Bologna

Published on February 8, 2011 in Uncategorized. 3 Comments

Writing a paper on a cured meat, a cheese, a recipe, a dessert, and a wine (chosen as a pairing with the recipe) typical of the region in which I served my stage is a more difficult proposition than I imagined it to be when I first learned of the assignment in September. Twelve pages? That should be easy. Or so I thought.

The parameters of the assignment encouraged us to write with passion about our chosen foods, to be more personal than factual, and to resist regurgitating whatever internet sources Google should render (clearly a global teaching challenge). Let’s just say that when someone asked “What size font do you want?” and someone else chimed in, “Double-spaced or single-spaced?,” I laughed, even as I listened intently for the response. Oh, the response? “We expect you to feel so much about these products that you will write more than twelve pages.” Really? Even then I had difficulty imagining mustering such strong feelings for whatever products became fodder for my paper.

The benefit of spending hours and hours cleaning squid, swiss chard, and spinach is the gift of time in your head to think about whatever you choose. I realized early on that many of the products most familiar to American home cooks hail from Emilia-Romagna (balsamic vinegar, parmesan cheese, and prosciutto) so, despite the fact that parmigiano and balsamico are probably two of the products most written about and, I guessed, two of the products my paper’s readers least wanted to read about (again), they became the basis of my paper, along with tortelli verde and tortelli di zucca—a duo of stuffed pastas well-known to the region, and tortelli dolci, a simple filled dessert that enjoys many variations in Emilia-Romagna. The wine proved to be the most challenging. Because the region’s wines are localized and not widely distributed, I could taste very few of the offerings and eventually wrote about a wine (admittedly, from every source I could Google!) that seemed a perfect complement to my dish, but one I could not find anywhere.

Thinking and researching are two pursuits clearly within my comfort zone. I waited until I escaped to Bologna to begin serious work on my paper. Making use of the vast holdings of the University of Bologna (the oldest operating university in the world), the Biblioteca Sala Borsa (Bologna’s impressive main public library), and the dozens of bookshops throughout the city, I found plenty of material. My dictionary and Google Translate proved invaluable partners; I daresay the project strengthened my language skills more than the time I spent studying every day at Ca’ Matilde.

Bologna is a city that captivated me immediately. I found myself returning to it time and again. A small city that gets its energy and personality from the great University (and fuel for its radical politics and regular demonstrations), it is small enough to be completely walkable, ancient enough to be intriguing, and less-known enough to be free of many tourists (at least in the winter). For me it was a perfect respite from the stage, a useful home base for research and writing, and a city I could pretend to be my home in Italy, if only for a few days at a time.

porticoes leading to San Luca

I never grow tired of Bologna’s porticoes, the thousand year-old building practice of property owners who enlarged their palazzi by co-opting the municipal air space for personal use. When the University began expanding in the Twelfth Century, many landowners, seeing unending profit potential, enlarged their homes to accommodate the need for student housing. Meticulously preserved, these porticoes provide nearly 25 miles of gracious passage throughout the city, as well as shelter from the elements. I realized my foolishness one rainy day when I noticed that I was the only person in the city carrying an umbrella . . . .

As I eventually discussed in my paper, the cuisine of Emilia-Romagna, not unlike that of Italy’s other regions, is highly localized. The gastronomy of Bologna, quite different from that of Reggio Emilia, is some of the most widely recognized Italian fare in the world—ragù Bolognese, tortellini, tortelloni, gnocchi, lasagne—giving me another good reason to return whenever I can. I also appreciate that so many shopkeepers, servers, and people on the street let me speak what little Italian I can without replying in English. On more than one occasion I have had my mispronunciation corrected and, when I repeated the word correctly, have been rewarded with a warm and welcoming smile.

So, post-stage, Bologna was my retreat. When I gave myself breaks from work, I wandered the medieval city, never tiring of discovering new streets, buildings, and neighborhoods as I traveled the circles that comprise the city’s center. One day I decided to walk to the Sanctuary of the Madonna of Saint Luke, a church overlooking the city on a hill on the outskirts of town. The basilica houses a miraculous painting of the Madonna attributed to St. Luke. The basilica is connected to Bologna by a two-mile portico of 666 arches that protects the icon when it is paraded to the cathedral in the city center—a procession that has taken place during Ascension every year since 1433. I wanted to take a look at the painting, and also get a look at Bologna from above.

Santuario Madonna di San Luca

Disregarding the advice of the hotel clerk who advised me to take a bus, I noted her directions, looked at a map, and set out on my own pilgrimage, of sorts. I got to the gate of the city that affirmed I was headed in the right direction. After another mile I saw a clearly marked sign “Santuario Madonna di San Luca” with an arrow pointing up the hill. I began the climb. At first concerned by the number of houses along the way (not remembering any in the photos I had seen online) eventually I was reassured by the vast emptiness of the hill as I continued climbing. No one was coming down and no one, quite certainly, was walking up. Fearing I had missed a turn I thought briefly about turning back about an hour into the trek. Not wanting to turn back when the church was quite surely just around the bend, I kept going. Two and a half hours after I first saw the sign, I gave up . . . . my pilgrimage thwarted by my confidence, the map I had left behind, and a cruel joke of a sign. Going down the hill took much less time than going up. I spent the rest of the afternoon in the library, nursing shins that punished me for my physical ambition.

I traded the relative calm of Bologna for bustling Roma, to meet my sister and her childhood friend, Melissa, for the grand tour of the city. I arrived just before them, on Epiphany, just in time for the

Piazza Navona on Epiphany

arrival of La Befana, the benevolent witch who visits children and leaves treats in their stockings. Naïve as to the cultural import of Epiphany, I made my way to Piazza Navona to visit the Christmas marketand was swept away by the tens of thousands of revelers who were shouting “Viva La Befana!,” and eating pizza, porchetta, and ciambella.

ciambella

La Befana

I love that a scraggly old witch flies through the night on a broom and leaves sweet treats and coal to good kids and bad. Epiphany aside, I loved having company and conversation as we took in everything from the Vatican Museum to the Coliseum in our very short week. With my paper deadline looming, I did send them out for a day of exploring without me so I could get serious about finding words to represent my two weeks of thinking. I was disappointed when my day’s work resulted in only six pages of text.

baba rhum

From Roma I took a train to Napoli for the express purpose of eating pizza, sampling sfogliatelle, and drinking coffee.

Napoli

And writing the paper. Determined to get a strong first draft behind me, I treated myself with sojourns in the very gritty city every few pages or so. After a day and a half, all that remained to do on the draft was cleaning up the citations and bibliography. After a break to try some baba rhum I had spotted earlier in a bakery, I was ready to revise. By the end of the night, the paper was well on its way. Deciding I needed to finish in Bologna what I started in Bologna, I made plans to explore Pompeii in the morning before heading north on the train.

small theatre in Pompeii

I found comfort during what sometimes became agonizing hours of pondering how to tie parmigiano, prosciutto, tortelli dolci, tortelli verde, tortelli di

sfogliatelle, hot from the oven

zucca, and cabernet sauvignon together in one paper (ensuring that it was personal, passionate, and connected to my stage) was the regular email traffic from my classmates.

“How many pages have you written?”

“Are you citing sources? I’m not.”

“I’m finished when I’m finished, even if it’s not enough pages.”

“Single spaced or double spaced?”

“Do you think they’re even going to read what we write? I bet they won’t.”

“I can’t believe they’re making us write this paper!”

Bologna’s omnipresent graffiti welcomed me home as I traded the balmy warmth of Campagna and Lazio for the foggy chill of Emilia-Romagna. The few hours on the train gave me both a second and a third draft (illustrated and formatted) so that by the time I took my first walk in my adopted city, I felt like I was close to having a paper I could submit. I sent it to Brandon and Jon (thank you!) for final proofing, and headed to a neighborhood trattoria for dinner. For karma’s sake, I ordered the tortelli verde and tortelli di zucca.

I awoke to a dreary day that was nothing but gray. With a nagging sense of unfinished business, I took a taxi to Santuario Madonna di San Luca, deciding to spare my shins the agony of a second climb up another [potentially wrong] hill. The driver sped past the sign that started my previous ascent, and took a left at the very next street. After a ten-minute vertical ride, I got out at the steps of the basilica and was grateful I had the wherewithal to arrive by car and vowed to make mine a pilgrimage in reverse.

I could not decide whether the hill was shrouded in fog or enveloped by a cloud. Bologna was not to be seen. When I got to the door of the church, the steps I had climbed were not to be seen. As the only visitor, the haze fashioned a mystical milieu as I stepped inside to behold the miraculous icon.

dear diary…

Published on February 3, 2011 in kitchen and stage. 0 Comments

So my hours have turned into days and days into weeks. I have been writing, but not here. So much has happened—finishing at Ca’ Matilde, recovery and research in Bologna, holiday and writing my paper in Roma, road trip to Napoli to savor pizza, coffee, and sfogiatelle [and more writing], continued research, writing, and editing in Bologna, finals, defense, and graduation in Colorno, recovery in Milano, celebration in Venezia, and now a road trip to Torino.

Fortunately I feel less terrorized and more amused as the days pass. I still feel like I didn’t finish, I survived. When I hear about the experience of my classmates, I realize that my survival was nothing compared to what many of them had to endure.

So I will try to cover the last few weeks in as few words as possible, but I warn you that there will be more words than a blog entry should contain. Some highlights of the final days in Quattro Castello . . . Dear Diary style.

December 29

tortelli di zucca

I had one of the best evenings of my stage when Chef Andrea asked me to help him make tortelli. I was surprised that we were making more tortelli verde and tortelli di zucca (since we had bags and bags of tortelli in the freezer). Only this time I was not merely the guy who par-boils the tortelli and gets them into the blast chiller before packaging them for long term storage—this time the Chef had me place the filling on the pasta and cut them. I couldn’t believe my luck! There was a fair amount of stress as he watched over me like a hawk but it was nice, for a change, to contribute more fully to a process (and to get feedback from him that helped me to get better). We continued the task long after service. I counted. We made 1,224 tortelli. That’s 111 servings. We probably serve an average of eight servings per week. Ca’ Matilde will be serving my tortelli well into spring.

December 30

Three hours of peeling garlic and removing the soul. Who knew that garlic had a soul? It’s that little green sprout that is in the very center of many cloves. The Chef

peeled garlic, sans soul

always has us remove it from garlic and onions because it is hard to digest. I didn’t mind the task so much since it occupied so much of my time . . . but it was a lot of garlic! My hands reeked, even though I rubbed them on stainless steel for a few minutes. The garlic did not disappear for nearly a week . . .

After garlic, I spent six hours of helping Suresh, the dishwasher. The Chef had him cleaning radiators while everyone prepped so he was way behind in dishes when service started. (Cleaning radiators, I now understand, was the first step of our scouring the kitchen prior to holiday.) I initially just went into the plunge to help Suresh get over the backlog. I ended up staying all night.

We had seven customers. I think we washed over 3,000 pieces (I was actually counting for awhile)—dishes, cups, pots and pans, bowls, etc. plus another couple thousand pieces of cutlery, ladles, tasting spoons, whisks, etc. Every piece is washed by hand, sanitized in a machine, and dried by hand. (Servers wash and dry the stemware, water glasses, and espresso cups.) The volume is unbelievable.

