The Making of a Chef (13 page)
Read The Making of a Chef Online
Authors: Michael Ruhlman
With that meal, his education began.
He bought books, scrutinized photographs, read recipes, and thought, What can I do? He began experimenting on his own. “The wheels were turning and turning and turning,” he told me. He still put out country-club food, but every now and then the chef would give him some leeway to make the kind of food he and Vicky talked about late at night after work. She'd return from the Four Seasons, her hands cramped and knotted from cutting bas-relief roses out of potatoes, and tell her husband what the chef there was doing. Now, instead of putting out the standard smoked salmon for the Sunday buffet at the sports club, he'd do a salmon mousseline roulade filled
with spinach and chunks of lobster, sliced and served warm with a light beurre blanc.
with spinach and chunks of lobster, sliced and served warm with a light beurre blanc.
But he knew this wasn't enough. He needed a teacher. He asked associates who was doing the most interesting work in the city. He was told of a Frenchman named Roland Passot who was opening his own restaurant. Pardus went to Passot and asked for a job. Passot said he couldn't pay anyone, forget it.
Pardus said, “I'll work for free.”
“When can you work?”
“I work from two till ten; other than that, I'm free,” Pardus said.
“Can you come in at seven A.M.?”
“Yes,” Pardus said.
“How many days a week?”
“How many do you need?”
“Four.”
Pardus said, “Fine.”
Pardus worked for ten mouths for free for Passot. Passot had worked in some of the great kitchens of France and under great chefs and what Pardus remembered most, the first thing he said he learned from Passot, was how to make a good brown stock. He had made brown stock at the CIA but the way he had been taught had been in a classroom situation, not cooking it long enough and then not reducing it to the proper flavor and consistency. Passot's brown stockâcooked long and then reduced to a tasty brothlike liquidânow here was something he could use. Passot and his partner spoke French all day, but Pardus asked enough questions to learn how a true French chef worked, and how the classical methods at the CIA could be put to use beyond what he'd learned in school.
The second turning point came after his next job; he and Vicky had moved to California and he began cooking at Miramonte Restaurant in St. Helena under a man named Udo. Udo himself had worked under Bocuse and Michel Guérard and it was here that Pardus came into his own as a chef. He began a daily journal of the specials they created at Miramonte (“Quail stuffed with foie gras,” one entry read, for instance, “poached in quail stock served cold with grapes and pickled cherry, clarified jellied poaching liquid”); his descriptions were often accompanied by a diagram of how the dish was plated, where the pickled cherry was placed, where the aspic was spooned. He still had this notebook, jammed with food entries, and he still referred back to it as a reference. In 1985, Udo closed the
restaurant to take his staff on a tour of France provided they paid their own airfare; the last entry in Pardus's notebook records the revelatory twelve-course meal he had in Paris at Jamin by Joël Robuchon, the cook through whom God spoke.
restaurant to take his staff on a tour of France provided they paid their own airfare; the last entry in Pardus's notebook records the revelatory twelve-course meal he had in Paris at Jamin by Joël Robuchon, the cook through whom God spoke.
The journal, containing hundreds of entries, ends here as if, after that meal, he concluded one phase of his education and career and began a new one.
“A
l dente vegetables don't fly here at the CIA, I'll tell you right now,” Chef Pardus said to start his demo on Day Fifteen, the beginning of Culinary Skill Development Two.
l dente vegetables don't fly here at the CIA, I'll tell you right now,” Chef Pardus said to start his demo on Day Fifteen, the beginning of Culinary Skill Development Two.
We'd had the customary three-day weekend, typically scheduled after the end of each block unless a holiday fell in the middle of the block. I'd only completed one fourteen-day block, but so much had been packed into those days that I was glad for a Monday off. Furthermore, we were heading into vegetable cookery, far from the intriguing intricacies of the consommé and sauce Robert. We began Skills Two with glazed carrots, creamed corn, and Mexican-style corn. As if to heap further insult upon us, Pardus had added a quart of béchamel to each person's production for the day.
It wasn't business as usual. Pardus had called out new table assignments. I had been moved to Table Three, the back of the room. No more listening in on Pardus's evaluations of veloutés. I grabbed a spot near the stove, which would save traveling time. The new dynamics seemed to set instantly. Adam had taken a spot nearest the stove also and would work beside me. Eun-Jung had tried to sneak into my spot by the stove when I'd gone off to get a cutting board, but I muscled her out upon my return. She would work across from Adam, having least direct access to the stove of any of us. I reasoned that because much of our production required group efforts (clarifying butter, say, or reducing stocks), I would be of more use near the stove than Eun-Jung, whose linguistic challenges continued; in fact, she
seemed to understand less and less as we went on, though this may simply have been that she no longer tried to hide her difficulties. But the real reason I stayed where I wasâto be perfectly honestâwas that I was looking out for Number One. I admit it. I was in the game here and saw no reason to be kicking into the wind if I didn't have to.
seemed to understand less and less as we went on, though this may simply have been that she no longer tried to hide her difficulties. But the real reason I stayed where I wasâto be perfectly honestâwas that I was looking out for Number One. I admit it. I was in the game here and saw no reason to be kicking into the wind if I didn't have to.
