Fork My Life: fermenting

“For all the most important things, the timing always sucks... ‘Someday’ is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you....If it’s important to you, and you want to do it ‘eventually’ just do it and correct course along the way.” - Writer Timothy Ferriss

I’m not sure where to begin with this one. It’s tough. So much has happened. And, as appears to be the trend, I’m just now finding time to write about it as it comes to an end. A few months ago, I acted on a long standing desire to cook in Thailand. I shot out an email expecting crickets. Instead, days later, I had an email from Nahm in my inbox and immediately began to figure out how to take the next step towards Thailand. This meant, amoungst many other things, putting in my notice at Central Kitchen. It’s not that I wanted to leave, in fact, it’s quite bad timing. Between the two restaurants, I’ve worked every station possible- including crossing into pastry world for awhile. The only place to go from my position now, is up- and I love this company, I’d love to keep growing with them. With all that and Thailand in mind, it’d be easy to say- “I will someday.” But this is someday. This is eventually. After my first trip to Thailand, I was hooked...It was only a matter of time before I made my way back and actually got into some kitchens there...and now is that time. So bad timing or not, it’s another opportunity to reflect on all I’ve learned with these two restaurants.

I’ve been so fortunate to share my time between the two buildings, Flour and Water and Central Kitchen- they sit kitty korner to each other on 20th Street. They are close enough to wrestle a speedrack full of pasta over two daunting street curbs, and just far enough to break a sweat from a quick sprint door to door for sesame seeds as service is starting and you realize your kitchen doesn’t have any.
It all began at Flour and Water last May. It was the first stage I'd lined up in San Francisco and as fate would have it, my knives and all of my clothing got lost somewhere in the underbelly of United Airlines. Though I tried my hardest to back out of my stage due to not having knives or proper kitchen clothes, they insisted I come in and at least make pasta or bread- all things solely requiring hands. To make matters worse, I had wrongly assumed that between my hotel on Castro and 16th and Flour and Water on Harrison and 20th that there would be some sort of corner store wielding socks. So, I showed up knifeless and tried to block out the feeling of being sockless in Bragards while shaping garganelli. I went on a few more stages after that, toting socks and knives to all, but nothing resonated with me as much as working in “the dough room”- a sunlit room above the garage at Flour and Water with huge open windows that let breeze flow in while you shape beautiful loaves of pugliese- and that was where I would spend the next months learning how to make bread.

The process was very foreign to me...Patience is not my best trait. In fact, I don't possess it- and with our bread being a 3 day process (mixing, lots and lots of folding, proofing, folding, proofing, followed by a day of shaping and proofing...and finally, the next day, it is baked), I was in for a long lesson on patience. For the first time, I was responsible for a living, breathing thing- our biga and it was doomed to rely on me for life. Scared of the possibility of killing something and super excited about the new venture, I went out and bought “The Bread Bible,” “The Bread Bakers Apprentice,” and “Bread Alone.” I sat in coffee shops and read every morning. I bought a thermometer to read the dough as it mixed and proofed. I printed an excel sheet to monitor the little breads-to-be. I was armed with all the required tools and charts to figure this bread thing out- and hopefully not kill anything along the way.

But then I made the bread, and after a few days of reading temps, jotting down numbers, analzying...I realized it was all in vain. When the windows were open in the morning before I arrived, the bread proofed much slower, messing up the texture of the bread. I had to Sherlock Holmes around the dough room to find out why the crust was often so damn dry...and when the prep guys forgot to pull the bread at 9 am, there was no way to get into the ovens before the line cooks started shoving their braises in, causing a delay in the baking process and domino effect of differences in the bread. If the bowl of the mixer was exposed to the morning air- it would take the whole damn day for the bulk ferment...and the opposite if the sun was shining onto the mixer. What I really needed were my senses and a lot of practice. Feeling the bread with my hands became much more important than probing it with a thermometer. Pressing on it to feel the air push back or dent inward was my technical tool used to see how much longer it needed to proof, actual timing became irrelevant. Overmixing and undermixing were extremely common. Getting lost in your other 1,000 resposibility of the day occured often enough that I learned to pick up the dough know exactly how many times it’d been turned already- while I was extruding two different pastas across the room. I was knee-deep in learning the frustrations, and glories of patience. Not very many experiences in the kitchen bring as much joy and pride as a beautiful, plump, sour loaf- 3 days after it was born.