I think the chefs in the kitchen were astounded that I helped Suresh. If they did a day in the plunge, they would be less apt to use a different spoon to stir each time they went to the pot instead of just rinsing and using the same one throughout the day. It seems so excessive to me, but I know it does not cross their minds.

I cannot believe how hard Suresh works—at least 15 hours every day, six days a week. And he does so with great cheer and good humor (save for the stolen rolling of the eyes he sometimes shares with me). Suresh was overwhelmed with gratitude for my help. He would have surely had to work until 2:30 or 3:00 otherwise (he usually gets to leave at 1 am). I don’t know how he does it. I have such respect for him; I would be weeping every day. I am so lucky.

I try very consciously not to think too much about the end of my stage. I am afraid it will make the days seem unending (like waiting for Christmas when you are eight years old). I play games with the clock in the kitchen (I stopped wearing my watch long ago, not wanting it to suffer the indignities of squid juice and spinach stems). I give myself permission to look at the clock only after I’ve cleaned the squid, placed them in the blast chiller, and washed my cutting board or after I have stemmed the swiss chard, triple washed the leaves and stems, blanched and pressed out the offending liquid. If I don’t make these bargains with myself, sometimes the hands never move.

December 31

So, I was enjoying my Friday morning, catching up on email, and beginning to make post-Ca’ Matilde plans when there sounded a loud rapping on my door. I open it to find Gabriele.

“Gregg, you need to go to the restaurant in Carpi with the Chef, no?”

“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

“The Chef he cooks in another restaurant tonight. You go. You are to be leaving now.”

“No one told me.”

“I am here to tell you.”

“So I’m supposed to dress and go to the kitchen?”

“Si.”

And that begins my fourteen-hour New Year’s Eve workday.

I arrive in the kitchen and Gabriele tells me he’s going home. “Happy New Year, Gregg!” I am so confused.

I soon figure out this special day is shared with the Chef and all of the unpaids—Gregg, Baldi, and Antonio (a very talented Italian student at ALMA who volunteers at the restaurant on his breaks). The smiling and resilient Suresh joins us—a little surprised that he does not have the day off but, instead, gets to wash dishes in a different kitchen. We pack up the car with supplies, products, preparations, and dishes and leave Ca’ Matilde. Forty-five minutes later we arrive at Ristorante Il 25 in Carpi.

New Year's Eve—cappelletti in brodo

The restaurant kitchen is very small, maybe no more than 25% larger than my home kitchen, though impeccably organized and gleaming. There are already five people in the kitchen; we add another five. I spend two hours trying to stay out of the way, sucking in my breath so people can pass by me (every 30 seconds or so), and generally wondering if anyone would notice if I disappeared (answer=no but I lack the guts to follow through). Then the sous chef returns from his break and notices that I have nothing to do. He has me help him with some pick-up catering orders and I am solidly busy for one hour . . . a busy that includes sautéing shrimp (fire, skillet, shrimp . . . I still know how to cook!) and plating and packaging many orders. He is very nice and attentive . . . explains everything to me (in Italian), makes a sample and lets me be. I feel useful. The kitchen is happy—lots of laughter and no stress as everyone enjoys what they are doing and makes light of the fact that we are packed like anchovies in a tin.

We break for a family meal that is really quite nice—salumi, cheese, pizza, foccacia, gnocchi, potatoes, beer, and wine. We end with a champagne toast and slide right into service—a seven-course meal with surprise courses in between. I do a little help with plating but basically just try to make myself as small as I can, as out of the way as I can, and as helpful as I can be whenever I’m asked. The service goes very well and I recognize that a lot of the prep we had been doing at Ca’ Matilde in the days prior is showing up on the plates.

After service the radio is turned on so we can listen for the countdown. Finally, “cinque, quattro, tres, due, Buon Anno! Auguri!” and the cork on the magnum bottle of champagne hits the ceiling. We join our guests in the courtyard to enjoy the fireworks over Carpi, after which the maitre ‘d scrambles to and fro to set off a large number of very loud and fiery fireworks (bombs) that engulf the courtyard in smoke. I retreat to the kitchen with Antonio who asks me about my experience at ALMA and our upcoming finals. I am amazed at how oddly connected I feel to him on this very strange night.

Fourteen hours after the knock on my door, I am back in the car headed to Ca’ Matilde with Marcella who is not feeling well. We struggle at small talk and have enough success that I finally understand that Ca’ Matilde and Ristorante Il 25 share New Year’s Eve service every year, alternating restaurants from one year to the next. I was grateful for the ride with Marcella; when we left Carpi, the party seemed to be only beginning.

January 1

Lunch and dinner today. Lunch and dinner tomorrow. Camatilde.it be damned. If the website were to be believed we would have only lunch today (a holiday) and tomorrow (a Sunday). Websites cannot be trusted.

Late in the afternoon Gabriele asks me (again) what day was the last day of my stage. I responded (maybe too quickly) “Tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he says with a wrinkled brow, “because the Chef he does not know that.”

“I thought he knew since I have to go to ALMA when the restaurant opens. OK, I’ll talk to him later,” I reply, feeling my shoulders begin to tense as I anticipate what will undoubtedly be a linguistically challenging conversation.

But before the tension in my shoulders could move to my back, I hear Gabriele explaining my exodus to the Chef. Chef Andrea responds. Silence. Gabriele retrieves me from the vacuum sealer letting me know that the Chef is confused because he has a form from ALMA that says my last day is the 23rd. That spot in the middle of my back clenches . . . tension is on the move.

My mind is racing. “How can this be so difficult? The restaurant is closed until the 23rd,” I wonder as Gabriele tugs on my sleeve leading me to Chef Andrea. By the time we get there, the Chef has pulled up a form on his computer. I recognize it as the one that we signed verifying our participation in the government’s insurance program for stagistas. Chef Andrea gesticulates towards the screen and speaks more rapidly than I can ever remember. My mind is not connecting many of his words to any vocabulary it retains. Gabriele recognizes my dilemma and jumps in, offering simultaneous translation that I can barely understand since it seems like the two of them are competing with each other for my attention. I finally get it. The Chef wants me to return to Ca’ Matilde after the holiday to work. At first flattered at the job offer, I come to my senses and explain that there is not time after the holiday since I will return to ALMA on the 23rd to take my exams. He then asks me what I am doing after the 13th.

“The 13th?” I look at Gabriele.

“We are finished with the holiday on the 13th and the Chef wants to know what you are doing after that.” He shrugs his shoulders. I could not believe that he shrugged his shoulders.

I feel like I have been hit on the head with a giant spatula. The restaurant is closed until the 13th, not the 23rd. Really? Did I not have this conversation just a few days ago? Didn’t I ask over and over again if the restaurant was closed January 3-23? I got reassurances but my fatal flaw was not getting the dates in Italian. I rarely trust that my Italian is better than their English.

“I’m sorry. I had a very difficult time finding out when the restaurant was closed and I have made plans until I return to ALMA,” I quickly offer thinking this polite response was emotionally easier than starting at the beginning when I first tried to ascertain the dates.

I look at Gabriele. He shrugs his shoulders again and raises his eyebrows, unwilling to admit his complicity in my predicament. I feel like I am completely alone and the wheels of the bus are about to leave their tread marks on my back (which is now radiating with pain).

I find myself suddenly negotiating with myself (hoping that I am doing so in my head and not so others might hear me) to come back after the holiday and work the last days before finals. I catch myself. I know that I cannot. I simply cannot. My mind has been focused on January 3 as the last day and it will accept no other.

I try to ignore the beads of sweat that begin to trickle from my forehead to my nose. I take a deep breath, trying to calm the turmoil within. Chef Andrea begins to talk to me, peering uncomfortably deep into my eyes. Gabriele jumps in to translate (though I deem his expertise in translation as clearly circumspect at this point). At some point in the chaos of the Chef talking to me and Gabriele translating in my other ear (unnervingly loud) I realize that Chef Andrea is concerned that he is not running afoul of his commitment to me and ALMA because the restaurant is closing and I am leaving [now early]. He wants me to know that I can stay during the holiday and work until I leave for my finals.

“Grazie mille,” I reassure him, “tutto bene.”

“OK, OK,” replies the Chef.

“No worry. Is no problem,” Gabriele underscores.

My shoulder blades are touching my ears and my back seems to have developed spasms. I feel the water pouring off my head. I suddenly decide (in ultimate bad intern behavior) to go to the bathroom though I have no other need except to escape.

With the door latched, I take several deep breaths and coax my back into comforting alignment. I fight the warriors within that tell me I am shirking my responsibility and tell myself that I have made the right decision based on the best information I could glean after several conversations that seemed conclusive. I can’t worry about it. I remind myself that, just as no one cared that I missed a lunch service they forgot to tell me about, my one-week absence will faze no one.

Heidi

Soon thereafter I am given the task of packaging dog food. Chef Andrea makes food for Heidi. (Why is she named Heidi? While I certainly had enough Italian to ask, I knew I did not have enough to understand the answer.) While I find it charming that Heidi dines on rice, pasta, and veal made especially for her by a renowned chef, I never imagined that this would be one of my assigned duties as a stagista at a Michelin star restaurant. Heidi is easy to love so I made the task all about her.

As I am portioning the canine deliciousness into 400 g sachetti, Gabriele stops to chat. “I don’t know what we shall do when you leave the kitchen.” His compliment takes me by surprise. “I’m sure it will be easier for you not to have to deal with me,” I respond. “No, I mean it. I don’t know what we shall do.” I am

Heidi Food

touched by his words, especially since he has no idea how much they mean to me. I feel cold slime on my hand and realize I have stopped what I am doing squeezing the packet so hard that the Heidi food is flowing like lava from a determined volcano. The smell of congealed veal, pasta, and rice hits me. Gabriele’s compliment aside, suddenly all I can see and think about is dog food. Then I know. It’s a sign. I finish on Sunday. I will not feel guilty.

January 2, 2011

Sunday rolls around and I am giddy with joy. I decide that I will be as happy and helpful as I can be so I leave the best possible impression with Ca’ Matilde. I stick my camera in my pocket hoping to document the day and snap some photos of everyone in the kitchen.

Because it is Sunday and the day before the restaurant closes for holiday, finishing the thorough deep cleaning we began earlier in the week is a priority. Deep cleaning as in take everything out of every cabinet and off of every shelf to scrub and reorganize. The cleaning begins promptly at 10 am so we can leave the restaurant soon after dinner service ends. I will myself not to think about how great it would be if the website were correct and all we faced today were lunch and cleaning.

