a day in the life

In most homes it’s the mother that cooks - but not so in most five star establishments where it’s a largely testosterone-laden environment. As one of two females in the hot kitchen, it’s not exactly a walk in the park.

It’s 2:30pm and with just enough time to spare, I make it to the locker room and change into my white chef’s jacket with white buttons and checkered pants (black buttons and solid black pants are reserved for sous chefs and the Executive Chef). Mindful of Hotel policy, I wrap my apron around my waist and tuck a side towel then don a hairnet and a cook’s hat (the short kind, tall ones are, once again, reserved for the Chefs). To complete the ensemble, I get my scarf - essentially a square napkin folded into a triangle - and proceed to knot it around my neck. All of these are designed to prevent anything foreign, meaning unhygienic particles from my body, to fall into the food while I’m doing the prep.

The menu at the Tivoli Grill is heavy on the French influence, grill items, a la carte, and a roast beef trolley. Chef Jimmy (Sous Chef) is already there, just back from his lunch after a busy lunch period (60 covers). I like Chef Jimmy, he doesn’t really give me shit if I screw up, and always checks my work and gives me tips on how to make it better. It’s me, Ferdie and Chef Greg (Chef de Partie) for the shift, with Artem in the grill. I really have to give it to Ferdie, this guy has the touch. He can make a mean sauce, make the prettiest looking turned vegetables and is constantly thinking of different ways to tweak a dish. Boyishly handsome, brash & cocky…with reason.

Since I’ve been in the Hot Kitchen for close to 4 months, the guys have enough confidence in me to prepare more than the vegetable mise en place*.

*You’re going to come across this phrase if you interact with people from the hotel/restaurant industry. It basically means doing the prep work ahead of time (the chopping, dicing, etc) so that when crunch time comes, you basically throw it in the pan.

Most times I get the meat needed from the butcher on my own (prime rib 12kg, other prepared meats, beef tenderloin, fillet of lapu lapu, Dover sole, chicken breast, rack of lamb, duck breast, foie, etc), but Artem is being very gallant today, and he picks these up together with his meats for the grill. I go to the walk-in and check the prep, they all seem to be okay, except for the lobster ravioli. No problemo, I like making the ravioli. It’s a bit complicated since it’s striped, in three colors. We use either black (squid ink), yellow (saffron), green (green peas) or red (beets) stripes. I choose to use yellow, green and red and go up to the pastry section to make the dough, which is fine by me since Mario is there preparing desserts for the night - he always makes me laugh. Plus, I can filch a couple of sweets while I’m there.

All the mise en place is finished by 5:00pm, which gives us enough time to look at another one of Chef Gandler’s (Executive Sous Chef) new creations, have dinner, and be back by 6:30pm to be ready for the dinner rush. Chef Gandler is probably the best thing that has happened to this restaurant. Tall and pale with a constant look of concentration, Chef Gandler is Austrian and has introduced many of the Tivoli Grill’s biggest hits, one of them is his divine foie gras terrine with grapes soaked in sauterne.

7:00pm : the dinner rush (liberally paraphrased and culled from 15-year old memories)

Mario B the Restaurant Manager rushes in, “Chef, we have 40 reservations tonight, and the wife of the Resident Manager is dining!” All of us collectively groan. She’s a strict vegetarian and will take the set dinner.

We all take our places. I’m at the far left, tonight I’m the entremetier, Ferdie is saucier, Chef Greg does the plating and Chef Jimmy is at the pass. “Order, one prime rib baked potato, one Dover sole meuniere!” On my end this means I get one plate and arrange the sautéed vegetables artfully on the plate. It’s looking pretty tonight since we have purple cabbage, yellow gooseneck squash stuffed with three-colored bell peppers, and bright green asparagus. Since it’s early, I ask Chef Greg if I can do the Dover sole (this is Ferdie’s job as saucier), he agrees. Ferdie watches as I place flour on the sole and suggests that I add a little more butter to the oil to get a nice brown coating.

Downtime doesn’t last long as the orders pile in. “Pick up table 16!” Shouts the runner. While waiting he sidles up to me and asks me if I’m joining the service crew after tonight’s dinner, they’ll be having a few drinks. I think about it and let him know later.

