Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

A Thousand Kitchen Years Ago

There are dog years, cat years, human years, and then there are kitchen years...

Saturday morning, my last Saturday morning, I hop in a taxi and take the FDR freeway from Lower Manhattan to Midtown. I look out onto the East River as rain pelts against my window, beading up, then sliding down the pane contorting my view into a million tiny fisheye lenses. I glimpse the Brooklyn Bridge arching gracefully to a place called Somewhere Else. 

The taxi takes the 42nd Street exit and we are whipped into Midtown madness. Tourists line up in the rain around the Radio City Studios hoping to catch the Letterman show or the Rockettes. African street vendors hawk their counterfeit purses and sunglasses under plastic rain ponchos. Steam rises from street food vendors luring in travelers with a promise of spicy halal stirfry or Jamaican jerk chicken.

I slip unseen into work. 

There is no reason for anyone to notice. I work on the groundlfloor of an enormous skyrise building located between 51st and 7 Avenue.  Unless you are an investment banker there is no reason why you would even know the builing exists. 

Nevermind that Mama Mia is playing right across the corner. We might as well be the invisible empire in the midst of toursit central. Half of France and Switzerland bank right overhead, and yet we remain concealed from view.

We are very private. And yes, we do serve over 350 clientele privée everyday. But you would not know we are where we are, unless you knew where we were. So to speak. 

You enter. 

A beautiful hostess takes your fur lined coat and seats you at your table. You float by flower arrangements half the size of an average human being that decorate the warmly lit contemporary dining room. Modern Oil paintings depicting the sea and all its wonders hint to what the menu has in store. White table clothes dressed with crystal are set like diamond necklaces in silk. Contemporary luxury.

A waiter takes your order after your thirst has properly been addressed – Champagne? A martini? A glass of sparkling water perhaps? 

An amuse bouche arrives seconds after the waiter disappears with your command for the kitchen to fuss over. 

The sommelier appears and, being the best in the world that he is, guides you through a volume of voluptuous green bottles until, together, you have reached a suitable date for the evening. Or perhaps a few. Maybe just a taste from many? 

The courses roll out and waiters glide to and from your table seen and unseen. They know when to get your attention and when to leave you alone. They know when you want to strike up a conversation and when to remain in the shadows refilling glasses, brushing away the crumbs, taking away empty porcelain plates with silverware made of real silver. That is their job – to know what you want and when you want it. 

And then there's us cooks in the kitchen slaving it out under extreme pressure like we were in a war game simulation with chef's barking orders and tickets in-coming faster than torpedos. And we're either laughing in the trenches because we're winning the game or keeping our heads down working faster and faster hoping the flag is still ours at the end of the night.

Yes, it is quite another world from the dining room. I personally like to play both fields.

Nonetheless even you, the diner, has entered into the timelessness of 'kitchen years'. The Broadway show you thought you were going to catch at 8PM has now become less important than staying for an extra dessert course and an after-dinner drink. You are living moment to moment, like us cooks do, just in a different way... 

I'm not so early into the kitchen this Saturday, but not so late either. Early enough to gather my equipment before the rest of the kitchen staff starts searching for all the good flat bottomed pots and pans and the desirable cutting boards. 

 

"Last day, huh? Is it really your last day?" The hot appetizer cook, Chris, comes over to chat a little before the kitchen becomes a circus. 

"Yup, it's my last day, and you're the next Monk Station cook. Are you excited to be on the entrée line?" I ask wondering how he's feeling considering he will begin without any training on the station.

"Yeah, I'm excited, but I don't know the station at all."

"Don't worry." I offer with a pat on the shoulder, "I have everything written down that you need to get prepared with an hour by hour itemization. And they won't let you fail on this station. Trust me. A dish off the entrée line costs at least $50. They will not let you fail. But they will scrutinize everything you do over on this side."

"Yeah, so I've heard..." He remarks and I can tell he's worried about the position. 

"You're shit has to be tight over here. I mean really tight. Expect to be yelled at for weeks about everything – even if you think it's perfect, it's not perfect. You'll be fine."

He leaves to go back and set up the Hot Appetizer station which is by far one of the worst to get up and running. That station has so much mise en place it's almost unthinkable. And he will be fine, he's a good cook.

 "Hey, there's much less mise en place on Monk Station!" I call to him from across the piano, "It's easy compared to Hot Apps...." 

 

I am blazing through my prep work and I'm not feeling anything yet. I expected to feel sad or relieved or something upon arrival into the kitchen that has been my home for the last year and a half and instead I feel nothing. It's just a regular Saturday.

Cooks come up to wish me well and ask if it really is my last day. One of the new cooks catches me in the walk-in fridge and says: "You're going to cry tonight, I know you're going to miss us."

