« The Darkness | Main | Bid on it...or Buy it Now! 7 Hours Left! GO! GO! »
July 17, 2004
My First Day in the Kitchen of St. John's Restaurant
Yesterday was fun, interesting, exciting, and painful, all rolled into one. Guess which one came first.
If you guessed pain than you are correct!
So I get there around four o'clock. They're not close to being open yet, its still prep time.
The first thing they have me do is roll up basil leaves and cut them into strips. Angel, the prep guy showing me the ropes, shows me how. I thought, "Okay, this is easy." So I set to work. First thing I do, I forget to roll my knuckles and the inevitable happens. I cut myself.
[edit: Pictures removed because free host would host "injury" pictures]
So I got bandaged and had to wear a latex glove on that hand. The head chef shows me how to roll my knuckles (which I actually already knew because of Alton Brown of Good Eats fame). I go back to cutting basil. I finish one roll, and show it to Angel. No, its too thick. So I try once more. This time the head chef sees it and says, "We can't use that, look, do it this way," showing me a fourth time. By this time, I'm so infuriated with myself and rather embarrassed. I mess up again. Angel sees this and he tells me to just slow down. I slow down. I'm doing it! YES! I HAVE CONQURED THE BASIL...ALL YOUR IRON CHEF ARE BELONG TO US! Oops...getting far ahead of myself there.
Next was chopping straw berries, that was easy. I was then made to pick mint from the stems. I had to pick only leaves that weren't torn, didn't have holes, and weren't to black. That was easy.
They then decided to annoy me. I had to strip leaves from lemon-thyme with out getting any stem. If you've ever had to do this, its very tedious. Not very hard, but annoying and time consuming. I did this till open.
While I was doing that, the head chef was meeting with the wait-staff behind me to discuss the day's menu. When he was done, he introduced me to the staff and had me regurgitate my plans for post-high-school education, that I had given to everyone there I'd already spoken to.
I was also able to recognize the waiter who waited on Christina (![[info]](http://img.greatestjournal.com/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
october_sky) and I. He also remembered me. The head chef said "Oh, you've dined here before? What did you have?" I said "The best foie gras I've ever had." It wasn't a lie, I just haven't had much foie gras. ;)
Once we opened, I had to make these things. I'll give the phonetic spelling, because its french and I don't know how to spell it (if you do, please comment and tell me). They were Ohm-lee-zays. They were delivered to the table one per person as a complimentary appetizer once the party had placed their order. Anyway, these involved taking smoked salmon mousse and putting that on toasted slices of baguette and topping with a peice of red onion and the lemon-thyme I had pulled. I banked a certain amount and kept that number up as the wait-staff would take them. Easy.
When I had spare time because there were enough Ohm-lee-zays, Angel would show me the desserts and salads. I quickly learned to do the dessert Christina and I had enjoyed when we were there. It consited of spread vanilla bean sauce on a plate and placing three slices of strawberries and a mint leaf, baking the molten chocolate cake, putting it on the plate, placing walnut [UPDATE - Christina reminds me, it was hazelnut], (maybe some other nut) brittle and sprinkling with confectioner's sugar. Again Easy.
Angel showed me the tomato salad. It consisted of 7 or 8 varieties of tomato arranged on a plate with salt, pepper, basil, and dressing with a small pastry placed in the fold of the cressent shape formed by the tomatos. He showed it to me a few times, but I never learned which tomatoes where and stuff.
I learned a few other deserts which I won'd bore you with description thereof. They were Banana-Split (very ornate and delicious looking, not your average banana split) Ice Cream, Fruit Ice Cream, Sorbet, Cream Brulee, and a chocolate Cannelloni. I have most of those down pat, some are iffy.
It was interesting learning from Angel because it was almost all demonstration. He was Mexican and had some english. He had more than all the other Mexicans, but there was still a language barrier.
The head chef was very nice and would show me little things and ask all sorts of questions, making conversation. I learned chefs do that a lot when they're cooking. It was interesting to listen to their conversations.
Everyone was very patient with me and my mistakes. I'm so glad for that.
I met a guy who was actually working in the other St. John's restaurant, St. John's Meeting place. Its not as high end as St. John's Restaurant, but its still nice. The kitchens of the two places are connected. Anyway, he started by doing the same thing two years ago that I'm doing now. I thought that was cool and it re-affirmed my feelings about doing this.
Just being in a kitchen, part of a team, was so exciting. I could tell this is really what I want to go. I had so much fun last night and it was great. I look forward to next time.
Posted in Life By akijikan at 05:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://chattablogs.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/22895
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference My First Day in the Kitchen of St. John's Restaurant: