09.28.06
Posted in The Story at 6:23 pm by Chef Matt
No, I didn’t get fired, but another worker in the kitchen sure did! Personally I thought it was about time, but allow me to back up a bit before we get into all the details.
OK, so when I worked the full week of double shifts way back when, Sarah thought it would be a good idea to bring in a helper like myself who would work nights since she was afraid she was working me too hard. While it was indeed difficult to work all those hours, especially seeing as how I was still spending a lot of that time learning as compared to cooking, I was happy to do it, and quite frankly I needed the money. But if she wanted to have back up personnel in the business, basically three trained line cooks to cover for any should they get sick or what not, then I think that is a good idea.
Well the new cook, we’ll call him “Bob”, was actually one of our delivery guys, and he said he had extensive kitchen experience. The problem was, he was often late to work because of his delivery job. A delivery would run late or what not, and the result was he was not showing up on time every day. I myself did not see too much of him as i was usually on my way out when he was on his way in. The few times I did see him at work on the line though, I was shocked to see how little he seemed to know (for a guy with so much experience and all…).
Well one day I came to work and Sarah told me that Bob had not shown up the night before, and had not called. Needless to say, she was not happy. I agreed with her that Bob should be fired outright.
Well, Bob came in that morning (with our sausage delivery) and had some excuse about not having his cell phone on him or what not. For reasons unbeknownst to me, Sarah gave him a second chance. For the record, this is where, if I were in charge, I would have fired him outright. But it was not my call, and Sarah is nice almost to a fault, so she let it go this once.
Well Bob continued to be late and generally unreliable, and apparently it came to a head on Monday of this week. Sarah is getting more line experience herself, and so on Monday it was busy and she jumped in to help out on the line. And she saw first hand what I always thought she knew: Bob is not very good on the line. Well, she took the time to try and correct his mistakes and all the really poor shortcuts he was taking with the food he was sending out.
Sarah’s response to Bob. |
His response: “We’re busy, let it go.”
This is not what you tell your boss, let alone the boss who is the new owner of the restaurant trying hard to make things work out for herself. Sarah, to her credit, did not “let it go”, and Bob’s response to this was to leave in the middle of the shift.
For those of you wondering if Sarah gave him another shot, the answer is “hell no”. He has not even tried to show up again, though he does occasionally make deliveries to us, which is strangely awkward, considering he doesn’t say anything.
But yes, dear readers, his ass has been canned.
It goes to show you how important a quality work ethic is for a chef in the kitchen. I am on time to work every day, and I stay as long as I possibly can every day. Part of it I think is that I don’t even see it as work to some degree. It is all just so much damn fun, I almost feel I am pulling off some kind of scam getting paid for it. Take that as another “warning” if you will, but you better not be one of those people who likes “flex scheduling” if you want to work in a kitchen. Your ass is going to be in a routine, and you better like it.
But the down side to all this is that there are no extra hours for me right now, which I was kind of hoping for seeing as how I am just scraping by right now working very few double shifts. Unfortunately the “down season” is beginning. There is less work, the crowds are lighter, and therefore I am not needed at night in place of Bob.
It comes down to this people: I need more work. I need more hours, I need more income. I mean, I am not starving, but I don’t feel like I am quite making as much as I should be right now.
It’s time to look for night work - part-time of course. So if any of you have work, I would love to hear about it. But otherwise it is time to start the hunt.
The next phase begins! Thank God I am able to hold on to the old job while I do, which is more than I can say for others…
Matt
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09.25.06
Posted in The Story, Greatest Hits at 6:15 pm by Chef Matt
Just trying to say what you want to say in the kitchen can be a tricky thing. For starters there is the obvious language barriers that exist in most kitchens, especially if you don’t speak Spanish. But in my restaurant, it is especially difficult as I am the only native English speaker. Everyone can speak English in varying degrees, but it is quite amazing that my English skills are the… umm… goodest?
