Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

For the First Time I Stand Alone

I didn't think up the title of this post.

It came to me indirectly from the executive chef. I don't think he had any idea how meaningful it would be to me but, it's a damn good title and I'll attempt to do it right..

I came to New York knowing that it could support me with the energy, dynamism, and happiness that has been slowly leaking out of my life if I could muster up at least a little effort and courage in return.

It's been a long time since I've been on my own.

It's not fun changing countries, starting new jobs, making new friends, and ending frayed relationships. When I look at other people my age in their mid 30's who are settled with children and houses and well into careers with nice retirement plans I sort of want to put my face in my hands and cry.

Either that or pick up a cleaver and chop down the chain bone of something twice my size.

I dove head first into a New York 3 Michelin star kitchen culture that perhaps wasn't the best place for a woman, going through what I'm going through, to be in.

Why? Because your head needs to be in the game and your spirit needs to exude self confidence. But when all you feel like inside is a human construction site, walking into a competitive unforgiving environment is a little akin to smashing beer cans against your head over and over.

How can I organize a station if I can't even organize my life right now? How can I react to command when my inner voice of doubt and worry is drumming out the chef's outer voice? How can I cook anything right when everything in my life is wrong?

How am I going to get through this?

I pretty much wanted to quit after the first month. I thought: the executive chef's a jerk, I hate the people I work with, I don't fit in here, garde manger is stupid, the sous chef's don't do shit beside criticize everything I do, the guys are competitive for no reason, I'm here to cook fish and I'm a year away from getting to the line.

and...

I want to be where people know me and know what I'm capable of – not where I have to prove myself. I'm tired of proving myself. And further more, I don't have the energy to prove myself.

So I dragged myself and I'm sure everyone around me through a grueling first three months at the garde mange station.

I prepped salads, sauces, gelées, cold fish plates. I Diced cucumbers and jalapenos till I never wanted to see either vegetable again. I Plated smoked salmon, raw salmon, hamachi, kampachi, and bluefin till my hands could go through the motions effortlessly while my mind wondered back to it's dark 'why am I here?' place .

I whipped green cilantro foams (still something that never turns out right by my hand) and seaweed soysauce glazes. And the whole time it felt like moving mountains, not like creating fragile art.

My mantra bounced back and forth between: 'f all of you' and 'I don't care'. Neither of these two being healthy to meditate on. Especially not for 12 hours a day.

I'd be a liar if I said that nobody noticed I wasn't focused.

It took me a little while to realize, and yes a good long heart to heart with the executive chef too, that really I'm the one who needs to pull it together. I was hired to do a job and do it perfectly regardless of my personal life or the dynamics at work. And out of this conversation I re-found my backbone which had started to disintegrate

and...

that the executive chef is really a great leader, the sous chef's are talanted, I sincerely like the people I work with, garde manger is perfect for me because I need better knife skills, I can be competitive too without being a bitch, and I do want to prove myself.

And just as I was beginning to feel the cloud of doom clear from my mind the executive chef sent me to the fish pass (which momentarily clouded me again) and then to a sunny short vacation in the salon, and now on canapés...

Where: FOR THE FIRST TIME I STAND ALONE

(you knew I'd weave this back in somehow didn't you?)

The canapé station, or amuse bouche station, is a little like a life raft bobbing on the tumultuous high seas without a tow in site. In other words you're all by yourself and you either sink or swim. I have seen quit a few cooks flounder and fall off this boat only to find themselves flung back to the mainland (garde manger) until given a second chance to prove themselves.

I have witnessed several cooks sent home for a plethora of innocent yet amateur mistakes: soup not hot enough, wrong bread used for the croutons, or shortage of mise en place.

So when I got to this station all I could think of was: I don't want to be sent home. I'm over 30 years old not 12 and if I get sent home I'm going to be very, very, very upset.

But here's the thing: it's really hard to cook something right when you are terrified of cooking something wrong. It makes you not trust your own judgement. It makes organization difficult. Ah heck, it just takes the fun out it in general and creates an atmosphere where success seems unobtainable and being set up for failure a certainty.

I kept telling myself: I have nothing to loose. There is nothing more in my life left to loose and there is everything, everything to gain.

And it's just an amuse bouche for goddsake. It's not rocket science or quantum physics or computer technology or anything requiring a PhD. Jeez: it's just food!

Furthermore, I absolutely adore amuse bouches. They are beautiful mini meals in a single bite that set the tone for the menu to come. And anyone who downplays the significance of a canapé or amuse bouche has never truly experienced one before.

They are little suprises. Even when they are expected they are still a surprise because you don't know what it will be until it arrives. I love that.

My first few days at the canapé station were cake. I got to work with a girlfriend of mine who was on her way out (to move back to L.A.) and she showed me how to get organized, set up the station, hide the pots and pans needed for service early in the afternoon, and load up on extra mise en place.

We had a lot of fun working together. It could have been called the 'gossip station' instead of the 'canapé station' because that's really all we did in between spooning lobster into tiny cups, squeezing hot foams, and yelling "pick up canapé!".

We had good time. Something that had been missing for me.

Then she left and it was all up to me.

My canapé for my first day alone was simple enough: a truffled celriac soup with lobster and a gorgeous bright red sauce Americain foam on the top. I followed the instructions I was given to make the soup, but when I blended it, it was border-line too thin. I got chastised for it, but not sent home.

Had I done the soup the way I knew how to this would not have been a problem. Had I trusted my own instincts this would not have happened. And then getting blamed for not following common sense like: remove the celeriac cubes from the broth before blending and add the broth in little by little until the right consistency is acheived feels even stupider.

Lesson learned: trust instincts. Then you have no one to blame but yourself.

The service went fine. I didn't run out of anything, I enjoyed talking to the servers as they picked up the plates, and I sincerely enjoyed being responsible for my very own island.

In fact, I prefer to be in charge of my very own island.

"Pick up canapé!!!"

Bread Pudding with Pears and Currants

If you've ever struggled to actually put together something from IKEA then you will understand the need to celebrate afterwards.

In my case, I bought an 8 drawer dresser that resided in my living room for 3 weeks partially completed, becoming a permanent unfinished counter top until just last night.

What on earth does this have to with bread pudding you must be wondering? Nothing. Except after my IKEA nightmare was finally assembled I wanted dessert and wine and I didn't want to brave the cold outdoors for either one.

So I whipped this up having never made it before with no real recipe and just a few ingredients. Which should go to show you how infallible it is.

It was one of the most satisfying comfort desserts I've had in ages. A great no hassle dessert for winter dinner parties, family meals, or even IKEA put-it-together celebrations.

This bread pudding is simply a mixture of custard base with cubed white bread, pears, and spices. It's baked in a water bath for 30 minutes and browned on top for 20 minutes more with some sprinkled sugar for added texture and flavor.

Hard to resist breaking through the sugary crusty top to the soft sweet spicy filling underneath...

Click on "Coninue reading..." for Bread Pudding Recipe.

Technorati Tags: bread, bread pudding, christmas desserts, comfort food, desserts, winter desserts

Le Salon!

Oh yeah baby, I'm working in the Salon this week. Talk about sunshine after a long week of running fish back and forth, popping oysters open and stabbing lobsters between the eyes.

The salon is a separate kitchen on the second floor that only caters to private events. And it is so much fun to work up there. Almost like a vacation without the fruity cocktails and hot pool boys (bien sûr).

Let's call it an offsite. Isn't that where corporate employees go to bond, learn new skills, and just enjoy each other?

Don't get me wrong – it's not easy – just a different change of pace and the opportunity to work with the executive chefs and sous chefs one on one and learn their individual styles without all the al a carte drama of the main kitchen.

And every once and awhile I get to actually cook something on the line – HALLELUJAH!!!!

Working the salon is an introduction to working downstairs on the main floor. It's a chance to see all the dishes on the menu and become familiar with them. The stakes aren't as high in the salon because the menu is set to begin with so there is less margin for error.

It's also the chance to see the flow of service: when to flash dishes in the oven, when to start the pick-ups on the main courses, and how the servers handle different crowds.

There's some drawbacks too. It can be painfully slow and then all of a sudden you have to dredge up endless energy to pump out a gazillion plates all at the same time. One hundred and eighty different canapes? No problem. Fifty tuna- kobe plates? No problem.

Are the mashed potatoes hot? Are they f'ing hot or not? Oven! Oven! Put the plates back in the oven now – all seventy of them!!!

