Putting My Head in the Oven

The corona virus has spread throughout the world affecting us all. Most days, I am alone in my small apartment with my small dog, in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Walking on the open beach among the blue waves, breathing the salty air letting her run off the leash is the only sense of calm that I can find. Once we return to the sidewalk I see the people with masks and gloves. The fear is palpable.

Recently I started to think about the time, years ago when I ended my ten year marriage. With two little children and a defunct career in advertising that I had abandoned to become a full-time mom, l was pretty terrified. Not only was it just plain sad, for my children and me but the debt that my husband and I had incurred during our time together was daunting.

My mind would whirl and swirl thinking about how to survive and to get through each day. The worst was when my kids were with their father and I was alone in my head in an empty house.

I started baking. Putting your hands in something and focusing on the task at hand is some of the best anti-anxiety treatment out there. More and more I  was in my sunny kitchen doing my occupational therapy. I got an occasional job cooking and baking for small-scale clients like realtor's open houses. Cooking for other people brings a new dimension with it and that was what really hooked me. You have a deadline, you must watch the clock. Your product must be perfect, it has to look a certain way. It's pressure that demands getting out of your reality and focusing on the task at hand.

I went on to culinary school, built a solid career and raised my kids to be two amazing adults. There have been terrible heartbreaks both personally and business wise in between but nothing quite like those early days of divorce. My talent has carried me and getting my hands busy always kept me going.

2020 was going to be a spectacular year, I decided. My daughter and her husband are expecting a baby in August. My son is in a good relationship and has a job that he likes. I was the one who needed a change. I quit my administration job at the culinary school in Manhattan where I have been for three years. I wanted only to teach, I decided. No more sitting behind a desk, doing administrative work on a computer, going to meetings and dealing with corporate politics. I took a cut in salary to go back to being in kitchens, teaching others and being in charge of my life. The other piece of my plan was to go back into private chef work. Not full time which can be incredibly demanding, but part-time. My goal was work smarter, not harder. My positive attitude worked out, I picked up a well-paying client in early January. For a good month  everyone I knew, including at school said that I looked like a new person. I was beaming. Back in a uniform, operating the commercial equipment, hanging with the other chefs and no longer responsible for anything else- along with working three days a week in a beautiful private home for people who appreciated my cooking- my question for myself was what took me so long to do this?

And then a couple of weeks ago it all changed.

Circles of people lined up around Trader Joe's. I would shop for my client but my choices were becoming limited. We order a lot of food online and more and more they would be out of product. The family started stocking up on wipes, disinfectants and yes, toilet paper.
I was still scheduled for recreational classes at the school. I asked the guests to wash their hands as soon as they entered the room. I joked about there being a plague out there so let's do what we can. My last class was a brunch class and there were a couple of medical professionals in it. We discussed the virus and they were playing down the panic, comparing it to the flu which in their opinion was much more dangerous. Would you like another mimosa?

The family left their home in Brooklyn Heights to go stay at their home in the Hamptons indefinitely.  I was off the schedule from school for another week. Day by day I watched this thing get worse and wondered when were they going to close school. It is a huge facility with hundreds of people in and out every day for professional classes, recreational classes, events, lectures. All based on food where even on a good day not everyone practices proper kitchen sanitation.

Finally the word went out, the school had to shut it's doors. Within a few days all of us were laid-off. Hopefully to be recalled upon opening, but who knows when that will be. Additionally the whole industry has taken a crippling blow. Will people even want to go to culinary school? What type of careers will be available to them? All of our connections- the restaurants, the hotels, had to close or severely modify their businesses.

For the first ten days without work I had no structure except my dog's need to relieve herself. Much of my time is spent laying on my couch (which I am wearing out) binge-watching Netflix and Governor Cuomo's daily news conference. The lump in my chest of fear and anxiety is there all the time. I can't be with my daughter, feel her belly growing with my first grandchild or take her shopping for maternity clothes. My parents are in lockdown in the senior housing facility where they live in Connecticut. No friends, no family, only myself and  Zelda the dog. We have family happy-hour occasionally online with my brothers and their families, and my son in Vermont, or Facetime one another but as everyone knows now, it is not the same as being together.

In comparison to so many others though, I have landed on my feet. Thanks to my new client I was able to put some money aside and can pay my bills for a couple of months, which I would never have been able to do while in my former position. This week I was shuttled to their house and cooked for them for two days. This will most likely be an ongoing thing. They want my service and I have to pay the bills. I show up wearing gloves and a mask, whisk all of my outside clothing off and on go the chef pants. Wash my hands thoroughly and get to work.

Am I taking chances? Yes, I am. I imagine Andrew Cuomo chastising me. You're right, Governor. I tell myself that this is limited exposure. I am afraid, but I feel pressured to do it. I need the money.

I stood in the kitchen with the sun shining through the large windows of the modern house in the Hamptons, my mise en place set for all of my prep. Turn the grill on at 4. Rotate the muffins in the oven and give them another 8 minutes or so. Practicing my knife skills that became so rusty when I was doing spreadsheets in that office. Thinking about when I used to teach knife skills, and longing for that.
The water is boiling, time to drop the pasta.
I'm going to need to chop some cilantro too.
A few hours later I realized that I hadn't thought about anything else except getting the food on the table by 5:00 or that my small dice is getting better, oh and I need to make a prep list for tomorrow. For a little while I felt kind of normal.

Grey haired now with a face that shows some years, my hands still moving swiftly, I am reminded of that knot in my stomach back in 1996. Cooking saved me then, I hope it can save me now.

Sandwich, Soup and Salad Days

Part 2 of "Cafeteria Lady"

In one way I wanted the head chef job. The money would have freed me from being at the mercy of my ex-husband's sporadic child support payments. I would go on salary and have benefits, sick days and all of that good stuff.
On the other hand, my kids were just too young. Bad enough that they had to travel between two households, they needed to have stability. I was the primary parent and could not have a job with unpredictable hours. Not to mention that Martha and the coven were getting under my skin.
I would go along for a few days and things would be alright, but then out of the blue, they would take a downward turn. One famous episode was when Martha was roaming in the commissary area when she saw the bowls of fresh fruit that we kept out all day for the staff to snack on.
"Why do we have bananas?", she asked. Not as much curious, as suspicious.
"Well, um, people enjoy them.", I said. Then, thinking that I would show her how resourceful I was and that I never wasted anything I kept going.
"We never throw anything away", I proudly stated. "I always make banana bread out of the overripe ones".
Oooohh. I went too far with that one.
"We do not need to waste time baking banana bread. No more. Bananas are a useless fruit!"
And so it was. Bananas were banned from then on.

The bread for sandwiches was another issue. Sandwiches had to be mainly filling with very little bread. Also, we were not allowed to bake bread so we had to purchase it. We were told that Eli's bread from New York was what we should be buying. I had to do an interstate search to find a purveyor who would bring it to us out in Connecticut. In those days, it wasn't easy but I finally found one. Trouble was that they wouldn't deal with us. Apparently when Sally was the chef, they never got paid. I remember piles of invoices all over the place in the kitchen then, so it made sense. I worked my charm on them and made promises of C.O.D. for a month until we earned their trust. My life was dependent on that bread!
One day though, when the atmosphere was a bit heavy because of a rough shoot, the bread was not going to save my ass. The ratio of filling to bread was not right. Too little chicken salad between the slices. I was called out to the dining room. Martha was standing on the other side of the counter. She was not happy and she let me know it. The room was quiet, so all could hear. I saw the bobbing heads of the coven behind her in affirmation. The last thing I remember was being told that the sandwiches were "insipid". I was completely humiliated.
That afternoon I sat out on my stoop at home and started to cry. I had reached my limit. This was a very challenging job on a good day, but it was just too much, too early in my career. I thought about quitting.