So we clean. Every workstation is moved from its position. The walls, stations, and floor, are steam cleaned with a pressure washer. We move everything out of the warehouse to the garage so the painter can paint over the break. The cleaning is intense and endless. About 90 minutes into the day, Simone sends me to the back to prepare all of the elements for the pasticceria piccola. I don’t know why, but this has become my responsibility again. I have grown to despise the perfect little dolci but welcome the chance to get away from the chaos of cleaning. So I take my time filling the bignets (with so much filling they will surely explode when the customer picks them up), cutting the tiny squares of cake, soaking the baba rhum, rolling the truffles in cocoa, and preparing plates and spoons.

pasticceria piccola

My solitude is interrupted by the sounds of yelling and screaming in the kitchen. I focus even more intently on forming perfect truffle marbles, struggling because the fondant is about as thick as icing in a can and does not want to form into any shape, much less a perfect marble. My hands are covered with the butter as it melts from the truffles I am rolling. The yelling stops and silence befalls Ca’ Matilde. Simone walks past me. Someone turns on the radio. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas . . . “ fills the void and I wonder why this song gets any airtime after December 25.

I stretch the pasticceria piccola prep as long as I think I can and return to the kitchen. Gabriele is beginning to pull out his mise en place for service. I patrol the kitchen retrieving trash and ferrying dishes to Suresh. The Chef is at Simone’s workstation working on the bonus appetizer, that after so many weeks looks to me neither appetizing, nor any kind of bonus. To be fair, I am so weary of the four antipasti, four primi, four secondi, and four dolce selections I see every day (and their permutations on the menù sorpresa) that it might well be delicious. I’ll not taste it to find out, however.

[Note to self: Do not ever order the chef’s surprise tasting menu on the day before the restaurant closes for vacation. Surprise! You get to eat everything in the refrigerator that, if not served immediately, is destined for the trash can.]

The first customers arrive and service begins. Simone is nowhere to be found. Chef is working his station. As the orders start to come in, I hear them called and gather plates, ingredients, and components. Every time the Chef asks me to do something I tell him it’s done and point him in the right direction. About the fifth time this happens he looks at me as if he cannot believe it. I want to say, “It’s not brain surgery we’re doing here. Each dish has about five components and I’ve been watching, prepping, and helping for six weeks. I could probably handle it on my own at this point.” But I don’t. I return his look with the most gracious smile I can muster on this—the next to last service on my very last day at Ca’ Matilde.

My mind is buzzing. “Where is Simone? Should I ask Gabriele? What happened? Did he get hurt? Surely he didn’t get fired.“ Once the antipasti go out, Chef moves to the other side of the kitchen to help Gabriele with primi and secondi leaving me to clean up the mind-boggling mess he leaves in his wake. I don’t know where to begin so I start gathering trash and bringing dishes to the plunge. I try to make order out of the mise en place bedlam and finally focus on finding lids and stowing everything in the frigo.

Marcella, who has been complaining of stomach pains for two days, yet continues to work (and who looks quite pale and tired) comes into the kitchen to call an order. The Chef explodes and begins letting her have it. She takes it and says “OK, basta.” This makes him even more furious and his fury escalates. She leans against the wall and says “basta” several more times in an attempt to get him to calm down. I turn my back to the drama because I cannot stand being privy to this moment. Marcella begins weeping and in the most plaintive voice whimpers, “basta, basta, basta . . .” I cannot look because I fear she will slump to the floor in sobs. (My real fear is that I will witness this and in a sympathetic response burst into tears myself, unable to stop the torrent of emotion that I largely have kept within since November 23.) The yelling, miraculously, stops. The whimpering dissipates. I wash cutting boards, devising the logistics of keeping my back to the kitchen until service ends, the kitchen is cleaned, and I can retreat to my room for the break between lunch and dinner.

Meanwhile, Chef begins to whistle and sings snippets of American songs, but not more than a few words of each until he switches to another tune. I remind myself yet again that, as uncomfortable as I find the regular exchanges between Marcella and Chef, the communication, the emotion, the relationship is defined by the culture—the culture of Italy, the culture of the kitchen, and the culture of how people, and men and women in particular, communicate in this country. I, nonetheless, wonder who will be his next target. I imagine that Simone was the first and know that Marcella was next. I also know it will be Gabriele or me since we are in the direct line of fire. It probably won’t be Gabriele, though. For some reason he is extra energetic with Simone absent. Is he trying to impress Chef with his skills since (if Simone was fired) he may now be in line for a promotion (of sorts)? Is he overcompensating to mitigate the tension of the kitchen? I can’t figure it out. I wash the countertops, strategically keeping my back to any conversation that ensues.

Vanny calls “piccola per due,” and I go to the back to plate the dolci. I am so tense I decide I have to sample some dark chocolate from the pastry supplies. Not quite satisfied with the chocolate, I reach for the caramel. As I reach for just a few more coins of caramel, I realize that I am blindly stuffing my face with sugar and fat and, feeling the sickeningly sweet possibility of throwing up, I swear it off. I finish all of the piccola plates. Service ends without further incident. Chef disappears. Gabriele and I are now the sole survivors of the kitchen disaster, left to put away the remnants of service. I work quickly, hoping to leave as soon as I can for my break.

Only the break never comes. We transition from end-of-service cleaning to restaurant-takes-a-holiday cleaning. Chef reappears and decides to rid Simone’s side of the kitchen of any evidence of his presence. He takes everything out of the shelves and cabinets (third time this has happened in five days) and completely reorganizes, grumbling the entire time. He sends books and recipes that are Simone’s to the staff dressing room. Bit by bit he seems to be erasing Simone from Ca’ Matilde. At one point he pulls some vacuum-sealed pineapple slices from the frigo. He asks me who sliced them. I reply “Simone.” Chef shakes his head and says something under his breath and tosses them in the trash.

I corner Gabriele as he is leaving the dressing room where he has stowed what has been rescued of Simone’s stuff.

“Where is Simone?”

“Simone? Simone is gone.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“Simone broke the steam machine and the Chef told him to leave and not come back.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I know is unbelievable, but is true.”

I am stunned. My fear has been realized. I have now been on the kitchen staff at Ca’ Matilde longer than anyone except the Chef (and Baldi who is not working for a couple of weeks). How is this possible?

I decide the vacuum sealer needs a good scrub down. I attack it with a slow vengeance, hoping to have at least ten minutes away from the battlefield to consider the day’s events.

Cleaning the vacuum sealer leads into cleaning the refrigerators, the dehydrator, and vegetable storage. I am so inside of my head I don’t realize it is 7:30 until I return to the kitchen and see Gabriele setting up his station.

“What, no break?,” I cry silently in my head. I set up as much as I can on the other side of the kitchen and return to the back to prepare the pasticceria piccola (rejoicing in the fact that, no matter what, this is it—I am at the beginning of the end of my stage.)

Dinner is busy and without incident, though the tension is palpable. Marcella steers clear of Chef and he seems less interested in being in the middle of things than he was at lunch. He is deeply satisfied that he has used practically everything in the kitchen that he needed to cook or throw away. Every time he pulled the last of something from a bag—the last head of radicchio, the last artichoke, the last zucchini—he exclaimed in triumph, “Perfetto!”

Service ends, but not without a lot of eye rolling and laughing between Suresh and me and between me, Vanny, and Mina (the two wonderful servers I adore who have been very kind to me since my first day). I think everyone is way over the high drama of the kitchen and ready for a much-deserved break.

Chef disappears into the dining room to greet some of the guests and Gabriele and I work to restore the kitchen. As the hour approaches midnight, Simone walks into the kitchen, looking like a puppy that has been beaten repeatedly with a newspaper. Everyone shouts, “Ciao, Simone, ciao, ciao,” as if everything is normal. Except that Simone does not move. He asks to see the Chef. Vanny tells him he’s in the dining room. Simone stays planted by the door. It’s clear to me that Simone feels unwelcome and does not feel comfortable coming any further into the fray. “Ciao, Gregg,” he says to me when he catches my eye. “Ciao, Simone,” I respond (irritated that in a weak moment, I faced the unfolding drama instead of keeping my back to it) and surprise myself by giving him an “I’m so sorry you are in this mess” look. He just nods. Chef walks into the kitchen and everyone turns away. Mina and Vanny actually scurry out of sight to tend to the espresso machine. I think it may be the first time I have actually seen people scurry.

Yelling and screaming ensues. Simone and Chef are blocking the hallway to the back so we are all trapped in the kitchen and have no other choice but to witness the madness. Marcella comes into the kitchen and beckons Chef. He returns to the dining room.

(To be fair, my Italian fails me. For all I know the yelling and screaming could have been a perfectly pleasant conversation. I have learned that Italians like to “discuss” with as much emotion as they can muster. Perhaps they were discussing vacation plans.)

Gabriele, thankfully, goes to Simone and has a quiet conversation with him. I notice it’s 12:30 am and there is no sign of the day being over.

Chef returns to the kitchen and has another “discussion” with Simone. Marcella opens the door to the kitchen signaling that the dining room is empty and the Chef and Simone take their business to la sala. Suddenly, everyone seems to notice the time and we begin working at an accelerated speed. Ten minutes later Simone and Chef enter the kitchen. Tentative smiles on both faces.

Simone goes to his station and surveys the changes implemented in the few hours since his disappearance. The Chef tells him to work on the shopping list for next week. He does so, silently. He looks every bit the prodigal he is and also like he has had every ounce of life beat right out of him. I dry silverware in an attempt to help Suresh work through the piles of dishes that await his attention. Simone leaves, speaking to no one.

Before I know it, the Chef has dismantled the stove (again) and is pulling it into the center of the kitchen so it, too, can be scrubbed. He does the same thing with the last of the stations that have not been cleaned. I join Gabriele, hoping we can work together to finish what may be the last of the deep cleaning.

“It’s easy to get the sore head in this place isn’t it?,” Gabriele whispers as he lays on the floor and spoons the stove so he can clean its underneath. “Yes, Gabriele, I’m nearly out of Tylenol.” He looks at me quizzically and I realize that in the land of homeopathy, he might not be friends with acetaminophen and its famous brand name cousin, Tylenol. I probably should have made my point with aspirina, but my mind seems to be refusing to surrender its Italian. Neither of us have the energy to pursue it; I grab his bucket and exchange it for fresh bleach and water.

I resign myself to the fact that cleaning will likely go on all night. And I am OK with it. Because it is the last night.

About 1:15 am the Chef pulls pizza from the oven and, ravenous, we all take a break to eat. Marcella gets a bottle of champagne and Chef gives a very nice toast to me. I’m truly touched and feel, for the second time, a genuine connection to these people. Everyone is happy and laughing as they drink champagne and eat pizza. “Did we not just endure a heinous day?” I’m thinking. “Did it really happen or did I just make it up while I was preparing pasticierra piccola and cleaning the sottovuoto?” I decide to eat another piece of pizza, thankful that the lingering taste of caramel has finally left my mouth.

We finish our pizza fun in fifteen minutes (never once sitting down) and resume the deep cleaning. At 2 am, Chef turns to me and tells me that I should leave the kitchen so I can pack (Gabriele translates. My brain is no longer able to make sense of the Italian). I don’t argue. I say my good-byes and walk out of the kitchen and through the dining room. As I shut the door and the cold hits my face, I am grateful that I will not be coming back. As I put my hand on the door to the inn I am suddenly petrified that it will be locked and, since I did not leave my window unlocked, I will have to walk back into the kitchen to get someone to unlock it. But the handle moves at my touch and, indeed, it is over.

