Ain't gonna work on Maggie's Farm no more

In a previous life, on my computer screen at work, I printed out and hung the words, capitalized and bold, "Maggie's Farm," as a reminder to myself not to get emotionally caught up in the myriad BS situations that seemed to emanate from the facts and personalities of the job. That not only was the job just a stepping stone to a roof and a meal, but one that made it clear that short of those ends, I owed it nothing.

I am now two months in to my stage (internship) at The Four Seasons George V, the pride and joy of The Four Seasons company, with a five star rating, world class accommodations, including the premier spa in the world, and finally, Le Cinq, a two Michelin starred restaurant that has appeared on a number of publications' Top 50 and Top 100 lists. It was awarded a third star the year after its opening, which was subsequently taken away when the executive chef changed to Eric Briffard in 2008. Obviously, for the name alone, I am ecstatic to have the opportunity to work there directly out of culinary school. On top of that, my stage is paid and two months longer than most of my classmates.

The brigade is 82 chefs, cooks, and apprentices, divided between the four services of Le Cinq, the Bar and Gallery, Room Service, Pastry, and Banquet. It is a huge brigade, doing as many as 600 covers a day (not including Banquet). Each service is further broken down into stations. For Room and the Bar, this includes a cold sandwich station (my first assisignment), salads, and the line. For Le Cinq, there is Garde Manger, fish prep, meat prep, Hot Fish, Entremets, Sauce, and a miscellaneous cook who fires everything a la minute that doesn't fall in to those categories (in the case of our current menu, responsible for the firing off of a smoked gavage'd duck breast, lamb leg, and guinea fowl.

The stagiaire program puts each intern through all services and all stations (with the exception of Pastry, unless specifically requested). So far my rotation has been through Room and Bar, with the line being reserved solely for the chefs de partie (station chiefs) and select commis who have proven their mettle and Garde Manger, whose responsibility description is ethereal but best described as cold kitchen. The duties of the garde manger are all cold dishes and pre-prepared foods like charcuterie, but it also manages the deep fry station. In the coming weeks I will be rotating through entremets, which deals mostly with soups, and next the fish prep which does all the butchering of sea food and handling the related garnishes and decorative elements, as well as pre-cooking of any shellfish and crustaceans used as garnish (mainly lobster and crab, but also stocks of langoustine or lobster).

On to the menu. In keeping with the prestige of the locale (rooms range from $1100-$20,000 a night, last night there were two Maseratis and 4 Porsches out front, and the CEO of the largest bank in Europe dined with us), the real strength of plates is their presentation. Down to the simplest salad, a mesclun mixture with truffle vinaigrette is transformed from something quite ordinary into a stunning gravity defying masterpiece by slowly building handful upon handful into a foot tall salad. Each guest is served as a matter of course the amuse bouche, currently a trio plate of port glazed cantaloupe, gently cooked sous-vide to burst the cell-walls and release the sweet juice while compressing the melon round into a toothy morsel of flavor, seared octopus escabeche, and verrine of melon gaspacho with bell pepper mousse - peeled peppers hyper-cooked to a confit and then blended and gelled for storage in a siphon until called.

Currently the chef has a fascination with playing on tomatoes, so part of the tasting menu consists of a handcrafted crystal verrine, 9 inches tall, with layers of granny smith, heirloom tomato, and grapefruit gelees, tangy tomato sorbet (beefheart tomato), whipped cream tinged with horseradish, and topped with petals of borage flower accompanied by a tomato and crab millefeuille- again, heirloom, guacamole, purple japanese tomato, crab and sherry vinegar filling, and another square of heirloom. Immediately following this is a tomato carpaccio of paper thin slices of black, purple, yellow and watermelon cherry tomatoes and cumquats, drizzled with olive oil and set off with slivers of raw fresh almonds. Finally, we do a deep-fried plum tomato filled with burata, lemon confit, pine nuts and kalamata olive, peeled with the skin still intact so that when the tomato is drenched in tempura and hits the oil the skin folds up into beautiful wisps. Tuna also figures prominently, with a tuna tartare topped with caviar and garnished with granny smith gelee and wasabi-pea cream.

I can't say that I enjoy everything we cook- but the vast majority of what I've seen is delicious. But again, the most impressive thing for me is the presentation. Plating, both conceptually and technically, is not something I am good at. There's not much choice though when the Chef's voice is booming over the loudspeaker, much like God's does in those cheesy Church history videos from my youth.

Socially, the atmosphere is something best experienced rather than described. Between hiding from the yells, insults, and incredulous "Qu'est-ce que tu fait!?!?!?!" thrown from the sous chefs, chefs de parties, and commis, standard conversation revolves around calling into question each other's sexuality, competence (either in the kitchen or in bed, it doesn't really matter), anatomy, heritage, and assessing the physical traits of any and all women. Other times, though, we do veer into more educational banter: language lessons, namely, how to translate specific physiological occurrences and/or anomalies, sex acts (most probably illegal somewhere), and discussing world politics. And that pretty much sums up everything we talk about.

