Feeding the Chef

The restaurant industry is a world unto it's own, like no other on earth. Some of them have kitchens that are underground, on the top floor of a skyscraper, in the middle floors of other tall buildings, detached from the dining building itself, and otherwise. They can be so clean you can eat off of the floor at any given time of the day or night while others would make you give up eating all together.
There are historical kitchens too, by that I mean, kitchens that have withstood the test of time, the constant pounding of feet on the floor, dropped pots and pans, the constant changing of temperature, the heat and cold that makes the walls sweat and freeze and the ceiling drip with condensation. This was where I started in the business, an old kitchen that had been in business since the turn of the 20th century and had the battle scars to show it. A double door that had been repaired and patched so many times from being slammed, hit with carts, jammed back too far on it's hinges and painted over so many times that it would have taken a very high powered pressure washer to take the first layers of paint off. The walls were bare red brick, no there wasn't any insulation either and the floor was smooth cement so you can bet that the cold New England winters felt even colder at three o'clock in the morning before the old girl heated up from the big stack oven, twenty gallon coffee pot in the corner, and ten-burner gas range, but she was ours and we kept her clean thanks to the owner and the rest of the old guard cooks that worked there. The cement floor was scrubbed on a daily basis by the pot and pan washer, dishwasher or other high school kid on duty by first sweeping the floor thoroughly, under the tables, moving the flour and sugar bins, etc and using a dustpan to pick it up or a piece of cardboard. Then you had to lay down twenty or thirty gallons of hot soapy bleach water and scrub the floor with the stiff bristle broom sweeping the dirty water out the back door into the alley where the catering trucks were parked. After this you had to lay down more hot clear water and sweep this out the door also creating a river of water that would run into the sewer drain near the back dock. It had to smell like bleach when you were done or you hadn't cleaned it right.

And the Old guard cooks you say! Yes, I call them the old guard because these were the cook's that knew the intricate ways of cooking that had been passed down from hundreds of years of learning and mistakes. Te men that learned from their mothers and the other cooks tat learned from the first generation immigrants to America. They learned the tricks of the trade from the generations that had learned from Escoffier and Careme', The King of Chef's and The Chef of Kings. How to bone a chicken leaving it whole, how to bone a whole salmon again, leaving the fish whole, how to make a stock from the various bones left over from the butcher. Nothing went to waste in the restaurant, there was a use for the carrot peelings, potato peels, onion skins, and when the new wave of prepared foods started arriving such as already peeled and diced potatoes for home fries or delmonico potatoes the empty bags were washed out and used to cover peeled vegetables or other products to keep them moist or just covered from the elements in the kitchen.

Everyday was the same, Monday through Saturday the chef would come through the back door of the kitchen at 6:00 a.m. sharp and all the kids wondered how he did it because he lived on the other side of town and he didn't drive. We knew that the other old timers didn't live on that side of town either so how in the heck did he get here every morning at this time, as one of us said; "Rain, sleet, snow shine or shit the chef is here, with or without the common cold or flu." And years later even in the beginning throes of a heart attack he came to work first. He worked hard all day, everyday irregardless of what was on the menu, how many caterings were scheduled, who called in sick or whatever happened, and there was a myriad of things that could happen on any given day. There could be an electrical outage, broken pipe, short gas flow in the lines so the flame wasn't hot enough or high enough and you'd know it when it happened too because the chef would start raising his voice at different people in the kitchen. If he raised his voice to another of the old timers like himself you knew it was time to vacate the kitchen, find some place else to complete your task's, volunteer to help the line cook's up front, help the dishwasher, go rearrange, sweep and mop out the dry storage, clean out the root cellar, anything but, don't stay in the kitchen because if he was in a shitty mood enough to raise his voice at one of the guys his own age or a little older, or just get sarcastic with them there would be no telling what he'd say or do to you a mere low life shit-bird teenager.

One hot summer day I had been working since seven that morning, Rusty who became my mentor through my career, had told me to come in and do rounds work all day. I was only thirteen so there was just so much that they could let me do without going past the stuff that was overlooked by the labor board when working juveniles. So working mainly in the kitchen I knew I would have to be in constant contact with Chef Adrian all day no matter what the task, I would be in and out, up and down the stairs, out front in the diner, loading and unloading the catering trucks that catered breakfast and lunch to the industrial factories around town.

