Taillevent

It is strange sitting down to write a blog you have been planning for two months. On the other side of sleep deprivation and exhaustion and heat stroke the perfectly formed phrases that so wonderfully encapsulated the experience of 16 hour days in one of Paris' most famous restaurants really don't seem to do it justice. Two exchanges I had while at Taillevent come pretty close, however.

The first, uttered by a very sleepy, very slurry, very orange haired young Cordon Blue stagiaire from Colombia named Daniel, about a week into his time working Entremets: "I feel like a pirate. We sleep. We work. We fight. We drink." It was clear by fight he meant the seeming chaos of service.

The second, said around a Marlboro red during our half hour lunch break by fish gut encrusted Jullian, a Holland-born, Italian-raised former death metalist who listens to jazz now to relax and only half-jokingly extols the virtues of genocide as a form of population control in a dying world: "We work ourselves into the ground, burning the hell out of ourselves, we get two or three hours of sleep a night. We're miserable during the week. We can't wait for Saturdays to sleep and Sundays to party. And by Sunday afternoon, we can't wait for Monday morning so we can be exhausted and burn ourselves again. Thinking about it, that's pretty fucked up."

While there is definitely a pathology that goes hand in hand with the production of haute cuisine, it is a fun and rewarding pathology, and in many ways a much more personally genuine pathology than any you'll come across in any office job I've worked. Between the pressure to get it perfect every time, the amount of work, the constant threat of injury to body or ego, not much room is left for disingenuously polite confrontations that contribute to the stereotypical passive-aggression of the office. From the second you close the front door in the morning, the only thing on your mind is getting the next task accomplished the best, the fastest and the most efficiently as possible, from getting to work to peeling 30 pounds of shallots and onions to straining 300 pounds of stock and jus base to cleaning the carbon and grease grime off the stainless steel above the stove. In order to do so, a tunnel vision develops at the expense of common courtesy. For instance, on the metro, crowded as it is, and without the magical word of "Chaud" to part your path, sometimes you rely on body checking to achieve your goal. Just sayin'.

Standard day: On the way to work, exit Metro George V on Champs Elysse, turn onto Rue Washington (singing this song), avoiding the early bird tourists and various workers taking a coffee in the middle of the side walk before their shift, all the while getting one last dose of music to get the heart rate up for what's to come. The first 20 minutes of the day is bringing in and arranging the day's deliveries of veg and fish. Next, the day's mise en place, usually peeling veg for aromatics for the various sauces. I was lucky to be placed on sauce, the station I am most interested in working on in my career, responsible for meat, sauce, and stock. After the garnishes, my tasks varied greatly. Alex, my Chef de Partie, usually sent me over to Grant, our Sous Chef, to help with meat prep, ranging from the simple tying of meat for service:

 Whole beef filet

 Tied up

Venison Gigot

To the more interesting baby partridge:

 15 Christmas' worth

 Flaming the boid.

Detritus: wings, head, and damaged feet. At this point, I should mention that a pastime of one of my buds at the resto, an anomaly in herself for being a girl in a French kitchen, Isa, is placing the birds' heads on her fingers and making marionettes out of them. Particularly around the squeamish plethora of teenage technical school stagiaires that come through the restaurant for month-long tours. She was unwilling to have photographic evidence of goofing off at work, however.

As I will go in to detail later, all things culinary can be talked about in sexual innuendo. As such, some kinky-ass boids, all bound and tied up.

The traditional meat fabrication of feet-on birds: getting in the last word.

Flippin' the bird.

Filleting chickens. Legs for staff food, breasts for a plat du jour: in this case, a presse of chicken, foie gras, and artichokes.

Rolling foie gras en torchon

Taillevent is known for its traditional haute French gastronomy, and as such, the art of forcemeats is heavily practiced. As the stagiaire, grinding and mixing by hand the medley of fat, meat, offal, and seasonings usually fell to me. However, Alex took the responsibility as his own on picture day:

The magical meat fridge. Hanging ducks, veal rack, untrimmed beef mignons. And what are those furry friends down there at the bottom?

