Food Porn—Chuleta

Spain's T-Bone. Check her out.

Dry aged here.

Sliced as pintxos to share.

Crisped fat.

Cooked perfectly rare. Oh lord.

On the Issue of Cleanliness

Being away from home and familiarity can be a good thing. For me, it’s been positively challenging on myriad levels. I observe a different way of living and working on a daily basis and think about how I might want to mentally and physically change my approach to both when I return home. For instance, in the case of how conservative those around me seem to be when it comes to resources and consumption, I hope I can be just as such come April back in Brooklyn. When it comes to the issue of cleanliness in our kitchen, however, I’m not sure if I am incredibly uptight and slightly OCD as an individual or perhaps as an American, or if I have the right to be somewhat horrified.

Just as service started this afternoon, Malaga (a kid from Malaga, Spain—shocking), hopped into the center of the kitchen and plopped himself down at the central table. One of the four head chefs pulled out a sewing kit and a bottle of alcohol and iodine. After donning a pair of latex gloves, he had Malaga put his leg up on top of his knee and began to puncture (with a needle from the sewing kit) what looked like a boil on Malaga’s leg. Immediately, blood started to spurt out everywhere--the head chef even joked about how the blood might reach his eye. Realizing that he didn’t have anything to absorb and wipe up the blood, he shouted for plate wipes (small square cocktail napkins) and began dabbing away. He never took off his apron nor his chef’s coat and put bloody napkin after bloody napkin on the table.

What amazed me beyond this unhygienic and stomach-turning scene was that our executive chef had cooked a small plate of kokotxas and opened a few bottles of wine for one of his good amigos who happened to have stopped by. They didn’t flinch nor seem to notice what was taking place.

While this might seem like an isolated incident, there are daily practices that stun me. Perhaps New York City has an incredibly strict health code, which I now have an unending amount of respect and admiration for, or perhaps culturally, Americans are too preoccupied with dirt and germs, but here are some things that really, really, bother me in no apparent order—

There are no hand-washing stations and the act itself is not enforced. We are lucky if there is a bottle of dish detergent soap on the sink for us to use after going to the bathroom. The same sponges, mops, rags, buckets and brooms used to clean the toilets and showers are used to clean the cooking equipment that stays within our stations (that does not get sent to the dishwasher). The mops, brooms and buckets are stored outside in a huge dumpster where they are never able to dry (especially considering how much it rains here). We’ve served four-day old lobster. We’ve never thrown out the panko that we use to bread the raw oyster—with egg whites. In fact, it is my job to add more panko to the vessel when it is getting low. We use thick, blue, paper towel-like cloths to cover our mis-en-place—things like lettuces and chives that we don’t want to dry out. Those cloths are used minimally for one-week until they smell and then we are permitted to throw them out. Each station has a special, incredibly soft, blue towel used to wipe the plates that gets rinsed after every service, but then folded and put back in the refrigerator—again, not able to dry. We do the same with cheesecloth. Produce is stored on the floor of our walk-in (no the bottom shelf, I’m talking straight floor) with the lobsters. The water bottles that we drink out of that the restaurant provides to us are saved (not washed) and re-used to store and freeze stock. I guess that’s not terrible if the stock is then boiled at some point. I may or may not have seen individuals rounding up all of the half-empty water bottles, consolidating them, and then storing them in the large walk-in. After witnessing this—I have made sure that every bottle of water I take is sealed.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in the case of kitchen cleanliness, I don’t think my “American-ness” or inherent OCD is repulsed and turned off by these practices, it’s just my common sense. Where is Spain’s health department?? (Although I am not applying this to the country at large!)

I know I'm behind the Times

so to speak...

but I was excited to learn that NYC has a new Basque inspired resto!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/dining/reviews/16rest.html?ref=dining

Why I love having Spanish roommates...

When Deborah went home for the weekend to visit her grandmother she can back with this--

Fresh cheese and wine...

And homemade chorizo...I mean, really...

Improving My Txakoli Pour

Look at the height!

Family Meal at the Flat

Josh, Leandro and I spent close to three hours today in our flat’s kitchen exchanging recipes from our respective groups and general all-time favorites. It inspired side conversations about different techniques, methods, equipment and products we’ve employed, seen and used as well.

My brain is in overdrive and like a sponge. Rarely have we gone an hour without discussing food and cooking. The amount I learn is unending. The more knowledge I gain makes me aware of how little I really know.

We spent this evening combating the Tuesday (our Sunday) blues cooking in the kitchen together. Palafox made a traditional Mexican dish with rice, peppers, onions, meat and hot sauce. He also contributed a dish of granny smith apples, mandarins, and kiwis with cayenne pepper, salt and lime juice. I concocted a small salad of cherry tomato, avocado, shallots, baby, pepperoncini-like peppers, preserved tuna in olive oil with a balsamic dressing.