The Tower of Babel. Now all we need to do is hang a sign for our restaurant on the outside. |
Three Spanish speakers, one German, three Koreans and one Arabic. Quite the linguistic melting pot I have to navigate there. So with everyone trying to find a common language that commands, directions and warnings can be given in, a lot gets lost in translation. I of course speak English, but I also speak a little Italian, and, well, that is about as useful as a catnip toy at a pet cemetery. In short, I need to expand my language skills if I am going to pursue a kitchen career. I guess I have always known this, but working in a kitchen has cemented this fact in my head. When I am all done with culinary school, I am going to have to take Spanish lessons. Fortunately, I already know how to warn everyone in Spanish that I am coming through with a hot pan/pot. And really, what else do I need to say to people?
There is another kitchen language issue that I really only recognized today. I was telling someone there was extra sliced ham in the back. So I said, “There is more sliced ham in the back.” The reply that came back was, “I don’t know, go check and see if there is more.”
Say what?
I had made a statement of fact, but the other person had treated it as if I were asking a question. That struck me as odd. But later in the day, I noticed that I asked someone, “This goulash meat is done?”. Without the inflection at the end of the sentence, I had just made a statement again. Only I meant it as a question this time…
“That’s odd,” I thought to myself, “I never do that. Do I?”
But then I realized that not only do I do this frequently, so does everybody else. And then it dawned on me - asking questions is seen as a form of weakness in the kitchen. Everyone should know how to cook, and how to prepare the various dishes that are there - but if you have to ask, “Is this done?” then it appears as if you don’t know what you are doing. But if you ask it like a statement, and someone gives you crap, you can possibly back out of your ignorance with a “Yeah, I know that was done, that’s what I just said!”
It’s like being on a 3rd ground playground all over again.
And speaking of being on playgrounds, I have actually been shocked how “clean” the language has been in the kitchen so far. I was expecting a little more “blue humor” (of which there is some) in the kitchen, but it has been surprisingly tame compared to what I used to talk about while playing rounds of “Asshole” in back in college. Once again, this could have something to do with the language barrier. We may all just have different ways of telling these jokes…
Oh crap, I just realized that they all may have been making fun of me all this time, and I haven’t noticed. Oh great, now I’m totally self-conscious.
Preview of tomorrow’s conversation:
My boss: “Good morning Matt!”
Me: “And just what does THAT mean?…”
Oh yeah, that’ll be ugly.
“You will stir that sauce right now! Stir it! Stir it now! Ummm, pretty please?…” |
The one last part of kitchen language that I want to touch on, since I have had lots of time to observe this so far, is that the tone of voice people use can really affect you if you are not ready for it. If you are one of those people who take everything everyone tells you seriously, or your feelings are easily hurt when people tell you to do something right away, then the kitchen is not the place for you. There is no “pretty please with sugar on top”, or “if you have a moment” in the professional kitchen. There is “right now”, and “too late”. And chefs don’t like “too late”. Not at all.
So as one more element in my long list of warnings to people before they take the plunge I did, allow me to add this. There is no gentle stroking of your ego going on here people. If you consider yourself at all “fragile”, stay the hell out of the kitchen - you will be broken.
Fortunately I am not the fragile type, I am just a healthy mix of blissfully unobservant and painfully ignorant. As for delaing with the language issues I deal with every day, I figure that all I need to do now is to learn is how to say, “I already stirred that sauce!” in Korean, Spanish, Arabic and German, and I think I will be good to go!
Matt
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09.23.06
Posted in The Story at 9:41 am by Chef Matt
Sorry I have not posted for a week, I have had a really busy one. I actually have a few things I am working on for here, but they are just not done yet. So let me bring you all up to speed.
First of all, I have received a bunch of messages about the challenge I was given to see if I could bring my skills up to speed and learn to be a real line cook like I was originally hired to be. Well, I can safely say that I think my skills have jumped up to that level - so much so that I have asked to be returned to my previous salary level. We will see what happens as a result of that.