Shortly after the insipid sandwich day, I had an idea.  What if I could hire my own boss? What if I recommended someone that I liked that was dependable and talented? If I had to step down at least I wouldn't have to deal with another Sally or worse.
So I called my friend Dave. We had also met at the Elms. He was skinny and tall, newlywed with a pregnant wife, funny as hell and just lovable. He was currently working at another restaurant but he had freelanced at Martha's occasionally so he knew the drill. A job like this would be a great move for him. When you have a wife, you can be the head chef and still have your children cared for. I had no such luxury.
And so it was that Dave ended up getting hired. My life for the next few years was filled with laughter and camaraderie.

To be honest, it did sting a little to give up the title. When MSO went public everyone was invited into the city for a big party, given stock shares and amazing goody bags. That is everyone who was on staff. I and a small handful of freelancers roamed around the empty hallways of the studio only to watch our coworkers and Martha ring the opening bell at the stock exchange on the tv monitors that hung from the ceilings everywhere.
Dave was great to work with. He was respectful to me and never ever pulled rank. He had classic training from the CIA which was much better than mine so he had a good handle on service. Together Dave, Francisco our Brazilian dishwasher/prep cook and I put out a lot of food over the years. Everyone loved Dave, well almost everyone. Unfortunately the one person who was not quite on board was Martha.
Dave was not polished in the way that she liked. Well mannered and polite, but sometimes his food was heavy on the garlic or portions were too big. He stayed away from JB's abbodonza type meals but somehow Martha never seemed to totally buy into him.
This was hurtful to him. Nobody ever tried harder to make people happy than Dave. I felt protective of him and did everything I could to keep things on track. It was such a relief to have him there that my job became a pleasure. The days when it wasn't such a pleasure I had someone who I could bitch about it with and laugh at the foolishness.
Every Friday the two of us would sit together and make a menu for the following week. We were given a schedule of shoot days, VIP's who may be there and any off premise catering at Turkey Hill.
Lunches sent to Turkey Hill were some of the most angst-ridden meals that either of us had to deal with.
Though the show was primarily all done at the studio, there were occasional segments filmed at Martha's home in Westport on Turkey Hill Rd. A crew would be there from call time on and we were expected to cook and pack lunch that would be picked up by a PA in a company van and brought over. It would be set up there and when the crew got a break they would eat. Later we would be brought back all of the nice, dirty containers and whatnot.
Craft services Martha style was not your average craft service. Martha hated chafing dishes, so anything warm was a challenge to serve. Especially since lunch was always served outside, even on chilly November days. We were still within the confines of "soup, salad, sandwich and maybe cookies" but being that it was off-premise we couldn't control portions or presentation. At the studio we could monitor how much food was put out at one time. At Turkey Hill we had no control. If we ran out of food we were in the shits, if we had too much we were also in the shits because it looked like we were wasteful and spent too much money (and people could get fat).

The PA was usually a "dude". Someone who might have gone to film school and somehow stumbled into this job, usually smoked a fair amount of weed and basically wore a headset during a shoot and could drive a van. We would get a call that he was on his way and we would start packing. We had Cambro containers specifically for these days. Sometimes we'd lug them out to find that the Dude never washed them out after the last shoot and they would stink of rotten food. Once we took care of that we'd wrap our trays of sandwiches, our bowls of salad (sauce on the side), the fruit, perhaps potato salad or fresh sliced tomatoes and basil...something seasonally appropriate. We would send baskets of cookies, sometimes in individual wax paper wrappers. They had their own coolers with beverages there but we often sent iced tea too. We had a specific recipe given to us that was from Martha's housekeepers at home. Members of the coven were on shoots there as well, so the evil eye was upon us. It always got back to us, reviews good or bad. If one stupid little thing was not just so- it could ruin our day. God help us if we ever got a phone call from the set that something was missing or that they ran out of it.

At the studio I learned how greedy people can be when when it comes to an open buffet of free food. My crew and I would watch people load up their plates. They would be lined up at the door and make their way, amicably chatting with each other and serving themselves from the platters we put out. No chafing dishes, ever! The mounds on their plates got bigger and bigger. When you have a limited amount of food to serve, this is a very stressful situation. We were between a rock and a hard place because we could not run out of food but we could not have too much.
We would try little tricks like putting less out on the platters, not piling it too high. Making the portions smaller, cutting meat or chicken slices thinner and fanning them out more. Lots of greens underneath them to look fuller.
The worst case scenario would be if the staff got to lunch first and went nuts and we still had to feed the crew. They were the ones that we were never supposed to let go hungry. They had a firm 30 minutes to break for lunch. If the staff filled their plates, made extra ones that they would save for later, come back for seconds- we'd start to sweat. The fact was that we really liked the crew too. They were men and women who were low maintenance, nice people who really appreciated what we did for them. Since I was permitted to bake cookies on shoot days, it was my challenge to limit them to the staff to be sure that the crew got their fair share.
Often food from the set was brought over for us to put out with the meal. Sometimes it would be something that Martha or a guest chef made along with the extra food that was used in the demo. People would jump on this stuff! The coven would make a bee-line straight for the truffle pasta that Lidia had just made. Sometimes though, that food would sit...for a long time. It would sit underneath the stage lights while it was photographed. It would sit while the producers would discuss whether or not they had all the shots that they needed. It would sit while Martha would leave the set for a phone call and everyone had to wait. In other words, the coven was more than welcome to have that lovely plate of chicken that was in that temperature we refer to as the danger zone.
At the end of the week the production side would send over all of the food that they didn't need from the walk-in. Fridays were relaxed as they were rarely shoot days, Martha wasn't there and we would just cook everything we had and put it out. I christened it "leftover Friday". It was my favorite day- we got to be creative and play. People learned to love it, they never knew what they were going to get.
Usually a couple of times during the warmer weather we were instructed to hold barbecues for the staff. Everybody loved barbecues! Everybody except us.
The commissary led straight to a stairway that went to the rear of the property. There were Adirondack chairs where people could sit in the sun or the shade of the lush trees. Nearby was a garden fenced in with various herbs and vegetables growing. It really was lovely.
First we had to drag out all of the grills. We set them up in the asphalt area so the picnic-ers wouldn't have to tolerate the smoke. That was only for us cooks to get in our eyes and make us sweat with the heat of live coals. We set up tables and covered them gingham cloths and all the fixin's to go with the grilled food, plates of salads, cookies and fresh fruit (no bananas!). These days were meant to treat the staff, as a reward for those tough shoot days and Martha had left town for the week.
For the most part, everyone appreciated the barbecues. Even though it was extra work for us and we did not enjoy the reward of relaxing too, such is the life of the cook. It would have been more tolerable if the coven still had not criticized everything. Whether is was being subjected to using plastic utensils, or the cut of the damn watermelon. We did our job, afterward cleaning up behind them, including the seeds of that fruit, spit out on the ground.
Martha had some Brazilian male landscapers and female housekeepers that had been with her for many, many years who worked at the studio. Neicy and Edina were sisters, Neicy having moved into working with the set designers and flowers, Edina on housekeeping and laundry detail including Martha's tv wardrobe. Their brother was known as "Tucca" who mainly did gardening and fixit stuff, he was gruff and kept to himself. The other set of brothers were Fernando and Paolo. They did the odd gardening, custodial and miscellaneous jobs. Fernando was nice but on the lazy side, Paolo was not nice and completely on the lazy side. Occasionally if Francisco had to call out, one of them would be assigned to "help" in the commissary during service. If it was Paolo, he would come in at the very last moment possible, grunting as he reluctantly had to wash the dishes. Fernando, though slow was more pleasant but we had to get on him about his sanitation habits. There was one day when Dave saw him running his fingers through his lush, black hair as he looked at his reflection in the paper towel dispenser. As Fernando started to reach for some food to begin plating, Dave stopped him.
"Fernando! Wash your hands!"
"Why, Dave?". Fernando was completely perplexed.
"Because you just touched your hair! You can't handle food without washing your hands." Dave explained.
"But Dave, my hair is clean!"