When I reach into my pocket to retrieve my room key, I find my camera. No photo of Marcella and Chef Andrea, the happy couple. No photo of Vanny and Mina serenading me with spoon microphones “And I’ll see your true colors shining through,” trying to impress me with their English. No photo of the gentle Suresh, beaming, in spite of the never-ending torrent of dishes that fill his hours. No photo of the charming Gabriele whose grin hides the depth of his bewilderment. No photo of the disheveled Simone who, I realize today, is clearly in a hell of his own. And no photo of Heidi, who will enjoy the fruits of my labor for the next several weeks. No photos. Maybe it’s for the best. I find my key and collapse on the bed, unwilling to let myself feel any joy that it’s over. After all, they could knock on my door at any time . . .

January 3

Suresh and I meet in the courtyard at 10 am to wait for Chef Andrea. (Chef drives Suresh to Reggio Emilia every Monday morning so he can spend a day and a night with his family). Despite my careful planning, eliminating, and packing, I have two duffels, a computer bag, and one large suitcase. As we were getting ready to get in the car, Chef Andrea presents me with a panettone—not just any panettone, but a gorgeous 1 kg artisanal confection. I was dumbfounded.

“Don’t you see I have one big bag here and four little ones? How the hell am I supposed to get out of here with a giant panettone? And, pray tell, what the hell am I going to do with it?“ I am screaming in my head. “Grazie, Chef,” I said in my most thankful voice.

The panettone and I made it to Bologna by noon. I walked around, had lunch, and took a nap. Then I walked to San Stefano and savored the quiet. When I left the basilica, I wandered some more. At some point I realized I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten there. I also realized I was very tired. I got my bearings, made my way back to the hotel, and called it a very early night.

Soon to come—The Paper, Finals, Defense, and Graduation . . .

let it go, let it go, let it go

Published on December 29, 2010 in kitchen, learning and stage. 4 Comments

When I go to work I usually go through the restaurant, just steps from the inn (and my room, #1, on the first floor). This is what I have been told to do since Day 1. Marcella even tells me to leave through the restaurant but I can’t stand walking through the restaurant in my uniform when guests are still dining (though it does not bother her at all) so I go out the back door, around the building and into the inn. Yesterday I plug in the lights (and switch my Post-It note reminder to the opposite door jamb so I remember to unplug them after service), grab my apron and knives, take a deep breath (bracing myself for Simone who had reprimanded me the night before for doing exactly what he asked me to do) and walk out the door. As I approach the restaurant I hear talking and, thinking that Andrea and Marcella must be having some sort of meeting (as they sometimes do) with a supplier, I walk around the building to the back door. I knock on the door (it’s always locked) and Baldi lets me in. I step into the kitchen and it is immediately clear to me that it is not the slow start of the day that I usually find at 3:30, it is quite clear that the restaurant is at the end of service since the chefs are cleaning their stations, the servers are drying the stemware, and Suresh is making his way through a mountain of dishes.

Vanny (one of the very kind servers whom I adore) exclaims, “Ciao, Gregg!” Gabriele adds, “Gregg, what are you doing here? You come when we are just leaving.” I literally stop where I am and ask, “What?” I am immediately disoriented because just the day before I had a lengthy conversation with Gabriele about the schedule. He gave me the holiday schedule as I pointed to each day on the calendar. I repeated the schedule and he confirmed my understanding—two services on Christmas Eve, two services on Christmas Day, one service on December 26). “We have lunch today. We are now finished.” he replies. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t anyone tell me?,” I ask (feeling myself get very tense, very red, and very angry). “I don’t know. I don’t understand either. Maybe they thought you should rest. Don’t worry.” “I’m not here to rest. I am here to work and learn,” I am surprised to hear myself saying, perhaps a little too loudly. “Don’t worry, Gregg, it’s OK,” Gabriele adds, “since you are here, you can clean some monkfish and calamari now.” “OK,” I reply, seething inside. GRRRREAAAT. Monkfish and squid. PERRRRRFECT.

So I begin cleaning monkfish, a heinous task that requires removing their slimy skin and three sets of spiny fins, detaching their wings, and filleting. A vat of 40 monkfish and another vat of 30 or so squid await my attention. My hands are very nearly shaking from rage, as I contemplate why they would not tell me about the service. Is it that I am in the way and they didn’t want me around? Is it that I am completely invisible to them? Is it that they didn’t even think about telling me because they thought I knew? No matter the answer, I become more and more angry.

Not a minute into the monkfish, Gabriele reassures me, “Don’t worry, Gregg. It’s OK.”  I think this is because he sees me throw the spine of monkfish into the bowl with absolute and utter disgust. A minute later Vanny comes by and says, “Smile, Gregg, it’s OK, really.” Despite the complex conversation that I am having in my head, I am touched that they are concerned about me. So I decide to try to calm down and focus on the unending task in front of me.

As I wrestle with the tenacious skin of the slippery fish, I begin composing an email to the Chef in my mind. I decide that we need to talk, but since I feel like I can take the time and write more clearly in Italian than I can speak (thanks to my good dictionary and Google Translate) that email will be a more precise mode of conversing.

Dear Chef Andrea, I was very disappointed to walk into the kitchen today to discover that I missed the lunch service. I do not understand why no one told me that we were serving lunch today even when yesterday I had asked the schedule for the week. I need to know what the schedule is for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Will you let me know? I also need to know when the restaurant closes in January so I can make plans. The Michelin Guide tells me Ca’Matilde is closed on January 7 for ten days. Is that right? I feel so lucky to be working in such a great restaurant with such talented people but I need information in order to be the most helpful I can be. Thank you for everything. Gregg [I consider telling him that it's very difficult getting contradictory instructions from everyone in the kitchen and being critiqued one day for something I did exactly the same the day previous and that I need a key to the locanda so I don't have to climb through the window to get into my room on my day off but decide that I need to deal with only one issue per email.]

Gabriele tells me that he is leaving for 15 minutes but will return. Vanny hugs me and wishes me “Buon Natale!” and tells me she’ll see me on Saturday. Suresh comes over and offers me bread and rolls, wanting to be sure I had something for lunch.

And then, as I allow myself to leave the intensity of my own thoughts and mentally join the kitchen, I become aware that as Baldi walks around the kitchen putting vegetables away and storing his mise en place, he is singing the holiday favorite, “Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.” Not once, not twice, but over and over again. ”Is he singing that to me?,” I wonder. “Is he trying to send me some message that I am making a bigger deal out of missing the lunch than I should?” The loop changes. “Let it row. Let it row. Let it row,” Baldi croons. I force myself to breathe deeply as I try to detach myself from the absurdity of my life in the present moment.

I concentrate on the monkfish and decide I want to end up with fillets that are beautiful, perfect, and precise. I contemplate the fact that I have no idea which dish on the menu requires monkfish and resign myself that this is another preparation for some impending nuclear holocaust so we have enough product in the freezers to feed the masses who will find their way to Ca’ Matilde. I know for a fact that we have barely put a dent in the squid I have cleaned each week for the previous four—several bags of gorgeously scored squid bodies stare at me every time I open the freezer. As I retreat from the kitchen into myself, I become intensely aware of how my hands have changed in the last five months. They reek of onions and fish. They are scarred from cuts and burns and every day suffer an indignity of some sort—puncture wounds from the behemoth slicer, nicks from a paring knife gone awry, or a decisive slice so perfectly placed it seems premeditated. I notice for the first time that I have a callous where the bolster of my knife meets my index finger. At first I am proud of this culinary badge and then I imagine the path I am on and am immediately repulsed by the mangled, gnarled, and knobby hands of my future. I want to renounce my knives and seek hand therapy. My mind wanders far from my charge only to be jolted back when someone behind me drops a sheet tray.

As I finish one fillet and pick up another, I realize I am squelching this growing and overwhelming sensation that I am going to burst into tears and crumple into a sobbing heap in the middle of the kitchen floor as I wail “What the hell am I doing here? I have an amazing life filled with people I love and who love me. It’s Christmas. I’m supposed to be on Christmas break right now. I’m supposed to be enjoying the holiday. Why am I here? Why? Why?” I take deep breaths and look into the eyes of the fish in front of me, contemplating that a breakdown would do nothing for my lowly standing in the kitchen. Even worse, everyone might just ignore me, stepping over me to get from the sink to the stove.

So, I calm myself and focus on the positive. I’ll clean the squid and fish and have an unexpected night off. I will watch Modern Family and Glee that I downloaded and have been saving for an evening when I most needed to laugh (tonight being that night). Maybe I will open a bottle of wine and chill out before the Christmas rush that is ahead.

I go looking for a honing steel, sensing that the edge of my knife could use a tune up. As I am sifting through the drawer of one hundred knives, trying to protect my hands from further injury, Marcella comes up to me, smiling, “Ciao, Gregg. Tutto bene?” “NO, MARCELLA I AM NOT TUTTO BENE. I AM SO CRAZY MAD. WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME WE HAD A LUNCH SERVICE TODAY? I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE CAN GIVE ME INFORMATION IN ENGLISH OR ITALIAN IN THIS GODFORSAKEN RESTAURANT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE.”

“Bene, Marcella, bene. Grazie,” I reply, squelching the other voice that begs to be heard.

Gabriele returns and begins cleaning the squid, asking me for advice since it has been a long time since he cleaned the hateful creatures from the sea. I help him out and think, “That’s so nice of him to stick around and help me so I get this finished sooner.”

About the time I finish explaining my squid scoring technique to Simone, someone knocks on the door. Baldi opens the door and new guy appears. A big round of “Ciao, ciao, ciao” ensues. New guy circles the kitchen and even comes up to me and greets me, “Salve.” Imagine that, I’m not invisible. Marcella rushes over to give him the double kiss and says “Gregg, Antonio . . . ALMA . . . you know?” “No,” I reply. New guy leaves to get into his uniform (ALMA) and I begin to put together his history from the conversation around me. New guy (OK, Antonio) is a student in the Italian program at ALMA, was a former student of the chef’s at vocational school, has interned at the restaurant for a long time (before going to ALMA) and is working during his winter break.

Antonio returns in his crisp, pressed uniform. (I immediately become painfully aware that I have worn my jacket for three days and am suddenly acutely conscious of the spinach stains at its hem and the dots of pomegranate juice that dot my shoulders. I vow to do laundry when I get off—a multi-step process that involves scrubbing and rinsing the jacket in the shower, wringing it as tight as I can muster in the bidet, drying it on the radiator, and pressing it on the tile floor (the bed is too far from the only outlet that accepts the plug of the iron). I won’t let the Italian student outshine me! I have to represent the American program well in my uniform! I vow that tomorrow my jacket will glow in its bleached whiteness throughout our lunch and dinner services on Christmas Eve.

I count the number of monkfish that remain. Nineteen. I wonder why new guy Antonio showed up so late in the day since we have no dinner service and everyone is leaving. I remember that ALMA closed that day for the holiday, so I guess he came directly from school and wanted to show his eager enthusiasm.

“Great,” I think. “Someone else in the kitchen to deal with. Someone else who will get to do things I won’t get to do because he’s easier to teach and deal with. And he will clearly be an example of how bad the Americans are and how great the Italians are at ALMA . . . and they won’t understand that I could do more and be even better than they think I am if we only understood each other.”

