Wednesday, 7/28/10 – Level 5 Day 3 (Poissonnier)

We were all gathering around at the beginning of class to take attendance and discuss the evening when I noticed that my partner, the fourth member of our group, wasn't yet in the kitchen. By the end of roll call, he still wasn't there so, before I freaked out, mentioned his absence to chef. "Jacques-leen, shall will close ze restaurant? No…we will be just fine." Ok, speak for yourself chef, because you're not the one who's going to have to handle the cod dish by yourself. The three of us started our prep for the night, which was doubled because a new group is taking over on Friday and we were asked to make sure they were well prepared on their first night, but I soon realized that it was going to be a rough couple of hours.

We had started the evening with the plan that I'd be cooking the cod, someone would be cooking the shrimp and the third person would be the runner and the plater, handling everything else that needs to be done. Once service started, though, it didn't quite seem to work out that way. For some reason, they were having a hard time with the shrimp, so the two of them focused solely on filling those orders. I was simply trucking away, searing, baking and basting in my own little world while listening to orders that were coming in, heating the Sauce Tomate and plating the dish like a little fleshy robot. It wasn't until one of my group members said, "Sorry I haven't been helping, we're kind of drowning over here," did I realize that half the night had passed and I was handling everything on my own just fine. In fact, I was keeping an extra cod piece (ha ha ha) on the warmer at all times, just in case an urgent order came in. Not too shabby, eh??

Luckily, the end of my evening went fantastically; the beginning, however, didn't start out too well. I was in charge of making a huge batch of the smoked potato cream for Friday, so I chopped a bunch of shallots, sweated them in butter until they were nice and pearly and then added white wine. I turned the heat up to quickly reduce to wine, and turned my back to start multi-tasking. A few minutes later (quicker than I had expected), I smelled something slightly bitter and realized that my pot was smoking. Nothing can prepare you for the anxious feeling you get while approaching a pot that's smoking on the stove, not knowing what you'll find when you peek your eyes above the edge. Well, funny story, what I found was a smoking heap of burnt shallots! Ok…no big deal. I dumped the pot, sent it to the dishwashers (their judging looks didn't help…like you've never burnt something mon ami) and started on a new batch of shallots. Everything went well this time, so I added the potatoes, boiled them in the stock until they were soft and strained everything out. In a large blender, I added the potatoes, the shallots and some crème fraiche and hit 'start.' Nothing. I tried a new outlet, and hit 'start' again. Again, nothing. Hmm…I walked that big blender around that whole kitchen and tried almost every outlet I could find, and still nothing. One with a keen common sense might think, "Silly Jackie, the problem is obviously with the blender itself. Just get a new blender!" Thanks guys, that's exactly what I did; I got a new blender base, took everything back over to my original outlet and hit 'start.' Nothing. It was already 7:45, and service was starting in fifteen minutes so I put everything aside, including my mounting frustration, and focused on the night's tasks. I still don't know what the problem was, but at the end of the night when my group member asked me if she could help with any of the prep for Friday, I directed her towards the abandoned blender in the corner.

In the middle of the evening, I received an order for four cod. I took the four fillets out of the refrigerator, placed them on a sheet pan to come to room temperature and seasoned each. A few minutes later, as I was preparing to cook the fish, chef got my attention and called me over to the pan. "Jacques-leen, you must be careful of ze worms." Hmm, that's weird, I'm pretty used to translating accents, but I'm not aware of a French word that sounds like 'worms.' I followed his gaze…and found a worm on the platter. A worm. A freaking worm. On the platter. Near the cod. A worm. He explained to me that cod is a wormy fish…so when I'm asked in the future: yes, Wednesday, July 28^th, 2010 was the last time I ever ate cod.

By the end of the night, I had literally consumed nothing other than warm water for the past eight hours, so I was understandably starving. I had about three minutes to spare, so I made myself a small plate and shoved the food into my mouth, inhaling the solids down my esophagus faster than air. I glanced over, and a classmate, who I happen to be very good friends with, was slack-jawed, staring right at me. "What's the deal, creep?" I asked him. "I'm sorry, I've just never really seen anyone eat that fast before." Awesome. Since when did I become a frat boy? I should probably renew my feminine manners and etiquette…but maybe I'll wait until graduation.