I tell her, "I am going to miss you, but I am not going to cry."

And I know I'm not going to cry. I don't know why I know that, but I do. It's not that I love anyone less or more than the last place I cooked at, it's just that I know in my heart I'm ready for the next chapter to begin.  

Diner service finally starts up after five hours of prep work and the chefs are messing with me biggtime: last night on the line Amy? How does it feel? You're gonna miss us? Thank God you're leaving –if you put another plate like that on the passe we'll have to fire you....

 

 But it's all in fun. And for the most part we are just too busy to do anything but concentrate on the dishes.

 

 The first seating is over and I'm still not feeling anything. And now this is bothering me. 

Actually I am feeling something: I'm feeling really tired because I haven't slept well for weeks. And when I'm tired, I'm irritable. And dammit, I want to feel something other than irritable.

"You okay tonight? You seem mad or upset?" the Chef de Cuisine asks as I'm gathering plates for the line in between seatings. 

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why do you ask? I'm concentrating on making my dishes perfect tonight. I want a perfect night."

"Well you look angry. Smile."

"Why are you asking me to smile. You never ask any of the male cooks to smile and they look more upset than me right now." I lash back, surprising myself.

"Amy, I am not messing with you tonight. I just know that cooking is a passionate thing and it brings out lots of emotions. That's all." He says still slightly messing around with a sparkle in his eye that tells me he's up for a good challenge and a slight smirk that always means trouble.

When my Chef de Cuisine is in a good mood that normally means he's going to come down on us harder. I usually try to stay clear of him when he's happy.  

I ignore the rest of this conversation because I'm obviously being led down a road of no return and continue bringing plates for the line. 

The second seating is smooth and my fish is poaching nicely and my plates are looking clean and my sliced monk is looking soignier... 

 

Chris, the Hot Apps cook is sent over to my station to join me for the end of the last seating and I am trying to teach him everything amidst the rush. But it's impossible. And he, of course, wants to plate everything. 

But at the same time I want all my dishes to be perfect because, it's my last night and I want to finish them myself.

But I like Chris and I want to help so I let go a little. 

The last dish is ordered and it's a filet with pommes purée. I have no idea it's the last order and I heat up the filet and sauté the wild mushrooms while Chris caneles the purée on the plate. 

He does a good job, but I like it when the caneles are shaped just a little bigger and fanned just a little wider. No matter, it looks good, he takes the plate to the passe and I follow behind so I can glimpse the upcoming tickets.

I read the tickets, and read the tickets again, and then it hits: that was the last ticket for my station and I let Chris plate it. The horror! It's not his fault, but I'm upset that I'm asked to train a cook on my last night on the line when I could/should have been doing this the whole week long. 

I leave the kitchen to cool off and go to the bathroom while the other stations (besides the entrée line) are cleaning up. The Chef was right – cooking is a passionate thing! I look in the mirror, take off my paper hat, and finally I feel something totally unexpected: I am so happy! And I still don't know why – but I am so happy!

I come back up to the kitchen and half-heartedly pitch in cleaning. No one expects me to. And I'm busy taking loads of photos. I look on the passe and a silver tray of Champagne glasses await.

The Chef de Cuisine comes up to me, "Well Amy, go get your champagne in the walk-in, I know you wanna open it." But first he hands me the blue permanent marker and I write on the dry-erase board, what we write when a 'dish' is taken off the menu for the evening. 

Amy 86 at 12:30 A.M 

 

I stare at this and for a second I think maybe I will cry, but tears don't come and I grab my champagne. 

"Are you gonna open it for me chef? I ask

"No way sister, I'm sure you've had a little practice at this one..." He smiles, but something is bothering him and he leaves briefly while I pop the corks and pour champagne to discuss something with the Maître D in his office. 

Hmmm, not good, a problem on the floor.

 

He comes back to the passe to grab his glass of champagne, but another cook has swiped it and I feel bad for not saving a glass for him. He gives a speech that frankly does nothing to inspire and I look at him a little confused. He looks back to the dining room. Something is bothering him and it's not my departure.

""The pressure he must be under", I think to myself.

I snap more pictures of the team and invite everyone over to our local hang out, Faces & Names, for pints.

I arrive at the bar and the Chef de Cuisine is there. I was wondering if he would make it. I know he doesn't always come to farewell parties. But his mentorship has meant much to me and I find myself choking up at his presence. His friendship and respect have been hard won.

I chid him, "Nice farewell speech Chef. Maybe you should consider changing your day job..."

He laughs, "I'm sorry, there were some problems, I'm sure you saw that?"

"Yeah, I gathered as much."