Testing a different proofing basket

At night I worked the wood oven- something I’d never imagined adding onto my resume. I was truly intimidated by the 900 degree beast, but like the bread, I learned the oven by sight and touch. I could put my hand the floor or the wall and know instinctively how many more logs it would need to get the floor to a temperature that would cook pizzas the way I liked- in 90 seconds. Keeping the oven healthy was as simple as shuffling the coal bed around- maybe in the corner where a dust of wood chips would cause a huge flame to curl up and over the ceiling to create a lovely smokey flavor in the dough and cause beautiful little bubbles to spring up along the edges of the crust. Or sometimes in the back where you would have more space on the side for a slower cooking item like a side of brussel sprouts.

The service there was something I’d never seen before. Only 40% of the restaurant was held for reservations and the bulk of the seats remained for walk-ins...Walk-ins that lined up every day beginning around 4:30 for our 5:30 open and swung around the block and down the 20th Street. In a way, working there reminded me of theatre- the front of the house staff would put the finishing touches on the stage of our dining room, gather towards the front of the restaurant, and announce they were opening the doors. One of the lovely girls would enter the kitchen with a tray of coffees for us as people streamed in and ushered around the tables ready to flood the kitchen with 60 orders all at once- and thats how the show began each night. Focus would spill over the kitchen as pastas picks would be in groups of 5 brigante, 3 rigatoni, 4 papardelle, one no meat, add eggplant, two tasting bigoli...and the pizza window would be fluttering with with all the tickets on “fire.”

But like Ryan said in his speech last night, my focus doesnt hold steady for very long- and I was on to the next station. When I was on the pasta station, I'd often spend mornings with the hardest working woman in San Francisco- Reyna. Reyna is the hands behind the perfect pasta that hits the plate at Flour and Water. She coached me through my first scarpinoc and triangoli, helped me perfect my angolotti...andddd told me I should consider giving up on orrechiette. Understandable though, because her pastas are untouchable- mine were all sad excuses for an immiatation.

Eventually, they got better, I got faster, and instead of saying “Werita, mas rapido y un poco feo,” she began to call me “Shanita” and pointing to my scapinocs and saying, “muyyy biennn!” Reyna and her husband Ali became great friends in my time there and laast night, they came by at the end of service with a case of modelo, and a bottle of Don Julio to send me on my way.

But I moved to California to learn more than pasta and bread- I wanted to make closer connections with the land as a cook. I wanted to know the farmers I was buying from, I really wanted to cook, as reasonably as a restaurant could, from what the earth around us offered. I didn’t even know that foraging was a real thing that people were doing, but I wanted to take part in that, too.

It was at Flour and Water where I began to see this in action and make these connections myself. I got a front row seat in how a farm to table restaurant could flourish. It’s cliche now to use the term “farm to table” as so many restauarnts have begun to value that relationship and sustain themselves that way, but I'd never really been an active part of it- more of a bystander. Of course we used local produce at The Little Nell, in fact, we used produce from my own farm, but the menu didn’t flux and reprint every day to accomodate our whimsical farm purchases. And I’d seen it again at Blue Hill...but working canapes and showing up at 4pm after school doesn’t really allow for the same opportunities I was given at FW. From the start, I went to the farmers market every Saturday, and at some point, the responsibility of farmers market purchasing was mine. I had the chance to build wonderful relationships with the farms we purchase our produce from. I welcomed all invites to farms as the generous farmers offered just to stand on the soil where the food we served would be sown and to pick tomatoes from the vine that we'd later rinse and barely dress to showcase the perfect fruit we were so fortunate to work with. This Saturday when I said goodbye to all of the farmers who I’ve been buying from for almost two years- I realized just how important that relationship had become. There were many hugs and heart-felt “safe travels..” to think, these friendships have all been built around growing food, cooking food, and eating food- food...it creates such wonderful bonds from the earth where its grown to the person that eventually gets the nutrients from it. Now that I know what it’s like to be able to share thoughts on this apple vs. that apple with the woman who grows them...I don’t ever want to cook another way. For me, this is the only way.

