Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line

by Gibney, Michael

  In our kitchen it’s not a lack of experience, intelligence, or skill that compromises the dance; it’s that rare occasion when one of the cooks lets his emotions best him. He’s hungover, his mind is elsewhere, he suffers from a temporary bout of indolence, forgetfulness, unpreparedness, disorganization, anger. In this state he can’t see clearly the deficiency of his own work, and it isn’t until an especially time-sensitive moment that he realizes the error of his ways with a grumble—“Oh, shit!”—and must spin or dash, and thus spills and splashes, burns himself, and messes up the station. And the messier the station gets, the harder it is to maintain organization. And the less organized you are, the more frequent the “Oh, shit!” moments. It is cumulative disruption.

  Right now, Raffy has really screwed the pooch. Apart from fish lying everywhere and tickets getting backed up on the printer, his work this evening has been untidy, to put it mildly—detritus abounds. An hour’s worth of splatters encrusts the stove’s piano; the oven’s handle is slick with smears of grease; the spoon water hasn’t been changed since the beginning of service; the cutting board is filmed with fish tissue.

  It would be impossible for you to work the remainder of the night with the station in this condition. You’d constantly be readjusting your technique to accommodate the mess. Your instincts tell you to put things that need cutting down on the cutting board, but since you know that fish guts have been rotting on it all night, you can’t do that in good conscience. You’d have to stop, think for a second, and find an alternate surface. You’d be losing precious seconds every time you did this, and you’d spend the whole night a step or two behind. The only way you’ll be able to catch up is by taking a moment to wipe everything down, refresh the spoon water, and change out your board.

  “Yo, Juan,” you say, “this spoon water looks like the East River, dog. Do me a favor and change it out for me, will you?”

  Warren drops what he’s doing and jumps in to help you get organized.

  “This sack of shit better pull it together,” he says, dumping the spoon water into the sink and filling the bain up anew, “or I’m out.” A rare moment of recalcitrance from him.

  “I think he’s done for the night,” you say, loading in a new cutting board. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “I don’t understand what Chef sees in him,” he says with a shake of the head. “Anyways, so who’s gonna cover the station?”

  “Me,” you say, shuffling your tools into place.

  “Oh,” he says. “Sorry, Chef.”

  Just then Marcus, the front of house manager and part owner, swings into the kitchen cradling an armful of plates. He’s got refires.

  “These flounders,” he announces, presenting Chef with a pair of fish, “they’re rare.”

  His Brooklyn accent is thick and insulting. His eyes are dark with moral turpitude. He plonks the plates down on the pass before Chef irreverently, throws you a nasty glare, and storms back out into the dining room. Chef studies the plates a moment. Vasculature materializes on his forehead; his earlobes go purple as if gearing up to steam.

  He lifts the plates in your general direction.

  “Fix it,” he says.

  He grips the plates firmly as you reach to take them from him. You look up at him. Your eyes meet. The look on his face seems to say Never mind what Marcus says, he’s a total piece of shit. I know you didn’t cook this fish. I know Raffy is to blame. But now we need to fix it. It’s a relatively comforting look. Some glint in his eye even seems to say We are in this together. It’s you and me now.

  “Oh, and by the way,” Marcus says, poking his head back through the kitchen door, “the Times is here. At table 6.”

  The refires were the last fish that went out before Raffy went down. They looked beautiful then, but the customers have cut them open to reveal a gash of raw flesh. It tears you up to see fish like this. You should have known they were underdone when they came to the pass. You should have been able to tell. You should have taken a cake tester to them. They shouldn’t have gone out. It’s embarrassing. But at this point, it’s no use lamenting the situation; you just need to fix the problem. And you realize now that you need to do it before the order for table 6 arrives. You had almost forgotten that the Times was coming in.