Chef Gandler moves to the pass, he’s red now. Most of the checks are orders for the grill, and very few from the a la carte. It’s easier for everyone (everyone except Artem) if most orders are grill items but that’s not the point. The kitchen doesn’t get to showcase its sterling a la carte menu if all we need to do the whole night is plate vegetables and potatoes before it’s sent out to the grill where Artem will plate the meat.

“Hey Mario! You call yourself a maitre’d when you’re not even selling my menu! What’s this shit!”

“Relax Chef, the night is still young!” Mario B says, then whispers to his Captain “Give the Chef an iced tea, he’s getting on my nerves.”

We’re being hit now as Mario B takes the challenge and a la carte orders start piling up.

“Pick up two rack of lamb medium, one duck breast, one ravioli!”. Chef Gandler booms,
“Hey Jimmy, what are you doing? Clean the bones of that lamb before you plate it!” Chef Jimmy is clearly offended as he doesn’t like being scolded like a child in front of his staff, especially by someone 10 years younger than himself.

“Where are you going with that?”, Chef Gandler yells to the runner, "That’s missing the salad from the Cold Kitchen! I repeat never NEVER pick up anything without my final say!”. Now even the runners are wishing he would drop dead. Personally, I like having Chef Gandler at the pass, ALL of us would rather have him than Chef Josef, the Executive Chef. At least with Chef Gandler you could joke around. When Chef Josef takes the pass, there’s an almost imperceptible sense of dread. NOTHING gets by this man.

All the main courses are out and now the Mario at the Pastry is b-u-s-y. It’s challenging tonight as there are 15 set menus ordered and the dessert for tonight is a soufflé. But he manages to rise to the occasion and all the soufflés are beautifully done.

By this time the Hot section starts to clean up. I’m busy washing the pots, pans and plastic containers used for the mise en place. Ferdie doesn’t like to do this, so he clears the drawers and takes out the heavy pots and pans to the Steward. He returns the meats to the butcher and returns to finish straining the oxtail consommé that’s been simmering the whole night. I go into the walk in and check the mise en place. Wiped out, finito. I make a mental note to arrive an hour earlier tomorrow to complete it. I finish my shift by wiping down the surfaces. Although it’s been a busy (around 98 covers) night, I’m done by 10:30pm so I move to the Cold Kitchen to get some cool air. Chef Jimmy leaves, he’s been here since 10am.

At 11:15pm, I sign out and knock on the Chef’s office. Incredible. Chef Josef is still here – since 7:00am. I stay and chat with him a bit, no one else in the kitchen wants to, most everyone fears the guy – I like talking to him, he’s full of ideas and energy.

“Don’t forget we’re practicing tomorrow!” Ferdie calls out before he leaves. I forget, tomorrow is the first day of our practice for the Market Basket Competition (it’s the same as Iron Chef today) for the Chefs on Parade. This is the second year I’m joining and my stomach acids jump. I’m just really glad I’m in good company with Ferdie and Chef Babaran – our über excellent Pastry Chef.

“What have I gotten myself into?” I think to myself as I change into my civilian clothes before heading home.




Chef Gandler has left the Mandarin Oriental and has put up the culinary academy ISCAHM and Chef Babaran is one of his instructors. Chef Josef Paier has left the kitchen and now heads up his own Internet based company, NexC. Chef Jimmy is now working in Cruise ships. Chef Greg moved to the Makati Shangri-la, where he is a Sous Chef. The last I heard Ferdie was already Executive Chef, but I have no idea where. Artem, I believe also went to a cruise ship. Mario from Pastry has since retired. Almost everyone from the team of that “Golden Age” of Tivoli has moved on, one way or another. One notable mate is Humphrey Navarro, a well respected and loved chef today. He now has his own restaurant at Mandaluyong.

Today the Tivoli Grill is still successful, but the trend towards fine dining in hotels has passed as more and more high caliber, free-standing restaurants are being opened in the city.

And yes, we won the gold in Market Basket that year.

Choices

This is what I used to do, 15 years ago, when it was unfashionable for a college graduate to work in the kitchen, when you were called a cook, not a chef, before CCA, before all these culinary schools sprouted in the metropolis and any graduate of these schools called themselves chefs, before entering the mad mad world of the kitchen.