I am really happy with the progress I am making in that area. The job is no longer one that requires me to think about how not to mess up every second I am cooking. Now it is about having fun, and just doing what I know how to do. I think I am getting the “dance steps” down, and I’ll keep you posted as to how much Sarah agrees…
Secondly, Thursday was my anniversary. “How does a chef spend his anniversary?” I can hear you asking. Well, this chef worked a 13.5 hour double shift with only one short break in the middle. I came home exhausted and just wanting to sleep, but my lovely wife had made her world-famous peach cake, so I was able to share a piece (or two) of that.
The next day was Friday, and I was looking forward to a half day since we have a new guy on staff who was hired to help with the deep cleaning on Fridays. Yeah, ummm, he quit. So I had to hang around again and help with all the deep scrubbing and corrosive chemical burns to my arms. Love it.
The whole while the clock was staring down at me saying, “You’re going to be late to your anniversary dinner!” Yes, Caroline and I were headed out to 2941 for a celebration of our anniversary, and it was getting later and later all the time I was mopping the floor.
I finally just had to go, but fortunately we were almost done, so I wasn’t actually abandoning anyone - which I would never do anyway.
The dinner was great - we had the chef’s tasting menu, and it was truly a fabulous event.
Just when I think my cooing is getting better and better, I see what the top of the line is like. I have a long way to go, but I want you all to know that I think I am headed in the right direction!
More soon as I get the time to post it!
Matt
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09.14.06
Posted in The Story at 10:04 pm by Chef Matt
Oh glorious water. Wet, cool, and so ultimately refreshing. Full of ice or warm as a spring afternoon, I don’t care. All I know is I love water. An obsession that has really only begun since working in kitchens.
I have never been a big drinker of water really. Sure, I read the reports that said you were supposed to drink eight glasses of water every day. But apart from that being a chore and a hassle and a cause for me to pee all the time, I never could really get behind it. I always considered myself to be generally dehydrated, but it was never all that big a deal.
I never would have guessed that this would look like a great meal… |
But now eight glasses of water is what I refer to as “breakfast”. At 8 AM every morning I am already in front of six burners, all going at full blast as I am cooking up a storm for the day ahead of us. The sweat begins its migration down my back around 8:30 and by 9 or so, I am on my second glass of several for the day.
I lose fluids in the kitchen at an astonishing rate. If I drank the way I do now back when I was working a desk job, I would be in the bathroom every seven and a half minutes. It would be the sort of stuff that would earn me the moniker of “leaky” or “Sir Pees-a-lot”. But as it stands, I can work a 12 hour double shift, drinking water the whole time, and never once have to use the bathroom. The fluid loss is really that serious.
Most people I know cannot function without their morning cup of coffee. They cannot talk coherently, and refuse to do any business until they have had that first cup of dirty water. I don’t drink caffeine myself, so I never really understood this until someone in the restaurant was trying to tell me something, and I had to interrupt them as it was 10 AM and I had not started rehydrating yet. Without my morning water, I was pretty useless, and had to pound three large cups of water before I could really pay attention to my friend.
But it is not just water that I am consuming in greater quantities these days. See, the flip side of this coin is the trap that most chefs fall into. Work ends late at night, your friends are all asleep and the only businesses that are open are bars. This is how many chefs are lured into alcoholism, or at least heavily increased consumption of it. The other thing I have discovered is: alcohol is a really great pain killer. OK, so maybe I am not the first person in history to discover this, but I have never used beer to take away aches and pains before, and wow, it really works astonishingly well! While it is true that sweet nourishing booze can take the pain away, this can be a very unhealthy trend for me, my wallet and my liver.
