Last night’s stage

I got my ass handed to me during last night's stage.  We were so busy, insane busy, for a minute I thought it was going to be a slow night but I don't know the place well enough to know when their dinner rush hits.  We got hit and I got schooled hard.  We had to go from zero to 90 in seconds; those guys knew it was coming but I had no idea.  It was hardcore, humbling, and way educational.  I learned so much – the real life on the job education I get from staging is the perfect complement to the Le Cordon Bleu labs.  You can't teach insane urgency.  You have to go through it.  Seriously felt like an army cadet going from exercises and lessons to a severe wartime simulation. 

I've been in a busy kitchen before, and my time management on the line is rusty but I still have the instincts.  But the difference is, in my previous life on sauté and grill, we were making $6, $7, maybe $9 dollar dishes.  We didn't give two shits how it looked, whether it had been safely prepared, consistency, etc – we just wanted to sell the ticket and get the food the hell out.  Here we're selling $12 tapas, $15 desserts, $30 entrees.  This is one of the nicest restaurants in Austin, and the quality standards have to be impeccable.  Sure, I get all that in theory – who doesn't want to prepare quality products – but to execute the high quality under the pressure we were under last night, that is something you can't fake.  Can't get it in a classroom, won't even get it in Ventana, the restaurant at Le Cordon Bleu, when we 'work' there later on this year.  My early chef instructor Chef Edna said our goal needs to be "Get very good, then get very fast."  And last night L, the pantry cook, kept yelling at me "You need to work faster.  You need to work faster."  Speed will come from repetition, menu familiarity (the menu at my stage is seasonal, I showed up to a few dishes last night), knowing how to haul ass and get the job done well.  I'm still thinking about everything.  "Small plate or big plate?  Order of hummus…one scoop or two?  Hummus gets…sumac?...fried garbanzos?...shit."  As ten more tickets roll in, and I'm so caught up in the hummus thing I have nothing even in the frier, so no appetizers are even dropped yet, and I think SOS means sauce on side, but by now I'm too scared to ask because I've already asked that same question twice tonight, and we're out of the fried olives bowls, so what do you normally put the fried olives in when you're out of that one bowl, and how the hell do these Manchego cheese triangles sit perfectly on these salads because when I make one it flattens the whole damn salad, and no of course I didn't just dump a bunch of fried crispy things in the sink for no reason, what would make you think that…

Imagine about three hours of doing that in your head and that's pretty close to what my stage felt like last night.  But I'm not complaining at all.  Back when I was skateboarding my homey Kenny Grace said "Dude, you always have to skate with guys better than you are.  That's the only way to learn."  Staging is all about the Kenny Grace philosophy, makes perfect sense.  At 11:15 last night I cleaned the frier.  Drained the oil, scraped a bunch of detritus that can only be described as Disgusting Shit, and got a ton of sarcastic shit from the guys as I did.  Little grease, little hazing, it's all good.  I'm gonna get better and go back next week.  I'm gonna be a machine.