I was all set to serve up weekly updates on Kitchen Stories, but turns out that kitchen life is like trying to juggle flaming torches while riding a unicycle on a tight rope. It’s been a whirlwind balancing the hours alongside my regular writing gigs, keeping my brain from turning into mayonnaise and, you know, squeezing in some me-time.
But fear not, I'm slowly but surely finding my groove. Until then, you’ll get my dispatches when you get them. :)
Now, let’s talk about the internship. Every day in a professional kitchen, for me at least, has been akin to being served the thickest, most flavorful, in-your-face slice of humble pie you can imagine. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t strut into the kitchen with sharpened knives sharing my unsolicited opinions on how it should be run, nor did I ever have that intention. And I definitely didn’t expect to whip up daily specials à la Sutanya. No, the last few weeks have reaffirmed how much I have to learn.
From kitchen lingo to mastering the foundational elements of cooking, it’s truly been a crash course in starting over. Sure, I knew that working in a professional kitchen, cooking at a bigger volume, and churning out 50-70 covers daily would be different from my supper clubs or even my two pop-ups, but I vastly underestimated the amount of planning, prepping, and mental energy involved in running the well-oiled machine of a restaurant kitchen. Chefs are thinking about a million things at once before and during the service, while also finding room to have a little pocket of thought for what they need to prep for the next service/days.
If one screw becomes loose in the finely tuned operation, the entire thing goes into a tailspin and as the intern, it’s easy to feel like you’re that loose screw. For well-seasoned chefs, many aspects of kitchen life are muscle memory; tasks are executed with ease and grace without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile interns, like me, are bumbling around the kitchen gathering the ingredients to make a ganache, fighting for our lives while trying to make the perfect quenelle shape, or practicing pastry piping in our apartment kitchens late into the night.
I can proudly announce that I now know how to hold a pastry bag correctly. Hold your applause. I’m still working on the actual piping. :)
When the ugly head of self-doubt visits me, I find an excuse to go into the chambre froid (the walk-in freezer) or bend down in front of my workstation, breathe, and remind myself: we were all beginners once. None of us are born experts at anything or knew how actually to exist as people in this world. We all had to try, make mistakes, brush ourselves off, and try again.
When I’m standing at my workstation, observing the chefs–how they move, the way they talk about food and bounce ideas off of each other to create new dishes or add excitement to a particular dish–I remind myself that I’m witnessing the manifestation of years of learning, growing, messing up, working in different kitchens, living and breathing this craft, and most importantly, their relentless dedication day in and day out.
Their consistency allows them to confidently hold court in the kitchen, think on the spot, and creatively push themselves in ways that keep their craft exciting and fresh.
After spending almost all of my career focusing mostly on the written word and PowerPoints, I know how to do that and I’m used to wielding a certain amount of confidence in that area. At this stage in the game, navigating this unfamiliar territory is difficult but not impossible.
So far, it seems to me that the ingredients needed when you’re trying anything new are:
10 cups of consistency
10 cups of tenacity
8 cups of vulnerability
5 cups of not taking things too personally
5 ½ tablespoons of banishing the fear of admitting “I don’t know” and asking questions
3 teaspoons of being slightly selfish about achieving your goals
Endless supply of blind and somewhat delusional belief in yourself that you sprinkle over everything as a garnish
Ultimately, when hitting the reset button, you just have to eat your humble pie, wash it down with a tall glass of “what the fuck am I doing here” flavored juice, and follow Dorie’s advice, from the MASTERPIECE Finding Nemo, “just keep swimming”.
Or in my case, just keep whisking.
Love this. Proud of you!
It’s like going back to school! Good that you’re doing this though :)