Kitchen Confidential, part 2
Feb. 4th, 2003 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yinshubackupso here is a little excerpt from the book that helps me sort of believe that my friend Percy might actually have a chance at becoming a well-known, badass chef someday. Hell, if Tony Bourdain started out like this, then surely there's hope....
____________________
"...I should have seen this well-practiced ritual for what it was, understood the level of performance here in Marioland, appreciated the experience, the time served together that allowed these hulking giants to dance wordlessly around each other in the cramped, heavily manned space behind the line without ever colliding or wasting a movement. They turned from cutting board to stove-top with breathtaking economy of movement, they hefted 300-pound stockpots onto ranges, tossed legs of veal around like pullets, blanched hundreds of pounds of pasta, all the while indulgently enduring without comment my endless self-aggrandizing line of witless chatter. I should have understood this femme/convict patois, this business with the women's names, the arcane expressions, seen it for what it was: the end result of years working together in a confined space under extreme pressure. I should have understood.
But I didn't.
An hour later the board was filled with more dinner orders than I'd ever seen in my life. Ticket after ticket kept coming in, one on top of the other, waiters screaming, tables of ten, tables of six, four-tops, more and more of them coming, no ebb and flow, just a relentless, incoming, nerve-shattering gang-rush of orders...
...I struggled and sweated and hurried to keep up the best I could, Tyrone [the broiler man] slinging sizzle-platters under the broiler, and me, ostensibly helping out, getting deeper and deeper into the weeds with every order...
...I was losing it. Tyrone, finally, had to help the helper.
Then, grabbing a saute pan, I burned myself.
I yelped out loud, dropped the pan, an order of osso bucco milanese hitting the floor, and as a small red blister raised itself on my palm, I foolishy-- oh, so foolishly-- asked the beleagured Tyrone if he had some burn cream and maybe a Band-Aid.
This was quite enough for Tyrone. It went suddenly very quiet in the Mario kitchen, all eyes on the big broiler man and his hopelessly inept assistant. Orders, as if by some terrible and poetically just magic, stopped coming in for a long, horrible moment. Tyrone turned slowly to me, looked down through bloodshot eyes, the sweat dripping off his nose, and said, 'Whachoo want, white boy? Burn cream? A Band-Aid?'
Then he raised his enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly: the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new. I watched, transfixed, as Tyrone-- his eyes never leaving mine-- reached slowly under the broiler and, with one naked hand, picked up a glowing-hot sizzle-platter, moved it over to the cutting board and set it down in front of me.
He never flinched.
The other cooks cheered, hooted and roared at my utter humiliation... I had been shown up for the loud-mouthed, useless little punk that I was."
~Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
----------------------------
I sincerely hope Percy never has to lose that much face. He certainly loves this book as much as any foodie, and I'm sure imagines that one day, he too might attain the glorious Pirate-Captain status of Bourdain, running a tight ship with a crew of the scarred, tattooed, loyal, and battle-ready.
(Hell, I have to admit it sounds like a fast and dirty life of theive's honor and adventure that appeals to my vigilante tendencies, my distaste for the paper-and-procedure-clogged corporate world toward which I seem to be nervously hurtling.... I have no delusions of grandeur-- I already know the joy and fulfillment of get-your-hands-dirty craftsmanship far outweighs the pleasure of any chairborne ranger's job. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna reconcile my true love of the common with my unfortunate potential for a life of corporate political power games.... *sigh* that's another story )
But as I read the above passage, laughing in painful sympathy, I had to wonder if when Percy read it... did any flicker of recognition cross his brain, even once?
____________________
"...I should have seen this well-practiced ritual for what it was, understood the level of performance here in Marioland, appreciated the experience, the time served together that allowed these hulking giants to dance wordlessly around each other in the cramped, heavily manned space behind the line without ever colliding or wasting a movement. They turned from cutting board to stove-top with breathtaking economy of movement, they hefted 300-pound stockpots onto ranges, tossed legs of veal around like pullets, blanched hundreds of pounds of pasta, all the while indulgently enduring without comment my endless self-aggrandizing line of witless chatter. I should have understood this femme/convict patois, this business with the women's names, the arcane expressions, seen it for what it was: the end result of years working together in a confined space under extreme pressure. I should have understood.
But I didn't.
An hour later the board was filled with more dinner orders than I'd ever seen in my life. Ticket after ticket kept coming in, one on top of the other, waiters screaming, tables of ten, tables of six, four-tops, more and more of them coming, no ebb and flow, just a relentless, incoming, nerve-shattering gang-rush of orders...
...I struggled and sweated and hurried to keep up the best I could, Tyrone [the broiler man] slinging sizzle-platters under the broiler, and me, ostensibly helping out, getting deeper and deeper into the weeds with every order...
...I was losing it. Tyrone, finally, had to help the helper.
Then, grabbing a saute pan, I burned myself.
I yelped out loud, dropped the pan, an order of osso bucco milanese hitting the floor, and as a small red blister raised itself on my palm, I foolishy-- oh, so foolishly-- asked the beleagured Tyrone if he had some burn cream and maybe a Band-Aid.
This was quite enough for Tyrone. It went suddenly very quiet in the Mario kitchen, all eyes on the big broiler man and his hopelessly inept assistant. Orders, as if by some terrible and poetically just magic, stopped coming in for a long, horrible moment. Tyrone turned slowly to me, looked down through bloodshot eyes, the sweat dripping off his nose, and said, 'Whachoo want, white boy? Burn cream? A Band-Aid?'
Then he raised his enormous palms to me, brought them up real close so I could see them properly: the hideous constellation of water-filled blisters, angry red welts from grill marks, the old scars, the raw flesh where steam or hot fat had made the skin simply roll off. They looked like the claws of some monstrous science fiction crustacean, knobby and calloused under wounds old and new. I watched, transfixed, as Tyrone-- his eyes never leaving mine-- reached slowly under the broiler and, with one naked hand, picked up a glowing-hot sizzle-platter, moved it over to the cutting board and set it down in front of me.
He never flinched.
The other cooks cheered, hooted and roared at my utter humiliation... I had been shown up for the loud-mouthed, useless little punk that I was."
~Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
----------------------------
I sincerely hope Percy never has to lose that much face. He certainly loves this book as much as any foodie, and I'm sure imagines that one day, he too might attain the glorious Pirate-Captain status of Bourdain, running a tight ship with a crew of the scarred, tattooed, loyal, and battle-ready.
(Hell, I have to admit it sounds like a fast and dirty life of theive's honor and adventure that appeals to my vigilante tendencies, my distaste for the paper-and-procedure-clogged corporate world toward which I seem to be nervously hurtling.... I have no delusions of grandeur-- I already know the joy and fulfillment of get-your-hands-dirty craftsmanship far outweighs the pleasure of any chairborne ranger's job. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm gonna do, how I'm gonna reconcile my true love of the common with my unfortunate potential for a life of corporate political power games.... *sigh* that's another story )
But as I read the above passage, laughing in painful sympathy, I had to wonder if when Percy read it... did any flicker of recognition cross his brain, even once?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
It's hard...
Date: 2003-02-05 12:45 pm (UTC)Such people usually annoy me the nth degree. I'm left part wanting to help them, part wanting to scorn them. But I usually prevent myself from doing either -- they have to do the learning, after all.
Interesting book, BTW!
Love,
~~Kt3 of the Similar Experiences~~