Cake for Breakfast: Perfect Pancakes

“We don’t have any milk.” I had promised pancakes for breakfast. “I can go get some,” I offered, the store being only across the street. But I was still in pyjamas. “No, I’ll go get it,” Ben claimed, sporting a head-cold, and no pants. Neither of us were going to get milk. “I also forgot the copy the recipe from work.” There is a pancake recipe we use at No 9 for breakfasts that produce the fluffiest, crispiest cakes.

“I’ll just make it up.”

I sifted through my notecards of recipes in the box my grandmother had given me years ago. I had several pancake recipes, none of which I remembered liking, and all calling for milk. We never have milk in the house – I don’t believe in drinking milk, and Ben drinks soy milk. But we always have yogurt (whole-milk Stonyfield). I’d used thinned-out yogurt in place of milk before. For a cup of milk, I used 3/4 cup yogurt + 1/4 cup water.

The only relevant detail from the No 9 recipe was separating the eggs. I love thick fluffy pancakes, and whipping the egg whites adds structure and air to the batter. I also increased the sugar, to help yield the crispy edges, and increased the flour, so they wouldn’t be thin and eggy. I opted for cooking them in butter, which can only make them more delicious. The result: the best pancakes I’ve made in this house, yet.

Pancakes

Serves 2-3 (about 8 large pancakes)

1.5 cups AP flour

3.5 tsps baking powder

2 tsps salt

2 Tbs sugar

3 Tbs melted butter, cooled, plus more butter to cook

2 eggs, separated

3/4 cup whole-milk yogurt

1/4 cup water

Mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add the egg yolks, melted butter, yogurt, and water. Mix well – the batter will be thick. Whisk the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold them into the batter until just mixed – do not over mix. Heat a pan or skillet over medium-high heat. Melt a Tb of butter in the pan, add 1/4 cup scoops of batter. Move pancakes around pan after a minute to brown evenly. Flip once bubbles appear. Continue cooking on medium heat until cooked through. Remove to a warm plate. Add more butter to pan and continue cooking pancakes. Serve with so much butter it makes your mouth hurt. Jam and maple syrup are also good.

Sous Chefs

Five days after my last post – the mildly inappropriate tirade – Chef Patrick asked to speak to me after service. I was convinced it was to encourage me to calm down, take a moment to gain some perspective, and push myself to develop a higher degree of patience when it comes to training and managing the other cooks. And in part, we did discuss that. But we mainly discussed other issues:

I am the new sous chef of No 9 Park.

Surprise, excitement, pride, nervousness, humility all existed in that moment. But more than anything, I am overwhelmingly thankful to all those who first encouraged me to become a cook, and then those who trained me to become a chef. This was the single most successful moment of my professional career – of any career I’ve had so far. Becoming sous chef in under two years was well ahead of my goals, and I have several people to be grateful for, including my chefs Patrick, John, and Stef. While I am focused on growing into a great chef, I also hope to become as good a mentor as they are.

The new job has new responsibilities, and with those, required some time to adjust. Chef warned me that I would have less time to focus on the cutting board, and need to divide my time between cooking and managerial responsibilities. I’ve had the opportunity to expedite a few services, which is wildly fun, and has its own particular challenges, just like any station on the line. It is a rush to have all the orders coming in, grabbing plates, plating food, talking to servers, firing tickets, calling for runners, garnishing, sending out food, checking every plate to be sure it is perfect, watching every cook with one eye for excellence, and the other for mistakes. The pace feels different, the food can’t get into the window fast enough. I can’t push the food out, can’t grab pans from the cook next to me, fire the next pick to be ready for the come-back. I can only direct, request, order, beg, yell. But most important for the cooks, the expediter sets the tone. The expediter’s confidence becomes the cooks’ confidence, their calm calms the cooks, their excitement excites the cooks. It has a wonderful intensity.

