inauguration: it's history

So the inauguration is over.  From a political perspective, this was an extremely exciting and important event.  However, from the perspective of someone who works in a D.C. restaurant, I'm extremely happy that it's over.  It was, in a word, madness.  Starting Saturday, we were opening four hours early every day and keeping the kitchen open an hour to two hours later than usual. Friday's prep shift was insane as we worked to get everything set up not only for that night's service, but also to make the prep load lighter on Saturday since the kitchen would be opening at 1:00pm instead of the usual 5:00pm — meaning four fewer hours to get things ready for Saturday night.

I normally love prep shifts because they are the time I get to create.  Line shifts are all about execution: get tickets done, done right, and done as quickly as possible.  Prep shifts are different. The printer isn't spewing out tickets; managers aren't running in to get orders changed because servers put them in wrong; food runners aren't taking the wrong mussels to tables, dropping the tops of sandwich buns, or forgetting to stab tickets.  The kitchen is relatively silent and  it's possible to enjoy the relaxing aspects of cooking.

Prepping for inauguration is not the same.  It's a mad rush to get things done.  Friday was a whirl of making double batches, braising as much brisket as could physically fit on the stove, and trying to see into the future and predict exactly what we would sell most of that night and Saturday.  Guess what?  It's hard to be a cook AND a psychic.

But we made it through.  Saturday night was craziness.  Twenty percent over what would normally be a really good Saturday for us.  Sunday night was a bit more relaxed but still the best Sunday we'd had in a while.  Monday night was Saturday all over again.  I was on the line and we went all the way until the stroke of midnight.  At 10:00pm we were still on a two hour wait.  The sheer amount of fries we went through was...scary is the best way I can think to put it.  Fortunately, Tuesday was a bit calmer.  But Friday through Tuesday we matched what had previously been our best seven day week of sales.

I'm glad it's over and happy to be heading back towards some semblance of normalcy.  More to come later though on the rest of this week.

boys' club

So, although I know at least one reader of this blog is very familiar with the situation/environment I'm about to describe, I'll give a little bit of explanation for those who may not be.  To put it simply: the kitchen (and the food industry at large) is very much a boys' club.

Despite a lot of advances and a lot of really talented female chefs out there, the kitchen remains a pretty tough environment for a woman.  Most of the best restaurants in the world (according to rankings lists and such) have male head chefs, most of the sous chefs, line cooks, prep cooks, and even dishwashers in many kitchens are men.  There are certainly kitchens that serve as exceptions but for the industry at large, the kitchen is still a pretty masculine environment.  In a lot of ways it's like a boys' locker room — girls aren't really wanted in there and if you go in there you better prepare yourself because it's a different world and they're not going to censor themselves or take pains to make you comfortable because, after all, you're on their turf.

So needless to say it can be difficult to be a woman working in a kitchen.  There are a lot of challenges.  I've been lucky for the most part because my head chef started his culinary career in the kitchen of a fantastic female chef and he says that she created an environment that was nurturing, educational, and helped him learn how to be a chef that inspires instead of intimidates.  All of this makes him a fantastic boss and it makes me feel very lucky to work with him.  But in a kitchen you aren't just working with one person, you're working with a group and not everyone in the group picks up on those cues from the top and — should that nurturing figure at the top be gone from the kitchen for six weeks — you will inevitably faced with a lot more challenges.

These challenges come in many forms.  And if you're like me (a stubborn perfectionist who hates to be wrong) you'll look at every challenge as an opportunity to prove yourself. Sometimes this leads to amusing results.  Like when you can't pry the lid off of a tub of pickled vegetables and you tell the boys you need help and they make fun of you.  If you're the stubborn sort, once they quit laughing and say they'll come help you, you tell them that, nevermind, you've got it on your own.  So you go out to the walk-in with a meat pounder and a butter knife and try to take the hammer and chisel approach to working the lid off.  When that doesn't work you end up putting one foot on the edge of the lid closest to you, planting your other foot firmly on the floor, and pulling on the other side of the lid with both hands and all your strength.  It works, but you're wearing about a quart of pickled vegetable juice and for the next 6 hours of your shift you will have brine in your shoes.