When I arrived I went straight to the chef before I even took off my sweater; "Morning chef, how ya doing today? Rusty has me working rounds today can I help you or should I go and find him." He was, as usual, busy and shuffling his 400 lb five foot ten inch frame around on feet as light as a ballet dancer. He had been a golden gloves boxing champ in town years before and still could float around the kitchen as if he was punching and jabbing around the ring. He had experienced combat in Korea from 1951 to 1953 as a cook and it showed when he as under pressure to get twelve or more catering jobs out the back door and only had from six in the morning to 1 in the afternoon to do it. He told me to find Rusty, and see what he had, if he didn't have anything right away "bring your ass right back here pronto. Go now, hustle, hustle, hustle." And off I went up front to the diner to find Rusty, who told me my first task of the day was to clean out the walk-in cooler, after that I needed to go see the chef and help him. It took me the better part of an hour to get the job done but before I could get to the chef the owner's other son who had just returned from service in Korea and was the ultimate practical joker grabbed me and told me to go to the chef and get everything to start setting up the steam table for lunch. By the time I went to the kitchen it was cranking with the baker who was a full fledged member of the local wino club but the best baker in town having been at it nigh on to fifty years, making his daily batch of mixes for the next days muffins and donuts, along with pie dough and some bread doughs. It was already approaching 80 degrees in the kitchen but he was so skinny he still had his blue cardigan sweater on over his cook whites. The salad chef Jimmy was there making his normal batches of chicken, ham, egg, tuna, crab, and seafood salad to stuff into the small finger rolls that would be delivered by the bakery across town later on. The daytime dishwasher Joe was singing a song in his native French-Canadien language up near the dishwasher while the two brothers Donald and Alfred who were recently released from the local state school washed pots and pans in the sink area of the kitchen and had a running verbal argument that lasted all day every day with them.

The morning droned on with the tempo,of the kitchen picking up pace as it drew nearer and nearer to lunch time. The catering guys like Andy, Don, and John , and the others that supervised and ran the kitchens in the various jewelry factories and golf clubs around town or delivered the lunches to these factories prepared and gathered their daily menu's, plates, serving utensils, extra salad material for last minute requests that would be too hard to service properly from the diner with all of the traffic. The tempo grew and grew and by 10:30 a.m. the back kitchen and the alley where the trucks were parked was a cacaphony of banging plate caskets, cursing, horns blowing, joking, laughing, doors slamming and general noise when finally it would grow eerily quite as the last of the trucks backed it's way out of the alley into the North Main street traffic with the only noise coming from the constant spray sound of the dishwasher and the shuffling around the kitchen of the chef. Now was the time that the chef would move through the kitchen spot cleaning, checking the back-up items that would be holding in the ovens, getting the items panned up for the ever forgetful guys that ran the catering kitchens who would at some point come flying into the kitchen to grab a pan of this, or a pot of that or some extra whatever and then with a squeal of tires back out of the alley into the oncoming traffic and fly up or down North Main street back to their factory or shop to the waiting masses.
After this last short burst of confusion the chef would gracefully begin his next orders which would either be the items going out for an off site catering that night or the next days meals. He would gather all of the items needed for the caterings if any and place them on the rack behind him which was snug under the stairs that led up to the office and storage area. Everything was arranged by order and God help anybody that came from up front in the diner to grab something. A favorite of the owner's youngest son was to send an unknowing newbie to the diner out to the kitchen from the front end telling him to go back to the chef's rack and get something from it. He had a knack of knowing just the right time to do it too so the chef would catch the poor sod off guard; "Hey what the hell are you doing near that rack? Who sent you back here?" And when the now scared shit-less kid turned to answer, the chef would be so close to him there was no escape. We would all be crowded around the window that had been left from remodeling fifty years before watching the scene as the helpless lad would be panic stricken stuck to the spot he got caught in, as the chef wrapped a bear sized hand around his upper arm and began to squeeze. "Your bullshitting me right? Billy didn't send you back here did he? You just thought you'd come back here and take whatever you wanted didn't you. Are you a thief, you little prick, get back up front, if I see you back in my kitchen again I'll cut your balls of and throw 'em in the alley for the cats and rats to have a snack on." We'd all be back on our stations when the newbie would come back to the prep area of the diner trying to keep his composure while rubbing his arm when Billy would ask him; "Where's the roast I sent you for?" It was inevitable that the kid would mumble something about the chef grabbing him and yelling at him when the chef would show up at the steam table with fire in his eyes and say; "What, are you lying about me now too, come 'mere you little prick let me get my hands on you!" The kid would scamper away and Billy would fake holding the chef back, it was hilarious to watch after you had your own personal initiation, you could only wonder what you looked like. More than once some one would laugh and ask the chef; "Hey Adrian, did I look that bad when you caught me?" The chef would just glare at him and give a smart remark about; "Let me catch YOU back there again and we'll take a picture while I beat your ass!" And the laughing would die down quickly.

