Just to recap I'll give you the second to last paragraph then enter the kitchen...Watch out for "Crash"....he's a pisser.
The cows that I knew and loved were replaced by a sometimes
motley crew of half-assed cooks, dishwashers, wait staff, pot smokers, whip-it
fans, coke heads, alcoholics, frat boys, sorority girls, party animals,
degenerates, poets, drug addicts, philosophy majors, back stabbers, wanna be drug
dealers, bookies and other assorted ass-clowns of the type and variety that you
can only see in a mediocre restaurant, which is to say…a lot of them.
I told you about the farm so I could tell you this one...My first professional kitchen and all the grandeur and fame that goes with being a cook...Yeah just like being married, each day is better than the last...and more sex too! Looking to buy a bridge? By the way this one is a bit longer than my other posts so if you get scared or light-headed cause you had to read a couple thousand words feel free to sit down or pull over to the side of the road and get some air. If you're reading this because you want to be a cook and you had a tough time...you may want to consider a career in astrophysics ...cause this shit's hard!
I changed the names around a bit to protect the guilty
people involved…except for the first guy because I’m pretty sure the name I
know him as, was not his “God Given Christian Name.” The guy on the broiler station was a former
U.S. Marine named Crash, was six-four and rock solid from running
and working out every day for five years.
His outfit was typically a Dead
Kennedys or (insert other early 80’s punk band name here) long sleeve or three
quarter sleeve shirt, suspenders, BDU Camouflaged Shorts or Pants, (compliments
of Uncle Sam) Dr. Martens boots and a mohawk of no particular color because at
any given minute it might change, and a dishwasher’s snap front shirt with the
short sleeves ripped off.
Dan he was the head chef. I only knew him as "chef" and he did expo...he was slight of
frame and average height and was very quiet, so quiet in fact that I can’t even
recall anything about his voice except to say it was quiet mono-toned and
steady. Dan was a good guy, a great leader and in control but he liked to drink
A LOT at the end of his shift…like a lot a lot….so much so that they actually
kept a bottle of vodka outside the doghouse so he could stay and continue to
drink long after everyone decided to take the party elsewhere. Dan was sad and that was that…I never asked or
knew why because I was immortal and had all the problems of a seventeen year
old from a middle class upbringing…which is to say none. I could only assume
everyone else’s world ran as swimmingly as mine.
We had a Mexican named Dave (well it wasn’t Dave but he
called himself a name that was whiter than me!) working sauté who liked to
sexually harass the wait staff(this was before sexual harassment was a “thing”
and even today this thing is more rampant from both sexes in the restaurant world than in any other
industry short of Porn), screw in the walk in, smoke weed with bill the
dishwasher and at times sleep in dry goods when he was too high to drive home.
I wished I could say Dave was a strong cook, he wasn’t. His cooking skills were
augmented by his good sense of humor. Sauté at this restaurant wasn’t as
glamorous or fast paced as it is at most restaurants today and as a result on
slower nights Dave worked the fry station as well.
Jeff was on Grill and was even-keeled until the end of the
night where last minute diners drove him to fits of rage to the point Crash had
to hold him back and keep him from shouting out the back door at the
"unwelcome" patrons who were taking “all the sweet fucking time in
the world.” Expressing to them in his most sincere and heart-felt way "what a
bunch of cocksuckers they were"....he was like Jekyll and Hyde at the end of the
night, but during service he was rock steady and fun to be around.
These were the main players from the kitchen but there are a
few worth mentioning. I mentioned Bill the dishwasher who Dave loved to smoke pot
with, well aside from wash dishes I’m pretty sure that’s all Bill did was smoke
pot and snap at the wait staff. Patrick who was one of the owner’s two sons who
was my age, full of piss, vinegar and thoughts of revenge and anger towards his folks for making him be in this industry. Anyway had access to the apartment over the restaurant
where the real debauchery would take place after the restaurant closed for the
night.
There were the owners themselves let’s call them Bob and
Hilda (as in Broom) who were rarely there and thank heavens as they were both
about as much fun as a zip top baggie full of pig testicles. There was another
son whom we shall call Dick (short for Richard of course) who would
travel around from kitchen to kitchen spreading his gift for being moody bitch with everyone in all five kitchens in the parents growing restaurant
empire. Then there was Dick’s girlfriend and travel companion who also cooked
and curmudgeoned her way around all the other restaurants. Let’s call her… Constance or if we can....the
shortened female version of Dick….you get the idea. But as these characters don’t
really come into play for this story, that’s all I will say about them.
I didn’t stay a bus boy too long because Dan found out I
could hold a knife and not kill anyone, so I stopped being a bus boy
and moved into the kitchen as a prep cook. I learned more tips and tricks in
two weeks of doing prep than I had learned since I started watching Julia Child
with my dad when I was five or so. I loved doing prep because although there
was a lot to do… it wasn’t especially hard as long as you were well organized.
Everybody knows how well organized teenage boys are just by
looking at their rooms, so this was a bit of a challenge. One of the good
things about working in a kitchen and doing prep is that it is a “carrot and
stick” environment. Do well and you get the carrot. Do poorly, screw up and
you get your ass beat with the stick. Putting together those stuffed mushroom caps
means grabbing about fifteen things so forgetting just two or three things
means extra trips to the walk-in cooler or worse, all the way down the back stairs
to dry storage. Making those extra trips means extra time…extra time is
something you don’t have a lot of. So when you burn it up just walking around
you get …dans la merde! Literally translated…in the shit!
The one benefit in being a prep cook is that you are at
least higher on the food chain than both the dishwasher and most of the front
of the house people. This is also where you first discover the divide between
the front and back of house. This is where you are groomed to understand that
the wait staff are all idiots out to screw you every chance they can because
it’s all about them and their precious tips. Of course only being a lowly prep
cook you are somewhat invisible to the “real” cooks and are sort of a man
without a country. In limbo to defend your station against the poaching
hordes looking to steal those shrimp you’re cooking, and you’ll get your ass
kicked by chef if you let them.
Crash’s looks intimidated me a bit but I loved listening to
him telling wait staff what a bunch of bombastic fuck-ups they were. I was a
prep cook and that made me lower than a
ticks ass amongst most of the other back of house employees. So one day while I was
futzing around doing prep in the kitchen while Crash dressed down another waiter
and telling him he could "Roll his art-history degree up tight and jam it in his ass sideways..." I chuckled at this and thought the "sideways" was a nice touch...
I looked up and Crash was staring at me and posed the
question “and just what the fuck are you laughing about?” Caught off guard and
feeling red in the face from embarrassment, I opted to go with “I’m not sure if
it’s your face or your ass but if it’s the latter, that’s the most impressive
handstand I’ve ever seen!”*** To which Crash just turned his head in the direction
of the other line cooks who were now laughing, looked back at me
and half smiled saying “well…I guess Cubby’s a fucking comedian…”
*** (this was part of a joke my father used to say and always made me laugh) I'm glad I said it because had I let him attack me without digging him back...I would have been the kitchen bitch.
Cubby, as it turns out was the nickname they had given me
because I had somewhat of a crew cut and chubby cheeks so they decided I looked
like Cubby from Disney’s Mouseketeers. Nicknames are a good thing in the
kitchen even though they’re not always good. Let me explain…a nickname is
something you’re given if the other cooks give enough of a shit that you’re
even there. The downside is you aren’t in any way involved in the “Nicknaming”
process.
It’s usually as a
result of something you’ve messed up or do as a habit, or is sometimes indicative of your
more base predilections. Suffice it to say I was lucky. Even though the
nickname was meant to be an insult of sorts in saying I was a chubby little kid…
which I guess in some ways I was…ok, in all ways I was. But I’m glad it wasn’t “Pissy”
nickname given to one of the cooks who drank piss from a beer bottle, (the result
of a prank) “maricón” (vulgar Spanish for a gay male) given to one of the cooks
cause he accidentally tried to pick up a transvestite while on a bender and
the transvestite came and visited him at the restaurant, “cojones” Spanish
for testicles given to the only female cook as in…she had bigger testicles than
her boyfriend (the owner’s eldest son)who was aptly nicknamed “Mary”.
I did prep for most of the summer and just before school was
about to start I was “lucky” enough to be there on a Thursday night after
working all afternoon and Dave came in not feeling so well. And by not feeling
so well I mean he was hung over and probably either had some kind of stomach
virus or was genuinely sick. It was decided he would only do sauté and I would
do fry station… I wasn’t asked to do it, I was told that would be my job with
the only instruction being…”Don’t fuck it up” in a calm tone and manner that
was indicative of how chef always talked…Yes Chef was about all I could say.