Speaking of women, there are several in the traditionally male dominated kitchen. Beware of them if you ever have to work in a kitchen. They've had to do things twice as hard, twice as good, with twice the criticism, on top of that having everyone trying to get in their pants. They will not take shit from anybody, unless that person is several places higher in the kitchen hierarchy. And they will give it worse than they get. That is all. Same too for racial minorities.

So, at last, what I actually do all day. My hours vary depending on the service and station, and how many commis I am assigned to. But generally, it goes like this. Pick herbs. Chop radishes. Chop radishes finer. Go get something from the walk-in downstairs. Go bug another station for some item. Look at the floor and humbly mumble, while being entirely clear, about what you need. Run away. Chop something else. Put some stuff in sous-vide bags. Sous-vide them. Sign and date them. Set up for service. Do service (speed walking is required at all times, running is strictly not allowed). Clean up. Leave.

So what does Bobby D.'s great song have to do with life as a stagiaire, prelude to life as a cuisinier? Well, for one, as I left work three nights ago, after serving 56 people their appetizers and acting as runner for my station for ten hours under constant screaming by my Chef de cuisine, with two new burns on my fore arm and a skin flap from the oddest of finger wounds (a bloodless finger cut through a newly formed callous), sore, tired, and hungry, with three more days to go before a day off, I was energized and excited about doing it all again the next day. The day after that, three things confirmed that I had made the right decision to do this: 1) A big dick-head of a chef de partie told me over staff dinner that I was a great little stagiaire, 2) Two of my commis did something, I watched them thinking "this is really not the best way of doing this, guys," and a Chef came over to scream at them for it, and told them to do it exactly how I thought it should be done, and 3), someone asked me if I wanted to get high after work. Now, this last one may be a little shocking, and of course I declined, 'cause I haven't done that stuff for a long time, but it meant that I'd been accepted into that pirate crew of people you all know as cooks.

"Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Toward the end of June I went to the Netherlands for a research conference on the documentation of endangered languages at the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics. It was partly for my own benefit, because it had to do with my thesis topic, but I was also going to collect information for a professor of mine who is interested in starting up a research group of this type at AUP.

I took the train from Paris, through Belgium and had to change trains in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, I had neither the time nor the money to stay and see Amsterdam but from what I could see out the train windows, it looked lovely. My final destination was a little town southwest of there, near the German border, called Nijmegen (pronounced sort of like NY-megh-un). It is said to be the oldest city in the Netherlands (over 2000 years!), but unfortunately contains very few historical buildings thanks to the Americans accidentally bombing the crap out of it during WWII thinking they were taking out the nearby German city of Kleve. Talk about a SNAFU.

Anyway, the train ride took about five hours total and from it I determined that the Netherlands is rather green and beautiful, at least in the summer, many people like to garden, there are lots of canals (and hence, lots of boats and houseboats) and people LOVE to ride bicycles. I even saw a man herding a couple of cows on bike. When I arrived at Nijmegen station I was hoping that the rumor about Dutch people being good at English was true because I had no idea how to get where I needed to go. I only found out I was going to the conference two days before I actually left Paris, so I didn't have time to acquire any basic Dutch before my departure. For the most part the rumor was true. And even the people who did not speak English understood it and gave me the information I needed in Dutch, gesturing profusely so that I might understand better. Fortunately, there are many cognates between English and Dutch (words that look and/or sound similar in both languages), so I was able to pick out quite a bit.

I was being hosted at the Max Planck Institute guesthouse at the institute itself, which is in the middle of a grove of trees on the south side of town. The surrounding woods reminded me a lot of being on the Evergreen State College campus. This was the view from my apartment window.

The building where I was staying had a common kitchen, so my first full day there another occupant and I took a long, indirect (lost) walk to a nearby grocery store to stock up on food for the week. We ended up at a co-op, which was reportedly expensive, but which I found to be incredibly cheap by Parisian standards. To give you an idea, it is not unusual for Charlie and I to spend €20-30 ($28-43) a day to feed ourselves in Paris. At this particular grocery store, I spent €13 and it lasted me 5 days!

Anyway, on our slightly more direct route back to the Institute, we came upon this perplexing sign.

Eventually, we determined that it referred to the nearby school parking lot. The idea is that this is where you kiss your kids goodbye when you drop them off (until they're too old and too cool to let you). I thought that was pretty adorable.

The conference was interesting enough, but a lot of it didn't apply to me. There was plenty of group work so I had the opportunity to meet several interesting researchers and I am still in contact with some of them for both academic and social purposes. When I wasn't actively working on something, I spent several of the hours that I was in seminars daydreaming about being outside on a bicycle. I resolved to acquire one rather quickly.

