Honest advice to a budding cook/ chef with no experience whatsoever

This is a slightly altered version of a real email that I wrote to a young man who found my blog and is considering culinary school, but had no real experience cooking. He wrote me that he was intrigued by cooking, and I thought it pertinent to share this advice with a wider audience. I get the "should I go to culinary school?" question all the time, and I think it really depends on your situation, but the following is the advice I give to anyone who is considering culinary school without some background in restaurants.

Hey ****!

I can definitely relate, as it took me about 5 years of waffling back and forth before I finally decided to go to culinary school. I checked out FCI, ICE, CIA Hyde, J&W in various locations, AI in various locations, CCA, CSCA, and Western Culinary before deciding on OCI. Let me go ahead and squash your concerns about not being good enough for culinary school, because I didn't know shit about cooking besides what I had learned as a hobbyist cook and food geek, and most of the people around me at school knew even less. Now that I'm on the other side of it and have been cooking professionally for about 6 years, I feel that if I had to do it all over again, I would still go to culinary school, but I'm glad I had some restaurant experience before I went, and that's my advice to you if you want to know whether or not your cut out for this industry: GET SOME RESTAURANT EXPERIENCE.

Books/magazines/websites can supplement your education, but real learning comes from doing, and doing things over and over and over and over again until it's muscle memory and/or intuition. You will do this at culinary school to an extent, but I think it's best to know before you make that career move and investment. Is there a place in your town you can go in and do prep when you're not in school? Even a little family-run diner that does things from scratch will be able to show you the inner workings of a restaurant. If you're lucky and there's a nice-ish restaurant nearby, see if you can get a weekly stage (stage= French word for unpaid trial period). A lot of cooks and chefs do stages in other restaurants to expand their horizons. If you can go into a restaurant, offer your services one or two days a week for free (Saturday mornings/afternoons are great, as most restaurants need extra hands for prepping Saturday night service), and just be their yes man for a few weeks/months, you will learn A LOT. Even if it's just for one night. Most of all, you will see what it's like in real life, and whether or not you're really cut out for this line of work/life. And also whether or not you want to invest in culinary school.

Cooking in a professional kitchen is nothing at all like cooking for your family or what you see in cooking shows; For the first few years of pro cooking especially, it's a lot of hard work for little pay, not seeing your non-restaurant friends or family, not getting "normal" days off, and simply following orders ("Yes Chef!"). You're cooking other people's recipes and menus, and you're doing it their way, and your doing the same thing over and over, night after night. You're paying your dues and building your foundation. You're not exercising your creativity, and you're not writing menus and coming up with dishes. You're lucky to have an idea of yours show up on a menu in your first three to five years of cooking--I still remember the day I got an oyster mignonette on the menu, almost a year into my first job. I felt like I climbed a mountain. I didn't get anything else on a menu for another 2 years, when my chef was stuck in NY during a snowstorm and the sous asked me to come up with a pasta special for just that night. One menu item and one sauce in my first three years, out of hundreds of menu items I cooked. You're burning/cutting/breaking yourself in new and weird ways, and you're eating irregularly at best. You burn shit and your chef gets pissed and you feel worse than you ever have, until you fuck up that other thing and your sous almost beats your ass. You're really tired and you eat Hot Pockets for dinner after service at 1AM because you don't have the energy to cook for yourself after cooking all day.

BUT! If you have the "it", the X-factor, the thing that lives in us crazy cooks and chefs that forces you night after night to work your ass off and do better than you did before and want to be better for your Chef and want to be better for all your coworkers, you will thrive in this environment. You will soak it up like a sponge, and question every technique and every step, even as you're doing things the way you've been taught. You want to know the "why" of it all, and you'll start to figure out the "why" that makes the most sense to you. You're okay knowing that your cooking job will not make you wealthy, unless you luck into a high-paying corporate gig that somehow doesn't suck your soul.

All this said, I really loved and cherished my time at OCI, and I would definitely do it all over again if I had the chance. So much of your success in culinary school is dependent on the work you put into it-- you get out of it what you put into it, really and truly. I showed up early and stayed late every day; I turned in every assignment on time; I did all the extra credit and volunteered for all the off-site events; I asked every single instructor every stupid question I could think of. It's a really safe and fun place to learn, and of all the culinary schools out there, OCI does the best job of putting the "real world" of cooking into perspective--you're doing tons of knife work and kitchen techniques daily. But there's also a ton of culinary math and exams and book knowledge that you must know to pass, and I swear it's vital further down the line. As a chef currently I'm constantly swimming in spreadsheets and numbers, and my Harold McGee is never too far away.

Speaking of which, I know you asked for some book/reading recommendations, to which I will recommend:

- On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee. This is the driest reading of all time but it's a great reference when you want to know why meat turns brown and crispy, and what the difference is exactly between a poach and a sear.

- Any cookbook by James Peterson. He does a great job with explaining history of food, and his basics are always solid.

- Joe Beef cookbook. One of my favorites in the last year, reads like a novel in some ways.

- Julia and Jacques Cooking At Home. This was the first cookbook I ever read that really imprinted in me the idea that there's more than one way to do things "right" when it comes to cooking.

God there are so many other cookbooks I could recommend... The French Laundry, River Cottage, Zuni Cafe, Baking Illustrated, Fat Duck, even Joy of Cooking. Get thee to a bookstore and sit your ass in the cookbooks section for a good long while.

- http://linecook415.blogspot.com/ The blog of Richie Nakano, current chef of Hapa Ramen in SF. Specifically his blog entries from 2007-2009, while he was sous chef at NoPa. They're gut-wrenchingly accurate tales from line cooking, and really rung true to me in my first few years of cooking.

- http://eggbeater.typepad.com/ . The blog of Shuna Lydon, NYC pastry chef. She has some really good advice to starting cooks or people looking to dabble in professional cooking. Good place to start is here: http://eggbeater.typepad.com/shuna/so-you-want-to-be-a-chef-.html

- Ideas in Food: http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ . I'll be honest, I don't read this frequently but a lot of cooks I know do and have found it insightful.

- The Food Lab at Serious Eats: http://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab/?ref=nav_main

- Lucky Peach Magazine. The only paper magazine I subscribe to.

So that's probably either way too much information or not at all the answer you were hoping for, but I hope I was able to help in some small way. Good luck with whatever you decide, and there's a great farmer's market at the PSU park blocks every Saturday from March-December :). Let me know if you have other questions.

