by David Hoffman
I deposited my resume' with the waiter at the empty restaurant and left. It didn't say much - a couple of lines explaining that I knew how to cook Chinese food and vegetarian casseroles. I also said that I used to work at Gino's. I didn't say that Gino's was a fast food joint. I didn't say that I worked there twelve years ago, for all of two weeks. I didn't expect anything.
When I got home that evening, I soaked my feet and thought about the places I'd been. I had walked approximately four miles and had covered everything from an African restaurant serving Shish Kabob and Cous Cous, to a large French place with soft pink walls, roses and piped-in Parisian music. I had been offered a line cook's position a month down the road by a chef in a California joint who showed me her kitchen which was about the size of my bathroom. I had my hand nearly crushed by a large Italian who wanted to know if Gino was a Sicilian, and if I knew how to bake bread. I told him Gino was an Irishman and I knew how to buy bread.
I went to the hotel district in Nob Hill and hung around back alleys where delivery trucks park and security guards sit behind little glass booths eyeing you suspiciously because you're not wearing a uniform or carrying a large bundle of white linen.
I mused to myself how great it would be to work at the French place. How wonderful to learn the cooking secrets of the French - purveyors of the coveted art of Haute Cuisine! It made for a pleasant fantasy as I sipped my wine, gradually falling asleep.
The next morning the telephone rang. "This is Madame Martazami," said the voice at the other end of the line. "I am calling from L'Entrecôte De Paris. Can you come in tomorrow at four o'clock for an interview?" And that was that. I hadn't expected anybody to call.
After feeling a bit elated, I realized that I would probably be one of several candidates, all of whom were more experienced than I. She had undoubtedly misread my resume and the interview would probably not last more than a few seconds. I would try and be as polite as possible, play up my strong points, maybe throw in a few words of French like Baguette or sauté.
Then it hit me. What did I know about prep work? Sure, I could slice a carrot or peel a potato. I could even clean a squid or grate some cheese. But sixteen years of being a vegetarian had not exactly prepared me for prepping food in a French restaurant. What did I know about slicing up a cow? One look at a side of beef and I'd probably faint! Not only that, the French are known to eat some pretty strange things. Calf's brains and frog's legs! Arrggghh! Was learning classical European cuisine worth the price of this? Though perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe the cow came already cut up.
The following afternoon, after a day of hanging around more hotel alleys, I drove over to L'Entrecôte De Paris, Tucked away on Union Street amidst trendy overpriced boutiques, upscale clothing stores and nail salons. A glass-enclosed plant filled atrium jutted out towards the sidewalk. Inside, long rows of white tables were set off by soft pink walls. Fresh flowers graced the tables, and romantic music played softly in the background.
Madame Martazami was at the maitre'd station taking reservations when I arrived. Madame was blonde, a touch overweight with too much make-up, but attractive.
"Ah, Daveed! Come in, come in! Lets go into my office and talk." There was nobody around, so I wondered why we were going into her office. Perhaps she was going to suggest an "arrangement." As we walked by the kitchen, the chef, a large stocky fellow with dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses eyed me suspiciously. Madame's office was a cramped, cluttered quarters with soiled cook's uniforms hanging on the wall and loaves of French bread standing in the corner.
"So, tell me Daveed, vhat type of experience do zhoo have?"
"Well, mostly vegetarian cooking and some seafood. But I'm also familiar with some French, and I know a little Haute Cuisine (which I immediately mispronounced - good tip off)."
"I see, but vhat type of restaurant experience do zhoo have? It says here zhat zhoo vorked at Gino's. Vhat type of restaurant is Gino's?" (Gino's was a fast food joint that had a franchise to sell Kentucky Fried Chicken).
"Gino's? Oh, a diner."
"So zhoo did short order koo-kang?"
"I did mostly prep work, with some grill."
"I see. Vell ... vhat I need is a line kook."
I figured this was the end of the interview.
"Do zhoo think zhoo could handle a line?"
I didn't even know what a "line" was.
"Yes, of course! But frankly, I don't have much experience working in fancy restaurants."
"But it says here zhat zhoo know French koo-kang."
I thought she was going to ask me to spell Crepe Suzette.
"Yes, I know some."
"Vell this isn't like home koo-kang, zhoo know."
"Yes, I know."
Actually I didn't know.
"Zee chef vill be able to tell instantly how much zhoo know by how zhoo hold zee knife."
I thought about how I held my knives. I did pretty well on that score. I held them by the handles.
Madame Maratazami kept rubbing her leg as she talked to me. I thought she was about to suggest the "arrangement." Perhaps it was time to impress her with my intricate knowledge of koo-kang theory, which I had obtained by flipping through a tattered old copy of The Joy of Cooking.
"Would you like to have the chef ask me some questions," I offered.
"No, zhat vill not be nes-see-sary. Zee chef vill know vhat zhoo are capable of after a few minutes in zee kitchen. But ... I do not vant to send him somebody who is not right for zee job ... I must know vhat zhoo know!"
