Graduation day with Chef Alain Sailhac
To cut to the chase, finding my career path has been challenging for me. I'm intrigued by a variety of areas within the restaurant industry and I can imagine myself succeeding in most of them. Deciding which one will ultimately make me the happiest is another matter — A matter that has introduced me to insomnia.
I haven't written about this due to a combination of factors; The biggest being that I simply wasn't ready to share my feelings and observations during my last three months in the concrete jungle. It wasn't easy accepting that something I planned didn't come to surface, and even harder to acknowledge what was really in my heart. Everyone at home knew I was going to culinary school and thought I was on the verge of landing my dream job at a culinary publication.
I moved to New York City just over a year ago. It was August 9, 2010. I packed my belongings into five boxes, ditched my other things in a storage, and left Kansas. I cried when I said goodbye, took a nap on the plane and woke up to look out the window before landing. There, the towering buildings penetrating the sky; Me, the girl from the Midwest, looking down to the cracks between buildings, aware I might be swallowed alive.
Last time I wrote, I was in the middle of level 5 at The French Culinary Institute. I had just completed my menu project (which I received "Best Menu Project" for during graduation) and I was beginning to see the light at the end of my EXTREMELY expensive culinary tunnel. I was essentially working two jobs, going to school and externing on weekends. I had absolutely no time to spend on my blog, let alone sleep for that matter. I was determined to inhale all that New York City had to offer, especially since I knew in my heart that I might not be staying.
With that said, I should probably rewind some more. I moved to New York City, specifically, to break into culinary media. I knew it was going to be hard work and I was ready to show my motivation. As long as food was the subject, I was ready to alphabetize manilla envelopes and organize office supplies to get into the biz. After I adjusted to my school schedule I applied for several editorial internships and accepted a full-time editorial intern position with Food Arts magazine. I checked content for accuracy, made phone calls, assisted with advertising, organized archives and ate at way too many Midtown delis. After working seven hours everyday, I left with my change of clothes and either went up or down the 6 line, depending on if it was a school night or another evening of work. I worked all day on Saturdays and on Sundays I occasionally had a personal day where I slept, cooked and drank too many glasses of wine.
The internship was a pivotal experience for me. It was after two months at Food Arts that I came to the great realization that I wanted to be in a kitchen, atleast for a little while. I applied for a test kitchen internship at Saveur magazine and was invited to come in and cook for an afternoon with their staff, and after that experience I was completely jazzed. The kitchen manager invited me to be a summer intern at the magazine, but it was full-time and unpaid. The real kicker was that I couldn't have a part-time job because it isn't unusual for the test kitchen staff to stay late. You can't have other commitments. The reality of this killed me. I just couldn't do it unless I lived in a cardboard box in Union Square.
I went back to the drawing board. As much as I was learning at Food Arts, I was feeling a little restless. I also knew from the beginning that this internship wasn't leading to a job because there wasn't room on their staff. I was also completely broke. Sure, this isn't unusual for an intern. All interns grow restless and survive on cheap noodles and pizza. The thing is, all I could think about was cooking in a commercial kitchen. After researching restaurants for the magazine, each of them inspiring me with their photos and menus, I thought to myself, "Could I be a part of something like this?" This question lead me to my career advisor's office, where I made the decision to apply for kitchen jobs.
For me, my heart and focus have always been dedicated to the creation of plates. Whether it was the ex-murderer Crip flinging a cheap ribeye into the window at Martini's Steak & Chop House when I was a 16-year-old server in Salina, Kansas, or as culinary student searing and plating a crispy duck breast in the L'Ecole kitchen, my attention has always been on the food and the hands preparing it. I want to tell stories of people creating great food and share recipes from the culinary brilliance of others. This is still at the core of the inquirer that I am. Part of me wondered, though, did I have a story I wanted to tell others with food on my own? Did I crave authentic cooking experiences? Should my editorial career be on hold?
