The Pastry Monkey

Gross!

2008-07-28T20:11:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend the restaurant had some serious drainage issues. Before lunch service on Saturday many of the drains in the basement stopped working. Various means were used to solved the problem, but I never saw any outside service person called in while I was working. I did see some managers handling the sump pump a bit.

WELL, the next morning much of the basement (including the main prep kitchen and the pastry kitchen) was covered in inches of water. Absolutely none of the drains were working and therefore none of the sinks could be used. We also couldn't run our ice machine, because it steadily drains a lot of water directly into a drain. At 7am on a Sunday there aren't many people around -- a few cooks, a bunch of pastry people and a few porters who speak very little English. Naturally, no one in charge is around that early on a Sunday. One of the porters was on his knees using a small bucket to shovel all the water into every garbage can and 8 gallon tub available.

In the pastry kitchen there was a lot of work that we couldn't do because of the conditions. Oh, and in addition to that, a quarter of our non-walk-in refrigerator space broke down the night before. We need ice for a lot of things. All of our ice cream bases and many sauces and whatnot need to chill in a giant ice bath before being stored in our refrigerators. We also couldn't wash any of our tools and our hands. We did put the stopper in our sink so we could wash our hands and the water wouldn't drain out. You can only use so much water before the sink fills up though.

In the end, a manager didn't show up until nearly 9am. Of course it ended up being a manager who cannot handle problems calmly. A little after her arrival, I went to her office to ask her to keep the pastry staff updated on what was happening. I told her that right now we couldn't get a lot of work done due to the conditions. She actually asked, "What do you mean?" What do I mean? Does one really need to ask how no water and no ice may hinder pastry production? I quickly explained, but she already seemed annoyed that I was even talking to her. Much later when she told me no repair guy would be coming for our broken refrigerator units until the next day, I naturally didn't respond happily. I said something like, "What? Where are we supposed to keep everything until someone comes tomorrow?" You see, I know the truth. Maintenance visits on a weekend are expensive, and the general manager doesn't really care about pastry enough to shell out the extra money. The general manager was the one who told the lady manager that we would have to wait until Monday.

The lady manager was not pleased with my demeanor. She pulled me aside to tell me that I need to be more patient with her and that she is handling a lot of stuff right now. As the one in charge of pastry while the pastry chef and pastry sous chef were away (catering an event) I need to step up as a leader and a be an anchor in the pastry kitchen. She also did not appreciate the aggression she was getting from me. The whole interaction was odd. 1) I am not in charge. In fact, two of the three other Sunday morning people have worked in pastry longer than I have. 2) I believe a leader would point out what is wrong with a situation rather than accept the shit handed her. 3) Aggression? Really? If she thinks that is aggressive, she better stay clear of me when I am actually angry.

The lady clearly has some emotional issues and wanted to "hug it out". Frankly, she needs to step up as a manager and not care that some punk pastry cook is pissed off. Instead of worrying about how I feel, she needs to realize that it is acceptable for someone in my position to be annoyed with the situation. Accept my annoyance, don't take it personally, and get the damn drains working!

In the end, she gave us free movie tickets for our troubles. Which was really weird. I doubt she gave anything to the poor porter who spent a few hours kneeling in water trying to shovel everything up.

Frustrated

2008-07-23T20:08:00.002-04:00

I haven't been much of a fan of work lately. There have been a number of menu changes over the last month and a half, and each change has only added to my workload. It is to the point that I can barely get any side work done before lunch service. My morning is pretty much solely dedicated to getting everything ready for the lunch crowd. I end up having a shitload of stuff to do after service, making my day last 12 hours long. To complicate matters, we are in the middle of Restaurant Week. We only participate in Restaurant Week during lunch service, so I am the one who gets fucked over the most. I had so much extra work to do over the past weekend (in preparation for Restaurant Week) that I had to pull 13 hour days on Friday and Sunday. Throughout the weekend no one ever asked me if I needed help with my added duties. Not once. To be fair, I usually hate when I get help because the quality of work ends up not meeting my standards. That sounds rather bitchy, doesn't it? Well, I am a bitch. A pissed off bitch. And Restaurant Week actually lasts TWO weeks. How retarded is that? I am going to be a pissed off bitch for a long time.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-06-19T09:50:00.002-04:00

I have been "promoted" to daytime. This is not a monetary promotion, so don't get too excited for me. About 2 weeks ago I started working the daytime shift. I know I sound like a whiner, but starting work at 7am really sucks. I have sacrificed showering for the sake of sleep. With enough deodorant and regular teeth brushing I am sure no one notices. ;-)

Working mornings has a number of positives. I am working a new station so I get to a learn a whole new slew of desserts and sauces. I can work and not worry about anyone getting up my ass. I really don't have a problem with my boss or the pastry sous chef, but it is nice to work without them around. You can make your own schedule of tasks and do those tasks as you want without anyone eyeing you. I don't get out early (sometime between 5:30pm and 6:30pm) but when I do leave I see the nighttime crew and think "Suckers!" I have the opportunity to meet up with friends after work.

There are many negatives, of course. I hate mornings. I hate waking up early. I hate having to function on little sleep. To get the proper amount of sleep, I have to go to bed before prime time television ends. I take the subway during peak times, so I never get a seat after being on my feet for almost 12 hours straight. My work hours keep me from getting lots of errands done because a lot of places are closed by the time I get out of work.

I told Chef I would give mornings "a try". Soon she and I will discuss if I want to go back to nights. Unfortunately, 2 morning people have resigned and 2 others will be away for a month. We're going to be so understaffed that I will cave in and tell Chef that I'll stay on mornings.

Overreaction

2008-04-10T15:50:00.003-04:00

I am not quite sure what is going on at work, but it is getting a little ridiculous. Lately, Chef has shown very extreme knee-jerk reactions to problems in our kitchen. Last week the executive chef brought to my chef's attention that the rosettes being used for one of our desserts were past a week old. My chef was PISSED and her rampage included declaring that the rosettes would have to be made fresh every day. Trust me when I say that adding yet another item to the daily tasks for that station really sucks, and is a bit unnecessary.

