kwilkinson
Having a Ball
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2007
- Messages
- 32,245
- Reaction score
- 884
Ready for Round 2?
I was. Looking forward to it all week. My girlfriend kept begging me to stay in Indy for another day and not leave early to go back to work. I couldn't do it, I had to go to work. I realized on my drive back to Chicago that this kind of thing was going to be happening a lot in my future, and it made me sad.
"Well will you be able to come home in 3 weeks for my grandparent's thing?" "No hon, I have to go to work" "Okay, what about in 5 weeks the thing at my mom's house?" No hon, I have to go to work"
Don't get me wrong, she supports the lifestyle and is so incredibly happy for me that I have this great opportunity. She doesn't want me to waste it. We just don't get to see each other that often and spending a whole week together over spring break just spoiled us both a bit, I think.
But, then I got to work and it was great. I showed up at 1 pm, and greeted Chef. He was happy to see me. What made me happy was that he was breaking down fish. One of the most well-compensated chefs in Chicago that doesn't have ownership in the restaurant and he was butchering fish, when he was a ton of people at his control that he could have made do that. He then told me that tonight was going to be nuts, because we had 235 covers. Two hundred freakin thirty covers. That's a lot of folks coming in, and at the average price of $75 a diner, one could only imagine how big a night that is for a restaurant. He told me that because of my inexperience, I'd be starting at the Garde Manger station, the low guys on the totem pole. I obviously had no problem with that, because that's just common sense. Plus, it felt really good to be in his kitchen. I've been trying to find a job since I got to school. Sending in resumes to paying jobs, but also applying for stages in probably 30 restaurants since I moved here. I was appalled that my resume must have been so terrible that nobody let me come in and work for free. So Chef took a chance on me that he didn't have to, and I want to work ****** off to make it worth his while. This also puts me light years ahead of my classmates when it comes time to apply for externships or once we graduate. Most of them are in my same position, with no ability to get jobs and most of them hate the idea of working for free. Their loss, my gain.
So I met the Garde Manger person. She was nice, she was also an LCB graduate but from the school in Pittsburgh. She had only been there a month. It also turns out that the GM person from Monday was there too. Three of us working in a very, very cramped area. It turns out that the entire kitchen was like that. While there were what, 5 or 6 of us on Monday IIRC for 50 covers, there was a whole lot of us on Saturday for 230 covers. I counted 13 people. Yikes. I couldn't imagine French Laundry type places where the ratio of worker to client is closer to 2:1 (although that only counts for each seating, not the entire night's service). So we got out our checklist, just a clipboard that broke down everything we served and what ingredients went with it. We checked what the cooks from the night before had prepped for us (not much) and then went shopping in the cooler.
We got everything we needed and came back and started prepping. Washing lettuces, cutting lettuces, cooking green beans, pickling beets and ramps. BTW, if you've never had a pickled ramp, come to the restaurant and I'll tell you which salad to order. They are absolutely freaking incredible. We also did all the bread, the amuses, and cheese plates. Prep lasted for a long time, and we were very busy. Comida was decent, but we were so busy most of us worked straight through it. When service began, I was making amuses and doing bread. I was doing an okay job, kind of watching how to make the salads from the side and trying to not get in the way while still learning. Chef called me over and told me that I had to get in there. He said "listen, you're paying your own way here. You have no experience and you have to earn your keep. What you're doing is brainless. Cutting bread and putting an amuse in a ringmold. I need you to not let these two women push you around. Get in there and make some of the food. Don't let them tell you no. Just move in and start doing it. I need you to be hungry." (which I was, because I had skipped comida, but that's neither here nor there). I went back to the station and kicked the chick from Monday out. I started making salads. By this point, the first seating was mostly done with salads and moving on to entrees, so I was able to take a couple minutes and learn to make the salads. My favorite was a beet salad. We took pickled golden and red beets, arranged them on a plate with frisee, tossed it all with grapefruit vinaigrette, and put a few segments of cara cara orange on there. Then, it got garnished with sofia cheese. Sofia cheese is this really amazing goat cheese that gets coated with ash. There are layers of the ash inside the cheese, and it tastes really incredible.
