our sudden summer has brought out the worst in us but the best in the roses. everything is abloom like there's going to be no tomorrow. on some branches freshly exploded roses share the stem with flash dried ones. nature's way of saying what we feel: it's just a little too hot for May, but we're making the best of it.
I am having a hard time. A lot of people I know are having a similarly hard time and so maybe it's time to be having a hard time. I am trying to see and understand where I fit and don't appear to fit in my job, the kitchen, among cooks, with chefs, in the industry as a whole, and all the invisible crevices in which ickinesses take up residence if we're not careful.
I attempt to be as honest with my weaknesses as I can, without creating a ladder from which to climb over the bridge on. It's not easy finding one's way in the maze that kitchens seem to be, what with everyone's egos and conflicting opinions and inability to let go of power and so forth. What's ironic is that I've had two major conversations with "new cooks" recently and each one said to me,
"It should just be about the food. Why can't people just let go of their ego and pettiness and see that it's the food and the food's integrity that's the most important?"
But nothing is ever just about the thing at hand, if humans are the ones creating those things.
Some days I want to go back to being a cook with no worries but my station and the impending service. I want to be able to live without thinking I needed health insurance or heat in my house. Was life simpler then? No, it was filled with hand-to-mouth worries and no room to rest or exhale. And yet, through the mind's eye it looks like a better, less emotionally complicated time.
It's the understanding and X-ray vision of the group dynamic that kills me. Keeps me awake at night. Provides too much fuel for anxiety and separates me from the pack. I don't want to follow people blindly. I want to support the owner and the vision and add something real to the mix. I enjoy setting down roots and if a job is just a job I can barely do it effectively.
My problem is that I see every business as my own and I treat it and its overall operations as such. You could say I am the best employee to have, or the worst, depending on who you are as an owner. Translated, as a good friend of mine who has owned a business for 29 years would say, "You work too hard."
The concept is that I can help save the day. {yes, I know this is delusional.}
What if I knew that it was all out of my control? Would I look like the I'm-just-here-for-the-paycheck person? Or could I be the it-rolls-off-my-back-like-a-duck person?
When people ask for my opinion, I give it. Maybe I need to start being opinionless. I could wear a kind of sunglasses version of this attitude. If no one sees my opinions then they won't ask me to participate in the solution.
Kitchens have an intriguing learning curve. A person can learn very fast and become learned and aware if paying close attention. It takes a long time to have the full skill set of Chef, but unless one has an intentional trajectory/ plan for their learning, stagnation occurs and complacency sets in. The learning curve looks like a hill but really it's more like a train. The locomotive follows along the terrain but at some point said train goes into, and through the ground. Learning becomes deeper, more intuitive, and hopefully, less reactive.
It can also help to have some basic understanding of how unionizing does and does not work. I'm not talking about unionizing in the workplace, per se, but the dynamics of management vs. non management plays itself out in a number of ways. If you don't know how to read the writing on the wall, when people (co-workers or your boss) are trying to get rid of you, triangulate, use/ turn you into a rat, blackball you or close the business without you and any of your cohorts suspecting, you can constantly find yourself mystified of how you ended up where you are.
Have you ever watched a full season of 24? Then you have been schooled.
`
I will give you an example. I used to work at a large, high profile restaurant where perfect was what you were trying to achieve every day. No one ever thanked you or told you you were doing a good job and if no one humiliated you during a given shift, you were doing alright. Service was long and hard and even though your scheduled arrival time said 3 you got there at noon and were in the weeds well after the first ticket came in. You were lucky if you were out of the kitchen by 2 am.
I had the lead position on a two man station. The pastry department employed over 5 assistants and we were organized in order of ability. The pastry chef was A and I was C. I began working with a young man who would fill position D/E. One day the pastry chef took me into the office and read me the riot act for being too hard on said young man.
It seemed amazing to me that the pastry chef, who was violent, bad tempered and mean just for the sake of being mean, was calling me out for riding this very young (in years and in cooking experience) cook. Also, he had come from working in garde manger where the sous chef who presided over them was infamous for his acts of physical and psychological violence. (He had been in the military before this restaurant.)