We had three separate garbage containers in our kitchen. One, was for trash, the second was for recycling and the third was for the chickens. We were to put certain items into a lined trash can that would be delivered to Martha's famous Arucana chickens at Turkey Hill. By the way, those chickens lay the most gorgeous eggs. They are light green and brown look like they were designed for a magazine. The chickens would get things like corn-cobs or pineapple skins ("Chickens love pineapple", Martha once exclaimed as she dropped the rinds into the chicken garbage can). When we would get busy it was easy to throw something paper into the chicken garbage by mistake. "Fucking chickens!", was often heard at these moments.
When the garbage went out the bags would be tied, garbage and recycling would go to the appropriate dumpster and the bag for the chickens would be left under the outdoor stairwell in a locked area. It was the Brazilian's job to bring it over to Turkey Hill.
We started noticing the smell first. Then the vermin.
While Paolo and Fernando would happily help themselves to lunch, they wanted nothing to do with the chicken garbage. It was a constant battle to get the food over there. It often ended up being Francisco, our kitchen assistant who would load it up in his truck and bring it over there. Francisco also had a landscaping business on the side. Martha became his client so this chicken food delivery business worked out very well for him in the long run.
Dave and I often felt that we were the only ones who saw how lazy these guys were. They really got away with doing as little as possible. One day, when we had some down time after service we saw Paolo through the window. He was raking leaves, very slowly (Tucca was using the blower, otherwise he would never expend all of that energy). He would do a sweep, sweep on one side, switch hands and do another sweep, sweep. Dave and I were making fun of his technique when we saw him lean the rake on a car. He walked over to a tree. Dave and I looked at each other, he's not..he wouldn't...
Yes, Paolo was relieving himself behind a tree.
We mentioned this to our supervisor of the Facilities Department. "You guys..." she said and shook her head at us. Yes, we were known for joking around but this was fact and not fiction.
"No, really! Paolo peed on a tree out in the parking lot!". But it all fell on deaf ears. It was like the "Twilight Zone" episode where the one passenger in the airplane saw the monster on the wing but nobody else could see it. In this case though, the monster was peeing on the wing.

Time is the only way to gain perspective. As much as we bitched to one another about everything, we were very, very lucky. We worked in a beautiful place, the hours were fantastic compared to working in a restaurant. Sure, the coven tortured us. Martha was not easy at times, but she was brilliant and could also be generous. It turned out to be a wonderful place for those early years when my kids were young. Once Dave took over, I could leave at 3:00 and meet my son at the school bus stop. Bananas or no, those truly were my salad days.

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.

The young, skinny, dark-haired culinary student working hard on a duck breast.
Standing behind me and the hanging pots is a vigilant Chef Allen.

Shit-shows and Spirit-killers

 

 I have come to the conclusion that there are two main categories of jobs:

Shit-shows and Spirit-killers

Though they have very different meanings, they are not mutually exclusive. That is to say that a shit-show can also be a spirit-killer. I could do a Venn diagram where the center would hold numerous of my jobs as both.
The spirit-killer is the job that when your alarm clock goes off in the morning, you are filled with dread. A blizzard or an earthquake would be welcome. An alien invasion. Anything to keep you from having to go to your place of work.
A job can be a spirit-killer for a number of reasons.

#1 The job itself is demeaning.
I am not a snob, work is work. If you need money, you need to work. It's preferable to stealing and less risky. However, I have had to take some jobs that were below my skill or administrative level. One time I freelanced at the Javits Center and I was told to work in one of the cafes out in the food court area. My job was to assemble and grill sandwiches to order at a coffee kiosk. First of all there was no running water. The engineers pulled over a portable hand-washing unit but the sink did not work, therefore washing my hands between tasks was not possible. My coworkers were all surly, unmotivated minimum wage fast-food types. They were rude to customers and barely competent. I prayed that nobody that I knew would possibly be there and see me. I stood with my back to the crowd as I made panini for the lines of convention goers. The "baristas" took the orders, made the coffees and served the customers.  I was so embarrassed to be part of this group at this point in my career that I pulled my hat down a little lower over my eyes and tried to keep my hands as clean as I could without running water.  As I completed the orders, I would do my best not to turn around and face the public.
#2 The Atmosphere
My job in a warehouse developing and producing confections for a start-up. It didn't start out as a soul-crusher but it evolved into one. It was drafty and cold in the winter with no sunlight and I would do my work with scarves wrapped around my neck tucked into my chef coat. I would play stand up comedy on my laptop for entertainment and to simply hear another voice. I measured, mixed and produced recipes, recorded my findings and most of the time did not speak to another person for hours. I was all alone, operating giant machinery to produce cookies and chocolates. It was very civilized, I was paid decently, the hours were regular and no deadlines to speak of. But being so alone, even for an introvert such as myself started wearing down my spirit. After returning from a sun-filled happy family vacation to Sicily, I just couldn't take the warehouse any longer and resigned soon after.
#3 You are treated like a social pariah
I freelanced at a very upscale banquet catering facility in Manhattan, in the pastry department. They did very high end, gorgeous, made from scratch desserts. Though the pay was not great, I looked at it as an opportunity to learn on the job. I was given numerous tasks and was exposed to lots of new ways of doing things. Soon I noticed the "pastry princess" phenomenon . Some of the young ladies who worked there would come in and work on a wedding cake all day. This is very tedious and precise work, something that I have never had the patience for, so I respect that kind of talent. What I didn't care for is how they never cleaned their stations or god forbid anyone else's. If they had a coffee cup they would leave it. Their hands were golden tools to only be used for decorating and that was it. Not being the chef, I couldn't say a word so I just cleaned up after them.
A low point was when we needed to pre-scoop ice cream to be served on a dessert plate at an event that evening. I was the dedicated scooper. Again, nothing against doing labor, but my first job on the line ever, was scooping gelato to order while on my externship fifteen or so years before. It felt a little like going backwards. In this case I had to do about 350 individually perfectly rounded balls to be placed on half sheet pans. This had to be executed inside the walk-in freezer. I wore my leather moto jacket over my chef coat and apron, side towels wrapped around my neck as makeshift scarves, The only gloves I had were latex, and I double-gloved it. I worked as fast as I could but still it took a very long time and I was chilled to the bone. Next time we needed pre-scooped ice cream, luckily there was an extern there who did it.
I think the worst part, and why it was a spirit-killer was that I felt irrelevant and dated. There was a decidedly much younger and cooler group in that kitchen on the pastry side. The savory side was all Spanish, so it was a macho vibe. That I was used to and could actually deal with better. The ones that I was working with had worked together at a previous job, so they had their "in" jokes and stories about former coworkers. They had their little funny phrases and words that cracked them up. Anything I ever had to add to the conversation was just out of touch. I knew inside that I was really way cooler and had amazing and crazy experiences and was way funnier in my past lives but nobody cared. So I kept focused on my tasks and cleaned up after the pastry princesses.

