Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

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. 

Superstitions & Kitchen Witches

I have become ridiculously superstitious. 

And I don't mean in the traditional sense like if you see a penny face up and you leave it there (because New York City sidewalks are dirty) that you will get hit by a bus. 

I have created my own superstitions. I think this is the beginning of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder...

I hit my snooze bar at 5:45A.M. my body begging for another ten minutes. My hands are so numb and swollen from fresh cuts and burns that I'm not even sure they are still connected to my body. And my desired 'extra 10' is looking like a lost cause since the feeling is starting to creep back into my extremities. 

The numbness has now morphed to a new sensation resembling frost bite mixed with boiling hot water. Not pleasant. I get out of bed pumping my hands to get the blood going. 

I stumble into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and ponder for a split second if I really need to shower. I showered last night. Do I really need to do this again? Couldn't I crawl into bed again instead? No, I turn the rocket jet on and walk into the shower, bend my head slightly forward, and let the water which falls like hard rain pummel my brain. This feels good. I know it sounds like torture, but really it feels good.

I scrub quickly, vow to wash my hair in the evening, put on the same clothes I wore yesterday (change underwear and socks), grab my knives and run to the subway in order to catch the 6:06 A.M subway. On the train I doze off. Everyone dozes off. We are all sleeping, rocking too and fro with the rhythm of the wheels gliding over the well polished tracks. 

My eyes open every now and then to peek at what station is next and then close thinking about what I need to do when I get to work.....cut kobe fries first, then make tuille batter, continue with normal prep but have grilled veggies done by 8 A.M, don't forget extra corn cannelloni's for the salon, and..... 

It's finally my transfer stop, 42nd Street, and I stumble out of the train eyes still half shut to wait for the local #1 train to arrive. It never arrives at the same time. Ever. 

If the #1 train is already at the station and all I have to do is hop over and take a seat, then I know it's going to be a good day. But, if I have to wait 10 minutes, then I know the Gods have predetermined my morning if not my afternoon and evening...

I wake up early so I can spend 3 minutes on my walk to work to grab a quick cup of coffee at Starbucks. I need coffee in the morning. I am not human without coffee in the morning. And none of the morning cooks (myself included) have figured out how to get our brandnew coffee machine going so we are forced to outsource. We all come with Starbucks coffee. 

Which is a good thing because there are too many sharp objects and stressful situations in the restaurant kitchen to start off work at 6:45A.M without coffee. It helps to take that edge off.  

No zucchini in the walk-in fridge for my cod tandori plate? Slu-u-u-rp. No problem, I can wait till 10AM when the produce arrives to finish that. The 4 gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice that I need for my poaching liquid have mysteriously disappeared overnight? Slu-u-u-rp. No problem, I can squeeze my own. 

But here is where superstition comes in... if the #1 train has screwed me over yet again, this means that Starbucks had better be empty so I can grab a quick cup. But, if Starbucks has a long line and only one person working behind the counter – like today – then I know I am going to be in the shitz all day long. 

Today, specifically, not only were all the tell tale signs in place of a no-good-very-bad day. But I'm pretty sure the kitchen witches were gathering around their Amy Glaze voodoo doll and sticking in pins. I'm almost positive that every time I tried to get back on track this morning one of the witches stuck me good. 

You have heard of kitchen witches haven't you? Perhaps you have a kitchen witch doll hanging in your kitchen to appease the coven?

The kitchen witch, and I quote here from a pagan wicca website, "honours what she cooks, preparing meals with loving intent. Using fresh ingredients, often from her own garden, she makes magic in the kitchen by creating delicious, seasonal food, herbal remedies, and magic spells."

Clearly the kitchen witches felt I was not honoring them in someway. Why else would I semi slice off my finger tip with my brand new mandoline? Or drop my misono pairing knife on the ground breaking its tip? Or why would there be no orange juice in the walk-in for my poaching liquid but a bunch of staffers sipping something cold and citrus-like all morning? 

12 o'clock finally hits like a sledgehammer and I'm set up. I'm ready. fingertip be damned. I am set up and ready rock.

And then the kitchen witches start to make a mockery of me. I grab a plate from above the stove to flash in the oven for the first order of striped bass and cramps stab me in my lower abdomen. Oh yes, the joys of being female, working on a hot line, without coffee, and my premenstral syndrome just went code yellow to code I-could-use-some-motrin. 

My eyes cloud momentarily with pain. The sauté cook, and only other female on the line, looks at me and asks if I'm okay. 

"Cramps."

"Oooooo, stay away from me! I don't want mine yet!"

We laugh. Women who live and work together will pull each other to the same cycle. And having attended an all woman's college I can say it's a fact not a myth.

Orders start flying in now and I'm getting hit pretty hard. However, Kendra, the sauté cook who cooks 80% of all the fish we have on the menu, is getting pummeled. But, like always, she's going strong. She loves it, the sense of dominating and controlling chaos and the euphoric release of endorphines that no street drug can replicate. 