In other news, my big sister, Rebecca, came in for dinner for the first time two nights ago with Benjamin. Always means a lot to have family in for dinner. Those of you who are around should come in soon for dinner. Fall has hit the menu hard, pumpkin, parsnips, elk, venison. The tasting menu this week is awesome. My favorite course: Duet of venison, grilled venison loin, venison jagerwurst (which is the most beautiful sausage I have ever made), chestnut puree, pickled cabbage and mustard seeds, and autumn berries.

Also, grab your mask and join No 9 Park for our Venetian Masquerade Ball on Monday, October 31. You already did the sexy kitten/nurse/pimp costume and drank gin out of the bottle with a straw, and got sick on Reese’s peanut butter cups. This year, try creative black tie, shellfish platters, milk-braised pork, and drink Italian wines out of real glasses.

It’s after work…

This is my first, I do believe, after work posting. So forgive the drunkeness. It is 12:33 am, early by most standards. Would have been earlier, but a late 3-top showed up 10 minutes before close and ordered food at 11:05 pm. No matter, we love it, and it didn’t take long.

There are times when you feel demoralized. Usually it stems from an unfortunate performance during service, and your chefs are disappointed. Or you’ve pissed someone off, and shouldn’t have, and feel like a dickhead. Currently, I am feeling demoralized, but not for any of those reasons.

As the lead line cook, I am not anyone’s boss, not in charge, not in any position of authority. Which I acknowledge. The other line cooks are free to disagree with me. But frankly, they’d be wrong. I’m not being cocky (not overly, anyway), but 9 times out of 10, I’ll be right, and they’ll look like idiots. But nevermind that, I am offering my advice not because I love the sound of my own voice (though I do) but because I believe that they can do better. There are 4 cooks currently that I believe can be awesome. Truly talented chefs. And I offer all the advice I have. I have worked their prep stations, and spent months on their service stations. So I offer advice when necessary.

But moreover, I expect the best from them. I shouldn’t have to tell them to clean something up, they should know that they should clean it up. I shouldn’t have to tell them twice to put something away, they should have done it the first time. I shouldn’t have to tell them to put something in a smaller container such that it won’t take up too much space in the walk-in, they should know it already. So when I do tell them, I seem angry. Cause I am. Cause they should have already known it. Cause I believe the best in them. And when I confront them about it, asking, why won’t you do these simple things I’ve told you to do time and time again, they say, “This is the best I can do,” or “Cause I’m forgetful,” or simply, “I’m sorry.”

What am I to do with that? Do I bother to keep trying? And it gets worse. In the more heated moments, when they are refusing to listen, or have not done the simple tasks you’ve assigned them, or shown some inatiative, and you’re yelling at them, asking them, “Why didn’t you clean this up/cut this correctly/put this away/come talk to me?,” they will just stare at the floor, or keep working on  something, or ignore you. They pretend as if you aren’t even in the room. Like you don’t exist. It can be too much to take. They throw all the advice back in your face, refusing to believe in themselves as much as you believe in them.

On the bus-ride home tonight, I listened to the saddest music on my iPod – I’m a sucker for that, shutup. This was the most frustrating experience I’ve had at work thus far. I thought about tomorrow – the prep day, service. And I thought, I should get there really early, have some time to prep, get ahead, do some awesome work.

Despite all the bullshit of these kids, I still love working there, love my job, love the work. Let the revolution continue.

I get around. Seriously.

Sticking with one, staying committed for several months can be hard, but it has its advantages. Initially, it is fresh, exciting, you learn something new about them every day. There are a few difficulties, but you work together and learn how to acheive some synergy. As time goes on you get comfortable, ease into a routine. Days can be stressful, but when night falls, you know that you’re going someplace where you know every line, each curve, all the knobs. But then you might get bored. Same old shit. Occassionally you’ll still get surprised, but a bird is a bird, right? You look around, see something you’d like to try, like to get to know. But you can’t have it.

So wouldn’t it be better if you got to do something different every day?

Isn’t making jokes about cheating funny?