I see paws!

Wild hare are huge. These guys weighed six kilos apiece (that's 13 pounds....)

Now, when I say traditional, that means quite a few things. None of the food is old; Taillevent stays with the times. But it does have one dish that is about as old-school as you can get. Lievre à la Royale is a dish that takes a week to prepare. They do a ballotine of hare, filled with hare forcemeat around a core of foie gras ringed with a mosaic of truffle and barding fat.

Taking his p.j.s off.

My chef de partie, Alex, an England raised Versaillean was a treasure trove of kitchen knowledge and clearly one of the leaders in the kitchen. He and Grant, a native of England and somewhat of a novelty being head of a French kitchen, were remarkable teachers to whom I am indebted. A lot of the things I learned at LCB and passed off as antiquated and unlikely to ever show up professionally, actually showed up: cockscombs, for example. Again, no pic, but I will let all you in on a little secret: blanch them to skin them; don't try to salt rub them. It's much faster and much cleaner.

The atmosphere of the kitchen, between the internally imposed and externally applied stresses, is quite jovial. As alluded to (and as can be expected with 15 men in their early 20's), all things culinary can be referenced in sexual innuendo. With complete exposure to American porn at this point in our history, most of the guys, even when using innuendo, use english words. Anything involving putting one's hand in anything, such as a bowl of farce or emptying a bird of its entrails, is ingloriously called fist-fucking. Trussing birds? Making it your bitch, or some reference to "EhsEhm." Adding liquid, especially a creamy liquid, to anything? You get the idea. Not doing your job, doing it poorly, or taking too long to do it? Il se branler! (He's jerking himself!).

Spending so much time together, particularly such stressful time, develops a camaraderie that, quite honestly, borders on homoerotic. An inexplicable phenomenon in the kitchen is the finger-butt wiggle. Yeah. You read that right. It's not uncommon to be focussed on your veg chopping, or what have you, and suddenly, you feel the stealthy beginnings of the loving ordeal. You feel the creeping tip of a co-workers fingers gently worming their way into your butt crack. No one can explain it, or the attraction to getting that personal with someone you do not intend to bed, but there you have it, the finger-butt wiggle. It is done with fraternity and respect, but unfortunately, they happen so fast I couldn't get an action shot, so I had to retain some volunteers. Well, one volunteer, at least:

Nicknames were also a big deal. If you were lucky (or unlucky, depending) to get one, that was your lot in the kitchen. That was your name. From Fish's chef de partie, Dangereuse (Dangerous) to Entremet's Marteau (Sledgehammer), alternatively know as Rocco, (after this guy), due to a few performances in some Japanese school-girl videos in his earlier days, most were said with gentle ribbing. Others, however, were not so lucky. Dumbfuck, a Portugese guy who lasted two and half weeks, got the name from Grant on his second day, and honestly I can't remember his real name. I had two: Big Balls (never really got a good explanation of that one) and Passe Partout, after a character known for his (ahem) diminutive stature on a long-running and beloved French reality show, Fort Boyard.

Where the magic happens:

 The piano, all cleaned and ready to go for next shift.

Keeping out of the shit.

During service, I was one of the lucky stagiares who got to come forward and take part in it; most stayed behind and worked on the mise en place for the next service. I didn't fire any food, but kept the station clean, ran food to the passe and dirty dishes to the washers, helped with plating and generally tried to make myself useful while staying out of the way of the cooks. Towards the end, if we were getting in to the shit, with a million things going in all different directions, I could step in and turn and baste the meat that was being fired.

Of the 16 hours of each day, at least 4 were spent cleaning. Twice a day, the entire space, prep areas and hallways and walls were washed down. If you are in Paris and want to know for sure your food is being prepped in a sanitary place, go to Taillevent.

Proctology jokes are transnational, apparently.

Friday night tradition: clear out all leftovers that won't keep, take ten minutes, and relax with 2 star food (foie gras, jamon iberico, and quince coulis) before going our separate ways for the weekend. 