My third day there, after the seminars had finished, I took a bus downtown. Next to the train station there was a large underground bike rental shop and bicycle parking lot. I went in and was ignored by two gruff, middle-aged Dutch men with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. It occurred to me that they were the first smokers I had seen in the Netherlands in the few days I had already been there. One of them finally "helped" me, impatiently failing to adequately explain how the locking mechanism on the bike worked, and sent me on my way. I immediately discovered that Dutch bikes are tall and nearly bit it as soon as I left the lot. Throughout the week I was reminded that I actually had to get off the bike seat and step off of the pedals when I stopped so that I didn't tip over from not being able to reach the ground.

After leaving the lot I promptly got lost in Nijmegen's streets, but I didn't really care. I headed for what looked like a bike only path and soon found myself heading north out of the city on a bike/train only bridge, the same one by which I had arrived on the train.

 Rail/bike bridge over the Waal River, looking South into the city.

 St. Stevenskerk and the surrounding area from across the river.

The beach, looking East at the Waalbrug (bridge for cars).

I was afraid of going too far out of town because I didn't really know where I was and didn't want to risk getting even more lost. I rode back into town and, after a series of wrong turns, disorientation and directions from a few different locals, in due course I found my way back to the Institute. After several minutes of tinkering, I figured out how to work the bike lock and secured my vehicle for the evening, although I knew I probably didn't need to, having observed that most of the thousands of bikes around town were left unlocked.

That night a killer storm rolled in:

Thunder and Lightning in Nijmegen from Marie Garcia on Vimeo.

The following evening I decided to ride southwest out of town and along the channel between the Waal River to the north and the Maas River to the south. Most of what I rode through to get there was residential, but I did happen across a cherry-picking farm and a "hondensport" (dog park - yes, Dutch is adorable). I was hoping to find some cows to pet, but I don't think the area was rural enough.

 I think this used to be someone's house but now appears to be used for something else.

By and by, I found my way to the channel but couldn't figure out how to get on the bike path running alongside it. Then I discovered this!

"Aventurijnpad"

I took this to mean "Adventuring Path" and got really excited. It actually means Aventurine Path. According to my dictionary, aventurine is a "brownish glass containing sparkling particles of copper or gold or a translucent mineral containing small reflective particles, typically quartz containing mica or iron compounds, or feldspar containing hematite. ORIGIN early 18th cent.: from French, from Italian avventurino, from avventura ‘chance’ (because of its accidental discovery)."

Of course, I didn't know that at the time and when I looked at the path, it looked like an adventure to me.

Adventuring Path

Adventuring View

I rode one way for a while and then turned around and went back the other way. At some point, the path ended in a staircase at the foot of a car bridge.

Lucky for me, most staircases in Nijmegen are fashioned with little grooves on either side so that you can take your bike up or down. This is only one of the great things about riding a bike here. They don't believe in any of this "share the road" bullshit that we have to put up with in the U.S. It's more like, "Oh, you're a bike? Here's your own road, complete with your own traffic signals!"

Enjoy

The next day, I didn't get to go out riding, except to run to an ATM during the lunch break. However, that evening, the Institute hosted a dinner for all of the researchers in attendance. I had the pleasure of dining with some interesting people. One was quite interested in the topic of my Master's thesis and encouraged me to apply to work on his project in India for my PhD. Another was a researcher in the Peruvian Amazon with whom I am currently working to try to translate a book he wrote.

The final day of the conference rolled around and turned out to be very interesting. There wasn't any training that day, but instead it consisted of listening to the researchers present their fieldwork. It was all extremely fascinating. Once this had concluded, it was time for one more bicycle excursion. It had been raining on and off all day, so as soon as I saw an opportunity, I packed myself a sandwich and hit the road.

I started my journey at Valkhof Hill Park to check out some of its sites. It was built on the remains of Valkhof Castle, which was constructed in the 8th and 9th centuries. Only a couple of vestiges remain from it. One of the coolest was this tiny ruin of St. Martin's Chapel, built in 1130.

 St. Martin's Chapel, a.k.a. Barbarossa ruins.

Then my luck ran out with the weather.

Caught in the Rain, Valkhof Park, Nijmegen from Marie Garcia on Vimeo.

I stood under a large tree for a while and ate my sandwich, waiting for the rain to let up. Lucky for me, there was a wedding party attempting to take photographs in the park. The park staff took pity on them and opened the otherwise closed St. Nicolas Chapel to provide refuge from the rain. 

Constructed during the 11th century.

I took the liberty of joining the wedding party inside.

Waal River and Waalbrug bridge from Valkhof Park

Sooner or later the rain let up so I headed into the center of town to check out a couple more of the only historic buildings that were still left. 