"Okay Amy, you're right, let me re-give your speech..." He lifts his beer to my glass of wine, "Thank you for your hard work, I have really enjoyed you here, your have grown so much as a chef, and best of luck in your next endeavor..."

"Thanks Chef..." 

For the first time in a year and half we just talk. We talk about my future, the restaurant, the work, the life of a cook. We talk. And I see him, just for a second, as a normal person with a family to support and not just an intimidating Chef de Cuisine of one of the best restaurants in the world. 

We finish our drinks and he ducks out before his staff (and fan club) pull him into their drunken conversations.

Bob, the sauté cook comes up to me with a beer and we start philosophizing...

"How was your night Amy?"

"I dunno. Good. But not perfect, ya know? I just wanted one perfect evening..."

"We live moment to moment, what happened yesterday is a thousand kitchen years away, a thousand kitchen years away" he says for extra emphasis.

"What do you mean Bob? What do you mean 'kitchen years'?" I asked a little slow in understanding.

"Look, in the kitchen you cannot let things get to you. What happened the day before was a thousand years ago. When you are judged moment to moment on what you bring to the passe, what happened just five minutes before does not mean that what will happen five minutes after is the same."

Sipping my beer and still taking in all the happy emotions of my last night I ask for clarification because frankly I have no idea what he is getting at.

"In your heart you have to know when you bring something that is perfect to the passe, that it is perfect. There in no one who is going to tell you that it is. But when you do bring that perfectly cooked fish to the passe there is no better feeling. And that feeling comes from within."

Still catching on I add, "Yes, I agree with you. You are right. We live moment to moment and are judged moment to moment."

"What happened five minutes ago in the kitchen could be a thousand kitchen years ago. The person who was being an asshole the day before was an asshole a million kitchen years ago. That perfectly cooked halibut you brought to the passe was a hundred kitchen years ago. And you...YOU..." he taps me on my breast bone to send the point home, "...need to constantly be looking to the next moment. To the next I-cooked-that-perfect moment before it too becomes a, a, a, a...memory."

We sip our beers and sort of stare at each other. I'm dumbfounded at Bob's revelation. Because it is profound. And I think he is sort of feeling the same way. He has summed up just how time passes in the kitchen and what we all as cooks strive for – the next moment of perfection.

"I'll write about this." I tell him.

"Good, I hope you do!" He tells me. We sip more beer. 

"And I hope you stay and make sous chef Bob, you will be a good one, I have really enjoyed working with you. You cook fish beautifully."

He laughs and we drink more beer. 

The senior sous chef slides a chair beneath my tired knees, pushes Bob out of the way, and pulls up a table to what appears to be the beginning of a serious conversation about life.

He rests his chin on his hand, elbow propping up his inquisitive concerned face, beer firmly grasped in his other hand. "So, what are you going to do now?" He asks almost like I think my father would if he were half my age instead of three times it. 

"I'm going to finish my book." I say frankly, because it's the only thing I"m sure of at this moment in time.

"Good, I really meant what I said months ago – if you ever wanted to be a professional writer – you could. As long as you don't write about me." He laughs his contagious laugh and takes a long sip of Stella. 

I sigh. It's hard to not have a most innocent crush on a very talented young man who undoubtedly has a brilliant future ahead. Not to mention the one person, in an extremely competitive kitchen, that has always had my back.  

"You know, I wrote a book when I left Paris, it's a long book. Funny. Painful. French. But I never wrote the last chapter. I think now I'm ready to write it."

"There's no books out there written by a female chef."

"Yes, I know." We sip beer and think about this. "There's really nothing out there on being a female cook in France and what it's like cooking at a 3-Michelin star restaurant."

He nods his head vigorously while listening, and his belief in my writing ability is making me more high than the alcohol and dehydration I'm experiencing. 

"But, I don't know, I have some other interesting cooking offers too, I just want to take this time to close one chapter of my life before I begin another."

"Do it Amy. And if I ever open my own restaurant ten years from now, can I count on you?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely Chef!" and then I change my mind, "But chef, I think you're a lifer. I think I will be coming in to dine ten years from now and you will be the Chef de Cuisine."

He laughs his contagious laugh again because he knows there's some truth to this. He loves his job and loves the restaurant.  

"Yes, you're probably right."

"I always am chef!" He laughs again, knowing that my weakest personality trait is being wrong – I hate being wrong. And it sometimes gets me into trouble in the kitchen. 

"Yes, it's been fun to work with you and I've always enjoyed telling you how to do things differently than you did in France. It's always fun to watch you argue, then do it the American way, and then understand." 

"Fun for you I suppose, painful for me. I'm sure glad I won't be hearing 'Is that how they do it in France?' anymore."