To some a refreshing beer, to others, the best OTC pain killer available. |
These traps have taken down many chefs before me, and I am sure will continue to do so. But at least I can see the problems now, and I can avoid them. So even though I burned myself on the pizza oven TWICE today, I will be sure not to medicate with Miller High Life. Aloe gel and some Tylenol will do just fine. Taken with about 3 glasses of water of course…
Matt
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09.12.06
Posted in The Story at 10:22 pm by Chef Matt
I have a new boss. Well, that is, I have a new name that I have to call my boss. See, my neighbor who bought the restaurant is Korean, and her name is Eun Hee (I think that is how she spells it, I am not sure actually). Anyway, she has decided that in her line of work - that is, working on a daily basis with people who are not fluent in Korean, or familiar with Korean names - she needed an “American” name. She and her family apparently chose “Sarah” last night, so as of today, I am supposed to remember to call her “Sarah”.
This has already resulted in some funny moments in the kitchen. First of all there is us not remembering her name. The conversation will go something like this:
“Hey, Eun Hee…”
“Yes? Oh, I mean, I am Sarah now… remember to call me that…”
“Oh yeah, right, Sarah. Sorry!”
“So what did you want?”
“Oh, just wanted to tell you your apron was on fire Sarah.”
Then there is the flip side of that, whereby we remember to call her Sarah, but she forgets that this is her name. (She’s only had it for one day, I am willing to cut her some slack on this one…). These conversations go like this:
“Hey Sarah?”
*pause*
“Umm, Sarah?…”
“Oh sorry! That’s me! Yes?”
“Yeah, umm, you’re on fire again…”
No, Eun… err, Sarah, was never on fire, she is a great cook and a good boss, and she is really starting to get more confidence in her ability to run the restaurant herself, and I think she is bringing in a good staff to make it all work. Now with the name change, she is ready to go.
Which of course got me to thinking, if I could randomly pick ANY name I wanted, and asked people to start calling me by that name, what would it be? I have always liked “Dirk Diggler” from Boogie Nights, but alas, it has been taken, and I am hardly a porn star.
It’s a restricted club Ray, so don’t let ‘em know you’re Italian… |
Maybe I could go with something more Italian, like “Mateo” or “Mario”, but these would seem kind of weird considering that I look about as Italian as Ray Charles.
So I guess I will have to stick with “Matt” for now (or “Fin” as my good friends call me). But if anyone has any other good ideas, I am all ears.
Matt
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09.08.06
Posted in The Story at 7:11 pm by Chef Matt
I had to stay late today to help with the cleanup in the kitchen. It is arduous work, and hardly the glamorous stuff you dream about when you are going to cooking school, but I think that is why they make you do so much cleaning in culinary school - get you ready for the reality that is the deep clean of the professional kitchen.
So I want to point out something to all the people who love to spread the doom and gloom of the restaurant world. Everyone talks about all the stuff that goes on “behind the scenes” in the kitchen - the stuff you don’t want to know about, the “horror stories” of how badly your food is handled in a professional kitchen.
Well I want to go on record and say that from everything I have seen, it is mostly a bunch of bull. I only say “mostly” in light of how nobody can be 100% perfect with all things that are done, but I would say we do better at Tirolo than I do in my own home.
Perfect example: There is NO “5-second rule” at Tirolo. My house has about a 3-minute rule.
Warning labels? We don’t have time to read warning labels! Start spraying and scrubbing! |
And the deep clean we did today (and do every Friday) is another example of how the professional kitchen is generally better than what you may do at home. I mean really, how many of you take apart your stove once a week and clean it out completely with high-powered (gloves necessary) cleaning chemicals? How many of you sweep, mop, deck brush AND squeegee your floors once a week with bleach water? When was the last time you changed the fat and scrubbed out your deep fryer?
We do all this and more every week. Hell, it’s so clean on Monday AM in there, I almost don’t like cooking on it. (I find a grill with just a LITTLE bit of grease on it gives me better results.) But the point still stands - this kitchen (and other professional kitchens I have seen) is not a den of horror stories where past-due food is picked up off the floor to be served undercooked in a sauce that has been reheated 12 times that week. It just doesn’t happen.
