It was a lonely walk to the South Side of Syracuse. One where my anger had slowly become self-loathing. In the course of 6-hours I had gone from being, (at least what I perceived), "The Chosen One" to a cook not worthy of preparing family meal. In my mind I was sunk. Time to move on, but where? By the time I arrived home I was emotionally drained, and had beaten myself up pretty badly. I went to bed hoping that things would "sort themselves out" in the morning.
The next morning I woke up. The sun was shining. I was still a shite cook. Almost three years gone of my apprenticeship, nearly 5-years into my cooking career and I. Was. Shite.
I threw some ska on the stereo, turned it up so that I could hear it outside, and headed to the picnic table in the front yard armed with coffee, cigarettes, pen and paper to figure it out. Smoking cigarette after cigarette, I stopped feeling sorry for myself, and turned my venom outward.
"[Bleep], Chef!"
"[Bleep] that place!"
"I don't need to put up with that kind of verbal assault!!! [Bleep]!!! Him!!!"
And then, without even realizing it, I turned the corner. I was going to work tomorrow, Thursday. If I didn't, Chef would beat me. And there was NO WAY he was going to beat me! And then I realized he may have been right about me.
Both that I was a colossal screw up, and that I deserved that shot at a Tuesday night shift.
Up until this point, I had survived my apprenticeship as the comedic foil to the chef, as well as by being THE grammar/spelling resource of the kitchen. And I did have some average cooking chops at that point. The day before had really driven home the point that the truth hurts. I was not ready for service, and what I thought was mise en place wasn't close to actual mise en place.
The Chef could do 25 covers working out of a cooler with one arm tied behind his back because he could, after years of training. There was no way I could do that then, (I still freak out a little in my head when I have had to cover a line solo).
And like a swift slap to the face, I was enlightened. I truly understood what mise en place was. Not only did it mean making sure I have enough food prepared for my section for service- and this is a huge part of it- it also meant making sure that my bain-marie of utensils was stocked with what I needed for service and in the same place every time, that I wasn't just prepping, but setting myself up for success."Why reach into the cooler every time I need a certain condiment instead of keeping it in an ice-bath on the counter?' "Why not slice and toast my burger buns ahead of time and just reheat them when I needed them?" It all clicked.
There was nothing cool about failing to do my job and set my section up, and let the Chef down. I would rather look like a newbie and have every piece of mise en place in ice-bath at arm's reach to make it through service successfully with satisfied guests and a happy Chef. I was in-it-to-win-it. My days of being the class clown were over, or at least tempered by the fact that i couldn't just coast by anymore. I was about to be dumped out of the nest and I needed to get. It. Together.
As I walked to work on Thursday I spent the majority of my time thinking about what, and how, I would do things differently. To make things right; and I made a decision that I was going to do it "the right way" every time for the rest of time.
I slunk in the kitchen door that day, hoping to avoid Chef at all costs. He saw me. But, it was never spoken of again, and I know that the fact that I returned to work, (early for my shift even), earned me some respect and credibility from Chef and all of the other cooks who had already heard about my epic ass-chewing!!!
The lesson learned was that mise en place is EVERYTHING when setting yourself up for success. Most of us keep absolutely meticulous lists of the minutia needed to run our sections down to filling the salt and pepper grinders. From the outside I'm sure it looks like cooks have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, put without obsessively making sure that every food item, no matter how trivial, is prepared, or making sure that the fish spatula is where the fish spatula belongs in the bain marie the "wheels would come off" during service.
And take it from me that that is NOT what you want to have happen as either a guest or a cook.
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