Pulling up abalone from Monterey Bay Abalone

Harvesting tomatoes during high season at The Peach Farm

Baby Zuccs

Beautiful candy stripe figs

Visiting Joe from Water2Table to see how we land our fish

I was always so proud and grateful to be able to buy from Joe at Water 2 Table- his commitment to buying from sustainable fisherman, at the highest quality is unrivaled. On our visit, he told us a story of jumping on board a boat to interrupt the sardine fisherman dumping the sardine into crates in order to hand pick each delicate sardine out for his customers. This was moments after a driver rolled down his window to say, “Hey Joe! Long time no see!” to which Joe explained he had left that guys driveway at three in the morning to pick up 100 lbs of cod he had unexpectedly caught that day. Ne Timeas went to visit his tiny facility inside of the ABS warehouse on the pier, and witnessed the small operation ourselves. When we walked in, two of the guys, who are also the delivery drivers that I see every day were standing there hand sorting every single mussel and clam. I felt so lucky to cook their fish. Theres nothing like knowing where your food comes from.

Foraging

Hunting the Oakland banks for fennel

Gathering bulls kelp after a surf session

Dried Bulls Kelp for our "dashi"

Candied Golden Gate Park flowers

Oceanside seabeans

Golden Gates finest chickweed and minors lettuce

Chowder- inspired by greens found in and by the ocean

When I began to source cheese for CK, it became important for me to know the cheesemakers- to see their operations, feed the baby buffalo! And now, for each cheese on our menu, I buy directly from the cheesemakers themselves, and usually see them once a week to do a hand off and chat about the baby goats being born in a few months or what temperature to keep this wheel of cheese at to tide over the holiday weekend.

Feeding the newborn buffalo

Checking out the ripeness of the latest buffalo milk cheese

And when Chef Tom decided to move forward on building a roof garden, I was the first on board. I started my first compost system- from red worms! Contruction of the contraption began with the help of boys at Trick Dog. This was when they space was very raw, and drilling and sawing were common sounds as you passed by their door. I had come in to ask about a drill for my foggy idea, but ended up drawing up detailed plans with Colby for 3-tiered compost bin- and then built it. We moved the lexans to the roof, I picked up my worms at the post office, and let the feasting begin. I know I said that nothing is more satisfying that baking bread and seeing a finished loaf, but checking on a compost bins where thousands of little worms have turned garbage into fertile luxurious soil is a close runner-up.

Before : After

Some nights when the kitchen was scrubbed down, polished, and packing up their knives to go home, we'd file up the stairs to find construction lights blaring as Chef Tom endlessly hammered away at the chicken coop. We had the vitamin rich soil, the chickens, the chicken coop...slowly but surely, our roof was becoming a mini urban farm. Our planters were overflowing with whatever we could get our hands on- tomatotes, rosemary, nasturtium, peas, kefir tree, and even some birds eye chilis that a friend gifted..anything you could think of that probably shouldn’t grow on a roof, we grew. We hoisted palletes up and over the side of Central Kitchen and onto the roof so that I could make living herb walls and we placed them beautifully against that wall that you look up as you climb the stairs to the upstairs of Central Kitchen. And just as long as it took us to drag them with rope to the roof, the chickens plucked at, chomped on, dug out all of the herbs-eventually render my living wall useless. The joys of farming.

A new meaning to "in the weeds"

Standard prep during the farm days

Sorry Asta, I love this picture.

But unfortunately, the palette wasn't the only part that had to be hoisted back down the way it came. Even though he fought, Chef Tom eventually had to dismantle all of his hard work, all of our plants, and even the adorable chicken coop off the roof. The chickens didn't hold a sweeter fate either...We ate them. Actually, team Rich Table ate one too. But for that short while that I could come into work and see “Feed the Chickens” on my prep list, I felt like I was in heaven.

