Back in the hot, sweaty, frantic kitchen, things are not all ponies and rainbows like they were during my brief stint in Patissier. We're on to Entremetier, the station that handles the night's chef specials (predetermined dishes highlighting one FCI chef's favorite dish for each night of the week) and also the vegetarian options for the prix fixe dinner. While the recipes for the chef's specials are given to us, we must create a unique vegetarian option every night. Some consider Entremetier to be the hardest station, because we're responsible for two new recipes per night, but we only receive about 10% of the number of orders that the other groups receive, so it's definitely not as frantic. Correction: it definitely should not be as frantic. Somehow, my group found a way to make it our worst night yet.
We had decided to make a ratatouille tart: phyllo dough stuffed with country ratatouille (peppers, onions, squash, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and garlic) with a nice design of sliced squash and zucchini fanned out on top and served with baby arugula, balsamic vinegar and large shavings of parmesan cheese. We had about 50 covers for the night (meaning that a total of 50 people had made a reservation for dinner), yet chef insisted that we make at least 25 tarts. The vegetarian option gets ordered probably once out of every 10 or so orders, so we immediately knew that there'd be no freaking way we were going to use all of this product. Alas, we followed orders and made a huge batch of ratatouille.
The dish turned out to be incredibly labor intensive. The molds had to be oiled, the phyllo dough kept moist when not being carefully laid in the molds, the filling poured in and the slices meticulously shingled and arranged around the top. They took about 15 minutes to cook, then the molds were taken off and they were put back in the oven to dry out a little. They were very delicate, so everything had to be done very carefully.
The chef's special for the night was Chicken Paillard with a Viennoise Salad, or basically chicken hammered very thin, breaded and pan fried and served with hard-boiled egg flakes, capers, green olives, anchovies and parsley. It's a great dish, especially with the chicken stock/veal stock jus that gets poured around the parameter. When it was time for service, we were still scrambling to get everything done and our station looked like it got hit by a hurricane. This did not make chef happy - he started yelling, and things automatically declined. We were all trying to simultaneously clean with one hand yet continue to prep with the other while he was stalking around our table like a lion, finding things we were doing wrong and not hesitating to pounce. Yes, it was our fault that we weren't ready for service. Yes, we were disorganized (shocking, I know). Coming from pastry, where mermaids braid your hair and teddy bears float on powdered sugar highways, I had let my guard down and was no longer practicing the Jackie's To Do List of Doom policy.
An order got fired for the vegetarian plate, which was my cue to start assembling. It was going up with a lamb served medium rare, so timing was of the utmost importance. Chef was standing over my shoulder, watching me as I wiped down the table and scrambled to put things away. "Did you hear me fire that veg plate??" screamed The Expediter. "Jacques-leen, you must clean this station now!" screamed my chef. I hadn't even heated up the tart, and I was getting really really nervous, yet continued to clean per my chef's instructions. "I need that veg plate NOW! No exceptions!" The Expediter was getting angry…really angry. I threw a tart in the oven, grabbed a plate and slinked on a pair of gloves faster than you can say 'disaster.' This did not please my chef…he went absolutely berserk, screaming in my face about our messy station, how we were behind and basically just general observations on incompetency. I have an amazing ability to stay calm through such situations (thank God, because there's no crying in the kitchen), so I finished cleaning, ignoring The Expediter, and when I was finished I plated my dish, brought it up, and ran back to my station before she had a chance to say anything to me. It was bad, and I definitely felt like I took the brunt of his frustration for my group, which is ironic because I often feel like I'm the only one holding that group together. I always laugh when people ask me if working in a kitchen is like it is on TV. "No, that's so ridiculous, it's totally hyped for television." Well…let's just say that I would not have walked away with the $10,000 prize last night.
One of my group members, who doesn't hesitate to miss class (even though lots of points are taken away for every absence) said to me at the end of the night, "Man, I'm not sure I'm going to pass this level." "Oh, because of your absences?" I asked. "No…because we suck." Whoa buddy…let he without sin throw the first stone (that makes sense, right?).
The unfortunate part is that we are entirely judged as a group. I mentioned in the beginning that chef has limited patience; well, he also tends to generalize a lot of things. For example, a group member was doing something wrong at the stove. He called us all over and said, "See, this is what you guys don't understand." I wanted to interject and say, "No chef, you're wrong. I do understand," but it's really not appropriate to be so brazenly cocky. It's quite frustrating, though, when you get scolded for something you didn't do, and it is assumed that you don't know how to do something just because of your surroundings. Like my group member, I'm afraid my grade for this level will be disappointing. I've maintained straight 'A's, averaging above a 95% up until now, but this bout with a mismatched group might be my demise. It's a valuable life lesson, though, because you obviously cannot choose everyone with whom you will ever work, and part of being an "adult" is learning how to effectively work together. I'd like to think, though, that some individual credit could be given in group situations, but it can't always be so fair. Just one more station, then we're on to Level 6 and different groups.
I was lying in bed last night, using the cool, dark room to soothe my anxiousness about the evening and reviewing key lessons learned when I finally drifted off into a light sleep. All of a sudden, I had that "uh oh" feeling that shook me into a wide state of aware and cranked my eyes open to the size of saucers: I had forgotten to put the parmesan shavings on the last plate. Not the end of the world, but somebody out there in New York City is wondering what happened to their cheese…
No comments:
Post a Comment