We ate together, at the table, like a family. Even though all of us are budget conscious, everyone generously shares when it comes to food. I will miss our family meals and Spanglish conversations when I leave.

Espionage

We aren't allowed to take pictures in the kitchen. It is forbidden. Josh and Freddy were both courageous and sneaky enough, however, to take some action shots. Take a peek!

An undressed ensalada tibia waiting to go out.

Assembling the ensalada tibia.

Cutting hinojo (fennel) into arborio rice-sized pieces for the fennel risotto.

A view of the primeras ktichen taken from outside the restaurant. Me, Freddy, Valentina.

Domingo

Domingo is our Friday. It is undoubtedly the best day of the week. Exhaustion is cumulative. By Sunday, we are operating with little sleep and forced energy. This morning, no one could get out of bed. Flo and I had to wake everyone up. The chefs were late to the restaurant and Freddy told me that while alarm after alarm sounded in the basement rooms where a handful of people sleep, no one got up. Fatigue was rampant, contagious yawns everywhere.

This restaurant requires total submission. You must give yourself over entirely. The reward? Time to hone existing skills and the opportunity to acquire new ones. While we are in the thick of it—five 16-hour grueling days—it is difficult to feel any change taking place. In this sense, it is comparable to learning a new language. In the beginning, you must pause and think and formulate words and sentences. In the end, your speech is natural and it flows without hesitation.

When I watch the exceptionally talented chefs work in our kitchen, I become obsessed; I want to be able to cook as fluently as they do.

The Lasarte sky before walking into work this evening...

Thumper and Geodes

Today, I had the opportunity to watch the head chef of carnes butcher a hare. At first, I watched from afar, but as he moved on to the second and third hares, I became a magnet. I drew closer and closer until finally I had creepily positioned myself directly in front of him.

Although the hare was large, there wasn’t a significant amount of meat on its bones. It had been previously skinned, but not beheaded. The flesh was an electrifying red with dark, aubergine-like tones throughout. I expected the seeping blood to eventually turn a repelling brown, but it didn’t. It stayed a vibrant red, staining everything around it.

David worked quickly, but calmly. His strokes were purposeful, none being extraneous. Despite the small crowd of five or six of us that had gathered to watch, there was an air of tranquility and awe that surrounded him.

He extracted delicate bones—the spine, the rib cage, the leg bones—swiftly, in whole, clean, pieces. It was remarkable. Even with the mess of blood pooling in front of him, his white chef’s coat and plastic apron remained pristine. Only his hands were stained pink.

I asked him questions about the hare’s origins. He told me it came from a dry part of Spain and that it had been shot. He threw a nerd size piece of a bullet fragment as evidence.

Half an hour or so later, a female stage from Boston, Tracy, came over and said that David had prepared the full hare dish for the chica New York (this has become a kitchen nickname for me recently) to try. (He had also prepared it for some members of the carnes team). I was tentative and nervous—I haven’t sampled hare before.

The dish is no small feat. The entire hare is pounded thin and stuffed with a mushroom farse containing leeks, carrots, shallots, bread and hare blood. On top of the farse, a foie gras torchon is laid. The three layers are rolled into a log and then wrapped tightly in plastic. After piercing the plastic with multiple holes, the log is placed in a bag with deer stock (yes, deer stock!) and bagged yet again before being cooked sous-vide for 36 hours at exactly 68 degrees Celsius. Once it is cooked, the log is sliced into thick medallions. Each hare plate consists of one medallion, a wedge of a bacon and potato terrine, a sampling of sautéed chanterelles and black trumpets, a sauce made from the reduction of all of the liquid from the sous-vide bag with additional blood put into it, and lastly, a truffle foam, made from a puree of potatoes, stock, white truffle oil, black truffle segments, and cream.

The dish intimidated me. The colors were dark and slightly menacing. I was shocked, though, because I loved it. I expected it to be gamey and bitter—it was anything but. I know this sounds incredibly disrespectful given the complexity of the dish, but it tasted slightly like meatloaf—really good meatloaf.

I also made my way over to the fish station today in time to watch the red mullet being cooked. The filet is prepared in a way that makes the scales stand up. The cook simply pushes the scales against the grain so that they become perpendicular to the skin. It is like a reverse game of dominoes—once you push against the front row of scales, which are parallel to the skin, the rest are forced to stand verticially from the initial force.

Just as the dish is fired, the cook takes the filet, places it flesh side down, skin side up, on a tami, which is suspended over a large pot. He then pours a continuous stream of 250 degree Celsius oil over the top of the fish from a large steel pitcher. The scales, which are edible, crackle and fry, while the flesh of the fish is cooked. The result is a beautiful filet with crystal-like flakes that stand erect at odd angles over its entire surface area. It reminds me of a cracked geode with a crystal interior. The fish is never cooked traditionally on the grill or in a pan—the hot oil provides enough heat to get the job done.

