My relationship with burger cookery got off to a rocky start.
One day last spring at my old job, right before happy hour started, my sous chef decided on a whim to move the very popular burger pickup to my station. Though I was cooking steak, lamb, pork and poultry at that point, I'd never temped a burger in my life and, frankly, I had no desire to. Burgers were cooked to order in saute pans, so the far more skilled saute cook had been picking them up for the more than six months that I'd worked there. I'd watch him fire several 10 burger pickups in a row at peak happy hour rush, holding it together but starting to break a sweat, and I'd be so, so happy it wasn't me.
...Until suddenly it was me. After a minute or so of angry silence and stunned shock on my part, I had about 10 minutes to rearrange all my mise and try to figure out what the hell I was doing. I was so livid about this last-minute change, I was on the verge of tears. It made me even angrier that the other cooks took to taunting me about it, and when they realized through my silence that I was genuinely upset, the sous helped me take my station apart and put it back together, somehow cramming six new 9th pans, a 6th pan and two 3rd pans into my already-crowded station.
Like anything in the kitchen, I just got to it. Fake it 'til ya make it, as they say. I started to get a feel for temping burgers, and fortunately my first day as burger lady wasn't insanely busy so I didn't go down in flames.
(I did, however, go home that night and cry myself to sleep. Don't tell anyone, okay?)
Even though I'm still convinced it was really shitty to give me the burger pickup with no warning, it was probably one of the best things that's happened to me so far as a cook. My sous chef was no dummy. I got better at multi-tasking real fast out of sheer necessity, and I was working harder than I ever had. The days when I cooked dozens of happy hour and bar burgers while firing dinner tickets at the same time and managed to do a decent job, I went home feeling pretty good about myself.
But I also had a fair amount of resentment toward the burger pickup. Maybe it was because it felt like an interference when I was already temping five proteins and picking up several other dishes. Maybe it was the fact that burgers were commonly fired at the end of the night. The countless number of times that we were on the verge of closing and a burger ticket came in, oftentimes after our official closing time... I let the resentment build up.
I had a lot of burger anger.
I bitched at bartenders who fired late burgers, as if they had gone out of their way to inconvenience me, which, of course, they hadn't. It's a fact of life as a cook--you'll get tickets at the end of the night, sometimes after closing time, and even though you're all wrapped up and ready to bounce, you have to stay and finish your job. I didn't see it that way for a long time, until well after I left that kitchen. Late tickets are never fun, but getting mad about it doesn't exactly help.
About a month ago, I moved over to the grill station at my current restaurant. We have an extremely popular burger that we grind in-house, and I used to come in all the time before I ever worked there to get a burger after work. It comes off the grill, so I've been working some burger action as of late. I was worried that I'd be out of shape for meat station, and I am a little, but I found that it's like riding a bicycle. Getting back to it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be.
I told myself one thing before I started on grill station, however: I would not let myself have burger anger. I volunteered for the job, I wanted grill station, and there's nothing worse than a cook who works from a place of anger. Seriously.
There's a reason that grill cooks tend to be the surliest of the bunch: They're standing in the hottest part of the restaurant for hours at a time, smoke wafting in their faces, maneuvering multiple proteins between the hot and cool spots on the oft-temperamental grill, and likely slangin' some major burgers. By the end of the night your skin has a fine coat of smoke and grease and sweat. It ain't glamorous, that's for sure.
But telling myself that one thing, no burger anger, has made the busy happy hours go pretty smoothly so far. Cooking without anger is something I never thought I'd have to make a conscious effort to do, as I'm not exactly an angry person, but when you're doing the same thing dozens of times a day, day in and day out, it's easy to see how the tedium and the constant buzz of the ticket printer can wear at you. I haven't been on grill that long yet, but I'm doing my best to watch my temperament this time around.
I don't want to cook out of anger. This job is too good to waste on that.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Finely Aged
I got a call from my mom this morning voicing some concern over my mention of her 60th birthday in my previous post. She was worried I was stating it in more of a "Wow, my mom is old!" manner than what I really meant: I think it's simply amazing and awesome that she's lived 60 years of life and she's still so young at heart. My mom is one of the wisest, strongest and most humble people I know, and I'm fortunate that I have a concrete role model to show me what it means to struggle through seriously unforeseen hell and come out on the other side more alive and vibrant than you were before. I doubt anyone would guess she was 60 upon meeting her.
