Don't Try This at Home

by Andrew Friedman

  Everybody had their own reasons for subjecting themselves to the rigors of this kitchen. I was there because I was eager to leave Sweden and cook at a three-star Michelin restaurant in France. But I was only eighteen and didn't feel ready yet, and thought that a turn in a place like La Terrasse would prepare me.

  The setting was like something out of an opulent dream: a resort, more than a century old, set against the spectacular Jungfrau Mountain, where guests alternated between spa treatments, scenic hikes, and gourmet meals.

  Days were long in the restaurant's huge kitchen. You worked all morning—me, at the garde manger, or salads and cold appetizers, station—preparing and serving lunch, and also doing advance prep for dinner. The not-so-secret personal goal of each cook was to get your dinner prep done before lunch, so that when the last lunch order was out, you could take a few hours off, either catching a nap in your little dormitory-sized room in the staff residence out back, or maybe sneaking in some skiing before returning for dinner service.

  From the day I arrived, I led a very solitary existence at Victoria-Jungfrau. First of all, I don't think they had ever seen a black man in the kitchen before me. They sure as hell didn't expect one to show up when they hired a guy named Marcus Samuelsson from Sweden. But what can I tell you? I was born in Ethiopia, orphaned at a young age, and raised by a Swedish family. Anyway, it's my real name.

  Then there was the language barrier. The chefs in that kitchen spoke German and French, a little English, and maybe a little Italian. I spoke none of those languages. This wasn't just a social handicap. Every morning, there was a kitchen meeting in which the executive chef, a real ogre in his sixties, reviewed the day's menu in German. I didn't understand him, and the printed menu, written in French, was of no use to me either. So I was dependent on my direct supervisor (the chef de partie, the person in charge of a station such as meat or fish, whom I refer to as "my chef") and colleagues to help me make sense of my work for the day after we left the meeting.

  I had scarcely been there two weeks when New Year's Eve rolled along. As it is for any restaurant, New Year's Eve was one of the biggest nights of the year for La Terrasse, both for the diners, and for the staff, who planned to work hard all day, then reward themselves by partying until dawn.

  My chef and I were charged with making one dish that night: smoked salmon served with a thin sliver of avocado terrine. To make the terrine, you prepared a bechamel (a white sauce of flour, butter, and milk), then folded in an avocado puree. The mixture was poured into a mold and a gelatinous liquid was poured over it. It was then refrigerated so the gelatin would set up and suspend the beautiful puree.

  My chef took the salmon for himself, assigned me the terrine, and we got to work in our little corner of the kitchen. He retrieved a whole salmon from the butcher and began making the preparations for smoking it, removing any lingering pin bones from the animal's flesh with a pair of kitchen tweezers.

  Eagerly, I went to get some gelatin from the supply room, but discovered that all they had was the powdered variety.

  Having only used sheet gelatin, I turned the package over to read the instructions. On the back of the box there were what I'm sure were very helpful tips, written in not one but three languages: German, French, and Italian. This was about the time when I realized that this wasn't going to be my day.

  Rather than asking for help—which I'm not sure I could have done anyway, since I didn't speak anyone's language—I decided, with all the confidence and lack of foresight of an eighteen-year-old, to wing it. I bloomed what felt like the right amount of gelatin, prepared the terrine, set it in on a steel utility rack in the walk-in refrigerator, and left for the afternoon.

  This was one of those times when you know you've made a mistake and spend several hours delaying the admission of it, even to yourself. I spent the afternoon in my room, trying to catch a nap, but I couldn't sleep. As I tossed and turned, I couldn't get the image of that green glop out of my mind, and I grew more and more anxious as the afternoon wore on.

  When I returned to the kitchen at around four o'clock, I hesitantly went to check on the terrine, fearing the worst. Which was just what I found. Not only had the terrine failed to set, but it was disgusting, with a green slush in the center of the mold, and an algaelike attempt at coagulation along the edges.