But seriously, I’m talking about work. Last I mentioned it, I worked Middle station. But I moved to Fish station in Februrary of this year (just before the last Restaurant Week). Cooking fish was (and is) awesome. Station is fast paced, fast plates, and you control the entrée line. You call the times, manage the pace, guide the other two (middle and meat) on timing. It is a thrill. And moving to fish was probably the smoothest transition I’ve ever had. Cold apps, hot apps, and middle, all took a little time before I was comfortable. And while I had been the most anxious about moving to fish, it couldn’t have been better.

Then a few months ago, our sous chef, Michele, announced that she was leaving No 9 and taking the post of chef de cuisine at The Butcher Shop. She left a week later. A few weeks later, Stef, the rounds cook, and my best friend, was offered the position of sous chef. The next day, Chef made me rounds cook. After a year and a half, I had become the lead line cook, and Stef was sous. Perfect.

The job of the rounds cook is to fill in for whoever has the day off and work that station. Every day something new. You may not have worked that station in weeks, cooked those dishes since the menu change, or know where all the mise en place is. Some people don’t label their mise properly, or put it in obvious places. They leave rotten food for you to find. They forget to order something they are out of, leaving you to figure it out at the last minute and fix it. A thrill every day.

Also, the rounds cook is the lead line cook. You can’t ever be in the weeds, since everyone else is sure to fall into them at times, and you should be there to pull them out. You have to be everywhere always, keeping an eye on each station, thereby giving the chefs more time to focus on plating, expediting, and running the line. You teach, give pointers, and also learn more from all the other cooks, so when your turn to cook that station comes around, you’re ready. It is a great job. I love it. I haven’t had this much fun yet. And currently, we don’t have a fish cook, so I still get to spend some decent time on fish.

In other news, Ben and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary in June. Being with him is even more exciting than being rounds cook.

Happy Restaurant Week

What comes twice a year, lasts two weeks, and sends you into a manic state of excitement and frustration?

Boston’s Restaurant Week started on Sunday 14 August, and lasts until the end of the month. And you love it. I love it. We all love it.

I could do without it.

To be fair, we’re busy, which is fun. We do at least 100 people Mon-Thurs for RW, plus another 40 for the normal prix-fixe menu. But you’re cooking the same thing over and over and over…. And the menu is designed such that the pick-ups are fast. They can’t be complicated picks or platings if you’re going to do 50 every night. So during RW, these are the easiest 140 covers we do all year. Same for the front of the house – the guests aren’t interested in chatting, they don’t order a ton of courses, and aren’t particularly demanding. In and out.

But what is the fun in that?

Well, it has its own fun, for sure. But most of us don’t work at No 9 to engage in ‘turn and burn’. We love it when people order 5 courses, take their time, get into the food, the wine, the experience. Don’t misunderstand me – I love RW. I love it. We all love it. But I also love the rest of the year. Perhaps a little more.

Happy Restaurant Week everyone.

Everything I know, I learned in a year…

Which is to say, I’ve been working at No 9 Park for a year as of November 2. It was an important milestone for me. So far I’d worked two prep stations (vegetables, and purees), and 3 service stations (cold apps, hot apps, and middle). Middle station, where I moved to in September, is responsible for game birds (pheasant, quail, squab, partridge, wood-pigeon, chicken, duck) and foie gras. After 3 months there, I feel comfortable with cooking birds, managing the pace of the entree line, keeping up with picks. I miss cooking pasta a lot, but have been excited to move on. In a few months, I’ll hopefully move to fish station.

To mark my first year, I thought I’d share 5 things I’d learned working in a kitchen, that I thought most useful to other cooks, as well as anyone else (most apply to being a research scientist, in fact).

1. Keep Organized: Always. Have a routine. Setup the same way every day. Have everything in the same place. Keep your prep and service station clean and throw away any clutter. Constantly be re-evaluating what you need or don’t need. Setup can always be improved. You may feel like you don’t have time, but the 30 seconds it takes to remove shit from your work area will make you more clear headed and help to go faster.

