Piano lessons

Monday morning 6am: the alarm clock rings … That’s it François, take your courage in your right hand and your case of knives in the left and run over to the Saisons restaurant to choose your position...My head lowered, I run straight to the Institut to meet the different chefs that teach me during the week.

"Where do you want to be?" Frederico asks me, a former student at the Institut and now second at the restaurant. "Er… cooking meats, please." Things being organized, I rush to my station and empty all of the fridges to check that I am all set: "Hold on? What is that? A treasure map?" Unfortunately not, poor boy, it’s the list of things to set up.

The rest of my section arrives at 9am. Everyone pulls their heads out of their pillows and takes their position. That’s when my second arrives; the bell rings, the cutting boards and waste bins are installed and each little soldier sharpens his arms.

Like my first day in a company, I advance gropingly towards the chef who barks out orders: 30 ox tail cannelloni before noon. I walk on my stress to go peel the onions, the garnish sends me to the cold room, I come back and then, it’s horrible! The chef doesn’t have any more butter. I sprint as much as I perspire to get back to the reserves. Finally, I can attack my recipe. Mincing of parsley and brunoise of carrots finished, I put it all to sweat. I tenderly toss the diced foie gras in the ox tail mixture while cooking the ravioli pasta in boiling water. It is 9:58, I roll my cannelloni.

Finishing the production and feeling our heart rates racing wildly, Flora and I begin to warm the juices, purées and other garnishes and ready the copper sauté pan, cast-iron casseroles and seasoning slabs.

After downing a quick bite to eat, we put on our caps and aprons in the starting block; it is 12:15pm. "Ready: two warm pâtés, one cod; then one sole and two beefs: one rare and one well-done."

The adrenalin wells up, Flora starts warming the garnishes, I place a good squirt of oil and a nice piece of butter in my sauté pan before placing it nervously on the stove plates.

That’s when Frederico shows up– glowing of an uncommon calmness to explain the different degrees of cooking to me (bleu or very rare, rare, medium, well-done), playing on the juiciness and texture of the meat. "Put the filet of beef in the sauté pan, wait for it to become colored, baste it with its grease then finish cooking it in the oven for 3 minutes for rare and 10 minutes for well-done. Be careful to respect the lying-down time for the meat …"
"We’ve got 2 beefs: one rare and one well done."

Flora gets the browned cannelloni from under the salamander, the celery purée, the juice, the glazed onion and celery fries while asking me for the filet of beef: garnishing the plates can begin.

Another order comes in with 4 pork cheek and their breaded feet, we start another round…

It’s the end of the service, each cook’s helper has to fold up his cot and make the stainless steel shine by using elbow grease; it is 2:30pm, a 3-hour break awaits us before hostilities break out again.

"See you this evening!"

François Marchenay, 1st year student in the Culinary Arts & restaurant management