. And you will be along for the ride. I have some exciting considerations (though manic) which I am looking at right now and I can hardly wait to figure out what they all mean. As a man, for myself, for perhaps the first time in my life.
Abraham Lincoln once said; “The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.” And so one day at a time I march on. Are you dreaming big and inspired.
A la prochaine
SDM
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