Last night, when I got to work Chef told me that the people working service the night before did a very poor job of cleaning the service station at the end of the night. As a solution, I and my partner would have to deep clean everything. Oh, and this additional deep clean will now take place every Wednesday. I know this may need some minor explanation. Every Sunday night the entire restaurant conducts "deep clean" once service is over. Basically, we clean everything that does not normally get cleaned on a daily basis. Since I have started working full-time, I have worked service pretty much every Sunday night. This makes me the sucker who always gets stuck doing deep clean. I also always work Wednesday night service. So now I am the chump who has to clean above and beyond everyone else TWICE a week because I have co-workers who slack off.

This news obviously pissed me off, so last night I told the pastry sous chef that it isn't fair that the same two people have to do deep clean twice a week and they better consider changing the day the second deep clean lands on. She agreed, but I doubt they will be able to work it out so that the work is shared between different people. Did I mention that the slacker co-worker left early the night she didn't clean well? Did I also mention she left early to meet up with her boyfriend? I hope she had a great time with her boyfriend.

a new position

2008-02-20T15:30:00.002-05:00

I have started working a new station at the restaurant. I still work dinner service, but now I am mostly the "dominant" dinner service person. My position is responsible for assembling and baking off most of the desserts we serve. I have approximately 4 hours to construct and bake: individual bread puddings, pineapple upside down cakes, apple clafoutis, chocolate tarts and bacon chocolate tarts. I also have to make various batters for those items every other day or so. All in all, it is a lot to do. Oh, and I also have to get all that crap up to the station as well as all the ice creams we will use throughout the night. All in 4 hours. If I had to just assemble and bake things it would be fine, but the moment I have to add to my list everything falls to shit because I don't have enough time. Actually, I am supposed to make candied peanuts and apple brandy sauce as well, but have yet to do either because I never have time to. Someone else has always had to help me out with those items.

I don't find it a stressful position, but I have a lot to get done and don't see how I can go any faster. I don't really stop and chat with people, and I eat my meal bites at a time while doing my work. I may start timing my different tasks to see which are eating up most of my time.

uh..............

2008-02-13T05:30:00.002-05:00

After work today a number of us (pastry and culinary united!) went out for drinks. As we were leaving the bar, one guy declared, "I love you! I am so glad you work with us. You're almost as obnoxious as me." Now, I can totally understand how anyone may consider this guy obnoxious. He is loud, boitserous and references his penis (in positives and negatives) a lot. I, on the other hand, do not do those things (as far as I recall) so I am not sure if I should be complimented by the "almost as obnoxious as me" comment or not.

Douchey McDouche-a-lot

2008-02-06T19:09:00.000-05:00

Last night I had a minor run in with someone in management at the restaurant. I was working dinner service alone because my partner was setting up for a party. I had a few tickets up and I was a little behind on some because of an error on one of the tickets. I had to wait until I got the correction. While trying to take care of the late ticket, another ticket for a cookie plate printed up. Cookie plates are no effort at all, but I decided to finish what I was doing and send the cookies out right after. While still trying to finish the late ticket, the general manager came up asking about the ticket. Perhaps he does not intend his tone, but I really do not find it respectful. I do a lot of work for very little money. It shouldn't be hard to approach me respectfully. I didn't say anything to him, instead I grabbed the ticket and the cookies and handed them to him. I assume my body language revealed my feelings because he then asked, "Is there a problem?" He didn't ask in a way to reflect real concern. Instead, he asked in the manner a teacher would use to cut down an ill-mannered student. I will not accept anyone talking to me in this manner, especially in a work environment. I do not care what position you hold in the workplace hierarchy. So I replied "no" and gave a brief rundown of the importance of the ticket he interrupted. Please keep in mind that I do not mind the interruption. I mind how I was interrupted. If the stupid cookies were to be rushed, he should have added that to the ticket OR have said he needed them now in a more polite tone.

In the end, he did not say anything further to me, instead he talked to Chef. What exactly he said, I do not know. She came up and asked how things were going. I knew why she was there so I basically asked if she was visiting because someone called her. I then explained the brief exchange. She then told that this guy is the general manager and warned me to watch how I speak to him. She then said something about having heard other people claiming to have issues with his tone at times, but she has never witnessed it. I somewhat doubt that, but Chef is far better at not rocking the boat than I (oh, and she is the Pastry Chef afterall, so I doubt he would ever be patronizing to her.)

A Little Catch-Up

2008-01-29T02:24:00.000-05:00

I started working full time at the restaurant on January 12th and since then I have been a bit crazed. My days have mostly gone as follows:
wake up between 12pm - 1pm
get dressed and head to work
work until 1am - 2:30am (depending on the day of the week)
sometimes drink with co-workers
get home and eat/watch tv/internet for an hour or so
go to sleep

I have done very little else than what is listed above. The disgraceful state of my apartment is proof.

The transition to full-time at the restaurant has been good, but at times frustrating. I was initially trained over a day or two and then was let loose to go about my business on my own. People would then check-up on me constantly. It was rather frustrating because either the person checking up on me would give instructions that contradicted what I was told during training, or the person checking up on me would tell me to do things that I already knew to do but just hadn't done yet. I am still on the slow side with some of my daily duties, so when said person would check up on me they woudl see a number of things not done yet. They would then tell me that I have to do said things. Well, I know I have to do them. I am not an idiot. I am just slow (in a non-retarded kind of way.)

I think I finally made it clear that I generally know what I am doing, so things have eased up a bit. I am still slow, though. I am unable to tell yet if I am at least improving. Some days are good, but there are still plenty of days where I feel behind before I even start.