A fun service full of sightseeing!

Yodada—My New Refrigerator Staple

Every morning I am responsible for making yodada. It is simple and follows a classic method, but I find it delicious.

First, I sweat a finely diced shallot in soft olive oil. Once the shallot pieces are moments away from developing color, I deglaze with white wine. I reduce this until it is almost dry—perhaps a tablespoon or two left in the pan—and add mussel stock. I bring the stock to a boil and take it off the heat. So far, so simple. Nothing groundbreaking here.

I blend this mixture for a minute or two and strain to remove the shallot pieces. Next, I whisk in micrui, a tapioca starch, and a hell-of-a-lot of crème fraiche until it is fully incorporated to the base. Finally, I reduce the yodada down until I have 280 grams of liquid. When it cools, it turns to the consistency of hummus. It is thick and spreads easily.

The end result is a delicious creamy nonsense with notes of everything good—cream, wine, shallot and shellfish—that I want to slather over everything. This morning, I found myself dreaming about all the ways I will use it when I come home. Particularly, I imagine using it in a chicken salad with an accent of something sweet—grapes, dates, apples? Or perhaps in a lobster or crab salad with fresh minced chives. Or perhaps left liquid for mussels to swim in with sautéed onions or poured over a filet of firm white fish with a garnish of a fried rosemary sprig …

Plating for 17

We have had a lot of large tables come through the restaurant recently, spanning anywhere between 14 and 17 people. Today, we had a table of 17 for lunch (with three children in attendance) that paid 240 Euro or 320 US dollars per head. I hope it was a special (very) occasion.

Plating numerous comprehensive and complex dishes is a production. Every individual has a role to play; every tool is a prop and has a function. To start, trays are set up in one line on one of the black slate counters of the central kitchen and plates brought out and placed on top of the trays just moments before the course is fired so that they are as hot as possible when they get to the table. Cooks stand on either side of the counter (or island, for that matter), ready to move deliberately, precisely and without hesitation at the servers command. When the course is fired, it is like the curtain going up at the start of a play—everyone moves into action. Typically, one cook will have only one item to place on the plate. Every plate is plated in the exact same order, so in the instance of the fennel risotto, the fennel risotto is dropped, followed by a ring of foam, followed by a small heap of raw fennel salad, followed by two fresh herbs. When the first cook starts with the first plate, the second cook begins to follow. There’s a certain rush when everyone is moving uniformly and in tandem with one another. When I am a part of this line, I like looking back to see how quickly the pieces have melded together to create an image that is awesome.

I love watching this production as much as I love being a part of it. I find it mesmerizing. It’s like watching an artist do a sketch in fast-forward. It begins with a blank white canvas and within seconds, becomes a beautiful composition of layers, textures, colors and temperature. Moments later, the tray is whisked away, brought to the diner, only to be deconstructed and delayered to its original white state.

There was an extra egg dish leftover today at the end of one of these grand platings. The chef de parti of carnes, Sergi, allowed Freddy, Valentina and I to sample the dish. (We were also lording over and behind the cooks as they plated—he had no one else to give it to!) It begins with a layer of mushroom ragu over which a perfectly poached egg (poached to the tenth of a degree for an exact number of minutes) is gently laid. Four thin strips of sautéed duck hearts complete the stack. A swipe of a butter-colored foie and truffle cream adorns the plate’s rim in addition to diminutive buttered and toasted breadcrumbs that have been pushed together by two pieces of stiff paper to form a perfectly straight line. Pretty. Darn. Delicious.

Jose, The Tasting Menu, and the Backstreet Boys

Jose is a server at our restaurant. He is 19 and from Spain. Although he speaks a very minimal amount of English, he can recite the tasting menu from the restaurant in English perfectly. My favorite part is his impersonation of the diner he is reciting the menu to. He did this for us while we were enjoying a coffee (tea for me!) at an outdoor cafe on the Boulevard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYLrHxLhElI

And here is Jose, again, who can sing the Backstreet Boys song “As Long as You Love Me” also in perfect English. He started humming the song and then asked Flo to translate the lines for him in Spanish so that he could understand their meaning. Somehow, I was able to capture part of this conversation on video. It may be one of my favorite moments in Spain to date, especially when he busts out in his own a cappella version with a drum solo. Please take note of the fabulous Euro shades and gelled hair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJXZ_DLQXsg

Tapas, Tapas, Tapas-Mencanta!

Oh tapas! They are so delicious and wonderful. We had an extraordinary, very typical lunch in San Sebastian today. It was a blast.