We caught hell in that diner on Wednesday and Friday for lunch service beginning around 10:15 a.m. The factories would start calling in their to-go orders for Fish & Chips, Fried Scallop Plates, Fried Clam Plates, Baked Schrod, or Charlie-Burgers on a kaiser roll. If you didn't have the steam-table and the fry station set up by 10:30 a.m. your ass was in the weeds which means you were so far behind you thought you were first and then slam!!!! In the front door they would flow beginning about 11:15, they would fill up the booths that were positioned against the plate glass window in the front of the diner and along the brick wall that ran the length of the right hand wall as you entered, then they would fill up the stools at the large horseshoe where Eileen or one of the other daytime waitresses worked and the small horseshoe where Rita, a veteran of the diners throughout the town ran a running commentary with everybody that sat at her shoe. It took a matter of minutes for the ticket wheel to fill up and become double stacked along with the grill cook's ticket line. The cook on the fryers stayed in one place for the next two hours breading clams and scallops and battering pieces of haddock, cod, and schrod that he would lower into the deep fat as it bubbled and the batter swelled around the fish. You lowered it into the deep fat until your thumb, index finger, and middle finger began to bubble also, this way you knew the whole piece was submerged and would soon float back to the top where you could turn it over to get an even golden brown color all around it. It was inevitable that someone would have to get something out of the walk-in refrigerator right behind your fry station and you'd get slammed in the back with the handle as the heavy wooden door was yanked open, then you'd get it again as they exited the walk-in.

By 12:15 you'd be in the throes of banging plates, setting garnishes of red leaf lettuce topped with red spiced apple rings on plates or into to-go boxes with the waitresses hollering for their orders or barking for more of this or returns on that, with the grill cook moving at the speed of sound left of the grill and the sandwich bar to make a B.L.T. or get the dressings for the five Charlie-Burgers he was preparing to wrap-up to go, then four steps to the right past the grill to flip a piece of liver on the broiler along with six more burgers, then back to the grill to turn the two Western and one Eastern omelet's he had working.

His name was Bill he was the short order cook that worked six days a week on the grill and to this day all I know about him was that he grew up in the tough Irish street gangs in a town northwest of ours and came to our town right after World War II. He told me once that other than working a few years in the paper and textile factories around New England he had been a short order cook all his life. I only remember him missing a couple of days while I worked there, he seemed to be pretty reliable as most of the old guys were. They would get off at 3:00 p.m. and head straight for the Park Tavern, Gus's Grille, The Shamrock Cafe', Mary's Lounge, The Archway Hotel or any of the other numerous watering holes around town to have a few boiler-makers (usually a shot of whiskey chased with a Pilsner glass of draft beer) and then go home to dinner. Sometimes they didn't go home, they just stayed at the bar, standing there or sitting on a stool drinking until they called a cab or someone offered them a ride home, but there were very, very few days they didn't show up the next morning at 3:00 a.m. to unlock the diner and begin another days worth of muffins, biscuits, bacon, meatloaf and the likes that kept the factory workers supplied with energy to kick the foot presses, and polish the gold jewelry that was shipped around the world from the little industrial center in southern Massachusetts. Bill usually went straight home though, where he would do his drinking in his own parlor watching t.v. He was real tempermental and you had to be careful around him at all times because there was no telling when something would piss him off and he'd snap on you. He worked the grill at breakfast the way a fighter works the four corners of a boxing ring. He could cover the few steps in either direction left or right as if his feet were on hover plates, his torso could stretch farther than it was supposed to by at least three inches to snatch a piece of liver off of the broiler or to the other side of the grill from the wooden cutting board that served as a sandwich prep board all with his seventeen inch flat baker's spatula that he taught me to use for everything from flipping burgers to buttering a piece of toast and slicing it diagonally before using the blade to slide under the toast and set it down on the plate next to the hashed brown potatoes and western omelet he could so easily flip with spilling the ingredients out of it.

