This Sunday, June 28th, from 3pm-5pm, I’ll be signing copies of my recently published memoir, SPICED: A Pastry Chef’s True Stories of Trials By Fire, After-Hours Exploits, and What Really Goes On In the Kitchen, at Whisk, a fantastic new kitchen store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It would be great to see you there!
The other day, I went to my dry goods shelf to grab a 5 kilo box of 64% chocolate pistoles, and found that it had been vandalized. Someone had written ñiñita chucha in black magic marker on the front of the box. Random scrawlings around a kitchen aren’t all that strange. I’ve seen everything from “te gusta maiz?” (you like corn?) written next to the employee toilet, part of a long-running kitchen joke involving an escort service ad and an ear of corn, to expletive filled notes imploring coworkers to keep a given area tidy, to random cartoon renditions of male genitals, to altered labels on my pastry items (tart turned into a fart, buttermilk becomes simply butt milk, you get the idea) Suffice it to say it doesn’t take much to entertain a bunch of kitchen workers.
But ñiñita chuca was the first bit of graffiti to show up in my present workplace which had been, up to that point, generally free of expletives, shouting, practical jokes and general bad behavior. In other words, it’s been a bit atypical as far as restaurant kitchens go. When I casually asked the Spanish-speaking chef what ñiñita chuca means, he answered just as casually, um, it’s like, cute little pussy, in Guatemalan slang. Huh? My relationship with the Spanish-speaking contingent with whom I shared the basement prep area had been pretty good up to that point so I found it unlikely that one of them would call me a pussy via a box of chocolate, and anyway, after years in kitchens, I’ve done my best to make sure I don’t come close to giving off a pussy vibe. So I gathered the three of them around, held up the vandalized box and asked, as non-accusingly as I could (I didn’t want them to think I actually cared about the grafitti, I just wanted to figure it out), why did someone write cute little pussy on my chocolate? The butcher, and the oldest of the three, looked a little surprised at the words that had just come out of my mouth but simply shook his head as if in exasperation, while the youngest started to giggle. He’s from Guatemala, he explained, pointing at the third, holding his stomach as he laughed, as if it all made perfect sense. And that was all the explanation I got.
I’ve noticed a pattern. Every time I post something of, shall we say,”questionable” taste, (kicking animals, the smell of poo) I lose a subscriber. So, for the record, my intention is not to glorify the smut and dark side of the kitchen, but to relay what I find to be the bizarre, sometime outrageous and often funny things that go on behind the dining rooms in some of the fanciest restaurants. You might not like it, but it’s all part of my workplace reality. So, as a disclaimer for anyone out there with a weak stomach or easily offended sensibilities…here comes another one.
I hired Jane (I will call her Jane) to fill a part time pastry position I had open in a 3-star NYC restaurant. She was far from ideal, but I’d been searching weeks to find someone and she was the best of the sorry lot. (Despite high enrollment rates at local culinary schools, it is still incredibly difficult to find quality kitchen employees.) I suspected she was going to have a bit of trouble fitting in with the tough clique of cooks when, early on, she almost bragged that her ex-boyfriend had tried to push her out the window (cooks have precious little sympathy for sob stories and even less if they suspect said stories to be exaggerated or self-serving). Even I began to lose patience when she pointed out a tattoo she’d gotten the night before (her 12th she proudly pointed out) “on a whim.” I don’t even care about the ink, she explained, I just like the way it feels. It was only a matter of time before the cooks unleashed their antics on her.
It was on one of my days off, of course, when Jane came in one morning to the pastry station and found that the cake decorating turntable (a sort of lazy susan on top of a pedestal) had been vandalized in her honor. The night before, the cooks had–quite creatively and most likely drunkenly–turned the turntable into a “Wheel of Sodomy,” complete with chocolate feces and raspberry sauce blood.
Most people have a romanticized idea of my work place. They envision me happily mixing doughs, lazily measuring out ingredients, casually enjoying an espresso with my most recent creation, fresh out of the oven, all within a cozy room that smells like sugar, spice, and, well, everything nice. It’s a nice picture, and perhaps represents 5% of my day to day reality. I’ve written plenty on some of the ubiquitous and unpleasant stenches that crop up in every kitchen, but the other morning I was reminded, once again, of an unfortunate circumstance that often befalls the pastry chef. In at least three of the high-end restaurants in which I’ve worked, the pastry area is inconveniently located too close to the employee bathroom.
