Alinea Restaurant, Chicago, Illinois. Three days after my stage it would be named the 7th best restaurant in the world, and # 1 in the United States. I spent a week in Chicago, and for a solid 3 days after my one and only day staging in the kitchen, I would attempt to recover from the experience. But first, the Greek myth of Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was the son of King Aeolus. He made his name through navigation and commerce, and was a force in the industry. He commanded great respect, however he was conniving and deceitful, often killing travelers and competitors to remain in his position of dominance. Sisyphus had nothing but disdain for the power of the Gods. He felt that there was no reason for their supremacy over man, and he made his opinion known. With his skills in commerce unmatched, he believed his own power to rival that of Zeus. When he learned of one of Zeus' improper sexual conquests, he decided to make his move.
In this conquest, Zeus took the form of an eagle and abducted Aegina, taking her to an island near Corinth, where Sisyphus was now king. Aegina's father Asopus, God of the Rivers, chased after them. Luckily for Asopus, Sisyphus had caught a glimpse of an enormous bird carrying a beautiful maiden to one of his nearby islands. He was more than willing to share this information with Asopus, who rushed after them with all of his powers. But when Asopus came crashing upon the rocks of the island with the force of his waters, Zeus threw down his thunderbolts, sending Asopus reeling back in retreat.
For his blatant defiance of Zeus, Sisyphus was swiftly punished. He was forced to struggle with a huge boulder, told by the Gods to roll it up the largest hill in Corinth. Sisyphus labored with this task day after day, coming closer and closer to the summit, but just when he thought he would finally reach the top the weight of the boulder would overpower him and it would come crashing back down the mountain, erasing all of his toil and struggle of the day. This struggle continued into eternity, giving us the word sisyphean, which means "both extremely effortful and futile, an endless labor or task."
Cooking at the highest levels, say in the 7th best restaurant in the world, can only be described as sisyphean. (like how I brought that one around full circle?) All day you fight and struggle, negotiate with your fellow cooks for space on the stove, stash away pots and pans that you will need later in the day, furiously prep your station, practically sprinting through the kitchen, all in the hopes of being set up on time once the doors open for the nights service. You have to become an absolute cutthroat cook, bending to none of your peers, if you want any chance at survival. And all of this, the brutal struggle that all 22 cooks at Alinea go through on a daily basis, is only half of it. This is the atmosphere in the kitchen from 11 am to 6pm. Then service starts. It is mind boggling the struggle that the cooks are put through just so that they will even have the OPPORTUNITY to do their job. Alinea is sink or swim, kill or be killed, to the nth degree. If you refuse to become diabolical, if you tell yourself that you are going to maintain your humanity towards other cooks, you will fail. The kitchen will chew you up and spit you out. It is every man for himself for every minute of the 15+ hour day.
My stage was on a Friday, my second day in Chicago. A good friend who is the AM kitchen manager set me up with the day of work on only a days notice, for which I am feeling very grateful as I pace the alley behind the restaurant, ticking off the minutes until my 11:30 am call time. With my black clogs, black pants, white tee, four days growth on my face, and my leather Messermeister knife bag I stroll through the back door feeling confident but still a bit apprehensive. This will be the best kitchen I have set foot in thus far in my career, and I am eager to get started. I pick the sous chef, Matt Chasseur, out of the crowd of cooks. He sends me downstairs to put away my knives and suit up. Flying back up the flight of stairs to the kitchen I start to get a familiar feeling. It can only be described as pre-game butterflies. It is a feeling that every cook knows all too well. It's the quick rush of adrenaline pulsing through your veins, rushing throughout your body to the tips of your fingers and back again, all set to the now quickening rhythm of your heartbeat. It's the feeling you get when you are walking in the back door of the restaurant, mentally scanning your prep list for the day, and realizing that you are fucked. But you have no choice, so you take a deep breath, and start another day.
Travis, (a.k.a T-Train) sets me up with a cutting board, and I set my tempo to that of the cooks around me, which is 5th gear. Juicing lemons and limes faster than I ever have becomes my own personal relay race. Other items on my prep list for the day include shelling a case of spring peas, making french fries for staff meal, cleaning a case of ramps, and juicing fresh coconut. Staff meal needs to be up and ready by 4:00 T-Train informs me, and even though it's only 1:00 I decide to get started on the fries. I will need to cut a case of russet potatoes into fries by hand, blanch them in oil at a low temperature to cook them through, and then crank the heat to finish them off at high heat so they will have a crisp, golden crust. I then make my fatal decision for the day, the decision that will change my stage from an intense but invigorating experience into a burning, fiery, hellscape. Figuratively not literally.
I start to peel the potatoes.....
"What are you talking about Garrett? How could peeling potatoes decide your fate?"
Peeling a 25 lb. bag of potatoes takes a little bit of time. And it is the 30 minutes that I spend peeling them that starts the chain reaction that will ruin my day, even my week. With my potatoes now peeled, I start to cut them by hand, it's 1:35. I am a blur of motion, slicing through the potatoes as fast as I possibly can, but again, 25 lbs. requires a chunk of time. 2:00 comes and goes, at 2:15 I finish the last of them, and ask T-Train where the fryer is.
"There isn't one." Travis says flatly.
I run downstairs to grab a 5-gallon jug of fryer oil and a rondeau(a huge pot with shallower sides than a stock pot). Sprinting back up the stairs and into the kitchen I scan the flat-top but see that there is absolutely no room for my pot of oil to heat up. I head over to Chris' station where he has a couple of portable induction burners and manage to convince him to let me use one of them. While my oil is heating up I busy myself with some of my other projects, and nervously glance at the clock, 2:30. Shit.
It is going to take me at least 30 minutes to blanch off all the fries in batches, and then another 30 to fry them crispy. My oil needs to heat up FAST. The rest of the kitchen is hauling through their work just as fast, with the minutes before service quickly melting away. 2:45 and my oil is almost there. I grab my bucket of raw fries and head over to Chris' station to get started. Chris is sweating profusely, obviously stressed out, and when he sees me heading his way with the fries I can visibly see something in him snap.
"No, no, no, you can't fry those off yet. I have to blanch my peas first. I have to blanch peas, make a puree, and then freeze them in liquid nitrogen before 4:oo so that they will have time to temper before service." he says, widening his eyes so that I can feel the full effect of his predicament.
"Yeah, well these are for staff meal." I retort, bulging my eyes right back at him.
"I don't care!" he squeals under his breath, "I need those peas shucked NOW."
Kill or be killed. In this case, since I have the misfortune of being a lowly stage, or apprentice, I will be the one who is killed. I race back to my station and start shucking peas faster than the Green Giant. 3:00. Five minutes pass and I already have a quart of peas, Chris walks past and whispers menacingly in my ear, "You HAVE to go faster."
"I'm going as fast as I can." I reply starting to lose a little patience. Chris jumps in to help me out and just manages to get in the way, slowing me down even further. 3:15.
I finally get him the 3 quarts that he needs and rush off to start the fries, acutely aware of the fact that I am well behind schedule. The first batch hits the oil with a satisfying hiss. Dropping cold fries into hot oil works just like ice cubes, and since I am frying them on an induction burner the oil takes longer than I had expected to regain its temperature. The second batch hits the oil at 3:25, and I still have at least 4 more to go. And this is just the first step! I still have to fry them off at high heat to get crispy! At 3:30 my good friend who I cooked with in California, who lined up the stage for me, whose apartment I am staying at in the city, delivers me the final crushing blow.
"I need you to make Caesar salad too."
"Are you kidding me?!" I say, in shock. "I'm barely gunna be able to get the fries done!"
"I'll clean the lettuce for you but I need you to make the dressing." he replies.
It's not his fault, his workload is just as crushing as everyone else's, but it is at this moment in time, this snapshot in my life as a cook, that I lose it. I start spinning in circles frantically setting up the blender and trying to locate the ingredients I will need for a Caesar salad. I have made Caesar hundreds of times before, but being in an unfamiliar kitchen makes all the difference. I am now jumping back and forth between mixing together the caesar and frying off my fries, none of which are crispy yet. 3:40.
