The kitchen is mesmerizing. Everything gleams, is state of the art and pristine. The number of cooks is baffling; in a quick glance, I counted just over 60. Having only cooked in a New York City kitchen, I am accustomed to small, windowless basements. The section of the kitchen that I work out of has one full wall with floor to ceiling glass windows and exposed caramel stained beams. There is a dense, lush and well-manicured hedge that grows on the outside of the wall, obstructing any view we may have had, but it’s still refreshing by comparison.
Within this enormous arena, there is a central kitchen in which tickets are called, plates are inspected and the carnes and pesces are cooked. It should come as no surprise that in the very heart of the room, the center of the kitchen universe, around which all activity flows, the Executive Chef and Sous Chefs congregate. Radiating off of this point are three separate kitchens for production, pastry, and primeras. I was chosen to be part of the primeras (starters) group.
It’s not like I was hand selected—we were in the center of the kitchen and the sous chefs literally grabbed bunches of people to form their respective teams. Work experience and specialty were rendered irrelevant.
Our chef-instructor reminds me of the schoolteacher in Matilda. She is relatively short, with hard brown eyes, non-descript brown hair and a slight overbite. Her jaw structure reminds me of a Simpsons character. I’ve since been told by some of our roommates—veterans of the kitchen at this point—that the other head chefs believe she is mentally unbalanced. There are many rumors that circulate about her, my favorite being that she was a nun and got kicked out of her convent.
As soon as we entered our area of the kitchen, she lined us up against the back wall and started yelling at us. We were like small school children at recess being yelled at by our teacher. It was amazing! We hadn’t even done anything yet! I was standing with my hands on my hips and when she made eye contact with me she marched over and pulled my arms down in one swoop. She pointed in my face and repeated NO over and over. She made a show of the fact that hands could not be in pockets nor clasped in front of or behind your body. Instead, they could only be at your sides when you were “at attention.” If not, she made a motion to the door. Did I understand her? I told her yes. She went through the charade again and instead of motioning to the door, she drew her hand across her neck. Did I understand her? Yes—thanks to her universal gesture. Hands anywhere but at my sides equaled execution. So far, so good.
She also indicated that for the three of us in the group who do not speak Spanish (myself, a Japanese man, and a Malaysian woman), we would not receive any help from her nor from any members of our group. We had to acknowledge that we had chosen to come to her country and we had to adapt accordingly. The fact that we didn’t understand Spanish was not her concern—we could plan on spending a lot of time watching everyone else unless we learned the language. So far, so awesome.
Her attitude astounded me, made me sad, confused and nervous. Communication in all kitchens is essential, no matter how many stars it may or may not have. There are too many variables at play—safety, quality, efficiency to name a few—that depend on articulate and clear direction. Communication is the foundation and glue that enables a kitchen to function at its highest level by executing whatever systems are in place. Not surprisingly, I had my doubts regarding how well I would perform in a kitchen in which I didn’t understand the language. I expressed this concern to the stage recruiter once I had been accepted. She assured me that not speaking Spanish would not be a problem and that people came from all over the world. What she failed to mention was that “all over the world” really meant only SPANISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES. While there are very few of us in the kitchen that do not speak Spanish, fortunately, there are many that speak English. It is humbling. The majority of kitchen staff is trilingual.
It’s not that I expected encouragement or positive reinforcement during this experience. People who need constant approval and caretaking do not do well in kitchen environments. However, I expected a little bit more of an “I’ll work with you if you work with me” type of attitude. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I realized this—I was going to have to work twice as hard as everyone in my group, individuals already working their hardest in order to get something out of these three months. I was going to have to bust my you-know-what ten times over to earn my right to be given tasks, to plate food, and to be involved in service.
Our chef-instructor made it clear that the chefs would accept nothing less than perfection. It had to be the foremost thought on our minds. And this absolute perfection extended to everything—perfectly white, pressed chef jackets, perfectly ironed black pants, perfectly starched aprons, perfectly coiffed hair, perfectly swept and scrubbed floor, perfectly cleaned out trash bin—you get the idea.
We cut a tub (that I could fit into) full of fennel into 1/2-inch batons that were sliced as thin as my nail for hours and hours. I didn’t mind the work—in fact, I was relieved to have something to do that I understood. I felt even better when our mini chef-instructors, two experienced stages who have been elevated to head-of-the-group status, commented on my muy bueno knife skills and used my batons as examples for the group.
We only worked an 11-hour day (as opposed to 16) and I was exhausted. I was happy to hear Wonder call out, “How was your day Al-lay-jahn-dreet-ah?” when I walked through our flat door.
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