If you want your food to be handled right and responsibly, a trust-worthy and clean kitchen is most likely going to do a better job than you would at home. I have the chemical burns to prove it.
Matt
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09.07.06
Posted in The Story, Greatest Hits at 6:28 pm by Chef Matt
So, how was your day? Good to know. He should pay more attention to you. You deserve better.
Anyway, as for my day, I found my overly large body (I am just over 6 feet tall, by far the tallest person in the kitchen) crammed into a tight squeeze today as I was taking inventory of one of the reach-in refrigerators this morning. I found that we had a definite shortage of our cucumber salad that we serve with our very popular grilled salmon salad, and so I stood up to make more. (As one would do, since the health department generally frowns upon the making of side dishes on the floor.)
A close approximation of what our steam table looks like, so you have a sense of what I hit/destroyed. |
When I did, my hip caught the cutting board that is suspended in front of the baine marie (steam table) and the whole thing came crashing down, destroying a plate that was on the cutting board in the process. Nursing my aching hip that just had just been jacked into the corner of a 30 pond block of wood, I swept up the plate fragments thinking this was the worst of what had just occurred.
Oh, how wrong I was.
So while sweeping, I noticed that there was the knob to the center steam tray (it has three trays total on it). Thinking I had just knocked this off in the crash, I put it back on the metal tab that was sticking out. It immediately fell off to the ground again.
“Huh,” I said.
I put it back again, and trued to make it stay, and it would not.
“That’s odd,” I was heard to utter to myself.
I tried again to fasten it, and turn it, and at this point I noticed that the light next to said knob that usually lights up when the baine marie is on was off.
“Oh dear…”
I took out the steam tray and felt the heating coil. It had gone cold.
“[Comments edited for more sensitive readers].”
Yes, we were one steam tray down today because of my clumsy, lumbering hulkness. I expected to get reamed out for this one something fierce, but actually everyone was cool with it. I wasn’t horsing around, I wasn’t misusing the device. It was just an honest mistake caused by the fact that I am bigger than everyone else. I guess the fact that I am the only one in the restaurant who can get things off the top shelves without using the step stools (so I often retrieve items for people on request) means that there are recognized pluses and minuses to being big. So nobody really said anything to me. It was just an honest mistake.
That being said, I still feel terrible about the whole thing. Thankfully, we have a repair man coming by tonight.
This is Ed. Well, it would be if he were cute.
|
One of my close friends, whom we will call “Ed” here (because that’s his name) I have often likened to “a bear on roller skates”. That’s just the way he is. Something big and drastic is going to happen in whatever direction he is moving in, and no matter what, it is not going to be graceful or pretty. That’s how I felt today. So Ed, if you are reading, I think I may have pulled a classic “bear on roller skates” maneuver of my own…
And finally, an interesting administrative note. Apparently the first blog readers came by the restaurant last night looking for me. Two people, who are regular customers apparently (”John and John” I believe?…) went looking for Cafe Tirolo on the web, and since the restaurant has no web site, they came up with this site. And they wanted to know if I was around and mentioned that I was a good writer.
So “John and John”, thanks for coming by, and I am sorry I missed you. Please note that I generally only do lunches there these days, though I am looking to expend my hours. My boss says I am doing much better in the past weeks (yay!) and hopefully I will get to meet you all sometime soon.
Advertisers please take note - people are finding and liking this blog. (Give me some money!)
Readers take note - click on the ads! I am kidding of course, please only click on the ads that interest you, like these two following my signature:
Matt
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09.06.06
Posted in The Story at 6:29 pm by Chef Matt
Lots to report on today if only because it has been so long since I have had a spare moment to say anything.