To be clear about the subject of meanness in kitchens: some chefs sound mean but they are only trying to get the food out. Others are mean just to see how much denigration you can handle. The latter chefs are attempting to give you more stress than you can handle to counter-balance the real stress of making food fast and well enough for their liking and the clientele's expectations. Although there's one catch here and it lives in the grey area of abuse in kitchens: if you work in a kitchen where you are never yelled at, addressed, pushed, ridden, and/ or encouraged, you are not on the radar of the chef and sous chefs and you should go to a kitchen where someone notices you. Or the chef knows she/he's a shoemaker and on some level you know too, so people leave you alone lest you show someone above you up. (In which case you should get out of said kitchen because you have little to learn if your chef and/ or sous chefs are mere pretenders.)
It's a fine line between these different mean-nesses, and it takes a lot of years on the line to really know, or be able to discern the differences, when face to face with mean chefs.
I thought a lot on the problem at hand, concerning this whiny cook. If a child throws a temper tantrum every time s/he wants something, or tells on fellow students just to get the teacher's approval, s/he learns that this is the way to get what they want or to get through issues. But children don't see the bigger picture, they can't, because their world only exists because they're in it.
I've worked in some kitchens where two cooks did not get along and the chef solved the problem by saying if they couldn't get along they would both be fired.
I did something else. When a governing body is pitting two seemingly opposed groups against each other, it can be because that governing body doesn't want anyone to notice how corrupt it is. But when two enemied groups become allies, their force is that much stronger.
One day I went into work and made that young man into my ally. By the time I left that kitchen, mr. D/E was fiercely loyal to me and we worked incredibly well as a team. The kitchen at large was mystified. What I did, the methods I employed, were subtle but tried and true. I had not thought of them myself, I merely employed them. You could say I babied or coddled him, but what lay beneath was much more complex.
`
Once I have seen, and experienced, I have learned. Not to say I'm perfect or can't learn any further in any or all areas, but once I know something I can't go back to not knowing. I can't go back to pretending I don't know why a department or restaurant is losing money. Can't not see who despises whom and why certain mis en place always goes missing. Can't not take inventory and track sales and be concerned with cost of goods and attempt to reach out and teach those who are still green and help the dishwashers and communicate with the front of house and want the best parts of people to shine.
Can't stand still.
Until I'm in front of the mirror.
And then all goes black.
In this economy, in this small town that is the Bay Area, in my industry as a whole, I am seeing some trends I wish I did not see, I wish I did not know, I wish I could go back in time and not experience first hand. I wish I had more hope right now, but I'm sorry to say that I don't.
I am sitting in the still oven that is my house. It's 11 am. Hot air blows around outside, in the convection oven. Even the shade is shimmering with heat.
I went to the kitchen at 6 but by 6:30 we learn the gas is out. No biscuits hot from the oven, no creamy grits, no blindbaking of pie shells, no fried chicken, no griddle cooked new potato home fries.
I make a lot of strawberry lemonade and slice fruit for waffles. Yeah, the waffle machines work on electricity!
I fill a half sheet pan with ice and chill down a hot-to-the-touch marble slab. Very quickly I roll out 3 pie doughs for chilled glass Pyrex deep dishes and line them. Crimped edges want to melt but I flour fingers and press them in place as fast as I can.
Could it be the heat wave? Maybe night cleaning crew knocked out gas line by accident? We light and relight pilots but they barely catch. The gas & electric company is called. Air conditioner has been on since 6 but it's warming up in the kitchen, even without ovens and burners and griddle. Eek.
I check all the temperature windows on our reach-in refrigerators. One of them is climbing past 50F and I start moving egg based batters into other fridges. Sticky buns beg to be slipped into hot ovens to stop their over-proofing. I warn line cooks about beans getting sour and give my regards to veggies trying to stay cool and crisp.
I drink water and more water. I'm soaked. Salt to taste. And I haven't even reached into a 500F oven yet.
I won't. It turns out we need a bigger meter for our gas usage. The restaurant is busier than ever. And yet pretty soon I will need to move on. Not enough days, not enough hours, not enough sharing of labor to stay. Bittersweet, again.
Four hours after I arrive I leave. There will be no cooking today, just prep. An attempt to get ahead for the onslaught on Saturday. Saturday will clear us out, no matter what we do.
O heat wave. Why now? So soon? It's only mid May for goodness sake!
Other restaurateurs know this:
Commercial refrigeration must be placed in well ventilated areas of the kitchen. Ice makers and freezers need their filters cleaned at least once a quarter to maintain freezing chill and if you ignore either or both of these issues it costs more to fix these units than it does to throw out the food (that you've just spent all the labor on to prep), make temporary mends and hope for cooler days, than it does to install return air/ ventilation units.