  When magazine and newspaper writers arrive, all the focus switches to them. Even if they aren’t proper “food critics”—if they write for the business section, say, or they have a travel column—the work they do is still public and the things they say can reach a large audience. That’s not to say that all public figures receive this attention. Hollywood personalities, for example, despite how they may be treated by the front of house staff, rarely arouse any special effort from the folks in the kitchen. Nor do political celebrities or sports stars. But people who write for periodicals always strongly affect cooks because they have the unique power to advance a chef’s career—or obliterate it, depending on what they say. So the instant the name of a publication drops, ears perk up and the mood shifts. You still give plenty of attention to all the other tables, but your focus transfers from ensuring the magnificence of their dining experience to giving yourself ample time to satisfy the writer.

  But first you have to rip through these refires and clear the board as best you can. You pull down a stack of pans and scatter them about the flat-top. Oil goes into two. You take two cuts of fluke from the fridge and place them on a clean drop tray. You pat their flesh dry with a C-fold towel and season them with salt, pepper, and freshly cracked coriander seed. When you season, you season from a height so that the spices sprinkle down like a light snowfall, evenly coating the surface of the fish. The pans you use are heavy-bottomed steel sautoirs, with a copper inlay, so they’re hot in no time. You lay each fish, one by one, into its own dedicated pan. You swirl them around to ensure that they don’t stick before letting the stove do its work.

  “Up in three on the refire,” you say to Warren.

  “Oui,” he says, readying the accoutrements.

  “How long on the twelve-top on 37?” Julio says, with something of a grin on his face. He likes it when you have to work on the station, and he gets a kick out of being ahead of you.

  “Six,” you say, confidently. “And 42, 15, and 9 in eight, oui?”

  “Oui, Chef,” everybody says.

  Monkfish, skate wing, arctic char hit the pans; herring, wreckfish, and gambas hit the plancha. You flip and sizzle, slide pans side to side, slip some into and out of the oven, shove others into and out of the salamander. In three minutes you’re ready to head to plate.

  “Let’s do it,” you say, and you make your way to the pass, where Chef and Stefan are in the fray laying waste—slicing meats and stabbing tickets something fierce. The sweat beading on their foreheads matches yours.

  “Stef,” you say, “let’s get new plates on that refire.”

  “Oui,” he says, thrusting up the china.

  You’re almost caught up when the printers begin to buzz again. They’ve been quiet for a while, which is curious since you know the dining room is full. The quietness suggests that the waiters have been busy elsewhere and haven’t had time to punch in tickets. All their focus has been on cosseting the Times table up front. This buzzing we hear now is probably the order. It is a big one, and when it’s finally done printing, all the cooks cock their heads toward Chef to listen as he plucks it from the pass’s printer.

  “Ordering,” he says, pausing to look over the dupe in its entirety. “PPX. Four-top.” He glances up at you with a raised eyebrow. “Two herring, one gambas, one green-lip, one tartare. Followed by a monk, a fluke, a mackerel, two char, and a cheeks.”

  This order is frustrating. Not only are there six entrées on order for a table of four people, but they’re almost exclusively fish. And the first courses, with the exception of the tartare that Catalina picks up, are all hot appetizers to be made by you as well. You look up quizzically at Chef; he shrugs as if to say Sorry.

  “VinDog,”
he says, “after apps go on 6, be ready to pick up four tastings of the veal tongue pasta.”

  “Oui, Chef. Four soign-dog agnos, heard.”

  “And, Catalina, let’s put out a round of canapés to start.”

  “Sí, Jefe. ¿Cuáles?”

  “Do Kumamoto and uni first, then the foie-lychee drops,” he says.

  “Sí. ¿Cuántas?”

  “Four and four.”

  It’s the best Chef can do to help. He’ll send out these complimentary dishes because they’re blindingly easy to prepare and the minutes it takes the Times table to eat them will buy you an extra moment or two to pull together their real food. In some sense he’s sticking his neck out by doing it. Letting food critics know that they are being pampered is terribly gauche—it throws a chef’s confidence into question. But given the order that’s come in, it’s basically unavoidable. You need the time to collect the VIP set.

  In good restaurants, all the ingredients are choice, sourced from the best farms and purveyors, harvested at their peak, sustainable, free of chemicals, and so forth. But when a PPX table sits down, you sift through your mise en place to find the choicest of the choice.