I thought she was going to put me under a hot light without a cigarette, so I said "look, I'll be honest with you. I know a lot about food, I know a good deal about cooking, I even know a little Haute Cuisine (again I mispronounced it). But my professional experience is limited. And another thing - I'm a vegetarian, I don't know much about cooking meat.
"But I'll tell you this..."
It was time to drop my big line.
"I'm passionate about cooking, I love to learn, and..."
(Our eyes met in a dead serious gaze)
"This is not just a job to me, I'll bring all my passion and enthusiasm to it!"
Click! An instantaneous look of recognition lit upon her face. The great chasm had been crossed. The magic words had been spoken. The room suddenly became alive with new sensations. The faint odor of day old bread, the musty smell of soiled, trodden carpet. Smiling, Madame spoke.
"Vould zhoo like to come in on Saturday and observe? Zhoo vill see if zhoo think zhoo can handle zee line. Zhoo vill keep out of zee kook's vay. Zen, if zhoo think zhoo can do eet, zhoo vill come back on Sunday and try out. If eet works out, fine. If not, zhen vee say goodbye. C'est la vie."
My God, I was getting the offer of the year!
"Yes, yes, thank you! It will work out fine, I'm sure!"
On the way out I grabbed a menu. Brunch was mostly poached egg dishes, omelets and crepes. I drove away feeling a bit special, after all, I had just been offered an opportunity to cook in a French restaurant! What an incredible stroke of luck! Then it dawned on me ... this was real! A real restaurant where real people came and paid real money to eat real food! And come Sunday I was going to be expected to make this real food!
It also dawned on me that I had never made a crepe or an Egg Benedict in my life. I drove right to the book store and frantically searched for every book I could find on preparing eggs - with full color photos. Then I went straight to the grocery store and bought two dozen eggs, a half pound of butter, and a gallon of milk. I wasn't about to let an opportunity like this become ... scrambled. I was determined to show up Saturday morning an experienced Crepe Benedict maker.
The following evening I began constructing omelets, slowly preparing for my entry into the realm of the crepe. I fired up the eggy yellow pancakes which I subsequently "rolled" the French way. Previously I had just folded them in half. But now I was working according to the classical imperatives of the "Good Cook," the fancy French book I had bought at the used book store.
On Wednesday I practiced making poached eggs with Hollandaise Sauce. (Was Hollandaise Sauce supposed to be scrambled?) On Thursday I practiced making crepes. Of particular importance was the art of flipping them. I made several varieties. there was Crepe L'Ceiling, Crepe L'Floor, and a special charcoal number called Crepe L'Stove. I decided I needed to learn how to make Crepes Suzette. I boiled down the sugary sauce, threw in the crepes, and doused the entire thing with Sake because I didn't have any Grand Mariner. I tossed in the match and nothing happened. Then I read the alcohol content on the bottle of Sake which said 13%. So I ran to the bathroom for some rubbing alcohol, (I was determined to get the stuff lit) but all I had was some KY Lubricating Jelly.
My garbage can now full of goopy, syrupy glop and my skill at poaching crepes with Sake sauce now second to none, I decided the last thing on my agenda was my wardrobe. So on Friday I went down to the local uniform store and bought myself a chef's coat. My biggest problem was deciding whether to get the single row of buttons or the double row. I finally decided that it would be a bit presumptuous to updress the chef, so I got the one with the single row. It had little buttons made of cloth which were impossible to push through the holes. But the tailor assured me that they were "virgin" button holes, and they'd loosen up in time. Next I went to the Goodwill store and bought a pair of clean white trousers and a starched white shirt.
The next morning I showed up at L'Entrecôte looking like the second coming of the Hare Krishna - the only thing missing was the halo. I arrived around a quarter to ten, slipped through the back alley and into the kitchen. There were two young Mexican fellows washing dishes and cutting vegetables, who looked as though they wouldn't have known a Crepe Suzette from a Chocolate Mousse. I tossed them my best "Como esta?" The older fellow smiled and grabbed my hand - "How are you Amigo?" It felt good to be welcomed.
Then I walked up to the chef - a drawn, weathered-looking man in his late fifties who looked as though he'd shrunken up from too many years in a hot kitchen. I said "hi, I'm David. Nice to meet you." He responded with a barely audible grunt that sounded like an "Mmmm Hmmm." I sensed I was off to a good start. The poor guy seemed like he wasn't looking forward to spending another day making French hamburgers and Egg Benedicts, and was especially not looking forward to having to teach me, a guy who's last professional culinary experience was frying up Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Now, you must understand, my idea of working in a French restaurant was pressing frog's legs through a sieve while being yelled at by a snotty guy named Pierre. But this fellow wasn't French - by a long shot, and he barely talked at all. Worse yet, the dinner chef turned out to be a guy named Gonzales who slapped me on the back and said "Hey amigo, jhoo knows how to cook?"