The bar, but we sat at a small side table. See the jamon legs?

Fried stuffed mussels and croquettas

Tortilla bacalao

Hola jamon!

Acorn-fed, the best kind.

Pulpo

Beef

Goodbye beef and necessary plate cleaning via bread

Happy and full: Leandro, Wander, Me

Felix Cumpleanos!

For my birthday, the chef below our executive chef (and partner of the restaurant) busted out a bottle of txakoli. Txakoli is made and can only be found in the Basque region. It is a bubbly white wine, similar to champagne, but with softer, more palatable bubbles. He did the traditional pour, which is done from a frighteningly high level to oxygenate the wine once it hits the glass. In fact, the height at which you pour from is so critical and highly respected that competitions are held throughout the Basque region annually. I couldn’t believe that I was given this privilege and allowed to drink with him in the kitchen. It was awesome and came after a very intense, fully booked lunch service.

We had a great time that night. All of our flatmates and kitchen colleagues went to a Cheers-like bar where most of our cooks congregate during the weekends. I feasted on albondigas, my favorite meatballs, calamari, patatas brava, croquettes and tortilla bacalao—the fat kid birthday special. Bottles of txakoli were in no short supply, neither were cervezas. We followed our feast with a spin at Naiban, another local favorite for the kitchen cooks, where the bartender Nai, with bleach blonde and black hair played Born in the USA and my favorite Spanish song in my honor. She also reprimanded me for not showing up on Mondays and Tuesdays for my Spanish lessons.

And due to Mert’s unbelievable hotel rate at the Hotel Maria Christina in San Sebastian, I came home to a beautiful hotel room all to my own for practically nothing. I have a real bed, a shower with pressure and peace and quiet.

Happy birthday to me!

St. Agatha's

Tonight, February 4^th, (I’m unsure when I’ll be able to post this) was the eve of Saint Agatha's, a traditional Basque holiday where the choirs of many Basque villages and cities dress up in typical costumes and sing traditional verses through the streets in honour of Saint Agatha. They came to the restaurant’s back door, knocked their staffs on the pavement to announce their presence and sang to us. Our executive chef and owner brought out bottle after bottle of champagne and demanded muchos platos of his signature jamon for the group. I loved watching how engaged and benevolent he was with them. He shook their hands, joined in certain verses, and knocked his own staff against the pavement with them. I felt temporarily transported to another era.

A quick reflection on my first month

I’ve completed exactly four weeks in the kitchen. I’m blown away by how fast the time has passed. It’s made me reflect on just how much I’ve learned in such a short amount of time. When I am in the thick of it—in the kitchen by 8:15 AM, out by midnight, five days a week—it’s difficult to grasp just how much I’m taking in, but I realize I’ve been like a sponge soaking up technique, method, philosophy, experience, ingredients, management, and more. I’ve already filled my first notebook with recipes and reflections and will be starting a second this coming Wednesday.

I’ve learned how to make a sage and spinach hollandaise, with pearls of grapefruit, fresh squeezed orange juice and finely hashed walnuts, yodada, a crème fraiche, white wine and micriu thickened sauce-like vinaigrette, fresh seafood aioli with bougavente, scallops, shrimp and crab, tomato water gelatin, onion cream, a mushroom and truffle farse, truffle and foie cream, pil pil sauce, how to use rice and tapioca starch as thickeners as opposed to flour, lecite in foams and agar agar in gelatin. I’ve learned how lovely and delicious kokotxcha is—pendulums of flesh that grow in the throat of hake or cod. I’ve learned how refreshing and thought provoking it can be to mix both hot and cold items in one dish—for instance, a hot fennel risotto (the fennel pieces are cut to the size of and used in place of arborio rice) topped with a sliced, cold, raw fennel salad. I’ve learned how to use one product in myriad ways throughout one dish such as the squid ink ravioli. The ravioli are comprised of a filling of squid ink, fish stock and vegetables, wrapped in tissue paper slices of squid, and swim in a broth of seafood stock. This is accompianed by grilled baby squid and a toasted squid ink rice chip. I’ve learned about mixing savory and sweet ingredients like the salmon keia with seaweed powder of hazenut, coffee and vanilla and the mille-feuille of smoked eel, foie-gras, spring onions and green apple. I’ve learned about layering and textures and have been introduced to new kitchen equipment like the pacojet.

I could go on. Most importantly, it makes me realize how invaluable this experience has been and will be. I crave more.

Extebarri

Last weekend was epic. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able this entry and accompanying photographs until now.

