Cowboy caramel, learning new methods and opening a restaurant

I've been at the new job for a couple of days now, and I'm getting used to working again, to riding 2 miles to and from work, new coworkers, a new kitchen, and a new chef.

We start dinner service in a few days, so I've mostly been working on prep for my station while the other cook and the sous chef run breakfast and lunch services. My station is huge: salads, starters, pizzas and desserts. I feel like I'm in the weeds already, even though the chef has instructed the other cook, an incredibly capable chick, that she'll be helping me. I'm trying to keep positive: work this incredibly busy station, and I will get faster, more organized, clearer. My systema will be strong. I'm a natural optimist, but it's a challenge.

The prep list is daunting, and I can't see how it'll all be done before we open. Opening a restaurant, I've decided, blows like a hurricane. It's hectic, the lists have to be completed, and we only got a copy of the menu yesterday. A cook no-called no-showed on my first day, and was standing outside smoking when I rode up the next day. As a cook, I hate having to talk to cooks who are deep in the shit, usually about to get fired. Inevitably, there are the explanations, the rationalizations, the guesses of the clueless, the desperate questing about for some reason to hope, to believe that they won't soon be finding out how exciting the prospects are on the current job market. When it's a good cook who just made some mistakes, I feel bad, and wish that I could realistically offer some help, but I don't make the decisions. When cooks screw over the team out of laziness though, I just want them to get out of my way and let me do my job. Cooks are funny that way; most are pretty forgiving if you aren't a total fuckup, but screw over the team or half-ass it, even once, and you're already operating in the past tense. You're not here anymore, you're just in the way.

But yesterday was fun. We were slow during lunch service, and chef had me clear away my prep during lunch. He doesn't want any prep done during service, and I've got to get ready to transition from prep to service. Then, of course, we had the slowest lunch service ever. So he showed us how he makes risotto, pasta carbonara, and caramel.

We made risotto at Woodfire, and after a year there, I knew how to do it the Woodfire way. Cooking requires discipline, and if you're learning well, there's only one way to do something: the right way. So I tend to approach different methods with lots of skepticism. But I'm here to learn, and even though his method was different, and didn't look like it would work, the risotto was great. The ingredients weren't the super-special produce that we worked with at Woodfire, but it was simple, hearty and delicious. Especially as I hadn't eaten much that day.

The pasta carbonara was good to watch. It's a dish I've tried once, and predictably made scrambled eggs. I was surprised by how much the copious pepper brought to the dish, by the transience of the sauce--within about 5 minutes, it had broken, something to remember for service. It was also a simple rendition, a reminder as we recalled all the gussied-up versions with peas, mushrooms, meatballs, or cream for people who couldn't emulsify with eggs alone, that Italian cuisine is simple, meant to be whipped up at home, and as it's been exported, it's almost baroque in its complexity.

The caramel was for a special dessert on the lunch menu, and the chef made it "cowboy style" with just butter and caramel in the pan. It came together beautifully, and made me want to go home and try it myself. Of course that was before another six hours and a pizza lesson, complete with excited children. More on that tomorrow.