We drain the last of our beers and now it's really time for me to go. The alcohol has caught up with a year of exhaustion and dehydration. I say goodbye to my long time family. Giving long hugs to everyone I can.

We all pile out of the bar and cooks gather around trying to figure out the next venue: "Where are we going next? Where are we going?!?!?"

But I am tired, just plain tired. And happy nonetheless. One of the cooks hails a taxi for me and the rest of the cooks gather round and wish me farewell. The senior sous chef literally lifts me up in the air like a child light as a feather and then puts me back on the ground and into the taxi.

"Bon chance, hein?" He says and everyone waves goodbye. 

I look back through the rearview window, the rain has stopped and I can see the cooks huddling for warmth planning their next destination for the evening.

A million kitchen years ago...

  

A Kitchen Winter Wonderland

I leave my heated cozy apartment this crisp Saturday morning and head for work in what I think is an appropriate outfit. But no. I'm stopped at the front door by the conceirge:

"Amy, Amy, Amy – you cannot wear that, you're going to freeze". 

"Really? But it doesn't look that cold?"

"It's going to snow today.Seriously, put on a heavy coat at least" he says shaking his head at my obvious lack of common sense.

"It wasn't that cold yesterday...hmmm...okay...I'll be back..."

I change quickly piling on layers and, this time, pass the inspection test. But now I'm running a little behind so I hail a taxi who immediately takes me the way I tell him not to take me. It doesn't matter, his taxi is heated and I've already committed. Besides I want to get to work early. And the conceirge was right. It's freeeeezing.

I love being first in the kitchen. Love it. 

I'm never truly first in because Pastry is always set up way ahead of us. But, to be first in on the cuisine side of the kitchen is magic. To own all that shiny stainless steel and be the person to light up all the burners and fuel all the ovens. I love that. Love it, love it, love it. 

I suppose in some ways it's like walking into Notre Dame or the Sistene Chapel and having the whole place to yourself. Just for a second of solitude in a place of worship. 

Before the continual fight for burner space starts up, before the stress starts to trickle into my veins over being set up in time, before chefs come by tasting my mise en place and giving their opinions, before tickets fly in and orders are shouted out and plates are rushed to the passe and, and, and...

Just alone in the kitchen.

But this Saturday is special because it's my second to last Saturday. I have finished my contract to stay through the busy holiday season and given my official notice. And we all know that when you give the mandatory two weeks notice everything changes: black looks white, frowns turn to smiles, pain turns to bliss, weeds come up roses. And you wonder why you decided to leave.

C'est la vie. 

But I have decided to leave because I'm missing something: friends and family. I love cooking. I can't imagine life away from the kitchen. But I think there has got to be a way to balance it. Perhaps that means running my own kitchen and creating the environment I want to work in with the team I want to work with. Perhaps it means being able to foster people's talents while learning with them and from them at the same time. Or perhaps it means something else. I'll know more in a few weeks...

But it's Saturday, the second to last Saturday, and now the other entrée cooks have started to trickle in gathering equipment and ingredients. Sleepy hellos are exchanged. One of the other entrée line cooks slips me some homemade Christmas cookies, a pastry cook leaves me some tasty petitfours on my cutting board, the barista has made fresh coffee and I'm back in business. Sugar-caffine high galore.

I breeze through my morning mise en place. We don't serve lunch on Saturday so setting up can be stressful without the morning team to prepare everything. But since I've worked the Monk Station in the morning the routine comes back naturally. 

I grab two hotel pans from the dishpit, one large bain, one small bain, several mixing bowls, five 6-pans, two 9-pans, a rondeaux, a small sauce pot, a large stock pot, and a cutting board. 

I put my potatoes on to simmer for my senusously smooth pommes purée, I get my water on to the boil for my halibut poaching liquid, I cut ten heads of garlic and three nubs of ginger and sweat them for my daikon braising liquid. I cut romaine lettuce tips to blanch, trim tiny honjumanji mushrooms, chiffonade mint and parsley, clean mini radishes and turnips, slice green onions two different ways for two different dishes, cut corn off the cob and clean leeks for my corn canolloni, and slice daikon on my mandolin then punch it out into perfect circles with a ring mold.

After I've finished all my cut work I start to put everything together. I peel the potatoes and pass them through a ricer then through a drum seive. I make a large batch of roux and mix it into my boiling water with a hand mixer that's half the size of me (I call it 'The Beast') adding orange juice and vermouth for a little extra kick. 

I blanch my romaine lettuce, leeks, radishes, and turnips. I purée my fresh corn and mix it on the stove top with butter and parmesan, let it cool, add herbs, and pipe it into my blanched leeks rolling it up like cuban cigars. I strain my daikon braising liquid, add the daikon rounds, and let them simmer until tender. I make ponzu sauce and truffle butter. I gather plates for the line. And Finally I'm set up! It takes me five hours.