2. You can always move faster: But it takes a certain level of familiarity with what you’re doing. Once you’ve built muscle memory for a task or station, you’ll have a certain clarity of mind. And that clarity allows you to evaluate what you’re doing as you’re doing it. And then you can tell yourself to go faster. Move your hands faster. Use a bigger spoon so you don’t have to take as many scoops. Use both hands instead of one. Just move faster. You are never going as fast as possible. Go faster.

3. Be calmly urgent: Constantly feel a sense of urgency. But stay calm. Don’t panic. Panic feels urgency, but doesn’t do anything. So stay calm. I think of the people I most respect in the kitchen. They never run. They never look hurried. But they get tasks done faster than anyone else. They’re efficient in movement and in mind. Stop panicking and worrying. That is not efficient. Just focus on the task at hand, do it as fast as possible, and move on. There are some cooks who seem to always panic. They start yelling back calls, spinning around, getting in your way and their own way. Calm down. Focus. Move quickly and calmly. This is, without a doubt, the hardest thing to accomplish. It is much like meditating. Quieting the mind waves, staying focused on nothing, calmly mindful.

4. Be honest: Also incredibly difficult at times. Sometimes being honest means admitting that you messed up. Which will slow you down. So it might seem that lying will make you go faster, which is a goal of yours. But in the end, someone will catch you, and you’ll slow everything down. Or worse, no one will catch you, and you’ll screw over the customer. Which ultimately, is who it is all about. These people come in to pay a lot of money for the best meals and experience of their lives. It isn’t about you. If the customer is all you think about, then the honest decisions are easy to make.

5. Stick with the classics: Coming up with dishes is hard. I used to make an amuse-bouche, a pasta midcourse, and now put together vegetable assiettes (an optional vegetarian entree that consists of 5 mini-dishes, with non-overlapping ingredients, pulling together vegetables from every station on the line). What I’ve learned about making a dish – stick with classic food combinations. They are classics because they are delicious, and we want delicious food. You can rethink how you put those ingredients together, or add different levels of complexity, but the basic idea is still relevant. We see it every week when Chef Patrick and Chef John present the new tasting menu. Classic food, rethought. One of my own favorites was a pasta midcourse I did during the summer. Ben had grown a thousand cherry tomatoes, so I took some to work. I torched them quickly, peeled off the skin, and marinated them in shallots, sherry vinegar, salt, and olive oil. Then I made a puree of Bibb lettuce (shallots cooked in heavy cream, pureed with the lettuce and vitamin C to preserve the color). When an order was fired, I cooked some brunoised bacon until crispy, added a knob of butter and olive oil, emulsified with pasta water, tossed in some tagliatelle. Bottom of the plate was the green lettuce puree, the twirled pasta on top, bacon, three cherry tomatoes, and Parmigiano cheese. A BLT. I made it at home for Ben with other pasta (less dramatic looking, but still delicious).

I have only my wonderful mentors and chefs at No 9 Park to thank. This has been the best year of my life, without question, between the year I’ve spent in the kitchen, and my marriage to Benjamin. For my friends, forgive me for all the time I haven’t been able to spend with you, but at least when you come over for dinner, the food is better.

Externs

For those who work in a research lab, you know what it is like. Undergrads. Sometimes great, sometimes awful, usually both. They do the minipreps, pouring agar plates, splitting cells – the grunt work you’re not interested in. But then again, they do it wrong. They know nothing and think they know something. True sophomores. They aren’t around for long, and once they’re gone, you wonder if it was worth it. And you miss them.

As then, it is now. Many culinary school programs require a period spent in a restaurant kitchen called an externship. Many last 18 weeks, and it takes place after the first year at school. An important period – you know something, but little, and get a chance to see if working in a restaurant kitchen is something you want to do. It is full-time, no classes, no distractions, so you get a real picture. I wish I’d had to work in a lab full-time for 4 months. Perhaps I would have quit science a lot earlier. And for these kids, some realize they want to quit kitchens.