Restaurant employees are a “family,” and these families are comfortable enough to, shall we say, do their business together. When you work upwards of 12 hours a day, and drink plenty of diuretic coffee to boot, well, let’s just say that when you gotta go, you gotta go (and the early hours leading up to a brunch service worsen this scenario exponentially), and where you go is often a short breeze from the pastry area.
And so, while there often is cake in the oven, its delicious and tempting smell too often collides with the stink of the freshly made poo coming from the nearby employee bathroom. The only thing worse is the odor derived from futile attempts to hide the smell by spraying disinfectant or deodorizer. Few things make me gag more than minted-poo or worst of all, rose-poo. I’ve never liked that perfume-y “old lady” rose smell and I sure as heck don’t want to smell her poo.
Launching and promoting my first book, along with having my beloved sister-in-law and 2-year old niece visiting for a week (and for the record, I lucked out in this department), left me with little time for cooking, or shopping, for that matter. Luckily, my freezer is stocked with some arugula pesto I made weeks ago when I had an abundance of arugula on hand. I know, I know. Pesto is usually made with basil, but I prefer the slightly heated bite of arugula. Arugula is not nearly as sandy as basil (making it easier to clean) and there’s no need to pick the leaves off the stems, especially if you use the smaller varieties often available at places like Whole Foods. I also like to toast the pignoli nuts (also called pine nuts) to give the pesto an extra bit of nuttiness. Pesto freezes beautifully in zip lock bags and defrosts quickly. If you’re really in a hurry just place the baggie in a bit of hot or slightly simmering water. Then, boil up your favored shape of pasta and stir in the pesto along with some cooked shrimp, chicken or veggies. It’s got to be one of the fastest and most delicious dinners around–and easiest. Does it get any better? note: I use Parmigiano-Reggiano, but Pecorino, a hard, aged sheep’s milk cheese works, too.
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
4 large cloves garlic
4 cups loosely packed cleaned arugula
3/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
finely grated zest of one lemon
4 ounces Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
Some cooks are just dirty. Like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, they seem to leave a cloud of dust (and grease and crumbs and chopped herbs–you get the idea) where ever they go. Pigpens make their lives more difficult because the more mess they make, the deeper they fall into a disorganized abyss and with line cooking–any cooking–organization and efficiency is key. A good chef will ride a Pigpen, constantly getting on his case: wipe down the station…stop wiping your filthy hands on your chef jacket…work CLEAN, and hopefully, over time, a Pigpen can turn the corner into cleanliness–the first sign of a good cook.
One Pigpen I worked with was not only a sloppy cook, but personally disheveled, as is so often the case. His hair always looked unwashed, he didn’t take care of his teeth, and his chef pants were always falling low and his apron riding high, so that a healthy band of flesh across his back waved to everyone in the kitchen. None of this prevented his luck with the ladies. (That Pigpen line cooks are appealing to the ladies is something I still don’t understand.) But, it did provide fodder for his fellow cooks who, not only teased him for bing a Pigpen, but would take any opportunity to drop a single green pea into his exposed butt crack when he least expected it.
In Denmark, when someone sneezes no one cares. At least, it’s not cause for any sort of acknowledgement and I, for one, am a fan of their system. It is just a sneeze, after all. In the U.S., of course, the polite response to someone else’s sneeze is “bless you,” “gazundheit,” or even, “santé,” but until I started working in restaurant kitchens, I’d never heard the Mexican response.
One sous chef I worked with was convinced that her Spanish-speaking coworkers, most of them Mexican, were yelling out “sunchoke!” after a sneeze, and particularly after a trio of sneezes. “Sunchoke!” she would cheerfully call out after hearing someone sneeze, joining what she thought was maybe their own little joke (they did peal a lot of sunchokes) or maybe their cultural norm. That her coworkers often snickered among each other at this participation was insignificant–they must simply have been amused at her attempts to join in.
