On the side
Anyone familiar with pop culture remembers the scene in
When Harry Met Sally where Harry and Sally are on their road trip to NYC and she annoys the waitress in the diner with a litany of requests, constantly peppered with the phrase "on the side."
I hate "on the side."
I should like "on the side." As a cook that's just starting out in the kitchen, my job is to take care of salads. "On the side" makes my life easier because I don't have to dress the salad, but instead all I have to do is put the greens on the plate and put the dressing in a small pitcher. Saves me about 15 seconds of work.
The typical "on the side" person I've encountered when I've gone out to eat doesn't like their salads lightly dressed. In fact, all salads should be lightly dressed - just enough dressing to coat the leaves and give you a nice contrast in flavor to the greens, maybe a three tablespoons for an entire serving of salad. What I put into the pitchers, which usually come back empty, is more like 5-6 tablespoons of salad dressing.
These are people that are there for the dressing more than the salad, the kind of people that order Cobb salad and think they are getting a healthy meal. Let's see ... our typical Cobb has 4 strips of bacon, 1/4 avacado, 1 egg, 1/4 c tomatoes, 1/3 chicken breast, 4 tbs blue cheese, 3 tbs cobb dressing (made with homemade mayo, buttermilk and sour cream), and, oh yeah, green stuff. Your tally comes to 1400 calories. That's 70% of the RDA for a grown woman, 64% for a grown man. You aren't helping yourself by adding another 200 calories to it. But I really don't care about that. What you shove down your throat is your business.
There's also the fact that when I make that salad, I pile on the greens high - very high, about 7 inches from the bottom of the plate. You try getting your greens mixed with that side dressing - it's damn near impossible to do it without a mess. But that doesn't really bother me either. You're the sloppy one.
Here's the real rub: All cooks who are good cooks take pride in what they make, and in France one tradition that comes from this pride is a lack of salt, pepper and other condiments at fancy restaurants. It is considered an insult to a chef to ask for salt because they put a lot of effort into making sure that your meal is flavored perfectly. To question the amount of salt is to question the chef (Want to earn bonus points at a restaurant in France? If there's salt and pepper on the table, instruct the waitron to remove it.) I taste the salads that go out, checking for dressing levels. I do my best to make sure that one tastes as it should.
If what you really want is the dressing, just ask and see if the kitchen will assemble you a crudité platter ... your dressing will already come on the side.
And you, the one that wants the steak on your steak salad well done. You're next.
You have to be a slut to get ahead ...
One of the dirty little secrets of the restaurant industry is that you have to get around to get ahead. Not sleep around (although those escapades are well documented ... I think of the tales of the floured asses in
Kitchen Confidential or the sex in the bathroom incident ar Rocco's in NBC's
The Restaurant), but whore yourself out, work wise.
You do that in one of two ways: the trail and the stage. A stage is basically French for "apprenticeship" or "training." It involves
volunteering your time at a restaurant for a significant duration. In lieu of pay you are expected to be happy, to bask in the magnificence of the chef working there. This happens only at the most prestegious institutions in a town. At the French Laundry in Yountville, CA, your stage will pretty much consist of making brunoise out of tomatoes and every so often having Chef Thomas Keller come over, look at what you are doing, and say, "You are not a chef," and walk away (at least that's what I've heard). Some better restaurants would shut down if they didn't have their little serfs in the back of the house (at least the Mexicans get paid).
A trail, on the other hand, is less involved. You go for a day or to into a kitchen and you basically follow one of the cooks through their station on a given evening, helping out when you can. It's a great way to get into a kitchen that you want to check out, network, and learn new techniques. But again, you're in a kitchen, selling yourself for nothing.
I have met some chefs that don't believe in this tradition, but they are in the minority. After all, the modern restaurant has its roots in France and has a history of free labor apprenticeships. So you just keep on whoring until one day you find yourself in the position of being the pimp instead of the whore.
Bone in the Throat
It's 6 in the morning on Sunday and I'm finally getting home from a kick-ass blues party. It was a fantastic time and I had a lot of fun DJing my three hour set. The organizer had a Ray Charlies theme, so my set was "1 Degree of Seperation from Ray." It was all either songs done by Ray, artists that worked with Ray, or songs composed by Ray ... too much fun.
But the unexpected fun came when I got back home and started reading the novel
Bone in the Throat by Anthony Bourdain. His most famous book is
Kitchen Confidential, a wonderful autobiographical expose of the restaurant world that exposed the public to some of the realities of restaurant life (never order fish on a Monday, never order mussels at a restaurant, etc).
Bone is one of his previous novels and the gritty swagger of a restaurant cook infects the entire novel. Example of a passage that made me laugh out loud, when two chefs were discussing how someone was sneaking cream into the beurre blanc:
"He's cranky today," said Tommy. "What's his problem?"
"What do you think?" said Ricky with a smirk.
"He's been riding my ass all day," said Tommy.
"We never should got him that book."
"No shit."
"It wasn't me," said Ricky. "It wasn't me that told him."
"About the beurre?"
"It wasn't me that ratted you out."
I know," said Tommy. "It's okay, man ... It was probably somebody on the floor. He wouldn't a' noticed himself. Stephanie considers herself some kinda gourmet lately ... She probably said something. Probably read something in the Wednesday food section, came in Thursday and tried to impress the chef with her vast knowledge ..."
"She impresses me with her vast posterior."
Tommy shrugged, took a last pull on his cigarette, and flicked it into the street. "Let his sauce break on him halfway through dinner service a couple of times ... He'll be right back at us to put a little cream in. He's just bustin' balls."
I love cooks.
Am I crazy?
Why bother with a blog in an era when blogs tend to come back and bite people in the ass? When I've said that blogs are wastes of time? When I've wondered why anyone else would want to read someone's drivel about their lives? When I've studiously avoided joining the blogging lifestyle?
Because, frankly, I'm an idot that likes attention. Odd for an introvert.
So what am I really doing here?
Some people have commented to me that they have enjoyed seeing me going through my career change, going after my dreams. Thing is, I've only reached the first step. I've gotten myself into the kitchen. Where do I go from here? Eventually open my own restaurant? Become a critic? Go work for FoodTV? (Aside: Please, no suggestion that I should get a TV show ... the last time anyone in America accepted someone with a physical disfigurement in a media spotlight position was, well, back in the days of radio)
I don't know. So I'm here to chronicle that journey, with meandering side trips to relevant (and not so relevant) thoughts along the way that just wouldn't be appropriate on
Yehoodi. Enjoy the ride.
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Post Script
There's always the random hope that one day this could be turned into a book deal ;) Ahh, yes, money is what makes the world go 'round.