They range in age from 18-40, many of them from the Culinary Institute of America, the CIA. (It is always fun when they come to the kitchen for the first time – we ask ‘Where are you from?” and they say with a dignified air, ‘The Culinary Institute of America” as if we’ve never heard of it.) Externs always start out on vegetable prep, working on cold apps, usually as part of a team, or sometimes by themselves, depending on necessity.

The First – El Pequeno

It was February, if memory serves me right, when the first extern I’d met came to No 9 Park. By then I was running vegetable prep during the day, and working cold apps during service. John, or as we called him, Little John, LJ, or El Pequeno, worked with me on veg prep, and I trained him on how to work cold apps. Actually, LJ wasn’t our extern – he was supposed to work at Menton once it opened, which he did after 6 weeks or so at No 9 Park. They were a long 6 weeks.

Staying focused during prep can be difficult. And learning to move quickly is the hardest part. For me, working with someone who isn’t moving fast enough and doing things right the first time brings out a temper I had previously worked hard to calm. Then again, LJ brought out such anger from a lot of people. When asked about something he had prepped, or if had done something correctly, he would lie. And get caught. He did it so often that Chef Patrick set up a jar into which LJ had to deposit a nickel of Chef’s money every time he lied or said, “I’m sorry.” Because each time he did that, he was wasting Chef’s money. When the jar filled up, we would transfer the nickels to a sock, and beat him with it. (Of course, that was just a joke and never happened… too bad).

Needless to say, we didn’t get along. When he tried to work the line, he almost always got kicked off and I would replace him. I yelled at him nearly daily, and eventually gave up trying to be encouraging and build him up. He left for Menton after 6 weeks. And wonderfully, succeeded there. He earned his stripes, worked garde manger, and did a fantastic job working the broom and mop. As I told Fransisco, “I wish him all the best of luck in life, I just don’t want anything to do with it.”

The Second – Mac Attack

Understaffed moving into restaurant week in March was an intimidating proposition. Thankfully, I thought, we’d be getting a new extern right at the beginning, who would help me on prep and during service. Just like when I was in lab, I’d get to give them the jobs I hated doing, I just hopefully wouldn’t have to redo them. Mac was unlike LJ in many ways. She came from a culinary school that focused on alternative health foods, nutrition, holistic approaches. They spent a week on bean/legume cookery. They spent one day on all meats. She was also a career changer, which I understood. She was formerly a coach for competitive yoga, independently wealthy, and was hoping to one day open her own restaurant and spa/yoga studio. (Please don’t ask me what competitive yoga is, it hurts my head to think about it). Mac was also much older than most externs.

A long story short, we did not get along. She took a long time understanding the calls during service, which while quite tricky, should be picked up after a couple of weeks. Her prep was well-done usually, but too slow, which is true for all of us at some points, but then we must come in the next day and time ourselves, pushing to go faster. She often got upset when I told her to try to go faster. Admittedly, I was usually not nice about it. Then she would cry. And I would take her aside and calm her down. And then it would happen the next day.

Eventually, I think she realized that working at No 9 wasn’t for her. She gave notice after 2 months and left her externship early. She surely had good intentions, and loved food, but she and I had difficulty working together.

The Third – Rusty Butterfield

Rusty is my favorite. He was an extremely goofy kid, but was respectful and polite to a fault, and took the teasing and jokes better than most. He started before Mac had left, so the three of us did veg prep together for a while, and then two of them worked cold apps, while I had moved on to hot apps. And he did very well. Rusty had his difficulties with service, learning to move fast enough, build up muscle memory, understand all the calls. But he was doing as well as one might hope from an extern who just started out.

But he always seemed a little sad. He’d gone from high school straight to the CIA. He didn’t really seem to love food the way others did. His favorite food was beef stew and mashed potatoes, or shephards pie with the mashed potatoes on the side…. His favorite hobby was doing flips on a trampoline. And just like one needs a deep love for science to survive the constant failure and bullshit, one needs a deep love for food to survive the long hours and demanding pace of kitchen life.

Two months in, Rusty gave his notice. He wasn’t just leaving No 9, he was leaving the CIA and the food industry all together. Off to state college, he wanted a degree in business and a different career path. I think we all still miss him a little.

