Trouble in Paradise

My last post might have seemed quite exciting but in particular my job at this Chinese restaurant was quite simple. Most nights I would come in and prep for the lunch rush for the following day. This mostly required me cutting chicken. On an average night I could cut about 50 pounds of chicken. Cutting the chicken was just simply slicing it thin, length wise so the cook for the next day could have chicken to cook for the lunch rush and not have to prep some in the morning.

Needless to say one night after two days off I come into work and the general manager comes up to me and says "Cesar I need you to cut 80 pounds of chicken." Thinking to myself I said "Okay". I knew I couldn’t cut that much chicken because the most I had ever cut in one night was 55 pounds.

So later that night the manager returns and asks me how much chicken I've cut and I reply to him "I’ve cut 50 pounds so far." He looks at me and says "I'll be right back." So I continue on working and a couple minutes later he returns with the chef. The manger begins to ask me "Cesar, what have you done all day? I asked you to cut 80 pound of chicken and you only have 50, now we don’t have enough for the lunch rush tomorrow. What have you been doing, playing around all day?" I proceed to reply by saying, "No I haven’t, I obviously was cutting chicken how do you think I cut 50 pounds if I was playing around. Secondly, this chicken is frozen like a block, I have to thaw it out and still it’s taking longer to thaw out than for me to cut it." The manager then replies back to me, "No Cesar you obviously were playing around and that’s why you’re not done. I know you like to take your time and milk the clock but this is unacceptable, now I'm mad." Obviously by now this is an argument, I haven’t raised my voice but I wasn’t going to let the manager walk all over me. So I proceed to say, “First, neither you nor the chef have been back here so how could you know if I was playing around or not. Secondly I haven’t been to work in two days and the first day I come in you ask me to do two nights worth off prep. What has the other cook been doing the last two nights that we don’t have any prep for tonight and for tomorrow morning?"The manager furiously just responds with, " That’s none off your business what he’s been doing, stop making excuses, your just a lazy cook. Get out of my face and onto the line."

So here I am later that night cleaning the kitchen, and then I hear a chuckle, I look up and its street pharmacist and he’s laughing and he has a grin on his face like "ha-ha Cesar got in trouble." What really bothered me wasn’t that he was laughing but that he wasn’t helping me clean. After all I had just been called a lazy cook. So I ignore him and start my cleaning again only to hear another loud laughter but this time it’s my manger and chef. They’re both sitting down and eating while telling jokes and laughing. Right then and there it hit me, I said to myself "Cesar what are you doing here you’re the only one working, everyone else is just slacking off. No one appreciates you here. This place is a dump it’s time for you to quit." It was after this night that I realized that I was so eager to have my first job that all those little things tiny things that bothered me I ignored, whether it was other workers not helping me, or just seeing the chef or the manager always laughing or on their phones doing nothing. All of this finally was shown to me in its full spectrum. I knew I couldn’t leave this place without finding another job first, but luckily for me luck was on my side.

Drug Dealers!

So remember a couple post back how I said that a large amount of cooks are either drug or alcohol abusers. Well at this restaurant I met a whole group of them.  This should have been my first sign to realize that trouble was brewing but I didn’t think much about it. There were three black cooks at this restaurant and one black dish washer. The cooks were named Robby, Marcel, and one named street pharmacist, you’ll find out why later. Lastly the dish washers name I don’t remember but he was a Rastafarian, that I do remember.  So realizing that these individuals were drug dealers wasn’t the easiest thing to figure out, they were quite sneaky.  At first I thought they were just lazy because they would disappear off the line all the time but I was wrong.

So one day at work am on the line by myself and I call for something and no one brings it to me so I go to the back to grab it and lord behold there’s Marcel and the dishwasher counting large bills and just as I happen to walk by I see the dish washer slipping Marcel a little bag. I obviously pretended I didn’t see anything.

Another day the cook that was named Robby walks into work and looks pissed off completely, like steaming mad. Marcel asks him why he’s so mad and Robby replies “I don’t want to be here I could be making seventeen times as much money if I was at home right now”. Just then his phone rings and he’s like “look theirs $100 I lost.” What I found curious however was this little box Robby always carried around him it was completely black with a strap and it had a green lens on the front.  To my curiosity I was able to find out what that little green box was. One day while working with Robby I noticed that he kept looking out of the window, he seemed to be paranoid, like someone one was following him. The Rastafarian dish washer noticed as well and asked him.  Robby replied, “The cops are outside and there watching me.” As I look outside I notice an unmarked cop car an all brown ford crown Victoria, I notice two individuals sitting inside of the car, and that’s when I realized that the little box Robby carried around was because he was on house arrest.

Street pharmacist I don’t have much to say about because I never really talked to him. Even more we really didn’t get along to begin with.  Needless to say the one sentence I did say was “before this job, where did you work?” He simply replied with “I was a street pharmacist.” I never found out his real name while I was there so I just called him street pharmacist.

Earning my stripes

Any good chef will tell you that in order to become a great chef, one must start from the bottom and work his way up, plain and simple. Chefs refer to this as earning your stripes. The second thing a chef will tell you is that to remember everything in a kitchen is hot, forget this rule and you will pay the price. Needless to say I forgot this rule and paid the price.

Finally a month into my new job I was finally getting a rhythm going, I was starting to memorize all the dishes off the top of my head, there wasn’t anymore asking "is this the right sauce chef?" Needless to say my ego was slowly starting to grow each day, a little more confidence here and a little more arrogance there. Finally I was given my shot, scheduled to work on Friday night. This was my chance to show chef I had what it took to be a line cook. So that Friday night I walked in pumped for work, ready to rock and roll. Cooking a dish here and a dish there I thought "this isn’t so bad."

