#009//Chefs & Cooks

I have been educated and trained by a multitude of chefs in a multitude of kitchens.
My mentor taught me the foundation - the mother sauces, knife skill and meat temps. Another taught food cost and labor cost. One taught me classic French. Another Lebanese. Another Creole. Educational approach, temperament, and moral code each differing greatly from one experience to the next.  A few did not care so much about service so much as their pockets or ego. One had a backdoor catering business at the expense of the owner unbeknownst to anyone (for a time). The good ones had an underlying similarity: a focused plan on how to achieve the best service imaginable and never accepting less from those in their employ. Some had a softer hand than others, but they all honed me to be a pit bull on my staff - front and back alike.
It is my job to insure proper service, at least my opinion of that and am thus employed to carry out said task. In restaurants the chef, generally speaking, is the most highly trained and educated member of the staff - there are exceptions, but not every restaurant has sommeliers or true maitre d's. Chefs are the ones most cross trained in the various avenues of the business at large. All one need do is look at the brigade system laid out by Escoffier to see the evidence of this. Its not my ego but over a century of restaurant history displaying that the chef is the driving force behind cuisine and thereby restaurants. With great responsibility comes great stress. Great stress displays weaknesses and character flaws.
Chefs are - and always will be - emotional.
It may be cliche, but cliches are cliches for a reason. The pan-tossing, busboy abusing, alcohol guzzling character  of yore is still around. He comes out in all of us at times - usually around the holidays when craziness is at its yearly high-water mark. I have never worked for any chef I haven't seen crack at some point. I'm not talking about some half-assed lash out either. I'm talking full on, hair-pulling, plate smashing, forehead-vein-bursting meltdowns.
The cooks around him have to put up with his tantrums. Why do they do it? Hopefully the answer - other than the paycheck which alone isn't usually compensation enough to deal with most of these hotheads, myself included - is the food. You can win lifelong friends and career-long loyalty with a bowl of soup. One thing that may change a person's perspective on food can instill a trust unachievable through any other medium. We all, every one of us, eat and understand the gratification from soulful meals. That can and is used as a recruiting method. That's why most stages - the classic working interview system employed by French kitchens - are paid in food.

Line cooks are creators.
Whether they create a dish or copy from a book, they crafted the food. Carpenters use tools invented by other people a billion years ago, trees from the soil and other side of the globe that someone else cut down, and techniques established roughly before the time of Jesus. Yet the chairs they craft are their own creations. So is my roasted chicken and root vegetables, even if the hundredth time my sous chef stuffs, trusses, seasons, roasts, carves or plates it, it's his creation each time, each step. He crafted each plate. Though a line cook's role in regards to the chef may be more replication than invention, his role is creation.
The chef has a little part of himself out on the plate with every course and thereby the training of each line cook. If the people do not enjoy his cuisine, his culinary ideals, his lifetime of training it equates to the people not liking him. How can it not? The line cook experiences this, too, but in a second hand way and can simply write that insult off as problem with the chef. The line cook will not repeat the same error in the future when it's his kitchen. When a chef is running the risk of personal rejection by the dining public, it's no wonder he loses his shit when he sees things regularly practiced that are against his specifications - whether it be the garmo guy serving a wilted and bruised wad of what was at one time arugula because he was flirting with the hostess or the hostess herself flirting and distracting the garmo guy when everyone knows not to hang out in the kitchen.
It certainly doesn't help matters when the chef raises his voice, threatens both of their jobs in the middle of the dinner rush. The garmo kid gets pissed and the hostess hurries out of the kitchen, bumping a busboy who promptly drops a bus pan of dirty dishes, the contents shattering a couple hundred bucks of china and glassware onto the floor. Anger is a toppler of dominos.
Such is life. The world turns and everything changes while it stays the same.
I believe that this generation of cook has an understanding of how bad things can be working for tyrannical maniacs yet a fortitude to receive and dish out tough-but-fair responses. There is a grit in line cooks today, a pride in not only the strength of their back but their backbone. A bend-not-break. An ability to be self-deprecating and admit mistakes that those who brought us up never had. An ability to accept defeat when it comes, incorporate that and evolve into something better.
After a century and a half of Escoffier's "The Chef Is God" method, chefs have become a more self-aware group and are increasingly creating more hospitable workplaces with lots of avenues to influence the happenings of the day to day. Chefs and line cooks are interacting in ways that are allowing cooks to create a niche for them within kitchens as opposed to the more standardized 'insert line cook A into station B' model kitchen.
At the end of the day the chef still makes decision and runs the tight ship, but the passengers and sailors on these ships have a lot more say in the type of trip the ship is going to take than ever before and restaurants are a better places for it.

