Day thirty: Where I take the wheel
Posted on | August 13, 2009
Two days ago we did a lunch time live fire. It went … erm … oh, is that the pope?
Yeah.
Mama was wheel and was overwhelmed by the tickets. Mr. Big was grill and put some beautiful grill marks on some embarrassingly raw-in-the-center salmon. And me? I served a seriously nasty soup Mr. Big threw together the night before, a horrifying tomato sauce Mama made, also the night before, and some absolutely beautiful mac ‘n cheeses I had made earlier whose sauces broke when they were heated for service (picture, if you will, a shiny oil slick on the top of each one and sigh in misery with me over my lovely ramekin-portioned mac ‘n cheeses).
Today? Today was my turn to take wheel.
“The food at my restaurants is mostly the food of Italy’s grandmothers.”
~ Mario Batali
The first thing I did when I got into the kitchen this morning was toss that horrible tomato sauce from two days ago. It was made by Mama (who, heaven help us, is Italian) and consisted entirely of (1) concasse tomatoes, (2) minced raw garlic, (3) water from the concasse tomatoes.
It tasted like watery tomatoes laced with harsh garlic. So scary.
Now, we had twenty minutes before station set-up, then live fire. So I minced garlic and red onions, tossed them in olive oil over medium heat for half my time, then added my aromatics (basil and oregano) and salt and pepper and tomatoes and …
Taste, adjust seasonings, taste. Quick whirr with the immersion blender, drop in meatballs, stir, stir, set on back burner on simmer and, thank you, our time is up.
By the way, I added some shredded carrot right after the garlic and onions to give the sauce some sweetness and depth. It’s an old Mario Batali trick, and a good one at that. I also picked up some nice tricks on Twitter including chiffonade fresh basil as garnish, pinch of sugar for sweetness, pinch of clove for depth, and dash of wine for, well, alcohol makes everything better!
“Success is the sum of a lot of small things correctly done.”
~ Fernand Point
So I clean up from my hurried tomato sauce and, following the set-up diagram we had agreed on, put my station together for service. On my right I had an order in / order out area where I, as wheel, accepted tickets on one hand (order in) and organized plates to go out on the other (order out).
Next to that was my plating station where I had a stack of extra plates as well as damp and dry cloths to clean and wipe plates. I also had a cutting board and serrated knife for cutting sandwiches.
Then there was my cold station where I had my side and main salads and cold sauce.
Finally, there was my landing station where food from Mama and Mr. Big lands. I take this food and garnish it with sides or sauce and make sure the plates are clean and pretty.
Mama also follows the diagram and sets up her grill station. Mr. Big, however, does not follow the diagram and spends the rest of the time whining that he doesn’t have enough room.
And the first ticket arrives.
“I was at this restaurant. The sign said Breakfast Anytime. So I ordered French Toast in the Renaissance.”
~ Steve Wright
“Order in! One chicken, two sliders.”
“Order in! One fish, one soup.”
“Order in! One soup, one vegetarian, one sandwich.”
“Order in! One sandwich hold the turkey, one soup, hold the soup until the sandwich is up.”
“What is my sandwich, all day?”
“One sandwich, one sandwich hold the turkey.”
“How long on that salmon?”
“That salmon is coming up, please plate the soup.”
“Runner!”
And on and on it went. Now, two days ago, when Mama was wheel, she hated it and was in the weeds in no time. When I did it, I loved it.
I loved the fast pace of it. I loved having to reorganize things on the fly … a salad was ordered with dressing on the side, a chicken came back because it was undercooked and had to be replaced, and so on.
It was just like being a director.
And I loved whipping from tickets in to making salads to orders out to plating so everything was beautifully presented so much that I wish it went on longer than 45 minutes and had twice as many tickets as it did.
I may have found my ideal job.
So I asked the chef who is normally wheel in a restaurant. He said it was typically the sous chef. I asked if this was a good idea. After all, shouldn’t a good cook be cooking, not calling out tickets? He said they use a sous chef as wheel because they knew how long things took and could step in if a cook was overwhelmed.
You have to work up to the sous chef position. First, you have to do all the cook position; you can’t just step into the job.
So it goes.
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August 13th, 2009 @ 8:31 am
Freshly ground clove! I’ll have to try that!
From my limited experience, wine is added to tomato sauce to add some brightness and dissolve alcohol soluble flavours, making them available to the palate. However, the sauce usually requires some simmering afterward to cook out raw alcohol flavours.
I’ve a lunch lined up at the Cordon Bleu in Ottawa in coming weeks. It’s a live fire with culinary students. 3 beautiful courses. Excited!
August 13th, 2009 @ 8:35 am
The sauce broke because the milk you used in the cheese sauce didn’t have enough fat in it. If you use milk you’ll need to add a little cream to get the fat content up so the sauce doesn’t break.
A tried and true recipe calls for evaporated milk because the water content is lower resulting in a high fat content without using heavy cream.