Cheers,
Ingrid

Staging Like A Pro

I've been itching to write lately, and I found the following post in my drafts folder while sifting around in my blog archives. I'm warming up to write about what's been going on in my present life (Kitchen managing! Events cheffing! Wedding planning!), but I figured this would be a nice and easy return to blogging. I must have written this in 2009 while I was still in my first kitchen, and I'm pleasantly surprised that I feel pretty much the same way about staging now as I did then. I've left the post as I wrote it 4 years ago pretty much intact, with any additional notes or edits in italics. I've also added more at the end.

I realize that as a person who's been in my chosen profession of higher-end kitchen work for less than a year, I'm probably not the most qualified person to be doling out unsolicited advice about pursuing your dreams in this field.

I'm gonna do it anyway.

We've seen a pretty good number of stages come in (and out) our doors these past few months, and the following advice is based on some of the things I've witnessed and consequently been totally dumbfounded by.

How to conduct yourself during a stage
(as told from the point of view of an observant rookie with decent intuition for reading people)

Put together a decent resume
Don't put "rockstar" under skills, especially if you're a recent culinary school grad and currently employed on pantry station at a hotel. You will inevitably come off looking like a douchebag. Put your dates of employment next to each restaurant you've worked at. A simple sentence about each position will do--nobody wants to read an essay about how you cleaned the walk-in and scrubbed the sinks every day. Think of it this way: The more content you have on there, the more content there is for a prospective employer to pick at and critique. Make it clean, simple, easy-to-read. Feel free to write a cover letter, but if your resume is longer than one page, it's too long. And fer peet's sake, SPELL CHECK, DAMMIT! If you're using Microsoft Word or any decent word processing program, it's already doing the work for you. Those squiggly red lines under certain words? Yeah... those words are misspelled. Fix that shit!

Keep your mouth shut
Friendly banter and get-to-know-you kind of chat is gonna happen, but keep your bad jokes to yourself, at least until you've gotten to know these people. Racist, sexist or homophobic jokes will not get you very far during your stage. I'm amazed I even wrote that last sentence, but it's truly stunning what I've heard fall out of stages mouths.

In addition, don't distract other cooks with unnecessary small talk. You are there to get a job; the making friends part can come later. You don't want to be known as That One Stage Who Wouldn't Shut The Fuck Up - and there's always at least one!

Related: Keep your criticism to yourself
If you know this isn't the place for you while you're staging, be fine with that knowledge and take it as another experience. Don't go blathering to anyone who will listen about how silly the menu is or how your current place of employment does such-and-such thing this way, which you think is better than that way. Aside from formerly mentioned douchebaggery, word will spread to other places how much of a douchebag you are. Portland may have a great variety of restaurants, but it's a small community where everyone knows everyone else. When the chef asks you where else you are staging in town, you better believe that a) he probably knows the chefs or other cooks at the other restaurants, and b) if you were a douchbag during your stage, the other chefs will know before you even step foot through their doors. I've seen stages shortened and even canceled because of it.

Be respectful of people's equipment and stations
Recently, I had a newbie ask me if he could watch me and help out if I needed it during the happy hour rush that overlaps into dinner service. It seemed innocuous enough, so I said "sure". In the 15 minutes that the newbie was sharing my space, ticket times doubled what they normally would be and I felt totally overwhelmed by the tickets, even though technically speaking I had help. When I turned around to see the newbie firing off my dinner proteins without telling me, I knew I was in major trouble. My sous chef told me to take control of my station and kick him off if I needed to. I felt bad doing it, but I had to--it's MY station. The worst thing about this experience was knowing it was entirely my responsibility--I let him on my station, I was still in charge of everything coming off it, and it was my duty to take the heat for anything that went wrong, even if I wasn't the one who physically did it. Mostly, it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking initiative, and I think that the fact that I did take initiative had a lot to do with why I got hired during my stage. But there's a huge difference between showing enthusiasm and trying to take over someone's station because you think you're totally awesome. If you're gonna take initiative, make sure you have permission to do things before you do them.

Simply put: Don't touch anyone's mise en place unless you've been specifically told to. That shit is wack.

***********

This is where I stopped writing the post four years ago. Four years later, I would never in a million years let a stage fire food off a station I ran. I was a severely naive line cook at the time, though I also can't say I blame myself for being that way-- learning to manage people is by far the most challenging thing I've ever done in this industry. It's why so many line cooks stay line cooks for life: they either suck at management, or they simply don't like it. Fortunately for me I don't suck at management (at least I don't think!), and I actually enjoy it, for the most part.

To the above, I'll add a few pointers for successful staging:

Have some respect for whomever you are trailing
Yes, you are working for free. But training is hard; it's much harder to explain in an understandable way every single action you're making and every step of a process that you've done a thousand times than to just do it. Ask questions as necessary, but be respectful of the fact that these people are taking time out of their precious prep time or fire time to explain things to you.

Write everything down
If a Sharpie, pen and pocket-sized notebook aren't already part of your daily mise en place, they should be. Writing things down means you don't need to ask again what's in the halibut pickup, plus you'll probably come away from the stage with a few good recipes and new techniques. Write down names if you're bad at remembering them; write down processes and fire times; write down as much as you can.

Don't be afraid to ask for help
If you're told to do something and you don't know how, by all means ask to be shown how to do it. Don't fake your way or pretend to know. I've seen stages say "sure, I know how to julienne a carrot," and come back with a quart of large dice veg. Thanks to that stage's insecurity, the prep time got doubled and those gorgeous (and expensive) heirloom carrots became part of staff meal. Part of staging is to display your technical ability, but if it's something you're unfamiliar with you're far better off asking. I'd much rather hire someone who can follow directions precisely than someone whose mistakes consistently affect my time and my food cost.

Plan on staying until the kitchen closes
I've seen stages act surprised that they are there past a certain time or a certain number of hours, or ask when they will be leaving, because they have a thing they have to go to later. This comes off as extremely disrespectful, not to mention lazy and careless. And no one wants to hire the guy who's complaining about 8 hours when the regular shift is 10. Expect to pull a full shift, and offer to help clean down the line after service if you're still there when cleanup starts. Don't make concrete plans for anything important after a stage if you can help it.

Be on time--better yet, be early
This should be self-explanatory, but sadly, I have to mention this because lately I've witnessed the extent of late cooks and their flexible relationship with time. It really, really sucks when a cook is awesome in every other way but you have to fire them because they cannot for the life of them show up on time. I recently saw a cook get offered a position, and show up an hour late on his first day. He didn't call to say he would be late, even though he had a cell phone. The chef fired him on the spot, and rightly so. And it was too bad, because he really needed the work, but being unreliable is A-number-one the worst trait to have as a cook.

