Seeing Stars
Sep 4th, 2008 by Marilyn
So, while I was fixing the kerflooey blog-bugs, I put together a little chat – maybe not so little – on why I didn’t stick with fine dining. It’s a magical high-end world and everyone wants in, right? Well, the five-star kitchen is tempting, to be sure – but you can make that almost everyone.
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A plate was flying toward me, so I ducked. “No sugar!” hissed Dieter, the headwaiter. “No….sugar!”
That was the night I mixed two soufflés – whip, fold, stir, I know how. I smiled when they left the kitchen and nearly choked when they came back wrong. When one orders a $17 dessert, one can expect sugar. I’d been an intern for fourteen days at this five-star restaurant – and between two botched soufflés and one smashed plate, I assumed I had about fourteen seconds left.
Second-year culinary students did internships, and this was the one for me – a place famous for gracious service and the second mortgage you’d need to eat there. There were a thousand city kitchens but I’d fought for this spot, and lobbied to win. It was plum, an expensive organic plum of a chance, and on the first day I laced my Doc Martens, tied back my hair and jumped.
Jumped fast, and fast was good. When you are the only woman in a cramped kitchen of men, it’s like working on a nuclear sub. Down in the lockers I learned to grab two towels, an apron, and get the hell out. In the darkest corners of the walk-in, I whistled loud and carried a peeler.
And on the line, I was invisible. “I’m here,” I told Mario, the pastry guy, “let me do something.”
He gave me a case of club soda and a stack of chargers, and I spent the day buffing Limoges. When I went for new plates, the dishwasher leered. He was a sulky, strung-out French cousin of a saucier’s cousin, but he smoked with the bakers and drank with the chefs. I prayed for a tragic scalding at the sink.
Though my shift started before noon and dragged past midnight, I began showing up early, when the produce arrived. Chef – the chef – would climb through the alley on wooden crates, pinching herbs and squeezing fruit. Safe behind the ovens, the pastry guys whispered and mocked.
“Oh yesss…yes, we must kiss the ass of every strawberry. Mwah!”
If I joined in - strawberry ass – ha ha, that’s good! – they turned and went back to work.
Without leadership and dying to be led, it occurred to me that Chef himself should be my teacher. He’d be flattered by questions, enchanted by curiosity, why yes, he’d say, but of course you are most natural. So much talent for one so young. And your shiny nose, tres chic. One morning I stood with my little notebook, watching him snap dough into onion tarts.
“Is that pate brisee?”
“For you it is NOTHING.”
“Creme fraiche?”
“Go to hell. MOVE.”
Thanks, mon ami! I started stealing into the tiny fish kitchen, scaling three-foot tunas that hid me from view. In twenty years Alejandro had gone from dishwasher to fish boss – let’s see Le Dish Cousin do that – and his manner was shockingly kind. “They won’t let me do anything over there,” I whined, “they hate me.”
“You’ll make it.” Elbow-deep in sea bass, he yanked out some guts. “You will.”
Certainly I could make it as a plate shiner. Not counting club soda, I hadn’t touched an edible in seven working days. But just ten minutes before dinner on the eighth, Mario grumbled “you plate tonight.”
My head swam. Desserts…now. Plate.
On the line. That’s what I wanted, right? I’d watched them all week, the battery of sauces and garnishes, tart shells and torches and berries. I test-plated a poppyseed tuile on the sly and it shattered to the floor. I kicked the pieces under the counter.
When the dessert rush hit I was nauseous. Tickets poured in and Mario barked orders while I frantically tore mint leaves, piped swirls, curled chocolate. Line work requires the hustle of a trader, the fight of a bull and in my case, a skin of steel that I did not have.
“Move, MOVE!” Dieter snarled. “I will not SERVE this SHIT!” For a man who resembled a cadaver, he was surprisingly alive. “Why so slow, PIGS?”
“Yo estoy solo!” Mario yelled. I am alone.
I spoke decent Spanish. I’m on the line and he says he’s alone.
“I’m trying!” I wiped my hands and grabbed the next plate. “Look, I’m on it!”
Thirty-seven desserts later, I was given a five-minute break and flew down to the locker room, drenched and shaking on the…ashes. Every cook, waiter, and busboy topped this floor with Marlboro butts. Maybe if I just started smoking.
I threw up over a trashcan. Then I sat on the floor, pressed my face on a locker and cried.
Four minutes later I was back on the line. I drove down empty Lake Shore Drive at two a.m. each day and returned at ten a.m. the next. My body found a new brand of numb; even my skin hurt from the daily rounds of try, scream, fail. Maybe I did not have what it takes. Maybe I did not want what it took.
For two weeks, every man over twelve and under eighty welcomed me with open arms – hairy arms. Each night I worked between three dripping necks, boasting in three languages over my head what they’d like to do with me, for me, to me.
The day that Dieter fired a sugarless soufflé at my head I untied my apron, hung it on the peg and walked out to the night.
I sat five minutes in the car, breathing frost in my wet, filthy whites. The restaurant window showed in my rearview mirror, catching a diner raising her glass and a man clinking it, smiling. I yanked down my hair and sped off to the highway, thinking quitter. You burned your fancy bridges. Schooling was what I’d come for and schooling was what I got. I would quit my way into a different kind of kitchen, reasoning that if this was it, what I had was something else.
Fascinating! I didn’t even know I was interested in what goes on in the kitchen of a foo-foo restaurant until I read this.
Oh, that is so interesting! I was gripped by your story.
Having read a few biographies (Jacques Pepin’s was wonderful), and Bill Buford’s Heat, I’m not surprised to read this. Hooray for you for walking away from it; there are definitely paths to a culinary life that don’t involve verbal abuse.
Isn’t it ironic that a restaurant kitchen is one of the most sexist places to work?
Wow – what a story. I too have read “Heat” and shouldn’t be surpriesed, although it is disappointing. Amazing that that kind of cr*p goes on in the finest restaurants in America.
I got a blog award yesterday and want to pass it on to you – see my blog.
If you had continued there, you wouldn’t have had energy or time for blogging. Good for you, lucky us. I’d much rather see pics of your home cookin’ anyway.
Jayne: foo-foo indeed. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Alice: welcome and thanks!
Lydia: Jacques Pepin’s story is wonderful – and there are good tales of the kitchen, too. Happily, they’re not all like that.
modernemama: oh, no question – ironically, the food most chefs really want is the food their mothers made.
Laura: thanks for the kind award!
wanderluster: oh, that’s kind, but I often wish I’d toughed it out, even if it wasn’t right for me. I moved to bakery work, which also wasn’t easy, but was right for me. Chefs who thrive in the ‘heat’ – male or female – are a different kind of tough indeed.
Fascinating. Was the restaurant on Armitage Ave.? Or in Willow Springs? Or in River North? Just curious.
I think it took more guts to walk away than stay put.
I am sorry that you had to go thru that horrible experience. I don’t think you should have toughed it out, you are better than that. You love Larryville and the sweet charm it holds. That says to me that working with those snobby, pretentious ‘people’ is not a place that you belong. I’m sure you’ve thrived in many situations of ‘heat’. Thanks for the strawberry, I just couldn’t resist. You said the leave the *cake* alone…
There are times when you don’t walk away, and times when you must. This was the latter. Never mind the food stuff, look at you write! You’re a writer!! Great post.
see,you can take the heat,it’s the crap you don’t want!
Marilyn, I loved this story. It really stinks when one has so much to offer, but no one is accepting. But this type story is so true for so many people. sigh……….
Carol: not on your life! The culinary mafia might find me.
HPH: you are of course right. Larryville life is sweet.
Hayseed: welcome! Thanks for the kind words, and feel free to hit the Lurker Buffet. There are scones to be had.
Theresa:
Jenni: it’s a tough business and you really, really have to want that life to make it work. Everyone has a tale to tell!
Passion, Food, Squealing tires! This has it all.
Marilyn………a wonderful telling of a story your mother and I know to be true, even though you certainly didn’t share those details at the time. But we do remember our highly spirited daughter returning home each night as beaten down as we ever knew her. Great job!
this just confirms that my decision not to become a restaurant chef was the right one–i would’ve broken like potato chip under that sort of pressure. wonderful story, marilyn–thanks!
Marilyn, your writing here really shines. A well-told tale!
Jean: based on the speed I drove out of there, it’s a miracle there wasn’t also a high-speed chase.
Papa (Dad): you wouldn’t have wanted a few of those particular details at the time. Trust me.
Grace: I have no doubt you made the right choice.
Joanne: since you’d know — someday, I’ll tell you where it is. Hope you’re still enjoying that grape pie!
Wow, who knew?! It takes a courageous person to stand up for what is right and in this case walk away…..that’s NOT quitting. Hurray for you!
~ingrid
Holy Crap! More More More!
It takes great sense to decide not to work in a place that you and others think you ‘should’ be working at, but you know makes you miserable.
The words from your Dad made my eyes swell.
Great story Mar! I’m surprised I haven’t heard it before. I’m glad you walked away from that crap. No one deserves to be treated like that.