So that was that, I spent the night making salads and amuses and doing bread and I think I did an okay job. When the second seating and smaller third seating came in, I let the monday chick back in her spot, because she could make the salads much faster than me. But when our area wasn't in the weeds, I was making the salads. It was very cool. I even got to make a special amuse for a friend of Chef's. It had a little citrus salad with grapefruit and cara cara orange, then raw hamachi pieces over the top, drizzled with white soy. Sounds really simple, but the flavor was out of this world.
At the end of service, before clean up, Chef introduced me to this women he had been talking to for a while. It turns out that she was the restaurant's co-owner. Chef told me that I was here to learn and that he was going to teach me how to kick ass. She said that she was happy to have me, and if I had any questions at all, not to hesitate to ask. I told her it was a pleasure to meet her and thanked her for having me in her kitchen. Man, she was nice. Super rich, I mean, super super rich, but as nice as you can be.
Then, we finished cleaning up and headed downstairs. Chef asked me if I could hang around for a few minutes. It was midnight at this point, and my legs were tired from standing for 11 hours straight. My back hurt from crouching over my cutting board. My fingers were cut, my hands were burnt, I wanted to go to bed. But, I didn't want to be that guy, so I told him I could stay and help out with whatever. He told me to go have a seat in the prep area. Slowly, all the other guys from the line came in and sat down. There were about 8 of us. Chef brought out two cases of beer and a lot of ice to congratulate us on a night well done. There had been 0 sendbacks in the night. Only one complaint. That's impressive. So we all sat around, drinking, having fun, and getting to know each other better. It was awesome. It was like we were all old buddies. They started telling stories about how insane and great the original chef/now owner is. I was loving it. We stayed for 2 hours just drinking and having fun and getting to know each other. It was awesome. I guess they do that after every Friday and Saturday. Normally it's just a beer for each person though, but I guess tonight we got treated special because service had gone so well. I said goodnight to everybody, thanked Chef for the beers, told everyone I'd see them Thursday, and headed home. Walked two blocks to the train station to find that it was closed and I had to pay for a $17 cab ride home. Fack.
All in all, another great night for me.
I was. Looking forward to it all week. My girlfriend kept begging me to stay in Indy for another day and not leave early to go back to work. I couldn't do it, I had to go to work. I realized on my drive back to Chicago that this kind of thing was going to be happening a lot in my future, and it made me sad.
But, then I got to work and it was great. I showed up at 1 pm, and greeted Chef. He was happy to see me. What made me happy was that he was breaking down fish. One of the most well-compensated chefs in Chicago that doesn't have ownership in the restaurant and he was butchering fish, when he was a ton of people at his control that he could have made do that. He then told me that tonight was going to be nuts, because we had 235 covers. Two hundred freakin thirty covers. That's a lot of folks coming in, and at the average price of $75 a diner, one could only imagine how big a night that is for a restaurant. He told me that because of my inexperience, I'd be starting at the Garde Manger station, the low guys on the totem pole. I obviously had no problem with that, because that's just common sense. Plus, it felt really good to be in his kitchen. I've been trying to find a job since I got to school. Sending in resumes to paying jobs, but also applying for stages in probably 30 restaurants since I moved here. I was appalled that my resume must have been so terrible that nobody let me come in and work for free. So Chef took a chance on me that he didn't have to, and I want to work ****** off to make it worth his while. This also puts me light years ahead of my classmates when it comes time to apply for externships or once we graduate. Most of them are in my same position, with no ability to get jobs and most of them hate the idea of working for free. Their loss, my gain.