I'd love to hear stage pointers from other cooks out there. What say you?

Choosing Sunshine

A few nights ago, I was standing behind the bar of the restaurant where I work, polishing glasses and chatting up the bar patrons. A couple of men about my age sauntered in, pulled up at the bar, and each ordered a whiskey neat with an Old German back. I knew they were cooks, mostly from the drink order, partially from the weary looks on their faces, but also because I've seen them on the line before at their hot spot of a restaurant.

I asked them how everything is, and one of them kindly but absentmindedly responded, "Great, thank you." Reminiscing on my own day and in spirit of small talk, I asked, "Did you get to enjoy the sunshine today?" I thought about the walk I took after my morning gig and before I came into the restaurant, strolling downtown in the sunshine and basking in the warmth after months of soggy, cold, gray wetness.

One of them looked at the other and mumbled, "Well, sort of, a little bit, this morning before I had to be at work today." The other one did a side-to-side shake with his head in agreement with the "so-so-ness" of the morning sunshine, squinting as if he was having to think really hard to remember. They sighed in unison.

It's subtle, but I know this tone. I know it because I've done it, probably countless times. It's the "I'm a line cook and I work really fucking hard, so hard that you have no idea how hard it is to work this hard, you behind the bar polishing glasses... I just got off a twelve hour shift, and I can barely recall what I had to eat today, much less what the fucking weather was doing twelve fucking hours ago, plus I don't need sunshine when I just killed it on the line tonight, so you and your sunshine can go kiss my ass" tone.

I wanted so badly to tell them, "I've worked hard too, I know exactly what it's like, I swear!" I wanted to give them a run-down of all the shitty hours I've worked and all the sunny days I've missed and how I truly understand exactly what they mean, even though they don't know me from Adam. I wanted to scream that I work hard now, and I was in fact just finishing the tail end of working a double, but I know it's pointless, because I'm not a line cook. Not anymore.

And obviously it's neither the time nor place, so instead I nodded and smiled and came back with more pleasantries about how nice the weather has been for business and how happy we were to be busy that night. "Oh, yeah, we were slammed tonight too!" The return to work talk is all it takes to right the ship, and they finished their drinks, regaling me and each other with tales of getting crushed on the line.

They left happy and tipped heavy.

Portland waterfront in its sunny Saturday glory

In flux

I've been feeling the itch to write lately. It's been five months since my last meager update, and so much has transpired since then that I almost don't know where to begin.

These past few months have me running around like a headless chicken (albeit a hardworking one), writing and executing menus for events for an amazing commissary kitchen and event space, working front-of-house in an awesome restaurant in town, picking up random catering gigs for friends in need, helping my friend Nong open up her second cart in February and then third location last month, basically being your typical BOH/FOH gun-for-hire. I'm lucky to get as much work as I do. Serving, bartending, bussing, prepping, grilling, menu-writing, sausage-making, pie-rolling, working cash registers, I've been doing it all. It's been sometimes crazy but mostly fun, and thanks to all these extra gigs, I'm able to round out my schedule so I'm paying the bills and I'm still able to go hiking with Jeff and the dogs when we feel like it.

Somewhere in there, I also managed to take a trip to Taiwan, my home country, and where almost all of my relatives live. There, I experienced the usual "So when are you getting married/having babies?" from all of my aunts and uncles, and my beast of a paternal grandmother, my sole surviving grandparent and an incredible woman. I also ate the shit out of some classic Taiwanese cuisine, from traditional breakfast fare that I've sorely missed to an incredible omakase sushi experience at Kitcho. And oh the shopping! I managed to squeeze all the eating, cavorting with family and more eating into five jam-packed days, and when I finally kicked the jet lag after getting home, I immediately got to work making shaobing, the classic sesame flatbread served at breakfast. I've been half-joking with one of the owners of the restaurant I work at (who happens to be Taiwanese-American as well) about doing a Taiwanese brunch with all the fixings.

Aside from my time in Taiwan, I've been working an average of two to three different jobs a week. As much fun as it is, in my heart, however, I know this isn't sustainable. One week I may work six days in a row of mostly doubles and some triples (like this past week for example), but another week may only see me working three or four shifts. I think if I were ten years younger I might be okay with this kind of inconsistent schedule, but frankly, I'm at a point where I'm starting to plan for a future, maybe a family, and having a solid career plan would be great.

So yes, even though I'm busy as shit most of time, I'm struggling with keeping really focused on a goal. I still don't have aspirations to be an executive chef of a restaurant, though for a while there while I was line cooking I just put my head down and went with the flow until I realized it truly wasn't what I wanted. So what exactly is it that I do want? I'd love to be a private events chef full time, but the demand for that isn't there right now, and I don't want to go into full-time catering either. I'm becoming more and more obsessed with the service aspect of this industry, especially working as a server and barback for the restaurant I work at, and part of me wonders where that could take me, as that is what got me into restaurants in the first place. But I still love working with my hands, touching and fabricating food, creating meals that people remember. I need something that will sustain myself, my future, and my health and well-being. Kitchen work on its own is not made for "futures". It's made for right here and now, and living paycheck to paycheck, and though I'm physically living that reality, in my brain I've moved beyond that. Like I said, unsustainable.

I wish I had something more focused and picture-perfect to offer you, readers, but this is what I'm thinking right this very moment. Things are really good on the day-to-day, but I'm doing an awful lot of ruminating on my future.

Since I stopped line cooking

I've gained ten pounds. Not being on my feet 12 hours a day + eating two or three rounded meals a day will do that. I've joined a gym to try and counterbalance this effect.

I've stopped having bad cooking dreams with unending ticket machines and order-fire everything.

The hair on my left arm has grown back.

I've worn heels more than once in two months.

I spent an amazing month with family and friends in North Carolina and 10 gorgeous and memorable days in New York.

I'm cooking more at home than I have in years. Lucky Peach magazine yielded a glorious ramen broth and noodles that we ate for days.

I wrote and executed my first menu for which total strangers paid actual moneys (8 courses!) and I didn't go down in flames.

I taught my first cooking class (also, no flames).

I've continued to keep my hands busy via catering gigs and helping prep for Jeff's awesome supper club.

I miss seeing my work friends, I miss the intense veg prep and butchery, I miss the butterflies-in-your-stomach buildup to service, I even sorta miss doing the dance. But I don't miss pushing out hundreds of covers with sweat burning in my eyes while running on coffee and a bad sandwich. Does that make me lame?