With twelve monkfish to go, I begin to get excited about my evening off. Gabriele castigates the squid and asks me if I think there is a machine to do this kind of thing because “it’s bloody tedious.” (He worked in Scotland for a long time.) I am overjoyed at his opinion. “I know. I’ve been doing the squid by myself for weeks. I hate them.” We laugh at the cephalopods. Gabriele takes a cigarette break.

I feel less agitated and, with the clarity that comes with my growing calm, I realize that no one, absolutely no one, cares that I wasn’t at the lunch service. I realize that no one told me not because I am in the way, but rather because everyone assumed I knew (as they often assume I know). They probably have been discussing this service in the kitchen for days, but my Italian listening skills did not hone in on the information. I realize that when I pointed to each day on the calendar, my finger never touched 23. I chastise myself for making myself crazy. “Why, Gregg, do you care so much about missing the service? Everyone was genuinely glad to see you when you walked through the door. You have an easier day because no one told you to come to work. They don’t care that you missed the lunch service. Why should you? Just make the best of it and enjoy your evening off.”

While I hate any sense that I am shirking my responsibility, I begin to be OK with my reevaluation of the day’s events. I finish up the monkfish and clean my station. Gabriele finishes up the squid and exiles them to the blast chiller. I take my fillets to the vacuum sealer in the storeroom to package them for the future. I see that it’s very dark outside and I am surprised when my glimpse of the clock reveals that three hours have passed. When I return to the kitchen, I realize that in my focused, day dreaming state with my back to the kitchen for three hours I failed to realize that no one besides Vanny has left and, in fact, everyone is quite busy. Simone begins to retrieve his mise en place from the refrigerator and the rhythm of the kitchen is accelerating.

Then it hits me. There is an evening service. There is no unexpected night off. Snatched from me as quickly as it was given . . . . HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN AGAIN TODAY? HOW COULD I NOT KNOW? HOW DID I MISUNDERSTAND? I turn around and stare at my vacuum-sealed fillets (that look pretty damn good, I might add) and make myself breathe slowly, over and over again, as I suppress the welling sob of disappointment that begins to grow deep within me. I try to make myself invisible, knowing if but one person touched me, every part of me would surrender to the breakdown that I had successfully conquered three hours before. I talk myself down. “It’s OK, Gregg. Three hours down, six to go. You can do it.” So I walk my monkfish to the blast chiller and begin my transition from afternoon prep to working with Simone on antipasti and dolci.

I then realize that Simone is ignoring me. I know why. After telling me the night before that I needed to put more cream in the bignets we serve with pasticceria piccola (having filled each one with exactly the same amount as I have every night for weeks) I was unable to adopt a neutral face. Now that my eyes and forehead have betrayed me by revealing my irritation and frustration with the fact that what is perfetto one day is not the next, Simone obviously has decided that I am not worth his time.

Service begins. Antonio is across the kitchen doing primi and secondi with Chef and Baldi. Antonio clearly is leagues beyond me in experience and skill. I see that he is at ease during service. (I begin to rethink my laundry plan.) In the meantime, I stand and wait. Simone does not have me do anything I have done for the past few weeks. He does not direct me to prepare the tarte tatin or the battuta. He does everything himself with an occasional order to Gabriele, who does almost as little as I do. I stand. I watch. I wait. I compose.

Dear Chef Andrea, I was very disappointed to walk into the kitchen today to discover that I missed the lunch service. I do not understand why no one told me that we were serving lunch today even when yesterday I had asked the schedule for the week. I need to know what the schedule is for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as well as New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Will you let me know? I also need to know when the restaurant closes in January so I can make plans. The Michelin Guide tells me Ca’Matilde is closed on January 7 for ten days. Is that right? On another note, I am very concerned that tonight I did absolutely nothing during service as Simone no longer seems to think I can be of help to him. I am willing to do whatever you need me to do but I am not willing to stand and watch with nothing to do for hours of service. Please advise me as to what I should be doing during this time. I feel so lucky to be working in such a great restaurant with such talented people but I need information in order to be the most helpful I can be. Thank you for everything. Gregg

The last of the antipasti go out and Simone switches to helping plate secondi. About this time I usually clean his station to get ready for dolce. I decide that I’m not going to clean. I am perfectly willing to clean after Simone (whose clutter and mess during service astounds me but seems to bother no one else) if I help during service. I’m not willing to be in the kitchen merely to clean up after him and everyone else. So I continue to stand and watch, feeling smug and empowered by my decisive defiance.

Several minutes pass and Gabriele (who seems strangely left out of service, as well) begins cleaning. “We clean now, Gregg.” My pointless defiance melts away. “OK,” I reply. And so I clean, wondering (as I do every night) why Simone doesn’t clean as he works and how he can stand the disarray he creates around himself. So I put things away. I vacuum seal. I throw heaps of trash in the garbage, deliver dishes to Suresh, wash knives, and scrub cutting boards. I admit to myself that I am grateful to have something to do to make the minutes pass more quickly.

“Gabriele, do you know the word ‘ass’ in English?,” I ask as we put away the containers of mise en place that are scattered from one end of the counter to the other.

“Yes, yes,” he laughs.

“Why is Simone being such an ass to me tonight?”

“You think? I don’t think. No. No. It’s not you. Why do you think?”

“Because I have done nothing tonight. He has not had me do anything that I usually do.”

“I see. No. No. I don’t think. Don’t worry.”

The last of secondi leave the kitchen and we focus on dolci. With nothing left to clean or organize, I stand and wait. Seventeen year-old (eighteen in January he tells me regularly) and still prepubescent Baldi runs and slides to me (his favorite way of getting around the kitchen) and tells me (in Italian) that everyone is going out for pizza tonight and asks me if I will come with them. I reply, in a moment of confused helplessness as my translating brain tries to deliver a message to my mouth, “Si!” and he gives me a high five.

I immediately regret that I am going to have to have a silent meal with people that (today) I mostly loathe and that the late night will make getting to the kitchen in the morning to prep for the double service that much more challenging. On the other hand, I promised Baldi I would go out with them when I begged off going for beers with the servers and him last week. I don’t want anyone to have the impression that I am the silent, brooding, unhappy person that today I know I appear to be. So I decide that going for pizza will be fine. The last of the dolci go out and it’s time for pasticceria piccola . . . my charge for the last several weeks. Mina (another server whom I adore who is in her last year of university) says “Gregg, piccola per due.” Awkward. I turn to Simone (since he has prepared all of the elements of the plate for service instead of having me do it as he has every day for the past three weeks). Simone returns my look, genuinely surprised that I am not on my way to the back to plate. “Gregg, you do piccola, yes?” “Oh, you want me to do it?,” I ask with the brightest smile I can rally. “Yes,” he replies, having missed entirely my subtext. Suddenly unsure of the point I was trying to make with Simone, I grab the plate and head to the back. Gabriele follows me, with Simone giving him instructions on how to fill the bignets.

“There was some problem with the bignets last night, yes?,” Gabriele inquires as I place the truffles on the plate.

“Well, last night, yes. But they were the same as every other night,” I explain.

“I understand. But sometimes Marcella and Andrea tell Simone something and he has to do something. Marcella wanted more cream in the pastry. It’s just the way it is.”

“I get it, Gabriele. But it’s very difficult for me to be told one thing one day and something else the next. It doesn’t make sense to me.”

“It doesn’t make sense to me either, but it’s the way of the crazy restaurant. You can’t let it get to you. Trust me.”

So service concludes and everyone seems in a bigger hurry to get out than they usually do. I guess it’s the promise of pizza. Simone, I discover, is finishing up a cake that he is taking to his mother’s and won’t be joining us for pizza (relief) and is skipping the cleaning (no surprise). He boxes up his cake and walks out the door. I begin soaping down his station.

“Gregg, how is it you say you leave your work?,” Gabriele wonders as he scrubs the stove.

“Do you mean when is my last day here?”

“Si.”

“Well, it depends on when the restaurant closes in January. I think my last day will be the day we close.”

“What the hell? Really?,” and he begins conversing hurriedly with Mina.

“No, no,” Mina exclaims when Gabriele stops talking.

(“Wait? They care? They like me?” I wonder to myself.)

“January 3,” Gabriele tells me.

“The restaurant is closed on January 3? Are you sure?,” I ask in utter disbelief ever aware of how dates and information seem to shift and evolve for me at Ca’ Matilde.

“Yes. We close January 3 for vacation.”

“Are you kidding me?,” I think in my head. “How could this be? Three weeks ago Marcella told me we closed on January 7. The Michelin Guide says we close on January 7. My head is going to explode. But, wait? January 3? That’s a little over a week away. Calm down. Calm down.” Suddenly my confusing world seems a little brighter.

So we finish. I change clothes and drive into Reggio with Gabriele. He is very chatty along the way. He told me (as he has before) that he has worked for many chefs and recognizes Chef Andrea is obsessed with perfection and he demands it of the staff. “You have to understand that what you are feeling is not you. It’s what happens in a Michelin star restaurant. If the Chef likes one thing one night, he may not like the same thing the next night. It’s crazy. I know.” Gabriele defends Simone, reminding me that if Simone critiques me, he is doing the Chef’s bidding and even if it does not make sense I have to go with it. I thought I knew that, but clearly the bignets got the best of me. Of course Simone has a job to do and he cannot afford to have me make a mistake that risks his own standing in the kitchen with Chef Andrea and Marcella. Somehow the intellectual sense of it all got lost in my emotional response. Our conversation is easy and enlightening. I feel like I understand my world a little better by the time we get to Reggio.

The pizzeria is pleasant. The pizza is excellent. And I am not silent. Mina, Baldi, Gabriele, and Suresh make a genuine effort to talk and laugh with me while Chef and Marcella talk with the owners who have joined us at the table. I find myself so grateful for the conversation, as little as it is. I realize, once again, that I am making myself crazy here. They are trying to do the right thing at every turn. It’s not them. It’s me.

I ride home with Chef, Marcella, and Suresh so Gabriele doesn’t have to return to the restaurant to drop me off. When we arrive and are saying our Buena buona nottes, I ask the Chef what time I have to be in the kitchen in the morning.

“Quattro,” he replies.

["Oh no!,” I think. "It's worse than I thought."]

“La mattina?,” I very nearly screech, thinking if it’s already 2 am, how can I be at work in two hours? Clearly there is a lot of prep for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

“No, no, no . . . in the afternoon,” he replies with a smile, clearly sensing my flash of hysteria.

“Chef dire di pranzo?,” I ask about the lunch service.

“No pranzo domani, solo il sabato,” he explains.

“Grazie, Chef.”

“Prego, Gregg. Buona notte.”

“No lunch service on Christmas Eve. OK. Calm down. Calm down. Of course you don’t have to go to work at four in the morning, you idiot. Why did you even ask? Why should you be surprised that you asked for the holiday schedule, got it, repeated it, had it confirmed, and accepted it only to discover that it was not the schedule at all. You have hours off on Christmas Eve you wouldn’t have had otherwise. And sooner than you thought you will be celebrating your last days in the kitchen—last Tuesday of work, last Wednesday of work. Stop making yourself crazy.”