The chef calls in the nightime cooks who have started their mise en place for the evening to give a hand on the line. We are doubled up on the three one-man entrée line stations and the chef starts firing off the orders all at once. 

"2 halibut, 1 monk, 1 stripe by 2 stripe by monk, stripe by salmon, skate..."

I pull my two halibut out of the poaching liquid while Brian slices the monk for the first order. They're perfectly cooked but by the time they reach the passe they will have gone from medium rare to just under medium. I rush the plates, the chef checks the temperature with his metal skewer against his lip:

"Less cook on the hali..." 

"Oui, less cook on the hali..."

I finish the striped bass while Brian brings the next monk to the pass. We grab sauces for the dishes and run back to start the next table. 

The rush is finally over and the line is turned over back over to the girls. It's a nice feeling to have a little female comraderie on the line. Something I've only encountered once. Another order comes in and it's mostly mine: two halibut (one well-done) and one striped bass. I drop the two halibuts in my poaching liquid and set up plates, garnishes, and sauces while Kendra pan poaches the striped bass.

But the timing goes funny. Her stripe is done and one of my halibuts is done, but the other is still medium. I bring to the passe the two dishes that are ready and then run back and plate the last one. I know it's a little under in temperature, but I'm hoping the heat of the plate will finish it off. It's so close to being well done...

The chef checks the fish temperatures with his skewer and I'm sure I'm off the hook, but then he calls out: "What is this? Did I not say 'well-done'? Does this look like well-done to you?" He pulls apart the fish and a thin line of rareness is visible.

I'm pretty sure he's going to throw it at me, but instead he gives me back the plate calmly and tells me to fix it. No problem. I can fix it easily. It's impossible to turn 'well done' into 'rare' but the reverse takes seconds – at least with fish. 

I fix it and bring it back to the passe, but I'm embarrassed. I felt pressured to rush it because I didn't want to loose the other fish. 

I'm telling you: no #1 train, no coffee, no orange juice + pms + kitchen witch voodoo = no-good-very-bad day.

But there were some humourous parts to the shift. Think of them as out-takes on the line....

Kendra split her pants on the line during service and no one but me noticed. And they were split from waist to bottom. Thank God for long chef's coats. She's not fat, she's mean and lean, but boys pants somehow don't work out all the time for us ladies. 

I got so upset with the coffee maker at work that I opted for espresso instead. But there was only decaf. This did not help any. So I poured a cup of what I though was iced tea. I took a big gulp only to discover that it was cleaning liquid and water. I basically drank half a cup of industrial soap. Luckily my stomach didn't object.

8 gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice arrived late, the driver got stuck somewhere. 

Sometimes you gotta roll with the punches! And, pay a little homage to the kitchen witch in your house – or restaurant... 

The Monk Station

No I'm not throwing in my whites, shaving my head, and attempting to infiltrate a religious sect of men, although that might make a better story. I'm changing stations once again at the restaurant I cook at and moving up to the entrée line. 

Excitement can't even begin to describe a goal that has been so heartily pursued through the course of a year. In some ways 'relief' is a closer fit. 

But I have learned heaps along the way personally and professionally and each station I have conquered has also come to represent a period of my life throughout this year. And what a rocky roller coaster year it has been for me and just about everyone else I know for that matter.

I keep coming back to a conversation with the Chef de Cuisine after my burn injury. He said, "Amy you've got to cook from within. Protect yourself in this environment." 

Anyone who has cooked under pressure will understand there is a zen you must find while in the midst of potentially dangerous chaos. A sort of serene tunnel vision that sees the food to the pass and keeps the adrenaline rush at bay. And, it does get easier and more controllable with time. 

Now what exactly does the Monk station do? Poach halibut, plate monk fish, skate, stripped bass, and get everything to the pass hot and medium rare. Not to mention prepare an intimidating plethora of garnishes from silky potato purée and corn cannelloni's wrapped in leeks to truffled frisée salads, fried eggplant, and more. 

I'm sure I'll find out exactly what the 'more' is tomorrow morning at 6:45 A.M. – yikes! I normally don't get to bed before 3:00 A.M.

But I am very much looking forward to being totally exhausted tomorrow...

All Burnt Out! (Help me plan Family Meal)

I have no idea how I'm going to work tomorrow. No idea. I burned myself so badly on Friday night that I just don't think my foot will rebound in time.

My foot! Can you believe it?

I slipped on the rubber matting while shifting my weight to dump a large pot of boiling salted water down the drain and instead dumped it right down my ankle and into my cooking clog.

Immediately I rolled up my pant leg to get the hot cloth off my skin. But my sock and shoe were the last to come off trapping the heat in for longer.

Wincing, I tried to continue with my mise en place but the burning sensation wouldn't subside. I stuck my foot in an ice bath and still the burning continued. I smeared burn gel all over it but no relief. The burn burned for five hours after the accident.

Five hours!

Fifteen minutes after icing and gelling, inch-high blisters started bubbling up over the top of my foot and the skin around my ankle began peeling off.