Carpal Tunnel

2008-01-28T04:38:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in ages. I have been working fill time for about 2 weeks so far and I have not had the time to sit down and adequately tell about my experience/transition. I DO have enough time to tell you that I may be demonstrating more symptoms of carpal tunnel. For almost 2 weeks now I constantly find that my fingers are numb while sleeping. The only time they don't go numb is if I have my arms flat at my sides while sleeping on my back. I never sleep this way, hence why my fingers are always numb.

During the past day I have found that anytime my arm is raised higher than my heart, my fingers begin to get a numb. As I type this, my wrist (specifically the right one at this moment) starts to feel "funny". Both wrists felt especially funny today while peeling 35 apples with an apple peeler. There is a whole lotta wrist action going on with that one. Oh, and if you have ever wondered, the fastest and easiest way to peel an apple is totally with a regular ol' vegetable peeler. Peel from stem to butt. Rotate and repeat until all the skin is gone.

2008-01-07T10:09:00.000-05:00

Saturday was quite a night. We were pretty much out of our semifreddo dessert at the start of the night. Basically, the item was the dessert for a private party and we only had enough to accommodate the party. We had to make a substitution on the main dining room's tasting menu, which is very poor form for such an upscale restauarant. This really pissed off Chef. When Chef gets made (and throws a roll of masking tape) you resort to the techniques you used as a child when one of your parents gets really angry about something that doesn't involve you. You keep quiet and you hope to stay well out of the way.

After Chef threw the tape and left the room, I picked it up and put it away. Later I noticed she was looking around in the area where she threw the tape. I wasn't certain she was looking for the tape, though, so I never told her I picked it up. I hoped she figured it out without me having to speak up.

Just as I thought things were about to settle down after the semifreddo disaster, I hear Chef scream some expletives from our walk-in refrigerator. Apparently our poached quince are 22 days old. Did I mention that it was Chef's birthday? She was so pissed she even said to herself, "Happy fucking birthday to me."

She ended up being cranky for most of the night. She didn't really take anything out on me, except for a few minor comments. Other than running out of a dessert, things went rather smoothly.

Let's Catch Up a Little

2008-01-01T14:14:00.001-05:00

I haven't made an entry in ages and so much has happened. I formally resigned from my day job. Yay!!!! I got a "raise" at the restaurant, so now I am being paid the same hourly wage as the full-timers. Yay!!!!

Since I had a break from my day job over the holidays I decided to work at the restaurant a few extra days. The one thing it made me realize is that I ABSOLUTELY need to get new shoes before I start working there 5 days a week. I think I may try to get some Birkenstocks. I hate Birkenstocks. I think they are hideous. Hopefully their promised comfort will overcome their hideous appearance.

Ew

2007-12-08T16:45:00.000-05:00

I have written in a while. Things have gotten much busier with all the holidays.

A few weeks ago I was given my own locker at the restaurant. My shoes are the only thing I leave in the locker over the days I am not working. Without fail, when I come in on Fridays, I always find an alarming amount of mold on the outside of my work shoes. SUPER GROSS. I end up having to wash the shoes every single Friday. Where is the mold coming from? Before I got the locker, I would keep the shoes in the same plastic bag in a corner somewhere at home. Mold never developed. I don't understand what it is about the locker room (or my locker) that is more conducive to mold than a sealed plastic bag. I still need to get new work shoes in general. You'd think having painful plus moldy shoes would have motivated me to make some purchases. Nope. I'm lazy.

2007-11-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

I end up doing a lot of repetitive work at the restaurant. On Saturday I had to peel a little over 40 apples for two different desserts. Usually this happens because we are running very low on a menu item and I am pulled away from my normal duties to make more in a pinch. I may not be the best person for that kind of job because repetitive tasks seem to lull me into complacency. I begin to forget that the matter is urgent, and my peeling rate drops. Then I remember why the apples are before me and I speed up. Without fail, though, I will be lulled again within a few minutes. I am really looking forward to doing service almost full-time. I will probably have completely different feelings on the matter once I am doing dinner service 5 nights a week. (To be fair, I have no idea if I will be doing dinner service all 5 shifts a week. I am just assuming.) No matter what, doing service will be a nice change of pace. I am sick of making coffee cake. I am especially sick of zesting 12 oranges for the coffee cake. I still like making marshmallows, though. I am damn good at marshmallows. My batches always look better than the other batches I come across. :-)

Done!

2007-11-24T11:23:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished all my extern hours. Woo hoo! I will continue to work at the restaurant on Friday and Saturday nights until January. When January rolls around I am totally dumping my office monkey job so that I can completely dedicate myself to pastry monkeying. That will also make me a bit poor. That won't matter much since I won't have time to spend money while working almost 60 hours a week. Perhaps I will also start my hunt for a sugar daddy -- preferably one that will kick the bucket and leave me a ton of money sooner rather than later.

Working at the restaurant has made me realize I have a problem -- a listening problem. Chef will tell me to do something and not even a minute later I will be unable to recall incidental parts of the instructions. Usually the parts easily forgotten are 1) the amount to be made, and 2) where to put it when I am done. I usually repeat things out loud as I am being instructed, but I only do that with ingredients or procedures. For instance, Chef will ask me to wrap something up a certain way and put it away. I'll remember everything except where to put it. I will at least recall that she was rather vague with where to put it, so I can get away with a follow-up question later. When I am done wrapping things I'll ask, "Chef, did you have a specific spot in mind for this, so you can find it later?" The best is when the answer is "anywhere on the bench in the chocolate room", because I wasn't even thinking of the chocolate room as an option before asking. I feel stupid when I ask these follow-up questions but I don't really know what else to do. I can only tell myself that I will attempt to be more mindful and attentive when given instructions, but I know that won't happen.

Also....

2007-11-17T11:56:00.000-05:00

The girl refuses to believe I am 5 foot 2 inches tall. Usually, if you discover someone is a height you didn't expect you would say, "No way! Really?" And when the other person says "yup", you would then let it go and move on. Not this girl. A handful of times throughout the night I ended up having to insist that I wasn't wrong about my height. I shouldn't have to defend myself. I am 5' 2", accept it. At the end of the night, while once again refusing to accept my height, she mentions that someone else in the kitchen claims to be 5' 2" and she doesn't believe them. You know what? Perhaps if two people say they are 5' 2" and you don't believe them, perhaps they are 5' fucking 2" and you have a perception problem.

