Mission: Professional Chef

I've heard it for years. After I got in Scotty's car at the Jacksonville airport in March of 2006, and he sold me on bypassing culinary school. From Chef, every few months when I asked what I should be doing. From linecook on his blog last month.
"Buy Professional Chef, and cook through it. Learn all of it."

Professional Chef is the CIA's textbook. It's big. It's a little intimidating. It's kind of expensive, at least new. For nearly three years, I rationalized spending the money on expensive produce, beer, and to a far lesser degree, kitchen tools. Then I learned to play poker.

My first week here in Coventry, Honey taught me the game at the picnic tables outside the hotel we called home. Two introverts in a pub need a pretense to meet locals, to talk to people, and getting pissed enough to get over our shyness isn't a winning strategy.

It took months, but I'm now consistently decent at poker. I do well at the league game, but the cash games bring out the worst in me. I'm impatient, I try to bully new players, and inevitably get beat by someone I can't read. Finally, two weeks ago I committed. I was going to win money. I would stick it out through large chip stacks and small. I even kept myself from trying to scare off the new guy at the table--a good move, as he was a hell of a poker player. Fours hours later, I won £30 after accounting for our buy ins.

I'd lost my paring knife in February. The temptation to replace it was strong. But my need to improve myself finally, finally won out. Reader, I bought the book. It arrived a few days later, waiting for me two feet from my front door, as though the postman could lug it no further.

It's massive. I threw it down on the pass at work with the announcement that if my fellow chefs--who have heard my unequivocal pronouncements that one cannot put members of the brassica family in stocks and demi glace, that a vinaigrette does not contain that much mustard and can't be made with just malt vinegar--thought I was obnoxious before, they were in for a world of hurt. The plates under the pass rattled. The CD in the stereo skipped. The new commis chef chuckled nervously.

I've bought two notebooks, and will buy a third for the portion of the book that deals with ingredient identification and food safety. I have taken detailed notes on the mise en place and method for stocks, the mise for meat, and tomorrow on the preparation of grains and legumes, the blending (or muffin) method, braising, and steaming. I will work my way through the entire 1200-page tome, taking notes and committing to memory everything that I need to know.

My job here has been frustrating at times, and less rewarding and educational than my year at Woodfire. I am resolved that the next time I have to find a new one, to be confident in my role as chef. Expect updates.

The special you'll never eat

Every cook coming up the line knows her limitations; those areas where knowledge, experience or palate are lacking. The kitchen, or at least a good kitchen with a good chef, is not forgiving, and if you operate in oblivious unawareness of your shortcomings, you won't do so for long.

I'm not a fish person. I like to eat pork and vegetables. Baking, charcuterie, the types of cooking that take time and care well in advance in order to be successful are where I'm happiest. Fish is generally fast: cook it quickly, and just enough to be tasty. Serve it simply, with light flavors so that the guest tastes the fish he's paying for first. In the world of line cookery, fish requires skill. Also, it's expensive.

Or at least that's how I see it. There's a high likelihood that I've made a bogeyman out of fish cookery. And I want it to stop. Yesterday we got a shipment of red mullet. The chef was out and it wasn't on our specials board. I talked with our senior chef de partie--an admitted fish-hater--about what to do with it.
"What's it taste like?"

"It's awful. Very, very earthy. But the skin stays that gorgeous red colour. Maybe a risotto?"

"Hmmm. or something with orange and olives."

I went on my break and thought about risottos with fish. The idea has never quite appealed to me, but a citrus risotto with an earthy fish fillet sounded promising. And I could introduce the senior chef de partie to gremolata, one of my favorite garnishes for it's ability to lighten and elevate the flavor of dish without overpowering it, and to bring more colour to the plate.

My risotto was too lemony, so it took a lot of butter to bring it back to the proper flavor, and the the fish--seared on the skin side, and finished in the low section of the grill with cracked pepper--stuck to the pan, so I lost that beautiful skin, but the whole dish tasted great. I'd like to add peas to it if we served it.

It won't make it onto the specials list, though. I'm a commis chef, and my duties don't include creating a special. A fish risotto would be pretty out of the ordinary for us. And as today is my day off, I'm not there to make the case to the junior chef de partie and the head chef.

But it was good fun on a slow Monday night. I liked the fish that I made. I'm curious to try other preparations, fish and shellfish.

In other news, I want:
On the Line. I've been looking at the excerpts all morning, and it looks so good.
Ratio. Not out yet, but looks like one of those really useful books.
A bigger case for knives and tools. I haven't found one I like yet, but I'm typically indecisive.