*People only pass out, but refrigerators die.
*I am speaking here only of commercial kitchens. I have never witnessed a cook die from heat exhaustion but I, of course, know people die all over the world of sun poisoning, heat exhaustion and fire. I did work in a kitchen in NYC once where a sous chef passed out from heat exhaustion and had to be carried out by many paramedics. My point here is that restaurants have to keep prepped food, whether animal or otherwise, at certain cold temperatures and during heat waves it's of utmost importance to keep walk-ins, lowboys and reach-ins maintained.
I have been to Monterey Market. I have seen the overflowing bins. I have smelled the fuzzy skins and I can
declare,
lean over and make sure your shoelaces are tied because when stone fruit arrives
there's no stopping the train until it halts in autumn!
It's hard to believe it's May 15 and I have already tasted, (and liked, mind you) cherries and apriums. Amazing, really. I even bought two peachy smelling peaches today but I have them on my kitchen counter for a few days for good measure.
We are experiencing an odd heat wave in the Bay Area at the moment, making rolling pie dough and keeping butter cold for biscuit mixing mighty challenging. Getting up at 4 is easier when you know it's the only time of day that cool air will surround you. I'm perfecting a sweet-tart strawberry lemonade and tomorrow I might even celebrate our too-soon summer with an iced coffee...
~
on another note, what I've seen around the www:
If you're looking for another reason to take up professional cooking, check out Richie's blow by blow of a day in the life.
Or maybe you want to stick to the fantasy land of sugar and cream? Aran is on quite a roll...
If you love English shelling peas as much as I do you should check out Matt's new banner. I heart it very much.
For very real language from and on the heart, where it takes us, for better and for worse, see what Ms. Superhero is telling and reminding us.
And lastly but not at all leastly, Joe Fish appears to have come out of his NYC funk and is cooking up great feasts even the Medicis could throw a stick at. Maybe he'll let me visit to wash dishes in trade or something...
Katrina-Damaged Museum Needs Cookbooks ~
Liz Williams, president of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, is sending out an SOS to home cooks, bakers and culinary professionals all over the United States. She estimates the museum lost over half of its cookbook collection to the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. An eternal optimist, Liz is working hard to transform tragedy into opportunity by taking on the ambitious project of rebuilding the museum's library to be the world's most complete repository of books, booklets, manuscripts, and documents about Southern food and drink. In order to accomplish this, Liz needs cookbooks -- and lots of them!
The museum is not only seeking culinary books about the American South, but also volumes from areas that have influenced Southern foodways. This means all new and used food-themed books, in all conditions (food-spattered and beat-up is just fine), dealing with cuisines from all over the world. Liz emphasizes that they're seeking everything from professionally written cookbooks and culinary histories to community cookbooks and pamphlets.
In Liz's own words: "We're truly looking for one of everything!" (The museum will find good homes for any duplicates.)
The address for (fully tax-deductible) donations is:
Southern Food & Beverage Museum
attn. Liz Williams
1 Poydras Street, #169
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
For more info about the museum or this project, please visit Southern Food & Beverage Museum (click on "collections," then "library") or email liz AT southernfood.org. If you do send a book donation, Liz asks that you please make sure to include your name and address so the museum can acknowledge your generosity.
Means that baked goods don't rise as much.
In fact,
such baked goods, might, in fact
melt
before they rise.
So, be warned.
Is such still oven, with which you are attempting to bake in, such baked goods,
just happens to be
the "service oven" for the line, you know--
the line, on which nothing ever stops, and no one ever rests,
and you,
who can only be
in the way
needs to crouch down and reach deep
within its very hot metal walls and shelves
to retrieve such melting baked goods,
things can get a bit hairy,
to say the least.
[please don't drop that fried chicken on my head, you pray]
Baked goods love convection ovens, and in turn, convection ovens get their,
not unsubstantial egos,
stroked by light and domed and airy and perfectly browned and
evenly cooked and crisped and toasted and caramelized and
uniform in every which way,
baked goods, so that the two
shall never separate {literally, but also figuratively}
consensually.
Still ovens are quiet beasts.
But beasts, nonetheless.
And baked goods, like Johns or puttanescas
like the ol'
to coin A Clockwork Orange
in-an-out.
Of course there's always a turn.