Argh!

2007-11-17T11:12:00.000-05:00

A girl I work with is really starting to drive me crazy. She is a very nice person, and I am sure she has the best of intentions, but she is driving me up the wall. She is always up my ass. Whatever I am doing, she has little thing to share with me. There is always some note of correction, tip or advice (even if it is a task I have been doing for months.) I am sure she thinks she is being helpful, but in reality she is begging for a bitch out. It has been very difficult restraining my tongue and my attitude.

Last night was the worst so far. It really seemed like she added her two cents on every task I did. When I made the apple chips she told me I put too much simple syrup in the bowl. You know what? Who cares. The slices soak in the syrup. As long as the crap inside doesn't slosh out as I carry the bowl, there isn't a problem. Then she tells me somewhat frantically as I head of to the meat slicer with the apples that I need all my sheet pans laid out ahead of time! Oh no! I cannot imagine the catastrophe that will occur if I don't have all the full sheet pan laid out every, taking up too much space! When I returned from slicing, I found she had indeed laid out all the sheet pans for me. I then stacked them on top each other. Cause, you know, I will only be using them one at a time.

Don't even get me started on the petit fours. I used to do the petit fours all the time. Then Chef shifted duties and this girl had to do them. Lately I have been making the petit fours again. When I first started making them again she kept telling me what to do. Last night she wanted to make sure there were enough petit fours for the night. I assured her there were and even told her I counted them. Most people would leave it at that. She proceeds to explain to me how many we need and why.

When I was making the hot chocolate I made the mistake of saying verbally to myself, "Oh, I forgot to measure out the vanilla." The girl hears this and tells me that the vanilla does get added until the end. I have made the hot chocolate quite a few times now. I know when to put in the damn vanilla. I explained to her that if I don't have it measure out and waiting in a cup, I might forget to add it at all. Her "correction" about the vanilla is probably the perfect example of what she does all the time. You can see how it could get infuriating, right?

My Perfect Plan

2007-11-10T13:19:00.000-05:00

Today was a bit of an eye opener. Chef was telling me that she dreams of opening a store - kind of like Williams-Sonoma, but exclusively pastry focused, with ingredients and food supplies as well as wares. She talked about it in terms of a real career to aspire to, as if her current situation is just like any other step on the way to what she really wants. My perception had always been that she was way closer to that final step than me. The truth is, she and I are in similar boats, she is just less poor and has greater responsibilities to manage.

I had never thought about Chef wanting much beyond what she already has. Sure, having more money and more control is a given, but the basics seemed to be there. It made me think about what I really want and what I am willing to sacrifice. Chef works 6 days a week (though she is trying to cut it down to 5), who knows how many hours a day. Taking 2 days off in a row is a rarity for her. I don't really know if that is what I want. Can't some Sugar Daddy (pun totally intended) give me a ton of money to occasionally make some sweets? It sounds like the perfect plan, right?

60 pounds of cheddar

2007-11-04T13:34:00.000-05:00

A personal highlight of working at the restaurant is the cheese. We have such an array of interesting and delicious cheeses. I sometimes get more excited by the cheese than the desserts. Much of the cheese selections get cut in the pastry kitchen before and after evening service. Last night, after service, I got to see what a 60 pound round of English cheddar looked like. It was amazing. It literally looked like a tree stump. It was at least a foot high. It was really cool to watch it get cut. A handled cheese wire (here is an example of said tool: http://www.bakedeco.com/a/cheese-wire-comes-w-1555.htm) is needed to do most of the cutting. I got to sample some as well. Yum.

Family meal was soooo good today. Since the shifts in a restaurant are so long, the restaurant provides your meal. Usually it is made by the cooks (and can sometimes be very disappointing), but today we had a special meal to celebrate the conclusion of Ramadan. Yes, Ramadan ended weeks ago, but I have no idea why we are having the meal now instead of a few weeks ago. Pretty much all the runners in the restaurant are Bengali, so we had a ton of Bengalese food for family meal. I guess the food came from a restaurant owned by a brother of one of our runners. There was a ridiculous amount of food and it was all pretty good. There were also some sweets. The mithai are crazy syrupy sweet, but sooooo good.

I worked dinner service again. This time they tried to get me to scoop or quenelle some of the ice cream and sorbet. Quenelling is usually something that has to be practiced. A quenelle is an oval shape scoop of ice cream typically used in fine dining. The shape is obtained by using an actual spoon, rather than a normal ice cream scoop. Initially, I seemed rather quenelle capable. Of course that would be the case when I was just practicing. When it came time to quenelle some ice cream for an actual dessert, it was a different story. Overall, the night was good.

Cha-Ching

2007-11-03T11:55:00.000-04:00

When I got to the restaurant today, Chef told me she wanted to put me on payroll right away. She thought that I had been doing a good job and that I was making a contribution to the kitchen. 2 days a week at $10/hr really isn't much of a "cha-ching", but it is nice to know that my efforts are noticed and appreciated.

I spent the whole evening working service. It was a lot of fun. It can get very hectic at times, but I still enjoyed it. I learned how we plate most of our desserts. I have been working at the restaurant since mid-September and never knew what most of the desserts looked like until last night. Some of the desserts are ordered so infrequently, though, that I never got a good look at their plating. It was interesting to see what desserts are the most popular. I was actually surprised because the items that are my favorites (chocolate coconut tart anyone?) are far from being the most popular. Right now the pumpkin cheesecake seems like one of the most popular, so I can plate that sucker in my sleep. I am not much of a cheesecake fan, so I cannot attest to how good it is. In fact, I have not tasted any of the cheesecake offerings that we've had since starting at the restaurant. If I worked somewhere that served only cheesecakes, I would be so thin. Okay, maybe not. I am sure I would find some other way to stay fat.