Christine in the Blue Ridge Mountains in fall
I guess commenting on her age came so easily to me because I think about my own age quite a bit in context to my work. Last year I turned 29, and every day I'm surrounded by people who are many years younger than me, yet have been in the industry for many more years than I have. I've gotten used to most of my bosses being younger than I am, but it doesn't bother me because what matters in the end is experience. We joke about my age sometimes, and I'm amused to find myself explaining to my coworkers in their early 20's what Thundercats and the Care Bear Stare meant to me. It's quite a thing in our industry that some of the best chefs out there are 25-year-olds who have been cooking for 8 or 10 years.
Not that I was always comfortable with my age. When I first considered cooking professionally I was highly conscious about the fact that I was getting a late start. I looked around at the fresh-faced, straight-out-of-high-school kids in my culinary school class and I won't deny I felt a tinge of the weight of age. The thought crossed my mind, 'How am I going to keep up?' The harder I worked, however, and the deeper I got into the industry, the more I realized a couple of things: First, how glad I was to have had some years of living before I made a career choice. I've mentioned this before, but I'm certain I wouldn't be as put-together about my work life if I had started this insane job 10 years ago. And secondly: I feel young. I think this has something to do with the fact that my surgery was a rebirth for me. It was like I was given a chance to hit the "Restart" button.
I credit my mom with giving me context. Seven years ago my dad died in an accident and left my mom with a small business on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to an industrial depression. She literally became president overnight. She was thrust into the limelight and suddenly had the weight of an entire company and 20 years worth of my dad's work experience dropped on her shoulders. It was a ludicrously tough hill to climb that I will never fully comprehend, and to be honest there's a part of me that doesn't want to know. In seven years my mom completely turned the company around and then some; last year she was on the cover of a widely-circulated business journal as a success story in her industry, and was listed in the top 50 fastest growing women-led companies in North America. She looks younger and more vibrant now that she did 10 years ago.
The most stunning and possibly unusual part of it all is I've never once heard my mom complain. Not once. She's never been a complainer by nature, but if there were any excuse to complain, I think this would be a pretty good one. Not only that; she thinks it's weird that there's so much fuss over her success. Before my dad died she rarely met clients, never went on business trips, and took care of accounting and the behind-the-scenes paperwork. Three days ago she left the house at 5:30AM to drive four hours to a business meeting that ended at 2PM, after which she drove another two hours to the Charlotte airport to take a 6PM flight with a layover to New Orleans for an industry conference, flying back to Charlotte 36 hours later and driving another two hours home. This kind of travel is not out of the ordinary for her. When I talked to her this morning she was chipper as usual and praised the meetings and flights and drives for being smooth and on time.
Context, y'all. Context. If I have even half the strength that she does, I'm certain I can accomplish what I want to in my career and in my life.
She'll probably call me again after she reads this to tell me that she doesn't see what the big deal is. My mom is the youngest 60-year-old I know, and I wouldn't be where I am without her.
Christine in the Blue Ridge Mountains in fall
I guess commenting on her age came so easily to me because I think about my own age quite a bit in context to my work. Last year I turned 29, and every day I'm surrounded by people who are many years younger than me, yet have been in the industry for many more years than I have. I've gotten used to most of my bosses being younger than I am, but it doesn't bother me because what matters in the end is experience. We joke about my age sometimes, and I'm amused to find myself explaining to my coworkers in their early 20's what Thundercats and the Care Bear Stare meant to me. It's quite a thing in our industry that some of the best chefs out there are 25-year-olds who have been cooking for 8 or 10 years.
Not that I was always comfortable with my age. When I first considered cooking professionally I was highly conscious about the fact that I was getting a late start. I looked around at the fresh-faced, straight-out-of-high-school kids in my culinary school class and I won't deny I felt a tinge of the weight of age. The thought crossed my mind, 'How am I going to keep up?' The harder I worked, however, and the deeper I got into the industry, the more I realized a couple of things: First, how glad I was to have had some years of living before I made a career choice. I've mentioned this before, but I'm certain I wouldn't be as put-together about my work life if I had started this insane job 10 years ago. And secondly: I feel young. I think this has something to do with the fact that my surgery was a rebirth for me. It was like I was given a chance to hit the "Restart" button.
I credit my mom with giving me context. Seven years ago my dad died in an accident and left my mom with a small business on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to an industrial depression. She literally became president overnight. She was thrust into the limelight and suddenly had the weight of an entire company and 20 years worth of my dad's work experience dropped on her shoulders. It was a ludicrously tough hill to climb that I will never fully comprehend, and to be honest there's a part of me that doesn't want to know. In seven years my mom completely turned the company around and then some; last year she was on the cover of a widely-circulated business journal as a success story in her industry, and was listed in the top 50 fastest growing women-led companies in North America. She looks younger and more vibrant now that she did 10 years ago.
The most stunning and possibly unusual part of it all is I've never once heard my mom complain. Not once. She's never been a complainer by nature, but if there were any excuse to complain, I think this would be a pretty good one. Not only that; she thinks it's weird that there's so much fuss over her success. Before my dad died she rarely met clients, never went on business trips, and took care of accounting and the behind-the-scenes paperwork. Three days ago she left the house at 5:30AM to drive four hours to a business meeting that ended at 2PM, after which she drove another two hours to the Charlotte airport to take a 6PM flight with a layover to New Orleans for an industry conference, flying back to Charlotte 36 hours later and driving another two hours home. This kind of travel is not out of the ordinary for her. When I talked to her this morning she was chipper as usual and praised the meetings and flights and drives for being smooth and on time.
Context, y'all. Context. If I have even half the strength that she does, I'm certain I can accomplish what I want to in my career and in my life.
She'll probably call me again after she reads this to tell me that she doesn't see what the big deal is. My mom is the youngest 60-year-old I know, and I wouldn't be where I am without her.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
A New Year
Oh, my poor neglected blog. Thanks to a nudge from my coworkers, here I am at last. For whatever reason in the last few months I've suffered from a self-imposed, increased pressure to write quality material that people can relate to. Mix that with general blog laziness, being sick four times in five weeks, and a lovely Christmas trip to North Carolina where I did nothing but watch movies and eat pound cake and Chick Fil A, and ye here blog goes without company for too long.
Unfortunately, I really miss writing, so let that be my first resolution of 2010: Think less, write more.
So what have I learned in this past year? I'm well into my second year of cooking professionally, and things are only looking up. I've been going into work on my own time on one of my days off to trail the day kitchen manager, and it's been so eye-opening to see things from beginning to end. PM cooks are pretty spoiled at my restaurant, as a majority of the big prep gets taken care of for us during the day--butchering, portioning, braises, cures, terrines, sausages and other charcuterie, burger prep, breads, pastas, some sauces... nearly all of it is done in-house, and most of it is taken care of by the swift hands of the day crew, sous chefs and exec chef. There's definitely a good amount of prep for the evening cooks to take care of, but I think most of us would agree that we have it pretty cush.
It makes for a smooth system, but how do you learn and grow in this environment? One of the biggest lessons I learned the hard way this year was to never get comfortable. Comfortable leads to plateauing, which leads to complacency and oftentimes a shitty attitude. And, trust me, NO ONE wants to work with a cook with a shitty attitude. My point is, I'm learning to make a conscious effort to stretch my limits and my comfort zone.
Confession: Charcuterie intimidates the shit out of me. I don't even know why. Maybe it's the history of it, or how finicky it seems, or the fact that I've just been spoiled by working at two places that did almost all of their sausages, cures and terrines in house, and the people doing the charcuterie were crazy good. But I only see one solution: Learn to make it. Conquer the fear. Push my limits, scare myself a little, make some mistakes and move on. That's the only way we can get better, right?
Things aren't always what we hope for, but instead of complaining and doing nothing, I'm learning to make the best of it. I remember one of my classmates in culinary school who had this extraordinary ability to complain about everything. The kid clearly had raw talent, but he took complaining to some next level shit. Everything was always too much or not enough. Too easy, too hard, too much work, not enough to do; no matter what the situation, this guy managed to see the negative in everything. Worst of all, it was permeating--the attitude just ate at your nerves until you could cut the tension with a knife. This leads me to possibly the biggest lesson I learned this year: We can complain all we want to, but in the end we're responsible for ourselves. Getting bored on my station? Try different tasks, ask for more, trail another station. Giant prep list? Work faster and request help. Does shit suck? Then change it. It seems so unfairly simple to say, but there it is.
I'm no saint. I don't claim to be perfect, by any means, and I have my bad days. I've definitely fit the complainer description well in the past. But I'm mostly in what I'd call a happy place right now. Things are fluid and fun, my coworkers are pretty awesome, and though I get stuck in station tunnel-vision from time to time, the extra days and new projects help keep me flexible and challenged.
Other cool things that happened in 2009:
- My mom turned 60 (happy birthday Mom!)
- The third anniversary of my surgery, and I'm fit as a fiddle (despite the winter colds!)
- Bought a condo!
- Went to San Francisco and LA by myself, had an amazing time and ate some of the best food of my life
- Made some of the best food I've done yet
- Met some amazing cooking (and non-cooking) related people in Portland and elsewhere
- Obtained a 17-year-old cat named Whimpy, who was a friend's childhood house cat. Spry old guy, and a biggun too, but what a ridiculously sweet thing. I was already basically a cat lady before I got the cat, and now it's official.
This year, I'm hoping to narrow my career focus a bit. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm also hoping to travel: San Francisco is calling my name again, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Taiwan and/or Europe. And I'll write more, yes!
Things are good, friends, things are good.
Unfortunately, I really miss writing, so let that be my first resolution of 2010: Think less, write more.
So what have I learned in this past year? I'm well into my second year of cooking professionally, and things are only looking up. I've been going into work on my own time on one of my days off to trail the day kitchen manager, and it's been so eye-opening to see things from beginning to end. PM cooks are pretty spoiled at my restaurant, as a majority of the big prep gets taken care of for us during the day--butchering, portioning, braises, cures, terrines, sausages and other charcuterie, burger prep, breads, pastas, some sauces... nearly all of it is done in-house, and most of it is taken care of by the swift hands of the day crew, sous chefs and exec chef. There's definitely a good amount of prep for the evening cooks to take care of, but I think most of us would agree that we have it pretty cush.
It makes for a smooth system, but how do you learn and grow in this environment? One of the biggest lessons I learned the hard way this year was to never get comfortable. Comfortable leads to plateauing, which leads to complacency and oftentimes a shitty attitude. And, trust me, NO ONE wants to work with a cook with a shitty attitude. My point is, I'm learning to make a conscious effort to stretch my limits and my comfort zone.
Confession: Charcuterie intimidates the shit out of me. I don't even know why. Maybe it's the history of it, or how finicky it seems, or the fact that I've just been spoiled by working at two places that did almost all of their sausages, cures and terrines in house, and the people doing the charcuterie were crazy good. But I only see one solution: Learn to make it. Conquer the fear. Push my limits, scare myself a little, make some mistakes and move on. That's the only way we can get better, right?
Things aren't always what we hope for, but instead of complaining and doing nothing, I'm learning to make the best of it. I remember one of my classmates in culinary school who had this extraordinary ability to complain about everything. The kid clearly had raw talent, but he took complaining to some next level shit. Everything was always too much or not enough. Too easy, too hard, too much work, not enough to do; no matter what the situation, this guy managed to see the negative in everything. Worst of all, it was permeating--the attitude just ate at your nerves until you could cut the tension with a knife. This leads me to possibly the biggest lesson I learned this year: We can complain all we want to, but in the end we're responsible for ourselves. Getting bored on my station? Try different tasks, ask for more, trail another station. Giant prep list? Work faster and request help. Does shit suck? Then change it. It seems so unfairly simple to say, but there it is.
I'm no saint. I don't claim to be perfect, by any means, and I have my bad days. I've definitely fit the complainer description well in the past. But I'm mostly in what I'd call a happy place right now. Things are fluid and fun, my coworkers are pretty awesome, and though I get stuck in station tunnel-vision from time to time, the extra days and new projects help keep me flexible and challenged.
Other cool things that happened in 2009:
- My mom turned 60 (happy birthday Mom!)
- The third anniversary of my surgery, and I'm fit as a fiddle (despite the winter colds!)
- Bought a condo!
- Went to San Francisco and LA by myself, had an amazing time and ate some of the best food of my life
- Made some of the best food I've done yet
- Met some amazing cooking (and non-cooking) related people in Portland and elsewhere
- Obtained a 17-year-old cat named Whimpy, who was a friend's childhood house cat. Spry old guy, and a biggun too, but what a ridiculously sweet thing. I was already basically a cat lady before I got the cat, and now it's official.
This year, I'm hoping to narrow my career focus a bit. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm also hoping to travel: San Francisco is calling my name again, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Taiwan and/or Europe. And I'll write more, yes!
Things are good, friends, things are good.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Know Thyself
I had a thought the other day while getting ready for work, ruminating about the stage who trailed my station the night before and the new back-line guy who didn't know what mise en place was and who I've kind of taken under my wing:
I think I might have gotten to the point where I might actually know something about being a cook.
Which is also to say I don't know that much at all.
Lemme explain.
At some point in the past few months, maybe especially since my trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and definitely since the start of my current job, I started thinking a lot, A LOT, about who I am as a cook.
When I first started on the pantry station at my first kitchen, I was completely fascinated, if not overwhelmed, by the wealth of knowledge that my bosses and coworkers possessed, the experiences they had, and the energy they had to carry out the hours they were doing every day. It got to the point where the insecure control freak part of my personality would worry that I wasn't good enough to be in this industry because I wasn't _____ [reading enough cookbooks/ eating out enough/ working enough hours off the clock/ staying late enough/ reading this one blog and that site and the other thing/ sharpening my own knives/ talking enough about food/ thinking enough about food/ obsessing over food/ forsaking the other things in my life for this career path... ad nauseum]. You get the picture. I had nights where I went home and cried because I know I didn't give it my all, or I couldn't stop thinking about how I messed up a ticket and let it haunt me for the remainder of service.
Slowly, slowwwwwly, I started to ease up a little. I took work home a little less. I forgave myself a little more. I realized that the nature of our workplace is inherently forgiving in a way: You fucked up yesterday, but look! Here's a whole new batch of people and a whole new service where you can atone for your sins and show them what you're really made of!
And then I met and befriended more cooks and chefs and saw the range of personalities that float in and out of kitchens every day. Some I could relate to more than others, and some were just completely unrelatable. I've had (and keep having) great conversations with cooks about food and work, but found that there were cooks (and even foodies) who couldn't shut the fuck up about food and what chefs they admired and what they wanted and how badass of a line cook they were and how they deserved better and how they were mistreated or taken advantage of or this that and the other thing. They're unable to step outside of themselves or the industry for just a second and see this whole big world that's going on around them, with or without their stellar butchery skills. I came to realize that I didn't exactly fit in with this tunnel-vision, food-is-God worldview, but I got the feeling I wasn't a bad cook for it.
I also found my own level of comfort with the accoutrements of our industry. I got to know the cookbook section of Powell's a little more. On the advice of my first chef I bought The French Laundry Cookbook, and then I found The Devil in the Kitchen, and enjoyed my way through The Man Who Ate Everything and even re-read Kitchen Confidential (less scary and more silly this time around, FYI). My bookshelf found more company more regularly. I found cooking blogs I loved, and instead of being so jealous of food writers who were far more talented than I, I embraced them for their literary skills and their ability to capture what I could hardly comprehend.
I overcame the fear of sharpening my own knives on a stone, and though I still pretty much suck at it, I do a serviceable enough job and am slowly getting better. I made it a habit of eating out at restaurants on my days off, partially as a way of catching up with friends I missed with my insane schedule, but mostly to get a little inspiration and to see what chefs were coming up with in Portland. I came in to work a little earlier, worked a little later, tried (and am still trying) to complain a little less and keep my mouth shut a little more.
And then, somewhere in there, I started to see the everyday a little differently. The minutiae of the grind became something to love. The perfect sear on a steak, hitting the medium-rare beautifully, finding the perfect spoon with which to butter-baste, working faster, cleaner, more precisely yet more efficiently. Picking herbs a little faster than the day before, making the Bearnaise better than yesterday's, being one hundred and ten percent ready for service when the time came.