James Pawl Kane
Chef & First Among Equals

Allez Cuisine... for Geriatrics: Go Cook for Comfort

I would like to introduce you to a different world of cooking. Imagine a kitchen where you are never in the weeds, where the temperature never rises above 82 degrees, where 401Ks are not a reference to baseball strikeouts, where the beer flows like wine. No not Aspen.  I’m speaking about a place that most of us will end up.

Retirement homes.

Welcome to the world of geriatric cooking. Yes, old people. However, I feel that I must make a distinction. This is not cooking for people that can’t feed themselves or need a blender to eat. I don’t work in a nursing home - not that there is anything wrong with that. I happen to work in a “retirement community.” I call it that out of respect for the residents, after all many are war vets, factory workers and in general blue collar, salt-of-the-earth people. Many of the residents still drive, basically most still have a good quality of life with some assistance from the staff. I must stress that it is very important in this type of cooking arena to tie the cuisine we serve to memories and comfort for these wonderful people. After all, taste and smell are tied to memories much in the same way music is. A certain song may take you back to a concert a few years ago or to the time of your first kiss or that time you took too much peyote and ended up in a Las Vegas motel room and all you can remember is getting tea bagged by a minor - sorry I spelled that wrong I meant a miner, like a coal miner...

Food brings you back.

So with that in mind, our residents' comfort is our top priority when planning and cooking. They are the reason we give 100%, 100% of the time. The residents are the reason that I have self fulfillment from this line of work. It is paramount that we create that type of cuisine, no matter how difficult, so we can provide these people comfort and pleasure in the final years of their lives.

Like I stated prior, just the smell alone of a roasting turkey or fresh baked apple pie can take you back to that special place or time. So, we have weekly meetings with the residents (called menu chats) in order to make the dishes they want, not what we would like to make. A lot of these comfort foods are what you might refer to as simple American comfort food: Meatloaf, mac-and-cheese, breaded pork chops, chicken noodle soup, etc. We do step it up a notch and get a little creative. Our mac-n-cheese for instance has three cheeses, ziti, and bacon-breadcrumb topping, yada-yada. Also we do have a “theme meal” once a month were we do make top notch cuisine, whether the residents like it or not! After all, it is important to try new things, even if you are 95. We almost never use canned or pre-made anything. We order proteins locally, along with produce from the market. The dairy and the bakery is also local. Just like the "real" restaurants do.

My point is this: my job is very similar to that of a restaurant line cook/chef. 

For most people eating is the highlight of their day. It is what gives us pleasure and comfort on a regular basis. However, the culinary road I travel is different than the standard restaurant, each with its own pros and cons. The customers are the same every night and meal time is the only social time in their day. It is important to provide great service and great food each and every night, just as you would in the “real” restaurant world. The importance of our efforts though may in fact be greater: My guests chances of this being their last meal are much higher. After all, whether it is the new hot Bistro downtown or it is the retirement home across the street from a flower shop, you are only as good as your last meal, doubly so when it might be theirs. 

So make it with love and add a dash of comfort.

Coming soon, "A Day in the Life of a Geriatric Chef" where Ill discuss steam tables, batch cooking, food molds, finger foods and, yes, the robo coupe.