Time to go to the hospital. So much for working a double shift. And what a terrible way to end a difficult day.

This week has been hard and I'm not sure why. I love my new station and I have a firm grasp on all the mise en place. I absolutely adore working with the morning staff, many who have been at the restaurant for over fifteen years and understand/embody the concept of mentoring.

And I especially love cooking Family Meal. It's the highlight of my day and I've been enjoying the complimentary response from the staff. And I would LOVE some new creative ideas that are tasty, feed over 35 people, and can be made in an hour and a half.

I make a lot of fish stews (cioppino and thai curry are big hits right now) with the extra scraps from our fish butcher. Most of the fish is white and includes: black bass, striped bass, halibut, cod, monk fish, and skate.

Unfortunately the scraps are all different sizes and normally not big enough to serve as whole fillets so some sort of stew or all-covering sauce works best.

I once made fish tacos with black beans, rice, salsa fresca, and gaucamole. That meal disappeared fast.

Got any ideas? Recipes? For mixed fish scraps?!?!?!

My pantry at work always includes:
1. Canned tomatoes, tomato paste
2. Coconut milk
3. Onions: red, yellow, green onions, garlic
4. Potatoes: russet, yukon gold
5. Rice: japanese, basmati, uncle Ben's
6. Black beans dried, chinese black beans
7. Israeli couscous
8. Pasta: rigatoni, spaghetti, penne
9.Vegetables: green beans, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, bok choy, carrots, celery, cauliflower, etc
10. Herbs: cilantro, parsley, thyme, rosemary, kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, chives, bay leaves, mint, basil, thai basil
11. Mushrooms: chinese dried mushrooms, button mushrooms, wild mushrooms
12. Chicken stock
13. Sauces: sirracha, soya sauce, thai red curry paste, harissa paste
14. Nuts: almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, pecans
15. Dried fruits: cherries, figs, apricots

Help a burnt out cook and send your recipes to msglaze@gmail.com or write them below. International recipes welcome – especially the spicy ones!

Chef's Whites and New Dishes

I don't look my age.

At least I didn't think I looked my age until I caught my reflection in the bathroom on my only 'sit down' break during the day. There it was, staring back at me in the mirror, an unrecognizable face and an emerging small shock of white hair.

You know what I did? I literally turned around to see if some one was behind me. As if I wouldn't notice some one else in the bathroom with me staring into the mirror.

On closer examination I leaned into the mirror and brought my fingers to my white hairs pulling apart my cowlic to count them. The more I searched, the more I found, the more I lost count.

When did I turn this old? How did I not notice this before?

I put my little paper cook's hat back on making sure to cover the intrusion of white and walked back to the kitchen in a state of denial.

"Look, look at this!" removing my hat slightly so only my girlfriend could see, I pointed to the spot .

"What? What am I looking at?!?!"

"My white, hair, do you see it? Do you see it?!?!"

"Oooooo that's kinda sexy, that little streak there."

"Hmmmm, that's one way of looking at it." I said and pulled the hat half way down my forehead again.

I flung myself back into mise en place in the hopes that total concentration would take my mind off my new discovery. Besides, I work in a kitchen where nobody really cares what you look like as long as you look clean cut. What matters most of all is your skills and your speed and your effeciency and your ability to organize.

Not whether or not you have white hairs sprouting up all over your head.

Then it hit me. I looked down at what I was making. And I blamed it full heartedly: "You, you have given me white hairs."

This is what new dishes do to cooks my age. I suppose it's what unruly teenagers do to parents. They stress them out completely until their hair turns white.

And new dishes are a little like children. They are so beautiful and exciting at first, then they are rebellious and obstinate as you try to include them in the grander scheme of things, and finally they come into their own.

All that frustration and pain just a beautiful memory. (Which is why cooks then create more dishes and, I suppose, parents more children.)

But rolling thinly sliced zucchini around tube shaped curry crab panacotta is a little like threading a very small needle with a vary large piece of yarn. If my fingers were long and thin and not short, swollen, and burned this sushi-like exercise might be enjoyable – even easy, who knows?

In theory the idea of rolling zucchini slices around any stable tube filling should be simple. However, if you want perfect spacing between the green skin and the white flesh of the zucchini with 5 lines of green showing, then this is another feet all together.

In order to achieve this perfection a range in size of zucchini slices must be used. Let me backtrack a little here...

First I slice zucchini very thin on a madolin and salt it heavily to draw out the water. I rinse the salt off and begin laying out a series of slices on my cutting board. The first slice I choose is small, so the two edges of green skin are only an inch apart and no seeds are showing.

Next I sort through the slices to find one that is a little bigger and layer this half way on top of the first slice checking that the green skin edges are all equidistant. This is repeated 4 more times.

After achieving the right spacing I gently place my curry crab panacotta at one end and roll it up. Then I repeat this whole process about 50-60 times.

Now you understand the white hairs?!?!

But making the zucchini rolls is not the only stressful part of the dish, finding a way too cook it so the curry panacotta doesn't melt on the plate before the zucchini has a chance to get hot is another dilemma.