Sadly, not all of the challenges will be as amusing.  Somedays the boys' club will make you feel angry, frustrated, defeated and maybe it will even make you doubt yourself and your abilities. Without that understanding and nurturing leadership at the top, you have to fight it out with the boys who've been there longer, have been doing the job longer, and are pretty convinced that they don't need you or your input.  

So the head chef is out for a few weeks and you've gotten a promotion to a role of new responsibility and new opportunity...how do you succeed when the boys leave you isolated and out of the loop?  They talk to each other but not to you.  When you offer help or suggestions, they're brushed aside.  When you ask questions, you are ignored or, worse, snapped at and essentially told that it doesn't concern you.  They go over your head, below you, and around you to get work done but it doesn't seem that they are particularly interested in talking to you.  With the head chef out — the one person who hired you, promoted you, and seems to believe in you — how do you sort it out?

...I'll let you know when I figure out the answers.

Getting Ready for Inauguration

Inauguration is upon us.  The madness started yesterday.  We got in deliveries of enough items to last us through Tuesday since most of our vendors are going to be closed Monday and/or Tuesday and with all the road closures, we're not sure deliveries would be able to get to us if they were open.  We got in 20 gallons of mayonnaise and 8 wheels of Hook's blue cheese.  Our bison farmer came up from Madison yesterday and, in addition to getting stuck in some nasty traffic that caused him to arrive at 7:00pm instead of 5:00pm, brought us 6 cases of fresh ground bison, enough brisket and hanger steak to last us through Tuesday, and what has to be the single largest amount of bacon I've ever seen in one place.  I spent 45 minutes last night out in the freezing cold opening the boxes, organizing the walk-in to find space for it all, and then breaking down boxes.  It was not fun.

To add to that, our kitchen is freezing.  The kitchen is in a part of the building that was added on to the original structure so it has never had the best heating and cooling.  So basically cold air pours in to the bottom of the kitchen (which is above our outdoor patio) and then our commercial grade hood pulls all that cold air up through the kitchen.  It doesn't help that we're going through some of the coldest weather D.C. has seen in the last five years.  I've decided that I'm going to need to get a long-sleeved chef's jacket to wear over the many long-sleeved shirts I already wear since the short-sleeved jackets aren't working so well.  I am also going to need to wear two pairs of socks in the hopes that I can keep at least some of the feeling in my feet.  

These next four days are going to be unreal.  The kitchen will be staying open till midnight starting tonight and going through Tuesday night.  The bar will be opening at 1:00pm Saturday through Tuesday and that will include the kitchen having to turn out fries for customers in addition to getting prep done between 2:00pm and 5:00pm.  Thankfully I have tonight off and I'm off all day tomorrow.  However, Sunday the insanity begins: in for prep at 9:00am, prep until 4:00pm and then host from 5:00pm until whenever the wait subsides (hopefully around midnight at the latest).  Monday night is a line shift and Tuesday I'm serving.  Jeebus help me because I'm pretty sure tonight and tomorrow are my last chance for sleep until Wednesday.

Specials

Beef Rib-eye with Balsamic Cherry Reduction: Our "beer guy" (although he's really so much more), Pat, makes these bourbon-kriek soaked cherries for the bartenders to use in Manhattans that are unbelievably good.  So today I decided to use some of them.  Balsamic, bourbon cherries, and steak.  Yum.

Grilled Rockfish with Lemon Basil Vinaigrette:  I loved the lemon basil aioli from last week.  I decided to try it a bit differently since I thought a lighter vinaigrette might work better with grilled rockfish (I think aioli works better with the fried fish).  I liked it, but not as much.  I still need to sort out the exact lemon/basil balance I want.