It wasn’t until a year or two later, when I did some consulting work for a Spanish-speaking chef that I learned that “sunchoke” was actually “Sancho!” a man’s name. But not just any man’s name, this chef explained. If a man sneezes three times in a row, it means his wife is cheating on him with a man named, yes, you guessed it, Sancho. When you sneeze, you deserved to be teased, it seems. One chef took the explanation one step further. Not only is Sancho the “other man,” but if someone sneezes three times it signifies that his wife is cheating with Sancho at that very moment and by yelling his name Sancho will be compelled to pull out and therefore, will not impregnate the woman, saving the sneezer supreme humiliation. I can’t confirm that this extensive explanation is widely accepted as completely true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a version of the story limited to use among–or invented by–restaurant employees. Either way, the image is burned into my brain every time someone yells out “Sancho!” following a sneeze.
I wasn’t always a pastry chef. Before jumping into life as a restaurant kitchen slave, I worked as a sales and marketing coordinator for a large publishing company. Little remains of those years spent setting up the company booth at trade shows around the country, walking down the hallway to use computer that I shared with the rest of the sales assistants and coordinators, and staring out my window. There is one thing, though, garnered from those early years that I hold quite dear: two friends with whom I commiserated about work through those post-college years.
We didn’t know we were starting a tradition 15 years ago, when we spent the latter day of half-day-Fridays at the Molly Wee Pub. And I’m not sure any of us know why it was the Molly Wee we gravitated to, a generic sort-of Irish pub on a grungy block close to Penn Station–none of us took those trains home. (FYI, the Molly Wee has since been refurnished and now looks like a brand new, sort-of Irish pub and has absolutely no charm at all). Still, somewhere in those lazy afternoons of beer and burgers and kvetching about the office are some of my finest memories of being young and in New York City. We finally left the Molly Wee and the publishing house, one by one, for bigger and brighter things, but we kept meeting–always for burgers and beer and almost only at that burger joint so worshipped by the New York free press: Corner Bistro. And I was happy at the Bistro for many years. Fantastic jukebox, good burgers, cheap McSorley’s Ale. But as with so many things this past year, I, for one, was ready for a change.
We’ve been to Black Iron Burger (540 East 5th Street) three times now and sadly, maybe, for the member of our trio who comes in from New Jersey, it looks like we’ll be staying East–at least for a while. Black Iron is small, a nook, really, but that’s all it needs to be. A small bar with a well-appointed and rotating number of draft beer (I was all about the Blue Point toasted lager–but then, I like almost anything toasted) lines one side of the room, with the “kitchen,” a few feet of fryer, grill and refrigeration, at its end. The rest of the dimly lit room is filled with a handful of high stools and tables with a single booth in the back. The menu is small but has everything a burger place needs : shakes and malts in three flavors (van/choc/straw), fries & onion rings, cole slaw & baked beans, two salads (yes! salads!) a wedge and a green, and of course, the “sandwiches” as they are called. A straight burger will set you back a very fair $7, while the mouthwatering Iron Horse (a double with horseradish cheddar and grilled onions) costs $10. Me, I go for the Patty Melt at $8. Who needs a bun? I’ll take crispy grilled bread with my burger any day and that burger, by the way, did arrive medium–the way I ordered it–every time. And for any friends who might not eat cow, or meat at all, there’s a turkey burger, falafel burger, grilled cheese and a b.l.t. We haven’t tried any of these but I just might one of these days. My friends might gasp and roll their eyes, but even they will have to admit, it’s not really the burgers that bring us together after all.
As I’ve said before, one of the real bonuses for me about working in a kitchen is that I don’t have to worry about how I look before going to work. There’s no need for make-up, hair style, fashionable outfits, high heels or nail polish. In fact nail polish is forbidden and a health hazard: it could flake off into the food. But this doesn’t mean I’ve been free from comments on my appearance, no matter how bland I try to appear at work. One time, a cook looked at me as I melted some butter on his station and casually announced that I had a long whisker growing out of my chin. When I came into work with a new haircut, one that revealed an inch of close-shaved hair on the back of my neck, the smarmy wine director’s only words were, ooh…can I touch it? When I cut my hair boy-short, a waiter asked the rest of the kitchen, who’s the new guy? Ha ha. But the cooks had been thinking about my “look” all along while playing the game in which they debate which celebrities would play them in the movie version of the restaurant (one cook was a dead ringer for Paul Giamatti). First, I was told, we thought you were definitely Anne Heche. I was okay, with that. I’d actually gotten the Anne Heche thing a lot. Then, the last time you cut your hair, we switched you to Ellen Degeneres. I guess I could deal with Ellen, even if she was 13 years my senior. At least she’s funny. Now, he went on, you’re Gary Oldman. Gary Oldman? Yeah, the cook answered, cause he can play anything.