  This was the second moment when I could have reasonably raised my hand, admitted my mistake, and salvaged the day. It would have been very simple: we would have let the failed version melt, then added the proper amount of gelatin, and refrigerated it.

  Instead, I decided to pop the terrine in the freezer and force it to set up.

  Now, in most kitchens, the chef will make his rounds before service, checking on sauces and other preparations at the stations at which they are prepared. But at La Terrasse, a kitchen steeped in tradition and formality, we did it a little differently: each cook presented his dish to the chef, showing it to him, then slicing off a taste for his approval.

  As the presentation hour approached, I retrieved the mold from the freezer. It now resembled a partially defrosted, frozen avocado soup, slushy around the edges with a little granite island of avocado in the middle. Even the smell of it was bad. It was like I had accidentally come up with real mold, the kind of thing you find in a filthy motel bathtub.

  Slowly, shivering with the dread of what was to come, I approached the executive chef, who was giving off his customary glower.

  "Chef," I mumbled, raising up the slimy green creation.

  The chef took one look at the terrine and unleashed a fury at me the likes of which I had never heard, before or since. Miraculously, the verbal beating my chef received for not detecting and solving the problem was even worse. It was a tongue lashing so severe that this grown man was reduced to tears and, unable to recover from the shame, he left for the night.

  As a consequence, the executive chef stepped in to cover for him. So this man who had just been telling me to go back where I came from—in a foreign language that, for the first time, I understood perfectly—proceeded to lord over me all night. He ordered me around imperiously, giving me a sneer so sharp I could have cut my finger on it. It was a terrible night. We didn't even try to save the terrine. Instead, the chef instructed me to take a spoon to any solid portions I could find and make little avocado quenelles. The next few hours were a blur of tears and quenelles, a cruel memory set against the echo of the veteran German chefs snickering in the background.

  I expected to be screamed at one last time after service had finished, but at the end of the night, the chef just left me without another word. He went off to a corner of the dining room and quietly savored a glass of champagne. I wondered how he could enjoy anything after a day in which he had had to publicly savage two of his workers. But now, years later, I understand: the incident was just one event in one day of a chef's life. He had dealt with it and, because he had come up with the quenelle solution, the guests were happy and he was able to move on without a second thought.

  When the rest of the crew went out that night to party in the town and usher in the New Year, I staggered back to my room, alone. I felt like the lowest of the low, and didn't want to see anyone.

  But here's the thing: that was the night that I could have said "screw it" and quit. It would have been easy to leave. In fact, it would have been the easiest, most appealing thing in the world. I had left a lot back home, including a girl I loved and a group of teenage friends who were hanging out and having fun in the last days of that time of life when you really have no responsibilities to anyone but yourself.

  But I wanted to be a chef. I wanted it more than anything. So I swore to stick it out, to work seven days a week, to get harassed in languages I didn't speak, to do whatever it took to make it.

  Over the next two weeks the chef put us on the graveyard shift, a vicious, soul-crushing schedule meant to break us. There were no days off. There was nothing but work, shouting, and more work. I saw lots of other cooks come and go d
uring those two weeks, unwilling to endure it, but I held on. I had made my decision, and there was no going back. I still had a long way to go before I made it, but I knew that, at last, I was on my way to becoming one of those hardened veterans who had come through Victoria-Jungfrau.

  Ultimately, I learned German to near-fluency and, against all odds, stayed for two years at La Terrasse, becoming a chef de partie. I learned everything that I would need to carry me on to those French kitchens I had set my sights on, and in time, to New York City.

  But as much as I grew in those two years, the most valuable lesson was the one that took place while I was absorbing that harsh German punishment on New Year's Eve 1989. That was the moment when I resolved to never give anyone reason to speak to me like that again. It's a strange, backward-seeming motivation for such a noble profession—taking inspiration from the desire not to screw up—but like I've said, cooking is at heart a lonely business, and you do whatever it takes to get through the day.