It takes me five minutes to write about it and five hours to actually complete it. 

Saturday is always pizza day and the new sauté cook has been more than appeasing the hungry masses. In fact his family meals have become too good – there is hardly anything left over for the people who can't wait in line. 

He puts the pizzas on the passe and a swarm gathers around ready for the offical "Food's up everybody!" call before they dive in. Within minutes the pizzas are demolished. But, he has saved a few slices for the entrée line. Call it senior cook privilege or whatever, I don't care, we don't have time to stand in line. And why should we? We're the senior cooks.

I know, that sounded awfully pretentious...

The first seating starts off and it's fun. When I say fun I mean we're getting our asses kicked but maintaining a humorous positive outlook. With two sauté cooks working the fire, I've got my girl Kendra next to me slinging heavy cast iron pans like they're cotton candy on sticks. And I know she's going to time it right so I don't get all the fish at the same time. 

She knows if I'm plating a monk fish and a striped bass if I get both at the same time then one will end up over cooked. I can't slice the monk and simultaneously finish the stripe bass plate. I love her for it. 

But orders are piling up quicker than I can get the plates ready. With two sauté cooks on the line the fish is coming out faster and faster and I'm still only one person slicing, poaching, and plating. A sous chef arrives to the rescue and we're running up and down the line to the passe with plates and sauces like two people walking (running) on hot coals. 

One hundred covers flies by and finally it's the lull between the second and first seating. Great, I can replenish my mise en place that is completely wiped out...

Mais non! The Chef – I mean the Chef – wants to change an item in my mise en place. One that is time consuming. He wants the hand cut wedge potatoes that go with our Kobe beef dish to be changed from Idaho spuds to Yukon gold. This is not normally on my mise en place list, but there is no way in hell I'm going to say so. The only answer to the Chef's requests are: yes, Chef! 

Of course my inner thought is: really? Are you sure you don't want to make that change on Monday when it's a bit slower and the morning cook has the time to actually cut them? And I don't have a thousand things I really need to do at this particular moment? Going to the bathroom being one of them!?!?!

I run down to the dry storage room and begin punching out wedge potatoes. But the puncher is not properly oiled and it's been reassembled badly. I half want to kick the blasted thing across the room, but fear I'll loose a toe in the process. To make matters worse the yukon gold potatoes are small and I'm only getting one good wedge per potato. No matter, I cut thirty potatoes and get thirty wedges. I save the scraps for City Harvest, a company that feeds the hungry in Manhattan.

I get my wedge fries on to simmer – and they must simmer gently or they break – and the second seating starts up. I'm still trying to roll more corn canolloni, blanch more romaine lettuce, and generally clean my station in between the first few orders. Not fun. I hate playing catch-up on a busy evening. 

But the second seating is not as bad as the first. The tables are timed better and the rush is hard but not impossible. Word gets out that tables have cancelled because of the weather. 

The weather? What weather?!?!? What's going on out there?!?!? Servers come back with the news: it's snowing! It's snowing!! It's snowing!!!

An hour passes and my wedge fries are cooked. The Chef (the Chef) tastes one after I pop it in the deep fryer and salt it. I place it, like a golden orb, on a porcelain plate for him to cut into. The thought of handing it directly to him would be unthinkable. He cuts into it, thrusts his fork into a bite size morsel, holds the morsel up to inspect and study rotating his fork slowly to catch all angles under the fluorescent lights, pops it in his mouth, and chews slowly. 

I watch. 

He begins to nod his head while still in the process of chewing and swallowing. He points to the remaining morsel and says, "Yes, this is it! This is it!" 

Relief. I have passed the wedge potato test. 

Who knew a wedge potato could cause so much anticipation? It's a potato for crying out loud. (But a damn good one.) 

The third seating always takes me off guard. I look at the clock and we're still sending out amuse bouches at 11:00 P.M. How can this be? I'm personally closed for business (mind shut down, exhausted, delirious from the heat, total mush pot) but somehow these people are hungry enough to order tasting menus at this late hour. Who are these people and don't they know the evening is over?!?!

My mise en place is, once again, seriously depleted but I play the game of Russian roulette than all cooks play at the end of the evening, the: will-I-have-enough game. And no, it's not because I'm lazy and don't want to make more, it's about not wasting product that will just get thrown out at the end of the evening. 

Okay, you're right, maybe it's a little bit of laziness too. 

The other game at our restaurant (we have so many games we play) in order to avoid being blamed for running out of something is to make sure one of the chefs knows about it. Then it's their decision over whether or not to make more. I have found through trial and error if you skip this step you always get burned. It's the: pass-the-responisbility game. Also called: passing-the-buck.

