Like a firefighter

Of course I would have to pick the week before my exams to try out a new kitchen for an internship and volunteer to accompany Sara's class on a field trip.

There are many things about the restaurant I just came from that would make it an ideal place for me to work in: it's near my house, it's small (there is only the chef in the kitchen and his partner in the dining room), it's super clean, the food is decent, the interior is minimalist. However, of all the little reasons I would not work there (they put cream in their risotto, the dessert I had was underwhelming), the main one would be that the chef smokes "like a firefighter" as they say here (comme un pompier). All morning, it was cigarette after cigarette. Granted, there were not a lot of clients today so he had more time to smoke that usual. But when I saw the lit cig a few inches behind my back as I was applying myself with a pail of jerusalem artichokes (yes, again), I knew I could not work there. I guess I am getting picky, or perhaps I was spoiled with my two first experiences where the kitchens were spotless and everything was by the book. So yes, I can be "psychorigide" in the kitchen, which vaguely translates as ... anal (in the Freudian sense of course). I just believe that if there is a proper way to conduct a particular operation, then why not do just that and augment your chances for the best possible result. I realize that this is not brain surgery and that no one will die if a vegetable is peeled over a chopping board and not a poubelle de table (table trash bin) but I think that there are a few good habits I have picked up and don't want to compromise.

Warning: do not read further if you are vegetarian!

I asked around and few of the others in my class if they were at the hotline. In most of the restaurants, the chef or the sous chef are the only ones who supervise the cooking of the meat, not the lowly interns (usually right below the apprentices and above the dishwashers in the kitchen hierarchy). So I guess I should be honored that the Chef last week granted my wish to spend my last day at the grill. He sent me to the meat, and not the fish station.
Working at the meat station implies handling raw flesh. After lunch was over, I was given the task of preparing the pigeons that I had just seen being cooked and served. I was enthusiastic at the idea of doing something new, and thought I was really tough, working the meat station with my own knives. I had no idea what I was in for. I was given a huge box which contained over a dozen birds with their feathered heads still on, their sharp beaks and eyes tightly shut. This must be some kind of sign of freshness, to keep the heads on, as the Chef had once paraded a headed chicken wrapped like a papoose around the kitchen like a proud father with a newborn baby. The cook who was showing me what I had to do took a bird, stretched it a bit, grabbed some shears and cut off three of its toes, leaving the middle one intact. This one he shortened with a swift snap. Then with a cleaver, he clipped the wings, and the tail. Finally he pulled the head, performed a precise incision along the neck, lifted the skin covered with pristine white feathers off and gently tugged on the skinned neck, cut the skin, and then brought his cleaver down over the neck, beheading the animal.
So I tell myself (the cook has already left at this point, without noticing my bewildered look), “well, you’re a cook, you like challenges, you can do this, it’s not as bad as that box of furry rabbits at the other restaurant.” I grabbed a pigeon and started pulling. The sight of the intact head was appalling but so were the feet with their granular surface and the hooked nails. I cut the toes off, then the wings, then the ass. I made a cut through the skin of the next, through the feathers, and loosened the skin. I cut the skin, then the neck. At that moment, the most ridiculous and disgusting thing happened: grains of corn started falling on the chopping board. Whole, dried, bright yellow kernels and some wheat too. I don’t know why, but I found that more revolting than anything else, almost obscene in an indescribable way. Almost all the birds had them, their not yet digested food tumbling out of their dead bodies.

Back to school

I was happy to go back to class after my three-week stint at the Sofitel’s restaurant. What made it even better was the fact that we were in the kitchen for the full day, instead of half-day as usual (the other half of the day is usually devoted to theory, eg. categories of sauces). Everyone was ebullient with questions and ready to share their experience of the past month. Our teacher expressed her disappointment at the number of absences; a portion of the interns happened to get sick between Christmas and New Year, at the dismay of their respective chefs.
Yesterday the class successfully prepared a hundred-guest new year luncheon for the staff of the school and the region’s administrative offices (whose funds we are enjoying). Having confirmed my preference for savory over sweet both at home and at work, I was able to do the stuffing for the cherry tomatoes (goat cheese, fresh cheese called faisselle, olives and chives), flip a couple dozen crepes, to be filled with caramelized pineapple and secured with orange zest ribbons en aumoniere, and finally, prepare and cook the guinea fowl in orange sauce. Being by the fire, facing the heat, is what I like best.
All the guests were extremely surprised and pleased by our performance. We had had puff pastry with different savory fillings for appetizers, then the stuffed cherry tomatoes, tuna-zuchini roll-ups and foie gras with onion chutney for first course. Next came the guinea fowl in orange glaze with orange supremes (everthing was bite-sized) and white fish with balsamic cream and alfalfa sprouts and spinach leaves. There were slates covered in a variety of fine cheeses… and to end, the Galette des Rois or Pithiviers (puff pastry filled with almond cream, typically served during Epiphany or Three Kings’ Day), chocolate cake with crème anglaise (vanilla cream), and the aumonieres with their caramel sauce. At the end of the day I felt a bit sick from all the food. I have never in my life had so much foie gras or galette. On the other hand, I was happy with our team work and felt ready to take on more!