Matt Janish

#008// Line Cook: A Redefinition

Line cooks, by definition, are middle tier employees who work in the kitchen. They are the people who execute the chef's vision regarding menu, cleanliness and cuisine. A good line cook can be a valuable and damn near irreplaceable team member who busts ass daily to ensure that standards are upheld. When a chef has a team of badass line cooks behind him, he can accomplish anything.
A line cook, though, is notorious.
Line cooks oftentimes have issues that kept them from other 'real jobs.' Whether it be drug problems, criminal past or simply the inability to hack it in college for whatever the reason, line cooks are a breed of culinarian who stay in the middle of the hierarchy.
Some people make this a life choice. Others end up there. Both can be exceptional cooks.
Ambition tends to drive certain folk who inhabit the kitchen to management and chefdom. However, a solid line guy is worth his weight in gold and can have lifetime positions. With yearly pay hikes and tenure a line cook can establish a well deserved paycheck, stability and comfort - even in our hot, stuffy environs.
Many believe that line cookery is for the unambitious or failing - I am still asked by my father if I flip burgers for a living. Folks generally feel this way regarding most middling positions, regardless of industry. I cannot disagree more adamantly. A line cook is the person solely trusted by the chef to do his job according to another recipe so perfectly that the innovator trusts him to accomplish said task. A person who is unflappable, even when the chef is flapping away unabashedly.
The line cook is also the one who generally keeps his job even after the wildly flapping chef gets fired due to his flapability. Most of the time after this happens, though, a new chef is hired from outside and he brings his people with him. Which leads me to my next point: The Squad.
At least that's what I call it. Early in my career it was The Crew. Whatever you call it, its the family that these culinary assassins develop over time, usually starting with the chef that brought you up. Over time, you follow the sous chef to his first chef gig, which inevitable leads to failure, but you keep your position. You get a buddy hired there and later you get a call from your first chef. He needs a sous, so you and your buddy come back, and so on. Eventually, you have four or six guys who have worked elbow to elbow for so long, in so many situations that they can communicate without words. A squad is a team of line cooks who get jobs together, leave jobs together and make people a lot of money in the process. We pick up good servers, bartenders, et al. along the way and create a culture.
That's the dream at least and it can very well happen - if you are a solid line cook.
A solid line cook knows their place and keeps their cool under pressure, able to maintain a productive calm through the pressure until service is over. It's only after several promotions and earning the title sous chef can a culinarian actually voice an opinion. This is the place temperament gets in the way of many careers, but those who can avoid it tend to keep moving onward and upwards until the eventual chef title is bestowed upon them.
That's when ego really can take over.
Until recently this was the point that most chefs stop slinging knives and start carrying clipboards. Cheffing - as any managerial position - is about delegation, utilization of your tools, proper placement of the soldiers in the field, aces in their places. The irony is that once a line cook is made chef,  the skills that gained him the recognition and reputation to be considered for the position are also the things he must turn his back on. Who has time to monger the fish or put away the produce truck when there are labor costs to calculate and functions to plan?
However, there is another breed of chef, one who doesn't turn their backs on the position that taught them how to live their lives. A chef who refuses to give up that well-earned saute position, who preps his station nightly, who does the deep cleaning, who gets involved in 'The Game' and drinks with the boys. One who gets their hands dirty in the grease trap as well as the media or customers - more of all of these things in fact because he now has to do those things in addition to the chef/manager duties.

