Perspective Through Eggs

             Having recently completed Norman van Aken's spirited memoir that recounts his volatile early years spent maturing within a restaurant culture that only remains within the lore of the survivors, I understand that few things have truly changed. Following the mythification of Chef within the greater cultural perception of our industry, cooks have begun to drink less on the job and talk more about the political ramifications of our trade. We spend fewer mornings nursing hangovers, and more sharpening knives and reading cookbooks; however, we remain transient beasts, roaming amidst backrooms and low-hanging, meticulously organized basements. Van Aken's own narrative relates this cohesion between the generations of cooks that have roamed about the country over the past forty years amidst the dramatically shifting landscape that America has become. Van Aken's journey began cooking breakfast, learning the discipline and regimentation this style of cooking mandates. He appreciates the finesse required to bring the yolk to the desired temperature, while not over-coagulating the white as it cooks through. The level of technique and confidence required to cook eggs well is the same reason why classic French chefs still require cooks to prepare an omelet before hiring them for the line.

            Whether you take them boiled, flipped, sunny, poached, braised, pickled, preserved or raw, eggs are a beautiful and malleable ingredient. Eggs bind our batters, emulsify our sauces, and foam to seemingly unconscionable heights, but they provide a far greater benefit to the professional cook. Through my own experiences working the egg station on a brunch line, prepping pastry for those multifaceted garde manger stations, and building temperamental hollandaise sauces while standing next to a five hundred degree convection oven, eggs have taught me technique, timing, and patience. However, as I have recently departed from my friends in Brooklyn and entered into my own transient moment within one of the Michelin starred institutions of Manhattan, I bring with me those lessons spent toiling away on the egg station. Though my pickups differ dramatically, the concepts of reproducibility and exactness that are staples of egg cookery are easily translated to my new station that requires speed through organization and awareness. I fondly recall my early mornings spent prepping an egg station for a restaurant that demands perfection in the cookery of this breakfast staple. Although the style of food I cook now differs greatly, the intuition I gained from my time preparing huevos for the hungover masses has proven to be invaluable during this transitional place in my career.

             Fine dining is a stress imbued arena consumed by the quiet, inner storm that rages constantly within the minds of those inhabiting the line. The kitchen is quiet, no music occupying the dead space that is filled by the constant drone of the exhaust hoods and the occasional joke issued primarily for the medicinal purpose of breaking the mood. But we, the cooks behind the line, who support those stars and the expectations of the dining public, remain the same. Though we arrive at these kitchens from various backgrounds and avenues of training, the cooks who reside behind the cramped, polished stainless-steel boxes of fine dining kitchens are no different from those flipping eggs on the brunch line, now or during the fundamentally different dining culture of Van Aken's early education. Emotions run high and tempers are prone to flare up over trivial concerns, but we will always pick each other up and buy a round of drinks as a form of penance for words spoken during moments of temporary insanity. The only real difference between the brunch cook and entremetier cook, is that each individual finds something special within these two different approaches to feeding people. Neither is better or worse, just two different visions for the same ultimate goal of satisfying the customer through our chosen medium of food. Transient Line Cook for Life.

Ian