  The green-lips should all still be tightly shut. Mussels open when they die, exposing their interior meat to the elements and accelerating the spoilage process. In order to be sure you have the freshest ones, you dump a couple dozen into a deep Cambro of cold water and wait to see that they float, which indicates that they are airtight, still alive. They should also, while they’re in the cold water, be thoroughly cleaned and rid of their beards. Their shells should be brown like almond skin at the base and blush into an electric viridian at the rim. They should be huge, but also similar in size, so that they pop open at approximately the same time when you steam them. The prawns for the gambas dish should also be uniform in size and shape, but other features help you decide which to sell as well. They should be plump and hold their shape firmly. Their shells, legs, and digestive tracts should be cleanly removed, showing no sign of the butcher’s touch in doing so, and their heads and tails should be soundly attached, so that they don’t fall off with the administration of heat. Still other features help you pick out the herring. Their eyes should be clear and there should be no sign of decay on the fins. Their skin should be a brilliant aluminum tone and should wrap neatly and fully around a stout belly. If the eyes are cloudy or the fins are frayed, the fish is old. If the skin has begun to change color or peel away, the fish is old. And if the fish is old, you don’t use it—not for the Times.

  The canapés have been sent out by the time you’ve selected the right food, and since they’re only amuse-bouches—small bites, mouth pleasers—they won’t take long to eat. So you don’t waste time waiting for the server to fire the apps.

  First are the gambas, because they take the longest. You lay them on the hottest part of the plancha so that they can Maillardize without overcooking in the center. Then come the green-lips. You pour them into a screaming hot copper pan, hit them with a knob of butter, drop in four fingerfuls of shaved fennel, a spoonful of garlic confit, a splash of wine, and a dollop of soubise, then cover them with an inverted sauteuse and let it ride. You flip the gambas and drop the herring on the plancha.

  The green-lips are ready when they’ve all gaped their maws. The orange meat is supple and glimmering. The liquor from the mussels has bubbled together with the butter and wine and soubise to form a viscous emulsion that coats the whole pan. They’re finished with a few drops of lemon juice and a flutter of fines herbes; a quick toss in the pan and into the bowl. The gambas come off when their spotted heads go coral red and a caramel-colored sear veils the opalescent white of the flesh. They land in a terra-cotta cazuela on a pillow of black romesco, and finish with a dusting of pimentón dulce, a sprinkle of bottarga di tonno, a stalk of compressed scallion, a parsley pluche. The herring come off as soon as their aluminum flesh goes umber. You pop them on a drop tray, pass them to Chef for plating. And just like that, you’re out with the apps.

  Even though VinDog is sending out a middle course of pastas, you still need to begin work on the entrées immediately after sending out the appetizers. First is the monkfish, which you select based on size and symmetry. You want the biggest piece you can find, and you want it to be rolled into the tightest, most perfectly cylindrical roulade possible. Also, you want to be sure that the transglutaminase is fully set, so that the fish doesn’t open up on you when it hits the pan and starts to seize. You dust it with Wondra flour and slip it in.

  The chars and mackerel go down next. You pick them based on their relative proximity to the head of the fish. You don’t make friends with tail cuts; they are too thin and cook up poorly. You want a thick piece from the head end.

  All three have skin on them, which means they need special attention in two specific ways. First, before they’re cooked, their skin must be dabbed completely dry with paper toweling. This encourages the development of crispiness, which in turn optimizes chewability and deliciousness. Second, once they begin cooking, they must be held down. When fish skin hits hot oil it immediately seizes up, which causes the entire cut to buckle, forming an arch over the cooking surface. As a result, the edges that remain in contact with the cooking surface develop a beautiful sear, while the part in the center that is raised is undercooked and simply steams. So when each cut of fish with skin on it hits the pan or the plancha, you firmly but gently press it flat against the cooking surface and hold it until the subcutaneous collagen hydrolyzes into gelatin, elasticizing the bond between skin and meat and allowing the cut to remain flat and cook evenly. This, of course, takes only a matter of seconds, but it’s an essential step.

  Finally the fluke. You take the largest, most evenly cut piece you have, the squarest pavé, from the youngest, most athletic fish in the fridge. After a liberal seasoning, you lay it down.