Monday, 7/26/10 – Level 5 Day 2 (Poissonnier)

I honestly think I've taken more showers in the past month than I've taken in the entirety of the year 2010. Not that I was ever a dirty person or anything; I mean, I showered regularly and kept myself up to the accepted standards of a functioning adult. With the combination of pumping iron at the gym (that's right, I said it), NYC's million days of 100% humidity and spending endless hours in a stressful inferno while wearing a head-to-toe white canvas sac, I seem to be spending most of my waking hours planning my schedule around showers. I've also noticed that, since starting school, I've been sweating much more in my personal life than usual. For example, at school it's so hot and frantic that you just kind of have to accept the fact that your back is dripping and your neckerchief is stuck to your moist skin (kind of like hot yoga, an activity I once enjoyed). My body is so used to expelling water as fast as I can drink it, I have found that simply stepping outside on a warm morning will send my pores on high alert and my brow gearing up to perspire at a rate worthy of the Hoover Dam. It's mildly embarrassing, considering that I never used to be a huge sweater (not the cardigan type). Steve insists that, contrary to popular belief, fit people actually sweat more during physical activity than unfit people, but I counter that notion with the evidence that I am neither fit nor often engaged in physical activity when the water works begin. Any who…

We had a lot of prep to do on Monday night, because we depleted most of our resources with the busy dinner service on Friday and didn't want to make too much food for Monday, lest it spoil over the weekend. We had to make smoked potato cream, brew up some more Sauce Tomate, clean lots of greens for the salads and make another pan of potato brandade to cut into cakes. I choose to work on the latter and boiled potatoes, poached the cured cod and sauté a few heads of garlic to prepare. Chef trucked one of the huge industrial Kitchen Aid mixers from pastry into the main kitchen for me, and we began by combining everything, with a little salt and pepper, and mixing it on high. Once it was all mixed, we each took a taste. "Chef, I believe it needs a little more garlic." Good job, Jackie, way to be proactive. Prove that you understand the complexity of tastes yet aren't afraid of offering your humble suggestion. Keep it up. "No," he quickly replied. Hmm…better luck next time. I decided to quit while I was ahead, so I took the mixture, spread it out into a sheet pan and started cutting out little round molds. They were breaded, pan fried and kept warm for service.

My partner and I switched to the cod dish, after two days of handling the shrimp. I was a little nervous to be on the cod station, considering the hole my teammates had dug themselves into last week. The fillet is cooked in three stages, as opposed to the shrimp's single pan sauté, and can quickly become overwhelming if you don't stay on top of your orders and keep yourself a step ahead of The Expediter. As the orders started pouring in, we got into a good rhythm of me on the fire and my partner tossing the salad and plating the sauce. We were searing, baking, basting, re-heating, pouring and tossing like a well-oiled machine, and at times were so prepared we even had a few minutes to relax and stare off into space (or maybe that was just me). Before I knew it, The Expediter called out, "Last table," meaning that we were done for the night. I couldn't believe my ears – it was already 10pm! We sent out the last plate and started to clean our station. As I digested how the night had gone, I suddenly felt really bad that I had monopolized the majority of the cooking, while my partner was left with the plating. He didn't mind, and was actually happy with our teamwork but vowed that the tables would be turned on Wednesday.

We've really started to find our success in Poissonnier, but unfortunately will be trading up to Saucier very soon. I've never been that great on a grill, so I best learn me some steak ASAP because one of Saucier's main, and most popular, dishes is a thin grilled steak. While some consider Poissonnier to be the hardest, I think blindly grilling a steak to a customer's particular request is way harder than searing a cod fillet. Then again, I used to think I could never cook in a restaurant and I seem to be doing just fine.

Friday, 7/23/10 – Level 5 Day 1 (Poissonnier)

I am really, REALLY glad we had one night of restaurant cooking under our belts before Friday night dinner service, or else I would have covered my head with my apron, found a quiet corner and hugged my knees until 10pm. If Wednesday night was frantic, Friday night was Los Angeles after the 1992 Rodney King Uprising. It seemed like everyone and their moms were eating out in the restaurant, and they were all ordering the shrimp. We flew through a night's allotment of raw shrimp in the first 30 minutes, and had to ask our less-busy classmates in Entremetier to de-shell and de-vein another pan (because the production team in Level 4, who would normally handle all of our protein prep, was on dinner break…how nice ha ha ha). The night definitely didn't slow down, and we were cranking out shrimp plates like crazy.