Top to Bottom
or switch
or,
'I've gone and now it's your turn,'
sort of thing,
They are like guilds, or
marriages or agreements or pairs or,
in maybe less binary terms,
at one with each other's needs, even if there are many others with which they are all at one together.
Still following?
The convection oven has many shelves, many possibilities. There is no
"place pan on middle rack" stagnancy.
For many many cookies can share legroom and not get a crick in the neck while baking if, let's say, with
muffins and cakes and tuiles and even the odd re-heat who happens to join in on the fun.
But the still oven?
[insert grave music. or sound effect to imply gravity]
O Still Oven. Where is the love? The care? The, "You used to notice when I put on a special outfit for you?"
Where are the sweet nothings? You used to notice when my edges were burning before my middle was golden. You used to make me feel so good when you could swallow a whole sheet-pan at a time.
But now?
I will confess.
I know why I left you.
No amount of creaming butter into sugar into eggs one at a time,
no creaming until light and fluffy and aerated and beurre pomade and emulsifying just right,
can make baked goods rise, proud, like the delicious creatures they will soon be, but
as it needs to be noted,
it is one's eye perceiving deliciousness first
and if flattened cupcakes and concave muffins are spotted,
what more can be said for even crumb, and crispy edge top
when
flat
is what the still oven produces.
O still oven.
You are spited. And there was woe
across the land
for all baked goods
could be heard exclaiming
we are doing all we can do in the stand mixer! here us out! it's true! we do not lie!
The Still Oven.
That stands on The Line
whose door is opened and shut more than an angry couple's on payday in the summer with the only pool on the block and five small children
cannot bake evenly
cannot take care and whirl the wind around, and create
a n t i c i p a t i o n
ahhhhhhhhhhh
what will come of this yellow cake? how will these little cocoa cakes perform with yogurt and baking soda? what will the shape be like for those precious little loafette pans?
And the Still Oven
remained still, like a workhorse, a service oven for
plates and chicken and quiche and bacon and cornbread in big black skillets and everything else that might be getting cool, sitting on The Pass,
and sighed out, slowly
Alas, I am a Still Oven.
I make no guarantees.
I am hot, I am wide, I have two shelves,
That Is That.
Such Is Life.
And the baker,
she sighed too, heavy with the weight of every-kitchen-has-a-challenge
you cannot fight
you can only work with
and said,
Oy Vey.
In the kitchen making hundreds of biscuits. Waking up at 4;40 and 5 am. Seeing best friends who've moved away. Laying awake at night thinking about my bank account. Taking much needed naps. Receiving very odd emails from cooks who work at my old job. Trying to keep my house clean after 12 hour days.
Wondering whether the way I've been teaching works for me anymore. Struggling to make ends meet. Contemplating getting rid of my health insurance that costs what my rent did 10 years ago. Seeing partridge eggs at Sea Salt! Trying to reconcile this industry and career within myself.
Sleeping in when I can, past 7 am. Watching Spring stay and slowly hand hold summer in. Applying for a teaching job elsewhere. Taking in new heady ripe scents at Monterey Market and eating my first English peas of the season. Preparing to go to Mendocino for a wedding weekend affair. Enjoying my favorite TV show after the Writer's Strike ended. Taking solace in watching the light change through the treehouse at dusk.
Attempting to stay true to my 365 photo project. Becoming more involved with Flickr. Testing secret recipe homework at home. Working out what happened, emotionally, in Florida. Working out how I can get my bicycle on the train so I can stop driving to work. Trying to keep my fears about the future at bay. Trying to see friends so flour and butter aren't my only comrades.
Getting a small pastry department in order so we're not just giving the food away. Tentatively giving my opinions to a new restaurant owner. Figuring out what my goals are so that I can work towards them. Trying not to be too scared about the economy and what it means for my industry and therefore my livelihood. Thinking of ways to keep my expenses down. Eating as much as I can at staff meal.
Rolling out pie dough in a 90F room. Taking baths to relax muscles. Working physically harder than I have in years. Loving my orchid spikes and welcoming them back to the windowsill. Barely keeping up with other blogs, let alone my own. Having anxious dreams. Looking forward to summer but I can't say why exactly. Reading The New Yorker.
It's bittersweet for me lately. Am trying to tread water and work towards a more lively, hopeful time. With all the news, it's hard to see a bountiful future. It's why I'm glad to have great support, a homey home, and farmers' markets close at hand.
~ Thanks for reading.
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