(Oh my God) Yes! Chef!

Okay and there's the horror part of working the salon. Like when there are two totally different parties side by side with different canapes, cold appetizers, and main courses and all of it must prepped beforehand and everything gets fired between ten minutes of the other.

That is when working the salon is not like an offsite. That is like one huge panic attack with an added acid flashback for icing.

That's when I'm running back and forth to our taped up menu sheets double checking the different canapes for each party to make sure we don't pass the wrong hors d'oeuvres to the wrong group.

That's when the downstairs line cooks rush upstairs from the main kitchen to help fire off all the fish dishes to the different parties.

That's when I'm just putting my head down and finishing plates with the garnishes and passing them off to the executive chef for one last final inspection before the servers carry them away on silver trays.

And honestly, that's fun too.

Fish Pass Girl

I'm not sure whether I'm being tested or just given the opportunity to learn a new station: The Fish Pass.

At the restaurant, all cooks when hired begin on the garde manger station and rotate through the various duties: salad prep, cold fish plates, canapes, homemade ravioli, and hot appetizers picking up the necessary skills along the way to eventually work on the intense frenetic fish line.

And, if the cook is really good, after working all the other stations at the restaurant he or she will finally become the 'Saucier' and run the fish line – a very demanding position. The Saucier is responsible for making 20 different sauces and insuring that the 14 different fish dishes are perfect by the time they reach the pass.

"Medium rare fish, guys, medium rare fish...we're tasting our food, right? Coming up on a mahi by halibut followed by 3 stripe by snapper, cod, black bass... how long on the mahi? Minute and a half – we go?..."

It's a smart system. The idea being that by the time you have finally made it to the fish line you can jump back into any station at the restaurant at any time to help out.

We seat over 200 people an evening and as customers eat their way through the menu from cold to hot dishes the sauté cooks come over to help out garde manger and hot appetizers until all the orders rest solely on the line.

But the Fish Pass station is not on the normal rotation. It's kind of island of it's own and a very significant one at that.

What does the fish pass cook do? Besides not cook a single piece of anything?

He runs back and forth from one side of the kitchen to the other passing perfectly portioned pieces of striped bass, black pass, skate, mahi mahi, cod, halibut, monk, white tuna, snapper, langoustines, salmon, lobster, lamb, squab, and filet mignon to the sauté cooks while popping oysters to order and keeping a running count of the tickets coming in and all the fish being sold.

Here's the deal, and I know I'm a little crazy for thinking this way, but I really want to work this station. Not forever – I can barely even type this post right now my fingers are so shredded from the preparation involved – but it's a great opportunity to actually get to work with the fish itself.

Great position or not, I really f'd things up on Friday night. Everyone got their fish on time and all the oysters were opened to order, but I didn't follow the executive chef's request on one small eensty teensy little thing so I was banished for the last hour of service and sent to clean mushrooms alone, upstairs, in the salon kitchen.

I don't like being banished. And I don't like messing up. But I definitely understand what I did wrong.

I didn't communicate. And that is a very important part of my job.

My Friday afternoon preparation started off great. I waltzed in around 1PM and directly asked the chef how many lobsters I should kill. He told me I needed: "20 all day" (meaning that I needed a total of 20).

I looked in the fish pass refrigerator at my station to see how many lobsters were already prepped from lunch and there were 7. I failed to notice however that there were still 15 customers yet to order on the board from lunch. I just sort of assumed that lunch was finished.

It wasn't.

I've worked the garde manger station during lunch and I know we rarely sell a lot of lobster so I thought it be okay. In France we cook both lunch and dinner so it's easy to keep a count on what's selling in the kitchen or at your individual station.

I butchered 13 lobsters for the fish line.

Killing lobsters used to freak me out but now I just take my old Wustov knife (that I don't care about) shove the tip right between the lobsters eyes to kill it instantly and then rip off the tail and claws.

Breaking down lobsters cuts up your hands because their claws have exoskeleton thorns that pierce through just about everything – five pairs of latex gloves included.

And sometimes, even after I've killed them, their tails spasm and clinch up wrapping around my hands and pinching my fingers. Or their claws open and close without warning – again pinching my fingers.

Next I de-shelled and cleaned a box of 40 langoustines. Clearly not enough for a service of 200 people, but they were the only ones I could find in the fish fridge.

Cleaning langoustines is another finger shredding job that sent me to the hospital a few weeks ago for a two night hiatus. My puncture wounds from their shells somehow got infected with Staff and red lines started growing up my arms from the blood infection. Not fun.

Back to my preparation... after cleaning the evil langoustines, and stabbing 15 lobsters, I started stuffing calamari. But I ran out of stuffing. I don't make the stuffing, that's another cook's job, but I had enough calamari prepped (or so I thought) for at least the first seating of 100 people.

And yes, I did communicate with the powers that be that I needed more stuffing and that I didn't think there would be enough langoustines for the whole evening.

I get my station set up by 5PM and I think I'm totally ready to go. I'm actually excited to start my aerobic workout for the evening running back and forth throughout the kitchen passing fish and popping oysters. God, do I love oysters...

But then the orders start flying in and low and behold they are all langoustines, calamari, and lobster. We're 8 tables deep into the service and I'm already out of lobster tails. I look into my little fish pass fridge and I'm freaking out – where did all my friggin lobsters go?

I notice that the cook on the canape station is doing a lobster amuse bouche and I go over to him and accusingly ask, "Did you take any of my lobster tails for your amuse bouche?" He responds "No." I turn to the sous chef and ask him about my tails and he doesn't know anything so nervously I ask the executive chef about my lobster tails.

He laughs. Thank God. And asks what time I counted the lobsters at before I killed them. "Did you actually look on the board before you killed the lobsters? I told you there was a table of 15 yet to order at lunch".

This stupid mistake hits my stomach like a ten pound boulder, my face flushes crimson, and I realize that all in one second that my college degree is worthless and that I'm probably lower than a cockroach on the scale of evolution.

"They ordered lobster? The whole table?"

"Yes. The whole table. You better kill 10 more right now."

So in between popping oysters, running fish, totaling tickets, and freaking out in general – I'm also killing lobsters. An hour hasn't even gone by yet and I'm already in the weeds so deep I might as well be in the amazon rain forest slashing my way through creepy vines and overgrown bushes.

Weeded. Weeded. So weeded it's not even funny.

Of course, I'm sure it was hysterical to everyone else. But certainly not to me.

I get the lobsters finished miraculously and breathe a sigh of relief that the rest of the service can return to a normal state of controlled chaos.

But no, how could I think such a stupid thing? The hot apps cooks need more stuffed calamari. And they need it now...

I finally get the stuffing for the calamari and the more langoustines are retrieved from the downstairs freezer.

All langoustines are frozen fresh, they don't make it to the U.S. from France in any other way. Nonetheless they are outrageously delicious. If a shrimp and a lobster made babies they would taste like langoustines. Depending on how they are packed and shipped, they can either be thawed out and used over a few days or they used that same day.

Quality is closely monitored in all respects at the restaurant. Especially the fish rotation and our langoustines are some of the biggest and tastiest that I have ever seen or eaten – France included.

Here's where I messed up biggtime: the chef tells me to wrap up the langoustines I have in my fish pass fridge to save and breakdown and serve the other ones first.

This would not have been a problem if I wasn't also doing my aerobic fish pass workout while finally getting the opportunity to stuff my 80 calamari tubes.

Cleaning langoustines takes time. They are sort of an overgrown crawfish and their shells are almost as hard as a lobsters. The tricky part in cleaning these evil succulent tasting creatures is to not tear the flesh while ripping off their segmented shells piece by piece. After the exoskeleton is removed they need to be gutted and trimmed – again without tearing the flesh.

Did I mention that langoustines are really expensive?!?!

I kept thinking: it is more important that the cooks have the fish they need when they need it instead of breaking down the other langoustines. So I continued to pass the langous in my fridge. I just didn't think about how important it might be in terms of cost. And, I just didn't have the time.

The evening begins to slow down a bit with just 60 left to order. I'm exhausted, my hands look like they've been mauled by a pit bull. My arms are tired from reaching for fish, running fish, popping oysters to order, butchering lobsters, and stuffing calamari.

I finally have the langoustines cleaned and wrapped up and I'm about to take them to the back fish fridge to store for tomorrow. But the chef sees me and says, "Those are the langoustines I asked you save right?"

"No chef, they're not."

