How I Learned to Cook by Kimberly Witherspoon

Author:Kimberly Witherspoon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2009-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

"It's All Fun and Games Until. . ."

GABRIELLE HAMILTON

Gabrielle Hamilton is the chef-owner of Prune, which she opened in New York City's East Village in October 1999. Prune was named in Time Out New York's "Top 100" in 2000, Gael Green's "Where to Eat in the New Millennium" in New York magazine, and also featured in the Saveur 100 in 2001. In 2006 Prune was named in New York magazine's "101 Best Restaurants" and in Food &c Wine's "376 Hottest Restaurants in the World." Gabrielle has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, Saveur magazine, and Food & Wine and had the eight-week "Chef's Column" in the New York Times. Her work has been anthologized in the Best Food Writing series for 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004.

THERE ARE PEOPLE—and as much as I'd like to distance myself from them, I once counted myself among them—who think that just because they have a stove and a good recipe for duck they can open a restaurant. Because it's "only cooking," any hardworking, dedicated person could do it. What seems effortless—you in the kitchen spooning reduced cider sauce over confited duck leg while your spouse hustles the front, overseeing the dining room with a warm touch and a glass of cabernet, just like the dinner parties you've been throwing in your apartment for ten years—is not. The difference between being a good cook and being a good chef is as big as the difference between playing online Texas Hold'Em in your pajamas and holding a chair in the World Series of Poker.

When I first opened my restaurant, I improvised everything. Other than having an ironclad work ethic and a certain compulsion for cleanliness, list making, and straightforward food, I did not know what I was doing. I ran out of items too early, too often. I drank wine during service. I sent incomplete orders out to tables, making the last diner sit empty-handed. I didn't really have the hang of the language of the line and would expedite tickets without phrasing them, calling out one giant, unpunctuated recitation of orders with no regard for their coursing, timing, or pickup. Worse, I would arrive in the morning and change the entire menu, without warning, for that evening. I did not rehearse or plot or spend months in the laboratory testing new items until I got them just so. I did not research an ingredient and its best technique so that I fully understood it from all sides. I did not prepare my kitchen staff, and most certainly failed to warn the floor staff, who had less idea about what they were serving than we had about what we were cooking.

I can assure you, several years later, that not everyone works this way. In fact, no one credible works this way and this is not at all how professional kitchens are run. I can also confirm that this amateurism can really piss some people off. Maybe it especially pisses off landlocked midwesterners who

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