The Fourth – Dearest David

David just started three weeks ago. Without a doubt, he’ll finish his externship at No 9, unlike the three previous externs. While I haven’t learned much about his food passions, it is still early, and he is busy getting used to the kitchen. And thus far, he is the most successful of the externs. His prep is good, and his service is much further along than any others after 3 weeks, including mine. Also a goofy kid (but who wasn’t at 22), he takes the joking well, and plays along.

My goal – convince him to quit school. And don’t get all huffy as if I’m trying to do it because I quit school and think everyone should do what I did. Shutup. “Double D” already has a degree in culinary arts from a community college. Now he is a year into his associates from the CIA (the Harvard of cooking schools). Then he plans to continue two more years to get his bachelors. At least three more years, 6 total of culinary school. He’ll be 26 by the time he gets his first full-time job. You know where all that extra schooling will get him? No where. Perhaps a false sense of knowing something. He’ll start at the bottom and need to work his way up. I couldn’t learn what it was like to work in lab by taking science classes, and you can’t learn what it is like to work in a kitchen by going to school. School is great for a lot of people, and hugely helpful, but 6 years? No. Got to start.

Yeah yeah, I’m probably projecting my own frustrations with having started in kitchens so late. I don’t care. In the end, you just hope he is happy with the choices, and making awesome food.

Out of the Cold Age, into the Hot…

“Scott, do you have a moment to rap,” Chef Patrick asked me, just before service on a busy Friday night, the last night of a harrowing two weeks of Restaurant week. “We’re going to make the move next week. You’re moving to hot apps.”

It had been a stressful month. Maybe you’ve heard, but Barbara Lynch is opening a new restaurant, Menton. And with the need to build a new staff there, several people left No 9 Park to become part of the opening team at Menton. At the same time, Chef’s first child was born. We were suddenly understaffed. I largely did vegetable prep by myself. Most of us worked 6 days a week. Then restaurant week (the last two weeks of March) happened. We were doing 150 people every night. A new extern started, and I was training her during the busiest two weeks I’d seen. After a month of long intense days, I was looking forward to a normal quiet Monday, working cold apps, where I felt comfortable, confident.

But that is not good. I shouldn’t feel complacent. I knew it was time to move on, learn something new. And Chef knew it, too. At the start of April, I would move to hot apps. In fact, everyone was moving. Someone new had just started on meat, and the former hot apps cook would move to fish. “I need the sous chef training Owen on fish, so I think you’ll be able to just figure out everything on hot apps since you’ve been standing next to it for 5 months. And I also need you to train Mac on cold apps.” Yes, chef.

I’m now responsible for cooking the pasta at a restaurant that is most famous for its pasta, especially the prune-stuffed gnocchi, with a Vin Santo-Foie sauce, almonds, prune, and seared foie gras. I’d be cooking over ~30 ounces of foie a night.

Can’t even tell you how nervous I was. Instead of coming up with an amuse every night, I’d be coming up with a pasta dish every night. I’d be using an actual stove. With fire. I’d get an oven. And have to move so, so fast. And help the person on cold apps.

After three weeks, it couldn’t be going better. I love working pasta. I make mistakes still, and need to move faster, but it is going better than I imagined. The first week was difficult, as I needed all my focus to bang out the pasta, and Mac wasn’t doing well enough on cold apps. I needed to be helping her more. So I calmed myself down, got comfortable on pasta, and started coaching and assisting her more. Nowadays, we doing the job we need to do. Push out apps as quickly as possible in order to set up the entree line for a smooth night.

Every night there is a moment when I’m fired on so many dishes, I feel myself beginning to freeze, to panic. “Scotty, right now I’m looking for 7 prune, 3 cannelloni, 4 tastings, and pasta for 4. What can I plate for you?” Ok, I’ve got foie in the pan, but don’t let it burn, keep basting it… the cannelloni are in the oven, I’ll fry the cheese when I’m plating, the gnocchi are down, do I have enough sauce? Make sure you have all of your plates hot, but not too hot! I can start the tastings and the midcourses when I hand off the prunes to be plated, good god could I be sweating more? what is that smell? arm hair. burning arm hair. I didn’t think I had any left. “Scotty, let’s go man!” “Yes, Chef!”