As I walk to my room I edit the email in my head, realizing that nothing seems quite as urgent as it did half a day ago.

Dear Chef Andrea, Thank you for treating us to pizza in Reggio tonight. I so enjoyed your friend’s restaurant and it was a perfect end to the day. I am grateful to be working in a restaurant with so many great people. Thank you for everything. Gregg

As I draw near to my room, I congratulate myself for having remembered to unplug the Christmas lights before we left. I can’t help but smile. I put my key in the door, walk inside, close the door behind me and do a Snoopy dance at my buona fortuna.

How could eleven hours have so many peaks and valleys? How could I go from trying to prevent myself from becoming a blubbering blob on the floor of the kitchen to feeling like I understand and like these people more than I did yesterday?

“You know, it’s not life and death. It’s monkfish and squid, swiss chard and spinach, veal cheeks and pork belly, pastry cream and panna cotta. It’s a little restaurant with lovely people in the middle of nowhere Quattro Castella, Emilia Romagna, Italia. And your next day off is your last day off because January 3 is sooner than January 7. And while you could certainly make it ’til January 7, you can definitely hang in there until January 3. Let it go, let it go, let it go.”

Snoopy dance, indeed.

si, Chef

Published on December 13, 2010 in critique, kitchen, language, learning, stage and teaching. 3 Comments

I wonder if it’s easier to do an internship when you’re 20 than when you are 50. I know it must be an entirely different experience when you speak the same language as your coworkers and supervisors. I do think that when you have plenty of experience behind you, you bring a perspective framed by the expectations and habits that you carry from a lifetime of work.

squid wings and tentacles

My work is not difficult. My hours are manageable. The people I work with are kind. I struggle with the sheer repetition of tasks, even as I know that my skills are improving with every squid I pull from the ice to clean and break down into four pieces worthy of fine dining. I anticipate the weekly cleaning of beef and veal cheeks by sharpening my knife so I can test its razor edge in a self-administered contest to check my efficiency while, at the same time, pondering how this three-hour chore can be fascinating to anyone. I grumble at my clumsy fingers and how much time it takes to get them to make consistently beautiful cappellacci that look like the hats from which they take their name and not blobs of pumpkin crimped in folded pasta.

veal cheeks, cleaned

I wish I could ask more questions than I do so I could understand more of what I am doing. I wish I knew more Italian so my coworkers could know more of me as a person (sometimes I want to break out of my bubble and try to convince them that they might even like me if they knew me!) instead of the stagista who quietly chops, vacuum seals, and cleans.

One of the greatest challenges of late is getting instruction. When guest chefs visited us at ALMA, there was always a flurry of energy among students who might like to do their stage with that chef because of any number of factors—region, food, and personality. I have come to discover that, for most of us, the chef is the least important of the variables at the stage. My marching orders, more often than not, come from the other chefs in the kitchen. While there are parts of some days when I am working directly for Chef Andrea, I take orders from Simone and Gabriele (who replaced Luca—more on that to come). Several times over the last few days I have followed the directions I have been given by Simone, only to learn from Chef Andrea that I have done it incorrectly. Or Chef Andrea is very explicit about how he wants something done (demonstrating and leaving me examples of a certain cut, for instance) and Simone stops me and tells me that I’m doing it wrong, even when my finished product looks exactly like the provided example.

Oh, I’m sorry, Simone. I didn’t realize that Chef Andrea didn’t cut the lozenge correctly. Will you let him know that you prefer a different size?

Wow. I didn’t realize the tortelli were not frozen enough to put into bags because I don’t know how frozen they are supposed to be because I have never frozen tortelli before. Simone told me to put all the tortelli into freezer bags. I did exactly what I was told, Chef.

I’m so sorry, Chef. I didn’t know there was to be no butter sauce on the plate with the tortelli. Gabriele told me to put five pieces on each plate and move to the next one, quickly. Had you taken a minute to show me how it was supposed to look, I would have been happy to do that.

Well, that’s a bit confusing. Simone warned me not use very much butter on the molds. I did as I was told. If I had known you wanted them to be slathered, Chef, I would have done that.

Funny. When I asked if the bag needed to be tied in a certain way I was told, ‘no.’ Had someone told me that you only like the freezer bags ‘tied like a shoe,’ I would have done that.

Please, please, please take a few minutes to teach me so I can do it correctly. That will save you the time and aggravation of discovering I have not done it in the precise way you wanted.

No, I didn’t put the parmigiano in the freezer. I’m not an idiot.

This what I say in my head.

What I say in my mouth is, “Si, Chef.”

Except the last one. That was “No, Chef.”

I don’t mind getting critiqued because I want to learn. I certainly want to do the work so that it is up to the standards of the Chef. I get frustrated when no one takes the time to explain or demonstrate what I am to do, even when I ask, but midway through the work I get the critique (and, usually, the instruction) that I needed before starting. I realize that these people have peeled scores of pumpkins, shelled thousands of prawns, and cleaned hundreds of pounds of swiss chard, but I have not. I want to do it right, and I want to learn so no one has to take the time to explain it when I am asked to do it again next week.

I realize that anyone can offer advice, tell me I’m doing something wrong, and tell me what to do because I am, clearly, the stagista. What interests me is the pecking order—the new guy wasn’t in the kitchen for an hour before he gave me things to do. Suresh (who, among his many responsibilities, helps with prep for about two hours each day) enjoys correcting my technique (is there really a technique to cutting rounds out of sheets of pasta with a cutter?). Simone loves to have me clean his station. I get it. The amateur anthropologist in me loves observing the culture—I understand that you feel more powerful when you can give me orders. What you don’t understand (because I don’t have the words to tell you) is that it’s OK with me. Not only are you giving me tasks to fill my hours in the kitchen, I will willingly play whatever role you want me to in order for you to feel however you want to feel about your role in the kitchen. I don’t want any responsibility. I want to do my work, do it well, and get from the stage whatever it offers each day. And I will observe and be amused whenever necessary.

Last week Chef Andrea’s father hung Christmas lights at Ca’ Matilde. As it turns out, the lights plug into a socket in my room. When Marcella told me I would have to turn them on and off each day, I immediately thought, “No. I don’t want any responsibility here! I just want to do my job.” Instead, I replied, “OK, Marcella.” Now I have post-it notes on my door to remind me of my weighty duty, though the lights, that simultaneously blink, flicker, glow, and chase, could not be any more offensive to my sensibilities . . .

As it turns out, Simone has been working at Ca’ Matilde for two months. Luca was there for one month before leaving for another restaurant. His replacement, Gabriele, has just finished his first week. Suresh, the dishwasher and more, has been at the restaurant for two months. I was pleased to find that Gabriele was at Luca’s station the day after Luca disappeared; I want to get through the stage without becoming the full-time person who has been around the longest.

At times I feel genuinely sorry for Simone and Gabriele for having to supervise me. They are chefs, not teachers. I am certain they did not sign on to have to manage a non-Italian speaking stagista with limited skills and no experience. Even when I find myself irritated in the moment, I trust that they are trying to do the best they can by me. One of my recent joys is appreciating my professional dialogues with Simone.

“Gregg, will you system me?” “Yes, Simone, I will clean and organize your station.”

“Gregg, will you one-for-one?” “Yes, Simone, I will put each fillet in its own vacuum bag and seal them.”

“Gregg, will you chocolate this?” “Yes, Simone, I will clean the fat off of the veal cheeks.”

“Gregg will you magazine cake?” “Yes, Simone, I will go to the storage room and get the savoy cake.”

Is it any wonder there are mishaps because of the language?

I started this project anticipating that I would learn a lot about my own teaching and discover approaches and techniques that would make me stronger in the classroom. One of the anticipated rewards of the last few months has been the affirmation of recognizing what I do well.

I have supervised hundreds of interns and volunteers in my professional life. If I were to include my work with The NAMES Project, including the 1992 and 1996 displays of the entire Quilt for which I was a member of the leadership teams, I daresay I have worked with thousands of volunteers. I have worked with volunteers who were charged with accomplishing seemingly impossible tasks and I have worked with volunteers whose primary responsibilities included raising money. I know a few things about interns and volunteers; they are invaluable resources if they are trained well, managed effectively, and acknowledged appropriately. I know that training is essential. If you communicate the mission and enroll people in the big picture while teaching them the specifics of the tasks for which they are responsible, they will become an organization’s most vital treasure. Teaching is primary. Do it well and you only have to do it once.

My last few weeks remind me of the value of teaching in the workplace. I supervise ten student assistants who work in our box office and management office. These students accomplish the day-to-day responsibilities of communications, marketing, in-bound sales, group sales, interactive marketing, recruitment, and production management. They are “interns” in whom we invest extraordinary responsibility; their work is critical to the success of our production program. Like most interns, our student assistants are young with complex lives, have classes and homework, don’t have a lot of experience “working,” and view their jobs with us as just one of many priorities they juggle every day.

Managing these students requires vast amounts of time and energy. While I know that I do a fine job of teaching and managing them, I am now even more committed to being certain that these students understand the big picture and how their responsibilities affect the rest of the operation. How many times have I had too little time between class, meetings, and rehearsal to sit down and explain fully why we target certain marketing efforts to certain prospects in our database? How many times have I returned a media release with annotations but without taking the time to talk with the author about how a few of her language choices are not consistent with the AP Stylebook. I know now, more than ever before, how important it is to have a conversation, to devote the time, and to be certain that our students have everything they need in order to be successful for us.

The shelf life of our student assistants is an average of two years—we train them and then they graduate. I wonder why a restaurant in Italy would host an American stagista. Not only do many of us present a language barrier, we leave after two months. The Italian students at ALMA serve five months. If I were Chef Andrea, I would opt for someone who spoke my language and would be with me as long as possible . . .

When I was 20 and hadn’t worked much (though I think I have worked at something or another—selling seeds, peddling Christmas cards, delivering newspapers, bagging ice—since I was 12), I didn’t know what to expect. I marched right into my first internship and acted like I knew something about what I was doing. I did what I was told, didn’t recognize that I might not be getting the attention I needed to improve, and I certainly knew enough to keep my mouth shut if I disagreed with anyone who was in authority. At 50 I have a different sense of myself. I know that I have a responsibility to fulfill at Ca’ Matilde just as it has a responsibility to me. I am not willing to take the fall for mistakes that are not mine, and I am not interested in placating a chef I work with constantly over the chef to whom I officially report. I am willing to work diligently for long hours but I expect to learn. While I can learn many things by observing, I need the chefs to teach me so I can do my very best for them.

“Gregg. You finish.”

“Thanks, Simone. See you tomorrow.”

settling in

Published on December 4, 2010 in kitchen, language, learning, stage and teaching. 0 Comments

Two weeks into the stage and I am a little more comfortable in the kitchen. At the very least, I feel useful and not in the way. Yesterday was my longest day yet. I had to be in the kitchen at 12:30 to help with a private lunch in the restaurant. Lunch turned into dinner prep. I left 12 hours later, having worked without a break.

artichoke

I spent the day filleting fish, cleaning puntarelles, turning artichokes, peeling and chopping celeriac, grating parmigiano, dehydrating tomato skins, and vacuum sealing everything from fish broth to brisée. Every day I am astounded by how much prep work we accomplish in support of the restaurant’s menu. Cleaning puntarelles, for instance, took two hours—not because I was slow, but because the work required such attention detail.