There are plenty in our business who are even keeled and respectable individuals who pay parking tickets on time and remember to leave the seat down. These highly skilled professionals can remember that at the end of the day its just a job. Then there are the rest of us. We are highly skilled professionals who are in search of over stimulation - because that's what the job entails: all day long eating. Not meals mind you, but a constant stream of tablespoonfuls of everything. The most decadent, rich parts of the process must be quality tested. I cannot think of a time when one of my senses were being overstimulated when the others didn't decide to join in the fun. If you're eating then you're also smelling. All day long, smell is the first line of defense against bad product. Also the first sign you've fucked up - I cant tell you how many times I've heard a chef yell, "What's burning in the oven?" and know I have forgotten about the goddamned croutons again. One chef had me eat the sheet tray straight in hopes that'd learn me. You can tell bacon is done when you can smell it. Fresh baked bread. There are huge fans blowing all day. The rattle of overworked refrigeration, the constant hum-hiss of the dish machine and the rattle of glasses. It comforting, but gets loud and therefor we get loud. Add to that irritant of the heat of poorly ventilated galley kitchens. Heat can cause people to act erratically. I know, I know, but the person who coined that phrase obviously had cooks who were complaining to him for a new hood fan and was not, himself, a professional cook. Its brutal. The probe thermometer in my coat pocket regularly touches 120-25 while working the broiler. I'm there for five hours straight on a busy night. It is no mystery why cooks tend to get fired a lot, walk out of jobs, and generally be pains in the ass who acquire unnatural affection for the bottle.
The early line cook phase of some of the most ambitious and successful cooks were a phase they couldn't keep a job more than eight months to a year, chasing quarter-an-hour raises, better equipped kitchens and more interesting food. How many restaurants has Anthony Bourdain worked at? Thomas Keller was famously described himself a 'hothead' early on. Who fired Keller? Please stand up!
Maybe the search for over stimulation is the key. Maybe the sensory overload is the unifying element of the kitchen. The addiction itself at the root.
Linecook for Life is meant as a rallying cry for a certain breed of cook. We feel that cooks (and therein all levels of restaurant worker) can take pride in their part of the greater whole. Chefs who maintain their levels of intensity and actually work the line are a dying breed. I'm not talking expo and working the pass. Im talking a chef who steps in and clears the pit at the end of a long Saturday to show appreciation to the dishwasher, help the underpaid kid (who you were a billion years ago) and cut down on the evenings labor costs all in the same fell swoop is a rare and beautiful thing. Dishwashers who are coming up can look up to the rest of the Crew and possibly help inspire a career in food. Servers can see this passion and cooperation, step up and accomplish tasks that help the restaurant at large, not just their section.
Passion begets passion.
Linecook for Life is a state of mind illustrating what one can achieve if they remember hard work creates success at every level of this industry.
Restaurants are like the rest of the world and thereby flawed. I don't celebrate those flaws, but rather share the flaws that have created the chef that I am. Good and bad decisions make up us all - everything I'm not is everything I am. Though I have moved up the brigade system and may no longer be a line cook... I will always be a line cook, regardless of whichever of my hats I happen to be wearing - fun dad, devoted husband, Cardinal fan, drinking buddy, kitchen manager.
Being a line cook has made me a better person.
I am proud to be a linecook for life.

James Pawl Kane
Chef & Linecook

Weekend Update II

Restaurants function through many individual tasks conducted in unison with one another, creating a symphonic experience for the diner. Restaurants are living, breathing entities with clearly defined bones, muscles, organs, etc that are each critical to the proper functioning of the body as a whole. However, the strength of the body is often measured when an essential component is absent, forcing the body to compensate for the loss. My kitchen is without a sous chef at the moment as ours is enjoying a well deserved break from the tedium of the daily routine, staging in European restaurants and absorbing a restaurant culture very unlike our own. My sous chef is the kind of cook who is tireless, working harder hours on the line than anyone in the kitchen and his presence is a reassuring force when he is positioned behind the piano. But the body adjusts, the organs coordinate and compensate for the missing production, and this is an opportunity for us to break from the security of routine and find a new gear in our cooking. 

Friday began with a trip to the Union Square Greenmarket to pick up a few missing pieces that would not be coming in with the larger produce deliveries. Early morning the market is filled exclusively with industry types and rounded out by the more extreme amateur foodies that abound in New York. It is all a beautiful moment that almost betrays the cold, hurried facade that Manhattan erects, until the L train decides that it wants to take a break from ferrying Brooklynites to and from their obligations on the island. One regrettable cab ride later and I am beginning the daily ritual of embracing my love of fire, waiting a few extra seconds before lighting the pilots on the already primed stove top. A fireball erupts, recalling memories of Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore's own morning routine. Prep is easy as I had worked lunch on the previous day and set myself up well for the busiest lunch day of the week, a much appreciated gesture as I was just putting the finishing touches on my mise when tickets started rolling in. Somewhere in the fray I had decided that pasta would be made for family meal, a stupid decision informed only by my love of rolling pasta dough with little consideration paid to the realities of my time constraints. Quoting my absent sous, my Chef politely informed me that, “I could have just made some fucking mac-n-cheese,” but making family meal is my favorite part of the lunch shift and I was not going to be deterred from my ill-advised dream. Following a quick yet thorough cleaning of the line and breaking down of lunch mise en place, I found myself inking the final components for brunch prep on Saturday and walking out into a beautifully humid Friday afternoon. 