During the time that I was hanging out on the roof at Central Kitchen, I also began to cook there. My name now showed up on the schedule at two restaurants- between Wood and Pasta at Flour and Water, to Canape, Pastry, and Garde Manger at Central Kitchen. And when carrying my shoes and knives back and forth between both restaurants got tired, I stayed at Central Kitchen, where I went on to work every station, and for just one night, my last, Expoed. It was during my time at Central Kitchen that I learned to work as a team like never before.

For the first few days, I remember feeling like an intruder in someones house. They were, and are, such a tight nit team. I was surprised to witness how often the cooks asked each other for help. Small task or big, cooks tap each other on the shoulder all the time. I guess it’s hard for me to describe why it's an oddity to see people asking each other for help in a kitchen. I've been taught to be self-reliant, always finding some trick to hold a stock pot in place while it poured into a chinois or sparing myself time to sit for staff meal to bang-out one last task. But now I’ve seen this other side of team work and camraderie that has helped Central Kitchen get from where it started, to the inspiring place that it is today. It's the kind of place where someone will come by, force you to stop working, just to find you a place at the table for a quick bite before service, then hop back into the kitchen and tackle that last task for you while you set up your station. The ability to trust your team members to help dig you out of any sitatuion- and to do it happily- is something hard to come by. I watched this teamwork go on for a few weeks....the joking, the laughing, the yelling, the stress, the smiles, the frustration, the support...all of the things that I associate with a family.

And at some point, I became a part of it. People began to rely on me, and I relied back. When we sat down to meetings at the end of the night, you sat with the peoples who’s palette, skills, and opions you respected greatly. Many dishes were created by asking each other what our favorite things to eat were, what our favorite winter vegetables were...and then listening while everyone chimed in out of turn- passionate, excited. We'd listen to ideas about technique, welcoming each cook's backgrounds and skills picked up at other restuarants...and come back rested the following day, armed with a crew ready to make that dish happen. When it came down to it, all personal goals aside, we all wanted one thing- to make Central Kitchen better. We wanted to work harder, we wanted to refine more, then loosen things up a bit, then take something to the next level, then try something new, then push each other. So often would I look around and say in my head, “We did it!”....and on the occasions I'd say it out loud, I'd get called a nerd. But I’ll say it a thousand times- I am so proud of us.

Ne Timeas Restaurant group volunteering at The San Francisco Food Bank

4th of July, Ne Timeas Style

When I put in my notice Chef had said, “You came at the hardest time for all of the resturants...I wish you had been here longer to reap the benefits." We were permanently short staffed, we lost a lot of key players, and while new restaurants were opening, the already scant staff was stretched quite thin often doing the job of a handful of people instead of 1, and where there are new restaurants, there is stress, frequent failures, and sometimes success. Although, I can't help but think- I was there for the best times. Sure, they were difficult, but you don't learn how to dig unless you have to get to something buried deep. I’ve never seen anything like the team I’ve worked with. You find out what your restaurant and it’s staff is capable of when you see it in it’s most difficult times. Anytime the restaurant was really struggling- CDC Ryan thrived and without fail, inspired. He refused to let it be something other than great....and we all followed in his tracks as he came in every day with a mission to see CK come out on top.

Another day at work.

"....5 fish all day....Carlos out for 6 weeks...Bad Cut. Call Me. CK needs Crab Rav..."

Farmin.

One of those days when I couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel- annnd, arrived here. With these guys. Feeling super accomplished.

And these girls at Outstanding in the Field!

Um...

Another flawless event ; )

The problem with writing infrequently is that so much is smoothed over. Endless details are left out. This umbrella of an entry skips over thousands of lessons, recipes, and techniques. But it goes without saying that I expanded my culinary knowledge immensely. I had great mentors and peers who believed in me and my often terrible ideas unquestionably. I would neither be the same person or cook without them.

A few pictures from days well spent: