Hands Please!

Food is the essence of life! We MUST eat! I mean obviously, right? Aside from a small group of people who might suggest the idea of human photosynthesis, this sentiment should come as no surprise to anyone. World renowned Chef Thomas Keller, recipient of several Michelin stars and owner of The French Laundry, Per Se and Ad Hoc to name a few, has been quoted ad nauseam gesturing that “Cooks cook to nurture people”. No brainer, right?

Though seemingly straightforward to the average reader, I believe this statement to be one of great magnitude. I agree, Thomas: to be a cook is to nurture - but the people behind these acts of care are often those with many tempestuous struggles and invisible battles they fight everyday. As a general disclaimer –I am not a writer. I don’t claim to be a writer - as I’m almost certain this quasi-essay will be akin to an OCD ridden ransom note; I am just a guy who loves food and feels he's spent enough hours behind a hot burner and has worked enough consecutive 14 hour shifts with minimal sleep in between, accumulated plenty scarred cuts and burns, and inhaled enough caffeine dense energy drinks to paralyze a fully grown adult hippo to have some authority to speak on the subject.

I’d like to make a personal effort to dive deeper into the sentiment of nurturing, make note of what kind of person would willingly tolerate and god forbid enjoy the absurd chaos of the kitchen, and what it takes as a cook to transmute pain and grief into love and nourishment.

Indulge me for a moment while I paint a scene for you: it’s 7:35 pm. The dining room is quickly reaching its maximum capacity with palpable excitement brimming from the swinging door that separates the guests in the salle a manger (the dining room) from the pirate-like crew in the kitchen. Flames climb from underneath hot skillets, cuts of various proteins and assorted sauces hiss over screaming hot steel, a ticket machine barks at you with seemingly endless orders and you’ve just had to 86 the red snapper because your prep cook - who took the hostess out for drinks last night- was too hungover to come in for his 9 am shift. Just as everything feels like it’s reaching its boiling point, a server slinks into the kitchen to inform you that the guest at table 7, whose ticket you’ve refired twice, is adamant that her 8 oz filet mignon is medium-rare instead of her desired medium-well; she’s demanding to speak with the chef responsible for this egregious act and expects a full refund on her meal… Oh, and the kicker? No one has seen or heard from the fry-cook in the past hour.

It’s 7:35 pm, and it stands firmly on you to lead and push your team through the weeds to the finish line of service. For the meek, this scenario is comparable to one of the seven levels of hell, and even most well seasoned chefs would agree that this isn’t a comfortable position to be in. As you try to assess your situation, frozen in a din, your eyes are trained hawk-like on the ticket machine that continues spewing out orders like an irate drill sergeant, comparing you to less than the scum beneath his shoes, demanding 20 push-ups. For a brief moment, you take a deep inhale, close your eyes and slowly release the breath from your lungs. Through the intense cacophony of noise, as if in a dream, you can just barely make out the familiar sound of one of your favorite artists playing over the kitchen speaker, whaling their heart out, sending a guitar riff straight to your solar plexus, beckoning you to their sonic embrace. Momentarily, you’ve escaped the drama of the kitchen and have been enveloped by the ever so inviting House of Hendrix. During your stay, Jimi encourages you to gather your mental mise en place, allowing you to find the situational clarity needed to delegate—to reconstitute your team and drive them to the end of service. The gritty guitar tones, like a dear friend you haven’t heard from in years, covers you like a warm blanket. You let out a deep exhale. Silence…

Then WHAM! You’re back in it! With your newfound focus, you and your crew crack away at the barrage of orders, giving the ticket machine the metaphorical 20 push-ups it’d demanded, even tacking on another 20 just to show it what you’re truly made of! It’s a herculean effort, but through a few hiccups and delays, the tickets eventually stop—and for the most part, the guests are fed and satisfied; a server even discounted the check for the lady at table 7 and gave her a glass of wine on the house. It’s now 9:45pm and service is winding down; most of the patrons have left the restaurant—excused from a few stragglers who’re hanging around the bar and a table of two who are still looking through the menu, it’s safe to break down your station and start prepping for the madness to happen all over again the following night.

