kitchenbitch'n: Yes, Chef!

My terrifying and exhilarating first year in the culinary world

I loved school- three words I never thought I'd say. I loved it from the moment I looked in the mirror as I buttoned up my brand new, bright white chef jacket on the first night all the way to the champagne toast in a room full of classmates, our instructor and our families at graduation.

Peter Kump's New York Cooking School at the time was in an old walkup on the upper East Side of Manhattan. I bounded up the three skinny flights of stairs, passing everyone else in their uniforms on the way to my assigned kitchen classroom.

When I entered the room I saw a long center island for demonstration with a cook top. Standard kitchen equipment, commercial refrigerators, both regular and convection ovens, bowls, mixers and various utensils. I took my seat at a large communal table among fifteen other students.

Our Chef instructor was a tall, thin bearded man named Allen. He was from Texas, had trained at La Varenne in France and was funny and sarcastic as hell. He turned out to be a no-nonsense instructor and I was lucky to have him.

The first night was knife skills. The rest of the week we had our lecture then practiced blanching and refreshing vegetables, the proper proportions in making a vinaigrette, compound butters, sauteeing, theory of cooking protein and macerating. Every night we split into groups to execute a recipe. When we were finished we set the table, sat down together opened a bottle of wine and ate what we had prepared. We discussed the evening's lesson, cleaned up and left.

Now I was one of those people in class that I had always despised as a kid. I raised my hand all the time to ask questions, I took copious notes. I was mesmerized and shot dirty looks at people who insisted on talking during a lesson. Although Chef would always give a biting remark that would shut them up right away.

I was the 2nd oldest person in my class. There was one guy older than me who had a rich wife with a successful career, sounded like he was a bit of a flounderer and wifey wanted him to do something. There were a few young, pretty girls who thought they might want to get into food writing, another one a little older, an actress, wanted to do food tv. A couple of Spanish guys who worked in restaurants already wanted to get some more technique under their belt and the others weren't quite sure. I knew I wanted to be behind a stove. Somewhere, like a lunatic and certainly not like the other normal mommies, I wanted the heat, the noise, the adrenaline. Even though I had not experienced it yet, like a moth I was drawn to the flame.

Three nights a week I came in full of excitement and anticipation to learn the craft. How far away I felt from my suburban mommy divorcee life. Nobody knew anything about me. Chef would push us along, "hurry up, look at the time! If you were catering a giant party in the Hamptons and The Queen of England and Martha Stewart were about to land in a helicopter in their evenin' gowns what would y'all do?" Get a move on!". As students we were a little slow. We had no idea of the pressure of what it felt like to cook with a deadline.

I learned about the mother sauces, white sauces, brown sauces, red sauces and all their variations. I learned about duxelles, quenelles, ballatines, gallatines and how to make a raft of egg whites to clarify consomme. I tried rabbit, sweetbreads and frog legs for the first time. How to de-bone a duck from the inside out. Classic souffle, rolled souffle, frozen souffle. We were taught how to choose fish properly (red gills, clear eyes, firm to the touch and smells fresh like the sea). Boning, stuffing, rolling, sauteeing. I soaked up a new technique every night. Then over the weekend, I'd try it out myself, for my friends and my kids. They were happy to be guinea pigs.

Every two weeks we would have a test. My eight year old daughter and I would sit on my bed at home and she'd quiz me. Sometimes I'd go to a coffee bar and study. Since I took so many notes I was on my game. I aced all my tests because my goal was to graduate blue ribbon status which was the highest level.

After the first culinary unit came baking. We had quickbreads and yeasted breads. Genoise, buttercream- how to use a pastry bag the proper way, we tempered chocolate, made custards and pastry cream.

When it came down to the last few classes I was sad, I could have gone on and on. There was so much to learn and I felt I had only scratched the surface. What I came away with then was that when you graduate from culinary school you are not a chef. You have learned basic technique. It would be years before I felt I could actually call myself a chef. It's all about experience. From bottom to top. You must have humility, learn to take a beating, do menial work and practice, practice, practice till you can do your job in your sleep, and with the hours of a chef you might just be doing that. Frankly, the real world is nothing like school. Ask any chef, much of the time we'd rather hire a cook with experience that worked their way up from dishwasher than a culinary grad.

Our group said goodbyes with promises to keep in touch, which we never did. Once in a while I'd go to an alumni party but rarely ever saw anyone from my class there. I'll always be thankful that I had Chef Allen, because he left for a leave of absence after that. He helped to instill the professional values that have lasted throughout my career.

Next step was doing my externship. Graduation was dependent upon working in a real kitchen for required amount of hours. Usually these were unpaid positions, but they provided the opportunity to work with the finest chefs in top notch kitchens. In my fantasy I'd work in a kitchen in Sicily, an old inn with a room for me. My parents would come with the kids where they'd play on the beach and I'd cook with the Italian ladies, making pasta and picking ripe and luscious tomatoes off the vines in their garden.

That was never going to happen. Not at this juncture in my life. I had to come up with the next best thing. I'd been watching the Food Network and had been intrigued by one particular chef. His name was Mario Batali, a robust guy around my age with an bright orange ponytail and orange clogs to match. He always wore shorts and his belly would pull at the buttons on his chef coat. American by birth, of Italian heritage, he'd spent much time traveling, cooking and living out my fantasy in Italy. He had a very small trattoria in Greenwich Village called Po, that had become hugely successful. He was about to come out with his first cookbook and open another restaurant. But the fame that he was starting to get was not what drew me to him. It was about the food. Everything he did on tv spoke to me. Simple Italian food. Few ingredients but great flavor. Using the bounty of those places I adored like Sicily. If I couldn't go back to Italy, I'd make it happen in Greenwich Village.

The school hooked me up. Chef Mario and I spoke and arranged my schedule. No more commuting in with my classmates, I was a big girl now. I was scheduled from 3- close, which was roughly around 11 o'clock with clean-up afterward.

The restaurant was tiny. It held a tight 34 seats with a small bar. Through a curtain there was the kitchen. To the right was a mini salad station, a dishwashing machine, one sink and going counter clockwise was a window with spices jammed on to the windowsill, the range with a flattop, 6 burners, two ovens below. A little table-top grill, a slicer,two lowboys with a skinny cutting board, the board for the tickets above then back to the doorway. Right at the doorway was a little freezer with a shelf below that had 3 bowls and a food processor. That was it.

It wasn't pretty either. Yellowed, run-down, beat-up and not the cleanest place I ever saw. Later on I learned that this is not uncommon in New York. Space is at a premium and some of these buildings are really old, therefore grandfathered when it comes to code.

There was a back door that led to a little yard where the air conditioning unit was. Sometimes we'd put cutting boards on top of it to do our prep there. Only we'd get shocked constantly because the damn thing wasn't grounded properly.

Much of the prep was done in the basement. It was also used for dry storage and the changing area. There was a walk-in refrigerator that was probably 3' by 3' so it barely qualified as a walk-in at all. More of a "stand-in".

Po was where I was thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire. Chef Allen had not been kidding. There was pressure and deadlines. When I came in at three the lunch crew was finishing up and I was to help with the dinner prep. I was under the tutelage of Andy, the night sous chef. Skinny, tall, also wore shorts all the time but had great legs as opposed to Mario's pasty white chubby ones. Andy had a great sarcastic sense of humor but got nervous during service. Many cooks are. It's such a high pressure job.

I met the Mexican crew. New York is fortunate to get so many Mexican immigrants as a work force. These guys have a hard life, usually living in large groups in one small apartment. They work all the time, they left families behind. They get horny and lonely and often drunk to let off some steam. For the most part, in my experience they are usually great guys and great workers.

So among mis compadres I would set up my cutting board in that dark windowless basement. When guys came in they changed into their kitchen whites right there. I usually just turned my back. I was in boys town now. I always came to work already dressed. I never wore shorts either. I did wear lipstick, a dark color that led Mario to christen me, "Downtown Brown".

Otherwise I kept it low-key.

I'd chop vegetables, onions, carrots, celery for stock. Herbs for the dinner mise en place. Now that I was really working and doing some volume I started to get blisters on my fingers that eventually turned to calluses. Chef would give me veal breast to butterfly, anything he gave me to do would totally intimidate me. He'd have me bone out 40 rabbit legs or stuff 50 chicken thighs for that night's special. Maybe fillet a salmon. More blisters, more calluses.

One day as we were all jammed into the kitchen upstairs I misplaced a vegetable peeler. I looked all over for it. Mario asked me what I was doing and I told him. "Keep looking" he said sharply. I did, but to no avail. He looked me right in the eye and said "look in the garbage till you find it". This is where you answer "yes, Chef" and you do it. I felt my way through the potato peels, the fish skin, the egg shells, the cigarette butts until I found it. That was a great lesson for me. There was one peeler and it was not to get lost carelessly. Throwing things away is like throwing away money.

The first few nights during service they had me stand near the small freezer and watch. I hated doing this. I felt like a little kid who was in the way. The waiters would come flying in and I'd have to move, the salad guy would have to run past me to go downstairs to get something he'd run out of. They had me scoop gelato and that was it. That week Andy and Mario decided that they'd talk with Scottish accents, they'd say in their brogue, "She's a scooo-perrr, she is!" and laugh heartily. The gelato was really firm and it was hard to get out of the bucket quickly. But I never said a word about it. I never, ever play girly in the kitchen, to this day. When I talk to women who want to get into the business it's what I tell them. Do not be a priss. Do your own lifting, get your hands dirty, no nail polish. Be one of the guys if you want respect. And never, ever let them see you cry.

After a couple of weeks they put me on the line. I was terrified. I was pre-menstrual and a nervous wreck. Right before service I went into the walk-in by myself and shut the door. I did some deep breathing. I tried to calm my shaking and let the cool air dry off some of my sweat.

I was right beside Andy at the stove. BAM! We got hit all of a sudden. The tickets were coming in one after another. It was June in an airless, hot New York kitchen and it must have been 100 degrees. My job was to start certain dishes. Grab the saute pan, squirt some olive oil then add the first couple of ingredients. Andy would call out the order, "Clams!". Okay, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes. Cook till garlic is just soft but not brown. Add ladle of stock. Bring to simmer, hand over to Andy. The hardest part was doing more than one dish at a time, such as a party of four. Also learning hold and fire. Holding is when you start a dish but don't finish it till the party has finished their appetizer or salad. Fire is what the server says when they're almost ready and the dish can be completed. Because the range was so small we'd stack saute pans one on top of the other on the flat top with the food in them while holding. Andy's hands were practically a blur in my eyes as he moved so quickly and kept track of all the orders. I was slow and clumsy, he snapped at me a couple of times. By the time it slowed down my chef coat was soaked with sweat all the way through the elastic in my checkered pants. The atmosphere lightened as we started wrapping and cleaning up, I drank a Peroni with the guys. I was no longer a virgin.

After some time I found my niche in the boys club. I started to remember my high school Spanish and could converse with the guys. I learned how to say dick, asshole, son of a bitch in addition to caliente, atras and limpiado por favor. It was all routine. We'd crack jokes while we made the ravioli sheet by sheet, or cooked and peeled utterly disgusting black lamb's tongues. Work was always very therapeutic for me too, as I still had some tough times with my husband while we went through the divorce. I worked out many things inside my head downstairs in that dingy basement as my knife would slice through a leg of lamb, humming along with the Spanish radio station. On July 1 my divorce was finalized. When Mario saw me next he congratulated me and said I was like a "fresh fig on the tree, ready to be plucked". As much as I did not relish the sight of him in his boxers when he would change in the basement, he was a huge influence on me from that short time I was there. He went on to great success. As did Andy and others who have been kissed by his star.

On my last day they gave me a book, "The Art of Eating Well, an Italian Cookbook", by Pellegrino Artusi, signed by everyone there. I walked out head held high. It had been a tough road, literally- commuting in and out of the city. Coming home sometimes at 12:30 at night, having to get up early in the morning and get the kids to school. I was exhausted. On my feet for hours and hours, grabbing a nap when I could. But I did it. One day I hoped to return to Greenwich Village with Murray's Cheese, Ottomanelli Brothers and all the other great food places, the life and the people. For now though, it was time to go back to Connecticut, my family and the next stage in my career.