Fry Station: Fry stations in higher end restaurants don’t
get much use with the exception of maybe deep frying some capers, sage or basil for garnish, or perhaps the odd order of steak frites for a
flash fry to crisp them up. In this restaurant everything short of prime rib went
in there. On two occasions I even saw those go in there because they came
back from the dining room with the waiter saying "they weren’t well done enough." Chef was not
there and it was the end of the night so you guessed it…Jeff decided “these
fuckers want me to kill their shit...OK, I'll kill it!!” into the fryolator they went. Trust me when I tell
you people take an already well done steak and give it five minutes in a
fryolator at 375 degrees…it is more.... well…donerer?!
That horrible sound …when you’ve never worked in a kitchen,
or even if you have and are with a new crew for the first time, the sound that
dupe printer makes induces nervousness in some cases, and in my case sheer terror…Oh God No…I thought to myself...What the fuck am I
doing here?! I look over at chef as he scans the order…he looks over at me in
what seemed like slow motion and said “are you ready?” I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything and to
be honest I don’t think he was looking for a response. Fire Three Haddock, Fire
Three Fries, Fire An O Ring, Fire One Shrimp, Fire Two Calamari…everything sounding of nothing.
I looked back to see if Dave could give me a little
instruction but he was in the bathroom
driving the porcelain bus…”CUBBY!” chef shouted. Looking back to see chef with raised
eyebrows…”Yes Chef?” What did I just say to fire? Ummm was all I could muster. “Aw Fuck” said chef! Wow I
thought to myself, I never hear chef say fuck…then the realization that he said
it because I was the one fucking up before I ever “fired” anything…he repeated
the order and I repeated it back to him then reached in the low boy for the
haddock…dropped them in the batter and then into the hanging fry basket before
lowering it into the hot oil. There I thought to myself and with a sigh of relief... I got this. I then
started to work on the fries, shrimp, calamari and o-ring.
I went back to the basket with the haddock to shake it like
I was told. come to find out what I had really done by dropping the haddock in
the basket before lowering it in the oil, was guarantee to weld it to the
bottom of the basket…I tried shaking it harder but to no avail… I figured if I
let it cook longer it would free itself… or get crispy and break free….or maybe
do some kind of magic fish thing…While I was contemplating that…”How long on
the Haddock?! “Looking over at chef I thought about it and looked back at the
fish…pulling a number from somewhere between my ass and mid-air I said one minute
chef. It was kind of golden-ish...right?! I grabbed three plates and scraped the
three pieces of fish from the bottom of the basket and put them on the plate batter
less side down and one of them even broke in half. I was thinking it looked fine and besides... the chef wouldn’t
notice. oddly enough he did…
Keep in mind this whole time he was yelling something new to
fire about every five seconds. I would then repeat what fry items he was asking for and dropping them as fast as I could…but no matter, chef took the time to come back
across the line from expo and down to the fry station where I suspected he’d
give me an “atta boy” or “job well done Cubby.” What I got instead was…If I
ever see this again, (holding the plate of awful fish) I’ll make sure you’re not only back to front of house, but I’ll
make sure you’re fucking under it!
Nobody said anything and continued to cook. I just
lowered my head and continued to bust my ass because there was nothing I could
do but keep cooking…”Fire Three Haddock On The Fly Dumbass” (Translation= Like
Yesterday...Dumbass!) By this time Dave came back and was able to help get me going in
the right direction. He brought up a five gallon pail and sat it between the
fryolator and stove where he would occasionally duck his head to vomit. This is
where I learned; in the kitchen…you don’t call out from work…unless you’re
dead. And if you're dead, then somebody else better be calling in for your faking ass!
Work always ended with cocktails for the cooks, with the
exception of course being Patrick and I. We were seventeen and the bartender Nancy thought of
herself as our work mother and wouldn’t allow it. So instead, on nights when
Patrick worked the line we would end our day with cocktails in the upstairs apartment
usually in the company of a few of the wait staff and other cooks. Most nights would end
somewhat uneventful but if it was from Wednesday night on, all bets were off.
I won’t go into specifics
except to say, if I combined all the stories of “Sex, Drugs and Alcohol” I
could build a ship made out of cocaine and marijuana, float it on a
sea of alcohol and filled with every porn star on the planet and still not
come close to those first two years of restaurant life. Okay, maybe that’s a
bit much…but I saw a lot of things that made me think the restaurant life was
the life of a rock star… if that rock star had no singing or musical abilities.