We play this game throughout day. It goes like this: 

"Chef, can you taste this?"

"Does it taste good?"

"I think so, but I'm Californian and you know our taste buds are different...."

"Add more salt and then I'll taste it..."

He tastes, approves, then if the Executive Chef doesn't like it I get to say: "But the sous chef tasted it and liked it..."

Or for my mise en place I"ll say:

"Chef, I have 45 corn cannelloni rolls, do you think that's going to be enough?

And he'll say, "I don't know, let's roll with the punches and see what happens."

Then if I run out, we've already had this little conversation about it, so I don't get yelled at – or worse – sent home for making a stupid error. All the cooks have become expert at this game.

Two tables are left on the board and I'm running low on my turnip ginger foam. This foam is shot through a canister loaded with nitrous cartridges so it's impossible to actually see how many orders are left. I lift the canister and give it a shake trying to judge just how many pumps I might be able to get out of it. Not many.

And the third seating rush makes it impossible to quickly whip up another batch. The garde manger staff is finishing for the night and I ask one of the cooks to set up a blender at my station and cut some turnips and ginger to quickly cook off and purée. 

He cuts the wrong turnips – the small white ones – and I send him back to find the big purple and white two-tone turnips. This time he returns with a watermelon radish that is expertly peeled and diced.

"No, no, no..." I say, panicked "This is a watermelon radish – it's pink! The turnips have purple and white skins...."

The Executive Sous Chef comes down the line and in his French accents asks, "Amee, what ahre you do-ing? Focus on your dishes s'il vous plaît."

"Desolée (sorry) Chef, I think I'm almost out of turnip foam and I don't know if I have enough to cover the board."

"Forget it, there are two tables left, we'll use the turnip purée from the Saucier station if we have to and blend it with some blanched ginger..."

And sure enough two monk fish tasting plates are fired. I slice the monk, plate it, and garnish it with tiny mushrooms and micro chives. I run the hot plates to the passe. Then run back to pour my sake broth into one gooseneck and squeeze my turnip foam into another. 

The foam canister sputters it's last breath. I'm screwed. With fish on the passe and a server ready to carry the tray into the dining room I feel as if the boat has begun to sail away and I'm still at the dock with my luggage... 

The whole entrée line pitches in. The Saucier gets some of his turnip purée on to simmer, I take the blanched ginger I've prepared and throw it in, we quickly dump everything into the vita prep mixer and buzz it, the Executive Sous Chef tastes it, I pour it into a fresh canister and the sauté cook recharges it, I squeeze the foam into a gooseneck and run it to the passe, and the server whips away the finished tray. 

The boat has sailed and I'm on board... 

It's 12:30 A.M. and the kitchen staff is polishing the stainless steel, bringing loads of pots and pans to the dish pit, and throwing away left over mise en place while the entrée line is finishing the very last plates. Everyone is exhausted. We have all worked 6 days this week and finally our minds are starting to switch off and relax.

Paper hats are thrown in the garbage, we pack up our knives, punch out on the clock, grab our complimentary ice cold beer, and pile into the elevator to head back to our respective changing rooms and transform into everyday people in everyday clothes.

I pound my beer in the dressing room, thirstier than normal, and the alcohol hits me instantly. Dehydrated but happy (drunk) I leave with the other female chefs and we climb the stairs back up to the real world.

It's 1 A.M and New York is quiet. The streets are covered with a thick blanket of pristine white snow. Not a single taxi in sight. The normal hustle and bustle of tourists and traffic in Times Square is silenced. 

The ravioli cook picks up a handful of snow and starts to pack it into a ball while snowflakes fall lightly around the cooks exiting from the restaurant. He's Southern Indian, I can't imagine snow being a regular sight for him – nor is it for me. Other cooks take the cue and pack snow into hard balls. 

I run for cover. Grab my iphone and distract the cooks from pelting me with snowballs with the suggestion that we take a photo instead – it's the first snow of the season. 

They bundle up for a quick photo then part for an afterwork beer. I'm too tired to join, and with no taxis in sight I walk through Times Square ankle deep in snow and head for the train station. 

 

The snow is glittering with the reflection of all the enormous lighted billboards. The pavement looks like millions of tiny rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds. It's beautiful. 

  

I know tomorrow this snow cover will melt and turn black and messy but, for now, it is truly a New York winter wonderland...

Monk Station at Night

Switching from cooking the lunch service to cooking the dinner service on the line is like switching from Coca Cola to cocaine. Both are stimulating, one slightly more than the other...

I arrive Friday afternoon at the restaurant surprisingly awake. It's the first time in a month where I haven't debated over whether to sleep in an extra ten minutes or take a shower. Some people can adapt to a 5A.M. wake-up call, but, I'm apparently not one of those people.

I get out of bed before my alarm goes off and head to the gym. I go for a leisurely swim then shower, blow dry my hair (a first), return home and pour myself a cup of freshly brewed coffee (a luxury), check my email, read the NY Times online, sharpen my knives, and head for the subway. A great start, it practically feels like I'm on vacation.

But no, I arrive at the restaurant during one of the busiest lunches of the year to prepare for the evening service. I walk through the kitchen to gather equipment and ingredients and notice the lunch cooks have this look of – well how to describe it exactly – not fear, but an expression of trying to hang on for dear life in a roller coaster with no seat belts. 

There's really no time for fear while being whipped around the loop-de-loops. It's that stomach-in-throat sensation that either allows for tunnel vision to take over and control the situation or sabotages the best life saving attempts. Fight or flight. Adrenaline. Pupils dilated, eyes bulging, hand and body movements working in overdrive. 

I set up my cutting board in the back prep room, grab another cup of coffee, and thank God I'm not on the line while all hell is breaking loose. 

Stupid me. It's been a month and half since I cooked at night on the line. 

Here's the pros and cons to cooking the lunch vs. the dinner service: lunch cooks always have more mise en place because they set up the kitchen in the morning for the day and night. The lunch cooks are responsible for the various stocks, sauce bases, and time consuming complex garnishes. But the actual service is quicker and they have the evenings and often the weekends to relax.

Dinner cooks have less mise en place but a longer service – about 3 to 4 hours longer. The menu is often expanded and the clientele order multiple courses. And dinner cooks always work the weekends, and often suffer from the absence of a normal social life. 

But, if you're a cook, you want to work the dinner service. That is where it's at, so to speak.

I much prefer the energy in the nighttime. There is nothing like it. It's fun, physically demanding, and much more spirited during service. 

However, I'll admit it's been nice to have the evenings and weekends off. And frankly, I can get more done in the morning because I can work on my station without spending precious minutes searching for equipment or ingredients. 

But, as my chef nicely reminded me: "This is what you signed up for. Do you want to be an excellent prep cook or a really tough line cook?" I think the answer's obvious: I'd like to be both and retain some sort of normal life outside the kitchen while not having to wake up at the crack of dawn. Subtract an hour from the mise en place of the lunch cooks and an hour of service from the nighttime cooks and you've got a great schedule. Sounds reasonable, no?

I slurp my coffee in the back prep room half listening to the orders being fired in the kitchen and start to ponder how in the world I'm going to set up my station with no stove or oven at my immediate disposal. I put my potatoes on to simmer in the upstairs salon kitchen and come back down to begin all my cut work: chopping mint, parsley, daikon rounds, mushroom tops, baby turnips, baby radishes, scallions, etc. 

An hour passes and I'm still blazing through my knife work. There's only 250 covers for the evening. Only. I check on my potatoes, which have been mysteriously removed from the burner they were simmering on and replaced with some other bubbling concoction. I refrain from freaking out, I know we all need to get our stuff cooked, and there are still a few hours left before service. Another cook offers up his burner and all is well. 

The lunch service is winding down and the hot appetizer cook generously gives me some space on his burners for my turnips to simmer. So now I have potatoes cooking upstairs and turnips cooking downstairs and I'm in the back prep room equidistant from both kitchens. 

I'm pretty much done with the knife work, but I don't have enough mise en place to make it through the whole evening and I'll have to wait for a second shipment of produce to arrive. No stress (yeah, right), I'll finish my prep work in between the first and second seating. I'm used to this by now, and besides, there's nothing I can do about it anyway.

My potatoes are done, I drain the water, bring them back downstairs, peel off their bursting skins, and grind them through a ricer.  Then I pass them through a drum sieve to insure extra smoothness. I add enough melted butter to sink the Titanic and some milk. And they taste extra silky rich. Even the sous chef comes by to taste hoping they will elevate his mood – it's been a tough lunch service. They don't, I haven't added salt yet and his wishful hoping turns to disappointment. 

"There's no salt!" 

"I know chef, they're not finished!"

He walks away shaking his head clearly unsatisfied and we all laugh around the prep table in pity for our poor sous chef who has taken a beating all morning long. 

It's 4P.M and the lunch service is still droning on. I'm anxious to set up my station and finish cooking the little garnishes I need to watch over. Instead I spend 20 minutes trying to find a Vita Prep blender so I can purée my turnips for my turnip-ginger foam. I run upstairs to see if anyone has the blender, but a cook has just taken it downstairs. I run downstairs and find the bottom for the blender then search the dishpit for the top.

