Coffee, Cigarettes, Booze, Passion (file under adrenaline junkie)

This past week has been fierce and furious. As you all know I had Friday off which I used to catch up on blog posts. Little did I know that the real reason I had it off was that I was going to be in the most glorious hell I have ever experienced over the winter. But let me preface it first.

I have been a lot of things. I have worked for politicians, as a private investigator, a strategic consultant, a Dojo manager, the manager of a large online retailer of sex toys and in the garbage industry. I have done so much that sometimes I marvel to myself that I should write a book (well I am sort of aren’t I). NOT ONE OF THOSE PREPARED ME FOR WHAT I GO THROUGH IN THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY. And the fact is, I LOVE IT, I’m home, I’m finally where I belong.

First and foremost you’ll remember that I always believed that I should be a Chef. My earliest memories involve food, but not in some abstract way, but in the fact that I have seven brothers and sisters and as Marco Pierre White’s father said; “people will always need to eat.” From early in my childhood I loved cooking, parties would be thrown and I would be the first in line saying that I would love to feed, whether it was ten people or one hundred, I didn’t care. (The same was also true in high school when we needed bartenders, but that was predominantly so I could be closer to the booze.)

So this past weekend, Saturday I worked for 16 hours, Sunday was 13, Monday 15 and Tuesday 13. Monday night by the time I was finished there would have been no way that I could get home and back to the restaurant in time so I stayed at Chef B’s house. The weekend my friends looked like this;

Saturday I had to do some prep to get my grill station ready. This included not only setting the station up but also preparing the Tuna Burgers, Quesadillas, etc (as I mentioned in last weeks post). Saturday thankfully was not all that bad as the weather was not cooperating. I did not have any helper this weekend and was expected to run the station on my own. I think on Saturday I probably did I total of 100 or so orders. It was all right and I learned how to properly set up my station (trial and error and a little help from my friends). I know I know I promised a picture so that you could understand what I’m talking about but I barely had time to breathe let alone take pictures.

Sunday was great. I had about thirty orders all day and then of course staff meals. We finally got Chits working which makes life much easier because you a have the order number and b a copy of the chit. I loved it. The one thing I don’t love is having to move everything from the restaurant to the station as we are in a historic district with cobble stone streets and it makes for a long and arduous task but hey I really want this and the life I chose so I temper my attitude with that.

Monday was an insane party of a scheduled five hundred but closer to seven fifty. There was an insane amount of prep to do and on top of that our dishwasher had a series of issues that made his night a nightmarish hell. Thank god after I was done doing the monkey dance (that’s what I call it when we are out in front of the front of house serving people at a station) we all pitched in and made sure that his night wasn’t an absolute hell. About the monkey dance I also came up with a song to the tune of the Humpty Dance that says; “The monkey dance is your chance to be a chump.” I was in charge of the carving station for the hips of beef. It wasn’t so bad, though my legs were absolutely killing.

Tuesday (despite a lack of sleep and a massive pain in my legs) was not so bad. L and I had to work for a party of 65 VIP execs and of course we pulled it off without a hitch. By the time I got home last night I WAS DEAD. And when I say dead I was asleep within about 30 minutes on the couch and I slept through the night until about 11 am. IT FELT GREAT!

So what’s with the blog title you might be asking? Well here comes;

Cooks (Chefs) operate on very little. We get little sleep, work ridiculous hours, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, drink booze and survive on the passion that burns with in each of us. If we didn’t we would burn out of the kitchen in no time flat. We would complain, moan and bitch about everything and it would get in the way of our desire to be what we all believe we can be.

This weekend, while working, I had an opportunity to smoke very few times, but I did drink coffee and I did realize that my passion has turned me into an adrenaline junkie. I am hooked. Every bit as much as a heroin addict who puts the needle in the arm for the first time I have become hooked on the frenetic energy and pace of the kitchen. I have adopted those that I work with as Brothers and Sisters, partially because I am as crazy as they are (I mean who chooses to join a kitchen for crap pay and long hours). We all struggle together; we pick each other up, we drop kick each other with sarcastic sentiment and good spirited ribbing. We are all there together and we survive or die by the flame and where I am we all choose, EVERYDAY to survive. As hard as we work we also must play. While all of the office junkies are long asleep we are all searching for the industry friendly place that will serve us or beer, or scotch or whatever it is so that we can discuss the heat of battle from the day and just get along famously telling dirty jokes and laughing hilariously.