A typical day at work…

I arrive at call time, which is determined the night before, based on the amount of prep we have to do. Usually between 11:30am-1:30pm. I change into uniform, head up to the kitchen, set up my cutting board and tools, and find all the veg that I need for my prep day. I have to make sure we have everything, otherwise we need to call for a second delivery. Then I get to work. Get the potatoes cooking, the beets roasting, the blanching water on. Clean the spinach, cut the hearts of palm, shave the celeriac… Currently, I work with an extern (still in cooking school, working with us for 4 months) on veg prep. I yell at him a lot. I take responsibility for all the veg prep, so when he screws up, I take the blame. So I yell a lot to make sure he does it right.

As the day goes on, I find out what protein or veg we need to use for amuse. Sometimes the guys who break down protein have an extra salmon loin from the old tasting menu. So we make smoked salmon, or salmon escabeche, or salmon tartare, or salmon rillettes. Or there is some beef scrap, and we do beef tartare. I think about what should go with it, discuss it with the chefs, and get that prep done, too. If I’m doing family, got to start that around 3pm, otherwise we won’t be done by 430pm, which is when family meal must be ready. By then, all the prep is done, the kitchen cleaned, everything labeled and put away. Some days we’re done ahead of time. But usually it is like a marathon. I can tell if we need to move faster by 2 o’clock. Usually we do. And we race to finish by 4:30. We grab some food, and stand the in alley.

One of the chefs, whoever is expediting, tells us how many people are coming in, any large parties or VIPs, how spaced out are the reservations, etc. We tell the chef if there is anything left to prep (usually a couple easy tasks, or some amuse prep), and we head back to the kitchen to set up our stations for service. All the food we just put away and labeled is pulled back out, put into drawers, and we race to set up before the first ticket comes in at 530.

Then the first turn. We usually ease into it, except when the bar is busy. Then we get absolutely slammed on the first turn. At least cold apps does, and usually hot apps. Most of the bar menu is on our stations, and a Friday night can start with 15 people in the bar and the first set of reservations in the dining room, making for a big first push. I coordinate putting up my dishes with the hot apps cook, since our dishes go to the table at the same time. Some of my dishes are hot, too, so they can’t wait in the window for other food to go to the table. So as tickets roll in, have to remember the order of the dishes and what they are going with, and coordinate with that other cook.

On a busy night, you enter a state that is the best meditation I’ve ever experienced. You cannot think about anything except what you’re doing, and what is about the happen next. In fact, don’t think about what you’re doing, just do it. Muscle memory, like anyone who plays an instrument, sometimes the fingers just remember where to go, so don’t think about it so much. Don’t think about what just happened either, always moving forward. I usually only chant to myself the order of dishes I’ve got, if they’ve stacked up. You must move as fast as you can, know where everything is, you can almost close your eyes and keep going. It is one of the most wonderful moments of the whole night when you’ve made it to the other side. An amazing adrenaline rush. It is beautiful. First turn done. Only 5 hours to go.

There will be a second turn. On really busy nights, a third. By 10:30pm, I start breaking down my station, putting all the food in new containers, labeling them (the tape is never ripped, only cut), and putting it away properly. The stoves, ovens, hoods, walls, counters, drawers, fryer, pasta-lator, are all scrubbed clean, then the walls and counters are polished. Prep lists are filled out, telling the prep stations what we need for the next service. We all grab a cheap beer and stand around for the end of the night meeting. Each of us discusses how our night went, what went well, what went poorly, and the chefs give advice for how to improve. It is a cathartic moment at times, and fist-pumping at others. We look at our prep lists, decide on a time to come in the next day, change back into street clothes, and go home. Usually around midnight-1am.

What happened?