Saturday began with a much needed sharpening session on the greatest hits collection in the knife roll prior to heading into work, and stood as the one moment of productivity in an otherwise unconscionably lazy Saturday morning. After arriving at work only to witness the brunch crew conducting an ice cream taste test I figured that the day would be a bit on the slower side. Regardless, after a hurried prep session that included a great deal of working ahead towards a graduation dinner we were hosting on Sunday, my fellow cook and chef set up the line in preparation for what might come. After banishing the entremetier cook to the walk in to organize and consolidate the rain forest we are currently supporting, my Chef and I held down the line for the remainder of service, moving through what should have been a more leisurely experience if it had not been for the absence of two cooks on the line. A new amuse course that was served hot and contained two separate garnishes slowed my stations down considerably. But, as previously stated, in the absence of a key component to the restaurant we all must find a new gear and compensate. With the line broken down and the prep kitchen organized, the three of us embark to find beer and tacos, both easy late night acquisitions on the streets of North Brooklyn. 

Sunday was the continuation of a great and recent theme in my schedule, a day off to actually spend with my girlfriend and roommates. It was beautiful and sunny, with an energy that can only be found in the Summer months. We took the A train out to Rockaway Beach along with what seemed like half the population of New York, spending a few hours forgetting our obligations and goals while simply allowing the sun to slow roast us into submission. Concluded by a cleaning out the fridge session on the grill, I succumbed to my drowsiness on the couch while listening to the ceiling fan provide a steady beat for the real music of an active neighborhood slowly winding down after a long day tirelessly spent celebrating the moment and nothing else.

Ian

#007// FOH v. BOH

The division of labor within restaurants is a touchy situation. I know when the lights are on, business is steady, and drinks are poured the front and the back are bosom buddies. They are one team working towards the goal of perfect service and happy customers.
Holy shit, is it a pot of cream permanently about to boil over.
Who knows where it began?
Could be the difference in not only pay scales but pay brackets. Could be the psychology of the creator clashing with the mindset of the salesman. Could simply be that at the end of a service one group is tired, sweaty and smelly with no cash in hand and the other is ready to go to the club straight from work with a pocket full of fives and tens.
Who knows who struck first?
Its so pervasive. Its the chicken and the egg. Ive seen the front start fucking with cooks midservice via the checks sent to the kitchen by ordering the filet "MR - small cocks on side." Retaliation is generally brutal to this sort of treatment. I once witnessed a pair of stainless steel tongs, just out of a line cook's reach, be picked up and handed to the line cook by a server - a server who had made the cook late for the last bus home by not informing him of the dessert check for table 19. The same server trying to help, no doubt out of guilt for the bus mishap, hands the cook the tongs only find to his dismay that the tongs had been sitting in the fryer for the duration of time taken to plate the aforementioned dessert. The brand logo on the hot tongs is scarred into the thumb of the unfortunate waiter to this day, almost fifteen years later.

Whether or not I am the bastard cook responsible is still up for debate.
This might be an extreme example but it exists on a daily basis. I own up to the fact that kitchens generally are more competitive places than dining rooms. Our own motivations for the job we do in the back are contrary to that of the front - namely the self-destructive, achievement-at-whatever-the-cost mentality. Our patois is mildly agressive by nature and therefore so is the demeanor. We carry ourselves with a cockiness. Fuck everyone, we are pirates and rebels in a world of pencil and paper pushing zombies. Yeah we serve those zombies but thats because they cannot serve themselves. That is the general mentality. Where can a server possibly fit in that worldview?
Oh yeah: The body and arms who carry the plate and make more money than we do an hour.
The shit that the waitstaff of any busy establishment has to eat is the reason they do well though. After putting up with our back of the house bullshit, they must put on a smile and entertain guest after guest, very few of them with simple demands. Most have modifications which are perfectly acceptable - except that it will make the garmo guy miserable and his next 10 minutes a living hell while he prepares something from scratch to tend to your wishes and desires and when he's done with that he's gonna throw a tantrum to the chef, whose gonna breathe down the waiter's neck for the rest of the night and he still has three tables yet to order and its only six o clock.
Which leads me to our treaty and our truce, our covenant and peace: Booze. Hooch. Firewater.
At the end of the night, as the last customers are filing out, the staff begins to remove the aprons, put on a fresh t-shirt and circle the bar. Bussers and hostesses get tipped out. The kitchen and front get the greatest invention of morale boosting: Shift drinks. Once the shifties are drained, the front of the house begins to buy beverages for the back, a social lubricant to mend bridges and band-aid new wounds. Then the apologies begin and the chorus of, "Whatever, its over" begin and so it goes.
The one group that lives in a limbo between the Hatfields and the McCoys is the bartenders. They are creators so they understand the kitchen. They serve, too, so they understand the floor. Bartenders hate and love the two factions equally and are also the ones who witness the nightly peace ritual as it occurs. How fascinating it must be to watch this toxic relationship fester.
Generally, a bartender can be bought by simply sliding her/him any and all extra food or mistakes. Final tally?
FOH:0
BOH:1
Fucking righteous.

