Day 193: In Over My Head

Listening: Let's rearrange. I wish you were a stranger I could disengage. Just say that we agree and then never change. Soften a bit until we all just get along, but that's disregard. Find another friend and you discard.

What's my problem? I know where I am in my skill level.

I'm on the "Thursday" of my five day break from the island. The time has dragged and has flown by at the same time. I have spent the time largely by myself, getting out of bed late and into bed rather early. I think that two of the past three nights I was in my sleepwear before midnight. Normally, I would watch TV in bed or plink around on the internet, but the cable is out and the wireless router is on the fritz too, so there's really nothing to do in my room besides sleep, read or listen to music. It's not a bad life, but it's hell when you want to check your e-mail and the signal from the neighbor's router is awful.

A big part of this break for me was to start the hunt for potential jobs, just to flesh out my options for the next year. Do I go back to the island for one more season? Do I try to get a steady/non-seasonal job in Boston? Where do I find said steady job?

One of the reasons that I'm looking at jobs back on the mainland is because, after two seasons on the island, I don't feel any closer to "going native." I don't feel like I speak the language of the island. I don't hold the same values of either the residents, the workers, or the vacationers there.

I love working for my chef. He's a great boss to have, as is his wife who handles the front of the house. After a hard first season of people quitting, walking out, butting heads, and nearly passing out on the line, I came back with a new mindset. I think I set aside my ego (which a lot of people who know me would think impossible), and set my mind on focusing on what was in front of me. I was focused on being the best cook that I could be in that very moment. I was determined to live up to my moniker and be ZEN!!! in the kitchen.

I think that I achieved a lot of my goals this summer. I think that I improved on doing what was right in front of me. Sometimes I walked away from extra projects just so that I could make sure that what I had was tight.

What makes me want to stay on the island for another season is the fact that the familiarity of the setting and the people might make it easier for me to progress and improve upon myself in a number of aspects. The things that I am constantly improving on are rudimentary things such as speed and precision. In this kitchen, as it is with almost any kitchen, I would undoubtedly have an opportunity to work on my speed, both in line work as well as in prep work.

Precision is another story. We do nice food or food that looks nice. However, we don't have a lot of precision cuts on our dishes. We don't have obvious fine brunoise. A lot of our knife cuts are hidden by the composition of the dishes. There's never a point where a plate hits the table and someone instantly thinks, "Holy shit! That's a whole bunch of tiny, perfect cubes of vegetable!" I've eaten at places where I've thought that. I've produced cuts close to that, but never as consistently as I would like to.

This brings us to the question of "Where would I go if I don't go back to the island?" Well, so far, I have dropped my resume at two places and have staged at another one. The three places are all in Cambridge, which should be of no surprise. The first place that I dropped my resume, is a place called Hungry Mother. It's a great place near Kendall Square that specializes in southern cuisine. The reasons that I would love to work at Hungry Mother is because I am familiar with, and I love eating southern cuisine. I love the collard greens and the smoked pork products. I love cornbread and barbecue sauces. Furthermore, the restaurant isn't just a down-home southern joint. The chef there has been in fine dining for a long time, so it's homestyle food done nice.

The place that I staged was Salts. See, my pal, Marsoir, recently got a job there. My friend Brook has been working there for the past few years. When I asked Marsoir if I could use him as a reference, he asked if I wanted to come and check Salts out. I thought it was going to be one of those, "Oh, hey! Come and check out what I'm doing!" kinds of stages. Instead, when I walked in the door, I found out that they were hiring.

Salts isn't a place that should be taken lightly. Gabriel Bremer was named as one of Food And Wine's Best New Chefs of 2007. He's doing bangin' food out of a tiny kitchen in a tiny restaurant in Cambridge. Both Marsoir and Brook are monsters. They kill it in the kitchen. Right now, I honestly believe that they are ten times the cook that I am.

So, when I walked into the kitchen in my whites and went to work, I was much more careful doing everything that I was asked to do. This slowed me down. I kept my eyes open, watching my pals as they rocked it out and as they were in the weeds. Prep at Salts is intense. It was more intense than anywhere else that I have ever worked. Chef Bremer does all of the pastry himself. They have an immersion circulator, a piece of equipment that I have never used before, to sous vide, a method of cooking that I have never done. There was no fryer, no grill, and no tongs. There were food additives (not crazy stuff, chemically, but things like xantham gum, agar agar, soy lecithin, different root derivatives), some of which I was familiar with, others that I was not. It was extremely intimidating.

I thought that I would just be watching service, but when they had to pick up an eighteen person party, I was told by Brook to plate up the veg dishes. I was plating and saucing and garnishing for Gabriel Bremer. I got it done and did a good job, but I was still kind of in shell shock. I just didn't expect to be plating that man's food. I'm not as shocked as I would have been if, say TK or Grant Achatz asked me to plate up on a one day stage.

To be honest, I think that if I were to go work at Salts, I would be a bit in over my head. I would probably be in the weeds day in and day out. And worst of all, I fear that I would end up disappointing Marsoir, a guy who has had my back and has been a great supporter of my culinary growth. I would never want to disappoint him. On the flip side of the coin, a place like that would really push me to be better if I could actually keep my head, or possibly only my nose above water. It is really nice food.

The final place that I dropped off my resume is probably the place that I want the job the most. It's the place East by Northeast, the Chinese inspired fine dining joint that's slated to open in Inman Square early next year. I met the chef when I went in to drop off the resume. He was alone in the space sanding tables. Covered by sawdust, we talked about my experience, his experience, the restaurant, what he thought it would end up looking like, and about travels.

The space is only going to be twenty or thirty seats, a size that really appeals to me. I can see a very small kitchen staff and some really nice food being rocked out. The chef doesn't know exactly how he's going to staff his kitchen. He doesn't know if he's going to hire another qualified line cook other than him and his sous, or if he's going to hire a dum dum to just fold dumplings. I hope he hires me. I really want to be working with the flavors and the ingredients that he plans on using. I think that the learning curve there would be steep. I'm excited just thinking about it.

Anyhow, that's what I'm looking at. We'll see what happens.

Right now it's late (and five days from when I started writing this post). It's time for me to crash out so I can get some work done tomorrow. I'm making lobster potstickers for the Christmast Stroll menu. I have to fold and freeze a hundred of them so they're ready to go for a week from Friday. It should be fun.