I also sautéed some artichokes and had my first successful pan flip. No one in the kitchen uses utensils at the stove . . . flipping the ingredients in the pan is easier (for them!) and more effective. Unfortunately I fear my success was due to luck and not skill. Time will tell.

Last weekend Baldi worked in the kitchen. He is 17 (though looks like he is 12) and has been working at the restaurant part-time for a year. Chef Andrea teaches culinary students at a local vocational school; Baldi was his student for three years prior to coming to work. He is very skilled and seems to be second in command for the weekend service. I often feel awkward and clumsy in the kitchen; I feel even more so when Baldi is around.

dehyrdrating tomato skins

Slowly I am beginning to realize that the staff knows more English than they first admitted. As they get more comfortable around me, they seem to be more willing to try to use some of what they know. This makes for some very interesting conversations as we communicate in my elementary Italian and their elementary English. Yesterday Simone was trying to describe to me the texture of the dough he was making. He kept repeating “It’s like a bitch. You know, a bitch.” I was so amused by the repetition (and his booming voice) that it took me a minute to figure out what he was trying to say. “Oh, a beach—like sand.” “Si, si, a bitch.”

My long day yesterday may have been punctuated by a break had my Italian not failed me. Every day one of the chefs prepares lunch and dinner for the dishwasher and me. After the lunch service, I thought Chef Andrea asked me if I wanted to eat. “Si,” I replied. When a plate was never offered, I realized that he had not asked me if I had wanted to eat, but rather, if I had eaten. The passato prossimo gets its revenge on me—the tense that deserved more of my attention in Italian class now reminds me of its importance.

puntarelles

I have been struggling with a nagging sense of disappointment for the last two weeks. I have been baffled as to why, despite the fact that I am working with extraordinarily nice and talented people in a truly impressive restaurant, living in a lovely hotel room with a beautiful view, spending reasonable hours in the kitchen, I continue to feel like something is missing from this experience.

After all, some of my classmates are working 15-hour days. Others find themselves in restaurants that have virtually no business  so they are not getting the practical experience they need. Some folks are living in apartments with six other people. Some are freezing in their rooms. More than a few are living in rooms no bigger than the bed in which they sleep. Many are without internet and disconnected from the world. I know I have the best of many worlds; I feel a little guilty as I wrestle with my feelings.

What I have come to terms with is that a large part of this project, for me, is the experience of living here. For the first two months I enjoyed living in Colorno with my very ordinary routine of going to school, walking in the town, grocery shopping, and traveling on the weekends. I had anticipated a similar experience for my stage, but that is clearly not in the cards. From the beginning, the ALMA administrators assured us that they make every effort to place students where they want to be. While I wonder why they sent me to this restaurant in this location, I still trust that this is the best place for me. Still, I never thought I would be anywhere but Umbria or Tuscany.

I imagined I would be in a small town and would have the chance to wander on my time

vacuum sealer

off—explore what was nearby, read in a café, and watch life around me. What I realized this week is that I could be living in Idaho for as much as this experience is about living in Italy. Because I am in such a remote location, I do not have the opportunity to spend my mornings anywhere except my hotel room. Understanding, finally, what has been in front of me all along has lifted my spirits tremendously. I am reminded of what I tell my own students, “It is what it is, not what you want it to be.” I get it now and I feel better. I know I need to leave on my days off and be among other people besides the four chefs, four servers, and one dishwasher I see every day at Ca’ Matilde. So, on Sunday evening, I hope to find myself in Reggio Emilia . . .

my first week at Ca’ Matilde

Published on November 29, 2010 in critique, learning and teaching. 2 Comments

I’ve finished my first week at Ca’ Matilde. It has been a challenging week in unexpected ways.

I have grown to admire increasingly the curriculum of the French Culinary Institute/Italian Culinary Academy the further I am from the New York experience. I understand now that the very tight curriculum was designed to teach technique; every recipe we encountered seemed to be chosen because it accomplished specific learning objectives the faculty believed were critical to our success. In the midst of it I thought that it was a survey of Italian cuisine; I have recognized since that it is more finely tailored and thoughtful than simply the greatest hits of Italian food.

The curriculum at ALMA was structured so that we covered the entire country in the short time we were in Colorno. Each week we examined one or two regions in depth through history, culture, products, and wine. In the kitchen we prepared recipes of the region. While the overarching curriculum gave us a breadth of knowledge that I found invaluable to my understanding of Italy and its food, cooking was less about technique and more about philosophy (Gualtieri Marches), presentation, and taste. While many of us could have had a few less recipes that involved braising or making a strudel, I now see that the Italian approach to culinary teaching differs greatly from the philosophy of the FCI/ICA.

In this last phase of school, the learning objective is clear, in theory at least. There is great value in 19 weeks of intensive training followed by nine weeks of professional practical experience. In practice, I wonder how much I can learn if I cannot understand a lot of what is going on around me. I am an eager student of Italian, willing to be immersed in the language. I worry, however, that in the stressful environment of the kitchen, there may be little patience for the language barrier. I am ever grateful that I am working with kind and patient people. I know, however, that they have a business to run and customers to please. Teaching me (Italian or otherwise) is pretty low on their list of priorities.

kitchen, Ca' Matilde

So I try to be as helpful as I can be. I am willing to clean vegetables for hours on end. I like to take on a task that takes a long time (20 lbs. of spinach to de-stem—no problem!) because it gives me the chance to listen and try to understand what is happening around me (and it also gives me a longer time before I have to seek instruction on what to do next). I also clean—counters, sinks, knives—and deliver pots and pans to the plunge (dishwashing station). More than anything, I try to stay out of the way, especially during service when the servers and chefs step into their own very precise and effective choreography.

dining room, Ca' Matilde

I try to gauge how busy the night will be by counting the breadbaskets the wait staff prepares. There is a reservation book that everyone consults, but, as the stagiare, I think it would be presumptuous to check it myself. Ca’ Matilde has been consistently busy this week. On the one night we had only one table, Chef Andrea kept us busy preparing mise en place for future service. There is always, always something to do.

Some of my classmates report that their restaurants are not very busy (as in, no one came in for lunch or dinner). Others (especially in the north) are very busy as ski season begins. When we were considering our stages, we did not think at all about how busy a restaurant would be; we focused on where we wanted to be and the cuisine we were interested in cooking. I don’t think I took the time to realize that all of our experiences would be vastly different in so many ways.

snow, Ca' Matilde

I also never thought about how isolating living mostly in Italian could be. A couple of the servers like to practice their English with me (one confessed to having to take it seven times before passing it in university!) so we have amusing conversations in our broken Italian and English.

So tomorrow starts another week. I am studying Italian as fast as I can. I want nothing more than to simply understand . . .

sono un cotello

Published on November 25, 2010 in kitchen, language and stage. 2 Comments

I am a knife.

Today I chopped onions, carrots and celery. I cut parmigiano and pecorino into cubes. I cut scormoza (like mozzarella) into cubes. I peeled celeriac (imagine peeling a rock) and cut it into cubes. I learned how to use the Bimby, a fancy food processor (or robot, as we say in Italian) that chops and cooks! Take that celeriac!

I also got to pass potatoes through a setaccio (sieve), the most revered of our culinary school tools. Everything in fine dining gets passed through a sieve, at least once to render creamier, silkier, and more elegant sauces and purées. In school we often had to force ourself to love the setaccio, especially when we had to wait our turn to use one of the three in the kitchen. It’s a relief to get assigned to do a task that I know I can do, start to finish.

On our afternoon break, the Chef made bread, rolls, focaccia, and grissini (bread sticks). My first afternoon task was to dust the semolina from a couple hundred fresh grissini. The smell of yeast and browning bread was intoxicating.

Simone gave me a lesson on the PacoJet, an amazing machine that makes gelato instantly a la minute. Bases for gelato, granita, and various other sauces and foams are made in advance and with the press of a button, the PacoJet will make 1-10 servings. Every time anyone talks about the PacoJet, they emphasize the cost of the machine. I will have Simone or Luca double-check my settings for the next few hundred times I’m asked to use it.

creepy crawlers

rock tumbler

And I’ve become the king of the vacuum sealer. There are lots of products and preparations that need to be sealed and I find it oddly amusing watching the air get sucked out of bags of prosciutto, parmigiano, simple syrup, and pineapple slices. The machine reminds me of a cross between my beloved creepy crawler set (the boys’ version of the EZ-Bake Oven—by pouring liquid silcone (?) into metal molds and heating them up, any number of insects, lizards, and vermin could be manufactured) and shrinky-dinks—a leisure activity I never really got into (I was much more interested in rock tumbling until I got it for my birthday and discovered that the only way to turn gravel into smooth rocks was via a process that took several weeks of constant tumbling in various grades of grit—somehow the time commitment was never mentioned in the Sears Wish Book.) A Google search revealed that Creepy Crawler Sets are yours for the bidding on EBay; I have no idea what that liquid was but I’m certain that the insect-making goop and heating element would not pass muster with today’s child safety standards. Anyway, I find the vacuum process somewhat soothing and search the kitchen for items to seal.

The difference between doing an internship when you are 20 and when you are 50 is that at 20, you don’t have any idea how much you don’t know. I can remember my college internship and I had more confidence than I should have—sheer ignorance propelled me forward. Today I am acutely aware of how little I know, that I am chopping things that cost someone else real money, and that any mistake could affect more than just myself. Every time someone asks me to do something I want to say “But you don’t understand—I don’t know what I’m doing.” But I don’t, and no one seems to notice.

The restaurant was not as full tonight so service was a pleasant pace with laughter and not nearly as much stress. I revisited the risotto—only two orders at once, and not 24. I can already see how repetition will help me improve.

I am so lucky that everyone continues to be so supportive. The Chef and I agreed today that he would speak Italian to me instead of searching for his English words. I hope we don’t live to regret our hopeful accord.

an update

Published on November 23, 2010 in kitchen, learning and stage. 0 Comments

I made it. I’m living in the country.

Chef Andrea is very kind. He speaks very little English. He tells me he can speak more English than he can understand.

Simone and Luca, the other two cooks (who seem to be in their twenties) were very helpful and friendly. All of the servers introduced themselves to me when I arrived, as did Marcella, Chef’s girlfriend, who runs front-of-house.

I’m having one of those “What was I thinking?” moments, but I am pushing through. Who would have thought we would be completely booked on this Tuesday night? Clearly the one lane road is no deterrent for fans of Ca’Matilde.

After unpacking I changed into my uniform and headed to the kitchen. Now eight and a half hours later, I’m back in my room. I thought I would spend the afternoon and evening getting oriented and observing. Wrong. I cut guanciale (pork jowl) in a fine juilienne so they could be fried to a crunch. I chopped crispy parmigiano for a garnish. I made a soffritto of carrots, celery, and onions, finely chopped. I chopped pistachios. I made a mirepoix of fennel. I cut potatoes. I picked cow tails to separate the meat from the fat for a ragu. Then to the stove to roast the diced pumpkin and sauté the fennel. After that I helped Chef make the maccheroni in a bietola (swiss chard leaves) sauce. And then there was the risotto . . . a huge vat of risotto (pumpkin, pistachio, and mortadella) that I had to stir (Chef Andrea is of the “constantly stir the risotto” school) for 18 minutes. And in between everything I helped plate—scattering fennel, sprinkling guanciale, and scattering pine nuts.