I give up on blanching off the last half of the fries I cut, and crank the heat. I have to have something ready for staff meal which is now only 15 minutes away. Throwing in salt and vinegar to my salad dressing I taste it, and recognize that it is not really good at all. I don't even care at this point and take it over to the washed greens. I don't have the time to fix it. 3:50 and the first batch of blanched fries hit the oil, with me standing over them willing them to cook faster. It wont help. The entire crew of cooks are now scrubbing down their stations, and setting up the prep table for staff meal. Hot dogs, sauerkraut, Caesar salad, and...... french fries.
The meat cook, whose sole contribution to staff meal was to boil the hot dogs walks by and says condescendingly, "You gunna have those fries ready for staff or what?"
I bite my lip to refrain from clocking him in the face. It's now 4:00. I have officially fried two batches of fries, enough for ten people. Maybe. The front of the house staff starts to line up and I can feel my face reddening. I'm feeling lower than I ever have in a kitchen before. The sous chef, Matt, walks up to me and adds insult to injury, "Just walk away."
"No its ok I'll just keep frying 'em as people go through the line so I can replenish the fries..." I reply.
Matt, glaring at me, repeats, "I said walk away Chef!" So I do. I walk out the back door of the kitchen and out into the Chicago rain. Pulling out some hair I am beside myself. I am cooking in the best restaurant in the U.S. and somehow I just managed to be defeated by french fries. FUCKING. FRENCH. FRIES!
It was without a doubt the single worst day I have ever had cooking.
As service starts I am relocated to the basement to continue with the prep list, which isn't even close to being finished. Monotonously juicing coconuts and cleaning ramps my head is with the kitchen upstairs, and I wonder what I'm missing. Finally finishing off my list I head up to the main kitchen..
Alinea has two options for guests to choose from, the 12-course tasting menu or the 26-course Tour. It generally takes about 3 hours or more to eat a meal there. As I walk into the kitchen
a cluster of cooks are all swarmed around pristine plates and offer no room for me to jump in whatsoever. Looking to the other side of the kitchen, where pastry and a few of the hot apps stations are housed I see Ben, one of the pastry cooks, beckoning me over to his station. He is still finishing the final stages of his prep, it's 7:00 and none of the guests have started their dessert courses yet. Ben, as it turns out, used to work at Chez Panisse in California, where I had staged while I was in school. Finally able to calm down for a second and talk he seems to be one of the only cooks in the kitchen that has held onto his humanity, the only one who won't kill you for the last pound of butter. I help him with plating his dishes throughout the night as the intensity level rises, and in return I get to taste the dishes on his station.
As I am watching all of the amazing plates of food leaving the kitchen I am overcome with an unfamiliar feeling for me. I want to be out in the dining room, tasting the food. Every restaurant I have worked in it has always been a no-brainer for me. I always prefer to be in the kitchen, where the action is, rather than sitting down eating the food. Alinea is different I decide. Alinea's kitchen is toxic. It's an effect of the amount of work it takes to produce dinner for around 80 guests a night. 22 cooks are employed at Alinea as far as I can see. 4 come in at 6 am and make up the prep crew, 16 come in at 11 am and make up the line cooks, with a sous chef and a chef de cuisine coming in around 10 am. In the time that passes before the first guest arrives and sits down for dinner 176 man hours have been logged in total. Every single one of these hours are needed for service to flow smoothly, for the food to leave the kitchen the way it was intended by the Head Chef. That is a ridiculous amount of work to be expended for someone's dinner. And for how artistic the food here is, it may as well be disposable. After all of this effort, all of the toil and hardships endured by all of the cooks in the name of fine dining, by the end of the night their boulder will have rolled back to the bottom of the hill. Only to start again tomorrow. Sisyphus lives on.
For some amazing pictures of the food:
