Pass in Time

Every night there is a scramble before dinner service begins and over the last month, my role at Chapter One has evolved into something of a “Chef de Loose Ends.”

“Katy, could you just finish these potatoes during the Pre-Theater service? Katy, do us a favor, just give these herbs a chop and bag up this lemon confit for the waterbath. Katy, if you’re bored, you could just halve these prawns and finish up the spring rolls….”

And up scrunches a ticket of last minute jobs that are regularly left hanging. On good nights I am thrilled to be of help, fulfilling little favors all throughout the evening. On my weary nights, I begin to imagine that the cooks might take for granted their safety net in the back room.

It is only now, in my last week at Chapter One, that I have systemized a “mis en place” and successful work order for the loose ends station. Last night, all before 7:30 PM, I managed to catch up each station chef – each of their “favors” waiting neatly on the prep shelves; portion out the various parts of tomorrow’s soup – leaving them in a tray marked “Vichyssoise for Paul” on the starter section of the cooler; and shell two bins of prawns – now vacuum packed and labeled in the freezer. I was triumphantly mopping up the back floor when Ross walked through to join the second round of dinner service. “Ahh Kate, what are we boys going to do when you leave? Put away that mop and come work the pass with me tonight.”

It is a growing phenomenon among high end restaurants to let diners in on the kitchen magic making possible their meal. Perhaps you’ve eaten somewhere recently, where great wide viewing windows were the only barrier between you and the chef. Perhaps it was a wall-less kitchen, cooks and chefs floating around a marble island of stove tops, sinks and grills. Perhaps you’ve even had a meal sitting in the kitchen at a designated Chef’s Table. Many of us have enjoyed a behind-the-scenes vantage point on restaurant cooking. There remains, however, an inner sanctum within the sacred space of the kitchen that is typically reserved for one individual. “The Pass” is the stage upon which all cooked elements of a dish come together on the plate. Here, the chef will make his final touches to each composition. Here, every dish will pass before his eyes before arriving at a diner’s table. If you love to cook and you love the artistry of composing a dish, then spending your evening in this sacred space is about as good as it gets.
Last night I was privileged to a vision of the position toward which so many of us cook. Together, Ross and I plated, sauced and eyeballed every last entrée. Our attention centered on each round white canvas before us, we casually chatted about the food we were plating … “pigeon wrapped in crisp puff pastry varnished with an amber finish of Madeira jus and surrounded by a dancing dice of sunny colors - organic swede, carrot and celeriac.” Spooning sauce over fillets of Haddock, Ross told me stories of artisan Irish cheeses and coastal fish smoke houses. We traded views on genetically modified seeds and the future of family farms. While sprinkled caper blossoms on a Monkfish plate, He generously vetted my vague hopes for the future. And at one point, after I had laid the last leafy section of baby gem lettuce over a lovely breast of duck, he lifted my handiwork across the marble counter and proclaimed “Now that is a beautiful dish.”

My heart soared through the final hours of dinner service and clean down. It had been a marathon day. But even after 16 hours of concentrated labor, my aching bones were convinced they could work this hard every day if each were sealed with the satisfaction of The Pass.

On the Line

“On the line”… three simple words that have come to encapsulate the intensity and thrill our current culture associates with the professional culinary scene. Maybe you have seen this phrase recently on the cover of Eric Ripert’s bestselling memoir of life in the kitchen at Le Bernadin. The “line” is the position of performance where, we believe, each cook works out his or her culinary destiny. I have waited nearly two months to write on this topic, hoping that if I waited long enough, I might be able to write with an insider’s perspective. I have peeled toward that pinnacle moment when I, too, would be thrust “on the line.”

And then one day it happened. I came trotting out of the back prep room during lunch service with parsnips for the steamer. I opened the oven door, moved out of the sauce chef’s way, grabbed a pan for the fish chef, threw a cube of garlic butter into a small sauce pot at the garnish chef’s command, put two cubes of blanched swede under the broiler, lifted a pile of sautéed potatoes into a little white dish and somehow just kept cooking for the rest of lunch. It was brilliant; without doubt, the most exhilarating moment of the past two months. But something inside of me changed that day … and in the 54th hour of slicing potatoes late Saturday night, the smiling stage, once more than happy to tie up her apron and tackle a crate of spuds, had been replaced with a pouting spinach-picker speechifying to herself about the hundreds of Euros she was paying to work like a Mexican in the washroom at Chapter One.*

As life would have it, the story I had fantasized about writing all week was now shrouded by a guilt complex featuring frustration and self-reproach. Stumbling home Saturday night, I read the banner I pass every day picturing Brian O’Driscoll the famous rugby player, “Be Seen. Be a Difference.”
“Ha!” I thought without pause. “It’s the people you never see, who make the real difference.” And then I saw it … what was really “on the line.”

There is something about the way we glamorize the culinary profession that often jeopardizes the very core of its mission. Great cooking does occur at the crossroads of Science, Craft and, occasionally, even Art. But under all the TV shows and fancy, hardbound cookery books, beneath the empires of successful restaurants, food halls and product lines, even after months in experimental kitchens and doctorates in Gastronomy; it remains the “Hospitality and Service Industry.” The thing we most love to do with our hands is bound, at least in part, to the essential and intimate human need for nourishment.

Every night Chapter One hosts over 100 people – some for the first time, some for the zillionth time. But whether their face is foreign or familiar, they are welcomed and fed as an honored guest at the family reunion. The day that a cook in this kitchen can no longer roll up his sleeves and appreciate working hard to feed, is the day that part of his capacity to enjoy his profession has died.

*I thought about editing out the crudités of my attitude that night, but decided the direct quote would be simpler and more sincere in the end.