First, my Labor Day weekend involved a relaxing jaunt off to the woods where there was much good food, great friends and lots of Natty Boh Beer. In fact, the weekend was Christened “LaBOH Day Weekend ‘06″. It is always fun to cook for friends, and having a more forgiving audience around you than your boss is always a welcome thing as well. There is something to be said for the more intimate and casual cooking style that comes with cooking for friends. Too bad it doesn’t pay the bills. 
Still, there is something to be said for the style of cooking that comes with low volume and more personal connections with those whom you are cooking for. I feel like I am in the opening scene of Jerry Maguire where he pushes for less clients and more attention to those who are represented. He of course then gets fired for being such a boob. But while I do enjoy working for the high-volume/small space kitchen I am in now (makes cooking for 9 people seem like a breeze!), this weekend has shown me a lot about how I think I want my overall career to head in a different direction. Smaller volume, more attention given to the individual customers. This is of course years down the road, but this weekend was an amazing juxtaposition for me in that regard.
But the next great kitchen observation about a kitchen in ownership transition is how there is now all kinds of new gear showing up in the restaurant. It’s great! New knives that are actually sharp, and new knife sharpeners that actually work to take care of the rest! New plastic containers to store food that don’t leak, and that actually have working lids! New cutting boards that were manufactured after Nixon resigned, and a whole slew of other gadgets and toys sprinkled around the kitchen that actually make the preparation of food less of a task in “finessing” the tools, and more of a realistic food creating endeavor.
Seriously, it was time for an update… |
It’s not like this is some terrible thing that has happened in the cafe over the years which has turned Vic into some sort of sadist. Think about your own kitchen tools for a second. Don’t you have a can opener that you have to hold just right in order for it to work? And a cuisinart that needs the lid to be held down in order for it to come on? We all have tools like this that we know the special quirks of, and rather than replace them, we just hold on to them. So it was in this kitchen as well over the years. Well, the ownership has changed, and the new gadgets are arriving, and for now they all work the way they should. This will of course not last, but as they change at least I will be there when it happens and will be able to adapt to their eccentricities in real time, and not just pick up the after-effects of overuse as they are now.
And finally, I have gotten a lot of feedback for my article on having songs stuck in my head. Apparently this is an affliction many chefs suffer from, and also many other non-chefs as well. Thanks everyone for your sharing of tunes. I can’t repay you enough for getting many of them jammed in my head over the past few days. However, I achieved a new level today as I was responsible for “infecting” the whole kitchen today.
We received our meat order just after lunch rush today, and included beef and chicken. We like to order halal chickens since Vic swears that they are the best. (Since no blood is allowed with halal food, these birds are totally drained and washed, giving them a better taste/texture) The chickens that came today were debatable if they were halal, and of course the delivery guy just wanted us to sign for them, and not ask questions about the religious affiliation of the dead birds in the crates. So the debate raged on and on and on.
“Are they halal?”
“What?”
“The birds, are the halal?”
“What?”
“Halal!”
“Ummm.. sure.”
“They don’t look halal.”
“OK…”
And so on. Anyway, after this went on for about 10 minutes, I naturally had the word halal in my head. I looked at my co-chef Miriam and jokingly sang “Halal-elujah!” She thought this was pretty funny, and I thought nothing more of it. About 10 minutes later though, I noticed she was singing the Hallelujah chorus of Handel’s
Messiah to herself. Over and over. I smiled at this. I then walked to the back room, where I noticed Vic too was singing this to himself (having caught it from Miriam who had been back there a few minutes before me.) This in turn made ME catch it, and from there it spread to a few others.
Last thing seen by the poor bastard who started singing “Sexy Back” in the kitchen. |
All in all, this is not one of those songs that has tremendous staying power, but with each of us “re-infecting” each other over time, we got a few good hours out of it this afternoon.
So I will take that as a lesson. I need to watch what I sing in the kitchen. Any song I sing could possibly infect everyone else in the kitchen, which are the people that I depend upon to get my job done. And they all have knives. And now, those knives are actually sharp.
Matt
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