Across from me was Leonard Mormondo, a stocky youngster from Queens. Len was a workhorse, rarely spoke, and had large blue eyes and downturned features that gave him a perpetually sullen look. He had worked a year and a half each in a restaurant (front of the house), a bakery, and a butcher shop. I could see him as a butcher, hefting a side of veal to the board and dismantling it, effortlessly, into saleable components. Something about his demeanor, his silence, the efficiency of his short, compact frame echoed
honesty
and
work ethic
. When a smile reversed his dour aspect, as would happen only occasionally, it was because he was genuinely pleased.
honesty
and
work ethic
. When a smile reversed his dour aspect, as would happen only occasionally, it was because he was genuinely pleased.
Adam, of course, would be the angry leader, if only by default (Eun-Jung followed by necessity, Leonard by disposition, I by profession).
“I know that people are looking for al dente where you've worked and where I've worked,” Pardus continued, standing before his customary burner. He had begun three weeks of doubles, which meant he was now repeating the demo he'd performed seven hours earlier in K-2. “However. There are an equal number of people who are looking for
cooked
vegetables.” Not mush, he said, but a good bite with no discernible crunch, bright color, and fresh flavor. Temperature control was critical, he said. Uniformity of cuts was critical. Jumping the veg in your pan was criticalâlearn now, don't fry it. Vegetables here are to be cooked and not overcooked. “It's a lot easier to learn how to do that up front,” he said, “and then if you go someplace where they want al dente vegetables, you back off a little, rather than say, âOh, yeah, well I just cook my vegetables al dente.' That's a lame excuse that a lot of people use for undercooked vegetables. âOh they're
supposed
to be that way, they're al
dente
.' Yeah,
right
.” Pardus paused and scanned our faces. “They're
salad
! Raw vegetables are
salad
.”
cooked
vegetables.” Not mush, he said, but a good bite with no discernible crunch, bright color, and fresh flavor. Temperature control was critical, he said. Uniformity of cuts was critical. Jumping the veg in your pan was criticalâlearn now, don't fry it. Vegetables here are to be cooked and not overcooked. “It's a lot easier to learn how to do that up front,” he said, “and then if you go someplace where they want al dente vegetables, you back off a little, rather than say, âOh, yeah, well I just cook my vegetables al dente.' That's a lame excuse that a lot of people use for undercooked vegetables. âOh they're
supposed
to be that way, they're al
dente
.' Yeah,
right
.” Pardus paused and scanned our faces. “They're
salad
! Raw vegetables are
salad
.”
Â
Â
O
ccasionally an unusual man would appear in our $330,000 classroom to observe. He would exchange a few words with Chef Pardus, and when we looked up from our board he would be gone. We first saw him as Chef Pardus demoed American Bounty vegetable soup. He, too, was
dressed in chef's attire. The green nameplate pinned above the pocket of his jacket read “Uwe Hestnar.” He was tall, graying, and solidly built. A forceful figure. He wandered the kitchen as Pardus sautéed leeks and onion and carrot. He stopped by the steam kettles, dipped a bowl into the veal stock, let the stock fall from the bowl back into the kettle, and regarded the bowl thoughtfully. Then he disappeared.
ccasionally an unusual man would appear in our $330,000 classroom to observe. He would exchange a few words with Chef Pardus, and when we looked up from our board he would be gone. We first saw him as Chef Pardus demoed American Bounty vegetable soup. He, too, was
dressed in chef's attire. The green nameplate pinned above the pocket of his jacket read “Uwe Hestnar.” He was tall, graying, and solidly built. A forceful figure. He wandered the kitchen as Pardus sautéed leeks and onion and carrot. He stopped by the steam kettles, dipped a bowl into the veal stock, let the stock fall from the bowl back into the kettle, and regarded the bowl thoughtfully. Then he disappeared.
Chef Hestnar had been at the Culinary for more than twenty years and was now a team leader, the name the Culinary gave to its managers. Eight team leaders managed 120 faculty. Hestnar presided over a team of twenty chef-instructors running the formative kitchens: Skills, Intro, American Regional, Fish Kitchen, Oriental, and Charcuterie. Chef-instructors agree to a three-year probationary period when they begin at the Culinary. During this time they can be sacked with no questions asked, no reasons given. Part of Hestnar's job was to evaluate each instructor regularly during this period. When a Skills instructor complained to him that all the consommés were coming out cloudy, he dropped in and saw (to his silent amazement) that every single consommé was at a vigorous boil; he methodically passed each burner, reducing the boil to a simmer. He sat in the back of the classroom after dinner as Pardus lectured on cream soups, and Pardus, while he didn't alter his style or his lecture, realized that he was going out on a limb in answering a question from Ben, that he might improve on the onion soup by adding a drop or two of sherry vinegar. Hestnar would depart without a word.