But it was still great to be there. This was what I had wanted, what I had dreamed of. I explained to Mon Chef, whose named was Bill, that I was only there to observe, but that I was prepared to work if necessary. The "Mmmm Hmmm" suddenly changed to an "OK," and Bill said, "You can start by chopping up these peppers." He then handed me three shriveled-up, semi-rotten peppers and I went to work, taking care to demonstrate my best knife wielding abilities, so Mon Chef would not peg me as the culinary nitwit that I was, and end my cooking career before I had the chance to say "Filet Mignon."
Next, he handed me some celery to chop, which I did, which he subsequently re-chopped into smaller pieces. I wondered why he hadn't simply asked me to dice it. I later learned that Chef Bill knew only two words pertaining to the preparation of vegetables - "chop" and "slice."
It was now ten thirty, the customers were due at eleven, and Chef Bill was busy chopping and slicing, whisking and stirring, preparing the line for the morning. There was Spanish sauce for the omelets, Hollandaise sauce for the eggs, and chicken/mushroom sauce for the crepes. There were boiling pots of water, pans full of simmering sauces, and an oven containing a bubbling Apple Tart.
For the time being, I remained in the "prep" area, chopping vegetables with Raoul, the shy young Mexican. Rauol, it turned out, knew only three words of English - "OK", "Bill" and "Sandwich."
It wasn't the most organized place in the world. Utensils were few and scattered haphazardly. I had expected the kitchen to have quaint overhead racks with beautiful copper pots hanging next to long braids of garlic. But there were no copper pots. There were no Cuisinarts, spaghetti rakes or salad drying baskets. Instead, there were these mammoth cast iron caldrons that looked like they were from the stone age, piled in a heap near the floor. The average one weighed about fifteen pounds and fit in perfectly with the huge, black, soot and grime-encrusted stove which flared up like a bon fire if you accidentally turned the crud-caked knob too far.
Handling any item on the back burner was a death-defying feat which inevitably resulted in the instantaneous removal of any forearm hair you happened to have, and a pronounced red blistering effect on your fingers. In addition, not every stove had a knob, so in order to adjust one stove, you had to pull a knob of the other. The method of lighting a dormant burner was to roll up an order ticket, light it, and toss it into the dormant burner before your hand became a human torch!
There was a gas-fired broiler, two deep fryers which gurgled and sputtered, and a grill that was large enough to roast a side of beef. On the floor were large rubber mats to insure the cooks wouldn't slip and knock each other unconscious as they rushed to and fro, and a small refrigerator under the grill which didn't work, necessitating repeated trips to the walk-in. Overseeing all this was a huge exhaust fan, which hummed continuously, guaranteeing that I would never hear anything that Bill, my soft-spoken chef-mentor was saying. And into this space, which measured approximately five by fifteen feet, were crammed two people - Bill, and me.
There was still some time before the customers started coming in, and I got the opportunity to meet Pedron, one of the waiters, a good-looking, debonair fellow with jet-black, slick-backed hair. I was curious as to how the place would fill up, so I asked Pedron, "What kind of crowd do you expect today?"
"Oh ... stuck-up and snotty."
Talking with Pedron made me recall the time I was a waiter, twelve years ago. I used to have these recurring dreams - nightmares actually. They went like this: I was in the kitchen waiting for the cook to give me the food. I would wait and wait, hours would go by, the customers would still be sitting there, and the food wouldn't come. Now ... I was going to be that cook.
Soon, the snotty customers began arriving. Pedron would enter their orders on a computer near the bar, and the tickets would spit out on a little tabulator-like device in the kitchen. Bill would then line them up on a clip at one end of the line.
I watched as chef Bill calmly went about his business, poaching eggs, toasting muffins and broiling meat. I noticed he didn't strain anything through any sieves, or do any fancy sauce reductions, though I once saw him boil some cream. He didn't even "roll" his omelets like I was taught in my "Good Cook" book. He simply folded them in half. He didn't even butter the English muffins before he placed the eggs on them! I was shocked! After all, this was a "French" restaurant, the snotty customers were paying good money to eat here, and besides, attention to detail is ninety percent of cooking. This was like French short-order cooking. Perhaps Mon Chef learned his craft in the French Merchant Marine.
I contributed my part by setting up the plates with garnishes - lettuce and fruit - and maintaining an attentive eye on the french frying machine (my two weeks making Kentucky Fried Chicken hadn't gone to waste). Then Bill suddenly asked me to "finish" an omelet he had started - Bill actually wanted me to cook something. I froze! The expert Crepe Benedict Omelet maker was suddenly reduced to quivering jelly. But the only thing to fear is fear itself. I daringly grabbed the omelet pan and poked at it with the spatula. I carefully lifted the edges of the omelet to ensure the liquid egg would run under the bottom, as I had been instructed by the "Good Cook."