Nothing beats lingering symptoms of post fiesta-ing like a 10 kilometer run around Lasarte. Wander and I set out in the typical damp, rainy, oppressive weather in the relatively early (11:00 AM!) morning. We were perfect running partners, keeping the exact same pace. He is desperately trying to learn English, as I am Spanish, so we exchanged basic phrases while we were still able to talk. When we ran passed the horse racing fields, we both remarked at the exact same moment, “It smells bad!” in our respective languages. The new phrase came in handy the following Wednesday in the kitchen when I needed to make mayonnaise. The egg yolks had gone bad and smelled terrible. I was able to communicate this intelligently, without several gestures to my chef instructor, which made me proud. I need to go on more runs with Wander!

Tuesday morning, a group of us set out for Bilbao. It was a difficult wake up. Monday evening resulted in an impromptu karaoke session in a tiny bar run by a lovely, older Peruvian couple. The husband and wife sang a love song to each other and dedicated it to the Americana (me) because I had told Gladys, the wife and co-owner, that I hadn’t seen my husband in a month, missed him terribly and was very excited to see him soon. She gave me a Heineken t-shirt as a gift when I left.

Flo, Josh, Aroldo, Leandro and I raced to the train to meet Freddy and Sean. We were in miserable shape. Flo tried to flat iron her hair on the train while Freddy and Sean hoovered butter-filled pastries and coffee.

We took a 75 minute bus ride from San Sebastian to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim. The exterior of the building is worth the trip in and of itself. It is majestic and wild and modern—a mix of industrial mediums like steel and concrete that curves and defies linear paths. Jeff Koons’ pieces surround the museum, including an enormous topiary dog punctuated with vivid petals of red, yellow and purple. Canals wind their way around the front of the building with elevated pedestrian walkways, one of which being occupied by an enormous daddy long-legs made of steel.

Despite the appeal of the Guggenheim, however, the real draw for us to travel to Bilbao was to visit the small restaurant, Etxebarri, in the tiny Basque town, Axpe.

Axpe is about one hour and change outside of Bilbao. We took two local buses to arrive. The drive was stunning. It felt slightly strange to be traveling through the bucolic countryside and towering mountains on local, public buses. We passed acres of fertile, green pastures where fat, cotton-ball covered sheep grazed. The tops of the imposing mountains were snow covered and hidden in clouds of dense fog, which made the air heavy and damp.

I don’t know if it’s routine or not, but the bus driver was kind enough to drop us just outside the restaurant. The small, stone home that is Extebarri looks like it popped out of a fairy tale.

Victor Arguinzoniz is the head chef and owner of Extebarri. He cooks everything in two wood-fired ovens or over unique, self-invented charcoal grills. Hand cranks set above and connected to each grill make it possible to adjust the level of the grill, creating or diminishing the distance between the platform and charcoals. On a daily basis, woods such as oak, apple, orange, grape or green olive are used to make varying types of charcoal. It is the produce itself that dictates what type of charcoal must be used in its preparation and cooking method. The produce is essentially infused with the essence of the charcoal it is cooked with.

However rustic the surrounding environment, the dining room was an elegant sea of white tablecloths, polished wine glasses and servers in black suits. We were embarrassingly underdressed, but welcomed all the same and after some deliberation, we all decided to do the tasting menu.

If ever God was to give me a sign that I was in the exact right place, he did it through our first course—a long, rectangular slab of handmade goat butter. For a former butter stick guzzler (fact, given up at around age five as it was not socially or publicly appropriate), it was a dream come true. The thin, opaque portion supported a thin layer of black truffle, amethyst colored smoked salt, and a tiny yellow flower bud. Although we had bread on the table, the chef intends the course to be eaten as is, sans accompaniment. I was happy to oblige.

The smokiness that came through the butter was powerful and overwhelming—the goat milk was smoked before it was turned into butter. The rich, creamy bite reminded me of bacon fat and melted quickly in my mouth. Sean was put off by the level of the butter’s smokiness and although I could understand why—the flavor released after ingesting the butter made me feel as though I was inhaling and exhaling in the middle of a smoke pit—I didn’t share his feeling. I imagined using the butter with scrambled eggs, over French toast or pancakes, in a pan to sauté onions or asparagus.

The second course was a lovely, long thin salted anchovy over a slice of grilled and oiled baguette. I typically don’t prefer anchovies, but I savored this one. It was superbly fresh and devoid of any powerful pungent fishy tastes and smells. The anchovy was creamy, acting as a spread slathered on top of the baguette.

I was nervous for the third course—grilled goose barnacles or percebes. They are not aesthetically appealing—Sean commented that they looked like turtle’s feet. They demand serious physical labor, from the time they are caught to the time they are eaten. The spade like, nail covered head must be twisted off and the long, rubber cannoli shaped meat extracted from its casing. Freddy tucked his napkin into his shirt, protecting himself from the cherry red juices that rapidly squirted out as we twisted and pulled. The dish was naked, the percebes the only attraction. They tasted like a less salty, solid form of smoked ocean water. The texture fell somewhere between mussels and calamari. I loved them.