Not long ago I passed by the Bedford Cheese Shop in Williamsburg and saw a sign posted in the window: Recession Special! 20 cheeses under $20 a pound! I know Williamsburg has been gentrifying for some time now, and I’m more than happy to pay top dollar for quality, artisanal, organic foods, but since when is it a deal to get cheese that costs less than $20 a pound? I can buy organic meat at Whole Foods for less than that. So, I thought I’d note some places that truly are deals.
You’d miss the Vegetarian Dim Sum House (24 Pell Street, near Mott) for sure unless you were told to stop by as it looks like nothing special—just another grub hub on another sidestreet of Chinatown. And after peeking through the window and seeing the run-down, generic decor, you’d probably keep on walking and miss a fantastically delicious (and very cheap) meal. Though Vegetarian Dim Sum House has a full, many-paged menu of everything from noodles to “duck” to “seafood,” I always opt for the dim sum, listed on a separate, small sheet of paper. The rice flour rolls with Chines kale are thick, sticky rolls of white rice flour dough filled with green, leavy veg and topped tableside with a light, soy-based sauce. Buddha’s bean curd rolls are tofu skin filled with shredded vegetables and arrive piping hot doused in a savory brown sauce. I also love the half moon pockets, fried crescents, pea shoot dumplings and shrimp dumplings. A selection of 5 plus two fresh juices (watermelon, honeydew, kiwi) is barely over $20 and plenty of food for 2 people to leave full and very happy. I go there even when I’m feeling financially flush just because it’s that good.
In my neck of Williamsburg, good restaurants do not yet abound, and aside from Dumont and La Locanda, there have been few other reliable spots to which I can quickly walk for an above average meal–until Motorino opened one block away. This corner spot had been struggling or shuttered for most of the 13 years I’ve lived here so I was thrilled when this Neopolitan oven pizza joint opened and beside myself when I had their delicious pizza–after my first visit I had to return 2 more times in the same week! The pizzas arrive hot, the sauce is tangy and flavorful, the cheese creamy and not overpowering and the crust (which, on lesser pizzas, is the bit I leave uneaten) is chewy and soft–I often find myself noshing on the slightly burned crusts well after my stomach is full. Most of the personal-sized pizzas on their menu are under $13, and aside from the oysters, all the appetizers are $8 and under. The real deal, though, is Motorino’s lunch special: $10 gets you a pizza with your choice of soup or salad, without the crowds that routinely fill the dining room during dinner.
I hate walking on Broadway. The blocks between Houston and Canal Streets are torturous on account of all the tourists slowly making their way in and out of what seems like one of every chain retail shop in the country. Is is me or do the sidewalks just seem smaller there? But, sometimes, if I want to check out the rotating wares at the fantastic Salvor Kiosk on Spring or pick up almost anything at the time-sucking Pearl River Mart, I suck it up and brave the crowds. And when I do, I always reward myself with a trip to Hampton Chutney Co. on Prince Street for a dosa. It’s a small place, without table service and only a handful of stools and tall tables/counters, so scoping out a spot to sit can sometimes be tricky, but well worth it as the dosas (large, crispy, sourdough crepes stuffed with a variety of fillings) are outrageously delicious. Okay, I cannot attest to all the food (they have soup and sandwiches, too) because I fell so in love with my first dosa here, a breakfast dosa with 2 eggs, spinach, roasted tomato, jack cheese and avocado for $10.45 (all dosas come with a choice of chutneys and I always go for the cilantro), that I’ve never even tried another. It is so delicious that it is all I crave and all I want. And if you like lemonade, try theirs, which has the addition of orange blossom water and was good enough to inspire me to make a sorbet with the same flavors.
