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!”
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