-----

Thanks for stopping in to LCFL. Everyday things are happening, things are growing, more support being lent. Thank you. We are going to have some invites for the first live podcast (release date August 26thish) being sent out in a few weeks. Starting a little small, just some of the folks kicking it here in Rochester's NOTA. The second podcast will be released this upcoming Monday, so be on the lookout - better yet, go to iTunes and subscribe. Shit happens automatically. Technology, am I right?!? In this one we discuss lifers and jumpers with Josh, a line cook of a decade of experience in family style Italian-American and a intresting point of view on service.
If you like what you see and hear, please start telling a friend if you haven't already. Word of mouth is all we got to go on at this point. 

Unti next time keep bangin'.

James Pawl Kane
Chef, FOH Fan & BOH Member

The Transient Bartender, 1

"Yeah, but it’s the endearing kind” commented another bartender in reference to my awkwardness with slinging $12/glass wine to some dudebro who couldn’t tell the difference between a Puligny-Montrachet and the big bottle of Woodbridge (BUT IT’s FROM Robert Mondavi) or the finest that Franzia has to offer. There are so many types of customers out there, and yes, we do judge you on sight for a number of subtle and not so subtle cues. I think one of the most distinguishing characteristics and the one that drives the service provided the most is whether you can look at me and see a person or simply see the divide between you and some –OH groups (or your favorite pharmacist, whatever…I don’t know). The thing is though that I love customers, I need them. It’s this weird and at times dissonant, perfect, lousy, incredible, or normal interaction. Were we born for each other? You need a drink and I need to pour them. I’ve noticed in life that when I’m not bartending, I’m drinking more. I suppose my muscle memory is good for drumming, studying bacteria, and pouring drinks. I’m not sure what the proper priority is, but perhaps it is always evolving. All I know is that I’ve tried to hang up the blacks (the ubiquitous FOH uniform) on a few occasions now so I can get a real job and be a productive member of society. That’s what my family has stressed and to many points, I’ve drank the kool-aid, but I always find a way or make excuses to work in the restaurant. It’s in my blood now and I can’t stop. Fridays and Saturdays have become my game day. That big meeting you have on Monday? Yeah, that’s my bloody Sabbath. The people, my friends behind the bar, have stories, man do we have stories. And they’re good. They’re visceral. They speak to the working person's human nature. We work hard, very hard at times. We party hard, very hard at times. Some of us are students, in it for the money (and it’s pretty good). Some of us are in it because it’s a job (diapers need to be bought and babysitters paid). Some of us are in it because we can’t quit it. Those are the interesting ones. We are the interesting ones.

Right now, I’m working at a wine bar in a rich suburb of Rochester, NY. It’s good money, but I’m leaving all that soon. My current job is slinging drinks to yuppies and trolling 50-somethings. I guess this whole post is my apology (in the Socratic definition) for living the transient life. I always want to improve. I always want to be better then I am. I love my job and I love the people I work with. We’ve been in the trenches together for almost a year now, fighting the good fight or whatever. This came after I quit/was fired from the most dynamic, shitty, and wonderful restaurant I’ve ever stepped foot in. God I miss the highs from that place. I sort of understand drug addicts. At least I get paid for my high. Upward and onward though. I used to manage a bar and now I’m desperately hoping to get a bar-back position. It’s not because I suck or am middling in the mediocrity. You have got to see this place. I want to work with proven and the highest of caliber “mixologist” (I hate that word, but it seems appropriate). I just want to learn so I can quit all this working-for-other-people business and open my own place with some partners in Brooklyn. BK is like mecca for culinary creativity and next-level bartending.