Coffee; from about nine in the morning until around three in the afternoon it is my best friend. For years I was cutting down my consumption but now I am back up to about six or seven cups a day. By the time I get a chance to drink it is cold but hey who cares… CAFFEINE.

From around three onward it is coke, or iced tea, or anything wet to stave off the heat duress of the kitchen.

Cigarettes; It is the respite from the insane day. You take four minutes (yes that’s about how long it takes us to smoke a cigarette.). It gets you out of the kitchen for a laugh and a smile. Then when the day is over you rifle through ten cigarettes in no time flat.
Booze; We’re cooks and chefs. HOW THE HELL ELSE DO YOU EXPECT US TO DEAL WITH THE STRESS AND LONG HOURS. All of us drink. Some more than others. But it is a reality.

Passion; SELF EXPLANATORY.

What I’ve come to realize is that you have to respect the food. Respect the ingredient. Treat it as you would your child. When I started this you’ll remember that I said I wanted to be in a kitchen because it was the most honest thing I could ever do. The food either is or isn’t. The plate says to the person eating it, here is my life and then begs the question what do you think?

In the previous post about the French Laundry I mentioned that you must trust your instinct. A and I have been conversing quite a bit since he got back from Chewton Glen and I do consider him one of my good friends and over time I think he could even become one of my best friends. He and I have been speaking about how there are some things you just can’t teach. It has to be inside the cook or chef.

Cooking is TACTILE; it is something you must feel. As Keller said; “A recipe has no soul.” This is the point that A has been trying to make to me and it has sunk in from the very first moment that he said it.

So as a whole, I hope you see that the frenetic pace of the kitchen is causing me to become the man I always knew I was.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said; “The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.”

Are you retaining your spirit?

DREAM BIG AND INSPIRED

A la prochaine (probably next week)

SDM

The French Laundry (file under its going to be a long winding road)

Quick update here in Thomas Keller and The French Laundry. I have a profound respect for what all Chefs do. But some, like Keller, rock my world. Today was my day off (thankfully) and I will be posting about my experience in the restaurant next, but, it gave me the opportunity to finish “The French Laundry Cookbook.”

Keller is exceptionally talented and has an awesome respect for food. He sees the ingredient for what it is and then tries to kick it in the ass thus making it that much better. Keller came to the kitchen at a young age and became a head chef even younger. His path to learning was (like mine) a long and winding road but it served him well.

One of Keller’s mentors was Roland Henin, the Master Chef who took him on at the Dunes Club to cook staff meals. This was an extremely formative time for Keller and as a result of the seemingly mundane (staff meals) he got a base from which a lot of his current shine comes from. From Henin Keller learned that if “you can cook… you can go back in time.”

Another interesting point which resonated with me is that a recipe has no soul. You can follow a recipe perfectly and never be able to create it as well as someone else. (This also relates to something that A and I were talking about recently and I will mention in the next post.) A recipe is a guide, a path that can take you to excellence, but the cook must have A SOUL TO GET THERE! The recipe can only do so much and the rest is up to the cooks sense and sensibilities.

Keller insists that in this fast paced world people slow down and especially cooks, make deliberate actions and your food will be better as a result. I could not agree more. But again I will touch on this in the next post.

As I have come to know from experience, you must trust your instincts.

That said, the food that Keller has included in the cookbook is fabulous. The images of the food leave you with the desire to be eating mouthfuls the whole time. I think that the most important point though that I took away from both The French Laundry Cookbook and Bouchon is as Keller says; “Sometimes you have to experience the really bad in order to avoid it.”

Dream Big and INSPIRED.

A la prochaine

SDM