This is not to say I'm any less hard on myself; in fact I'm probably more so now than when I first started. I still don't consider myself a great cook, and I'm really young in this industry. I'm too slow still, I can work much cleaner, the color on my sear could be more consistent, I need to be better about remembering the six hotel pans I have going in the convex while portioning my pork belly and emulsifying my sauces. I get pissed at myself when I don't do something right. I get impatient, I get short with people, I talk too much, I don't focus enough. I've fucked up enough temps to know I'm not the queen of meat... yet.
But rather than harping on exactly how much I suck, I'm more willing to let a mistake go knowing that I'm making it a goddamned mission to not make that same mistake again. That, I think, is called learning.
This is ultimately about the fact that I'm reconciling with myself who I am as a cook and what my capacity is for the idiosyncrasies that come along with being a cook. In a way I'm glad I came into cooking at the age I'm at now, because I'm surer of myself and what I want than who I was 10 years ago. I've heard chefs and cooks say "Cooking comes first; everything else is secondary," and I simply don't subscribe to that philosophy. I'm not willing to forsake my relationships with friends and family to have a successful career, especially considering what my family and friends have done to help me get to where I am now.
I've heard cooks say "You're not a real cook if you can't hold your liquor." I'm not a party girl and I rarely drink to excess, as I need to take care of my body and I have a very low tolerance for alcohol (what can I say, I'm a cheap date!). I'm very, VERY lucky to be able to even work in a kitchen in the first place and I don't take that for granted. I don't make it a habit to pick up every new hot cookbook, but that doesn't mean I don't have a few in mind or that I'm not paying attention. I'm not sure how many more years of line cooking I have in me, but I'm pretty certain it's not enough to want to make it all the way to the top of this particular chain. I know how much time and energy it takes, and while I want to give it all I got, I don't got enough to be an executive chef of a four-star restaurant.
What I do know is I want to keep cooking for people. I want to keep line cooking, at least for a while, get techniques and moves under my belt, and LEARN. I want to continue to be surrounded by cooks who are better than I am, who know more than I do, knowing that simply watching them and working side-by-side with them every day is making me a better cook. I'm figuring out my own pace, my own style, my own preferences. I'm working with what I have, yet I'm pushing myself to be better, faster, more efficient. I'm not mouth-breathingly obsessed with this career and this lifestyle, but I love it and I love that I get to live it every day. I want to be really fucking good at what I do. I have ideas in the works, and I don't need to be the kind of cook that a lot of cooks aspire to be.
And I'm really okay with that.
I think I might have gotten to the point where I might actually know something about being a cook.
Which is also to say I don't know that much at all.
Lemme explain.
At some point in the past few months, maybe especially since my trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles, and definitely since the start of my current job, I started thinking a lot, A LOT, about who I am as a cook.
When I first started on the pantry station at my first kitchen, I was completely fascinated, if not overwhelmed, by the wealth of knowledge that my bosses and coworkers possessed, the experiences they had, and the energy they had to carry out the hours they were doing every day. It got to the point where the insecure control freak part of my personality would worry that I wasn't good enough to be in this industry because I wasn't _____ [reading enough cookbooks/ eating out enough/ working enough hours off the clock/ staying late enough/ reading this one blog and that site and the other thing/ sharpening my own knives/ talking enough about food/ thinking enough about food/ obsessing over food/ forsaking the other things in my life for this career path... ad nauseum]. You get the picture. I had nights where I went home and cried because I know I didn't give it my all, or I couldn't stop thinking about how I messed up a ticket and let it haunt me for the remainder of service.
Slowly, slowwwwwly, I started to ease up a little. I took work home a little less. I forgave myself a little more. I realized that the nature of our workplace is inherently forgiving in a way: You fucked up yesterday, but look! Here's a whole new batch of people and a whole new service where you can atone for your sins and show them what you're really made of!