On Day Sixteen, Skills Twoârepresented on my prep card as glace de volaille, SMEP, bread crumbs, spinach, peas, green beans almondine, broccoli hollandaiseâHestnar appeared as I was readying my peas and spinach. Chef Pardus preferred at this point that we bring up the veg items two at a time. The peas were sautéed with blanched pearl onions in a little beef stock, beurre manié swirled in at the end to thicken the stock. The spinach, a ubiquitous item at the Culinary, was to be sautéed in clarified butter with shallots and seasoned with salt, pepper, and, curiously, a dash of nutmeg, which added an apt and intriguing flavor to the greens. I put them both on a warm plate and approached Chef Pardus's desk. He and Chef Hestnar had been talking but stopped when I arrived.
I stayed one step back, but Hestnar ushered me forward with a sweep of his hand. Pardus lifted a small forkful of peas, then praised the sauce. He tasted an onion. “These are just a bit crunchy,” he said. With Hestnar there, I didn't want to argue. To my surprise, and I was suddenly not so
comfortable or sure of myself, Hestnar drew a fork from the container and tasted some peas and an onion. I'd been, I realized only then, more cavalier than I'd wished; I cursed myself for not tasting the peas and onions again for seasoning and doneness. If it was perfect, it would have been luck. I hadn't put 100 percent into the damned peas; had I known Hestnar would taste, I would have.
comfortable or sure of myself, Hestnar drew a fork from the container and tasted some peas and an onion. I'd been, I realized only then, more cavalier than I'd wished; I cursed myself for not tasting the peas and onions again for seasoning and doneness. If it was perfect, it would have been luck. I hadn't put 100 percent into the damned peas; had I known Hestnar would taste, I would have.
“Crunchy?” I asked him.
Hestnar was from Hamburg, Germany, and still had an accent thick as molasses. “He's the chef,” he said, not looking at me. He had thin eyes and a thin wide mouth and square features. He didn't smile.
I nodded, feeling rebuked. I was not to talk to him.
Pardus tasted my spinach. “Good cooking time, excellent flavor,” he said. I knew this. I'd done the spinach perfectly, mainly because I loved spinach cooked this way. Hestnar lifted another fork and tasted my spinach. He said nothing.
When Hestnar was gone Pardus reminded me about Hestnar's he's-the-chef remark and said, “I could have told you those onions were asparagus and he would have said the same thing.” Pardus also told me that Hestnar had been favorably impressed by my vegetable cookery, and somehow this made vegetable cookery seem more worthwhile at that moment. Pardus was happy, too, because it made him look good, particularly since I wasn't even a real cook but rather a more lowly life-form.
Â
Â
T
he next time I saw Hestnar happened to be in K-2 downstairs, a long, gloomy Skills kitchen where Pardus taught A.M. Skills, the class normally presided over by Chef Le Roux, who had been a cook in various capacities at Manhattan's Le Pavillon, Le Cynge, and La Côte Basque. I'd asked Pardus if I could hang out, observe a different Skills class, watch what happened unencumbered by the need to crank out the daily mise en place. Also I wanted a sense of what doubles were like. I enjoyed sitting back and watching. I could talk with Pardus here. Like my class, this one had five women; Pardus stood staring down the narrow kitchen, and said softly to me, “A lot of them”âmale studentsâ“still think it's a boys' club. I can take them into the field and introduce them to some women who will
cook
them into the
dirt
. It's a matter of stamina and skill, not upper body mass.”
he next time I saw Hestnar happened to be in K-2 downstairs, a long, gloomy Skills kitchen where Pardus taught A.M. Skills, the class normally presided over by Chef Le Roux, who had been a cook in various capacities at Manhattan's Le Pavillon, Le Cynge, and La Côte Basque. I'd asked Pardus if I could hang out, observe a different Skills class, watch what happened unencumbered by the need to crank out the daily mise en place. Also I wanted a sense of what doubles were like. I enjoyed sitting back and watching. I could talk with Pardus here. Like my class, this one had five women; Pardus stood staring down the narrow kitchen, and said softly to me, “A lot of them”âmale studentsâ“still think it's a boys' club. I can take them into the field and introduce them to some women who will
cook
them into the
dirt
. It's a matter of stamina and skill, not upper body mass.”
