"I will not let you fail"

Today, we had our regular lunch customers in the Careme Room (perhaps 45) and a group of ladies who came on the bus from the Opera House, is what I overheard -- but at any rate, 6 eight tops, with a set menu, beef temderloin, honey-green peppercorn salmon, or chicken breast stuffed with goat cheese. My group, team 2, was responsible for the tenderloin: two slices, each the width of two of Chef Glenn's fingers, plus two triangles of rosti potatoes, two sautéed "teenage" (slightly bigger than 'baby') carrots, and two onion rings, sauced with some gorgeous Jack Daniels/veal demiglace.

Sara didn't show today, so it was Kristina, Michi, Cho, and me, and I have to tell you that Cho just doesn't move all that fast. And he seems to need to make everything over. He had to start from scratch on the onion rings (onion rings!!) because he screwed up the batter, and the rest of us have been inclined to just ignore him and let him do his thing, but that comes back to haunt us as the morning runs down. As I left class this morning, Kristina said, in an aside, "It's not like I complained or anything, but Chef says if he's not performing, we can just tell him to get his ass in gear."

The kitchen today, during service, was a wonderful and scary thing. (Please forgive me if you've worked in a restaurant kitchen before; this is all new to me.) When the order is received, it's either "ordered" (get ready, and we'll tell you when to cook it), or "fired", which means "cook it now". I was on veal milanese today, a sautéed and breaded veal scallopini topped with mixed greens, some chopped heirloom tomatoes, with some pickled red onions as garnish. This was Sara's post yesterday, and she made about two all shift; today it was a hot item and we had 10, and ran out. There's a little beurre blanc sauce garnish, with some capers, and we neglected to make the sauce -- fortunately, Silvia made some for her salmon dish and shared -- so I owe her big time. And Chef suggested that we deep fry the capers, but Cho was (slowly, methodically) hogging the deep fryer, so they were not fried when they were placed on the plate. Chef called us on it, and you just have to say, "Yes, Chef. No, Chef. Sorry, Chef." There's a crazy amount of adrenaline. Your goal is to make each plate identical, and fast, and he's yelling, "Now Now Now! You're killing me! Where's that gnocchi? I need soup on the rail! I got four salmons all day!" and then people are eating your food and saying they loved it and man, what could be better?

As I said, we screwed up in multiple ways, and Kristina was sure that we were gonna get a nasty lecture from Chef Glenn following service, but, after two "A minus" days in a row, we got an "A for effort, C plus for execution." We talked through the lunch adventure, he gave us some tips about tomorrow's prep, and he told us to leave. "Get out of here. I'm sick of seeing you people."

I thanked him as I left the classroom, and he said, "You did really well today. This is a strong team. I'm really encouraged." I demurred, thinking about our various slip-ups, and he said, "I will not let you fail."

Man, what more can you ask?