My locker is #4. I share it with someone that I've not yet met.
I'd tell you the combination but if that leaked out I'd be in trouble... Someone else is in that locker now, the evening before The French Laundry opens up for it's first lunch and dinner services in 2009. I hope there is room for my "stuff" when I get there on Thursday.
As I stated yesterday, I'm not on the schedule until Thursday @ 3:30. So today and tomorrow are my "weekend" days. Had a coffee @ Peets Coffee & Tea on Chanate Street in Santa Rosa. Read the sports page and soaked up some California sun. The cleaning ladies were in the house that I'm staying at so I removed myself for an hour... Went to Oliver's Market on Montecito Boulevard and shopped for dinner. I've been cooking for P.S. while I wait to "go to work" at TFL. Last night was "Salmon Santa Rosa" and tonight was "P.S. Pork & Pasta" - Olive & Tomato Braised-Roasted ("Broasted" - new word...) 4-Bone Pork Loin with Spagettini alla Pesto (fresh from an incredible array of produce at the market!), Roasted Golden Beets and Butter Lettuces with Olive Oil-Toasted Batard Croutons & Parmigiano-Reggiano. Just a little somethin-somethin... Tomorrow - Bodega Bay.
Shined my clogs. Bought a new can of black shoe polish so they would be Chef-approved. Trimmed my fingernails so I would be happy with them. Sharpened my knives so the food will be be happier... I have my pocket notebook (bought an extra four notebooks in case the others stagiers may have forgotten theirs..), my black sharpie (made sure that it works), my felt tip pen because I write better with it, my white tee-shirts (which I abhor wearing, btw.), my NEW chefwear black classic chef pants, and my black shorty-socks. I'm allowed to bring the following tools into the kitchen (no tool kits, bags, boxes, etc. are allowed in the kitchen because the personal tools are already there - in personal drawers where the chefs de partie keep their mise en place): paring knife, chef's knife, boning knife (didn't specify meat or fish knife so I will have my knife box in the trunk of the Acura), sharpening steel and peeler. Aprons and TFL chef's jackets are in the locker room. Yes, I'll get a picture of myself in the jacket and apron... I'm much more at ease in that uniform than in anything else. I know I feel different and cook with a greater passion and urgency when I have on the apron and toque (however, no toques at TFL - that's o.k., I'm ready for the change). So, my personal mise en place is checked off on "the list". My mental mise en place is always "checked off"...
I had to touch the sign... It was right there on the wall. And then, there it was again on the other wall! You know, under the clock... SENSE OF URGENCY. A blue plastic sign in white letters. If you have been one of my students you've seen the sign on the wall in my lab... There is another sign on my wall. Not from TFL but from Chef Michael Bourdin, formerly of The Connaught Hotel @ Mayfair in London, England. Ready? Repeat after me if you know this; "Good cooking is..." If you don't know it, the full and simple truth is, "Good cooking is the accumulation of small details done to perfection". Brilliant. Wicked. The truth. A simple process to break down the incredible into the manageable. A reminder to cooks. Everything is doable. It is about the basics - skills, methods and techniques. That is, for me, the escence of "The Need to Feed". If it looks good, it will probably taste good. All those hundreds of thousands of cooks in history that have paved the way for me to be here, right now, we pay homage. I'm charged to help pave the way for those who will come after me. That is my/our culinary roots, our culinary family tree. I have something in common with the farmhouse in Arles, the Castille in Segovia...the kitchens of Escoffier..."Ma Gastronomie" of F. Point....of Lutece, The Inn at Little Washington, Chez Panisse, Blue Hill Farms, The Fat Duck & Grinda Wardshus...and all across the culinary map - meandering into a quaintly perfect, two-mile square hamlet called Yountville.
I'm glad I didn't start today because I saw an American dream realized today in Washington, D.C.... But, that is someone else's soapbox. It was, however, like my stagier, a new beginning. Peace.