Then Bill rushed over and said "Not like that!" and grabbed the pan and proceeded to scrunch the omelet up into a huge glob until it no longer resembled an omelette at all, then began pouring more egg in until it was one big glutinous mess. So much for the "Good Cook." By the time Bill was done the thing was so thick we had to fold it with a shovel! The rest of the afternoon was much the same, with Bill telling me "No, not like that!" or "Watch it, that's gonna' burn!" or "Not that pot, this one!"
For the most part, I felt I handled myself pretty well, considering this was the first time in twelve years that I had worked in a professional kitchen. Yet it was a fairly light day, and still it seemed impossible coordinating all the various ingredients and having them come out properly - all at the same time.
By six o'clock I concluded to myself that I had passed the test. I hadn't set anything on fire, hadn't stabbed anybody, and had demonstrated my best knife-wielding abilities by not cutting off any fingers. Yet I still wondered how I would be able to handle myself when the real rush came. I was determined to remember all the dishes I had prepared that day, so as I left for the evening I borrowed a menu from the maitréd. I would come in tomorrow with the preparations fresh and succinct in my mind.
The following morning I came in and found that the menu had changed. It was Sunday, the quintessential brunch day of gourmet palettes all across America. Bill gave me a wink and with a slight snicker said, "things are going to be a little different today." I braced for the worst.
An acquaintance, a sous chef at the prestigious Fairmont Hotel, had warned me that working in a restaurant kitchen was like being transplanted into a scene in "Das Boot." Das Boot was a film about German submariners during World War Two, with scenes of nervous men in undershirts sweating profusely as British destroyers dropped depth charges on them from above. The film is basically one anxious moment after another. Steam pipes bursting, men frantically turning big round handles, yelling at each other, etc. This was how my acquaintance viewed working in a restaurant kitchen. To him it was "Das Boot" - a living hell.
My second day at L'Entrecôte I started to get the picture. The depth charges were the customer's orders, which began dropping at a rate of four every fifteen minutes as the first wave rolled in. Captain Bill yelled at me for more potatoes as I shoved the little brown torpedoes into the chute and frantically slammed the big steel handle. The enemy was gaining on us. We tried to hold them off with the special butter sauce while Bill threw sliced baguettes at them. But by two thirty it was all over - the armistice was signed. Bill settled into the bar for a Martini, and I held my post, sweating profusely.
It was a sink or swim kind of situation. Bill wouldn't actually go to the trouble of explaining the dish assemblies before-hand. He would wait until we were in the middle of a rush before attempting to explain anything. This made me frantic. It meant I had to watch him while I was simultaneously attempting to keep an eye on three or four different things. Apparently, Bill thought it was pointless to explain anything to me verbally. That to him did not constitute proper teaching.
There was a lot to learn at "L'Restaurant," if, as Bill put it, I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut. Problem was, he would prepare the soups and sauces on the line, while I would be in the back chopping and slicing. By the time I got out to line, the stuff was already made. So I'd walk up and taste it and say,
"Hey Bill, this is really great! What's in it?" (thinking Bill was about to reveal the proportion of ingredients and the order of preparation)
So Bill would say, "Well, you take a little of this and a pinch of that and a dash of this - not too much though, and you mix it all together - not too hard though, then you let it simmer - not too long though ..."
So I would go home and try it, and it would take me five or six tries to get it right, adding a pinch of this and a dash of that ... not too much though, and letting it simmer ... not too long though ...
If Bill's repitoire was eclectic, his cooking style was eccentric. He seemed just as comfortable with hash browns as he was with Crepes Suzzette. But his technique was crude, and his attention to detail was strangely inconsistent. If I took care to clean the dirt off the mushrooms he insisted I was "fussing." We were once late getting out an order of Spinach Crepes. We didn't have any spinach prepped so Bill quickly blanched some, stems and all, then rolled them up in the crepe leaving the stringy stems hanging out the ends. It looked awful, and I ran for the scissors when Bill stopped me. "No no," he said, "it looks fine. The customer's hungry - she wants to eat." The entire procedure would have taken me five seconds!
Things like this made me wonder where Bill, or for that matter, the prep crew, which consisted of Raoul, got their training. Raoul would peel the potatoes by slicing half inch chunks off them with a fourteen inch cook's knife. His preferred method of mincing garlic was to dump about thirty cloves into a pile and whack away at them with two huge knives in a wild, swinging motion. This would take an eternity, while chunks of garlic flew all over the place, and the stuff rarely got to the point of what I would term "minced." This earned him the nickname "Rambo" or "Raou-mbo." Then of course, there was Bill, who liked to serve the spinach with the stems on.
I thought a French restaurant would be more disciplined, with a better trained crew. But it was, to quote Bill's own words, "a strange place." I suppose it was stranger still that I was working there. I finally concluded that Madame Martazami wanted people who she didn't have to pay a real salary to. Martine, the pantry chef, who had been working there over two years, was only making six dollars an hour. Everybody who worked there was either Mexican or Chinese, with the exception of Bill and the waiters, who were frustrated and cynical, with Bill taking the roll of head cynic.