  Neverland

  BILL TELEPAN

  A native of New Jersey, Bill Telepan attended the Culinary Institute of America, then worked in a number of the best restaurants in New York City, including Gotham Bar and Grill, where he was sous-chef for several years, Daniel, and Le Bernardin. He also spent six months working under the great Alain Chapel at his restaurant in Mionnay, France. He was executive chef of Ansonia on New York's Upper West Side and ofJUdson Grill in midtown Manhattan, where he received three stars from the New York Times. He is set to open a new restaurant, Telepan, in fall 2005. Telepan is also the author of Inspired by Ingredients: Market Menus and Family Favorites from a Three-Star Chef.

  A BIG REASON I love being a chef is all the stuff that goes with it—the unusual working hours, the palling around with other chefs and cooks, the horsing around in the kitchen.

  Don't get me wrong. I love food, and I take the food itself very seriously. But being a chef means that, on some level, you don't have to grow up. You may have perfectly normal adult relationships outside the four walls of your workplace, but when you don your apron and step into your arena every day, it's like entering a professional Neverland.

  This is, I believe, a distinctly American phenomenon. You certainly don't find it in European kitchens, a lesson I learned early in my career when I went to work in France.

  In 1990,1 was a twenty-three-year-old cook, and I was doing great. I had been to the Culinary Institute of America and I was working in a well-regarded restaurant in New York City, paying my dues as a line cook. I loved my work and felt that I was on my way to wherever I wanted to go.

  But something was missing. I had never been to France. And the more I got to know about the best American chefs, the more I realized that they had all worked in France at some point in their careers. They talked about those days with awe and romance. Clearly, something magical happened over there that took their understanding of food and their craft to a new level.

  So, one day, I decided to take the leap, move temporarily to France, and spend some time working in a three-star Michelin restaurant.

  I've always been self-reliant, maybe to a fault. Rather than asking for help from one of the chefs I knew, I made the securing of a job overseas into my own personal pet project. I wrote a letter in English, had it translated by a woman I knew who spoke French, and then had it double-checked by the teacher of my weekly French class. I then handwrote thirty copies of the letter, addressing them to the nineteen three-star Michelin chefs at the time, and eleven highly regarded two-star chefs.

  The responses were not encouraging. In fact, twenty never bothered to respond at all. Five said I'd have to pay them for the privilege of working in their kitchen (fat chance). Four said no.

  The single favorable reply came from Alain Chapel, a three-star master chef, who said I could work for him at his eponymous restaurant, but that he wouldn't pay me and that I'd have to stay for two years.

  I made the necessary arrangements and set off to France, arriving by train in Mionnay, about twelve miles north of Lyon. As I stepped onto the platform, I looked every bit the brash American cook, with my leather jacket, T-shirt, and pack of smokes.

  I turned up at Chapel's restaurant in the middle of the afternoon, and what I saw when I opened the door floored me: it was the day before the restaurant was to reopen for the New Year and Chapel himself was actually dining with the staff; they were all sitting in the dining room, in their starched kitchen whites, having lunch and sipping wine.

  I had never seen anything so civilized in my entire life.

  Chapel noticed me standing there and before I could introduce myself, he asked me to leave, telling me to come back tomorrow, "when the work begins."

  I was embarrassed and scared, and I tore out of there.

  I was also uninformed. What time was the right time? I came back the next day at eight o'clock, but it turned out I was an hour late. Fortunately, Chapel hadn't arrived yet, and determined not to be sent away twice, I dove in and started helping out. Nobody questioned my presence—or offered me any direction. I didn't really know what to do, so I tried to look busy, my confusion only enhanced by the setting, which was overwhelmingly elegant: there were fresh flowers on all the tables, silver trays at the waiter stations, and in the kitchen the equipment was flawlessly maintained, from the unmarred copper pots and pans to the Le Creuset casseroles.

  It didn't matter that I had spent three years in one of the best restaurants in the United States—I felt like a total ignoramus.