~R
I'd tell you the combination but if that leaked out I'd be in trouble... Someone else is in that locker now, the evening before The French Laundry opens up for it's first lunch and dinner services in 2009. I hope there is room for my "stuff" when I get there on Thursday.
As I stated yesterday, I'm not on the schedule until Thursday @ 3:30. So today and tomorrow are my "weekend" days. Had a coffee @ Peets Coffee & Tea on Chanate Street in Santa Rosa. Read the sports page and soaked up some California sun. The cleaning ladies were in the house that I'm staying at so I removed myself for an hour... Went to Oliver's Market on Montecito Boulevard and shopped for dinner. I've been cooking for P.S. while I wait to "go to work" at TFL. Last night was "Salmon Santa Rosa" and tonight was "P.S. Pork & Pasta" - Olive & Tomato Braised-Roasted ("Broasted" - new word...) 4-Bone Pork Loin with Spagettini alla Pesto (fresh from an incredible array of produce at the market!), Roasted Golden Beets and Butter Lettuces with Olive Oil-Toasted Batard Croutons & Parmigiano-Reggiano. Just a little somethin-somethin... Tomorrow - Bodega Bay.
Shined my clogs. Bought a new can of black shoe polish so they would be Chef-approved. Trimmed my fingernails so I would be happy with them. Sharpened my knives so the food will be be happier... I have my pocket notebook (bought an extra four notebooks in case the others stagiers may have forgotten theirs..), my black sharpie (made sure that it works), my felt tip pen because I write better with it, my white tee-shirts (which I abhor wearing, btw.), my NEW chefwear black classic chef pants, and my black shorty-socks. I'm allowed to bring the following tools into the kitchen (no tool kits, bags, boxes, etc. are allowed in the kitchen because the personal tools are already there - in personal drawers where the chefs de partie keep their mise en place): paring knife, chef's knife, boning knife (didn't specify meat or fish knife so I will have my knife box in the trunk of the Acura), sharpening steel and peeler. Aprons and TFL chef's jackets are in the locker room. Yes, I'll get a picture of myself in the jacket and apron... I'm much more at ease in that uniform than in anything else. I know I feel different and cook with a greater passion and urgency when I have on the apron and toque (however, no toques at TFL - that's o.k., I'm ready for the change). So, my personal mise en place is checked off on "the list". My mental mise en place is always "checked off"...
I had to touch the sign... It was right there on the wall. And then, there it was again on the other wall! You know, under the clock... SENSE OF URGENCY. A blue plastic sign in white letters. If you have been one of my students you've seen the sign on the wall in my lab... There is another sign on my wall. Not from TFL but from Chef Michael Bourdin, formerly of The Connaught Hotel @ Mayfair in London, England. Ready? Repeat after me if you know this; "Good cooking is..." If you don't know it, the full and simple truth is, "Good cooking is the accumulation of small details done to perfection". Brilliant. Wicked. The truth. A simple process to break down the incredible into the manageable. A reminder to cooks. Everything is doable. It is about the basics - skills, methods and techniques. That is, for me, the escence of "The Need to Feed". If it looks good, it will probably taste good. All those hundreds of thousands of cooks in history that have paved the way for me to be here, right now, we pay homage. I'm charged to help pave the way for those who will come after me. That is my/our culinary roots, our culinary family tree. I have something in common with the farmhouse in Arles, the Castille in Segovia...the kitchens of Escoffier..."Ma Gastronomie" of F. Point....of Lutece, The Inn at Little Washington, Chez Panisse, Blue Hill Farms, The Fat Duck & Grinda Wardshus...and all across the culinary map - meandering into a quaintly perfect, two-mile square hamlet called Yountville.
I'm glad I didn't start today because I saw an American dream realized today in Washington, D.C.... But, that is someone else's soapbox. It was, however, like my stagier, a new beginning. Peace.
~R