I’m related to the Kennedys (god I can’t believe it took so long for that to come out- my hubris may be my undoing, but you’re probably not related to them….so there) and I, therefore, play golf. I’ve heard that golf is a metaphor for life, but I think that it’s more a metaphor for the service industry. It’s the good shots that always make you come back. It’s the customer that left, more then satisfied. It’s that feeling at the end of the night when you are counting out your drawer and see your sales for the night. It’s the deuce at table 4 or at the corner of the bar that are on their 2nd date and they leave knowing that there will be a 3rd. It’s when your parents forsake their regular place of 30 years for their anniversary dinner and come to your place. It’s when the head chef of a place that you’ve worked at for only a month does everything in his power to ensure that the parents didn’t make a mistake. (They loved it, Mom cried). It’s the camaraderie between the staff. When shit clicks, a restaurant can do anything. That’s my drug of choice.

I’m thinking about the proper way to conclude this, but I’m coming up with nothing except that it’s ten am on a Monday and I’m drinking a martini while listening to Astrud Gilberto records. Sounds better than your Monday.

B.

Brief Encounters: Engaging In the Cuisine of Marc Vetri

The cook is a sensory animal, seeking out new, bold and unexpected experiences. This animal roams about in a realm of excess, moving through a series of volatile and overwhelmingly pleasurable moments that inform the development of his or her identity. The cook relies upon these experiences as they are of an affecting nature, providing for the development of a nuanced character and more focused personal style. Through reading, watching, listening and eating the fare of our culinary idols and peers, the cook finds inspiration and guidance within the personal narrative and mode of these revered chefs. A cook must engage in the dialogue and insert him or herself into this vein of communication by learning the spoken language of cuisine. 

This past Tuesday I turned twenty five and went down to Philly to spend a couple days with my family and friends. Those of you who have spent time in New York know it is absolutely essential to spontaneously escape our concrete playground so as to preserve mental clarity and fight fatigue. Through a series of unexpected events, my sister and I found ourselves dining at Marc Vetri's eponymous restaurant on Tuesday. Vetri is the kind of restaurant that makes one understand what it means to be part of the hospitality industry. It is a restaurant that is consumed by the idea of crafting an environment that is both astutely refined and unconscionably professional while individually tailored to the personality of each diner. We had come for the food, but it had never occurred to me that the restaurant's atmosphere would be so exciting and unique as to mimic and augment Chef Vetri's mode of cuisine. 

The restaurant is formatted in this small, personalized construct to focus the food and allow each diner to enjoy those elements of Chef Vetri's style that they will best appreciate. Each diner is presented with a menu following the amuse course so that he or she may determine which dishes they may or may not want. Aside from these guidelines for the kitchen, the diner is left in the capable hands of chef de cuisine Adam Leonti to determine how to structure the coursing of the dinner. As we were a two top, my sister and I were presented with a minimum of two dishes for each course, with three dishes coming in each of the two pasta courses. I won't go through the meal itself as this restaurant has been endlessly reviewed by the critics that be, but I will say that a ten hour caramelized onion with white truffle is a revelatory experience well worth the price of admission. What I carry with me from the meal, aside from a week's pay being violently ripped from the confines of my checking account, is an appreciation for this style of un-garnished, highly precise, technique driven cooking with an emphasis on simplicity and flavor. This is not easy cooking and there is no room for error, but it is executed faultlessly and with confidence. 

These dinners are expensive and a rarity for those of us humping a line. We save, we pinch pennies, we forgo meals, we ignore impulse buying so that we can attend a dinner that lasts a few hours, but changes our concept of food for the remainder of our career. I might never again dine at Vetri Ristorante, but I will carry with me the consuming warmth of the space and the memory of the exceptional food that is served. The dialect of Chef Vetri's culinary voice is distinct and I feel it's affect upon my own understanding of the greater conversation being conducted between chefs in America and abroad, a gift that is far more valuable than the cost of entry. Immerse yourself in this dialogue and invest in these educational moments, as we are a community of craftsmen who can only grow in concert with one another in order to find our part in the conversation.

Ian Auger