How I spent my summer vacation


Jeff in blue crab heaven in Folly Beach, SC


Some of the best tacos I've had exist in Greensboro, NC


We carried her outside because she loved the outdoors. RIP, Garbanzo


Mom on the Blue Ridge Parkway


Plating grilled squab with smoked cherry gastrique. See the rest of the pics and menu here


Making the Momofuku ramen recipe from Lucky Peach magazine


I make weird faces when I teach


In Jeff's parents' backyard in the Hudson Valley for his nephew's viking-themed first birthday party


Peels for lunch, where we met Shuna Lydon (thanks, David!)


Momofuku Noodle Bar. Pork buns were totally worth the hype


This avocado at Prune blew my fucking mind


Sylvia and Jeff mean mugging for dim sum


Embracing full tourist mode

Beyond Line Cooking

Truth be told, I never seriously considered becoming a line cook when I entered culinary school. I thought that I might be a caterer, or an event planner, or maybe a food writer. Then fate stepped in and off I went down the rabbit hole.

Three years later, here I am, having landed my first lead line cook position under an esteemed Thomas-Keller-trained chef, for the re-opening of a classic Portland restaurant. I achieved my goal of working all the stations at my last restaurant, and when the opportunity came to take a leadership position and try something new, it was an opportunity I couldn't turn down.


Butchering whole King salmon at work. Fun as hell, and this particular fish was one of the better cuts I've made

I've learned so much at my new gig, from butchering whole fish and breaking down primals to actually having a voice on the line as kitchen-side expediter. My boudin blanc touch is getting better by the day. Although I am not officially a manager, my job includes some management duties, and it's been really educational to exercise that part of my self.

But I've recently found myself in this constant state of 'What's next?' I think there comes a time in every line cook's career, probably many times for some cooks, where he or she wonders when it'll get better. It's hard for me NOT to think about it, especially when the grueling services, long hours and hard physical labor have taken their toll. I don't kid myself in thinking I'm a young flower; I'm officially in my thirties after all, and keeping up with kids 10 years younger than me ain't as easy as it used to be.

There is a beauty in perfecting your craft, and getting your technique just right, finding focus and making it right every time, and I have found that beauty in line cooking. Romance aside, however, doing the same thing night after night, in the same physical space, hundreds of covers after hundreds of covers, can truly qualify as backbreaking, soul-crushing work. It's why line cooks tend to meander, and it's why a couple of years in any one kitchen seems like a lifetime. For a cook my age, it's hard not to question why you're working twice as hard as your cubicle-sitting peers for a fraction of the money and none of the benefits.

So it comes to this…

For the past six months or so, I've been feeling extremely conflicted about my work. I'm a cook, so why don't I love line cooking the way I used to anymore? Why would I find that when I sat down to write a blog entry, I couldn't write with the same gusto for what I do for a living? Where did my fascination for it all go? I would start to write, only to come up with some bitchy cook blog that I didn't actually want the public to read, lest I or my workplaces be judged to Yelp death.

I tortured myself with guilt over my lack of love for my work, and overanalyzed it all to a pulp. "Most of my coworkers seem totally happy being line cooks, and they've cooked for longer that me… why can't I handle this? Am I just being lame?" But in all that analyzation, I realized this simple fact: Since I started cooking professionally, I've been mainly working in restaurants that seat an average of 140 guests, with lunch, happy hour, dinner and late night. My current workplace has the clusterfuck of Sunday brunch added to that. 300-400 covers a night with barely a respite, thanks to my great luck with working in successful restaurants… it doesn't really seem like a puzzle why I was starting to burn out, or why I was starting to associate cooking with resentment.

My amazingly patient boyfriend will laugh at me for saying this now, but in retrospect the answer to all my conflict and self-questioning seems so simple. It wasn't cooking that I was learning to hate; it was cooking in this volume, in this environment, under this pressure. Certain cooks thrive under the pressure and live for the adrenaline. While it was satisfying for a while, I've come to realize I am truly not one of those cooks. And I'm totally fine with that.

I've had moments where I've thought, "Quit whining, Ingrid, you just need to pay your fucking dues like every other line cook out there." But what makes me think even more so that I'm totally fine with not being a line cook is the fact that at the top of this particular pyramid is the Executive Chef position, what most line cooks aim to be, and quite frankly it's not what I want for myself. I see how hard all of my chefs work, and how hard they've worked to get to where they are now, and I honestly don't think I have the willpower to work 16-hour days six or seven days a week, being pulled in a thousand different directions while being responsible for every plate that goes out. I love food, I love cooking, and I'm not afraid of hard work, but I don't have the drive to be that kind of boss.

So what now? This is by no means the end of cooking for me; I'm simply stepping away from this kind of cooking before I become the angry lifer that I've seen often enough to know better for myself. I'll be completely honest; there have been times in the recent past when I've been so frustrated I've thought about quitting kitchen work altogether. I've considered going the nine-to-five route, becoming one of the cubicle-sitters, collecting benefits and a retirement fund and the whole nine yards. But talk about soul-crushing; I've brought myself to tears just thinking about it.

I know I'm a cook, I know I can cook, and pulling off a seven-course wine dinner for total strangers (with the awesome exception of Brian Wilke, the Exec Chef of OCI, and his wife) while having a fucking blast last week only cemented the fact that I feel far more comfortable on the kitchen side of the pass than as a diner. But I'm ready for a change of pace. I'm ready to not push out hundreds of plates a night. I'm ready to take care in every single goddamned dish that reaches a diner without the crushing pressure of "just get it out, we've got a six-ticket pick coming up next!" To have work that fully interests me and engages me in every way.

I've been so lucky to work for some amazing chefs, and my current chef has been so awesomely understanding about my decision. When I told him what I've been thinking, he said it best: "I've always told my cooks, 'If you don't love it anymore, it's time to move on.'" I lost my love for cooking, and I'm ready to get it back full time. I'll be at my current workplace until August, but after that I'm taking a break to go back to North Carolina for a few weeks. There's a cross-country trip with my mom in the works, and some time to spend with precious family members.

I have some ideas marinating for my future with food, but just reaching this point of clarity is beyond satisfying. And I'm totally okay resting here for a minute.

To You, Restaurant Worker

It's well into 2011, and I can't help but notice that I let the yearly summary for 2010 fall by the wayside. It seems cheap to try now (o hai late March! Nice to see you!), so instead please let me take a minute here to give thanks.