Dick in a Box

2007-10-28T09:29:00.000-04:00

1: Cut a hole in a box
Being the weekend before Halloween, the costumes were out and about. I didn't see anything terribly creative, but I did see a guy sporting a "dick in the box". I saw the costume while I was still in front of the restaurant. One of my co-workers had no clue what "dick in a box" was, and I was surprised and saddened. I then sang the steps to "dick in a box" for her. I am not trying to claim that the costume was creative or anything. In fact, I suspect there will be many similar costumes on Wednesday. The guy did a good job, though. He had the full early 90s R&B clothing and hair kicking it.

2: Put your junk in that box
Work was alright last night. Not great, just alright. I got a little annoyed because last night turned into "help others get ahead night". I don't mind helping other people and doing some of their projects. I do mind starting some of those things after midnight, because I know that means we will get out late when we didn't have to. I really didn't want to try to squeeze in a giant batch of fruit curd that late in the night, but the other girl who works downstairs with me really insisted. Then when the curd was almost done she asked me to cut out some super tiny cookies that are a part of the dessert amuse. You know, if you still had your own stuff you wanted to get done, then why take on so many additional projects? We ended up getting out at 2:15am. She was really thankful when I finished the cookies, which made me less pissed off. She is a really nice lady, but that curd should have waited till today.

3: Make her open that box
There is something else that has been annoying me about work. This is so minor and petty, but I just can't help it. Everyone calls our food processor "the Robot Coupe" (pronounced rowbow coo -- all Frenchified despite the fact that the company was started in Jackson, MS). It's not a Robot Coupe, it is a Cuisinart Food Processor. It says so right on the front. Robot Coupe is a brand, a brand that actually makes many different products. We don't have a Robot Coupe food processor, but we do have a Robot Coupe immersion blender. I know it is a petty complaint, but I had to vent a little.

No Work

2007-10-27T10:35:00.000-04:00

I've been sick a bit this week, so I decided against going into work last night. I wasn't all that sick anymore, but I was at the stage where I coughed constantly while hacking up phlegm. Not the best stuff for a kitchen.

On the way home I stopped at Caputo's deli to pick up some of their homemade soup. While there, another patron spotted my knife roll and greeted me with "Hi, Chef" as he walked past. A stranger called me "chef"! Yay! Perhaps I should start insisting people always call me by the chef title. When filling out forms, I can cross out "Ms." and replace it with "Chef".

Service

2007-10-21T13:48:00.000-04:00

Last night was my first serious look at service. Since I only work two days a week, Chef really cannot assign me service. I am not there enough to really learn how to plate everything and keep it fresh in my mind. Additionally, it usually takes a few days straight working service to solidly get something of a handle on it. People who have worked service for 2 weeks still have things to learn. Chef wanted me to watch (and help if I could) Saturday night service so that I would be familiar with it in order to have all the information I need when deciding to work their full time. There are many desserts and some overlap areas. The desserts that overlap areas are usually plated differently depending on the area. Desserts for the main dining room as part of the prix fixe menu will be plated one way, but the same dessert in the tavern may be plated differently. I already feel like I am going to need pictures of everything in order to actually remember them.

I observed and very minorly helped for a little over an hour until they kicked me out. It hit that 9:30 pm time when things get really busy and they needed the help of someone who actually knew stuff. So I went downstairs to continue the glories of coffee cake batter and marshmallows while the girl downstairs went up to help with service. I think the main girl running service was a little upset by my presence. She felt like she had to train me, and she definitely didn't have the time for that. I was really just there to observe, Girlie! Calm down!

A Little Something for you White Chocolate Haters out There

2007-10-20T03:43:00.000-04:00

Today I talked with Chef for a little bit in the Chocolate Room (yes, the greatest room one could ever have) about my possible future at the restaurant. She asked if I would be interested in working there after my externship was up. I was very honest with her. I do want to work there, just not immediately following the conclusion of my externship. I couldn't take on poverty so quickly, especially with the holidays coming up. Also, I have made it somewhat known at my current day job that I would be leaving sometime around the first of the year. Did I mention that my current day job closes down during the holidays, so we get about 1.5-2 weeks paid vacation? I didn't mention that? It's a pretty sweet deal, right? I have to take advantage of that one last time. Chef told me that I didn't have to make a decision right now. Someone on staff is leaving around Christmastime, so it would be good timing. Would it be a dick move to put in my two weeks notice the day I return from winter break? They've been dicking me around at work for the last 3 months, so maybe I will just consider it retribution.

I learned one of the coolest things today -- how to make caramelized white chocolate. It is delicious and tastes similar to dulce de leche, but with the creamy texture of chocolate (when it is warmed, because it is a solid block o' chocolate when it cools). I do not know the details, but basically you cook white chocolate couverture (high quality chocolate used for chocolatiering, not that nestle white morsel shit) slowly in a metal pan in an oven over a long period of time. The white chocolate slowly caramelizes and turns a beautiful medium brown. Chef had me use it to make some panna cotta. The residue in the mixing bowl was damn good. I can't wait to taste it once it is chilled and to see what it is paired with as a plated dessert.

"He just came up and punched me in the face"

2007-10-14T11:32:00.000-04:00

This is what I heard on my way to the subway last night after work. A group of people were filing a report with a few police officers.

It was a weird night in general. There was a really crazy energy going through the Flatiron district at 2:15am. There were emergency vehicle sirens all over the place -- I would see multiple flying down different avenues in different directions. I could hear more sirens later as I waited in the station for my train. The streets were loaded with really rowdy people. There is always a very active nighttime crowd, but this was at a new level. It kind of felt like everything was on the verge of turning to complete chaos. It would have been complete if the zombie plague had started at that moment. I had my knife kit with me, so I would have been pretty well equipped to take on the plague. Alas, there was no plague (that I know of.)