  Among the eighteen cooks, there were two Japanese guys, a pair of young Belgians, and the rest were French. But no matter their nationality, none of them wanted anything to do with the dumb Yank who had shown up in the middle of lunch the day before and then come late again that morning. They probably thought I'd be gone for good by the end of the day.

  Soon enough, Chapel drove up with his little truck, bringing fruits, vegetables, and livestock from the market, as he did several times each week. These market runs are legendary to anyone who has ever worked for Chapel, and for an American like me, it was an epiphany to see this chef's profound connection to local farmers.

  I joined the other guys, helping to unload the truck, trying to blend in and look like I knew what the hell I was doing.

  Finally, Maurice, the chef de cuisine—a refreshingly soft-spoken guy for a French chef—introduced himself and assigned me to the fish station, called poissonnier.

  I didn't really enjoy my first month at Chapel. I might have been part of the fish team, but I never touched a single fish. Instead I would make tomato concasse (coarsely chopped tomatoes), pick herbs from the restaurant's garden, and act as a runner, retrieving stuff from the walk-in refrigerator.

  I got to know the walk-in very well, and I must say that there were things about it that fascinated me. I was used to big, stainless-steel refrigerators back home. This one was a small box, about 10 feet long and 5 feet wide, and it was made even smaller by the wooden shelves that lined its walls, reducing the area in which you could move to a slender -foot aisle. The shelves popped in and out of little holes that made it easy to remove them for cleaning—a charming and old-fashioned touch.

  I was also fascinated by how well organized and immaculate the walk-in was kept. Stocks weren't stored in big white buckets like they were in U.S. kitchens, but in stainless-steel canisters. The fruits and vegetables, some of them still in their crates from the market and caked with dirt, were plumper and more vibrant than any I had seen. In the back were the fish and meat, arranged neatly enough for a photo shoot.

  But as much as I respected the treasures of the walk-in, I wasn't satisfied with the work I was doing. I had been a line cook back home and here I was relegated to basic prep work.

  One of the reasons I was so underutilized was that often, especially during lunch, there were more employees than guests. It wasn't unusual to do just four covers for lunch, or sometimes none at all. There'd be more than a dozen cooks in the kitchen and not one person in the di
ning room.

  An additional reason for permanent residency on the bench was a cook on the fish station whom I'll call Sushi Guy. He was from Japan, and had been referred to Chapel by a well-regarded sushi master. At first I found him impressive and intimidating—he had beautiful sushi knives and did all the butchering. But in time I came to almost hate him. Though he never said a word to me, his message was clear: I'll take care of the fish, New Guy, you deal with the petty stuff. And he was usually so proficient that he didn't need any assistance. But one day he was hopelessly backed up, so I got my knives and my cutting board and set up next to him, preparing to give him a hand. He turned toward me, muttered something in Japanese, and pushed me away—literally shoved me backward with the palms of his hands.

  I tried to explain that I was trying to help, but he wouldn't have any of it. He just gave me an intense stare, made marginally frightening by the knife in his hand.

  I was so offended that I wished we were back home so I could wait for him out back after work and have a good, old-fashioned street fight with him. But we didn't do that kind of thing in Mionnay.

  Things got better, though, thanks largely to a big-hearted guy named Bernard. An accomplished cook at just twenty-five years of age, Bernard was French but spoke English and wanted to practice his English on me. Our station's saucier, he would let me help him, teaching me all kinds of classic sauces. Best of all, he instructed using English—until Chapel caught us. "No, no, no," he scolded Bernard. "English is the language of politics. French is the language of cuisine."

  So Bernard and I spoke French from then on. By that time we were friends anyway. His acceptance was like a stamp of approval. One by one, the others started to befriend me. First among the converts were the other fish guys, Anton and Ernest. Then came the two Belgians, Carl and Xavier, big, strapping guys who worked the meat station, along with a seven-year veteran of Chapel's kitchen named Freddy. Carl and Xavier were as goofy as they were huge—well over 6 feet tall—and they loved to make fun of the lone American.