I started my visit at Grote Markt, the large square in the center of town that still hosts a large open air market on the weekends. The buildings here are some of the few that were not destroyed by the bombing during the war.

It was fairly quiet, with only a few cafés open and not much else going on. I walked through one of the arched openings in the square toward the steeple I could see. There I found the entrance to St. Stevenskerk and heard music, so I had to go inside.

 St. Stevenskerk, built in the 13th century

Inside the music was blaring and gorgeous. I was greeted by a man who worked at the church and informed me that the music was "real"; that is, it was coming from a woman singing along with the organist from the organ balcony at the back of the church. As is my habit with beautiful music in beautiful places, I cried a bit as I listened to it while touring the church.

Angels in St. Stevenskerk from Marie Garcia on Vimeo.

The interior of the church was fairly plain looking. Most of it was white and new thanks to a good portion of it being destroyed during the war. There were still a few interesting features left though.

 A stone tomb covering on the floor

 A photo of the WWII destruction

 Chandeliers and the organ (the singer is on the right side)

Very old paint

Afterward I decided to wander a bit down the side streets and left my bike safely parked at the church to do so.

 Who could resist such a quaint side street?

 The stenciling on the window says "Coffeeshop". Yeah, right.

I never found a cow to pet, but I did find this sweet lowrider dog:

I'm pretty sure he holds the world record for ear length.

Nijmegen is super small (about 22 square miles) and I was blowing through it quite swiftly. This was my last day here and I wasn't ready to surrender my bike or my leisure time yet, so I backtracked to Valkhof park to check out the museum there.

It was a mix of Roman artefacts from the area and modern art.

 "Cavalry face helmets"

 The laughing dead

 A very crumbly guy and his things

 Neon Mao and Nixon

After the museum it was getting to be late afternoon and time to start hunting for souvenirs of the culinary sort for Chef Charlie back home in Paris.

First things first: CHEESE!!! I stopped into a small cheese shop with giant wheels in the window and lining the shelves behind the counter.

 I picked up a pound of oude kaas (what Americans know as aged gouda)

"Kaas" means "cheese", by the way. I also brought home some "pindekaas" (literally, peanut cheese... but actually peanut butter) that I found in the grocery store. Had refrigeration during travel not been an issue I would have picked up some fresh local sausage as well, but alas, I had a 5-hour train ride to look forward to the next day.

Instead I hunted for a treat that Charlie's former co-worker and Dutch native, Vera, had introduced us to a couple years back after a trip to the Netherlands: Stroopwafel!!!

I picked up a couple of packages of Tarwestroopwafels. The "tarwe" has to do with them being filled with caramel, but there are many other varieties, including honey, nut butters and fruit. One of the researchers at the conference told me that you could even buy them fresh and warm, dripping with melted caramel, but I was unsuccessful in finding any like that.

Waffle-y, caramel-y goodness

My shopping was finished but I still wasn't ready to give up my bike so I decided just to ride around. I knew there was another park in town, Kronenburgerpark, so I headed that way. Before actually going into the park, I decided to ride through the adjacent neighborhood to kill some more time and have a look around.

I went down this quaint looking little side street.

As I rode something caught the corner of my eye. I looked in that direction and saw what I thought was a mannequin in the window of a lingerie store. Then I saw the mannequin in the window next to it move to change pose. I suddenly realized I was looking at the offerings at a house of ill-repute. A blonde woman in another window smiled at me suggestively. I pretended not to notice and kept going. Unfortunately, the street was a dead end, so I had to turn around and go back. This time I avoided eye contact.

Later when I was telling Charlie about this incident, I looked up the street on Google maps. In their photo the house has red neon lights in the windows, but when I was there it didn't, otherwise I definitely would have noticed.

High traffic zone

I rode into Kronenburgpark where an old defense tower from 1425 still stands, surrounded by a large pond with waterfowl, big grassy areas and lots of trees.

The park also has a "petting" zoo with goats, deer and birds. I don't think any of the animals were actually able to be petted, but they were neat to look at.

Thus, I realized it was time to return my bicycle. I begrudgingly rode back to the train station and turned it over to the gruff smoking men in the underground rental facility. I caught a bus back to the Institute and packed for my train trip home the next morning, which I spent in the company of the aforementioned Peruvian Amazon researcher who had been assigned to the same train car as me for the whole journey.

One of these days I hope to get back to the Netherlands for a more extended trip! Dutch people are some of the nicest I have ever encountered, as I should have suspected from the one very nice Dutch person I already know. I love Paris, but the Netherlands was like a breath of fresh air. It was so clean and lovely. Also, one of the first things I saw when I got back into Paris was a pair of shit-covered mens underwear on the steps leading into the metro station near my apartment. WTF = Welcome to France.