The curry powder we make is yellow in color. And If the curry crab panacotta melts all over the plate, the color of the plate is......?????????

Yellow.

Hmmmmm, I think i just felt another white hair popping up.

Trying to figure out the production of this dish from start to finish so that the only two entremet cooks (myself on the dinner shift, and Marino on the lunch service) can also finish our other mise en place for our new poached egg caviar dish, our beautiful poached tuna (escolar) dish, our pastas, and our vegetable plates in time for service and have enough of everything to serve to two hundred people a day is, well, challenging.

Thankfully all that figuring out is left to the chefs and sous chefs. I am merely a worker bee. I'm just the one who is supposed to "make it happen" as we say in the kitchen.

By the way, I haven't even started in on the process of making the panacotta, and I won't for my own sanity's sake and yours. But let's just say it's also a bit temperamental.

Two hours after plunging myself into zucchini roll maddness, service started. The enormous white erase board we use to diagram tables and chart the courses our guests are presently eating started filling up like crazy.

Two people on table 10, four on table 12, six on table 18....

Thirty people seated, judging from the board. None have ordered yet. All have received their amuse bouches. Now it's just a waiting game...

As always the back waiters come in and announce the first tickets with gusto: "orrrrrrrrrrrrder in......."

They hand the ticket to the chef and fill out one of the boxes on the white erase board which diagrams the menu to come so all the cooks can see and plan accordingly.

The chef calls out the first courses and I scramble up to the passe to check out the mid courses and see if I have anything ordered on the entrée side.

No crab yet.

But why? I spent so much time on that crab dish. All those white hairs in vain? Hmmph!!!

The chef calls in the maître D and some of the waiters to try the new crab dish. I cook two off for him, dot the plate with a spicy Southern Indian oil, and place two micro chives elegantly across each of the green and white spiral panacotta rolls.

The chef pours the crab consommé sauce around the plate. They taste it. They like it. (of course, it's beautiful and delicious why wouldn't they?)

And the orders start coming back to the kitchen with crab panacotta mid courses. Bien sûr.

The evening is in full swing and I'm popping crab rolls into the oven, slicing white tuna, sauteing vegetables, and running poached eggs with caviar to the passe. It's a workout. My thighs are grateful for the exercise but my knees are making an ominous crunching sound every time I squat to heat a plate in the oven.

The second and busiest seating winds down. I bring one last crab panacotta to the passe. The chef looks down at the plate as he takes his white napkin, dips it in hot water, and cleans my finger prints from the edges erasing all evidence of a busy kitchen. With a half smile and a half glance at my weathered state he asks, "How's this new dish workin' out for you?"

"Look!" I say, taking off my hat and pointing to my white hairs, "Look! This is what that new dish is doing to me!" He laughs hard and playfully boxes the top of my head like a coach to a teammate.

I feel like I have just made a touch down until I realize, while replacing my hat and walking back to my station, that there is still one last seating to go before I can truly celebrate getting through the evening with new dishes on the menu.

The third seating begins and it's much slower than the first two. An hour passes and we are waiting for our last reservations to show up. Time is ticking slowly by. I bring another crab panacotta to the passe and the chef says to me:

"You know Glaze, that dish is going to be on the menu for at least a year, better get yourself a bottle of L'Oreal"

"Very funny, Chef."

I can see now I set myself up a plethora of old age jokes. Nothing goes unprovoked in the kitchen. Nothing. I laugh anyway.

The Maître D comes back and announces that the last reservation is not showing up. The chef calls out "Kitchen closed!"

I put my tools away and begin to scrub my corner of the piano all the while thinking about the crab panacotta dish and my white hairs... just a memory now until tomorrow... or until I catch some one else staring back at me in the mirror.

Veg Station: A New Frontier

Changing stations in a kitchen can be like diving head on into an unfilled very deep, very cement pool.

Perhaps tennis shoes in the dryer would be a better metaphor.

Shoes clunking around bouncing off the metal canister and bouncing off each other in an un-rhythmic sort of way. I hate that. Clunk, clunk, clunk... clunk... clunk, clunk...

That's me right now. A little bit at least. When I change stations I normally mess everything up until my inner self loathing demon relaxes, my nerves settle, I tame the adrenaline rush, and I focus.

Does anybody else over 30 find that they are increasingly becoming their own worst critic now more than ever? Is this part of getting older and wiser? And if so, when will I get there?

The veg station is really sort of simple. There are basically two pick-ups and then a few others that are thrown in at random times throughout the evening in order to really screw things up. (Pick-up's refer to the physical action of cooking and plating a dish when it is ordered).

I pick-up the zucchini blossom dish that is stuffed with truffled crab meat (so, so delicious, I almost resent having to send it to the passe) and a stunning white tuna dish that is poached in olive oil and sauced with a deep red bearnaise.

Sounds easy, two dishes.

Okay the z-blossoms are a cinch. Quick, easy, beautiful, delicious. Great!

