It's a few minutes after 6pm, and I just left my friends in their kitchen at the local three star restaurant just as they were about to open for the evening. Even though the house was starting to fill up with hungry, critical diners expecting culinary fireworks, the atmosphere in that clean, stainless and tile kitchen was relaxed, confident, happy. The chef, his cooks all joking, having just finished their "family meal"--standing up of course--of perfectly cooked tomato spaghetti made by one of the cooks from an Italian family. This is one of the rare restaurants where the entire staff genuinely LIKE each other, and eat very well.
Of course there will always be the whiney wait staff complaints about the food, but you can't please them all, and this is really good food they get every day. Pork never appears on the menu because some of the staff are Muslims, but veal, excellent beef and always painstaking art are applied even to the family meals. Last week there was a hand made lasagna with Bolognese Ragu sauce. They saved me a big piece because they borrrowed my pasta roller. As I was leaving I saw half a tray of the good stuff about to go into the trash since it hadn't been all eaten.
Mind you, I don't work there, and have no authority, but I demanded the stuff be packed up and I'd take it home and give it to Nick, the homeless guy who lives around the corner and sleeps on the sidewalk next to the wall of the garage. Such waste: shocking! They started to smirk and giggle when they heard my ravings. ("I can't believe you guys could let good food get dumped!").
Of course there will always be the whiney wait staff complaints about the food, but you can't please them all, and this is really good food they get every day. Pork never appears on the menu because some of the staff are Muslims, but veal, excellent beef and always painstaking art are applied even to the family meals. Last week there was a hand made lasagna with Bolognese Ragu sauce. They saved me a big piece because they borrrowed my pasta roller. As I was leaving I saw half a tray of the good stuff about to go into the trash since it hadn't been all eaten.
Mind you, I don't work there, and have no authority, but I demanded the stuff be packed up and I'd take it home and give it to Nick, the homeless guy who lives around the corner and sleeps on the sidewalk next to the wall of the garage. Such waste: shocking! They started to smirk and giggle when they heard my ravings. ("I can't believe you guys could let good food get dumped!").
Many of the kids are from Mexico or somewhere that would never let food be thrown away, and yet they allow this to happen. By the way they looked at me, I knew each of them understood where I was coming from, and agreed. Still, the sad thing is there really is no way to recycle the food, and the house is making so much money that food can afford to be thrown away to assure that only the finest cuts end up on the plate.
I freak when I watch them trim beef or veal, thinking of the wonderful veal stews I could do with the trimmings, and when ducks are dressed, the innards get 86'd. Christian, who was prepping the ducks told me how he fills the cavity with quarters of apple, onion and blood orange and herbs before he roasts the critters. As he slid the guts from duck number one into la poubelle, I begged him to stop. Now, I have a dog and a cat, so I got a baggie from my jeans and filled it with duck livers and gizzards. Most of it disappeared into the dog and my young cat who grows a few centimeters every day. Just a few days ago I sliced the duck livers into thin scallops and sauteed them in green olive oil and Sauterne wine: Chateau d'Yquem, 1967 actually. Can I blow my own horn? I got lucky; it was awesome. But no one, not anyone I know of would deglaze a pan with a wine of that caliber. So I ran next door with a plate full and proudly offered my still warm creation to my grateful buddies. I reduced the wine with the oil to a glaze: a perfect tart-honey foil to the richness of the meat. I burst with pride when they like what I do. It's my drug, my way of still getting praise from my peers. I loved it then, and I always will.
The flip side is they're more than generous with their hard earned know how. We all share - it's what we do. I always walk away with more than I've managed to bring. This morning Dan offered me one of his first experimental mortadellas. It was delicious, rich with authentic, heady, Italian country flavors, but the color hadn't turned bright pink, which made it unuseable in this first class restaurant. He may have used fewer nitrites than he should have. Who cares.
In that quiet, fluorescent, pre-opening moment, everyone in spotless whites, the pastry chef is quietly showing the gardemanger how to arrange the desserts for the evening, the chef is making his final adjustments to the sauces, the plate layouts, portions, and the house count, I feel that same tingle of excitement I used to when I had my own restaurant, about to open the doors for the evening. You never know what's going to happen; there's that old man Murphy and his law always lurking somewhere, and that's what makes the business wonderful: the feeling at the end of the evening that somehow, as a team, again we got away with something, thank heaven. I've watched these guys work during service: a rare privilege, and one I cherish. This space once was my own kitchen, one I created in 1978, and to see what it has become: light years beyond anything I could ever dream it would be.
I freak when I watch them trim beef or veal, thinking of the wonderful veal stews I could do with the trimmings, and when ducks are dressed, the innards get 86'd. Christian, who was prepping the ducks told me how he fills the cavity with quarters of apple, onion and blood orange and herbs before he roasts the critters. As he slid the guts from duck number one into la poubelle, I begged him to stop. Now, I have a dog and a cat, so I got a baggie from my jeans and filled it with duck livers and gizzards. Most of it disappeared into the dog and my young cat who grows a few centimeters every day. Just a few days ago I sliced the duck livers into thin scallops and sauteed them in green olive oil and Sauterne wine: Chateau d'Yquem, 1967 actually. Can I blow my own horn? I got lucky; it was awesome. But no one, not anyone I know of would deglaze a pan with a wine of that caliber. So I ran next door with a plate full and proudly offered my still warm creation to my grateful buddies. I reduced the wine with the oil to a glaze: a perfect tart-honey foil to the richness of the meat. I burst with pride when they like what I do. It's my drug, my way of still getting praise from my peers. I loved it then, and I always will.
The flip side is they're more than generous with their hard earned know how. We all share - it's what we do. I always walk away with more than I've managed to bring. This morning Dan offered me one of his first experimental mortadellas. It was delicious, rich with authentic, heady, Italian country flavors, but the color hadn't turned bright pink, which made it unuseable in this first class restaurant. He may have used fewer nitrites than he should have. Who cares.
In that quiet, fluorescent, pre-opening moment, everyone in spotless whites, the pastry chef is quietly showing the gardemanger how to arrange the desserts for the evening, the chef is making his final adjustments to the sauces, the plate layouts, portions, and the house count, I feel that same tingle of excitement I used to when I had my own restaurant, about to open the doors for the evening. You never know what's going to happen; there's that old man Murphy and his law always lurking somewhere, and that's what makes the business wonderful: the feeling at the end of the evening that somehow, as a team, again we got away with something, thank heaven. I've watched these guys work during service: a rare privilege, and one I cherish. This space once was my own kitchen, one I created in 1978, and to see what it has become: light years beyond anything I could ever dream it would be.
Each man in the kitchen knows his job, and does it with the precision of a military maneuver. Varioius elements arrive in front of the chef at the exact moment they are needed, and when the plates are picked up by black garbed servers, they look, well even I'm amazed at their beauty.
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