We finally met the chef that will be in charge for the remainder of our time at school. He's Russian, I think, yet speaks French and talks too fast for me to catch every one of his heavily accented words. He also has very limited patience, and I learned quickly that he doesn't appreciate questions or having to explain things more than once. We spent the beginning of class finishing some prep, vegetable cutting and getting everything in place for service (which starts at 8pm). About twenty minutes before service, he told us that he was going to do a new demo for each of our dishes because he wants them done his way. He also yelled at us for doing things that our previous chef had told us to do, so we were a little weary of how different "his way" would be. Sure enough, after spending all Wednesday night becoming comfortable with our dishes and memorizing the steps, we were shown two completely different ways to cook the shrimp and cod, sending our brains into a tailspin a mere five minutes before service. The plating was the same, but the method by which we got to the plate was nothing alike. It didn't help that his demos were interrupted a million times by questions from across the kitchen, and the combination of his accent and our nervousness wasn't helping. My teammates, who were handling the cod again for the second night in a row, were left with terribly confused and anxious looks on their faces, which did not seem to improve throughout the night. For some reason, they were having a really hard time with their orders. I think they were stuck in a world of confusion between the two chef's methods, and the fish was being overcooked and improperly handled. This was NOT making our new chef, or The Expediter, very happy. "What are you doing, there, you with the cod?? (He doesn't yet know our names.) Zis es all wrong! Non, did you even see ze demo??" Meanwhile, The Expediter was yelling, "I said I needed three cod! Let's go let's go! Cod, you're holding everyone up! Why are you only plating one cod, I said THREE!!" I was just cringing and trying to stay out of the way, but inevitably the focus shifted to us, the shrimpers. Chef, who had been running around to each of the Level 5 stations to make sure we were doing things correctly, wasn't paying as close attention to the order board as we were. He kept getting angry that I was only cooking two orders, or plating one, when there appeared to be more on the board. "No chef, those have already gone up. I already passed those to The Expediter." "Non, you have tree orders to make!" "No chef, I'm sorry, those have already been made, I only have one left." "Oh…I see. Continue on then." Phew…he scared me there for a minute. He also showed us a new way to interpret the order board that our other chef didn't teach us. Apparently The Expediter will place a small star next to the table number once they've gotten their appetizers. In a traditional five course meal, fish is right after the appetizers, so chef taught us that once that star is (silently) placed on the board, we should start cooking the fish, predicting that we will be coming up shortly thereafter. That way, when The Expediter says, "Fire!" we can just start to plate the dish, and will always be on time! This seems simple enough, but it takes a lot of getting used to. Early in the night, I got a little excited and started to plate two orders of shrimp once the star went on the board, and got yelled at, rightly so, because I was way too early to be plating. The orders hadn't even been fired yet! I felt like an idiot, especially when the plates were unusable.

I think we'll finally get into the groove of the restaurant and how everything works, but the learning curve has been painful. I'll be assigned to the cod dish on Monday, and I'm not looking forward to it. Then again, Mondays are always slower than Fridays, so maybe it won't be too bad. I've definitely been reassured lately that I'm not cut out to work in a restaurant (unless, I guess, it's the Tuesday morning breakfast shift). Restaurant service isn't for everyone, but I'm grateful I've started in Poissonnier; I've been thrown into the deep end before, and I always seem to float.

Wednesday, 7/21/10 – Level 4 Day 20

In order to appropriately transition into the restaurant (and to get us out of the big kitchen so that other levels could do their exams), we moved over into the restaurant kitchen to prepare for our first night of service under the close watch of our Level 4 chef. I was stationed in Poissonnier with four other classmates, although one of my group members has dropped out, effective immediately, to work full-time in a restaurant. Since it was his last night, and he's obviously experienced in the workings of a restaurant during a busy dinner service, he practically held my hand to help me navigate this new, stressful environment.

In the restaurant, we're split up into five groups: Entremetier (specials), Garde Manger (appetizers), Poissonnier (fish), Saucier (meat) and Patissier (pastry), which each have their own stations in the kitchen. Since we share the kitchen with the Level 6 students, who are also split into five groups, each station has two main dishes that they focus on per night – meaning that there are four appetizers, four fish dishes, four meat dishes, etc. on the menu. The two Level 5 fish dishes for the summer are: 1. Seared Shrimp with Smoked Potato Cream, Pickled Grapes and Sautéed Radishes and 2. Sautéed Fillet of Cod with Brandade Cake, Sauce Tomate and a Salad of Frisee, Mache and Cherry Tomatoes. We're lucky in Poissonnier, because most fish dishes are cooked very quickly, and there's not a ton of prep (unlike if you were making a beef stew, for example, where you have to have it all cooked and ready before orders start coming in). On our final day in the Level 4 kitchen, my classmates had completed some necessary prep work for us (that we would have normally done for ourselves), making the smoked potato cream, sauce tomate and pickling the grapes. All we had to do was warm everything up, make sure our fish were appropriately portioned and keep everything hot for service.