There is a brief moment of silence as he looks me over with a mixed lethal concoction of disappointment, anger, and disgust.

"What happened to the ones I asked you to save."

"We sold them."

I start to launch into my litany of excuses as to why I couldn't get them prepared in time and how the orders of langoustines kept coming in while I was still trying to prepare calamari and lobsters and, and, and...

"I dont want to hear your bullshit."

"It's not bullshit!" I retort.

I wish I hadn't retorted. Because it's not my place to tell the man who has run a world famous kitchen for over 15 years with only impeccable reviews whether something is or is not bullshit. He clearly knows the difference.

He turns away from me after a long sideways glare and gives his attention back to the fish line. Meanwhile I return to my station heart in hand wondering whether or not I'm going to get fired for such a costly mistake. Isn't this the time where that big black hole is supposed to open up beneath you and swallow you whole?

The old fish pass cook is called back over to the station and one of the sous chef's tells me to take two sheets of black trumpet mushrooms to the salon kitchen to clean.

I take the mushrooms and head upstairs to my solitary confinement. An hour and a half passes and I'm still cleaning mushrooms defiantly willing myself not to cry. My punctured hands can barely hang on to their delicate stems because they are swollen. My fingertips are stained black and I start recounting the events of the evening. How could I have made that happen differently?

I couldn't have. I did everything I could have possibly done. Except the one thing I needed to do: communicate with the chef. Tell him why I couldn't or wouldn't be able to do what he asked. And that's 100 percent my fault.

It was my job to make his request happen and if I couldn't then let him know immediately.

Service is service. And when it's over it's over. Tomorrow's a new day.

And speaking of new days, Saturday the chef greeted me with same familiar "Hi Ms. Glaze". No altercation hangovers thankfully. Service was fun. We did 240 covers which is record breaking in my short two months at the restaurant. My mis en place was en pointe and the whole evening was a success all around.

"Pass the striped bass Amyyyyyyy!!!!"

"Yes, chef!!!!!!!"

Dumpling House: Insudstry Picks

You know you have truly made it in New York when you have no time to cook at home.

Somehow I have time to party until 6AM in the morning, eat at fantastic underground restaurants, sleep for 3 hours and go back to work again but (sigh) no time to cook at home.

So I'm adding a new category to my blog: Industry Picks. In other words, restaurants that all the cook's eat at in NYC.

Here's the criteria:
1. Open late or early in the morning
2. Reasonable in price
3. Fast
4. Must have a kick ass signature dish
5. Seriously cool.

Well, cook's are cool these days. Ten years ago we were just a cut above certifiably insane, but now there seems to be a rock star allure to being ADD and unable to sit still in an offfice all day.

This restaurant is not only a well loved cook's hangout but also a neighborhood hotspot. The Dumpling House serves ridiculously yummy food at a very reasonable price.

There's nothing like a soft and salty, squishy, hand made, meat filled dumpling to soak up all the toxins and revive the creative juices. And you can have them steamed, pan friend, tossed in soup, or served up plain.

"This place is awesome. It will cure you're hangover." He promised.

"Not possible." She moaned, forehead in hand throbbing with pain.

"Oh, it's possible." He laughed with the sage knowledge that one dumpling could remedy a plethora of problems and bestow good luck, fortune, security, and safety all in one bite.

"I'm not even hungry right now, I just wanna dive face first into my pillow and never wake up again. There's no way I can cook today. I can't even see straight."

"Meet me in the Lower East Side at The Dumpling House."

"You're crazy. I'm going back to bed."

"Just meet me there..."

"I'm broke."

"It's $3 for 10 dumplings. It's so cheap you can splurge on a taxi. 118 Eldridge between Grand and Broome in 20 minutes or you're missing out..."

The making of dumplings in China is often done by women. And I was not surprised to see that the restaurant was almost entirely staffed by woman making the dumplings, cooking them up in huge steamers and woks, and running the front of the house.

Even if you're not a dumpling lover, this restaurant it is still well worth a visit just to see the precision and speed of the women who sit in the back and make the dumplings. And I suggest coming at off peak hours – they fill up for lunch fast.

The Dumping House
118 Eldridge St.
New York, NY 10002
nr. Broome St.
(212) 625-8008

Technorati Tags: chef's picks, dumpling, Dumpling House, industry picks, New York, restaurants