Shit-shows
Shit-shows are a combination of disorganization and of being unprepared. Shit-shows are when you realize nobody knows what the hell they are doing. Nobody is flying the airplane and if someone is, they're drunk and we are likely to crash into a ball of fire upon impact.

Recently I had a hybrid shit show/soul-crusher job. Looking to pick up some side work, I answered an ad for a "culinary teacher". I use quotation marks because although that was what the job was posted as, it was really more like being an entertainer. Like a stripper, or a clown at a birthday party.
Two highly intelligent and very young Asian guys, B.& J.,who had met at Stanford and went on to Columbia together had started a business where people could sign up for "classes" held in bars. The idea is to learn something while throwing back a few cocktails and having fun. Actually, a good idea and the classes do fill up.
Time and time again though, people do not understand a) the food business and b) starting up a business. They do not get that you will have to break a sweat and work many, many hours. You will do things that you never thought you would have to do because if you don't, your reputation and thus your business will be gone.
These guys were lucky to get some very nice and hard-working chefs. The couple of them that I met could not have been more helpful. I trailed a couple of times to see how it worked. Give the customers aprons, set up tables, give them a simple task, keep them entertained, encourage them to buy drinks, finish task, let them eat the product, encourage them to buy more drinks. Clean up, Caio bella and show me the money! (Which by the way, was pretty good for this gig when it went smoothly)
Thing is, for the most part it did not go smoothly. One time I was given a new venue to do a "pasta class". I showed up at a little Moroccan restaurant on the Lower East Side. I arrived with my bag of flours, olive oil, various utensils. B.&J. were driving and bringing the bigger equipment. I double checked the address because the metal gate was mostly closed on the place and it was dark inside.
I rolled up the gate, the door was open. It was small with little wooden tables and a bar in the back that was covered with power tools. I was supposed to be making cavatelli with 24 hipsters in an hour here?
"Hello???", I called out a couple of times. A guy came out of the kitchen, I assumed that he was the porter. He was wearing a kind of dirty uniform, and when he opened his mouth he revealed that he was missing most of his front teeth. He spoke little English and he had no idea why I was there.
When the manager showed up, he too had no idea why I was there. When "B &; J", arrived with the equipment they started making phone calls to whomever it was that they had set this deal up with. I started setting up tables in an area that seemed somewhat conducive to working with a group. I spread out plastic tablecloths and attached the cavatelli makers to each table. I found a an outlet way behind a couch to plug in the induction burner and put my water on to boil. I scrambled while the rest of them stood around trying to get their collective thumbs out of their asses still trying figure out who had made this arrangement.
Customers started showing up. By then there was a bartender and most of the tools had been removed from the little service bar. I smiled and welcomed them, gave them each an apron and nudged them toward the bar to get a cocktail.
The room was also quite dark, even after the lights had finally gone on. It had a whole dusty, velvet curtains, hookah kind of vibe to it. B&J sat at a table on the other side of the dining room and looked at their cellphones. They started nudging me to begin the "class". It was then that I looked at my pot of water and saw that there was not one bubble in it, no steam and no power going to the burner.
B&J, not being culinarians nor professionals apparently did not have a sense of urgency. Once the kids were finished making their play-doh I was supposed to cook it and that was not going to happen in cold water. I ran back to the kitchen to find the toothless Mexican, who's name was Andres who was not only very nice but apparently not the porter but the chef. He let me put water on his stove in his tiny and quite unsanitary kitchen.
It looked like my crisis had abated for the moment. I put on my jolly act to entertain the folks. I showed them how to mix their doughs and to knead it. As soon as they started kneading their little balls of dough, the rickety bar tables that were not meant for this task started to rock and drinks began to get knocked over and spill.
I gave them a 10 minute break to rest their doughs and refill their cocktails (and to get the actual porter to clean up any broken glasses). B.&;J. introduced me to another chef who was supposed to observe before she started teaching classes. I'll call her Angela, because she turned out to be an angel.
Break was ending and I was filling Angela in on the routine. It was time for the group to start rolling their doughs through the cavatelli machines. These were brand new, as we had had some problems with them in the past. This was the real action part of the "class"where they could see their product become something that began to look like pasta.
One by one as they started rolling their doughs, screws began to pop off of every single fucking machine.
Angela jumped in and helped. We balanced between picking up nuts and bolts off of the dark and dirty floor, trying to force these under-rested doughs to somehow go through and get cut into pieces that might resemble actual cavatelli. There were not enough of these shitty machines to go around either so we had to whip them off of the tables when one group was done and screw them on to the next one.
Once most of them had their rubbery little dough balls on the platters we gave them, I sprinted back to the kitchen to start cooking. If Angela had not been there I seriously do not know what I would have done. She acted as the waitress, bringing back the plates one at a time so I could cook them and dress them with the pesto I had made at home. I was grateful to be the one in the kitchen alongside Andres and his crew jammed in there. Much preferable to working out there with the crowd who must have realized that this "class" was a farce. As
a hospitality professional and I can't stand when customers get screwed.
Finally when all the tables had been served, Angela said that she really did have to go. I thanked her profusely for getting me through the crisis. She flew back to heaven where she must have come from.
I said goodbye to the customers as they drifted out. Most seemed satisfied, thank God for alcohol to dull the senses.
I might add that B.&J. sat with their damn phones during this whole debacle. They were now planning more "classes" with the owner, the one that had actually made the agreement with them in the first place. He had just neglected to tell anyone else beforehand. Right before B.&J. left, they asked me in their quiet way to be sure next time to bring yellow plastic tablecloths, rather than the white ones I had this time. "We are trying to build our brand", J. explained.
It took me an hour to clean up the mess. I tipped the dishwasher to wash all of the stuff. I had to pack it into plastic bins where they were to be stored till the next "class". I stuffed those shitty cavatelli makers into the boxes along with any of the screws that we had retrieved. B.&J. had said that I could purchase new ones. They would reimburse me. In fact I could buy anything that I needed.  They said that I could take an Uber from Brooklyn to the job with all of the stuff. I knew that they did not want to be bothered to do any of the work. Oh- and I had to schlep a garbage bag full of the yellow (brand recognition!) aprons to the laundry around the corner.

I pissed and moaned for days afterwards, about having to replace those cavatelli makers, about how to make the water boil next time. Then I came to the conclusion that since I have a full time job now, I don't have to take garbage like this. While I want to make extra income, the stress is too much. I don't want to be the birthday party clown in a shit-show. I don't need to have my spirit squashed like a bug. The following day I sent B. a resignation letter along with the laundry ticket. Fortunately I can pick and choose at this moment, and my choice is no!

The Elms, You Never Forget Your First

This quaint New England inn was my first stop before I went to work for Martha...