We got a quick demo from chef of each plate, which was basically five minutes of "Season everything, sear this, pour this here and plate it like this." Sure, it sounds pretty easy, but when the clock struck 8:00pm and the first orders came in, I was panicking. "Did he say put the grapes on the right or the left? Do we serve five shrimp with each order? What about the romaine??" The Expediter, who I've mentioned before for her steel eyes and killer gaze, makes sure the kitchen runs smoothly and approves all dishes before they go out to the public, so I knew that if it wasn't perfect she would personally walk it back to me to shove it in my face, then make me re-do the whole thing. I chose to do the shrimp with a partner, and the others handled the cod.

The menu is set up as a five-course prix fixe, so when you first sit down you make all of your choices for each course. When that order comes in, The Expediter will call each dish out to the cooks, saying, for example, "Order in, one shrimp!" and then you are expected to repeat what she says in an attempt to acknowledge the fact that you must have one shrimp dish ready for service. You get everything together, make sure everything is hot and that you've got a hot pan ready to go, and only when she says, "Fire, one shrimp" do you start to cook the protein. It gets a little more complicated, though: if one person at the table in question has ordered shrimp, yet another has ordered the salmon and another the tuna, all Poissonniers must communicate and plan so that each dish is ready at the same time. If the salmon takes five minutes, but the shrimp takes only three, I have to pay attention to how far into cooking the salmon group is in order to ensure that my shrimp are served hot and fresh off the fire. If it happened exactly as I've described, life would be easy. However, during the height of the night, I could get an "Order in, three shrimp" and then immediately a "Fire, two shrimp" and then an "Order in, two shrimp" all at the same time. I'm learning that it's essential to stay quiet and just listen, and to make sure you're incredibly organized and clean. It got a little hairy at times, but I had my group member to help me through this first night. He said that at his restaurant, sometimes he'll be the only one on the grill, for example, and will have to juggle up to ten orders at once. Yikes!

Since we have so much that we need to keep warm, yet must keep as many burners free as possible, we had to create a warm bain marie, or water bath, over the grill top at our station. We were luckily able to stick a bunch of things in there, including the smoked potato cream and the sauce tomate, yet keep all of our burners free for the shrimp, the cod and frying the brandade cake (a salted fish/potato patty that is breaded and deep fried). Each container had its own spoon, so when the time came for me to spread a little potato cream over the warm plate, with The Expediter yelling "Come on shrimp, what's taking so long?? Move it!" I failed to remember that the bain marie rests on top of an open fire grill. I grabbed the top of the spoon, sitting directly above the fire, and was suddenly transported to the ACME kitchen in a Roadrunner cartoon. My eyes bulged and my skin seared and smoked on the hot handle. A distant horn blared, "AOOOOOGA!!" I pulled myself away from the spoon, cursing my ignorance, and grabbed it again with a side towel. I spent the rest of the night with a swollen thumb, but luckily the pads of your fingers are used to some abuse and bounce back pretty quickly.

As the last order came in and I seared the final five shrimp, I couldn't believe how frantic the night had been. I've heard people make fun of the L'Ecole kitchens because it's so full of students and chefs that there's just not enough work to go around. The cockier ones, who work at NYC's most famous and busiest kitchens, like to act like it's a vacation to come to school and cook at L'Ecole, but for my first experience in a real restaurant kitchen it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. I definitely had no idea what to expect, and no show on The Food Network can convey the heat, creativity and stress to deliver swelling at every stove and burner. I'm honestly kind of nervous to go back, but I know I can handle it. It'll be a challenge, but I can make it.

Monday, 7/19/10 - Level 4 Day 19 (Family Meal)

I'm not really happy about saying this, but I've had the personal policy since writing my blog that I will be open and honest about my entire culinary experience, including the good, the bad and the ugly. So I cannot, with any sense of editorial authenticity, refrain from telling my first story of the day. So here goes...

