The Unassuming Chef

There are institutions, and then there are institutions.

When I trailed at Gramercy Tavern last month, I knew who Chef Michael Anthony was, I knew the reputation of the place, I knew what to expect of the food. Earlier this week I did an impromptu trail at Chanterelle, a French fusion place in SoHo. I had heard great things in terms of how they treat their employees, but—since they would not be able to take me on as an extern in September, due to renovations scheduled during that month—I didn’t bother to read up on the chef/owner, David Waltuck.

Laziness can make for some interesting introductions. I entered the restaurant via the service entrance during what would normally be the lunch rush (Chanterelle shuts down for lunch during the dog days of summer). Introduced myself, changed quickly into my chef whites and checks, and brought my knives into the kitchen, expecting plenty of prep work.

The genial, frumpy looking gent working next to my station immediately assigned me some very basic duties: lightly peeling asparagus, shelling fava beans and chick peas, mincing garlic and shallots. Possessing passive-aggressive social skills, I remained silent for twenty minutes and prepped like a robot. Then began to make chit-chat with the Chef Nice Guy.

“So, how long have you been a chef?” I asked.

“Oh gosh, about 30 years or so,” Nice Guy replied.

“Wow, you must have worked at a slew of amazing places, right?”

“A few, but I’ve been here a while.”

“Really, how long?”

“Uh….about 30 years or so. I own the place,” said Chef NG, slightly embarrassed.

In a business where head chefs usually have the crispest aprons, the loudest mouths, and seek out the most glamorous jobs, Chef Waltuk was a breath of fresh air in the typically stench-ridden kitchen. This guy has won a number of James Beard Awards, opened Chanterelle in the late 1970s to a glowing four-star review by The New York Times, and here he’s working at a small wooden table, doing menial tasks.

Despite the lack of glam, he still puts out one hell of a menu. The assortment of Japanese fish looked great, his sous chef’s preparation of duck smelled wonderful, and I loved the taste of his potato risotto with foie gras (they mince up the potato to resemble rice). Some of the presentations could have been touched up, perhaps, but I was still fairly impressed. Too bad I won’t be able to extern there, but I wouldn’t mind having my first culinary job in that kitchen, especially since all the cooks were easily the nicest bunch I’ve encountered since embarking down this road.

The stand-out for me—granted, I didn’t taste very many dishes, unfortunately—was the Steamed Zucchini blossom filled with a mouse of chicken, Madeira and black truffles. It looked bizarre, like some kind of exotic sea fruit, but the taste was pure French decadence.

The lesson learned: you don’t have to be a show-off, media-hungry goon like David Chang to put out amazing food in the restaurant food.

Gone nerding: Another trail in the (vacuum) bag

Last week I worked a two-day shift at Aldea, a “modern Iberian” restaurant in the Flatiron district run by George Mendes. I think it’s more modern and less Iberian, and while I took a day to warm up to it, I think the food is still pretty amazing.

I think I’ll always remember Aldea because it was my first foray into the world of nerd cooking. Or, more properly, molecular gastronomy, which merges mad science with classic culinary technique. Ferran Adria of el bulli fame is the godfather of the movement, but others like Wylie Dufresne and now Mendes have taken it and run apace.

The two molecular gastronomy techniques I saw firsthand at Aldea were sous vide, which is taking the process of vacuum-sealing food and cooking it in low-temp water, and spherification, which is basically the process of making everything into a water balloon.

First, sous vides. I was told by a line cook there that if they could, they’d sous vide everything on the menu. I must admit the vacuum bag machine was cool, and I’ve been told sous vide meat tastes pretty good (I didn’t taste any at Aldea). There are drawbacks to trying this at home, though, including massive amounts of botulism bacteria.

The second process is no easier for the home cook, but it is safer. It involves using chemical or natural emulsifiers like sodium alginate (seaweed and other stuff) or calcium chloride to “poach” a liquid, creating a thin skin around it. The result is a liquid that pops in your mouth when eaten like a rotten grape. Ok, it’s much better than it sounds.

At Aldea, they use this method to create little mushroom ravioli for a consommé dish. The flavor was okay if you like mushroom stock, and I didn’t taste it with the rest of the dish’s ingredients, but the texture was incredibly interesting and worth trying out. If I had an ample supply of sodium alginate handy, that is.

The best thing about the experience at Aldea is that it’s an open kitchen. So when I was sweating like a pig and had my dirty side towel at the ready, it was for all to see. A photographer from the Village Voice even came in before service on the second day to take some shots.

Good thing I wore my best chef’s coat and not the one I stained pink in the laundry a few weeks back.

A night at the (food) Oscars

Last night wifey and I got to attend the big food event of the year, the James Beard Foundation awards, at the Lincoln Center. Wifey got a reduced ticket because she’s married to a culinary student, and I got free admission for doing what I do best: pushing around carts of food on freight elevators.