I fed my curiosity and made some changes. I started staging around the city, trying to find the right fit. A culinary stage is when a cook works in a kitchen for a brief amount of time, usually for free, in an effort to network and learn new techniques. It's also custom to stage for jobs. It gives the cook and the chef a chance to see if there's good working chemistry. Staging in several places around the city was crucial. Not only did it prevent me from working in the most dysfunctional kitchen I've ever witnessed, but staging ultimately lead me to a kitchen where I really was able to observe and learn from true masters of their craft. I will save my stories about staging for another post, as several of them are rather involved.
After several stages for positions, I decided it was going to be more valuable for me to find a part-time extern position where I could still keep a front of the house job. This also meant I could spend time in a high-caliber kitchen, learning from chefs with a lot of experience. As much as I wanted extern full-time, it just wasn't financially possible. I learned that at the magazine. For those of you who don't know, an extern is a kitchen intern. Like other business models, kitchens cut labor costs by hosting externs. In exchange for training, the chef takes a student or recent graduate under their wing. In some cases the experience leads to a job. Well, I guess I shouldn't make it sound so mutually beneficial. I've heard of some kitchens abusing their externs and taking the help for granted. In my experience, however, the chefs I ended up working for were very much a mentoring group.
At Dovetail, John Fraser's Michelin-stared and New York Times 3-star restaurant, I found the right fit. Located on the Upper West Side on the corner of 77th and Columbus next to a Shake Shack, Dovetail was the definition of elegance without being stuffy and pretentious. Fine dining? Yes, but in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere. The service staff was polished and very knowledgeable, but the restaurant itself wasn't the white table cloth joint with a bunch of talking heads kind of place.
The kitchen at Dovetail is wonderful. It's the perfect size, although I know the cooks would argue that they definitely need more space to prep. In regard to other kitchens in the city, however, I have to argue that it's a nice size because if you stand in the middle of it, you can see everything that's going on in the other stations. And the food – The food at Dovetail is beautiful! Simply beautiful. Though the portions are small, every plate is executed with precision and grace. I'll touch on this more when I write more in-depth about specific restaurants I've experienced.
So I started externing at Dovetail on weekends and transferred to another Fig & Olive location where I functioned as a serving captain several nights a week and served during the Midtown lunch rush at Momofuku Má Pêche. I didn't sleep. I didn't have a life. I wasn't always pleasant. I didn't have a whole lot of money. But you know what, I value the last three months the most. I worked really, really hard.
Around the beginning of July I made the official decision to move back to Colorado. Though I had toyed with the idea for awhile, a big part of me contemplated trying to make a life in New York City. I had roommates, potential apartments lined up and a general direction in terms of where I would look for work. It was around this time that I also got word that my grandfather, a man who had been battling cancer for over a year, was dying. It was conveyed to me that I may not have the chance to see him again.
December 2010
People who know me well are aware how important my grandpa Hal was to me, and will always be for that matter. He was the man who was present when my single mother was struggling and my father was completing his training as a surgeon. My grandfather spent a great deal of time getting to know me as a young girl and influenced much of my development into a young woman. I was living in New York City for nearly the entire duration of his illness. Christmas 2010 would be the last time I would grip his hand and offer him hope of a future.
The combination of feeling extremely overworked, homesick and distant (from family and from myself, really) made me decide that I needed to move to Colorado, especially if I was going to pursue a cooking career, which is very demanding of time. So I booked my ticket and began cutting ties. This proved to be more difficult than I imagined. Even as I reflect, here in this moment, I deeply miss people in New York City. I've written it before, but New York City is the place where I really got a true taste of the world, right here in the United States. I met people from all over the world, all of them pursuing a dream, even the most simple dream of freedom to work and provide.
Two days after my graduation from The French Culinary Institute I reunited with my family to spread my grandfather's ashes. We stood together, friends and family, looked out to the mountains on a clear Colorado afternoon, and released our feelings of grief with his ashes. It was the most peace I had felt in months. He is missed dearly, but I feel his presence everyday as I struggle to find out who I am and what I'm destined to do.
So what am I doing now? You'll have to wait for my next post. I have many kitchen stories I'm itching to tell though.