This goes out to you, fellow line cooks, for keeping my spirits up day after day. We're in it together, and when one of us goes down, we all go down. We're a silly dysfunctional family, but we are family. So thanks for keeping your shit together, and helping me keep my shit together. Thanks for trying to make our workplace better every day. This is for all the times you finished my prep as I was deeply weeded in happy hour tickets. For the high fives and fist bumps as we trade jokes and talk shit. For the cooking protips you've given me, from faster grapefruit segmenting to better butter basting. For the music and books and great/bad movies you've brought into my life. For giving a shit, and for making this time matter. Thanks, line cooks, for having my fucking back.

This goes out to you, chefs past and present, for working harder than anyone else in the restaurant. For having the patience to answer my endless and sometimes dumb questions. For having my proteins properly butchered and portioned, and my sauces perfectly seasoned and ready to go. For guiding me through everything from vinaigrette prep to lamb butchery, slowly but surely, over and over. For walking me through that method again after I screwed it up while your precious food cost suffered. For not firing me every time I fucked something up, which was quite a lot. I swear I'm getting better. Chefs past and present, you've all made an impression on me, and I feel insanely fortunate to have worked under each and every one of you.

This goes out to you, restaurant owner, for having the best kind of energy a person could have. You walk in and energize the entire staff. How you manage to seem even more spritely as your empire continues to expand, I may never know, but you are an inspiration to every single one of your grateful-as-hell employees. I never feel like an underling with you; you manage to make me feel like an industry peer. That's badass.

This goes out to you, dishwashers, for keeping my shelf stacked with clean pans so I'm never wondering how I'll fire this next 12 plate pickup. For dealing with all the shit that gets put in your area. For letting all of us invade your space. For doing all the shit that no one else wants to do--scraping burners, mopping stairs, taking mats. For scrubbing out my burnt messes, for taking my dirty pans without asking, for keeping me stocked on ramekins and pint containers on the daily. For keeping an eye out for that one tall squeeze bottle or that particular whisk. For teaching me how to say "dance" in Spanish. The restaurant would not run without you, and don't think we don't know that.

This goes out to you, servers, for siphoning out most of the bullshit before it gets to the kitchen. Sometimes I'll find myself daydreaming about the money I made in my serving days, and sometimes I'll look at you across the pass and think of how good you have it while I'm drowning in pastas and fish and chicken. And then I remember the bullshit. The demands, the entitlement, the "allergies", the my-server-is-my-slave attitude. 95% of patrons are nice, but that 5% that isn't is the loudest, worst type of person you could ask to interact with, and you, server, do a commendable job of holding their hand and dealing with them without us ever having to be a part of it. Thanks for alleviating some of the already-high pressure for the kitchen.

This goes out to you, hosts, for pacing us out properly. For checking in on us frequently to see how we're doing, and to slow seating down if we're getting crushed. It's far easier said than done when you have hungry-slash-angry mobs at the door, demanding to be seated lest their blood sugar get any lower. They want this table, not that one. They don't want to sit at the bar but they don't want to wait. I've hosted in the past quite a bit, and it's a job that can make you hate people pretty quickly. The only job I ever walked out on without a proper resignation was as a host at a Beverly Hills wine bar and bistro. And boy did I walk out. At 7PM on an overbooked Saturday night. In hysterical tears. So, thanks, hosts, for being the most underrated employee on the floor.

This goes out to you, bartenders, for killing it night after night. You dance the dance just like we do, but you have the added weight of providing skilled service with a smile. You're the last one to leave the restaurant in the wee hours of the morning, and I know you know what it's like to pull long hours. Thanks for pouring me drinks after a crushing shift, and thanks for all the good talks and fanciful bar knowledge. I've learned more about cocktails and beverages in the past year than I have in all my years prior, and I have mostly you, bartenders, to thank.

And for everyone else that I've failed to call out specifically (and I know there are a lot of you), thank you thank you thank you. You know who you are.

Getting closer

The new dorade set: eggplant caponata and coriander tomato sauce. The fish in this photo was only the second one that I did with this set, which is why the saucing looks kinda wack. Still love this plate though.

One of the big goals I've had since I started at my current restaurant is to work all the line stations. When I was hired last summer, I started on pantry and soon after moved over to the grill, where I've been for almost a year. I have my good days and my bad days, but generally speaking I feel like I have a decent handle on grill station. I know my equipment, my technique is getting better and I fuck up my temps less frequently these days. I know the dimensions of my work space really well, and sweating over the carcinogenic fire monster from hell that is our grill every night has become normal. Which is, by the way, totally abnormal, but that's a whole other blog post.

At the end of the day, I love what I do, and I can't imagine myself thriving in another profession. But, like everything, it has its downsides. I'll be honest: I've felt "the grind" of line cooking recently, and though I am quite fortunate to be working at a restaurant with a seasonal menu that changes daily, being on the same station for almost a year had started to wear into my bones. A year is not a long time, really, just enough time to start to get good at a station. I didn't even realize I was coming up on a year until I thought about it yesterday--clearly, this year flew. Line cooking is all about repetition and practice, doing the same thing over and over until you're as close to perfect as you can be. And then you get a new set or a new pickup, and the learning starts over. I remind myself that line cooking is a step in the process to something greater, and that I'm building a solid foundation and skill set. And I'm learning every day. Still, doing 200+ covers with a three or four man line, working the same station night after night, and working an 6 to 8 hour service, not including prep time or cleanup... I'm only human, y'all.

I'm determined to work all the stations, however, and the one station I haven't worked yet is saute. Saute is a killer station at my work: it's fresh pasta and fish, as well as chicken and a few hot apps. You need to be able to throw down to work saute, and I've seen seasoned vets reach the edge of breaking point on that station. Some nights, everyone in the restaurant wants pasta and fish, and cooking the majority of the entrees for 200+ covers ain't easy. Needless to say I've been wary yet eager to try my hand at saute, and because of several factors it didn't look like I'd be able to make it to saute until after the holidays.

Due to some recent unexpected but welcome changes, however, I just learned that start training on saute next week. Next week! Just typing that makes my heart beat a little faster. I feel a renewed sense of pride in line cooking, and I'm that much closer to realizing a major goal. I'm feeling The Fear (you cooks know what I'm talking about), but somehow it feels... comforting. Like an old blanket. Welcome back, The Fear. Keep me on my toes, will ya?

My desire to keep up with this blog is still very pressing, yet these past six months have brought all sorts of upheaval into my life, mostly in good ways. I have some almost-finished blog drafts in the works though. In the near future, expect a couple of blog posts soon about the merits (or demerits?) of culinary school, and a little expounding on The Fear. Should be interesting.