Kitchen characters II

This week I met another kid, at the hotel’s café, where the chef sent me to help out. The café is in the lobby and has its own kitchen, except without an oven. It has a full view of the old port with its magnificent forts (which give their name to the hotel’s main restaurant). Kevin was alone when I found him – or rather when he found me waiting for him - and looked very surprised to see me; as a matter of fact he immediately called the chef who confirmed to him that I would spend the day there. I joked that I was sent to keep an eye on him… It turned that we had a very good day together, though I did more mise-en-place (that is, preparing the ingredients for the dishes) than actual cooking. I don’t mind – actually I relish any job I am given, since I consider any task a learning experience. I often think of Helene Darroze, a top chef in Paris and chef to my former sous-chef – whom Alain Ducasse sent to “sort salad” for six months in Monaco, though she comes from a lineage of famous French chefs.
Kevin is one year older than Petit Jean, and has worked in the kitchen since he was sixteen. He told me about his work at the fish station in Avignon and how much he loved it. When I asked him why he left, he told me the hours were too long and he and his girlfriend wanted a change of scenery. So while he was hired by the Trois Forts’ chef, he was sent to the Carré. He missed the hot line and the fish. Apparently he had a similar disappointing experience in Lausanne, where he applied at the hotel Beau Rivage where Anne-Sophie Pic, the most famous female French chef, held court. He was so excited to be working with her, but when he reported to duty he was sent to the café, and had the frustrating experience of making salads and club sandwiches while watching the chef work her magic on the other side of the glass in the main kitchen. He told me he would have stayed on had he found housing.I think these kids would do great in the States... they are so young but already so knowledgeable about classical French cuisine and techniques. I really need to catch up!

Kitchen characters

Working in the kitchen, you meet a whole different type of profile than at the UN, but somehow, people’s stories and lives are just as interesting. As previously mentioned, the average age encoutnered is roughly twenty years old, without counting the chef of course (thank god they are older than me, at least so far). As such, I have met two very interesting eighteen year olds, whose stories, for their young age, really captivated me. First was this little kid in the garde-manger, and when I mean little, he is shorter than me and they actually nickname him “petit” Jean (not his real name). I met him while I was still working in the pastry station, which is adjacent to his station. He flattered me by saying that he was convinced I was his age (yeah right), and then made me wonder about his life when he said he spent Christmas with his cat eating McDonald’s take-out. I thought it that was strange, for a kid his age, from here, to be spending the holidays like that. I got to know him a bit more during my second week which we shared at the same station. When he came in late last Monday the chef de partie (boss of the garde-manger) was worried because he was not picking up his cell phone. Later that day he showed up with bandages and scratches on his face; he was in a car accident, his friend was driving him home when a car collided with them head on; the driver was drunk and was driving in the wrong lane without his headlights; Jean’s friend did not survive the crash. Jean told me it was the fourteenth person he had lost over a period of two years. I could not imagine how at eighteen years old you could lose so many people, except of course in a war or disaster situation. I wanted to know more but of course left him alone.
It turned out that Petit Jean was my neighbor. He lived alone with his cat in an apartment close to the hotel where he had been working for over a year as an apprentice. When he first started he was working the hot line, the meat station to be more precise. One day he was cooking next to the sous-chef and there was a huge vat of hot oil on the stove for potatoes. As the kitchen got busier, the oil started to smoke, and so petit Jean picked it up to carry it away somewhere out of danger. As he was going through a doorway and shouted “chaud devant” which is what you do to warn someone to get out of your way in the kitchen, another cook didn’t hear and showed up in front of him. Petit Jean froze, and the burning oil made one slow wave which covered the pot’s handles and his hands which were holding them. As he let go of the pot in shock, the skin from his hands stuck onto the handles. He had to be treated for four months for burns at the hospital, and cannot tolerate being near heat anymore…