Actually, most of these were a great bunch of guys, but only about half of them spoke English. Asking Raoul to do something necessitated the use of sign language or a Spanish phrase book. Asking Alfredo, the dishwasher, for a clean bowl or a spoon only resulted in a confused stare. Finally, out of desperation, I began learning the appropriate phrases. "Chuleta" for chop, "dados" for dice, and "que rico" for yum-yum. I needed to know que rico so I could tell if the crew liked my cooking, since it became my job to feed them. This was rather easy, as all I had to do was gather up Raoul's half inch potato peels, fry them, and top them with melted cheese. Mmmm, Que Rico!
It was only my second day, yet I was quickly becoming acclimated to the place. But I still hadn't heard from Bill. Did he like working with me, or more importantly, could he put up with me? So I walked up to him and said, "So, Bill, would you be willing to work with me?" When he suddenly became grim and said "to be perfectly honest ... it would be easier to train someone who knew nothing, then someone who knew just a little."
Just a little!!?? A guy who had read the "Good Cook?"
Bill continued, "but I would be willing to train you. However I'm going to let Madame make the final decision." This made me feel as though Bill was passing the buck. (I was soon to learn that Madame and Bill spent a lot of time passing the buck). Yet, behind that cynical expression, I somehow felt that Bill liked me.
The following day I decided not to call Madame - if there was any possibility of rejection, she was going to have to do it in person. Madame was smiling when I arrived. "Ah Daveed, come in, come in! So tell me, how did eet go? How did zhoo like vorking with Bill?"
"Well ..." I replied, "Bill's a nice guy, a little cynical though." Madame smiled knowingly. Actually Bill was a grouch.
"And vhat did zhoo think about vorking in zee keetchen? It's not like vorking in a home keetchen, is it?"
Actually, my kitchen was better equipped. I searched for the right words.
Madame cut in, "It is a simple keetchen, yes?"
Why didn't she just cut to the point - it was a medieval kitchen!
"Vell Daveed, Bill called me zhis morning and gave me zee full report. He said that zhoo're a very nice guy ..."
(Madame was speaking in a tone that sounded like it had a "but" attached to it.)
"... And zhat zhoo have a lot of class."
I had a lot of class?? Bill apparently had never seen me pick my nose. The next line would certainly have the "but" in it.
"He also said zhat zhoo vork hard, and that zhoo get along vell with zee other employees."
I waited for the "but." It never came - Madame was still smiling. I began to have the funny feeling that I was about to hired.
"So, based on zhese three things, I have decided to hire zhoo."
My funny feeling was right. I had been hired because I was a classy guy who didn't pick his nose.
Madame continued, "Bill said that he is villing to train zhoo. He has trained many people, some of zhem have gone on to be great chefs!"
What she probably meant was, "we have a high turn-over rate, and our ex-employees usually go on to work at better restaurants."
"He also says that zhoo have a good attitude, but I have also seen attitudes change."
What this meant was, "our brighter employees usually get sick of this place pretty quick. However, if you're a dutifully obedient slave, wéll be willing to keep you on."
I thanked Madame most graciously and she asked me if I had any questions. "Well, actually, I noticed the kitchen has only one vegetable peeler, and the knives ..."
Madame cut me off again, "That's Bill's department. Anything to do vith zee keetchen, zhoo talk to Bill. He vill take care of it. I am only zee management."
Help! What did I get myself into?! This is insane! We had almost half the restaurant full today! The ticket machine was like the cash register at Macy's during christmas. "Jit-jit-jit, jit-jit-jit" The damn thing would sound off and we would go scrambling for the necessary ingredients. Bill would proceed calmly to the pantry and I would run around looking hopelessly confused, or go scrambling for my Spanish phrase book to tell Raoul something he inevitably wouldn't understand. Then of course, there would be the unavoidable trip to the "walk-in."
The walk-in was a place perfectly suited as one of those special chambers where they test astronauts for extreme conditions - in this case - severe arctic exposure. I would stand in this colossal ice chamber until my bones shook with pneumonia looking for a cantaloupe or some fresh mussels, or some other ingredient which never seemed to be there. It was like the "waiter" dream, except this time I was stuck in a giant refrigerator, unable to find any food.
The menu listed an almost endless variety of dishes: fish, shellfish, meats, poultry, paté, assorted cheeses, desserts. Yet all I usually saw were some semi-rotten vegetables, a few varieties of muti-colored meats and some mussels which always seemed to be open. I wondered what would happen if we suddenly got an order for a hangtown omelette or some paté. Would Bill send me to the Safeway?
Out on the floor I could see the waiters scurrying to and fro while the rich elderly ladies took their seats complete with shopping bags and daughters-in-laws. Then the orders began again - three chicken crepes, two onion soups, one smoked salmon omelette, four hamburgers. There wasn't much talking, we were too busy running around trying to figure out how we were going to coordinate all this.