That all changed right when we got slammed with tickets, order after order just kept coming in with the constant noise of the ticket machine printing "di didi dididi di". Ticket after ticket coming, I thought to myself "when is this going to end?" I’ve been cooking for almost 6 hours nonstop without a break. I was starting to question if I had what it took to be a chef, or not even. What if I couldn’t make it as a line cook? Just when I was about to tell the chef I needed a break to my horror I see the chef walking off the line, before I could even say anything he told me "good job Cesar, starting cleaning up." I look over to the clock and realize its 11:15. The kitchen closes at 11, I had did it, after a busy Friday night I had survived, covered with sweat and drained of my energy I could officially call myself a weekend warrior.

Invigorated with new found energy and cockiness I went to start cleaning the kitchen. Without paying attention I went to pick up a wok and the next thing I knew I was dropping it on the floor and grabbing my hand. It was official I had gotten my first burn, a nice sear on my hand for grabbing a hot handle. I learned two more lessons that night, one that perfection each night is needed from a wok cook, and that two, one mistake in the kitchen can ruin your whole night. For me I had been perfect all night but my simple distraction of momentary pride had gotten me burnt, ruining my whole night. Leaving the kitchen that night I walked away from the restaurant tired, covered in dried sweat, with a nice burn on my hand, and lastly I left with a humbled ego. I had learnt that the kitchen had a way off humbling the cocky and the arrogant. I wouldn't make that mistake again.

 

Trainning Day

Working as a wok cook is scary plain and simple. I've always been of the mentality push your limits because that’s the only way you'll learn. Some people however refer to this as biting off more than you can chew. My first day training as a wok cook was petrifying. I was being trained by a kid only a little older than me maybe 25 pierced eyebrows and lips with a tattoo sleeve going up his arm. His movements were quick and precise, and to me everything was a blur. Demonstrating a dish he said “add oil to the wok, let it heat up, add the chicken and cook it for 5 min, while the chicken is cooking take your vegetable and blanch them in the stock pot, remove the chicken, drain the oil, add your aromatics, add your sauce, heat it up, then add your chicken, lastly add the vegetable and toss together for 2 more minutes.” Looking over at me he said "got it? Good, now your turn". Half looking in awe I knew I was in trouble. Not only is all that information a lot to handle but now imagine having to remember 25 dishes and all the exact ingredients. It was starting to look like I had bitten off more than I could chew.

 

My first job!!!

After a long and strenuous job hunt, it was to my luck I actually received a call back from a restaurant, they were looking to interview me. Being the eager young culinary student looking for experience you're always at the mercy of the employer because they honestly can choose how much they want to pay. So here I was interviewing for my first job and nailing all the interview questions and finally the manager says to me this is an entry level position, we can only pay you minimum wage. Not really having a choice I accepted and it was official. I was now a wok cook at a small Chinese restaurant.

Freshman!!!!

Being a freshman in culinary school is like being any other freshman in college you’re excited and full of energy. Most kids are just excited that their finally out of their house. On the other hand I chose to commute, $8,000 a year for room and board was just a little too much money for me minus that tuition for school is $26,000. So living with my parents wasn’t something I considered bad so I decided to stay with them and be a commuter.

My first day of labs was nerve racking, I remember walking down the hallway with butterflies in my stomach wondering if I would make any friends. I finally found my way to class and entered it and saw kids just like me patiently waiting for the instructor to show up. Some playing with their knives others bragging about how they had already worked in kitchens and that culinary school was going to be a breeze for them. The kids in culinary school boil down to three kinds, the first one that knows what he's doing, the one who thinks he knows what he’s doing, and the one who is just completely lost and has no clue what he is doing. For me it was finding out which category I fell into.

As my first year progressed and we were exposed to cooking, learning classical French techniques, learning about stocks and sauces, it clearly became evident that I was one of those kids who knew what he was doing. Deep down though I felt just as lost as the rest of the kids in my class. I just didn’t show it. In your first year of school you are bombarded with so much knowledge that at times it can become overwhelming. To top that off you are slowly becoming covered with Knicks, cuts and scratches as you become acquainted with using a chef knife. As my first year of culinary school started to come to a finish I knew it was time to find a job, it was time to dip my toes in the water.

 Complete newbie. Notice the oven mit. 

 

Culinary School

The day finally came where I was a senior in high school and about to graduate. I was thinking "what should I do with my life?" I knew that doing the corporate ladder wasn’t my thing and that having a desk job would kill me. After days of thinking it eventually came to me, "why not be a chef." Before I could sell myself on this profession I had to do the necessary research on whether I would like this profession or not. After countless of hours of research I had come to the conclusion that being a chef was going to be a lot of hard work 50-60 hour work weeks, that most people in the profession were drug or alcohol abusers, and that my main days for work would be on the weekends. Despite all of this I was still interested in becoming a chef and before I knew it I was off to culinary school. Full of dreams, hope, and ambition.

 

Why I chose this career

I don’t really know when I exactly knew I wanted to become a chef but growing up my mother started teaching me how to cook from an early age. To her cooking was a valuable life lesson that I would need to learn because eventually I would choose to leave the nest. Her hope for me was that threw these cooking lessons I wouldn’t have to live off of dining out and fast food. However, little did she know that these cooking lessons would instead instill in me a passion and love for cooking.

The Journey Begins

Foremost, I would like to say hi to all who are reading this, if there are any. I opened this blog for two main reasons, one to practice my writing skills, the older I get the more I realize writing is an art and a very important one and secondly to have a place to express my thoughts and share my failures and successes in my career pursuit to be a chef. Lastly, feel free to comment on any grammatical errors you find in my postings.