 My first job after externship was at The Elms Restaurant and Tavern. I'd toiled away my summer in the basement of Mario Batali's Po Restaurant with his Mexicans and when my time was done he said to me, (because I needed to work in Connecticut)  "you have to work for Brendan Walsh." Chef Walsh was a superstar before they called them "celebrity chefs". In his early twenties he was rocking NYC at Arizona 206 and Gotham Bar and Grill. When our paths crossed he had recently taken over the restaurant component at the stodgy old Elms Inn. He put that place on the map, so much that even Chef Mario had heard about it. He called Chef Walsh on my behalf to get me an interview with him.

After leaving Po and saying my goodbyes, it was time to start my new career back in Connecticut and to be a working single mom near my kids and to find our new normal.
I remember that I could not find the pair of khaki shorts that I wanted to wear on that warm August day, so I had to grab another pair that was just a tad shorter than I would have liked to wear on an interview. I wore a button down short sleeved shirt and fisherman's sandals to go with it. I raced up to Ridgefield to meet with the chef.
The Elms was an old New England Inn, with an adjoining restaurant. Chef Walsh had divided it into two separate parts, the Tavern which was cozy and casual with a large stone fireplace serving rustic food, and the Main Dining Room which had a more elegant and pricey menu. Chef Walsh lived right behind the place with his wife and four kids. She was his high school sweetheart and all of the PR for the restaurant focused on how they had met long ago in Ridgefield and now were back with so much talent to shake up the stodgy old inn. She was pregnant with their fifth baby when I met them.

I will always be grateful that Chef Mario called Chef Walsh on my behalf. Especially since I was starting out my career at 36 years old, I had no time to waste. I decided that I would only work for the best. Mario Batali was my first move, going to the Elms was my next one and Chef Mario facilitated that for me.
I must mention the fact that Brendan had no idea who Mario was when he called him. This was a little before Mario became a household word, and Brendan did not watch the Food Network so he had not heard of "Molto Mario". It was interesting to hear on both ends about that conversation between male chef egos, but again...I'm grateful.
So I got to the Elms and went up a wooden staircase in the back of the restaurant. After spending the last three months in a basement in Greenwich Village, in a tiny kitchen and a stairway in between where one couldn't stand fully without whacking their head and a windowless basement/prep area/locker room/storage area, this was quite a difference.
There was a smoker with a side of salmon inside it on the landing of the stairway. The aroma was enticing. I opened the screen door to a large spread out kitchen. It had windows!
It was kind of old-fashioned in some ways and needed a little updating but it was pleasant and and had lots of light. There was a full dishwashing area on one side, a hot line that included a wood-fired grill. This was where the main pass and expediting area was. To the right of that was the pastry/pantry area. There was a good size work table in the center,surrounding that was a couple of reach-in refrigerators, a 20 qt. Hobart mixer and the line for the garde manger. When I first got there there, the unit was so old that instead of lowboy refrigerator units, it was stainless steel shelving with a trough above. This trough had to be filled with ice before every service to keep the mise en place properly chilled. A step up from the whole kitchen area was a tiny makeshift office and double doors that led to the Tavern.
When I  arrived I was told by a server that Chef had to leave because a cook had sliced his finger pretty badly and he had to take him to the emergency room. Hopefully he'd be back soon.
So I waited, kind of awkwardly for a good half hour or so, till Chef came in wearing a white t-shirt and checkered pants with a guarded smile on his face and greeted me with a handshake.
Right away he told me that he had no idea who this "Mario-guy" was and that that Mario seemed kind of annoyed and shocked with him when he drew a blank. But because he had spoken so highly of me, he did want to meet me.
Chef Walsh was one of those chefs who was a snob about The Culinary Institute of America. It was where he had trained and most of his cooks had trained. I was from Peter Kump's New York Cooking School. It was a boutique little school in a brownstone on the Upper East Side. If the CIA was Harvard, Peter Kump's was Sarah Lawrence.
Even though I was not from the CIA, Chef Walsh liked me. I think what got him was that I said that I was a single mom and because I wasn't a kid I was focused on working and learning. I would hit the ground running, didn't smoke or need breaks. I wanted to work for the best and that he wouldn't be sorry. He offered me $11 an hour, made a shift from 9am-2pm Mondays through Fridays. It was perfect.
The only cloud was that he said in a very straightforward manner that his sous chef, Ryan was very tough, particularly on women. The last female pantry cook couldn't take it any more and had quit. Pretty much every female in the kitchen had quit and he'd made a few of them cry. Thing was, he needed Ryan. "He's my boy", he said. "If I don't have him here, I can never take a day off and see my family, so he's not going anywhere".
I'd worked as the only woman in a basement with the Mexicans all summer and had charmed the hell out of them. Prior to that, I'd had a very tough marriage that had recently ended and I'd survived. Nothing was going to stop me now. Some 24 year old guy who might yell at me was nothing. I could deal. We shook hands and I was to do a trail the next week, more to observe than anything else.
When Chef gave me the tour, he walked me through the kitchen where I met some of the guys. It was a Sunday and they were actually closed for that week so it was pretty relaxed. I later heard when I got to know them all, that after walking through with my tanned legs and my slightly too short shorts, once I'd left they all told Chef that he should hire me.

I went in on a Saturday night. I was in uniform but basically was there to observe. There were three guys working the hot line which included saute, fry and grill. There was a guy working in the pantry area. He made salads and plated desserts. JB was the pastry chef, his shift started in the wee hours of the morning till about noon. There was "the Dude" who worked the afternoon/evening shift who was just supposed to plate them. The cuisine was traditional New England with some modern updates. The desserts were outstanding and they were very involved as far as how they were served and what they were garnished with. The Dude smoked a lot of weed and talked kind of slowly. In fact he moved pretty slowly all of the time. JB was from Brooklyn, moved super quickly and sounded kind of like Bugs Bunny when he talked. Before he would leave for the day, he would show the Dude the dessert specials. For example, the Indian pudding was in a ramekin that had to be flashed in the convection oven then topped with a scoop of corn ice cream and topped with  candied corn kernels and a sprig of mint. JB would talk at the Dude, peppered with "are you listening???" and the Dude would say, "yeah man, I heard you, caramel ice cream...".
"No! Corn ice cream. Take notes, you dumbass! Write this down!"
And so forth...
On this night I witnessed something that I never forgot and for years I have described to students. It was the true definition of being able to call yourself a chef. The restaurant got very busy. The waitstaff was flying through, wearing their black and whites carrying their large trays and setting them on the stand. Chef was expediting the food as it came through the pass from the hot line. One after the other, coordinating, checking the temps on the meat, "this is medium, it's supposed to be rare! Take this off!" Every order had to be just right before it went out. When it seemed that the line cooks were just not keeping up, Chef called the GM to come over to expedite as he stepped in. He bounced from grill to saute and got those orders out. After a few minutes, there was a call for a couple of salads. The Dude had disappeared (most likely to the walk-in downstairs which was a popular place to light up a bowl). So chef stepped in to make salads. They were all perfect. The greens were mounded high with the colorful components and just the right amount of dressing. When dessert tickets came up, Chef plated them. Of course, he had the Indian pudding with the corn ice cream and the candied corn kernels, and the mint sprig. He didn't miss a step.

The lesson is that the Chef must be able to step into every position if needed. He (or she) has to know how to work all stations and to do it better than the person hired to do that job. You are a hired hand and therefore dispensable. Whether it is dishwashing or arranging a salad on a plate, Chef can do it easily. It was like watching a jazz combo and the chef is the guy who can sit in on each instrument and blow everyone away.

My days at the Elms began like this- I would take my kids to the bus stop. Once they climbed aboard, I would race in my little Saturn through the back roads from Stamford to Ridgefield. Once I parked in the large rear parking lot I would run up those wooden steps to the kitchen. I was usually in uniform already, so I'd punch in and start setting up my station. I shared the area with JB, who would be doing the last few items for the dessert menu. I liked that time of day because it was basically him, myself and Chef Walsh for a while until the other cooks and Ryan the screaming-sous chef would come in. JB and Chef Walsh had actually been roommates at the CIA so they had a good twenty years of history. Their relationship was kind of a hate/love competitive one.
The first thing that I had to do to set up the station was get ice. Being that the inn was probably over a hundred years old, the layout was not easy to work with. There was a skinny spiral stairway right next to the fryolator. This led to the basement storage area. Part of it's New England charm was that the ceilings were pretty low. I am only 5'4'' and even I had to crouch a little. For the taller guys this was very challenging. However, I had gotten used to this from the hundred year old basement in Greenwich Village. There were rows of shelving with all of the dry goods. If you kept going there were was a chest freezer, a double reach-in freezer and and ice machine. Just past that you stepped outside and into the walk-in. It was a pretty long haul.
So every day I had to fill up two huge buckets of ice and carry them through that maze and up the spiral stairway. Next to the fryolator, remember? This of course meant that the steps were always greasy and slippery. I had visions of myself as the broom in the Mickey Mouse movie, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" as I carried my sloshing, heavy buckets of ice through the treacherous course. Once I made it upstairs I dumped the ice into the trough at my station.
After about a month or two of my Sorcerer's Apprentice routine, Chef bought a lowboy unit. It had two sets of double doors and the place on top where all of the mise en place was to go. These guys were so excited when this thing arrived. I don't think that Chef had bought a new piece of equipment for some time. They reminded me of another movie, this time is was "2001, A Space Odyssey" and they were the monkeys screaming and beating on the television monitor. They pulled the plastic wrap off of it and turned it around. They turned the switch on and beat on their chests when the condenser started up. I shook my head and thought to myself, silly men... The good news was no more schlepping the ice anymore. That was fine by me.

The sous chef Ryan was just as rough as Chef had warned me about. He berated everyone there and not just me. He yelled at every little mistake and if you dropped something on the floor, God forbid, he would shout, "THERE'S YOUR RAISE!" My worst tangle with him was when I had to poach some fish for my station and the water temp was too high and it was boiling. His tirade at me summed up with him demanding that I write a paper on the theory of poaching and to hand it in to him the next day.
I steamed in my car on the way home. Fuck you! I thought to myself. Fuck you! When I got home I searched through textbooks to find the theory of poaching. I was determined to find one thing that would prove him not to be 100% correct. "THE LIQUID HAS TO SIMMER, NOT BOIL!" He had said. The best that I could do was to find a source that said that the water should be brought to a boil first, because once the fish went in the temp would be reduced to a simmer. Humph! Take that!
The next day he had pretty much forgotten about our scene and I brought it up to tell him, just so I could mention that part about the boiling liquid. It was a cheap victory but I needed it for my own psyche.
When Thanksgiving came along, it would be the first one that I would ever spend working. Typical of the business, but a new blessing in disguise for me. I am not a big fan of holidays, only made harder when your young children are not with you, which mine were not that year. What better way to spend it than working your ass off and making a little extra dough?
There were three seatings and we were booked solid. It was a prixe fixe menu with limited items. We had everyone on duty including the Dude and me sharing the station. He and I did the salads, plate after plate and assembling the desserts. I loved the feeling of being part of the band. That was what it was like and as a team we all made beautiful music. We jammed all day long and into the night. After the last customer left, the staff sat together and shared a wonderful family meal with good wine in the Tavern. The Walsh's cared about us and it showed.
A few months before, Martha Stewart came to do a shoot for Living Magazine at the Elms. Though it was September and still warm out, everyone was dressed in their sweaters and woolen scarves to simulate a New England traditional Thanksgiving at The Elms. We were closed for business that day as we only prepped on Mondays. There was photo equipment all over and bright lights in the dining room. There were charming carved pumpkins and candles lit, wreaths hanging on the doors. I quietly let it slip that I had actually known Martha. She had catered my wedding for my now defunct marriage. The guys were impressed. I felt shy about it though. I never did get to see her that day but little did I know that our paths would cross again soon.

Toward the end of my time there, we had an intern from the CIA. His name was, and I am not making this up- Charlie Brown. Charlie Brown annoyed me for numerous reasons. One was that he worked my station in the evening. This meant that after spending my whole morning prepping- washing all the greens in freezing cold water and spinning them dry, making all the salad dressings by hand, dicing and slicing all of the various garnishes, when I came in the next day it was gone. Maybe a spoonful of my carefully confetti'd red, yellow and orange bell peppers in the #9 pan. Half full (or empty) greasy squeeze bottles of vinaigrettes. The extra greens would be gone. I was robbed!
This is an age-old battle between night and day shifts. All of these years later I cannot say how many times I have heard bitching from the night guys about the day guys and vice versa. I have walked in their shoes though and it sucked. Not only was he messy and lazy, but Charlie Brown was a dick too. He wormed his way into being buddy-buddy with the guys in a way that I never would be able to. Working a lunch shift is just not the same as working a dinner shift. The dinner shift is the show, it's where the action is. The food is more complex, the pressure is more intense. The end of the night usually culminates with a beer or two and camaraderie that does not happen after lunch. So Charlie Brown got his ass in tight with them and the one that bugged me the most was his brown-nosing of Chef Walsh. Instead of doing his prep work he was always sucking up to him. He would offer to do other projects like transfer recipes on to the computer. It was 1997 and dinosaurs like Chef Walsh and myself were not so handy with technology yet. Charlie Brown was only twenty or so, it was second nature to him. I volunteered to standardize recipes. I worked at writing everything down so that there would always be continuity of flavors. The more Charlie Brown insinuated himself into Chef's good graces, the more I tried too.
It occurred to me though that I just wasn't going to win this one. I was a female and I would only be able to get so close before it would seem inappropriate. While Charlie Brown was just a dumb, spoiled extern from the CIA- he was a guy and he could get all up in Chef's inner circle and ultimately surpass me no matter how hard I worked. I had to let it go. I heard that eventually Charlie Brown did make it to sous chef number two.
One snowy day I came into work and Chef was in my pantry area, making a cake. This was weird, so I asked him where JB was. Chef made up a story about JB having to go take care of some problem with his son. It was not long before it got out that JB was gone and it nothing to do with his kid. His giant box of tools and his beloved ice cream machine had left with him. As I had mentioned before, these two had a very complicated relationship. Both immensely talented but Chef Walsh had been the more famous of the two. JB had always resented him. Chef Walsh had a happy marriage with his high school sweetheart, while JB had stumbled through a couple of marriages already. The Elms was very successful and had a lot of coverage in the press. JB had previously had a bakery in Brooklyn but his partner who was also his cousin had stolen from him. Now here he was working for Chef Walsh and the resentment was palpable at times. He once said that Chef had "the palate of a dog". Well it must be a pretty sophisticated dog because Chef's food was great.
I will always wonder what the truth was behind their final split that winter. JB never came back to the Elms. When Chef stepped in as pastry chef, it was great working side by side with him and getting to know him better. Though I could never get quite in like Charlie-fucking-Brown, we shared stories about our youthful adventures. I'll always have a soft spot and great respect for him.
A few weeks later, JB surfaced. He called me on the phone. He was working for Martha Stewart at her brand new television studio in Westport. He was the Commissary Chef there and they were looking for more good people. He wanted me to come work with him over there.
It would be more money and more room to grow. With my limited schedule I would not be able to go much further than pantry cook at the Elms. Ryan was one thing but I'd die before I had to say, "Yes, Chef" to Charlie Brown.
I agonized over the decision. I loved the Elms and I loved Chef Walsh. But it was time to move on. JB was also a talent that I could learn from. I went to visit the incredibly impressive studio, interviewed with the head of facilities and did a trail in the test kitchen. It was intimidating but attractive at the same time. When I was formally offered the job I said yes. I agonized for days about giving my notice. JB would call me every day to see if I had quit yet. He started nagging me and finally I did it.
Chef Walsh was a gentleman to the end. He offered to help me if I ever needed it and wished me luck. Once again, I had made my way through an all male kitchen and gotten the respect of every one of them. Even Ryan bent over, wrapped his long arms around me and gave me a big hug, and he had never made me cry.