Reading Materials

I'm still working my way through The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten.  I am sort of reserving that one for helping me survive my Sunday night hosting shifts.  Steingarten's wit makes it easier to answer 58 phone calls about whether or not we take reservations and 15 phone calls that require me to explain that we are NOT located on the 1200 block of H Street NW and that there is a big difference between NE and NW in the District.

So since I'm reserving that for Sundays, I tend to read other books during the week.  Since today has been a long day, I've been enjoying Melanie Dunea's wonderful book My Last Supper which has 50 famous chefs talk about what the ideal meal, setting, music, guest list, and etc. would be for their last supper on Earth.  The photographs are wonderful and the book always inspires me (doesn't hurt that there are recipes in the back including Thomas Keller's perfect roast chicken).  Whenever I'm having a day where I'm tired, frustrated, and starting to question myself, I always look at this book and it reminds me of what I love about the business I'm in and how, even for the most talented chef, it's important never to stop deriving joy from good food, good friends, and, mostly, being able to do something you love every day.

pushing through

Sometimes there are those days when you're on the line and you're just firing on all cylinders and everything is working perfectly.  Those days are rare.  Sometimes you have those days when the occasional snag pops up but you roll with the punches and at the end of the night you realize that nothing was that bad and you made it through all the incorrect tickets, items needed on the fly, and small missteps. Those days are more common.  

And then there are the days like yesterday.  You're feeling good when you show up for your shift.  You knock out the prep you have to do.  You get your station set up.  You get other people's stations set up.  The service starts off slowly and so everyone wanders out of the kitchen.  You're the only person in there when the first few tickets come in and you jump on a station that's not usually yours, get the tickets done, send everything out, and you're feeling pretty good because whether or not everyone else is in the mood to work, you are and you're ready for a good night.  Once things pick up, it's business as usual and you're rolling with the punches and making sure everything is getting out on time - whether that be with the rest of the food on the ticket or on the fly because the server forgot to put it through.

And then suddenly you hit that moment when, regardless of how good you're feeling, someone else isn't and they're determined to take it out on you.  It's amazing how one person's bad mood can bring an entire shift down.  They're having a bad day and so they snap at you.  You in turn get frustrated and maybe you even shut down a little bit.  By the time service is over and you've cleaned the kitchen and are walking out the door, it's obvious to everyone that you're not in the same mood you were in when the shift started.  So what happened?  To put it simply, you hit a block and you stopped.  

I grew up watching and obsessing over college football (War Eagle!) and one of the things that always defined the Southeastern Conference was tough defenses and offenses that relied on a running game.  Because of that combination, one thing that was always talked about was "yards after contact" or the number of yards a running back could gain after the first defender attempted to tackle him.  Often times you'd see a running back get hit by one defender and he would spin, fight and push to stay up.  But it wasn't just staying up that mattered — he kept pushing.  Still on his feet he'd surge ahead to gain more yards.  The really great running backs could do this despite having to break one, two, three tackles.  They simply pushed through.

It's no different when you hit an emotional or mental block in the kitchen.  Sure, the chef snaps at you and you want to shut down.  But you have to look ahead and think about all the yards you can gain after contact.  Sure, it might seem like shutting down punishes the person who yelled at you unnecessarily, but really, you're only punishing yourself and everyone else who wasn't involved.  So no matter how tempting it is to stop when you hit that first block, resist the urge and keep on pushing through because when you do, you're giving yourself the chance to recover the service and have a great shift.

Notes:

— Last night was the night of the braised brisket sandwich and the blueberry salad.

— Lately our hanger steaks look like they were butchered by, as Teddy put it, "a blind 5-year-old with a butcher's knife"; it makes breaking them down and portioning them a real pain in the ass.

— I think rapini is my favorite vegetable ever, which is huge since I'm obsessed with vegetables of almost every kind.  But red chili flake is a must with sauteed rapini; otherwise it just doesn't taste right.

— The closer we get to inauguration week the more I start to think that it's going to kick all of our asses.