When a chance for a break came Bill wiped his area down one last time and took the ten or twelve steps to the side door of the diner behind the wall that separated the kitchen from the front of the house, where an ashtray was kept along with his pack of Viceroy Kings. He would light up a cigarette and smoke it down to the filter in three drags especially after a good thirty or forty minute rush that would have him shaking like an alcoholic that needed a drink. He was real good to me, and taught me how to become faster and faster as the years went by, keeping my area clean and neat in front of the customers in the open air diner. He knew just when to leave me alone and when to jump in and take over to pull me out of the weeds. He'd walk up and say; "You okay kid, you got it?" If I told him I was alright he'd look around and wink at Rita who would laugh and say: "Tell him kid, you got it, and I got your back right?" Then one of the regulars would crack a joke about who had Rita's back and the small horseshoe would erupt with laughter as Rita went verbally after the smart-alec. But, if I was in a jam and he approached me asking if I was alright and I told him yes, he could tell whether or not I was in failure and the customers were getting antsy waiting for their order. It was then that he was most understanding, looking at me very calmly but, sternly he'd say; "Okay, you did good just let me clean it up a little for you and you can have it back." I would reluctantly give him the spatula and step aside to do the plate set-up's and start setting up the steam table. A few years later at the beginning of my military career as a cook while stationed at Fort Devens, Massachusetts working in a dining facility feeding 1500 to 1800 soldiers for breakfast, I would make omelet's so fast that the other cook's serving the bacon, sausage, creamed beef and other items farther down the line would get mad at me because I was so fast. They would ask me where I got my speed from and I'd smile smugly telling them that a little Irish leprechaun gave me the gift of speed and over the past forty years I still don't feel comfortable using the wide bevel spatulas that are normally used on flat top griddles. But before all of that it was thanks to Bill that I got my big break learning to cook on Easter Sunday morning 1970.

I was only a few days away from my fourteenth birthday and was working the dishwasher around six a.m. when Rusty came by the area in his usual hurried manner and said; "Hey kid, you still want to learn how to cook?" I replied faster than I could speak; "Yeah, yeah Rusty!" He had never really stopped, he kept moving and said; "Well follow me." I followed him out to the grill where there were tickets already hanging for various breakfast items, nothing hard just the regular fare of, poached eggs, western and eastern omelets, over easy, fried hard, over medium, short stack's, french toast and other breakfast favorites. He had the grill area all set up and looked at me as I asked him where Bill was, I could see he was frustrated and just said that he had called in sick; "Now watch me, his is how you crack an egg. This is how you scramble an egg. This is how you put a piece of liver on the broiler. This is the hot side of the broiler and this is the finishing side. This is the water for poached eggs, etc, etc." Rusty worked with me for about thirty minutes before he said; "I'll be right back I have to go to the kitchen for something," and he left!!! I felt like every eye in the diner was staring at me, I started shaking, I tried to flip an egg and broke the yolk, so I put another on and broke that one too. One of the high school age waitresses came over to me and started berating me about her orders being late, then another came up and told her to leave me alone it was my first time out front. Finally somebody went in the back and got Rusty who came up and took over pulling together all of the late orders and putting them out while I made toast, dropped the poached eggs in the simmering water and did the other side work that the more experienced Rusty would normally do from reflex. Not once ring the whole morning did he raise his voice or become frustrated with me. He was the epitome of a professional chef instructor, guiding me into the realm of a Sunday morning rush like an experienced fishing boat captain guides his craft into the cold deep waters of the North Atlantic winter swells.
Before I knew it Rusty came up to me from the back of the kitchen and said; "That's it kid, you did it. Let's get it cleaned up now we're closed it's one o'clock." I was dazed and confused until my cousin Cathy walked up to me from the register station at the entrance/exit to the diner and said; "Congratulations Harry you did it. All the customers said you did a good job." I paid careful attention as Rusty showed me how to clean the grill and wrap up everything for the next day. By the time I got home at three o'clock my mother and father already knew what had happened because of my relatives that had visited for breakfast after church and Cathy calling my Aunt Betty to let her know "Little Harry" was running the grill, who in turn called Aunt Gloria, who next called my mother, who had just got off the phone with Aunt Dot that had come in to breakfast after mass at St John's and saw me.

There was no special attention given to me after that with the exception that I got the privilege of getting the chef's requests after that. If he called for a piece of lemon meringue pie and a coffee milk I was sent to get it. If he had special instructions for the night crew in the diner I forwarded them for him. I admire him and the rest of the old timers to this day. I'm older now than the chef was when I was 13 years old but I know I have some of the same ailments he said I'd have at this age. The foot pain came first and as of late the blood pressure and heart problems have come upon me much in the sequence he described they would. I remember the day he told me; "Kid if you stay in this business it'll kill ya. The first thing to go will be your feet or your back then your blood pressure or your heart and you won't be a millionaire but it looks like my advice is coming too late, it looks like its already in your blood. I guess you'll do. Now go get me a coffee milk and a piece of lemon meringue, hurry up!" I'm still in the kitchen and it's constantly clean, organized and efficient. Thank you chef, I miss you.