The view from the kitchen

Summer in a hotel pan


Engraved Gray Kunz spoons and Togiharu slicer--gifts from my rad boyfriend for my recent 30th birthday


My mise en place


Herbs ready to go in the spring lamb set


Squid soaking


Baby octo stewing


That's a big-ass steak


My cross-hatch is pretty good these days


Kitchen short-hand labeling


The ubiquitous wedding gallette a la Jay-bar


Work snacks


More work snacks


Balls after 11


A busy Sunday night

Gastroenteritis can suck it!

I woke up yesterday morning feeling more exhausted than normal and with a dull stomachache that I automatically attributed to the previous night of gluttony with friends (sweetbreads, veal pate, chicken liver mousse and endless desserts, i.e. probably about five sticks of butter in total, not to mention a couple of cocktails). I was surprised, as I certainly didn't have enough drinks to be hungover, but I brushed it off as early morning queasiness that would go away by the time I got to work at 8AM. Doing my best to wear an "I'm doing fine" face and ignore the insistent aches, I tried coffee, ginger ale, bitters and soda, crackers, and several trips to the bathroom before I finally admitted to myself and my coworkers that the stomachache, weakness and nausea were not going away. I felt guilty about barely doing anything at work and leaving before service started, but the idea of working a station even for a few hours made me feel more ill than I already was.

What ensued was the worst short bike ride home ever and a subsequent few hours of laying in bed sweating and half-sleeping with frequent interruptions to visit the bathroom before my boyfriend arrived to take care of me, flowers and several Gatorades and ginger ales in hand. The fitful, sweaty non-sleep and bathroom trips continued throughout the day, but having some company to rub my back and whine and moan to certainly made things a little better. My boyfriend spent an entire gorgeous and sunny Saturday laying around indoors with me, watching action movies on Netflix, making me tea and dutifully waiting out my miserable stomach flu. Good man, that one.

As of this morning it's quite persistently sticking around and I've called in to work sick again, despite my instinct not to. It's ironic that of all the industries I've ever worked in, food service is the one where I've consistently felt the guiltiest about calling in sick. The irony comes from the fact that food service the most likely work environment that you can pass on a contagious illness to a lot of people. The fact of the matter is in a lot of kitchens, there is no such thing as being sick. The common practice is unless you are quite literally dying, you show up to work and stick it out like a good boy. I've known cooks and chefs who've injured themselves quite severely on the job and refuse to leave to get the stitches they need. In my first month of working at my first restaurant, I stabbed myself in the hand with an oyster shucker during service and I just wrapped it up with a giant icepack and went back to work. I figured I still had one good hand!

But I've had some serious health scares in my past so I try to listen to my body when it says "PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS." And still I end up feeling guilty.

I know I do it to myself mostly, make myself feel guilty that is. All of my bosses have been extremely cool and understanding about this, but in the back of my head I imagine them thinking that I'm weak and unreliable, even if this isn't the case. Or that they would never call in sick. I'm pretty sure that they know it'd be a bad scene for me to be working my station whilst running to the bathroom every 10 minutes, but it's that lingering machismo and "strong like bull" testosterone-y attitude that hovers over a lot of kitchen environments that's got me feeling hyper-aware of my "weakness".

I normally have the constitution of a linebacker when it comes to my ability to eat a lot and frequently without being bothered, but apparently gastroenteritis ain't picky. I seriously can't remember one time in the last 10 years that I've had something like this. One thing I've learned about the stomach flu: it's TOTALLY BORING. And there's nothing you can do but drink lots of fluids and wait it out. Total bullshit! Two of the most beautiful days of summer so far and I'm stuck in bed, waiting for my innards to quit misbehaving. And blogging about it, apparently.

In the meantime I'll be staving off the boredom by watching more Netflix and flipping through my newest Powell's purchase: The River Cottage Cookbook by the adorable Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Just look at that book cover! Piglets!

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Why do we, as culinary professionals, as line cooks especially, do this to ourselves?

I think about this a lot, especially on those days when I'm nursing my shift drink at 1:30AM, sticky with dried sweat, grill smoke and fryer grease and thinking about how hard we got rocked, how much my back hurts, and how poorly I'm gonna sleep before I have to peel myself out of bed and do it all over again. How big my prep list is for tomorrow, how perpetually dirty my cuticles are from scrubbing the grill grates, how much it sucks that even though I'm dog-tired at the end of the night I won't be able to fall asleep for another two hours at least. How I wished I hadn't missed a certain concert or birthday party, how badly I need to do laundry and clean my house, how I haven't been on a date in months, how my last relationship deteriorated in no small part due to my work schedule. Try explaining to someone who gets home from work at 6 or 7PM that waking up at the ass-crack of dawn to an alarm clock that snoozes for over an hour is neither normal nor acceptable to someone who gets home from work at 12:30AM at the earliest.

Then I have days that are nice reminders of the work we do, the world we live in, the people we can proudly call our colleagues. I do this because I love my crew, I mean I love them, really. I can be myself wholly and completely, in all my nerdy, foul-mouthed ridiculousness and they'll just shake their heads and say, "Yep."

I do this because as much as I hate to admit it, I'm an adrenaline junkie. I get a crazy high from pushing out ticket after ticket on a busy night, the one where I can feel my jugular pulsing in my neck when I'm on top of my game. I'm juggling 10 things on the grill, pirouetting to the sound of expo calls, talking with saute with just a nod or an eyebrow tweak, and, despite myself, letting out a "yessssssss!" when I slice a steak and hit the temp dead-on. I've stopped looking at the clock for how many more hours of service we have left and instead I'm keeping an eye on the minute hand to pace my fire times.

I do this because I'm tickled by the customer who interrupts me during a three-ticket fire to tell me that the steak I cooked him was incredible, one of the best he's ever had, and made his trip to Portland worth it.

Because I'm stunned by the amount of work that made that steak possible: The cow farmers, the butchers, the purveyors. The farmer who grew the lettuce and raised the hens that laid the eggs, the time it took for the artisans who made the balsamic vinegar and cheese, and my chef who portioned the meat and made the marinade. It's easy to get complacent in the everyday life of a line cook, and I find it helps to put things into perspective.