I wasn't experienced enough to know exactly which ingredients to begin cooking first. I would scramble for a baguette, toss an English muffin into the broiler, or throw a couple of pieces of sirloin haphazardly on the grill. Then I'd line up six or seven plates, throw some lettuce and fruit on them, then run back to see if the English muffin hadn't burnt yet, and if I could remember which of the hamburgers was well, medium and rare. While I was doing this, I had to jiggle the french fryer, watch the poached eggs and keep an eye on the sauteing mushrooms.
By the time I had all the plates lined up and knew what was sizzling on the grill, frying in the fryer, broiling in the broiler and poaching in the pan, the order machine would sound off again and I'd go into a panic, complete with flashbacks to the waiter dream. Bill, upon noticing the growing number of tickets and the glazed look in my eye, would call for Raoul, who would take up his part by dutifully jiggling the french fryer. It was all we could do to keep from crashing into each other.
Bill was standing on the grill scrubbing the walls when I came in this morning. I decided to try out my French. “Bonjour Mon Chef.” He didn’t frown–that was a good sign.
“Those french fryers need to be drained, and other than that it’s the same as last week.”
“Okay.” I stared at the blackened, shriveled up pommes frittes floating lifelessly in the dank, murky oil. I had a flash back to my teenage days working in the White Coffee Pot Jr, a fast food haven for acne-ensconced adolescents–a mecca of grease and grime.
I bent down and searched for the trap door that hid the ominous lever that released the noxious grease. I inspected the contraption closely. I ran my fingers along what looked like a door. I tugged and pulled–nothing happened. Then Bill, noticing my look of inept befuddlement said, “Just lift them out.” Hmmmm, there obviously was no magic lever. Perhaps it was just as well. At the White Coffee Pot I once pulled the ominous lever while forgetting to put the bucket underneath. A huge flood of melted lard came gushing out all over my shoes and onto the floor!
I strained the oil, it looked okay, so I put it back. Other than the odious resemblance to the french fryers at the White Pimple Pot Jr, there was actually a technique to making the french fries at L’Restaurant. It was a technique that traced it’s lineage to the days of Louis XIV. Apparently the King’s cook, frantic upon realizing the king would be a trifle late for dinner, and his pommes were now limp and cold, reimmersed them in the hot oil a second time. Thus he produced the puffy nouvelle delicacy.
It was time to prep. Rambo slammed the potato slammer-slicer down hard, making the metal table jump, causing me to fling the pasta filling onto the wall as the Spanish radio station went “Muey, Muey, M-M-M-Macho!” What was left of the potatoes after this minor upheaval was dumped into an oil bath of approximately 250 degrees until barely cooked. Then, just before serving, they were fried at 375 degrees until crisp and golden. And that was how you made your basic pommes fritte. If you didn’t agitate the basket frequently the whole damn mess would stick together into one great big glob. This process had to repeated about twenty five times a day since we had a whole lot of Louis XIV’s to feed.
After wrestling with the pommes frittes it was time to prep the other eighty-seven ingredients. Ten heads of lettuce washed and separated, a dozen bunches of spinach picked over, and a few baskets of dirty mushrooms sliced (apparently it didn’t matter whether or not I cleaned them). There were bell peppers, celery and onions to be chopped, tomatoes and more onions to be sliced, and melons, pineapples and strawberries to be decoratively cut for garnishes. As if this weren’t enough, I had to mince all the parsley, the garlic and the shallots. I say “I” because Raoul, our prep boy, was usually consigned to sweeping the dining room. Of course, the management wasn’t beneficent enough to grace the kitchen with a food processor, so all this work had to be done by hand.
Watching Bill prepare the specials was the most interesting part of the job. Of course, by the time I made it out to the line I usually missed the secret ingredients. All I would see was a container of some strange, mysterious liquid sitting in the warming bin.
Bill would set to work conjuring up various concoctions for the afternoon, then type them up five minutes before the customers came in. Fred, the maitré’d, would run down the street to the copy shop to xerox it off, then hurry back and tack it up on the plate warmer. Then I would have to do my best imitation of the Evelyn Woodhead Speed Reading Course to figure out what the hell was going on.
We had one item on the menu called a Hangtown Omelet. It listed bacon, mushrooms and Clams as the primary ingredients. I wondered who on earth (besides the French) would eat such a thing. Then an order popped up on the tabulator that read “HG OM.” I asked Bill what an “HG OM” was–a new mantra perhaps?–when he suddenly pulled three dollars out of his pocket and said “Quick, run to the store and get me some Clams… hurry!” I still hadn’t caught on as I went scrambling down the street in my Hare Krishna outfit, blowing past old ladies and early Saturday morning shoppers. Panting, I grabbed the can of Clams and ran back to the restaurant. Slamming the huge industrial strength can opener into the tiny can, I plopped it down in front of Bill, who calmly turned to me and said “You can put them back. She decided on Oysters instead.”
If the Hangtown Omelet was enough to make you grimace, there was another delectable item peculiar to the French that was enough to make you groan... Steak Tartare. I thought Steak Tartare was steak with tartar sauce, the kind you buy in a little jar next to the pickled relish on the grocery store shelf. I was wrong. Steak Tartare turned out to be raw ground meat, with a few condiments, sort of like French Sushi. It was Rambo’s job to make the Tartare, and my job to watch. As I stared in consternation, Rambo shoved a piece of raw hamburger into the meat grinder then formed it into a ball, on top of which he stuck a raw egg floating in a raggedly severed shell. He then surrounded this ungainly combination with a dab of mustard, onions, parsley and capers, and prepared another plate of toasted garlic baguettes. This was so the customer could prepare himself tiny raw egg burgerettes. I would have given anything to watch him eat it.
Working at L’Restaurant did have it’s occasional glamorous side. We worked in an open kitchen, which I liked because everyone could watch you. If you could toss an omelet or flip a crépe you looked really cool. If you botched it you looked really stupid. The only bad part about working in an open kitchen was that you couldn’t pick your nose.
Working in L’Restaurant’s kitchen was also fraught with peril. Danger lurked behind every corner. There was the bon-fire stove, the oil-spattering fryer and the collection of medieval knives. If I didn’t bruise my knuckles on the industrial strength can opener, I would singe them in the flesh-burning broiler. But it was the knives I feared the worst. As I continued to work there, it no longer became a matter of if I would cut a finger that day, but which one. I finally went out and bought a couple of sharp knives–the ones that say “Made in Japan, Never Needs Sharpening.” This amused Bill to no end.
Bill was the kind of guy who had been conditioned to the point of invulnerability by years of working in medieval kitchens. Bill would stick his hand directly into the broiler, the blue flame a scorching 800 degrees. I would use tongs–the long ones. Bill would test the char-grilled hamburger with his fingers, feeling it for doneness as it splattered and sputtered away. I would poke at it with a spatula. I had heard about certain martial artists conditioning their hands by repeatedly thrusting them into vats filled with hot sand. I began to wonder what Bill was going to have me thrust my hands into next. Soon enough, I too was sticking my hands into the broiler. The martial artists, I later learned, became sterile.
One day Bill asked me to purée a pot of tomatoes. I started to dump them into the blender when he stopped me. “Not that way! Use the stick blender.” The stick blender??? What the Hell was the stick blender? Bill pointed to the floor. Perhaps he wanted me to remove my shoes and mash them with my feet. I bent down and peered under the counter. Low and behold, there was the stick blender. It looked like a cross between a jack hammer and a Roto-tiller. I thought they used it to mow the lawn.
“Bill,” I said, “you’ve got to be kidding! I don’t have a license to work this thing!” Bill just laughed in that sort-of-a-smile that constituted a laugh.
“Just put the pot on the floor and stick it in!” I stared at Bill in disbelief. One false move with this thing and they’d be serving ground ankle tendon in a blood sauce.
The antiquated meat grinder however, was a much safer bet. I wondered why there was always a monkey wrench sitting on top of it. Perhaps it broke down a lot. Then one day I was attempting to squeeze some chicken into the chute when Martine came over, grabbed the wrench, and started whacking away at the chicken. Then he shoved the handle down into the chute until the poor chicken came out the other end looking like Jiffy Lube.
Speaking of sauces, they were not gently simmered in a double-boiler and strained through a fine wire-mesh sieve. They were frantically boiled in one of the giant gray caldrons and puréed with–you guessed it–the stick blender. Yet the sauces always came out wonderful. There was one sauce in particular that no one knew the ingredients to. Even Bill didn’t know what it was made of. It was stored in the walk-in giant vats. It was yellowish-green. The first day I saw it sitting in the back of the walk-in I thought it was mold. Hell, the French will eat anything!
Then one day Bill revealed the truth about the mysterious secret sauce. It was the restaurant’s closely guarded secret. I wondered if it was such a secret how they made it. Maybe they flew it in by special courier from Paris. Yet Bill swore up and down that he didn’t know what was in it. One thing for sure, the yellow stuff was butter, and the green stuff was herbs. It was a version of the basic French Beurre Sauce, with of course, the “secret” ingredients. I asked Bill if he wasn’t curious. He said he didn’t care. I tasted Dijon and told Bill, who just seemed like he’d rather be home reading a good book and sipping a Martini.
Then one day Pedrón brought back a hamburger the customer had complained of being too rare. The last thing I saw was Bill running out the back door holding the hamburger in his hand. We were all standing there with perplexed looks trying to figure out what the hell Bill was up to. I figured he had gone out in the alley to give it a good dosing of “special sauce.” Several minutes later he came running back still holding the burger in his hand.
“Special sauce?” I said.
Bill gave me a wink... “Microwave.”
Bill had actually run out the back door, through the alley and re-entered the restaurant through the pantry, tossed the thing in the microwave, then run back out the alley, past the real estate agent and into the kitchen, to the amazement of a somewhat startled crew.
