Aziza * Day Two

Today I worked the hot entree station.   It reminded me of my cruise ship days, small enclosed space with absolutely no ventilation. needless to say, a fabulous time.

But first lets talk about the prep.  I was assigned the task of turning carrots.  Traditionally a turned vegetable is where you take a vegetable cut it into pieces  and make each piece into a five sided shape, where every angle is equal. ultimately the shape you are looking for is reminiscent of a football. It also has a practical side, making all the pieces the same size so each piece ends up being cooked uniformly.  Doing more than a couple will surly give you cramps or carpal tunnel, and I did a whole mess of them.  This however wasn't the worst task I preformed.  That distinction goes to the fresh horse radish.   I peeled and grated eight very large roots - peeling wasn't that bad, but the moment you begin to grate it, let's just say you should have you affairs in order.  Imagine your nose is stuffed up, to fix this you place a wet towel over your head and them place your head over a bath of steaming sulfuric acid.  Bingo! that was my day.  I should also mention something about kitchen hygienics.

It is probably no coincidence that my two favorite activities both include self imposed suffering,  Long distance cycling, and cooking.  Doing either with another person only encourages one to up the anti and make it that much more difficult.   Case in point.   Megan, and I said I would name her for this, thought it would be amusing to create a breeze in my bowl of grated horse radish causing the radish fumes to intensify.  The effect burned very nose hair I was trying to hold onto right out of my nostrils.  It cleared the back kitchen for about five minutes, and all she could do was chuckle.  I wish I could say I am a better person than that, but I''m not. 

I once worked at this place where we played hot plate with the waiters.   This is a game where you put a bread plate in  a 500 degree oven then put it in the stack of bread plates.   The waiter is supposed to grab the plate with a napkin, so they don't get fingerprints on the plates, but every now and again they would forget, and even rarer was when they would forget and that plate was smoking hot.  When it happened, the kitchen would all laugh under their breath the waiter would curse and life would move on. Good times, good times.

The hot entree station is a difficult station to learn and even harder to master.  You have got to have impeccable timing.  communication with the other stations so that the entire table comes to the pass a the same time.  I have seen many an experience chef fall apart on this station so when you see someone doing it very well it is a treat.  Of source there is added pressure here because the Chef De Cuisine is working right next to you and if you make any mistakes it's going to get caught.   But no mistakes tonight.  The cook availed himself admirably.  

One of the things the Michelin guide purports to critique about it's stared restaurants is consistency of cuisine.  That includes not only flavor and texture but presentation.  It is easy to learn how a plate should be put together, what goes with what.   But it is very very difficult to make every plate look identical especially during a busy service.  There are many factors a good chef has to work through.  Monotony is one of them.  I see this in my everyday work.  "I just thought I would try it a little different than last time"   That is fine when working through a recipe, but once it's served up to the public you need to be consistent with it.  Aziza does that pretty well.   Every beef cheek dish that went out looked and I'm sure tasted like the last.  Most people will never see this, even if you visit a restaurant twice you are most likely not going to have the same dish, So how is anyone going to know it is different?  Well that is the discipline of the top restaurants and why they stand out over all the rest.   This is the first lesson I am taking away from my time at Aziza and it's a good start.