So I met the Garde Manger person. She was nice, she was also an LCB graduate but from the school in Pittsburgh. She had only been there a month. It also turns out that the GM person from Monday was there too. Three of us working in a very, very cramped area. It turns out that the entire kitchen was like that. While there were what, 5 or 6 of us on Monday IIRC for 50 covers, there was a whole lot of us on Saturday for 230 covers. I counted 13 people. Yikes. I couldn't imagine French Laundry type places where the ratio of worker to client is closer to 2:1 (although that only counts for each seating, not the entire night's service). So we got out our checklist, just a clipboard that broke down everything we served and what ingredients went with it. We checked what the cooks from the night before had prepped for us (not much) and then went shopping in the cooler.
We got everything we needed and came back and started prepping. Washing lettuces, cutting lettuces, cooking green beans, pickling beets and ramps. BTW, if you've never had a pickled ramp, come to the restaurant and I'll tell you which salad to order. They are absolutely freaking incredible. We also did all the bread, the amuses, and cheese plates. Prep lasted for a long time, and we were very busy. Comida was decent, but we were so busy most of us worked straight through it. When service began, I was making amuses and doing bread. I was doing an okay job, kind of watching how to make the salads from the side and trying to not get in the way while still learning. Chef called me over and told me that I had to get in there. He said "listen, you're paying your own way here. You have no experience and you have to earn your keep. What you're doing is brainless. Cutting bread and putting an amuse in a ringmold. I need you to not let these two women push you around. Get in there and make some of the food. Don't let them tell you no. Just move in and start doing it. I need you to be hungry." (which I was, because I had skipped comida, but that's neither here nor there). I went back to the station and kicked the chick from Monday out. I started making salads. By this point, the first seating was mostly done with salads and moving on to entrees, so I was able to take a couple minutes and learn to make the salads. My favorite was a beet salad. We took pickled golden and red beets, arranged them on a plate with frisee, tossed it all with grapefruit vinaigrette, and put a few segments of cara cara orange on there. Then, it got garnished with sofia cheese. Sofia cheese is this really amazing goat cheese that gets coated with ash. There are layers of the ash inside the cheese, and it tastes really incredible.
So that was that, I spent the night making salads and amuses and doing bread and I think I did an okay job. When the second seating and smaller third seating came in, I let the monday chick back in her spot, because she could make the salads much faster than me. But when our area wasn't in the weeds, I was making the salads. It was very cool. I even got to make a special amuse for a friend of Chef's. It had a little citrus salad with grapefruit and cara cara orange, then raw hamachi pieces over the top, drizzled with white soy. Sounds really simple, but the flavor was out of this world.
At the end of service, before clean up, Chef introduced me to this women he had been talking to for a while. It turns out that she was the restaurant's co-owner. Chef told me that I was here to learn and that he was going to teach me how to kick ass. She said that she was happy to have me, and if I had any questions at all, not to hesitate to ask. I told her it was a pleasure to meet her and thanked her for having me in her kitchen. Man, she was nice. Super rich, I mean, super super rich, but as nice as you can be.
Then, we finished cleaning up and headed downstairs. Chef asked me if I could hang around for a few minutes. It was midnight at this point, and my legs were tired from standing for 11 hours straight. My back hurt from crouching over my cutting board. My fingers were cut, my hands were burnt, I wanted to go to bed. But, I didn't want to be that guy, so I told him I could stay and help out with whatever. He told me to go have a seat in the prep area. Slowly, all the other guys from the line came in and sat down. There were about 8 of us. Chef brought out two cases of beer and a lot of ice to congratulate us on a night well done. There had been 0 sendbacks in the night. Only one complaint. That's impressive. So we all sat around, drinking, having fun, and getting to know each other better. It was awesome. It was like we were all old buddies. They started telling stories about how insane and great the original chef/now owner is. I was loving it. We stayed for 2 hours just drinking and having fun and getting to know each other. It was awesome. I guess they do that after every Friday and Saturday. Normally it's just a beer for each person though, but I guess tonight we got treated special because service had gone so well. I said goodnight to everybody, thanked Chef for the beers, told everyone I'd see them Thursday, and headed home. Walked two blocks to the train station to find that it was closed and I had to pay for a $17 cab ride home. Fack.
All in all, another great night for me.
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