A tiny grilled oyster, nestled inside a shell five or six times its size, followed the percebes. The pearl gray oyster nugget lay on rectangular, confetti-sized pieces of seaweed and was covered with a small dollop of percebe liquid smoked foam. The portion could have been eaten in one bite, but I made it into three, appreciating the overall lightness of the dish and the super subtle hints of smoke and ocean with powerful oyster overtones.

A frighteningly wonderful, fatty generous brick of chorizo was immediately deemed one of our table’s most favorite dishes. An equal size piece of grilled polenta cake supported the luxurious and velvety fresh meat. I was surprised at its lack of chorizo-y flavor, but not disappointed. In fact, as I neared the end of my portion, I started to massage the inside of my mouth with the meat and polenta to make it last longer.

Our sixth course did not hold up to the courses we had sampled up to that point. The grilled egg yolk was remarkable in appearance—a bright yellow pop of a perfectly intact yolk seemingly suspended over creamed purple potatoes and topped with paper-thin shavings of black Perigord truffle. Although creamy and rich, it needed salt. The flavors were lost and indiscernible.

The grilled salt cod was beautiful and soft and served with the traditional Basque pil pil sauce, an emulsion of cod juices, olive oil and garlic. The roasted red pepper, three grilled spinach leaves and one grilled scallion were simultaneously quiet but commanding. Although the cod was the central focus of the dish, it almost provided a blank canvas for its deliberate and thoughtfully chosen counterparts.

The last savory course was grilled beef on the bone. They should have named it Every Carnivore’s Dream Come True. I can’t imagine a more perfectly cooked, tender piece of meat (Peter Luger’s and Strip House would be put to shame). The browned, crisp exterior was coated in thick flakes of crunchy salt and provided a stark contrast against the raw, crimson red interior. I wanted to bathe in its juices, which I soaked up with torn pieces from our dense boule of bread.

The first dessert—the wild fruit infusion with fresh cheese ice cream—exploded with tang and tart and cut the residual fat of the steak. The ice cream truly tasted of fresh cheese, complimenting the fruit with equal tang, but supporting it with a milky coolness.

And the pane perdu with smoked milk ice cream? It was the second sign God gave to me that day that I was just where I should be. We had come full circle. Similar to the method by which the butter was created, the milk was smoked before it was turned into ice cream. And just as the butter reminded me of bacon fat, the ice cream contained bacon notes as well and paired unbelievably with the pane perdu.

Four hours later and I had the post-Thanksgiving heartbeat. It was an incredibly educational experience and an honor to eat with Freddy, Sean, Josh, Carlos and Flo. We were like pigs in you-know-what, going crazy over each dish, discussing its preparation, appearance and flavor. We endlessly brainstormed what methods we might use in the future, how we might do things differently, what parts we might reproduce. Freddy furiously wrote in his black notebook. My brain, my heart, my body—everything was in overdrive.

Freddy and tor-tee-jah

We spent a lunch service with no reservations whatsoever and a dinner service with a table for two and a table for four. Needless to say, it was a slow day. I oddly feel more tired despite the inactivity. The standing for hours on end gets tiresome. I learned a new word tonight—aburrido—boring. (And abuelo, which sounded the same to me as aburrido, but is the word for grandfather, and, by consequence, abuela, grandmother.)

The best part of my day came from talking with Freddy. As I previously mentioned, Freddy worked at Degustation, one of my most favorite restaurants in New York and a place I hope to work at one day (should I be that lucky!). He keeps a small, black moleskin notebook in his pocket. It goes wherever he goes; he has it on him at all times. Freddy takes incredibly detailed notes about every restaurant he visits, every experience he with new food product, every meal he has eaten since he entered culinary school. The diary also has notes on recipes and techniques from the various kitchens he has worked in. Interestingly enough, regardless of how passionate he is about food and cooking, he does not want to be a chef. His dream is to open a restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal in the next year or two. He wants to be a restaurateur.

During our down time this afternoon, Freddy shared some of his favorite recipes from his cherished black book. He gave me notes on a pumpkin financier he developed himself based off of a Balthazar recipe, a mustard ice cream that was served with a duck tartare at a restaurant in Barcelona, and a beer gelatin he created at Degustation that was paired with a deconstructed, traditional Portugese dish that is similar to a crab salad slathered on toast. The beer gelatin was served in a shot glass with beer foam resting on its top to make the whole ensemble look like a miniature pint of your favorite brew. We brainstormed ways to use the mustard ice cream—like using it in a deconstructed hot dog dish.