And the white tuna is not that hard either unless you forget it in the poaching oil because all of a sudden a side of sautéed vegetables is ordered, and a plate of tortellini, and an off the menu fried rice, and an off the menu pastsa with urchin and caviar sauce...

Oops there goes the tuna. Hammered. Waaaaaaaay overcooked.

Regardless of my first night jitters on the hot line and a few sloppy errors, I survived the evening. I'm sure they're giving me a one night grace period to figure out the pick-ups before they rip me apart. I'll take the breather while it lasts.

Could I have done better? Yes. Nonetheless my counterpart on the line said while we were scrubbing down our stations: "You did pretty good for your first night, you just need to get cooking the tuna down". Maybe he was just trying to make me feel better.

I think I'm not going to analyze it too much, take the compliment, and focus on how to poach tuna perfectly!

At least I didn't hear "Welcome to the veg station now go back to Garde Manger".

Hopefully tonight will be less like tennis-shoes-in-dryer and more like towels-on-spin-cycle.

Duckathlon: NYC Restaurant Industry Showdown!

I am not just a little bitter that we lost the annual d'Artagnan Duckathlon Industry Contest: I am OUTRAGED!!!!

Conspicuously missing from this (official?) video is our team. I'm not sure if they left us out because our crew happens to be so good looking that all other teams pale in comparison or what.

At our level though, we are used to jealously. (Toss of hair, smirk, who-really-cares-it's-just-a-silly-game expression).

This competition is just for fun, organized by D'Artagnan, a food distributer who is famous for specialty products.

Foie gras, truffles, game, organic turkeys, jambon, saucisson sec – you name it, they supply it. All the top restaurants in NYC rely on d'Artagnan for quality ingredients.

Each team (restaurant) is given a list of different shops and restaurants to find in the Meat Packing district. At each stop there is a different challenge. Including: olive oil tastings, blindfolded guess-the-spice games, and French-English translation tests (we lost this event even with 3 native French people on the team).

Some of the craziest contests included dunking a sausage tied around the waist by a thin string while dressed in a bra and hoop skirt into a milk pale as many times as possible in one minute.

The hoop skirt, I'm assuming, keeps the contestant from watching the exact placement of the sausage so team members have to aid in direction. What the DD bra over the clothes has to do with anything is a mystery...

And the Ball Busters table where cooks had to match the animal to the correct testicle. I was not good at this. However I did learn that ostriches have large testicles.

And I also scored the bonus point: name the pink fleshy thing...

My sous chef was shocked. Whatever, I'm a woman, there are some things we inherently understand. Now if I had to tell you what animal it came from, that would be a different story.

And of course we also had some fun walking in between shops, bars, and restaurants...

and taking refreshments along the way...

Where we failed completely was the final competition where all the restaurants (Restaurant Daniel, Le Cirque, Cercle Rouge, and Bar Bouley included) gathered around a stage (next to an open bar) in the Chelsea Market and one by one performed a song about food.

We did not pull our song together in time. Our attempted version of "God Bless Foie Gras" to the tune of "God Bless America" bombed.

Next year I think we'll plan it out in advance like the team from Restaurant Daniel who clearly spent hours orchestrating their performance. (losers).

Okay, we got booed off the stage. In fact, we had things thrown at us. Yes, little plastic ducks were literally thrown at us on the stage. It got really bad when we started to throw them back. Big kisses to Adrien who performed the song. We all just stood behind him with our hands on our hearts as we hummed along and dodged flying objects.

Nonetheless we won one of the competitions (every restaurant wins something).

We won the prestigious Sausage Dunking Competition thanks to Camille!!!!!! To quote my friend: "Mais oui, je suis Française."

We walked away with some magnificent prizes including one enormous jambon de Bayonne and two enormous sausages

I barely walked away. Too much Moet.

Totally worth it. I suppose sometimes you have to take one for the team.

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Sun Burned Chefs

Lobster red faces against starched white jackets...

I came into work after our obligatory day off (Sunday, the restaurant is closed) only to look upon a sea of red.

I know you're thinking: so what, people get sunburned.

But we don't see the sun! Ever!!! We live in a kitchen without windows.

When I leave my apartment to catch the train I glimpse the sun attempting to find the earth between montrously tall skyscrapers. Then I get off of the train and walk two blocks before disappearing for the day.

I've never lived in a city where you can see the sun, without feeling it.

Sometimes I pause, if I have the time, on the corner of 50th between 6th and 7th (right off the train station) to let some rays warm my face and dry my hair.

I have found the one spot between leaving my house and getting to work where the sun manages to strike gold.

Then I descend down an elevator to a fluorescent lit hallway to a fluorescent lit locker room. I change into my whites. I take an elevator up to a fluorescent lit kitchen and I stay there anywhere between 10 and 12 hours.

After my shift, I descend in the elevator, change in the dressing room throwing my sweat soaked whites into the laundry bin, spray my whole body with perfume, and take the escalator up to ground level.