The next week was the beginning of a whole other world. Working with women, working with tv production and working with Martha.

Cafeteria Lady

These were my salad days...

Years ago I had the privilege of working at the television studio of Martha Stewart Living in Westport, CT. When I was hired as an assistant to the Commissary Chef the place was just coming to life. This was 1998 and though Martha had become a fixture on tv and in the media in general she was moving into a whole new level with this place. Located on the border between Norwalk and Westport, 35,000 square foot main structure, set on 6 acres of impeccably landscaped property. All surrounded by a fence, for privacy and to keep curiosity seekers out.
Though the original portion of the building was built of stone and leaded glass, the newer portion was mainly built for function with the nondescript appearance that is typical of a production facility. It housed two kitchen sets that were meant to replica Martha's homes, a set that was for intimate interviews, table, chairs and bookshelves. There were editing suites that would eventually accommodate 10 editors. There was a fully equipped gym with state of the art exercise equipment that was open to all. There was even a huge room of crafting materials stored in hundreds of plastic sterilyte bins, all perfectly p-touched to state what the contents were. There was a massive kitchen of shiny commercial equipment with two work islands and every kind of tool that one could ever think of to use in the preparation of food. There was a whole wall of neatly stacked Le Creuset and All-Clad pots and pans in every conceivable shape and size, the envy of any guest chef who saw it. This was the test kitchen, where recipes were developed and all food to be shot on the show was prepared. It had a huge, glorious window that looked out to the property. A mural of green lushness in the summer, a snowscape in the winter. Around the corner from there was a small laundry room, then the storage area for the props, which included tablecloths, napkins, dishware, glasses. Some were antiques, eventually more and more would be produced and sold through the "Martha by Mail" catalogue. Flowers were cut and arranged there, anything that had to do with the look and set design. There was an area that had numerous pastel colored button down work shirts on a clothing rack, next to an ironing board. Then casually behind this area was a large corner office. It too was filled with windows. There was a very plain desk that was white with "Martha green" accents. In fact everything was industrial looking. One might think that where Martha would be producing her lifestyle media would be full of antique prints and chintz and depression glass, but actually it was downright stark. Most of the chairs in the place were aluminum. The desks were parsons tables with small cabinets underneath. It was clean and minimalist. The office had it's own private bathroom where she would have her hair and makeup done.
The "bullpen"  was an area of desks in the center of a large room, surrounded by small offices where mainly producers sat. In the early days we would have a weekly meeting, where everyone stood and we'd talk about company news. It was informal, there were not that many of us then. If there was a new employee it was there that they would be introduced to the team. When I was first brought on and introduced, Martha jumped right in because we had known each other in the past. This was my introduction:
"I've known Margot for years, her father and I were good friends. In fact I catered her wedding which was beautiful (accent on the "beau, pronounced "byooo-ti-ful"") at Waveny House in New Canaan. and was in the original "Weddings" book. But- she is one of my failures because Margot is divorced now!"
It was a little TMI, but you had to have a thick skin to work there as I learned early on.

At this point, I must share my own opinion concerning Martha...
For all of these years, I cannot tell you how many people have said in these exact words, "What was it like to work for her? Is she a bitch?" My answer is this, she's tough.
Nobody who is a self-made success is going to be a pussycat. I don't care who they are. "Bitch" is a sexist term. No, Martha was not easy to work for in many ways. There were some very hard days and many challenges. She is also brilliant. Creative. Strong as an ox, with non-stop energy. She's up at 4 am and her brain is on full blast. At her estate in Maine, I would be working in the kitchen and she would be in the there at 6am on a Sunday morning in her  wet-suit, cappuccino in hand, speaking into the intercom to all of her guests to get up NOW if they were going to go kayaking with her. She reads everything, she loves movies, she goes to all of the great restaurants and knows all the great chefs. Being in her orbit is a fascinating place to be. Sometimes a little scary, her expectations are high. I have always said though, that if she gives you a compliment it is for real. She has no reason to blow smoke up anyone's skirt. She let me know if she didn't like something I made, and she let me know when she did.
When you work as a private chef, which I did upon occasion for her, you must be a little bit in love with your client. Being a private chef is a very personal, in fact intimate relationship. You are in someone's home, privy to their arguments and conversations. You see them in their pajamas, in their bathing suits. You see when their kids act like brats and talk back to them. You are behind the scenes, feeding them, perhaps travelling with them. There must be an element of trust. When working for hideous and nasty clients- the hours are long and miserable. You talk back to them inside of your head and your spirit is bruised and beaten.
When you are a little bit in love with your client, you come away feeling accomplished and happy. With Martha, I usually did. There might have been moments during the weekend when my heart was in my throat and the pressure was on. It was tempered though, with seeing beautiful places and dealing with interesting and famous people. Flying on the private jet, along with the dogs, the luggage, the food and her friends was fascinating.

