Line Jocks

Wild stuff working back at the restaurant where, in many ways, my fine dining culinary journey began. My first night went okay but I was on the line with a guy named Justin that I didn’t really click with. On my second day I met another guy, Josh, who is another of Chef Eric’s protégés. He had a tattoo on his arm and gauge earrings in each ear. Right off I could tell I could get down with this dude. We made our introductions and then Josh joked, “What did you do to Justin last night? He came in for five minutes today and then walked out!” I laughed, “For REAL?!” Josh: “Yeah, man. Totally.” Then we proceeded to throw him under the bus. Hahahaha! We did our prep and midway through Josh turns on some music, Pearl Jam’s TEN. Back when I knew Chef Eric he would never have allowed music in the kitchen so it was testament that he had loosened up a little over the years that he was letting us rock some Pearl Jam. That coupled with the fact that his current protégé was tatted and pierced up clued me in that indeed the man had mellowed slightly.

I say slightly because when it came to the work Chef Eric was as anal and specific as ever. I really don’t have time this morning to get into all the particulars but I will at some point I’m sure. He watches EVERYTHING. And he has a specific way he wants everything done. There’s no gray area with Chef Eric. That first night was a crash course for me in the “Stalnaker Method” as I have already started calling it. Chef Eric loves that. He got a good laugh about it. Chef helped me set up my station and I pulled out my clipboard and diagramed the mise en place set up. Then Josh and I cut out for a few minutes of nicotine out back. When service started I was relieved to find Chef letting me alone and just get into it. He was working garde manger and pastries but he would come over every once and a while to check on me and my plating. He’d correct me if I put too much sauce on the plate or once when there was a tiny spot on the rim of one plate. I knew I had wiped it and that the waiter must have slopped it when he picked up the plate but I held my tongue. Chefs hate excuses and I wasn’t about to make any. We weren’t terribly busy but we always had at least one ticket hanging to work on. We stayed steady until around 8:30 when we served the last table. By this time Josh and I had already formed such a report that we were already raggin’ on each other, which delighted the hell out of both of us. On the last table of the night I got a Steak Au Poivre and began searing it in a small sauté pan. When Chef came over he told me that I needed to use a large pan so that when I make my sauce it won’t overflow out of the pan when it reduces. Josh pipes in, “I told him that Chef but he said he didn’t care how chef does it. He was gonna do it his way.” We all laughed heartily. I came back quickly with a “Dude, are you gonna be okay here on the line when I’m not here? I mean I won’t always be able to bail you out when you get in the weeds, ya know?” When it came time to break down the line Josh and I took five for another nicotine fix and then came back into the kitchen and rocked out the break down and clean up. We both wrapped up our mise en place, filled out our prep lists, scrubbed down our stations. While I cleaned the flat top griddle, Josh gathered the trash and swept the line. When I was done with the flat top I took the garbage out to the dumpster while Josh filled the mop bucket. No words were spoken we just fell in rhythm with each other like that. I mopped the line and then he swept and mopped the other side of the kitchen while Chef finished plating desserts and then we were done.

It was such a relief to me to have a compadre like that on the line to work with. He told me as much when we were closing and I said, “Dude, I feel the same way. GROUP HUG!” LMAO!