I had to cut my elastic hounds tooth pants in order to get them on. Read that carefully - they didn't need to be cut to get them OFF at the end of a sweaty, swollen night of running around the kitchen. The elastic had to be cut to get them ON as I stood in the air conditioned women's locker room, elastic stretched to capacity around the widest part of my feminine curves as I attempted to get dressed for class. Granted, they were the size that I originally ordered last fall when I signed up for school, and soon realized they were just a little too tight for comfort so I exchanged the remaining two pairs for one size larger. I still had this smaller size sitting in the back of my locker, and when I frantically realized that my other two pairs were at the laundromat, they were my only option. Hence how I found myself, on a sunny Monday afternoon after a long day at work, using my kitchen shears to cut the elastic band down to the single-fabric layer, and then wiggling, nay, jumping to get them on. Sure, they were tight when I got them, but they were definitely still wearable. Seven months later, they wouldn't even budge. I spent the whole night with a painful wedgie and the fear that every twist or bend would send the fabric ripping at the seam (that I had cut!), leaving me bare and mortified. That evening when I got home I sheepishly told Steve about what had happened:

"So, I freaked out when I realized both pairs of pants were in the wash. I mean, you know that feeling when you're like, 'oh crap, something bad is happening' so I pulled them over my legs, going as fast as possible to attempt to get a little momentum as they stretched to the maximum but it just didn't work. I had to cut them, Steve, I had to cut them. It was a low point."

Steve: "Well, geez, how'd you let that happen??"

Me: "Um, well, you know, I've just been tasting a lot of the pastry stuff. And you know I love bread and butter. And with my school and work schedule it's harder and harder to get to the gym, but you're right I totally should start making time to work out. But I'm in culinary school for goodness's sake..."

Steve: "Sweetie...no. Oh my God...I meant how'd you let yourself get down to your last pair of pants?"

Me: "Oh."

So maybe I am a little self conscious about it. Nobody likes to be THAT girl though, the one in the corner with the skin tight elastic unisex pants.

It was a pretty standard night at class, although for some reason the person who planned our Family Meal menu thought we should do a Thanksgiving theme, so we had roasted turkey, sweet potato casserole, biscuits and roasted broccoli. It was a little heavy, but delicious as always. However, no Thanksgiving I've ever attended has had 10 (!) perfectly, beautifully roasted full turkeys all lined up on the table (no offense mom). I guess that's what happens when you have a room full of 200 chefs and chefs-in-training.

Next class, while it's still considered Level 4, we'll be training in the main kitchen to prepare for the transition into the restaurant. The Level 6 students will be taking their final exam upstairs (they graduate on Thursday!), and the Level 1 students will be taking their exam (breaking down a chicken...remember that??) in our main kitchen. A whole new class of students start on Wednesday, and we move on to the final rotation of culinary school - cooking for the restaurant. I remember back when I decided to go to FCI, everyone was asking me about the program and curriculum. I would always finish by saying, "We finish school by applying everything we learned by cooking for the school's famous restaurant!" It always seemed so far away...like it was something that would never really happen. We finished up our responsibilities in Family Meal by preparing 15 large lasagnas (some vegetable pesto, some creamy sausage) to serve for Family Meal on Wednesday, since there will be no one available to cook it. I found myself today writing out recipes again on small note cards, something I haven't done since the beginning of Level 3, preparing to learn the restaurant's summer menu. I'll be starting as poisonnier, the fish station, with two other group members. We'll have a new chef, a new group and a new menu...I guess all good things must come to an end.

I've had a security badge at work since my first assignment back in January. They are required for everything, and the armed guards will not let you enter the building without one. The other day, I walked in and scanned my card as usual. I got on the elevator, pushed my floor button and the doors started closing. All of a sudden, a large, meaty arm comes through to stop the elevator from closing, and the guard points to me and says, "Ma'am, I'm going to need to speak to you." Crap...I can explain the apple corer in my bag, I'm a culinary student! It turns out my supervisor hadn't renewed my clearance, so they took my card away and gave me a temporary (and limited) pass for the day. It's amazing how instantly I felt rejected from their club, the exclusive united government workers 'we're all on the same team' club. I felt their eyes judging me as I walked through the cafeteria; "Oh, she's wearing a day pass. She's probably an ex-con that couldn't get clearance. Or she isn't smart enough to actually work for the government full time...she's probably a TEMP!" Without my I.D., which helped me blend into the masses, I suddenly felt like an outcast. It's amazing how a piece of colored plastic can help you feel like you belong, or vice versa. That afternoon, I stopped by the security desk on my way home to pick up my new, renewed card. There were two cards sitting out on the desk: mine and another employee's, let's call him Tony Stark (for the story's purposes). I approached the officer and said, "Hi, good afternoon, I'm here to pick up my I.D. Oh, that's actually mine right there...[pointing at cards]...Tony Stark." He slowly looked me in the eyes, keeping his face stoic, and looked back down. I think he even reached for his weapon. Yikes, note to self: never joke with the NYPD. I don't blame him though, with their high-stress jobs I wouldn't appreciate anyone making an ass of themselves either. Thank goodness the pants-cutting happened that evening, or else I probably would have accidentally disclosed that story. No wonder they took away my security clearance...