$10/hr

2007-10-13T03:23:00.000-04:00

So the big news of today is that everyone in the pastry kitchen earns $10/hr. Okay, the head Pastry Chef obviously doesn't get paid that little, but pretty much everyone else does. This isn't shocking. I pretty much already knew this was going to be the case, but it was a reality I hadn't fully accepted yet. It has been an issue that I have putting off until later. Well, "later" is coming up too soon. Eek! Can I really do this for $10 an hour? Even at 45 to 60 hours a week, that doesn't equal much money. And don't say, "Oh, but you will be doing what you love!" I will punch you in the face for being an ass. Let's be realistic about this. No one ever "loves" being on their feet for 12 hours straight with no break (and you sort of eat your "meal" while still working). The differential between what my coworkers earn and what the wait staff earn is ridiculous.

Despite finding out for certain how much everyone does (not) earn, I was in a really great mood today. I think it was because I only worked at my day job 4 days this past week, and those 4 days flew.

I hate to reveal that I stereotype people, but sometimes you just can't help it. I was very surprised to learn that one of my coworkers likes the punk rock music AND is familiar with Crass. He was talking about what he would wear back in high school and mentioned wearing a Crass t-shirt. I was totally blown away. He's Mormon, I think. Either he is Mormon or was Mormon. If he ever reads this and tells me he is not Mormon, then I apologize. BUT just thinking he is Mormon will already tell you why I was so surprised. To my defense, I am surprised whenever anyone knows about Crass. I don't want you to think that Mormons can't listen to cool music or anything.

Last thing, I saw a whole pig today. It was giant! And, most importantly, it was dead. It was lying on the table in the culinary kitchen next to the pastry kitchen. It was so big and so incredibly dead. I had never seen anyone butcher an entire pig carcass. It was pretty kick ass.

Nuts

2007-10-07T11:56:00.000-04:00

Ugh. Today I chopped nuts by hand for HOURS. Seriously, I chopped 3000 grams of nuts today. I know some of you may not be familiar with grams and exactly what 3000 grams of nuts looks like. 3000 grams is just over 6.5 pounds. The combination of my shortness and the high bench I was working at was bad news for my right arm's deltoid muscle. I had to bringing my arm up too much to maintain a relaxed position. Chef Norman would have cried. I really don't know how I got through it. My chopping was extremely erratic and I was in a bit of a daze during the last hour. (I also only got 2 hours of sleep previously because I was busy making an awesome groom's cake. Lack of sleep probably didn't help that daze any.)

After that, I spent most of the night helping Chef mise en place (French term that basically means to measure out all the ingredients for a recipe) a number of recipes for a class she was teaching the next day. I also got to make some brioche dough that she would be using in the class. I finally was able to use the latest thing in yeast -- SAF yeast. SAF is a new brand of yeast that we heard about in school but never got to use. It is more active that good ol' compressed yeast so you use less. You also don't have to put it in a starter. It is supposedly strong enough that you can just add it directly to the dry ingredients.

The other thing that made me happy today was passion fruit curd! Chef asked me to make a huge ol' batch of curd (think 3/4 of a tall stock pot) and just rattled off the ingredients and really didn't stick around to go over the process. It made me happy that she trusted me and didn't feel like she needed to go over anything with me. How did the curd come out? It was awesome.

Sometimes You Have to go Backwards to go Forwards

2007-10-06T10:46:00.000-04:00

Stupid MTA. This weekend there is track work on the station I use to get home at nights. I didn't know this until I got to the station at 2 something in the morning. I had to take an uptown train one stop and wait ages for the train that would finally get me home. I am already emotionally prepared to dish out some dough for a cab tomorrow night.

Today I finally got to do some chocolate work. Not a lot of chocolate work, just a little. It ends up another girl is taking over my swing duties, so it was weird to watch someone else learn the things I already knew. I feel very competitive about it. Is it bad that I want to know if she can pick things up as quickly as I can, etc.?

I also now understand why the locker rooms at school were always hot air messes. Part of our culinary training was to prepare for stifling hot locker rooms. There is no ventilation and you start sweating profusely the moment you step inside.

One More Thing

2007-10-03T10:36:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I forgot to mention this. When I left the restaurant on Friday night I had a bit of a rat encounter. A rat momentarily blocked my access to the subway entrance. I started walking down the stairs to get into the station and was stopped by the sight of a standard subway rat just hanging out two steps below me. The stairwell is pretty narrow, so I didn't know what to do. I didn't dare pass the thing. I would surely scare the rat by running past it, but there was no way to be certain that it would choose flight over fight. Thankfully, I spotted an empty water bottle nearby and kicked it at the rat. It scurried down the stairs and out of sight.

While on the platform waiting for the train, I was able to count at least 15 distinctly different rats at one time. At 2:30am you are bound to see more rat activity because there are less people around and the trains run less frequently, but this was still ridiculous. I was waiting near the end of the platform where the front of the train would end up, and most of the late night party-goers were waiting around the middle of the platform. At one point some guy walked over to my end in an attempt to find a save place to pee. Even needing to pee was beat out by the rats. I warned him of the rats, he kicked some bins to scare them away and then gave up and went back. I am sure you are wondering if there was a grossly deformed and bitter rat amongst the rat mass. Why, yes there was! One particularly large rat had some crazy tumors on its body, moved slowly and loudly tried to attack every rat that came in its vicinity. At least I wasn't bored while I waited for my train.

Mmmm.... venison

2007-09-30T22:32:00.000-04:00

During my shift on Friday, one of the culinary guys brought in some venison sausage on rolls with onions, peppers and whole mustard seeds. I scraped off the onion and peppers (don't judge me, I hate that crap) and damn was it good. I have no idea why they had venison to grind into sausage, because I am pretty sure venison doesn't appear anywhere on the menu. Maybe they were working on a new dish. Oh, and it was part venison and part pork -- a delicious marriage. Speaking of new dishes, the zucchini cake with goat cheese frosting is already on the menu. It's crazy how quickly stuff like that happens in a restaurant with a seasonal menu. I don't really know why, but I expected it to take longer than a week to implement something like that.