Success! I have both the top and bottom but they are not working together. 

"It's broken, you can only use it on the highest speed or it doesn't turn on", one of the cooks advises.

I set up the blender next to a cook rolling out pasta who looks at me like I must be on drugs and he quickly gathers his ravioli away from the on-the-fritz blender. I apologize in advance knowing since I'm a senior cook and his friend, he'll allow me this indulgence – total abuse of authority and our friendship. I cover the blender with a dish towel since the top to the top has disappeared and I have no time to look for it.

I flick the switch on to 'high-variable' and the motor kickstarts spewing turnip purée everywhere. But it's not too bad, his ravioli are safe. And now it's time to clean up my mess and get on my station.

My station looks like a bomb went off. No one is at fault, the lunch was a whirlwind and my morning counterpart is trying to tidy it up while I'm trying to set it up. We're both in each other's way. Cooks are running back and forth down the line yelling "Behind you! Hot! Behind you!" trying to get their various stations set up.

It's a race to the finish line, but the real finish line is still 7 hours away.

Family meal is put up on the passe and I'm starved after my nice relaxing morning swim and the half marathon I have just run between the upstairs and downstairs kitchen, but I have no time to eat. The smell of rich beef stew with puff pastry crust wafts down the line and my salivary glands start to water. I take another swig of cold coffee hoping it will satiate my hunger. It doesn't.

I work in one of the best kitchens in the world, and I'm starving. Go figure.

The Monk Station lunch cook stays late to help me get everything set up and he makes more of the complex garnishes since they were depleted during lunch. I tell him to go, I know he's tired. But the adrenaline has got to him and he's still in overdrive. Finally he crashes, wishes me well, and packs up. 

It's 5P.M. and the evening is off to a slow start, which is not a good thing. It buys me a little more time to get my station set up, but I've been cooking long enough to know it also means we will get hit all at the same time. And we do. 

The tickets trickle over from the Garde Manger and Hot Appetizer side of the kitchen to the Entrée line and they are long complex orders. Everyone is working as hard and as fast as possible and the plates are lined up – practically piled up – around the piano to be finished and flashed in the oven and raced to the passe.

The young and talented Saucier is setting the tone and the pace for the entrée line keeping our spirits high and shouting out the fired orders as well as the ones coming up so we can prepare and think ahead while focusing on finishing the immediate dishes. How he is not already exhausted is a mystery. The Saucier creates 25 sauces (maybe more) every day and every night which is no small feat. 

The first seating winds down, I'm out of just about all my mise en place. I need more braised romaine lettuce (which thankfully has arrived), more corn canolloni, more, more, more... I manage to cook off enough of everything in the fifteen minutes of rest before the tempest hits again.

The second seating begins and now I am more confidant. I have a better feel for the station at night with all the tasting menus and a more accurate sense of how much preparation I need to do for the next time. The only thing that is ruining my flow are two garnishes for the Saucier's dishes which utilize the deep fryer. These garnishes are rarely part of the lunch-time service so I'm not yet comfortable with the pick-up's.

To complicate matters, the deep fryer is not next to my station. It's on the other side of the piano. This means I have to scramble over to the hot appetizer line and drop my eggplant or wedge potato fries or whatever, while trying to plate dishes and poach halibut on my station. Luckily the Veg. Station cook keeps an eye on the fryer for me. 

I'm getting dominated by the tasting menu orders and a sous chef comes down to bail me out. He too is not used to the deep fried garnishes, and we grumble light heartedly about the pick-up. He's fun to work with on the line and as my energy starts to wane his humor and focus keep me going. 

The second seating peters out and I'm set for the 3rd seating with mise en place but the heat, lack of food, and dehydration are taking their toll. I'm tired. It's way past my 10 o'clock bedtime. 

The 3rd seating is not so bad, but steady nonetheless. There's no time for a break. I'm on overdrive and my muscle memory has taken control which is a good thing because my mind is mush. And I'm so thirsty I could drink a lake.

And finally we get the last order. The rest of the kitchen is cleaning, but the entrée line is finishing the very last touches on the very last dishes. I'm delirious, but happy. I attempt to clean my station, but my mind and body are not working together and my effort to organize is futile. It doesn't really matter anyway, the chef takes everything on my refrigerator shelf and dumps it in the trash. He does this to everyone's shelf to make sure we start fresh the next day. I'm not happy about this, but it does makes clean-up easier.

Thankfully some of the new young cooks come over to help us polish the stainless steel piano, brick the flat-top spotless, and run mountains of pots and pans to the dishpit so we can all get out after a very long 12 hour day and have a much. desired. ice. cold. beer.