One of the first days of culinary school,
Chef Rob Ferris was telling us about the different jobs we could vie for when
we had graduated from the program. As he listed the responsibilities of
executive chefs, caterers, personal chefs, etc., one of my colleagues raised
his hand and asked, in a very serious tone of voice, "What if you want to
be an Iron Chef?"
After a second of absorbing the question
and a slight twitch in the corner of his eye, Chef Rob explained patiently that
if you wanted to be an Iron Chef you would probably need to follow a direction
and become the very best there was in that genre of cooking. He went on
to dethrone most of the Food Network personalities. Most of them were not
chefs. In fact, we would not graduate from the program as chefs, he told
us. Rather, to be a chef you must run a kitchen.
You must be able to take charge of a team
with skill and grace, eliciting from them not only fear but the kind of genuine
respect that will prompt them to watch out for your best interest even when you
aren't watching. You must be a kind of wizard accountant, reducing your
food costs to the lowest possible percentage while maintaining a standard of
excellent quality in your product. You must be a diplomat, schmoozing the
ownership, keeping management happy, coddling the waitstaff, and training and
overseeing the kitchen staff. Oh, and it's also pretty important to be a
talented culinarian.
The first couple of months of culinary school
did much to debunk many of the myths of "chefdom" that have become
part of our collective belief system thanks to outlets such as "Food
Network." However, during that time I also experienced a moment of
high drama which was absolutely made for television.
The day had finally come for the final
exam of the Soups, Sauces and Stocks class. To understand how momentous
this felt, you must understand what it took to get to that point. We had
all come into class the first day chomping at the bit to get into the
kitchen. We were ready to begin creating the masterpieces that would
cement our reputations as phenomenal young chefs and etch our names into the
annals of culinary history.
Instead we got to sit on our hands and
spend the first two weeks getting prepared to earn our certification in
ServSafe. Parasites, Viruses and Bacteria…oh my! Sanitation
practices, cross-contamination methods, minimum cooking temperatures and health
inspection reports drifted through my subconscious even as I slept at
night.
After passing the ServSafe exam and
proving that we had the knowledge to produce safe and wholesome food, we were
finally issued our knife sets. The excitement in the room was palpable as
we went down, row by row, and collected our black bags full of the tools of our
new trade. There was a sense of anticipation as we entered the basic
skills kitchen and set up our stations for the first time.
For the next week we learned the different
knife skills and basic cuts that distinguish a cook from a chef. We
burned though fifty pound bags of carrots and potatoes like nothing, learning
to produce the perfect batonnet, brunoise, fine brunoise, dices of varying
sizes, julienne, fine julienne, and the daunting tourne. All had to be
perfectly uniform and precisely shaped. The smallest fraction of an inch
would mean a deduction on the final exam.
After completing the knife skills class,
I felt I had gained valuable knowledge and established a foundation which I
would build upon during the remainder of my time in culinary school.
However, unless you count chomping on the odd raw carrot which I had failed to
coax into a perfect seven sided football shaped tourne, I had still not eaten anything
I had cooked.
So getting into Soups, Sauces and Stocks
was very exciting. Starting out, we boiled bones, vegetables and spices
to create flavorful stocks. Then we learned the five mother sauces, the
classical french sauces from which all other sauces are derived. Finally
we made soup, soup and more soup. Luckily I had just purchased a large
freezer which sits in my garage, because it is now halfway full of soup.
The day of the final exam had arrived,
and it would be the first time I would formally present food to be tasted and
critiqued. We were instructed to prepare the five mother sauces and a
soup of our choosing within the time allotted.
Feeling very in control of the situation,
I clarified the butter I would need for my hollandaise first and set it to the
side to cool. This process involves heating the butter and carefully skimming
the milk fats off as they rise to the surface. The hollandaise would be
the last sauce I would make, but the butter had to be cooled in order to incorporate
correctly. I went on, methodically making each sauce and putting my
tomato basil cream soup on the stove to simmer. I was happy with my
results and had avoided major catastrophe so far. Four of my five sauces
were in souffle cups on a plate, and my soup was plated beautifully and
garnished with basil chiffonade.
With about twenty minutes left I felt
very confident, and got ready to start my hollandaise. This is a finicky
process which involves whisking egg yolks in a stainless steel bowl over steam,
removing them periodically from the steam to prevent the egg from actually
cooking, then slowly adding cooled clarified butter while still whipping
furiously to give the sauce just the right consistency.
As I was gathering my mise en place to begin
the sauce, I could not find the butter I had clarified at the beginning with
the intention of having everything ready for this critical moment. After
spending a minute checking and rechecking everything on my work surface to be
sure I was not simply overlooking it, I whipped out a saute pan and started
melting a chunk of butter. After going through the process again I
whispered a prayer that the butter would cool enough in the time it took me to
whisk the egg yolks and got to whisking. As I finished the sauce it was
not what I had hoped for. Instead of being a smooth, beautiful yellow
buttery sauce it was clumpy with the butter separating out from the egg yolk
which I had obviously not whipped long enough in my frenetic effort. I
plated the sauce and looked at it unhappily. I glanced at the clock and
realized I had ten minutes left. The worst that could happen was time
would be called and I would have to present my inferior sauce, but I sure was
not going to sit there and twiddle my thumbs if I could possibly finish a
better one.
After tweaking the seasonings on what
felt to me like a miraculous hollandaise, I proudly got into line to be
critiqued. I was beginning to understand the feelings of anxiety and
exhilaration experienced by aspiring chefs who competed on shows like
"Chopped." I had faced an unexpected challenge and overcome it
and was feeling pretty good about myself.
I set my plates in front of Chef Rob, and
he started with my Tomato Basil soup. He pulled a plastic tasting spoon
from the pocket of his chef coat, tasted and let the flavor develop in his
mouth for a couple of seconds. "Very good," he said.
"Full points." Going on to my sauces, he pulled out a new spoon
and said that the tomato sauce could have been strained to a finer consistency
but had great flavor. The Veloute could have used a touch more
seasoning. One point off for each. Hollandaise was perfect, which
definitely provoked an interior victory dance after all I had gone through with
that sauce.
Then came the Bechamel, a creamy milk
based sauce. Chef Rob dipped the end of the spoon in the sauce, but as he
pulled it out he did not bring it to his mouth to taste. Instead he
lifted it straight out of the souffle cup and held it in front of his face with
a look of disgust. My eyes followed his and, horrified, I saw what he was
looking at. An inch long hair dangled from the edge of the spoon. I
gasped and shrunk to approximately two inches tall with shame.
How could this happen? After weeks
of training on cleanliness and sanitation! I was wearing my hat, had my
hair pulled back, had not once touched my face or hair. He grabbed for
the hair and gave it a little tug. It didn't budge. He smiled looked at
me and laughed. It was not a hair after all, but rather a thin plastic
thread attached to the spoon. Not a breach of sanitation, but a simple
manufacturing flaw. As I returned to my station, one of my colleagues
asked how it had gone. "You're trembling," he observed. I
just shook my head and chuckled to myself.