There were some raised voices when Simone had miscounted the portions and we were four short for a large party that was doing the tasting menu. I knew enough to figure out what was going on but not enough to understand exactly what Chef Andrea and Marcella were hurling at Simone.

Ca’Matilde only has dinner service, except on Sunday when the only service is at lunch. And tomorrow, Wednesday, when we are serving a special San Prospero tasting menu. I have to be in the kitchen at 10:30. I better get to bed.

the stage

Published on November 22, 2010 in stage. 1 Comment

Whilst in Cagliari, at Poetto Beach visitors can sample sea urchin eggs spread on toasted bread, as well as “burrida,” dogfish with walnuts and vinegar.”

Auuuggh!!!! Nightmares come true!!!!

—from an email from Brian sent hours after the ALMA administrators gave us our stage destinations

Brian, who had nightmares about breaking down “puppyfish,” is headed to Sardegna. Not just Sardegna, but to an island within the island that has 700 residents. Elena is headed to Bolzano, Jon to Bergamot, Eddie to Perugia, Maggie to Spello, Rebecca to Venezia, Jordan and Courtney to Firenze, Paul to Frascati, Alina to Roma, Irene to Siena, Mike to Napoli, Kathleen to Lucca, Ashley to L’Aquila, Christine to Ceglie Messapica, Yvonne to Brescia, Gabrielle to Modena, Kailee to Trentino, and Kitty is staying in Colorno.

I am going to Ca’Matilde a Michelin star restaurant in Quattro Castella, the land made famous by the Grancontessa Matilde di Canossa, in the province of Reggio nell’Emilia in the region of Emilia-Romagna, about 25 miles from ALMA. My assignment baffled me since it is not in either region I had requested and is disappointingly close to where I have spent the last two months. Like others in the class (some of whom got the very restaurants they requested, and others are travelling to mysterious locales that bear no relationship to the stage destination request form they completed) I wondered why ALMA assigned me to this particular restaurant when others in the class are going to Umbria and Tuscany—regions I had requested but they had not. All along (since ALMA was clear that our requests would be considered but not guaranteed) I kept telling myself I would trust the process, knowing that I could be working in a restaurant that I did not like in a region I requested (but had no time to explore). When we got our assignments, I had to remind myself that I said I would trust the process . . .

We had hoped to get our assignments earlier than the week before leaving, but ALMA has its own ideas about how to handle the process, despite our pleas. We learned of our assignments in a ceremonious meeting where the destination was flashed on the screen via PowerPoint and we were individually handed a packet of stage-related information. Once the pageantry had ended in the hours and days that followed, there seemed to be as many questions as answers. Brian had no idea why he was sent to Sardegna. Yvonne’s restaurant has no online presence, not even an email address (a choice of the owner, she was told). Mike’s chef backed out at the last minute leaving him without an assignment on the last day of school. Christine and Ashley received assignments in the region each other requested; when they were told that there was no specific reasoning behind the decision, they switched. Several people discovered that their stage would begin in two weeks while others found out that their restaurants would be closed for several weeks after Christmas—all surprises. There has been enough anxiety and frustration over the last 10 days to deplete a prescription of Xanax.

To hedge my own growing disappointment, I asked Chef Bruno what he could tell me about my restaurant. He got a huge smile on his face and said “Well . . . I used to work there. The chef is one of my closest friends. You will love it there.” He went on to tell me that Chef Andrea Vezzani is an amazing teacher, a generous and kind person, unbelievably talented, and that the culture of his kitchen is wonderful. Chef Bruno also said that everything (including the bread) is made on premises, so the attention to detail is extraordinary. He reassured me again with “you are going to love it there . . . and you get to live in a suite at the hotel.” So I have to trust the process . . . and am trying to keep my anxiety at bay.

Ca' Matilde

We took a drive out to the restaurant last week. It is about five miles from the nearest town at the end of a very long one-lane road (where you have to pull off into the grass if another car passes). Across the road is a small dairy farm; the air is filled with cows mooing and roosters crowing. Surrounded by fields, the restaurant is clearly a destination—stunningly beautiful and startlingly remote. “And you get to live in a suite at the hotel. You’re going to love it there.” I trust the process. I trust the process.

Ca' Matilde, the neighborhood

Because other stageurs have gone before me, I know that the restaurant has the “ But how do I get into town” question answered. I will feel better when I hear it for myself. Not that I am going to have much time to do anything else beyond work in the kitchen, but it would be nice to know I could walk among people when I grow weary of the cows. Will anyone speak English? Will I be able to understand what I am told to do? Will I have the skills to do what I am asked? Can I do it? One fear opens the floodgates of all the rest. I trust the process. I trust the process.

We have had several chances in the past four months to talk with other students about their stage. No one has ever said they loved it, most have said it was the hardest thing they have ever done, and many confessed to moments of tears and utter exhaustion. I am used to long hours, but not necessarily long hours of the kind of very hard work that the kitchen demands. My restaurant only has a dinner service; at least I have that going for me. “You’re going to love it there.” I hope he’s right.

Our class was simultaneously eager to flee each other’s company and reticent to leave each other behind. Living, working, and playing with the same people for nine weeks (and to a lesser degree, 10 weeks prior to that) is challenging. I am amazed that we all get along so well, encouraged by the support of my fellow students, and grateful for the friendships I have developed with so many interesting people. While I think we all needed a break from each other after our time at ALMA, I know that we will be eager to come back together to share our adventures when we are called back to Colorno for our three-day final exam.

Our final is a two-day practical during which we prepare two recipes of our own choosing (one savory, one sweet) that reflect the region in which we served our stage and two recipes from the ICA and ALMA curricula that we are given at the start of the exam. We will prepare four servings of each preparation and present them to the jury at assigned times. We will have four hours each day; we will be assigned staggered times to enter the kitchen to begin work. The third day is the presentation of our research paper.

Ca' Matilde, courtesty of Google Earth

Who knew that we would have to write a paper and defend it before a committee? Not us, prior to arriving at ALMA. Our papers are due 10 days before final exams so the committee has time to review them prior to our defense. I guess I know how I need to spend at least some of my day off each week. But what if I don’t have internet access? Will my cell phone work way out in the country? Deep breath. Back away from the cliff. I trust the process. I trust the process.

My chef picks me up tomorrow. I move to the country. I begin the next chapter. I am terrified.

some very random thoughts from Colorno . . . .

Published on November 10, 2010 in critique, kitchen and learning. 1 Comment

A surprise test in Italian proves that exams are a strong motivating force to study. I am retaining vocabulary more than I am the conjugation of verbs in their various tenses, especially the irregular forms. We were thrilled to learn that we would have no tests at ALMA (except the final practical exam in the kitchen) but I have not been working outside of class as much as I did in New York. I have been trying to use the language whenever I can, but I know I need to study. My score embarrasses me.

posted test scores of the Italian culinary students

When Giulia, our language teacher, made it very clear who passed the test (in front of the entire class) I realized that anything like FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) does not exist in Italy. The following day I saw posted on the lobby bulletin board the scores for a critical qualifying exam for the Italian course. I guess someone believes that there is value in public praise and shame . . .

We have visited a number of farms and artisanal producers over the past few weeks. Without fail I am struck by how deeply connected the makers are to their materials—be they pigs, grapes, goats, grain—and how passionate they are about the quality of their products. They are such peaceful people. Something is going on when a good number of us leave a farm imagining ourselves as goat farmers.

Our guest chefs tell us repeatedly that we must know who produces our products so we can fully know the product. Some of them raise their own livestock, vegetables, and fruit, as well as produce their own salumi, jams, and cheeses. I guess that I am only a generation away from knowing where my food comes from—my mother’s family raised vegetables and pigs. Her mother cured pork products in their smokehouse. I grew up in a rural area and spent many Sundays in the country where my mother would help in the garden of a family friend, or lend a hand canning vegetables. I am finally beginning to understand how critical it is to connect our food to the makers. There is too great a gulf between the living cow and the packaged hamburger in the grocery store or the tomato that has traveled thousands of miles to be purchased in the middle of January.

The craftsmanship of the kitchen continues to intrigue me. Seeking the finest ingredients, cutting with care, transforming one thing into another with technique. Watching our chefs demonstrate their recipes is intriguing not only because I learn from what they are doing, but also because they reveal so much about themselves when they cook in front of us.

I love that Chef Bruno believes our work is inspired by our moods. He believes that if we cook the same think every day, it will be different every day because we are every time we walk into the kitchen. “You have to have passion for what you are doing and you can see it in your food.” It’s a familiar mantra.

I accept that in Italy wine is cheaper than Diet Coke (Coca Cola Light) but recognize that I cannot drink as much wine as Diet Coke. (And Diet Coke with Lime does not exist here.)

The foggy gray cold of Parma and environs may be perfect for making prosciutto but can be depressing for humans.

As confirmed by Giulia, Italians are generally resistant to lines and order. I accept that chaos reigns wherever there is a crowd, that I am likely to be cut in front of whenever I am in a line (because the line, theoretically, does not exist), and that taking a number at any store that uses this system will be futile (everyone takes a number but no one pays attention to the number). At lunch we are often in line before the Italian students but nearly always sit down after them. I remember how orderly the Germans were standing in line or every driver allowing a next car leaving the parking garage to merge into the busy street. Giulia’s colleagues call her Fraulein Giulia because she believes that people should follow rules and procedures. I don’t think they intend it as a compliment.

The washing machine cycle that takes 70 minutes no longer phases me. Drying my laundry throughout the apartment on the drying rack, coat rack, and on my four radiators is my weekly ritual.

I am learning to live with my hands that always smell of onions.

I seem to be able to communicate in most circumstances but only with the help of my hands. But that’s ok because everyone uses their hands to talk . . . and I can generally recognize a few words in the blur of sentences that come at me. I wish my Italian were better.

We have a week of classes before we leave for our stage. We may find out this week where we are assigned, but I imagine (as I have grown accustomed to the more relaxed Italian sense of time) that we will learn our destination days before we leave. I sense both anxiety and eagerness about what is ahead. We are anxious about the unknown and being on our own after spending the summer and fall together. We are eager, as well, for the unknown—learning on our feet in a professional kitchen in a new part of the country.

Anxiety is present. Ashley dreamed that Christine got her stage assignment in Alto Adige. Ashley begged Chef Bruno to reconsider the assignment because Christine (from Atlanta) has never been in a cold climate and would freeze. Ashley dreamed that she was assigned to a town called “Eddy” (the name of our classmate) and was baffled because it was nowhere near where she wanted to be. Brian dreamed that we had to fillet puppy fish (an entirely new species of fish that emanated from his dream) and he woke up sobbing. Just last night I dreamed that I showed up for my first day and the chef had not heard of me and sent me away (in very loud Italian, no less). We learned yesterday in Italian the word for nightmare—incubo.