It's dark. Stars in sky, moon up above, dark.

This Sunday, the first truly sunny warm Sunday of the new year, every single one of the chefs was either sunbathing, walking around in the sun, drinking in the sun, falling asleep on a park bench in the sun, or doing whatever-one-can-do-under the sun.

The funniest sunburn is that of chef Pierre. He came to work with a terrible driving sunburn. The kind where only one half of your face and one whole arm is red. I doubt he'll let his left arm hang out the window unprotected again. And I'm sure he'll remember to move the visor over to block the rays beating down next time.

Hilarious. (For us, not for him). We teased him for days.

All joking aside, the lack of sunshine is really no laughing matter for cooks. I've started piling up on vitamin D as a result. I went through months of not being able to sleep because my body simply had no idea what time of day it was.

I clearly remember in the middle winter taking a long weekend back to San Francisco to see my folks. It was sunny. On my return one of the chefs said: Wow, you look good!

I'll never forget it.

Because what was left unsaid was undeniable: Wow, most of the time you look tired and pasty, I forgot you could be attractive!

Myself and chef Pierre (the car burned cook) have made a pact that on the next super sunny day we will injure each other so we can be sent home.

The plan being that I will stab him where it won't kill him, but hurt him enough so that he can't work. (We work with knives all day remember). And then he will kindly return the favor.

Sometimes when I work across from him he'll tap a part of his body and wink knowingly. Secretly saying: this is the spot, Amy, this is the spot.

Then I'll reach for my knife and carefully sharpen it slowly eyeing my next imaginary insicion. It's madness, I tell you. Madness!

Actually the plan has become much more elaborate. After mutually mutilating each other and getting sent home, we will pass by the emergency room pleading for painkillers.

But not before raiding the walk-in vegetable refrigerator of it's kaffir lime leaves and ginger so after our hospital excursion we can cook a tasty Thai lunch and enjoy our drugged state-of-mind in the sun while nursing our wounds.

Today he pointed to his fingers. Things are getting desperate. Normally cooks need their fingers. If he points to his tongue tomorrow then I'll send him to a psychiatric ward.

We're just teasing each other. I think.

Us cooks certainly feel that heat in the kitchen. So we know when it's a beautiful day even if we can't see that's a beautiful day.

By golly, things are steaming up! Chef's hats are coming off!

Make It Nice or Make it Twice

"Make it nice or make it twice"...

Nope, this isn't my advice to lovers, one-night stands, and people about to get married. But maybe it should be?

In every restaurant worth its salt are the old timers. The cooks who have dominated a station for so long that they are intrinsically part of every dish that is served.

It's the sign of a good restaurant.

I say 'intrinsic' because those of us trained under these pillars of culinary wisdom can't' make anything without hearing their words ringing in our heads: "make it nice or make it twice..." or "medium rare fish guys, medium rare fish..." or "tasting our food, tasting our food...."

I'm not talking about the young hot shot cooks who cruise upward through the different stations faster than a heart beat on adrenaline. But those noble few who have given their lives over to one station and have no intention of going anywhere else in the kitchen.

There is one living fixture in the kitchen who I sincerely look up to. He's probably around 15 years older than me and has run the garde manger station for around that same amount of time.

So while I was studying geometry in high school, falling in and out of love, taking my S.A.T's, performing in theaters, and doing all the things wild teenage girls do to drive their parents crazy he was building the garde mange empire at Le Bernardin.

While I was reading In the Heart of Darkness for my English Lit AP exam he was concocting fluke ceviche. While I was cutting 6th and 7th period to go see the Pink Floyd concert (even though my parents said I couldn't) he was pounding out tuna into a thin perfect ovals and placing it ever so gently over croutons spread with foie gras.

While I was sneaking out of my parent's house after curfew he was training new cooks the art of beautifully prepared food.

And he was doing it in a foreign language: English. People underestimate how difficult it is to work in a foreign country in a foreign language.

Having worked in France, I get it. I clearly remember speaking English to another cook during my first week desperately attempting to get a translation on the orders coming in and being yelled at: "Anglais?!?!? Pas Anglais! Anglais non!"

It did help me learn French fast. And I am very thankful now.

And, regardless of my university minor in Middle English and Single Subject Teaching Credential in English, I still struggle to understand half the English speaking people in this country.

Brooklynese, Long Island-ese, Midwesternese, mumble-ese, voice-so-low-I-can't-understand-ese... yes, English is very difficult to comprehend under pressure. Whoever said that 90% of communication is nonverbal has obviously never worked a service in a 3 Michelin star restaurant.

Having spent six months attempting to master the various stations: garde mange, canapé, raw fish, fish pass, ravioli, and back monk I now truly understand my chef's quote: "Make it nice or make it twice".

I'm not panicking about getting my preparation finished or rushing around during service accomplishing nothing very well.

I'm, let's say, a little more focused. More settled. And a lot more aggressive about achieving the right finished product because now I know exactly what it is.

I don't want to have to re-do all the work I just did.