  Three minutes later, all the fish are nearly done. You bring them to their final internal temperature with a few repetitions of arrosé. Julio only has veal cheeks on the pick, which he’s been able to prepare at his leisure, since this order is your show. All that’s left now is to wait for confirmation from the front of the house that the midcourse pastas have been cleared. While you wait, you shepherd each pan about the cooler areas of the flat-top to avoid overcooking. Once Chef gives you the go-ahead, you bring the food to the pass and go to plate.

  The skinned fish are crispy to the tap; the fluke wears an amber coat; the monk shaft is sheathed evenly in a caraway crust. All the cuts are plump and dripping with juices. They are perfect. Soigné. A spritz of essential oil from the zest of a lemon finishes them off.

  You cut the monk open. You are not quite satisfied. You give it a few seconds under the salamander. The foie goes molten. Now it’s ready. You slide it to Chef with a flare of pride. He nods without needing to look up. He takes it to plate with the expected measure of gusto. Hussein and the back waiters file over and scoop everything up.

  “Take it down, baby,” Chef says, clapping Hussein on the back.

  And out goes the food for the PPX table.

  As expected, indulging the Times has set us back on the food for the rest of the guests. A blitzkrieg of tickets has piled up, two dozen tables—at least. This is where the hammer comes down.

  “Fun don’t stop, boys,” Chef says. He reads off another ticket. Or maybe he calls out the next pickup. The distinction between the two is becoming hard to identify. It’s difficult to pay attention now.

  “Oui, Chef,” we say to his calls. The vim wanes. We’re all so inundated with information at this point that it’s challenging enough to keep track of what we are doing presently, never mind what we are supposed to be preparing to do in the next five minutes, the next fifteen minutes, the next hour. No movement is distinctly its own except in the sense that it comes before or after another in a constant chain of busyness. The pickups blur together. Everything becomes one motion, for just this very moment. We switch to autopilot.

  F
inish one fish, move to the next. Start with a hot pan, start with hot oil. If it’s not hot, wait. Don’t start early; it’ll stick. Check the oven instead. There’s something in there. It needs to be flipped. Out it comes. In goes the butter. Let it bubble. Crush the garlic. Arrosez. Flip. Arrosez again. Put a new pan down. Season the bass. Always from a height. The bass goes in. A monk looks done. Give it the cake tester. It’s barely warm. Another minute. To the pass with it. Three chars go down. Their skins soufflé. Press them to the heat. Hear the crackle. A pan is too hot. The oil smells scorched. Start again. Burner at full tilt. Now for the mussels. They jump in the oil. Aromas flourish. Here is a branzino. First of the night. Score its skin. Into the Griswold. Its eyeball pops. Flip it over. Into the oven. On with more gambas. On with more pans. On with more burners. Scrape down the plancha. Wipe down the piano. Towel your brow. Printers buzz. A new pick. Six more fish. Your legs are tired. Tickets blur. Chef needs more. “Next up …” Cooks moan. “Oui, Chef.” Fat splutters. Timers chime. Food goes. Tickets are stabbed. New ones are plucked up. Organize the board. Start again. Eight fish now. A pan to each. Eight butters. Eight garlics. Eight flips. Eight arrosés. Eight plates … eight more picks. Machine-gun frequency. Clean pans from Kiko. They’re getting heavy. They drop on the flat-top like a bullet blast. Your arms are stiff. The branzino is done. Swing open the oven. The heat blazes. It dries your eyes. Blink it out. Grab up the Griswold. Bring home the door. The towel is wet. The pan burns your hand. Dizziness. Nausea. Synesthesia. Pain. This is normal. This is what we do. We are in this together. We are almost there.

  An hour vanishes before you snap back into consciousness and realize that all this time you’ve been operating entirely on instinct. The thought is jarring. You emerge disoriented, knees buckling like a newborn foal’s. It’s a moment before you can figure out what has brought you back to life. And then it hits you: You’ve just sent out the last piece of fish you had cooking. There are some tickets on board, but nothing is fired yet. There is nothing working. You are finally caught up.