Also I gained a new appreciation of Chef Pardus. At eight-thirty in the
morning an hour and a half into class he was power-tasting fish veloutés, fish stock thickened with roux. People lined up with their quarts of fish velouté and he would evaluate each one for flavor and mouth feel. Mmmmm. Nothing like starch-thickened fish stock in the morning. I watched him and he looked at me once, smiled with mean hunger, and said, “Breakfast of champions.”
morning an hour and a half into class he was power-tasting fish veloutés, fish stock thickened with roux. People lined up with their quarts of fish velouté and he would evaluate each one for flavor and mouth feel. Mmmmm. Nothing like starch-thickened fish stock in the morning. I watched him and he looked at me once, smiled with mean hunger, and said, “Breakfast of champions.”
When Chef Hestnar stopped by to check in on Pardus, Pardus introduced us. I told him about why I was here and noted some of the questions I hoped to examine. He offered a comment on the nature of teaching cooking. We stood side by side in front of the reach-ins (here some refrigerators come equipped with movie screens). “A balance of training and education,” he said. Then he dipped slightly, squinted, and held his hands out flat, side by side, and rubbed his index fingers together to create an image of equilibrium.
“What's the difference?” I asked.
“Training is I show you how to do something and you do it.” He looked at me and lifted his eyebrows.
“What is education, then?” I pressed.
He thought but a moment, then said, “Education is, you figure it out for yourself.”
At first I thought he was saying I should come to my own conclusions, but he was giving me a knowing nod.
“I see,” I said. Then I asked, “Isn't it important in cooking to know why something happens and why something doesn't happen?” Pardus was always talking about
why
and most people said they liked Skills because now they knew why things happened.
why
and most people said they liked Skills because now they knew why things happened.
Hestnar did not answer me. Either that or he responded with a gesture or expression that did not translate into English.
I found something interesting, something cryptic about the guy, and told him I'd like to talk to him more. He produced a pocket calendar and a pencil. “Where is your calendar?” he demanded.
I did not say that it was on my wall at home, only that I didn't have it with me. He showed me his and we agreed on a date and time. He wrote this down in his calendar and regarded me skeptically, I believe, as though privately laying odds on my showing up at the right time on the right day. Apparently another way chefs got there was by using pocket calendars.
Hestnar departed. I mentioned our exchange to Pardus and he weighed in with his own thoughts: “Training is I show you how to do it, you do it.
Education is I show you how to do it, you do it, then we discuss why it did what it did, why mine is better than yours.”
Education is I show you how to do it, you do it, then we discuss why it did what it did, why mine is better than yours.”
I moved through two shifts of Skills Two, feeling tired by the end of the day but not wiped out. One day, of course, was not three weeks, and the fatigue mounted in Pardus. He began writing his increasingly involved demos on yellow Post-Its, affixing them to the top left corner of his cutting board to ensure he didn't leave anything out. Part of the reason a chef could put in fourteen- and fifteen-hour days (not including grading papers) was because so much of the work was physical; psychological focus and clarity of mind were what became difficult to maintain.
Â
Â
B
y doubting me, Chef Hestnar had ensured that I would arrive on time at his modest officeâteam leaders had offices; all other instructors shared cubicles formed by gray partitions on the fourth floor of Roth Hall. I did not know if he truly understood what I was here for and I explained that I hoped to write about the basics of cooking.
y doubting me, Chef Hestnar had ensured that I would arrive on time at his modest officeâteam leaders had offices; all other instructors shared cubicles formed by gray partitions on the fourth floor of Roth Hall. I did not know if he truly understood what I was here for and I explained that I hoped to write about the basics of cooking.
He nodded approvingly, saying, “The fundamentals of cookery don't change.”
When I mentioned to Chef Pardus that I would be meeting with Hestnar, Pardus said, “I love that guy,” and his smile stopped just short of a laugh. He had noted that Hestnar was extremely knowledgeable, always referring back to the texts. And I did sense an immediate gravity anchoring his simple-sounding words. With his first statementâthe fundamentals of cookery don't changeâhe seemed somehow to extend his meaning all the way back in time to remind me that water has always behaved as it does now, the physical properties of heat work the same way now as they did ten thousand years ago. Cooking, now as ever, meant learning the physical forces of the world and applying them to eggs, to flour, to bones and meat.
When I asked him how he became a chef, he wagged a finger in the air and said, “I am a cook.” I had heard this sort of talk before. The term “chef” was double-edged. Today, being a chefânow laden with the trappings of celebrityâoften had little to do with cooking. Here at the Culinary, chef was a title, and Hestnar wanted me to know that he was not a chef in the way we have come to think of chefs. He was a cook: that's what he did, that's what he
was
, and that's what he had been, beginning at age fourteen, when he accepted the job of bellboy at the Hotel Reichshof in Hamburg, Germany.
was
, and that's what he had been, beginning at age fourteen, when he accepted the job of bellboy at the Hotel Reichshof in Hamburg, Germany.
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