It was a grand improv act. Actually, the entire kitchen was a grand improv act. A two man stand-up routine with a couple of Mexicans in the back who didn’t know a Beurre Blanc from a Bordelaise.
When you’re reading Great Chefs of San Francisco or Great Chefs of New York, and you see the pictures of men in neat, white, double-breasted coats presiding confidently over copper sauté pans, or deftly placing delicate truffles on hand-painted plates, you think “Wow! That’s really glamorous! I’d like to do that!” So you bluff your way into a restaurant job, and you find out that the men in the neat double-breasted coats have body odor, that there really are no copper sauté pans, and that the truffles come in cans.
So it went. After a day of handling twenty-pound pots and jack hammer blenders, I’d come home to my little kitchen and it’d seem like a toy, complete with tiny pots and miniature appliances, the kind you buy your eight-year-old daughter to bake her doll muffins in. My cooking style was altered dramatically. My vegetables were no longer washed–they were “prepped.” I no longer cooked my oatmeal–I “reduced” it.
Whereas before, I would putty around in my kitchen enjoying cooking in a leisurely fashion, I now began to act like a tornado in a blizzard. Working fast and furious–violently whisking sauces, frantically grabbing pans–my eyes darting back and forth as though at any moment something might burn or boil over. I kept having the nagging feeling that there was an anxious guy in a black vest and a bow tie standing behind me about to ask where his order was.
There weren’t many customers today, as it was close to Christmas, and all the Crépe Benedict eaters were out doing their last minute shopping. But there was a festive atmosphere in the kitchen. All the Christmas decorations were up, and the crew was getting ready for the big employee party that night. Martine was busy making cookies and I was busy stuffing little doo-dads with wish-a-mushuggy. Martine was in a particularly ebullient mood and we were goofing, throwing a big piece of dough around, while I scrawled little faces on his carefully piped-out cookies.
I thought it was nifty that the management was throwing the employees a party. Sort of their way of saying “Thanks for working for six dollars an hour without benefits.” I imagined a bunch of bitter employees standing around pretending to be merry while getting plastered. Fortunately, the Mexicans didn’t have to pretend to be merry, and Bill didn’t have to pretend to be plastered.
The next morning I was sick, but decided to come to work anyway. It wasn’t the money, it was out of a genuine sense of loyalty to my beloved Mon Chef. I came in to a kitchen full of stacked up dishes, overflowing garbage cans and trays full of dried up, leftover food. There were a dozen heads of lettuce and potatoes left floating in the sink. The line was its usual disgusting mess, with a crud-caked stove, greasy food-splattered floor and various ingredients thrown about the place. It was a horrific scene. The roaches scattered when they saw me coming.
It was also Sunday, our busiest day. The day that the management, in it’s infinite wisdom, decided to leave us without a dishwasher. With only two hours till post time, Mon Chef set about the laborious task of washing dishes and scrubbing walls. After recovering from a state of shock-induced paralysis, I began to empty the hundred pound garbage cans and de-crud the stove to the point where it could be lit.
It was not a happy scene. I resented watching my chef, a man who had earned his respected position through years of thrusting his hands into flaming broilers, succumbing to such unnecessary and degrading tasks. This also created the impossible situation of leaving us only one hour to prep and cook all the food.
At the interview, Madame had mentioned that I had a good attitude, but that she had seen attitudes change. Now I understood why. It was difficult to hold my attitude together after witnessing this daily dilemma. It was apparent that she was oblivious to what was going on in her kitchen. Yet it was also apparent that she was too cheap-minded to do anything about it. To confront Bill would have proven even more futile. He would inevitably become upset at me in order to mask his embarrassment over his inability to do anything about it. We were a real contrast. I was young, enthusiastic and conscientious. I imagined Bill was that way once too. But gradually cynicism had taken over, and as a mere suckling employee, I tottered helplessly in the void created by this whirling vortex of apathy.
However, working in a laid back place did have its advantages. Bill, being a rather quiet, modest fellow, pretty much stayed off your back. Although he was cynical, he didn’t get mad or yell. Yet in spite of this, and in spite of all the kind things he had said about me, I still got the impression he wasn’t crazy about me. Maybe it was just his act. He usually walked around with a tired, semi-disgusted look on his face. And he never seemed like he wanted to answer my questions.
Yet I did notice he was particularly patient with Raoul, the young Mexican who didn’t speak any English. I think this placed him in a different category on Bill’s patience scale. I was the cook and spoke English, which apparently reduced my entitlement level. I hoped Bill’s attitude towards me would change as I became more efficient. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending another six months working in close confinement with a guy who’s only two lines were “Mmmm Hmmm” and “Not like that!”
Of course I can’t say that my five weeks at L’Entrécôte De Paris were for nothing. I did learn some things–things that will stay with me for the rest of my culinary life. Like how to prepare a full-course pasta dish in an eight inch omelet pan. How to purée a pot of tomatoes with a jack hammer, and... how to light a stove by turning your hand into a human torch. I also finally learned how to make a proper Crépe Benedict.