Now that you’ve had a glimpse into what is likely to happen in a kitchen during service, you’re probably asking yourself, “who would ever voluntarily put themselves in this environment every single night? You’d have to be crazy to willingly endure this career day in and day out.” Well… Yes! Most of the people you’ll find in the kitchen are, among other things: Adrenaline seeking, neurotic, impolite and immature, naive, intensely opinionated and ill-tempered hedonists with sailor’s tongues who, through back-breaking work and repetition, demand respect and authority in the kitchen while often lacking control of most other aspects of their lives. You’ll find people who’ve endured calamity in their personal lives; familial turmoil, romantic turbulence, estranged relationships with one's own spirituality, sexuality, and a lack of care for their own physical health.

Now, I can’t speak for every chef, whom I have no doubt don’t share the same belief, but a majority of cooks I’ve worked with accept the notion that there is something intrinsically defective about themselves—that some part of themselves is fundamentally broken and through cooking we as misfits are given the chance to momentarily heal ourselves through feeding others—that through enduring the often torturous demands of a kitchen we have earned our lot in life—meaning the comfortable bed we fall asleep in or the ice cold beer of choice at our favorite local dive-bar, the community of people around us who undergo the same stresses as us, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’ve put your best foot forward in delivering good food to people is truly worth the hellishness of our career. I am—if nothing else, eternally grateful to be exhausted to the bone knowing I’ve worked as hard as I can to nurture.

Alright, you’ve learned what can happen in a kitchen during service, and hopefully have a decent idea on who you might find working there… But what does it actually take to work in a kitchen? What is expected and demanded? Well for starters, can I trust that you’ll show up on time each day? Are your knives sharpened and accounted for? Typical fare for any job—show up on time and have your tools ready, but restaurant days are often long and taxing, starting early in the morning and ending late at night. For reference, I used to work at this Italian joint and for a period of time my working schedule 5 days out of the week was to come in at 8am, prepare pasta dough by hand until 3pm, take a 30-minute break then work the garde manger station from 3:30pm till midnight when we were done cleaning up the kitchen. If I can trust that I won’t have to hunt you down everyday to know when you’ll get into work, you’ve already taken a massive step in the right direction.

What about your attitude? Are you going to leave your interpersonal drama at the door and come in with a clear mind and willingness to perform with and learn from others? Alongside having the decency to show up for your team, you must display a desire—or at the very least an acceptance to be on a team with others; a kitchen truly takes a village to operate at its highest level (unless you’re Salvatore La Rose—sole chef, designer, and owner of Salvo’s Cucina Casalinga, a sandwich delivery business he operates entirely out of his own home kitchen while only having one hand. Yes, he quite literally runs a successful food delivery operation from his apartment in Queen single-handedly). Lastly, are you keen on owning up to your mistakes? If a rack of veal bones I’ve been roasting for an hour magically disappears or if a dish that has been executed incorrectly leaves the kitchen—can I be certain that you’ll own up to the action and be willing to amend the mistake? If you possess all three of these qualities, I have no doubt that you’ll find success in a restaurant kitchen.

I’ve barely started the ascent up the Mount Everest of topics I feel are necessary to talk about in relation to restaurants—but for the sake of time and position, I’ll leave with a few final notes and some much deserved thank-yous. If you have relatives or friends who work in the food industry, reach out to them; check in on those loved ones who are surely exhausted. From the lips of the late Anthony Bourdain, the kitchen is the last meritocracy, a world of absolutes; I don’t care who you might know or where you’re from, if you can have the respect to show up on time and you won’t crumble or break under pressure, then you have a strong chance of success.

If I haven’t completely scared you away from an interest in working in the food industry, I’d highly recommend you read Chef Marco Pierre Whites book “Devil in the Kitchen”, and Anthony Bourdain's “Kitchen Confidential” if you haven’t already—they’re candid, biased, and ultimately serves as highway safety guides for aspirational and seasoned chefs. Thank you to the faculty and staff of NOCHI for the many priceless lessons learned through their incredible accelerated program, and for the chance to write about something I love more than myself. Finally, thank you to my family for believing in me and supporting me and my endeavors.