Throughout our recipe exchange we sampled things like salty fingers, diminutive jalapeno shaped pieces that taste exactly like the ocean and we also tried oyster leaves, deep pearl-green leaves half the size of my palm that taste genuinely like an oyster. I imagined what the two might taste like with scrambled eggs. Freddy has no reservations about sampling things in our kitchen and often offers me a stolen sample when I’m with him. He jots down notes on the product, company and his thoughts after everything he tastes. We also tried most of the gorgeously vibrant tiny flowers that go on the ensalada tibia.

Canario, our former mini sous-chef, has been moved on from our group to rotate through carnes, but because of the slow service, he came over to our section of the kitchen to hang out/stand at attention with us. Every single time he passes me in the kitchen he will say, “AHHHH-LEX!” in his best muppet voice and I will respond, “CAH-NAH-REO!” Due to the fact that Canario does not speak much English aside from Yes We Can, Obama, McDonald’s, and Coca-Cola, this is pretty much where our conversation ends. The only real deviation is the intonation we use in our greetings, which changes every time we pass each other. When he sees Freddy, he greets him with, “Hey! Portugay!” because Freddy is from Portugal and someone recently taught Canario the word gay in English. He thinks this is hysterical and very clever.

The last thing Freddy taught me this evening was how to make tortilla—the true Spanish omelet. We were charged with making enough for a staff meal of about 60. In the restaurant, they make a very simple tortilla (tor-tee-jah) with tiny cubed potatoes and finely diced onions that have been slow cooked in oil.

We set up in the central kitchen, which immediately made me nervous. The executive and sous-chefs made remarks out loud, saying that an American girl wouldn’t be able to cook a proper tortilla. Although Freddy and I were only cooking for a staff meal, the pressure was still on. I was determined to get it right.

Freddy told me that the very thin layer of oil in the skillet had to get very hot before putting in the mix of eggs, potatoes and onions. I followed his lead, filling the pan about halfway and moving the mix around as if I were making scrambled eggs. Then, we allowed the mixture to rest on a low flame so that it could set. Once the omelet had the proper color on its bottom side we had to flip it. This is not your ordinary, spatula-assisted pancake flip. The tortilla flip involves an overturned plate on the top of the giant skillet, turning the skillet upside down onto the plate (with a bend in the knees and a slight heave like a weightlifter) so that the omelet’s uncooked side ends up face down on the plate. We then slid the omelet back into the skillet so that the other side could cook.

My chef instructor watched me as I attempted my own. I barely mastered the flip and when it came time to slide the omelet back into the pan, it broke into pieces. She grabbed the skillet from me, swore at me in Spanish and pushed me out of the way. The executive and sous-chefs were laughing at me.

She allowed me to attempt a second one. By the grace of some Spanish culinary God, this time, it came out perfectly. I had the right color, no cracks, and the perfect, round, layer cake shape. She made me march it, on a separate platter, into the center of the kitchen in front of the chefs to show them. I felt like a monkey. They put their arms up in the air and did the Basque cheer, “Garrote!” Our chef instructor called me something equivalent to the tortilla queen in Spanish and made everyone who passed by watch the American girl crank out more tortillas.

The upside? I got to do a lot of cooking and for everything that I did, she said, “Muy Bueno, Allie!”

cochina vs. cocina

Our first day back for the week was tiresome. Li, our Malaysian groupmate, got kicked out and sent to production for accidentally touching our chef instructor when she walked by her and Deborah is leaving.

Deborah gets to rotate to pastry and it makes me sad. Although we can’t verbally communicate with each other in depth, we have developed a relatively close relationship. She is like my ambassador in the group and has given me more mis-en-place to do in the mornings—for example, a fish aioli made with crab, shrimp, lobster, and scallops and yodada, a sauce comprised of shallots, white wine, mussel stock, micrui and crème fraiche—because she knows I can get it done and do a good job. (She told Aroldo this, who in turn, told me this.) I fear that with her gone, I will have less to do in the mornings.

I was too tired to shower this evening. Deborah came into the room and asked, “Alex, lucha?” I told her no.

“Cochina!” she responded, because I once improperly pronounced cocina, or kitchen, as cochina, which is a very bad, very dirty word for women.

Although the joke is on me, I like that Deborah feels that she can make fun of me. It makes me feel like we are somehow communicating.

0 to 60

We went from 0 to 60 this Saturday. After multiple services that were incredibly slow, we were booked out for both lunch and dinner. I was both apprehensive and excited. There is such intensity to plating one single dish that I had trouble imagining how much more intense the atmosphere in the kitchen would be when various dishes from different stations were being plated at once.

