week 3: snack attack

image from here

The third week was even more dizzying than the last 2. Put in a good 3 days of work, but then became completely disoriented on day 4. Got thrown into a few new things and combined with my new arch-nemesis, reindeer lichen, I pretty much had the worst day yet. Luckily, I recovered the next day...but this Tuesday looks to be another one where we'll all have to dig deep.

Just for comparison's sake, the last section I was in was called "production" it basically exists to tackle larger (read, generally more labor intensive) projects for the other sections. Lots of herb picking, nut peeling, chervil tree making, stem making...that sort of thing. Maybe once a week, we'd also process about 20 boxes of live scallops or maybe do 7 hours worth of bone marrow processing. It's typically the stuff people tell stories about...infinite tedium to do little things. Lots of work for sure, but since it isn't a service section per se, it doesn't have quite the same pressure as the other sections. And in retrospect, I can definitely see the importance of that work in the final dishes. Sure, I'd bet that there are kitchens out there that simply try to do that kind of work to keep stages "busy", but here at least...I'd say it's definitely necessary. Also, it is an excellent place to see the menu as you help out on the services for private parties. In that situation it's typically a sous plus a chef de partie running the service and grabbing hands as they need it...so you could have up to 9 people available to attend to a single table that maxes out at around 16 people, and all of the mise en place has already been prepared by the sections that own each dish.

In snacks, there are usually 4 of us (chef de partie plus 3 stages), responsible for 11 dishes, beginning to end, all of which are served sequentially right at the start of the meal (typically 35 people for lunch and another 50 for dinner). What this means is that it's typically the busiest section in the kitchen. Granted, when we're the most busy, the kitchen rapidly throws hands where its needed....you simply can't plate 20 of these without help. (it's a piece of toast where a sauce is dotted in a specific way on the toast, then a specific assortment of herbs are individually placed into the dots...it's then dusted with vinegar powder and then a duck skin is placed on top before being served) In any case, one of the stagiers in our section finished his tour before the week was out leaving us a man down for two days. Given that everyone is already running at full speed even when fully staffed, and add to that the fact that I've got to pick up new tasks...and things get very challenging. But that's how it is over here...there really is no "training period" for anything...you get thown into it, try not to fuck up too much, and you better be able to do it better and faster tomorrow or you'll really be in the shit.

And that's what waits for me at 6AM tomorrow...