Because I get to help do this every week:


Whole lamb being broken down for brochettes of loin, braise, lamb belly for breading/frying, and stock

And be proud of the little things:


Soft-boiled, 5 minute and 15 second eggs. I usually break a couple per batch, but this was the perfect batch--no breakage, perfect consistency

And admire gorgeous handiwork close-up, seeing the man behind the curtain:


Javier, our pasta man, working his magic on our buckwheat cavatelli

Because I have moments every now and then where I think I might actually know a little something about something. And then I'm completely bowled over by how much more someone else knows about that something. It's humbling and inspiring all at once.

Because I love the look on some people's faces, men especially, when I tell them I'm a line cook. And because I can't help but be proud of the places I work, and the places I've worked before.

Because the people we meet, the people we feed, they had a memorable experience and we were part of that. Every day, I am a part of someone else's experience. I make things with my own two hands that people eat and (if we did our job right) enjoy fully, tell their friends about and come back for more.

Because I can go to an event with my restaurant where there are nine other awesome restaurants representing, and you can feel the love and respect. I've met so many great cooks and chefs in Portland, and worked with a lot too, and it still stuns me that I can even consider myself in any way remotely associated with that talent.

The IACP annual conference kicked off today in Portland, and as frightened as I am of mouth-breathing chef groupies, the roster is legit (Ruth Reichl, Kim Severson, Michael Ruhlman, Madhur Jaffrey, Dornenburg/Page, et al). While I couldn't (and probably wouldn't) pay what they're charging for tickets to the event, I was fortunate enough to tag along to help set up, serve and break down our station at the opening reception for the conference. A giant ballroom was packed to the gills with hundreds of eager guests, all of them friendly and mostly knowledgeable about food. We scared off a couple of folks with the mention of the words "pig foot" (and I judged them for it, I admit), but by and large we were a hit. The feedback was awesome and I always have a lot of fun interacting with people through tasty morsels.

I've always craved connecting with people, which is what made me gravitate naturally toward hosting and waiting tables. I was never truly fulfilled by front-of-house work, however, and it was my thirst for being in the trenches, cultivating skills and knowledge that seemed to belong to an elite few, that eventually won out. Turns out that through line cooking, a job that people have historically turned to specifically because they don't care to interact with other people, and a trade that has a reputation for harboring some of the surliest and least personable workers around, I've connected with more people on a more meaningful level than any other work I've ever done.

Since I started cooking for a living, I've worked the hardest I've ever worked in my life, and with all the triumphs have come major downfalls too. But I wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I won't be a line cook forever, and frankly I don't know where this will take me, but for now, right now at this very moment, despite all of its downsides and the ridiculous life that comes along with it, I'm pleased as punch.

Finding the things you didn't know you were looking for

Restaurant cooking is really, really hard. To work a full shift on your feet in full bodily motion under high-stress conditions, come home late every night with new burns or cuts, not be able to sleep even though your body is dead tired because you're still mentally wound up from service, wake up aching from head to toe and get stoked about doing it all over again is not an easy accomplishment.


meet my new blisters (thanks to some stray, searing-hot pan grease). yay!

I'm convinced that the actions themselves (cutting, grilling, sauteing, plating, etc) can be done by any well-trained monkey, but to do this for hours at a time, day after day, with speed, grace and efficiency and without mistakes or refires takes a certain kind of person. One who is thick-skinned, marathon-ready, mentally sharp and not easily flustered. Though I have all of those qualities some of the time, I do not naturally have all of those qualities all of the time. We're not perfect, right? My sous chef has had to tell me more than once after I get frustrated from a refire or a mistake, "you can beat yourself up after service."

I'll be honest: For the past few weeks, I've been struggling with kindling the same intense fire I had when I first got hired at my restaurant. I believe it's a result of a mixture of factors: The end of the "honeymoon period" now that I've been there for four months; being done with the school part of OCI and feeling disoriented from not doing 13-15 hour days; going from the sometimes crazy but fairly straightforward pantry station to the sometimes crazy and intense-multi-tasking-required grill/saute station. I'd never cooked meat to temperature order in my life, much less worked on a hot line period, and the thought that my chef entrusted this task to me was at once extremely complimentary and also really, really frightening.

I made no secret that it was an overwhelming yet exhilarating feeling to be moved up to hot line, but I don't think I took it nearly as seriously as I should have from the get-go. I became lax about my work ethic, relying on my coworkers to pull me out of the weeds when I was feeling mere hints of "going down" (restaurant speak for falling way behind) and simply not giving the 110 percent that any good chef requires from their cooks.

My actions (or lack thereof) all culminated in an unfortunate incident that resulted in my chef, never once to mince words, letting me know how disappointed he was in my recent performance with a blisteringly critical verbal slap on the wrist. I once wrote that any time I know I've messed up, I can always make myself feel worse about it than anyone else could, and it rang true here. It was exactly what I needed to wake the fuck up and get out of this weird funk I've been in, and the next day I thanked my chef for reprimanding me and not letting me get away with subpar performance.

I've been building up to getting that fire back, though I wasn't sure exactly what I was looking for. I've been recently getting words of wisdom from people I respect who have been working in kitchens much longer than I have, and all of them reassured me that I would eventually get it right and even get a natural high off of the adrenaline rush. After so many nights of shit going wrong or even feeling a little off, I was starting to doubt that this would happen.

Then last night came around.

Last night was easily one of the best nights I've had on the hot line since I first eased my way over from pantry a few months ago. The number of reservations were three times what I expected them to be for a Wednesday night, mostly due to three parties of 8 or over that were coming in at the same time. I immediately felt knots in my stomach, as the previous times I've gone down hard and had to be saved were often a result of multiple parties.

Prep time was a blur and went way too quickly, and I definitely scrambled to get some last-minute tasks finished before we rolled right into dinner service. The ticket machine started printing, and the first few fires were steady. Then what seemed like a mass of really long tickets came in at once, and suddenly I had 14 meats on hold, 10 of them cooked to temperature (i.e. rare to well-done), on top of soups and apps that were fired. My oven was stuffed full with lamb racks and chicken halves, all of my burners were on fire, and I was juggling prawns and bread on the grill.

I began feeling overwhelmed and started thinking out loud, mumbling the ticket items and temperatures to myself over and over so as not to forget something in the oven or on the stove. I don't know exactly how to explain what happened next, but suddenly I was washed over in a weird calm, and at the same time my heart was beating so fast I could feel it in my neck. It was like I could suddenly see the light at the end of the tunnel where there used to be none at all; somehow I was staying on top of things just enough to keep moving along, and nothing was getting lost in the fray. Intermittently I found myself saying out loud, "I'm okay, I'm doing okay, things are good, I'm doing alright," partially as an attempt to stay calm, but also because I was really surprised I wasn't totally going down.