I apprenticed at the Mandarin Oriental and knew right away that I wasn’t Front Office or Sales material – where most HRA graduates aspired to be. Let’s just say I didn’t have the uhmm, “nature” for it. But in the kitchen I felt alive, largely in part to a trailblazing Austrian Chef who saw in me and my friend two guinea pigs, part of his grand scheme to revolutionize the culinary world of Manila where there were but a few female chefs. So bright eyed and bushy tailed (as all new graduates are) I willingly accepted the position he offered me, the lowest rung in the culinary scheme of things, a commis, a kitchen helper.

So in the inevitable run-ins with fellow graduates after the “how are you, where do you work etc” I would get two very different reactions, a glazed “I’m-embarrassed-for-you” look and a “that’s-wonderful” look. Believe me, 90% of the time it was the former look. “So...you do...what? You cook?" (subtext: she’s probably not bright enough or not pretty enough for Sales) Remember at that time, the kitchen was a man’s world, and college graduates (especially those from UP) would never even think of working there.

But cook I did. First I entered the gardemanger - the cold kitchen. This is where most females start (and occupy, even today) and if they have enough grit, move on to the hot section. I enjoyed myself enough but wanted to join the guys, in the action of the hot kitchen. Frankly, a club sandwich is a club sandwich and if you do about 10 a day, you just don’t want to look at another piece of bacon again. 6 months later and I got my wish and was transferred to the hot section where I first did the job of the entremetier – vegetable and sides preparation. Little by little you learn more and then move on to soups and sauces, the saucier, the tricky part. More and more you get the trophies of war, those knicks and cuts and burns from grease and hot ovens.

Many of my co-commis are successful now, a few of them opening their own restaurants. I’ve decided to move on, to the dark side, the front of the house. Not because I couldn’t stand the heat but because I knew that to be successful you needed more than hard work and dedication, you needed passion. This was the one thing I lacked. I loved food, I loved to cook but I wasn’t passionate enough, didn’t have the hunger to be the first female Executive Chef in a five star hotel in Manila.

No regrets - to this day I consider those two years the most fun I’ve had working. And whatever I am today, I’m still a kusinera at heart and my pantheon of heroes include Ducasse, Bouloud, Keller, Adria, Arzak.


Suggested reading for newbies : “Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain, “Art Culinaire” series of gourmet magazines.

Ama

This is not a love fest. This is not about writing about how great and principled and wonderful a father “Ama” was. I loved my father, and many of his friends and relatives will tell you what a tough man he was to love. It’s time that I do something cathartic for the soul as I write about our family history, and why I am who I am now.

My father was manic depressive.

Even know, I can’t fully grasp what being a manic depressive is, how many of the things he did were beyond his control and how many could’ve been managed if we sought to understand the disease and help him get through it. The textbook definition of manic depressive is: an illness or "bipolar mood disorder" is a disturbance of a person's mood characterized by alternating periods of depression and mania. Switching from one mood to another is referred to as a mood swing. Mood swings can be mild, moderate or severe and are accompanied by changes in thinking and behaviour.

For me, this is what manic-depressive means.

Ama could never hold down a job. In my youth, I accepted the reasons he gave us; that he couldn’t work with a bastard of a boss, the Directors of the company were all unfair, that the company policies were unethical, etc, etc. My form of hero worship envisioned him as a principled man who would rather lose his job than his dignity. Perhaps this was true some of the times, but with age comes clarity, and the hazy views of my youth have shown the facts as they are - he couldn’t hold down a job because he simply couldn’t get along with people.

…and yet, despite the lack of money, we managed to take family vacations. Whenever money came in, Ama’s generous spirit wouldn’t hold on to it. Let’s get one thing clear though, we were far from an impoverished family, we were decidedly middle class. It was at this point that my Ina realized that she could not rely on Ama. So she decided to work and start a career and in the end, become the true breadwinner of the family.

In a tiny tiny nutshell, this, to me (and perhaps not to you or anyone else) explains why I have no guilt about buying things for myself, my unapologetic belief that I have earned it. It’s not that I felt deprived growing up, perhaps I did, but to me contentment and happiness can’t be delayed, and if it is within my reach, then I grasp it and take hold.

Then there is all the drama mood swings attract and all the embarrassing scenes that go with it. But that’s another entry and if you will excuse me, I can’t do that, not now, not yet.