One thing that I have noticed regularly in our kitchen is a serious lack of solid knife skills. People using the wrong knife for the job, or using the right knife in the wrong way. Either way, Chef Norman would have a heart attack. (Chef Norman is a slightly cantankerous old man who loves using super cheesy puns while teaching the knife skills classes at my school.) Last week one girl was displaying VERY poor techniques and it really freaked me out. She could have easily given herself a serious injury. I even said, "Don't cut it that way" as I walked past. She didn't respond, so I am not sure if she heard me and chose to ignore me, or not.

Overall, Friday was a really good night. Even the music was pretty good. The girl who I worked with brought in her music for the CD player. The Velvet Underground is a VAST improvement over the endless stream of Counting Crows that I often have to endure. One girl on staff must REALLY love the Counting Crows (and nothing else) because she puts the CD on all the time, especially at the end of the night when we are trying to wrap up. I also think the Counting Crows CD is possessed by the devil or perhaps cursed in some way. Normally, when it gets to the last track of a CD, the player in the kitchen will just stop playing. This is not the case with Counting Crows. When that CD is in, it will automatically restart. I have no idea why. So that means I may end up listening to the entire CD multiple times in a row without realizing it, or without the ability to free myself up to change it. Oftentimes, I am so busy with something I can't step away to change the CD, and then next thing I know I have heard "Mr. Jones" three times. I didn't hate CC before (I was by no means a fan, though), but I totally hate them now.

Victory

2007-09-23T12:50:00.000-04:00

Last night I faced some old foes and won! That's right. I came face to face with marshmallows and I successfully made a batch in..... one attempt. In your face, marshmallows! I also did well against the bar nuts. It wasn't a complete conquest, however. I'd say I won the battle but not the war on that one.

Last night was a really good night overall. Chef even told me that I was doing a good job and that she was impressed with my work and my approach to working. I got to work alone with Chef for a few hours. I asked her if "this was a normal set-up for a restaurant" since I had never worked in a restaurant and had nothing to judge it against. She laughed and said "not at all." At this point, very few restaurants have so much space, staff and money dedicated to pastry. At our restaurants the menu is prix fixe, so dessert is automatically included in the price structure. Since our restaurant is so popular, all seats are reserved well ahead of time. That means we knew in advance that about 240 people would be served for dinner last night. Since all of those people get dessert (unless they decline, which does happen sometimes) it is easier to determine how much to make every day.

I helped Chef work on a new dessert item. She had me make a zucchini cake while she made a goat cheese based filling. I got to taste and discuss the first attempt at a new dessert. Eating dessert as a part of your job = awesome.

I couldn't help noticing that we use a crazy amount of grapeseed oil in our kitchen. We stock more grapeseed oil than any other oil, by far. I was really curious about it because I knew nothing about grapeseed oil. I finally decided to ask Chef about it and I was surprised by the answer. Basically, the executive chef likes to use grapeseed oil and prefers it over canola oil. Therefore, my chef is encouraged to use it as well. Chef said that she could use canola if she wanted to but it isn't worth the bother. Some things aren't worth fighting for. As brief as the conversation was, it did remind me of what I already knew. Pastry chefs answer to another chef. The executive chef is still the captain of the ship. This is one of the reasons why a few pastry chefs have started their own dessert-centric restaurants over the past few years.

For the curious, grapeseed oil has a very high smoke point (like peanut oil) without the allergy concern and has a very light taste. It is also expensive.

Who Let a Bears Fan in Here?

2007-09-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

While we work we must have something covering our hair. I have opted for my Chicago Bears hat because it allows me to show my pride in the navy blue and burnt orange while meeting sanitation standards. Some guy came into the pastry room and exclaimed, "Who let a Bears fan in here?" I had some retort that was so witty I cannot even recall it. Basically, the guy ends up being a Buffalo Bills fan. BUFFALO BILLS. This man clearly is not a football fan, let alone a Bills fan. If you are a Bills fan you do not care about the Bears. Perhaps you are jealous that we have the greatest player currently in the NFL -- Devin Hester. Perhaps you are just jealous of our awesome D. Whatever the case may be, sir, you are no Bills fan. The Bills aren't even in the same conference. We have no rivalry. All you have proven is that you can successfully identify the Chicago Bears "C". Leave me alone.

Relief

2007-09-22T12:26:00.000-04:00

Last night was exciting because I didn't screw anything up. Yay! I will ignore the fact that I didn't have to do anything new or terribly complicated.

I didn't have time during the week to search for new shoes so I decided to wear my uniform shoes sans orthotic inserts. Good news: the bunions didn't hurt at all. Slightly bad news: my heels started hurting. The heel pain was nothing compared to the old bunion pain. However, I know I can't keep using the uniform shoes because the heel stuff will intensify over time. The heel pain relates to the plantar fasciitis crap, so if I continue working without the inserts I will start walking like igor whenever I am not wearing shoes. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being "normal" and 10 being "full on igor", I was at a 5 when I woke up today. Don't get me wrong, it is a good temporary fix for now.

Last night I got to talk a lot more with the pastry sous chef. The way she speaks really reminds me of my old roommate Jane. She also went through the same culinary program I went through, so it was nice to talk to her about its instructors and how well it prepares students for a work environment.

I have a little experiment you can conduct in your home. Using your thumb, pointer finger and index finger, take a pinch of something ground up (for example, ground nuts) and in a controlled manner release the pinch so that only 4 or 5 pieces come out. Repeat for at least half an hour. How does your hand feel? Weird, huh? Yeah, me too.

Day Two - Bunion Attack

2007-09-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

Day 1 ended with some very sore bunionettes. Basically, I have horrible feet. I have plantar fasciitis, which is an arch issue which is exacerbated by walking flat footed and doing high impact aerobic stuff without proper arch support. I also have crazy big bunions and bunionettes. (Bunionettes are bunions that develop at the pinky toe.) I got myself fancy expensive shoe insert orthotics for the plantar fasciitis from my podiatrist. They made a mold of my foot and designed the inserts from that. The stupid inserts take up so much room in my shoes that my bunions are left with no breathing room. By the end of my first day the baby bunionettes were screaming at me.

