Well, the hunt is on now that I’ve returned to the real world. Figuring out the next step isn’t quite as easy as I was hoping it’d be, and I can’t lie—I miss my days on the bucolic Irish countryside where the hours were normal and the fact that I was making no money didn’t matter. But the good news is that things are happening, so I haven’t just been sitting around and doing nothing the last three weeks.
One of the first things I made upon my return: Ottonlenghi apple and olive oil cake with maple cream cheese icing. Props to my mom for helping me beat the heat and humidity by clearing room in the freezer.
I had my first trail day at a restaurant last Monday. A trail, as I’ve learned, is a day when you go into a restaurant for a shift so the staff can see how you work, if they like you, and vice versa—for you to see how they work and if you like them. The trail was for a line cook position at a farm-to-table restaurant where the menu is handwritten daily as the chefs invent dishes based on what they have available. Some items are expensive and short in supply, so they are extremely creative.
While I prefer to keep the restaurant name anonymous, I will say that they apparently made one of Time Out’s top lists, and Scarlett Johansson was allegedly dining upstairs the night that I was there. (I did not see her because I was sweating it out in the basement with the other cooks.) I had no idea going into this restaurant that it was such a big deal because I’m still a bit ignorant when it comes to the trendy places in the restaurant world (probably because I can’t afford them), so it was kind of funny to learn all of this once I arrived.
After being given a whirlwind tour of the premises, I set about slicing I-don’t-know-how-many radishes. A lot. Which was to be expected, given that there’s really no way for a newbie to screw up radishes. I also shelled some mussels and selected the best-looking pickled onion rings for deep-frying. Thrilling stuff, right? Eventually, when dinner service started, I was given less mundane tasks like assembling and plating a radish salad and a chilled soup, so it wasn’t too bad.
Rustic peach and summer berries tart: good for using up some overly ripe fruit.
But I was overwhelmed, to say the least. I felt like I’d been thrown onto the front lines without an ounce of training, and half the time that I offered to help, I just seemed to get myself more overwhelmed. A “go see if we have some rice flour” request got me lost in what I was hoping was the correct dry store, but there was no rice flour no matter how hard I looked—turns out, they’d run out. A later request, “go find some dill for garnishing”, led to a very confusing incident in the cold room where I found myself having flashes of my Ballymaloe exams when I found what looked like dill but tasted like anise—but it was so green, could it really be fennel? And there wasn’t anything else that looked like dill! Turns out I was right, it was fennel. As I was about to give up the search, one of the line cooks came to save me from the cold room, informing me that actually, he’d forgotten that there was no dill. Go figure.
While working, I did get tastes of the various dishes they were cooking that night (though no actual dinner), and I was impressed by everything they put together. But I have to say I was a bit horrified by the way all of the tasting went down—maybe because I spent too much time in cookery school, where hygiene was paramount, you needed to use a clean spoon for tasting, and god-forbid you ever double-dip. These guys were dipping their fingers into the food left and right, maybe giving their fingers a quick wipe with a paper towel or tea towel, and then it was onto the next dip before their hands ever saw soap and a sink. Fettuccine would be plated, and the sous chef would be picking up strands with his fingers and sliding them into his mouth before the server made her way downstairs. In spite of my shock, I finger-dipped sparingly, just enough to fit in, and then hit the sink every chance I got.
Sourdough loaf: made with a spelt flour starter and by far my best loaf yet.
Luckily, the line cooks I worked alongside were very nice, if completely burnout. The one was kind enough to whip up extra bruschetta for me while we were working, and also brought me a quart of iced tea from upstairs. I enjoyed talking to him, and yet I felt horrible for him. He continually apologized for not being able to make “proper conversation” because he was a too much of a zombie, working his sixth day in a row. (Comparatively, this wasn’t too bad, considering the other guy was on day seventeen. Luckily, “day seventeen” was getting a two-week vacation starting the next day.) He told me he’d work a day seven before finally getting a day or two off, but he laughed it off as not being as bad as his previous job, when he got hit by a car and had to be at work again two days later. All I can say about that is: damn.
Somewhere in the midst of all this, I felt like I could see my life flashing before my eyes: working seven or more days in a row; working shifts that were at least ten-and-a-half hours long; not getting off until midnight or later every night; getting paid a not-much-more-than-minimum wage; and then the likelihood of losing my social life in the process.
Still, when the head chef asked me at the end of the night if I’d like to come on as a paid intern and transition to a full-time line cook, I felt like I had to think about it, even as I walked back to the subway tired, hungry, thirsty, and hoping my friend wouldn’t be annoyed I was returning to her apartment so late at night. After all, the people were nice, the food was impressive, and it seems ridiculous to think about turning down paid work in this economy, right? Still, after a day’s consideration and a lost night of sleep, I had to say no. I took the first job offered to me the last time I was hunting—didn’t turn out as great as it could’ve—so I feel like I ought to know better this time around.
Now it’s onto the next adventure, if you can call it that. I started a stage today at one of the city’s top new restaurants. I’m still a bit skeptical of this line-cooking thing, but we’ll see how this goes over the next week. Today was just prep work, and tomorrow we have twenty-seven tasting courses to serve. Seriously, twenty-seven. Should be interesting…
Tomato, basil, and mozzarella bruschetta with truffle oil from Chianti. Mmm.
and a-whey we go 