Day twenty-three: Where I get slammed
Posted on | March 1, 2010
One hot, sweaty, impossibly bright day, many, many years ago when I was still a university student, I was running across a meltingly hot tarmac in the middle of an Egyptian desert, trying to get a seat on a plane.
In one hand, I clutched a bag sticky with moisture. In the other, a book (predictably) swollen with perspiration. I used my forearm to wipe my brow as I ran, ran, ran toward those unassigned seats, glancing fore and aft; fore at the plane and aft at my well-brought-up mother stumbling toward a rickety semblance of civilization.
“Ma? Hey Ma!”
(She hated it when I called her “Ma.”)
“What?” she panted.
“You know, now, just now, I finally understand the itch and pain of diaper rash!”
My mother pretended she did not hear me. My mother is English. In her world, many, many things do not exist simply because she ignores them. Diaper rash in an adult is one of those things.
She ignored me, we ran, and I sweated and laughed and laughed and sweated at the silliness of it all.
Being in the kitchen today made me think of this.
A honeybee must visit two million flowers to make just one pound of honey
I woke up bright and early (awake at 5:00 a.m., good heavens) and had a leisurely morning of it, sipping a blueberry smoothie and playing with the kitten and catching up on the news.
All I needed were mules with feathers (for my male readers, think frou frou slippers that typically come with poodles and bon bons!).
I moseyed into school around 8:30. The night pastry class had left some chocolate goodies which the students before me had pretty much decimated. They were no temptation. Besides, I was feeling all virtuous having started my day with a very healthy smoothie. I wasn’t going to ruin it now!
By 9:30, the Chef let us into the kitchen. Now, I knew what ingredients I needed, so I set right to work.
I sliced red onions and roasted butternut squash. I blanched baby carrots, cut a halibut into steaks, and gathered arugula.
And, when I finished prep for my station, I helped another station with their prep, squeezing six pounds of blanched fava beans out of their skins and trying not to shoot them across the kitchen (those puppies can travel!). Then I cleaned the back kitchen and joined those of us that were cooking on the line.
Honey has more calories than sugar: One tablespoon of honey is 64 calories while one tablespoon of granulated sugar is 46 calories
Today, the restaurant was less busy than yesterday. But, purely by luck, today almost everyone ordered fish.
The fish was halibut. The halibut was cooked at the saute station. I was working the saute station. I was slammed.
And I was cooking “Five orders fish, right away” and “Three fish, one well done” and “Six fish, no pancetta in one of the vegetables” like there was no tomorrow.
At one point, the Chef stepped in to help (or because he thought I was too slow). Damn it, it was my station. So I took my pans back. I am not going to learn how to manage if he does the managing.
And, as I am whipping, I am not aware of how hot it is. I am not aware of the heat from the burners right in front of me. I am not aware of the heat from the deep fryer right next to me. I am not aware of the heat from the grill to my right. I am not even aware of the heat from the oven to my left.
Which is all that much hotter given what I was wearing: Stiff, leather Chef’s clogs, padded socks that get high marks for comfort but not so high for breathability, Chef’s pants which are pure polyester, a cotton t-shirt and a long-sleeve Chef’s jacket – more polyester – buttoned to my throat. And, insult of insults, a hat, also a non-breathing synthetic fabric, that not only impedes my peripheral vision as it has done so every day of my school life, but that holds enough heat for me to finish service. You know. If we should suddenly lose our gas feed or something.
Actually, I did notice the heat from the oven for a minute when one of the few bits of me allowed to be exposed to the air – the fleshy part at the base of my thumb – grazed the rack of a 450 degree oven. That I noticed. And marked rather loudly with a rather rude word. But I didn’t notice it for long. Because I was getting slammed.
It takes 50,000 bees one year to make 500 pounds of honey
And, as quickly as it started, it ended with a final, lonely, “One halibut,” “One halibut, Chef!”
I put away my ingredients and noted, for the Sous Chef, what I needed for tomorrow (the Sous will get it for me). I wiped my station. I scoured prep tables. I swept. I put away dishes and hung spoons and polished and rolled silverware.
And, through it all, I, like everyone else scarfed down an extra chicken sandwich from the pile of ten or twenty sandwiches which had been prepared by the grill station but which almost no one had ordered.
It was great. I have yet to try any of the food I make.
And we ended the day, collapsed at the bar and talking about what went right, what went wrong, and what we had to do tomorrow. And it was there, sitting between Gawky Guy and Make-Up Girl as we teased Other Guy about his lopsided silverware rolls, that we all realized how hot we were.
Everyone started talking about what they wanted to drink: Freshly squeezed orange juice, a beer, a single shot of vodka straight from the freezer, a soda.
And I drifted far, far away to a time years and years ago when I was running across the tarmac with my mother in an attempt to secure seats on a plane to Cairo in a heat I would not feel again for decades.
And I remembered, I didn’t have anything to drink then, either.
Comments
4 Responses to “Day twenty-three: Where I get slammed”
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March 1st, 2010 @ 6:34 am
This is great! The heat in a kitchen is seriously aggravating. I have shared the discomfort of diaper rash many a time and it is something no one can appreciate until it happens to them
A shower, a hairblower on cool setting, and lots of dry powder does wonders!
have a great day – I’m really enjoying your blogs!
March 1st, 2010 @ 7:26 am
Love your writing! I had a similar tarmac experience in Ghana. It’s funny how random life experiences (like the kitchen) take you back to other random ones.
Keep it up. Hopefully soon I’ll have some exciting school adventures like yours!
March 16th, 2010 @ 6:12 pm
I am loving your blog! I’m an architecture student, and for my final project, I am designing a culinary school. You have helped me immeasurably. I’ve had the most difficult time trying to find a student’s perspective to help me in the writing of the program(archie jargon for all of the uses in a building). Reading about your experiences in the kitchen, (diaper rash, for me means maybe a better way of directing the air conditioning, so that one is more comfortable) has made it a bit easier to get a handle on what is and isn’t needed in a school of this kind. I get a bit wordy, so I’ll cut it off now, but thanks again!
March 18th, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
You’re such a good writer! Great post!