08.16.06
Has the student become the master?
In my last post I mentioned how I was having trouble with the pizza crusts still. Well a good way to learn any cooking technique is through practice and repetition, and yesterday I had my shot at that. The sandwich station was busy as all get out, and in addition, they needed me to work on the pizzas as well. And work on them I did.
The orders continued to pour in for pizza after pizza - in fact I had never seen so many orders for them in a single day. Additionally, they kept coming in even after we were technically closed for lunch. Three guesses as to what we will still serve to people even after we are supposed to be closed up…. Time’s up, if you said “subs and pizza”, give yourself a gold star. And of course that is exactly what I was working on, kept calling me back into action.
But the bright side of all this over-emphasis on this station made it so that something finally clicked in me on how to make the pizza crusts come out right. It is hard to explain with words - which is why Vic had so much trouble explaining it to me - but i got the finger motion down right yesterday so that there is actually a small crust on the edge of the pie, which is exactly what he was looking for.
By the end of the day, the pizzas I was producing were looking good - so much so that Vic was indeed impressed. (You have to pay close attention to when chefs are happy with your work. It is their job to make sure you feel like a numbskull as much as possible, so compliments are hidden… I could see one here.)
 “Daniel-san, your crust shows improvement, but your toppings are still not distributed evenly… So, paint my house!” |
But the real impressive part came at the very end of my shift. By 3:30 even the most die-hard late-lunchers were done coming in and ordering belated pizzas, so I was free to get my own lunch. Vic was cooking a pizza himself for his daughter, who also works at the restaurant. When his was done, he realized he had overloaded it with toppings and said, “Hmm… maybe I should have gotten you to make this pizza…”
As far as compliments from chefs go, that is like getting your own ticker tape parade.
So add one more skill to my repertoire. Only about 15,000 more to go…
Stumble it!