I volunteered to help chefs preparing food at the event to load in their wares. It was stupid work, but I got to ride the ‘vator with the likes of Top Chef alumni Michelle Bernstein and Jeff McInnis (pardon the blatant starfucking, here).

The awards were boring, mostly because myself, wifey and fellow student slave Bruno were hungry for the morsels waiting outside the auditorium. The chefs were actually told to wait from 6 p.m. until the awards ended at 9 p.m. to begin serving. Not fun, especially when I was working all day without lunch. Bruno was also despondent that wd-50 chef Wylie Dufresne did not win best chef in New York City, though he was later exuberant that Jean-Georges won best restaurant.

However, the food was great, with only a few duds, and the liquor was flowing nicely. Among the standouts in my mind:
-- Cured bone marrow on mustard croutons with parsley and ramps (can’t go wrong with “butter from God,” though they were lukewarm when served and a tad salty)
-- Oyster and champagne stew
-- Beet brownies with Veldhuizen Bosque blue cheese, honeycomb and Swedish-style Texas pecans
-- Warm coconut-cardamom rice pudding with rhubarb and kumquats

The topper of the night for me was meeting Eric Ripert, of Le Bernardin, the outstanding fish restaurant where I’m angling to work. Bruno’s wife muscled through the crowd and told Ripert, who was already cornered by a semi-circle of onlookers, that there was somebody who wanted to meet him. I sheepishly walked over and introduced myself.

It would have been perfect, except that I kept repeating “I love fish. I love fish,” and mistakenly told him that my wife used to work on the fish market at Fulton Street. So now I’m coming across like the culinary version of the retarded weatherman from Anchorman and my wife is a burly fishmonger. Somehow, Ripert found this acceptable enough to dole out his last business card and invite me to get in touch regarding an externship. Either that or he was terrified I might snap at any moment and was placating me.

All in all, a great night and well worth the few hours of manual labor. Security was tight on picture-taking, so I could snag only a few shots of the set-up before the awards began.

Personality disorders

If you've read any of Anthony Bourdain's books or have seen an episode of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, you probably can surmise that the culinary world is filled with rejects and goons. Or, as my professor recently told my class, those who are "too short, too ugly, too crazy and too anti-social" to work elsewhere, including the front of the house as a waiter.

My professor warned us that many chefs, especially the masters, are lunatics with various personality disorders. So I decided to take this information and develop my own glossary of the types of people I've been told I should expect to meet:

The Hannibal Lectors: These cultured foodies are well-versed in Escoffier, the process of larding meat, the proper ingredients of white mirepoix, and the glories of a fava beans and a nice Chianti. However, they are also disdainful of all other humans, especially the snarling, bread-gnashing hordes of slobs known as customers. They may come across as polished, but if you insult their vicchysoisse, they might just handcuff you to your table and beat you to death while listening to a Satie overture.

The Jack the Rippers: For these gentlemen of leisure, it's not really about the food. It's about the knives, and other gadgets. They love to bucher a great rack of lamb, use tweezers to pull out the pin bones in a salmon fillet, or mince....anything. And in the still-largely-male-dominated culinary world, they are distrustful of women.

The Michael Corleones: Pure sociopaths, they will do anything to get ahead, be it sabotaging fellow co-workers or eliminating the competition. And they thrive in the culinary brigade system, a mafia-style hierarchy of executive chef (boss), sous chef (underboss), chefs de partie (capos), and stagieres and gardes manger (soldiers). So, as my professor said, you might be a budding new garde manger, looking to move up preparing salads and cold appetizers. But oftentimes the only way to do so--according to my professor, that is--is to find the "weakest link" among the chefs de partie, latch onto that person, and wait for him or her them to screw up (i.e., show up late, don't show up at all, burn a steak). Then, strike and attempt to take over that person's position. Then retire and glumly contemplate life at your lake house in Tahoe.

The Patrick Batemans: These all-American Psychos are a bit like the Lectors of the world, in that they can name-drop chic restaurants and chefs. But they are also unbelievable control freaks. From making sure their mise en place is impeccable, to obsessing about fat and nutrition content, they are likely to go far in the culinary world, where obsession and conformity are highly sought-after commodities.

I'm sure there are more, but these seem the major disorders in the culinary world. That's not to say there aren't nice guys/gals in the food biz. In fact, the one thing I've noticed in culinary school is how teamwork is stressed. A mound of dirty dishes? Everybody has to jump in and wash 'em. Somebody falling behind on their prep. Pitch in and help. The comraderie in the kitchen that develops during the hectic times seems to nullify all the anti-social and borderline sociopathic behaviors. Which is a good thing when so many knives are available.