Day 2 was waaaaay worse. Oh my god was it worse! The bunion pain was so bad that I took my shoes off and stood on them. Remember the perpetually wet floors? I couldn't just stand on the floor in socks, so I resorted to standing on my shoes. Thankfully, I was alone most of the night so no one would notice. Of course there is a lot of movement in a pastry kitchen, so I couldn't go shoeless for very long. By the time my shift was done, the pain was so bad that I wasn't sure if I could get to the subway station without puking or crying. In even took my shoes off when I was on the train. By that point, however, the pain wouldn't subside even when shoeless. I plan on bitching to my podiatrist regarding the side effects of the orthotics. I also need to go replacement shoe shopping stat!

The only other item of note was my battle with the seasoned nuts. I sort of over baked the seasoned nuts. 6 full sheet pans of 'em. Oops! The directions said bake until they no longer look wet. Well, the still looked wet. Anyway, when you over bake seasoned nuts the sugar in the seasoning hardens so much that it becomes ridiculously hard to remove the nuts from the pan. I attacked the pans with a bench scraper (kinda like a wall scraper) and eventually had to put the pans back in the oven to soften the sugar a little. I had to attack the pans with my hands as well and I literally shredded my latex gloves. Who knows how long I was ripping at the stuck nuts with shredded gloves. I eventually looked down and saw that my skin was exposed along every single finger of the gloves. Between the nuts and and the perpetual hand washing with harsh soaps my hands were a mess at the end of the night.

OH! AND I FELL. I slipped on some wet floor and fell!!!! In your face, Uncool Girl! You can't judge me for my stupid questions now! Thankfully I was alone in a storage room so no one witnessed it.

First Day -- Pastry Monkey v Marshmallows

2007-09-16T04:30:00.000-04:00

Today was the first day of my externship!

The girl who started me out was waaaaay cooler than the girl I had to work with way back on my trail. (In kitchen speak, a "trail" is when you work a shift at an establishment you are considering for a job, or in my cae an externship.) Why was this girl cooler? 1) She was not bitter about her job. 2) She didn't seem to misinform me about pastry basics. 3) She had sturdy wrists. (The uncool girl had sore wrists or something and complained about it when I shook her hand 'hello'. And she continued to whine about the wrists the rest of the day.)

I am currently assigned the "swing shift" which means I work the night shift doing various prep work while the rest of the staff does service (plating desserts as they are ordered for dinner.) Tonight I got to learn a number of things I will be doing everyday: making the daily giant batch of coffee cake batter (to put "big" in perspective, it calls for 5 pounds of butter and 10 pounds of sour cream), making various petit fours (marshmallows and tiny lemon cakes), making seasoned mixed nuts, etc. All of it is pretty straight forward and things were going fairly well until I met my nemesis -- the marshmallow.

I've made marshmallows twice in culinary school without a problem, so it was really frustrating that it took multiple attempts to make 1 batch today. I actually lost count of my attempt. I think there were 4, but I am not totally certain. Marshmallows are simple enough. You add cooked sugar and gelatin to egg whites as they are whipping. Then you add any flavorings. Pow! Instant marshmallows. How could something so simple get fucked up by me a bunch of times? Well, first Chef told me that usually you are supposed to add 30% of the sugar's weight in water to the pot of sugar, but that you can actually put less. You just need to make sure it is wet like sand. Here is the main source of failed attempts 1 and 2. Chef's definition of "wet sand" vastly differs from mine. When I think wet sand, I think of the sand that is near the water and is sort of wet, but not totally. Chef thinks wet sand is the sand that is still totally covered in water. In the end, I wasn't putting enough water in AT ALL, which resulted in the cooked sugar to heat up too quickly and to crystallize. What about the other failed attampts? Cleaning guys were spraying down the floors and I had to move. Even though I truned down the heat, the sugar had overcooked by the time I could get back. The other failed attempts? Who knows. All that matters is that EVENTUALLY (literally hours later) I successfully made 2 whole batches of marshallows. Yay!

Now on to those guys spraying the water. The thing that irks me a bit about this restaurant is the fact that it is constantly wet. They are constantly mopping, which is great, but they are also pouring giant buckets of soapy water everywhere. And the process to clear out the soapy water involves letting the soap water sit for a long time, eventually spraying the soap away, letting the remaining water sit a while, squeegeeing the water away and finally mopping again. It turns the place into one giant puddle of water. I am always worried that I will slip and fall, especially when carrying something bulky or heavy. I had asked the uncool girl from way back if anyone had ever fallen because of the water. She acted like it was the most ridculous notion that someone would slip and fall with all the SOAPY WATER on the tile floors. Grrrrr.

Despite the battle with marshmallows, things went well. I like my chef a lot. She is a shorty like me and I enjoy her personality. She drops the f-bomb with ease and gets her energy up at the end of the night by playing some Guns N Roses. I heart Chef! Sure, she also rocks out to that song Fancy by Reba McIntyre, but no one is perfect. (Remember when Kellie Pickler butchered that song in American Idol?)

A Little Background

2007-09-15T13:09:00.000-04:00

I recently finished culinary school and am about to start working at a top New York City restaurant for my externship. I decided to create this blog as a way to monitor my experiences and progress. I have never worked in food service, let alone in a restaurant, so I do not know what to expect. I am somewhat not looking forward to it. Being on your feet for over 11 hours at a time with no break and no place to sit = suck. Hey. At least I am realistic about it, right?

You don't have to read this blog, and I certainly won't pester you about it. If you are bored or curious to read about my kitchen failings and (hopefully) successes, then pop by every so often. I will try to post regularly, but I suspect I will start to slack off after a few weeks.

I apologize in advance for any long or dull entries. Like I said before, you don't have to read them.