I get annoyed when I see newbies working fast and sloppy. And I get perturbed when I know I've spent time and love to make a plate beautiful during prep time only to see it destroyed in a mad dash during service and sent back at the passe by one of the sous chefs.

During service is where my chef's soft but firm words come in to action...

He looks out of the corner of his eye to glance at the dishes being made around him by young energetic cooks and if he catches anyone trying to rush perfection he'll warn: "Make it nice or make it twice".

This always has the desired impact. The cook slows down and focuses. The adrenaline ebbs. (If only for a second).

But my all time favorite quote of his, is one that I'm sure he'd be slightly embarrassed about me repeating: "I need-a that shit!" Pronounced: I needuh that sheet!

You have to understand my Chef is not the swearing type. Not at all. But if you try and take something away from him, like a squeeze bottle of olive oil or a jar of caviar, he will definitely stop the intruder with: "I need-a that shit!"

Nobody takes anything away from my Chef when he's about to use it. Or they must suffer the consequences of making "fluke on the plate, fluke on the plate, fluke on the plate" the next day.

(Don't ask, "fluke on the plate" is a whole other story. It's really a sort of torture that involves cutting fish into perfect rectangles.)

Sometimes my chef says "I need-a that shit!" for fun and we all fall about laughing.

Or other times I tell him, "I need-a that shit too!" and I take it away. Which normally makes him chuckle. Normally.

When you work in a kitchen there will always be those cooks who try and get away with bad prep. It's often part of the learning process and mostly a side effect of feeling it's impossible to finish all the mise en place before service. They rush and make mistakes hoping no one will catch them.

I've definitely been guilty of it before. I think we all have. And I've always been caught which is even more embarrassing especially when the whole kitchen hears it.

There really is no hiding in a kitchen under those bright fluorescent lights. A cook with bad "place" can only get away with it for so long before the rest of the staff calls him or her out.

That is why the pillars uphold the quality of a station because they know exactly how to make it nice with a style and flare that only comes from some one who has repeated the same dish over and over. Muscle memory. Like a ballerina doing a pirouette.

Once the technique is internalized then and only then can the art of doing it show through. Trust me, If you plate a dish 10,000 times you will find a way to turn it into a master piece, not a finger painting.

I want the art of it to show through....

Make it nice or make twice, make it nice or make it twice, make it nice or make it twice, make it nice or make it twice...

Valentines Day Recovery & The Ravioli Station

"Did you check the schedule?!?!? Did you check the schedule?"

"No, not yet, why?"

"You're 'Back Monk' next week girl!"

"What the hell is 'Back Monk'?"

"It's the ravioli station!!!"

"Oh my God, really?!?!?! SWEEEEEET!!!! Um, but why is it called 'Back Monk'?"

"I have no idea."

"Oh putain, me neither."

This is the conversation between me and my best friend at work. She's French and cooking here on a one year visa. And yes, we do gossip in French as much as we possibly can in the hopes that no one around us will understand.

But I'm sure everyone does understand because our body language is just too conspiratorial and my French is simply too remedial. If you took an 8th grade French class you could probably make out what I was saying. Oh heck, if you took an 8th grade Spanish class you could probably figure out what I was saying...

Thank God, you couldn't figure out what she was saying.

So 'Back Monk' really means that I make raviolis, plate lobster carpacio, and help the cold appetizer station out during service until the hot appetizer station needs me more.

Which really means – I finally get to cook over the fire!!!

Still not sure why it's called 'Back Monk'.

And yes, I still turn bright red when I cook. And yes, everyone still makes fun of me. And no, it's nowhere near as hot as the kitchen as Guy Savoy in Paris so I'm not making excuses to get things from the refrigerator like I used to.

I'm so thankful to be doing something different. If you've ever cooked in a restaurant then you will understand what I'm talking about.

Sometimes when I do something over and over and over again I just want to shoot myself in the head. I have to force myself to focus on making the next dish more perfect so I don't become complacent and lazy.

Sounds easy, but it's not. Trust me. Being mindless is not easy.

I mean really, if you had to write the same email or type the same bill, or teach the same lesson to the same class, or operate on the same patient, or drive the same customer from point A to point B day in day out, you would turn to automatic pilot too.

Of course it's reassuring to come into work and know exactly what you're going to do and how much time you have to do it in, and how to prepare for fire drills in advance. But let's face it, it's also boring. Like sharpening 1000 yellow #6 pencils by hand every day.

So speaking of boring, there are two things that are quite the opposite: 'Back Monk' and my 'Love Life'.

I'm thinking that my 'Love Life' should be a station at the restaurant as well. Since it seems to flow in and out of the time I spend at work, I think it could (at this point) be considered a job. I'm unsuccessfully working pretty damn hard at it.

I should be getting payed for it dammit. Minimum wage at least.

Back to ravioli's... ravioli's are a life saver. Why? Because I've begun to realize that relationships have a lot to do with ravioli.

Have you ever made pasta dough? First you weigh out the flour (that's you) then you carefully pick out the yolks from the whites of countless eggs (that's your significant other that you've sorted through).