So no, not a bitch. She's tough and a bad-ass. As stressful as that job was, I was paid well, had lots of creature comforts and perks. It was an amazing period of my life and a great opportunity.
Beyond the bullpen and offices was my domain, my world, The Commissary. A simple area with heavy duty white picnic style tables and benches, six of them. Plain cement floors as was the rest of the building. There was a pass through counter where meals were served buffet style. There was a very expensive cappuccino machine that was for anyone to help themselves to. Actually, everything was free. There is such thing as free lunch, at least there was at the studio. There was a large reach-in refrigerator that was stocked with beverages. Coffee and hot water dispensers next to that.
The whole idea was that because the studio was in a somewhat remote area and the fact that many employees came up from New York (transported from the train station by a complimentary shuttle van) and the time allotted for lunch was limited, particularly for the crew, that there would be lunch provided every day. On shoot days with an early call-time there would be breakfast too.
Behind the dining room was the commissary kitchen. It was about a quarter of the size of the test kitchen. The walk-in wasn't even in there, I had to go across the building to get to it. But my kitchen had everything else.Two stoves, ten burners, 20 qt Hobart mixer, reach-in refrigerators and a freezer. Plenty of storage space and eventually our own convection oven. Prior to that I was pushing speed racks through the facility with dozens of hot trays of cookies after baking them in the other kitchen where they had a double stacked convection oven. People would follow me, well not me- but the delicious scent of fresh baked "Alexis's Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies".
We produced a lot of food out of that small kitchen. Early on I was the assistant to the head chef and we had a dishwasher/prep cook. We only had about fifty employees to feed. The chef who was very talented and an Italian from Brooklyn only knew how to make large amounts of food. He would make fresh lemon-meringue tarts, or home-made ice cream sandwiches composed of mint ice cream (not green, but flavored with fresh mint leaves) between two cookies, Chilean sea bass baked in a puttanesca sauce, among other outstanding dishes.
However, this abbondanza displeased Martha. Her concept was that it should be simple. Soup, salad, sandwiches and perhaps a dessert, such as cookies. There were always bowls of fresh fruit on the counters for the taking. We were to make unsweetened ice tea, or lemonade with simple syrup on the side so that people would sweeten it themselves. Only 2% or skim milk available, not whole milk. She didn't want to fatten any body up. She herself would spend a lot of time trying to keep herself in shape. That's not easy for someone who loves food and is around it all of the time.
It was a really tough job in some ways. We had to cater to so many different demands.It seemed that everybody had an opinion on lunch. I could never figure out why is was SO important to so many people. I mean, it was just lunch after all.
For example- we were given a daily budget of approximately $2.50 to spend on each person. This included cappuccino. As stated before, Martha wanted simple. Not fattening, not expensive but with great presentation and must be delicious. We were encouraged to use recipes from the Living Magazine or from the show, but many of those ingredients were very expensive. Though she did not want us to bake bread in house, our bread had to be up to par. She was a fan of Eli's Bread, and finally I sourced a distributor who would bring it up to Connecticut for us. To Martha, a perfect lunch would be a simple tuna salad on Eli's Health bread, perhaps a light soup, a green salad with fresh in-season vegetables and a bowl of cherries along with an iced tea made of a recipe from her housekeeper Luisa, that was a blend of red zinger and citrus fruit. No sugar of course.
Now for big, burly men who worked on the crew with their bulky utility belts, in their cargo shorts and construction boots- a tuna sandwich was not gonna cut the mustard. You're looking at meatball sandwich kind of guys.
It was a constant battle.
The worst part was the group of female executives, Martha's minions who made it their life's work to suck up and to second guess Martha. These women could be downright nasty. The comment made most often was "Martha would hate that".

It always blew me away how much "the coven" (a name we later came to call them privately) focused on lunch. One would think that if they were producing a national television show there might be more important things for them to spend their overpaid time on. I mean, it wasn't like we were serving franks 'n beans every day. And when you are limited to only one entree-it is hard to make something that everyone likes. On days that they didn't like whatever it was that was served (again, FREE), there was a buzz that could be felt throughout the building. One day we were even summoned along with our facilities manager to endure a meeting with an executive producer to discuss lunch. Her brilliant idea was chicken salad with dried cranberries. Fine, but what about every other day? DON'T YOU HAVE A SHOW TO PRODUCE??
Eventually I got smart. I would find Martha if she was on premise that day. I'd go back to her office, perhaps she might be in her bathroom under the bright lights getting her makeup done. I would just ask her what she thought of a certain dish. Never mincing her words, I always got a straight-up answer. She might add a twist to it but I got a yes or a no. This way when the coven would start up about what Martha would hate, I would chime right in and let them know that it was Martha approved. Ha!
Within two months of my working there, the aforementioned Commissary Chef was sent to Siberia (the New York office). He wasn't fired, as Martha recognized his talent but his excessive, fattening and pricey meals were spoiling the staff and she'd had enough.
Next chef was a woman that was a flavor of the month in the Martha-sphere. I'll call her "Sally", a short name for salmonella. Not a compliment.
Sally had also catered for Martha in her home. (this was before I got fully into that circuit). As I said, when you work in someone's home it is pretty intimate. Sally had made one major mistake though. She thought that she and Martha were friends. Important lesson here, the client is NOT your friend. You may talk, joke with them, upon occasion dine with them, but it is a business relationship. Perhaps this is another reason why I did not take criticism from Martha personally. She was the boss.
I think one of the things that Martha liked about Sally was that she worked in small batches. In Martha world, food should be delivered in wicker baskets, herbs freshly picked and gently wrapped in cotton cloth. Brazilian gardeners mind the plants and trees, the gardening tools are kept at hand at all times.
The truth of the matter is that when you are working in a commercial kitchen making a lot of food for a lot of people and on a budget, it is kind of hard to carry it all in baskets. More likely it is in cardboard boxes brought in by a truck. It's more economical and efficient.
Sally would meander in, with baskets and grocery bags. She would have stock pots going and every utensil out, every bowl in use and dirty. She used portobello mushroom stems in her vegetable stock...unwashed with the dirt chunks on them. "Oh it goes to the bottom anyway and the germs will just boil off!".
Thinking that she was a "friend" and not just an employee, she would chat with the coven and everyone else. The kitchen was always a mess and lunch was never on time. The whole point of that kitchen was to be ready so that when lunch was called on the set, immediately there needed to be food out and ready to go. The crew had a half hour only, so time was of the essence.
She would make five little sandwiches at a time, rustic and just so. She knew nothing of production and frankly not much about technique. She said that she had been trained at a culinary school in England. All I can say is that I had the most horrific food poisoning experience of my life in London. Coincidence? I think not.
Of course, the complaints started up. Food was too slow, food was not enough. Food was weird. Food was dirty and people felt sick afterwards. Sally would sit down at lunchtime with the guys on the crew that she thought were cute instead of overseeing lunch service. She was threatened by me, so I laid low and let her hang herself.
Sally went to work up at Skylands (the Maine estate) for a few days and I had to cover. I had never been the lead chef before. I was to say the least, a little terrified. Luckily I was coming off of the heels of Sally so the threshold had gotten pretty low. My taste level was more like that of the original chef except that I understood what it was that Martha really wanted. I got the fact of keeping it simple.
That first day on my own I had a freelance cook to help, along with our dishwasher/assistant. I grilled chicken, made a platter of grilled vegetables, an arugula and tomato salad and fresh baked cookies for dessert.
Lunch was on time and when I came out of the kitchen they gave me a standing ovation!

When Sally got back, still under the impression that Martha was her friend and couldn't understand why she had gotten yelled at for a)bringing her badly behaved dog with her b) serving meals late c) being incredibly messy- she was fired shortly after.
I was formally offered the job of Head Commissary Chef. I had only been out of culinary school for a year. This had happened very fast.
On one hand I wanted it. The money would really make a difference in my life. It was prestigious and took me to a whole new level.
On the other hand, I had two young kids that I was raising as a single mom. They needed me. The hours would be longer now and very unpredictable. I wasn't ready for that. The pressure was high and my experience was very limited. The honeymoon was over quickly, I got in trouble for "insipid" bread one day. And for having a bowl of bananas on the counter because they were a "useless fruit". (I said she was a genius, I did not say that she was always easy to deal with). I was very torn.
I sat on the front stoop of my house one afternoon after a long day. I kind of wanted to cry. It all had happened too fast and I didn't know what to do.

To be continued...

This is a segment of the show where Martha proudly shows off the beautiful new studio. Look carefully around the 350 mark where you can see me whisk by carrying a tray of my career-building chicken.