Yeah. You told me so. Working in a restaurant means long hours. During my down time, I’m either sleeping or moving as little as possible. So here is what happened since I got the job, almost four months ago.

New hires spend a week with the saucier, Jarod, who comes in around 7am every morning and preps the confits, braises, stocks, sauces, jus, and checks in all the deliveries. It was a good chance to learn some basic tehcniques, break down a lot of ducks, and get a feel for the restaurant. During this week, the garde manger cook (the station I would start at) quit. They had hired another new cook just before me, so the plan was the two of us would work the station together. Worked for us, since neither of us had worked in a fine dining restaurant before.

Then I transitioned to dinner service. During the day I prepped all the vegetables for every station (Cold apps, Hot apps, Middle, Fish, Meat). Then at 5:30 we open for dinner and the tickets roll in. For the first week, I was helping out where I could on cold apps, while Ralph, the other new hire, mainly worked the station. Then he quit. And it was just me.

For two weeks I worked cold apps (also called garde manger) by myself, getting the hang of service, the pace, moving efficiently, feeling comfortable. There were good night, and many difficult. Chef was kind to me for a long time, never yelling excessively. I screwed up many times, but tried to never make the same mistake twice. But I wasn’tmoving fast enough, and feared for my job all month.

After Thanksgiving, No 9 Park opens for lunch until Christmas. We used to do it all year round, but several years ago they switched to just holiday lunch. I was moved to lunch service for that month, working cold apps still, but all of the apps except for 1 were coming off my station. And instead of 5 people on the line, we only had 3 – me, chef Wyatt (the new exec sous-chef of Menton), and chef Patrick (the chef de cuisine). Chef Michelle (the sous-chef) was expediting. As we got closer to Christmas, more and more people came in for lunch. By the end, we were cooking for 100 people in 3 hours. By comparison, dinner service typically does 100 people in 5 hours with 2 more cooks on the line. Lunch was awesome. We would get absolutely slammed every day for the last two weeks. All three of us on the line would get lost at some point, but Michelle would remind us where we were, constantly telling me to move faster. I would have 10 plates to make in 4 minutes. Chef Patrick encouraged me to think about reorginizing my station so I could move faster. It was awesome. As soon as service was over, we would break down, help prep for dinner, and roll right into dinner service. On Friday nights, I filled in and did dinner service as well, working from 7am to 1am. They were my favorite days.

Two days before Christmas, the last day of service before we closed, I was given my black apron. Most cooks in the kitchen had them. New hires started with a white bistro apron. The black apron with white pinstripes was given to you by Chef when he (and the other chefs) decided that you were officially part of the team and were likely to stick around. There were other cooks who had been there longer than me who still didn’t have theirs (one was fired a few weeks later). “Scotty, you’ve done an amazing job during lunch, you deserve these aprons, you’re part of the family now.” It was my proudest moment since getting engaged.

After the new year, I transitioned back to dinner service and have been rocking out the cold apps since then. After a week or two to get used to it again, I’ve started to feel really good about my performance. I’m moving faster, more efficiently. I lead the vegetable prep team, make family meal a couple times a week, and invent my own amuse bouche every day, which is one of the perks of working at No 9. Most places would never let a junior cook come up with their own dish. But every night I use scrap or extra food around the restaurant to plate a 1-2 bite complimentary dish. I discuss it with the chefs, and plate one for them before service to critique the taste and plating.

At the end of January I had my 3-month review. I filled out a 6-page self-evaluation and met with Chef Patrick and Chef John (the exec sous-chef of No 9) and discussed my performance. While we all agreed that I needed to be more aggressive about getting prep done faster, and more confident and aggressive when approaching family meal and the amuse bouche, the overall decision was that I was doing a great job. Hopefully soon I’ll move on to Hot appetizers, which is where all the pasta is made, and is one of the hardest stations in the restaurant. I can’t wait.

Yep. Living the dream. I hang out with a loud, wonderful, talented, hilarious group of the city’s best cooks all day, making beautiful and delicious food, changing lives.