Fickle Finger of Fate (file under Transitions)

This past year has been a year of transition. So it is only fitting that my second post of the year is in fact a continuation of my “owner” post from last year resultant from a conversation that he and I had yesterday.

I believe in serendipity. The definition of serendipity according to Oxford is;

serendipity
/serrndippiti/

• noun the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.

— DERIVATIVES serendipitous adjective serendipitously adverb.

— ORIGIN from Serendip (a former name for Sri Lanka): coined by the English politician and writer Horace Walpole (1717-97), after The Three Princes of Serendip, a fairy tale in which the heroes were always making fortunate discoveries.

In a lot of ways my life has been one occurrence after another which would have to be termed serendipity. The meeting of my fiancé. My entrance into a professional kitchen. My beginning to write again about that very experience. Where I ended up in a kitchen then and now. All of them quite serendipitous.

You’ll recall that as a result of an ugly encounter with the owner of Without Reservation I became quite confused, angry, hurt but also motivated. Motivated to write. Motivated to consider where I was and what the future might hold.

When I left Reservation, the restaurant and its two satellites, were in a period of transition. One which would have required me to continue doing what I was doing with little commensurate benefit to me in the immediate term. This caused me to consider my lot in life, my current “station” if you will and what my options were. The result being that I left so that I could continue on my path toward personal greatness as defined by ME.

After the encounter with the owner at Without Reservation I was left considering the same things again. Though this time I came to realize that my options were extensive as I outlined. I could go to Europe. A Cruise Ship. Another restaurant in Toronto. Or New York City as if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. Cheesy Frank Sinatra reference aside, all of the above options were and still are true. However the one thing (perhaps out of anger or incongruous desires) I did not consider was sitting still and waiting to see what happened. Although, for the second time in my life I did not make a rash decision which would affect my future. I continued to go to work and do my job and thus allowed my work to speak for itself.

As I started this post I spoke about serendipity. One thing that drew me to this owner was the fact the he was a retired NHL goalie. In my youth I was a goalie. I practiced hard and loved it. I still love it and one day when I have some time and money I plan to don the equipment again that made me feel like a warrior of old. This spoke volumes to me and in conjunction with the Chef that I would be working under I felt that this was a message.

Yesterday, after giving myself time to cool down, I finally took the opportunity to speak with the owner about the incident. I was calm, self assured and ready for a dialogue. He and I went to the back room and had a great conversation. I let him know exactly how I felt and he did for me as well. I let him know what my desires were and where I wanted to go. I explained why I had moved to Without Reservation and what I saw coming down the pipe.

Without Reservation is in a period of transition. We are about to take the restaurant from where it is now to a higher level. We are going to start incorporating some of the techniques and skills that I have learned as well as some that I still need to learn to put out not better food, just different. More technical, more composed. More in line with what I eventually seek to do in my own restaurant.

I had the opportunity a couple of days ago (Friday) to cook lunch for the owner. I asked if I could make the dish the way that I wanted and he said for sure. So I took some truffle oil, cream, sun dried pesto, Portobello mushrooms, shallots and white wine and whipped up a sauce for mushroom ravioli. I new it was fantastic. I knew it because it was something that I would eat over and over and over again. After a few minutes he came back into the kitchen and told me it was fantastic and that we should make it as a special.

By my desire to be recognized and my daily grind to be a professional I had asserted that I could cook and moreover that I could improvise quickly. It also came up in the conversation that we had yesterday in which he said that he would like to see me get to where I want to go and that he would do anything he could in order to help me get there. He said he didn’t get into the business to be a pain in the ass owner but rather because he wanted to employ people who knew their jobs and would execute them well thus making it unnecessary for him to be a pain in the ass owner.

He asked if I wanted to go to culinary school and I explained that what I had learned in the past year could not be learned in five years at culinary school. I explained that currently his kitchen was my culinary school and that as I recognize the transition that is ongoing that although I could go to anyone of the places previously mentioned I would rather stay with my Chef and with him and see where this rabbit hole leads. Again he made it clear that he was in my corner and that this coming year would definitely be exciting.

That said, I believe that I still have lots to offer Without Reservation. That in this coming year it has a lot to offer me and as long as those two things remain true I will be happy to stay.

I believe that 2009 has started off with a lot of promise. An exponentially larger than ever in my past amount of hope. And the same amount of work. I look forward to the challenges, opportunities and obstacles of the coming year. I’m sure that you look forward to reading them. As much as I do writing them.

T.S Elliot once wrote; “For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice.”

C.S. Lewis once wrote; “The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.” Yes but some of us do it more purposefully. AND I AM ONE OF THOSE!

I wish you all success and joy, happiness and the ability to overcome your fears to reach for the stars and live each day in pursuit of your dreams.

Dream big and inspired! For if not… What’s the point?

A la prochaine

SDM