Then you make a well in your flour (that's you again) and place the yolks in the center (that's the significant other again).

Then you put the mixer on low speed with a dough hook that gently combines you and the other person, ooops I mean flour and egg yolks, until you are somewhat mixed together.

Then you add water (commitment?) and all of a sudden the flour/egg mixture starts to turn into real pasta dough that is stretchy but manages to maintain its balled state (oneness) as it's whipped around the mixing bowl by a large metallic dough hook (metaphor for life putting you through the wringer?).

And, if your pasta dough is perfect it will maintain good elasticity, sheen, suppleness, and finally it will handle the automatic pasta machine which, is like a close-up print out or photo copy of your relationship.

You put both of you together (with some water or commitment) through the automatic pasta maker and you either come out: too wet, not wet enough, crinkly and in need of more flour, or crackly and in need of more water, or perfectly supple and smooth.

Damn, that shit's not easy to get right.

But, with practice, and perhaps mistakes as well, it all comes out in one long paper thin strip of moldable pasta dough. And from this point, you can get really experimental.

The first week at the ravioli station went smoothly. Relatively. There were a few hiccups along the way, but nothing unexpected or unacceptable. Nothing to get yelled over.

My second week at the ravioli station included Valentines day. Dough, egg yoks, water – knead I say more?

Our restaurant was slammed for Valentine's day. I mean booked to the gills. And we were all excited about it. Honestly, it's fun to cook when the restaurant is full to bursting. All of us prefer it. We cook better, we work better, we have more fun when the restaurant is packed.

But my valentines day kind of took a dive off the high board into an empty cement pool.

I received divorce papers on my way to work.

Still having trouble getting the dough right....

I showed up to work laughing with tears running down my face. I bummed a cigarette off a fellow cook who was counting his last few moments before entering the abyss for 12 hours. He looked at me cockeyed, handed me a smoke, and asked, "Are you okay? You look like you could use a shot of something...."

To which I could only reply, "Is my masacara all over my face right now?"

To which he gracefully responded, "No, no one will notice. You look fine."

(Liar.) "Thanks, thanks for the smoke..."

I called my husband who thankfully, being the good guy that he is, (yes, we still talk about each other in the positive and are very close friends) was as shocked as I was. The papers were sent a whole week before and I had been expecting them – just not on Saturday morning. It was an untimely accident.

But the fact still remained: I received papers on Valentines day. And I had to go into work and stare at flour and egg yolks working themselves out in a bowl. And then I had to put the dough through the pasta machine and give it attention and ... thank God I had to give it attention...being busy and under pressure and maybe even somewhat mindless is better than thinking about reality at times.

I would much rather be thinking about the present than freaking out over the future.

God, I love pasta. Is this why it's considered comfort food?

As much as I forced myself to focus on making pasta my stomach was also forcing me not to think about food. I couldn't even smell food without wanting to throw-up.

I didn't eat. Not one single thing. Just one cup of coffee and one cigarette.

I began my shift on the cold appetizer line making stunning barely cooked fish starters and 2 hours later was called up to the hot line to help the hot appetizers cooks. Here, normally I would have been nervous with the anticipation of a new station and a new challenge but instead I was just shaky with apprehension and simply loss of love.

How doing the mundane, the boring, the rote, could have been such a godsend on this dark day. Oh well.

Why is the power of love so underestimated? When full of it we ride higher than the moon, and when empty with it we sink lower than the sun.

I want none of it.

(such a lie, I want all of it!)

I no sooner got to the hot line during the middle of the second seating when one of the cook's frantically asked that I re-stack the plates. I scuttled hurriedly to the dish pit to grab clean plates carrying a stack that normally would have been challenging, but not heavy.

I placed half on the dish rack next to the station and the other half I attempted to place up above the piano (the stove top) where we keep all of our plates warm.

I lifted the plates and my arms gave out. I was only an inch away from making the connection – my arms outstretched and elbows locked – but something gave way and the stack fell with an embarrassing crash onto the hot grill underneath.

Only one plate broke in the stack. But, I panicked. It was like something cracked inside my brain, a little tiny blood vessel bursting and yet single handedly causing a flood.

The other two hot apps cooks rushed in to clear the plates and re-group. But I simply took a step back and tried to focus on the present. No one yelled at me, no one said a word about it the whole night. Thank God for small favors.

And thank God for the excellent team I work with who often get on my nerves, and more often than not, calm them.

My shift ended on a positive note. I got to cook on the hot and cold line and make fresh pasta off and on throughout the evening. The executive chef ordered the kitchen crew several bottles of champagne to quench our desires, our thirsts, and to say goodbye to two beloved externs who have made life more bearable over the last few months.

I ducked out shortly after finishing my glass of bubbly to cry a little on my own in the girl's locker room and just release.

It was certainly not the best day in my life, and most certainly the worst Valentine's day I have ever had.

But you know, it's always nice to finally feel free to start the whole pasta making process over again...