Most people are not aware of what restaurant life is like in
the kitchen. I’m sure most have this romantic notion that It’s all about the
chef walking around and adding a pinch of this or a dab of that to sauces and
stews. Maybe you're thinking he makes suggestions about what might be good in this or that dish. Meanwhile
the other cooks sort of stroll around watching each other flip stuff in pans
and chit chat about ingredients, or what they should create next, or last night’s
episode of Iron chef. Some might think of it as an episode of Hell’s Kitchen with
the head chef walking around with all the time in the world to yell at you and
have everybody come over to look at the burned scallop. Finally after not
fucking up the NY Strip for the fifth time having the chef call your name…”Cubby…Nicely
done!”
Allow me let you in on a little secret…It is nothing like
that. Chefs don’t have that kind of time and rarely have that kind of patience.
I'll personally guarantee if you mess up a NY strip five times in a row you’ll either be
fired, or you’ll be peeling potatoes. Come to think of it you’ll be fired and
the guy peeling potatoes will be doing your job, and his cousin who was washing
dishes will be peeling potatoes. Most chefs aren’t lunatic assholes…let me
rephrase that, most chefs aren’t assholes. They want you to do well, it’s in
their best interest for you to do well.
Provided you do everything the way they
want it done, every, single, solitary, time, exactly, the, same, way, with,
zero, exceptions. They are most certainly lunatics to some degree. Who the hell
else in their right mind wants to work on every damned holiday, handle scheduling, staff problems, somebody wants a raise, everybody wants a raise, firings, catering, ordering, inventory, HR issues, equipment breaking down, produce not showing up, got the wrong meat order, your fish guy is tryin to screw you, your grill guy maybe wants to go work down the street...plus have sixty
to eighty hour work weeks for a salary you’d expect to make as a first year
accountant?!
It’s hard work. It’s often times thankless work. Until
recently it was considered unskilled work where cooking was what you did when
you weren’t good enough to do anything else. Now everybody wants to do it, or
at least thinks they can do it, and they think they can do it because they’ve
cooked with lemon grass and quinoa. There are culinary schools out there where
they say you can be a chef in as little as fifteen weeks. WTF... Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...over. There are chefs out
there from the old brigade system who were bellman in a hotel for two years before they
could even go into the kitchen, and you’re gonna be a chef in fifteen weeks?
Assholes on Yelp
think it’s just that simple. I mean really, they have every cookbook ever done
by Ina Garten and Bobby Flay…and they’ve even cooked some recipes from them that their friend's liked….so
why didn’t someone fold my napkin when I went to the bathroom? I’m giving one
star cause I’m somebody and I know these things goddammit, besides I didn’t get
enough hugs as a child so I’m going to shit on a restaurant and in turn, a chef's
life work cause I’m a spoiled little bastard. Yelp…You’re dead to me. And soon enough...
Thankfully...you’ll be dead to everybody else.
Going to culinary school WILL NOT teach you how to cook. Cooking
in a restaurant on the line with a team, will teach you how to cook by giving you one ass kicking service after ass kicking service. By doing this enough, if you survive that long... you will learn to cook as if your kitchen tools are an extension of you. Culinary
school will give you a baseline of technique, and the people you work with... a
rash across their ass because you’ll probably think you’re better than them. Hell you
may even get a bit more pay. But until you’ve out-worked, out-sweated and
out-bled them… you aren’t shit. So get rid of the delusions of grandeur and
dreams of being the next Iron Chef in the near future… there’s too much work to
be done and never enough time to do it.
I wish I could tell you I rose through the ranks and worked
every station flawlessly. I wish I could tell you it all worked out in the end.
I wish I could tell you all those guys are still there cooking their asses off
and living like rock stars. I didn’t, It didn’t and they aren’t. I worked for
the next year and a half on fry station helping on grill and sauté when needed.
I never mastered anything and the food I was serving was by today’s
standards, antiquated shit. I learned a few things, drank quite a bit, and screwed as often as any waitress would let me. I enjoyed
the work no matter how hard, and I came to enjoy the guys I sweated with on the
line… but after I graduated high school and worked there for one more summer…I kissed the restaurant life goodbye until
some eight years later I came back for yet another two years of being kicked in the balls.
Maybe more on that later…