It was a high I've never felt before, knowing that this delicate tower I built could topple at any moment, like a house of cards that could blow over in one breath, and my heart was racing so fast it felt like it was going to burst. But somehow everything was going right and I was present in that moment. With some help from my chef, we plated up everything I had on hold in three pickups. Everything looked beautiful and all the proteins were cooked to perfect temperature and color. It was the first time in a long time that I felt a sense of accomplishment like the one I felt after my stage day.

There's massive room for improvement, especially between balancing cooking and plating, but I finally got a taste of the adrenaline rush that I've constantly heard seasoned line cooks talk about. For the first time ever on the hot line, I finally felt like I could not just do this, but enjoy it and be good at it. I realized that I had lost the joy in being in the kitchen for a while there, and I found it again last night. After last night's rush, my executive chef and sous chef let me know that I was doing a good job, and I couldn't contain the huge grin that spread across my face. After feeling so low recently, it feels great to pick myself up off the ground, brush myself off and kick some ass, finally.

On online restaurant reviews

So I've spent the last hour or so looking for restaurant options to take my friends out to dinner tonight. Oftentimes these searches lead to common review sites like Citysearch, Yelp and Trip Advisor. I usually devour the reader reviews, but I've been running into some reviews that I have to admit irritate the crap out of me.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a huge proponent of open-to-the-public online reviews, and have been known to author a few myself. I love the immediacy of the Internet, and in Portland especially there is an active and encouraging dialogue between chefs/owners and diners on sites like PortlandFood.org and Food Dude's Portland Food and Drink.

In my humble opinion, however, unless you are Ruth Reichl, Jeffrey Steingarten, Frank Bruni or a food writer of that caliber with comparable knowledge, experience and finesse with words, the following phrases immediately disqualify your opinion:

- "I would first off like to say that I am a total foodie and have visited some of the finest restaurants in America. I used to live in San Francisco, where I found the greatest food on earth to be located."

- "I'm an experienced foodie. I've lived in Seattle and New York and currently reside in San Francisco so I know good restaurants."

- "...What my server didn't know is that I'm a server and probably tip a whole lot better, not to mention know a lot more about food than most people in the room."

- "So I'll start by saying that I have been to many (and I mean many) restaurants around town..."

- "We are regulars at [insert list of expensive restaurants here], and for special occasions we dine at [most expensive restaurant in town]."

The above quotes were pulled from actual reviews. Okay people, if you feel the need to define yourself as an expert diner in order to garner some sort of respect, you automatically lose. Some of what you're saying may be true, but let your food knowledge come across in the retelling of your dining experience without prefacing your opinion with a qualifier.

Other irritating phrases:

- "I would have given five stars if there had been more vegetarian options."

It would be one thing if this particular reviewer was writing about a vegetarian-friendly restaurant, but this was a review of a restaurant well-known for it's meaty deliciousness and common use of animal offal.

- "People in Portland may like this restaurant or revere it as top notch, because there is not much else available."

I don't even know where to begin with this. Wait, yes I do... read this and see what the New York Times has to say about "not much else available" in Portland.

Not all the bad is entirely bad, however. These comments gave me a chuckle:

"As I waited for my computer date..."

I appreciate the honesty here.

"The ambulance was good."

Hmm. I don't know about you, but I don't really like the ambulance during my dining experiences.

Anyway, enough with irritants. I think the sudden onslaught of cold, wet weather after a seemingly endless string of perfectly blue skies has turned my mood slightly. Summer is officially over, kids.

The awesomeness that is restaurant cooking

Being a kitchen cook is really hard work, probably the hardest I've ever worked in my life, and I've only been at it for a couple of months. With full time work on top of full time school, it's a struggle to stay on top of my game 100 percent of the time. I miss seeing my friends, I miss weekend trips, and having a normal social life is nearly impossible--I can hardly make time for laundry, much less a civilized date. I sleep erratically and I eat standing up at work or walking to/from school, usually scarfing down whatever I'm eating in less than three minutes. I'm lucky if I actually get to sit down for a meal more than once a week.

Even though it crosses my mind that I'm crazy for doing this, I truly love what I'm doing, and here are a few of the reasons why.

The Sounds: Sizzling of meat hitting a properly heated pan, clanging of metal pots and pans and bowls, whirring of mixers and blenders and grinders, the calling of orders and the echo of cooks, the blasting fan in the walk-in, even the whooshing of the mechanical dishwasher.

The Smells: Sauteed onions, creamed butter and sugar, fresh-out-of-the-oven bread pudding, pan-fried lardons, citrus rind zested on a microplane, simmering corn bisque, resting duck confit before it goes in the walk-in.

The Particulars: How a bunch of ingredients sitting in various sizes of hotel pans, Cambro containers, squeeze bottles and plastic pint cups become a 28-dollar plate that looks worth the money. I love that it's rather unromantic in the kitchen, and I love that the food makes a magical transformation once it's in the server's window and delivered to a patron's table.

The Organized Chaos: It looks like an abstract mess on the surface, but every step you take and every turn you make means something. A good cook makes no wasted moves. There's something kind of awesome about five cooks juggling searingly hot pots, pans and bowls in a 20 square foot galley kitchen with lowboy refrigerators, ovens and hot surfaces. It feels great when you're moving swiftly and efficiently.

The Textures: Getting my hands on crisp greens, slippery scallops, creamy dressings, rock-hard mollusk shells, soft strawberries. It's a good occupation for hands-on kind of people.

The Tastes: This one should go without saying. Tasting 10 flavors in one dish, tasting 10 dishes in three minutes, tasting the difference between something unseasoned and the transformation it makes when properly seasoned, trying something I've never had before and being completely surprised and/or blown away.

The Camaraderie: This is one of my favorite things about cooking, really. The minute I set foot into the kitchen, it's like stepping into an exclusive club. An exclusive all-boys club, in my case, and for a lot of other kitchens out there. For the longest time when I was a server and a host, there was a sense of mystery about the kitchen to me; I was so curious, yet afraid to touch anything or get in anyone's way. I stuck to asking a lot of questions and pestering chefs to let me taste dishes instead. Now that being in a kitchen is my job, the mystique and romanticism is gone, and it's fun to finally know what it's like to be back there. I love behind-the-scenes kind of stuff, and this is the ultimate in being behind-the-scenes, for me at least.

It's been a busy few weeks with the start of Term 3, but I'm doing my best to power through as usual. Late nights and early mornings take a toll, but I know it's worth it.