And then I met and befriended more cooks and chefs and saw the range of personalities that float in and out of kitchens every day. Some I could relate to more than others, and some were just completely unrelatable. I've had (and keep having) great conversations with cooks about food and work, but found that there were cooks (and even foodies) who couldn't shut the fuck up about food and what chefs they admired and what they wanted and how badass of a line cook they were and how they deserved better and how they were mistreated or taken advantage of or this that and the other thing. They're unable to step outside of themselves or the industry for just a second and see this whole big world that's going on around them, with or without their stellar butchery skills. I came to realize that I didn't exactly fit in with this tunnel-vision, food-is-God worldview, but I got the feeling I wasn't a bad cook for it.
I also found my own level of comfort with the accoutrements of our industry. I got to know the cookbook section of Powell's a little more. On the advice of my first chef I bought The French Laundry Cookbook, and then I found The Devil in the Kitchen, and enjoyed my way through The Man Who Ate Everything and even re-read Kitchen Confidential (less scary and more silly this time around, FYI). My bookshelf found more company more regularly. I found cooking blogs I loved, and instead of being so jealous of food writers who were far more talented than I, I embraced them for their literary skills and their ability to capture what I could hardly comprehend.
I overcame the fear of sharpening my own knives on a stone, and though I still pretty much suck at it, I do a serviceable enough job and am slowly getting better. I made it a habit of eating out at restaurants on my days off, partially as a way of catching up with friends I missed with my insane schedule, but mostly to get a little inspiration and to see what chefs were coming up with in Portland. I came in to work a little earlier, worked a little later, tried (and am still trying) to complain a little less and keep my mouth shut a little more.
And then, somewhere in there, I started to see the everyday a little differently. The minutiae of the grind became something to love. The perfect sear on a steak, hitting the medium-rare beautifully, finding the perfect spoon with which to butter-baste, working faster, cleaner, more precisely yet more efficiently. Picking herbs a little faster than the day before, making the Bearnaise better than yesterday's, being one hundred and ten percent ready for service when the time came.
This is not to say I'm any less hard on myself; in fact I'm probably more so now than when I first started. I still don't consider myself a great cook, and I'm really young in this industry. I'm too slow still, I can work much cleaner, the color on my sear could be more consistent, I need to be better about remembering the six hotel pans I have going in the convex while portioning my pork belly and emulsifying my sauces. I get pissed at myself when I don't do something right. I get impatient, I get short with people, I talk too much, I don't focus enough. I've fucked up enough temps to know I'm not the queen of meat... yet.
But rather than harping on exactly how much I suck, I'm more willing to let a mistake go knowing that I'm making it a goddamned mission to not make that same mistake again. That, I think, is called learning.
This is ultimately about the fact that I'm reconciling with myself who I am as a cook and what my capacity is for the idiosyncrasies that come along with being a cook. In a way I'm glad I came into cooking at the age I'm at now, because I'm surer of myself and what I want than who I was 10 years ago. I've heard chefs and cooks say "Cooking comes first; everything else is secondary," and I simply don't subscribe to that philosophy. I'm not willing to forsake my relationships with friends and family to have a successful career, especially considering what my family and friends have done to help me get to where I am now.
I've heard cooks say "You're not a real cook if you can't hold your liquor." I'm not a party girl and I rarely drink to excess, as I need to take care of my body and I have a very low tolerance for alcohol (what can I say, I'm a cheap date!). I'm very, VERY lucky to be able to even work in a kitchen in the first place and I don't take that for granted. I don't make it a habit to pick up every new hot cookbook, but that doesn't mean I don't have a few in mind or that I'm not paying attention. I'm not sure how many more years of line cooking I have in me, but I'm pretty certain it's not enough to want to make it all the way to the top of this particular chain. I know how much time and energy it takes, and while I want to give it all I got, I don't got enough to be an executive chef of a four-star restaurant.
What I do know is I want to keep cooking for people. I want to keep line cooking, at least for a while, get techniques and moves under my belt, and LEARN. I want to continue to be surrounded by cooks who are better than I am, who know more than I do, knowing that simply watching them and working side-by-side with them every day is making me a better cook. I'm figuring out my own pace, my own style, my own preferences. I'm working with what I have, yet I'm pushing myself to be better, faster, more efficient. I'm not mouth-breathingly obsessed with this career and this lifestyle, but I love it and I love that I get to live it every day. I want to be really fucking good at what I do. I have ideas in the works, and I don't need to be the kind of cook that a lot of cooks aspire to be.
And I'm really okay with that.
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