The day didn’t start out particularly well—Saturday is our group’s bathroom cleaning day. The restaurant bathrooms must be cleaned three times between the time we arrive and depart. I was part of the first cleaning rotation. Although this wasn’t my first time cleaning the bathrooms, I was especially disgusted Saturday. I had trouble getting over the fact that I was paying, in some sense, to scour shower stalls, dislodge scum and small hairs, all the while being trapped in fumes of bleach and other assorted cleaning products. Our chef instructor came down to check on us, tore the mops and brooms out of our hands, threw them on the floor (check for first floor-throwing of the day!) and screamed at us because we weren’t cleaning in the right order. Go figure.

Once my bathroom shift was behind me and I turned my hands a vibrating red from washing them, I was better able to focus on the upcoming services. There was definitely a frenetic energy in the kitchen. Although it was quiet as it usually is, people moved faster. Instead of walking rapidly through the kitchen they moved at a pace just below a run. Bodies hurdled over countertops as opposed to walking around them. The excitement was contagious. It’s been four months since I’ve had that adrenaline rush from the anticipation of a busy service.

What unnerved me was the fact that our chef instructor does not allow us to cross-train on the group’s different dishes unless she verbally permits it. Consequently, the majority of individuals in our group only know how to plate the one dish they’ve been assigned to. It was slightly nerve-wracking to imagine how we would be able to help each other out when time was of the essence. For example, at db, when I worked the burger station, I might drop pans for the entremetier or help the sous chef plate if it was a busy service. On the line, we were all expected to know what was going on around us and anticipate what someone’s needs may be and to help each other. This made for a smooth, efficient service. Here, I was afraid that by restricting us to just one dish, our chef instructor was ultimately inhibiting our group’s overall performance and success. I think she deliberately does this unfortunately, to maintain a measure of control. At db, my chef pushed people to do as much as they were possibly capable of in the kitchen. He wanted us to move through stations as soon as we were ready. On more than one occasion he told me to always learn the work ahead of me, that as soon as I was promoted to a new station, I had to learn the work of the next one. This created a competitive environment in the kitchen, but one that was also rewarding and full of dedicated cooks.

Within one moment, we were in the thick of service. The restaurant does not have an electronic ticket system—everything is handwritten. The waiter will come in, call the ticket, post one copy on a central board and give a second copy to the heads of each station. The heads of each station will recall the ticket within their respective group and post it on the group’s board. That means that 12 people (in our group, specifically) are fighting to see one ticket. It is frustrating. Unfortunately, when you have a group that speaks as many languages as ours does, numbers get lost in translation; it’s risky to rely on verbal communication especially in a restaurant that accepts only perfection. The best and most accurate way for me to keep track of my canelon dishes is to simply check the tickets myself, every time.

With all of our group’s dishes being plated at one time, our chef instructor was unable to lord over each independent station like she normally does. It was freeing. Considering that she makes us feel as though we can’t do anything without her, it was gratifying to work together as a team and create beautiful dishes. I felt confident; I had control over what was going out, what I had left to send and what I needed to prepare for. I didn’t feel lost.

I was still permitted to fry the oysters. At one hectic moment, she thrust the spider at me (the tool used to extract the oyster from the oil), which was already covered in oil and then screamed at me for getting oil all over the kitchen, unintentionally doing her best imitation of Zoro. I reminded myself that I had now fried the oysters many times, knew what color the oyster had to be and remained calm. In fact, I’m finding that the more crazy and physically wild she becomes, the easier it is to stay composed. At another chaotic moment, our chef instructor screamed at me that I almost burned her with the oil. The thing is—she practically holds my arm when I fry the oysters. She can’t help herself; she can barely stand not having total control. Good thing for the language barrier—I wanted to tell her that if she came any closer, I would burn her with a drop or two of oil.

I’m desperate to try the oyster. It is panko covered and fried and rests on a small dollop of a spinach hollandaise mixed with pearls of pink and white grapefruit, fresh orange juice, minced oyster and walnuts. A small spoonful of tart blood orange granita rests at its foot. I’ve heard that frying the oyster for only a few seconds keeps the oyster cool and creamy within it’s hot crunchy exterior.

Our chef instructor allowed Valentina, the 20-year-old girl from Argentina, to fry a couple of oysters during the service. I was jealous. Smoking jealous—just like the oil we fry the damn things in.

Given the pace, it was the fastest and most tiring day we’ve had in the past three weeks. I felt like I received a full body walloping at the end of it. I think others did, too—Las, the tall, lanky man from Mali, accidentally tipped over a barquette of salt taking out our group’s very last plate of the evening to the servers. He immediately got kicked out sent to the production group.

And just when I thought our successful evening was going to end on a bad note, Flo’s new boyfriend, Pacquito, who works in pescados, snuck us two perfectly cubed squid ink ravioli on squid ink crackers to sample. They are wrapped so tightly that the first puncture causes the hot ink to literally explode all over the inside of your mouth and on the back of your throat. It was heavenly—a serious treat after a very long day.