Finally, after two months, recent legislation has made it impractical and too expensive for the restaurant to sponsor me for a work visa, so with well-wishes and incredibly fond memories, I had to take my leave. Chef Soliveres (second from left) was apologetic and sweetly told me that if my situation changed, to give him a call ASAP. If it does, I most certainly will.

Grant, Chef, Alex, myself, and the kitchen's second Sous Chef, Koni.

And, a relic from the very beginning of my time there, A "Smoking in the park," shot the first weekend of my stage:

Amigas en Barcelona (The Sequel)

Nearly five years ago, on my way out of living in Spain for the second time, I spent my last few days in the country visiting my friend Kate in Barcelona. (Here's the old post, if you want to take a look) She had just moved there, was working and didn't really know the city yet so what time we did have together we spent exploring or hanging out our hostel balcony watching the world's oldest profession take place en masse on the shady street below.

Since then we have both lived in a few different places, but recently we both ended up in Europe again. So, having successfully defended my thesis, I decided to book a quick trip to go see her.

My first night there we were to attend a bilingual pub quiz at an Irish bar in her neighborhood. She was busy giving an English lesson when the quiz was to begin, so she sent her neighbor, Fernando, to collect me. When I answered the door he said, "I think you are my date" and we headed to the bar to meet up with half a dozen other folks from Kate's circle of friends. This pub quiz was one of the funnest things I have ever done! Despite our team doing very well, we didn't manage to take home a prize (the competition was stiff!), but we had a lot of good laughs anyway. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera.

The next day we managed to get up by about noon and headed around the corner for some coffee and breakfast. As would become my habit for every single day while I was there, I had a chorizo sandwich. Spanish chorizo is amazing.

 Pretty sleepyhead

We started the day off by buying a few bottles of wine for me to take to some of my translation clients who have an office in the city. It was nice to finally put faces to names and even nicer to hear them say that I was their "number one". Hooray!

That afternoon, while wandering around we happened to wander by the 15th century Barcelona Cathedral. Much to our surprise, it had an elevator that would take you to the top of the cathedral. This was a nice change from the usual killer stair climbs required for visiting the top of anything in Paris.

Gorgeous day in a gorgeous city!

Afterward we meandered toward the beach front and stopped on the way to have a delicious lunch at a little unassuming cafe. Eventually, we ended up at the marina.

 Boats: They float.

 Amigas in the sand

That night we went to have dinner with Kate's friend and former roommate, Laia, in her beautiful apartment. We had a feast of salad, croquettes, paté and bread.

Kate rolls a cig while Laia buzzes around the kitchen.

The next day, out of morbid curiosity, we tried to go visit the funeral carriage museum but it was closed for siesta when we got there. So we walked a little way down the road to a nice park.

 Superfluously large fountain

 Serenity

There we completely lost our motivation to walk all the way back once it had reopened (we are lazy tourists). Instead, we walked to the nearby chocolate museum. On the way over there, I discovered the Barcelona also has an Arc de Triomf.

 L'arc en rouge

The chocolate museum was pretty corny for the most part, consisting mainly of googly-eyed caricatures of cartoon characters and animals. I do, however, give them props for our tickets being chocolate bars.

 Dramatic googley-eyed horses

 Chocolate book

 This was about as fancy as it got.

Behind the school was a fully transparent patisserie school, which I rudely ogled and photographed because I love chefs.

 I seeee you.

At the museum's exit was a café where we quickly found ourselves interrogating two ladies about the apparent cup of whipped cream they were sharing. We discovered that it was called a "Suiza" ("Swiss" - hot chocolate with whipped cream) and ordered two.

 We weren't about to share.

Then we attempted to regulate our insulin by zig-zagging through the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter.

 A-maze-ing!

A plaza with a Spanish guitarist playing flamenco. Doesn't get much more picturesque than that.

 Smushed living spaces

While here we also took a quick stroll through the Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar, a pretty little 14th century gothic church.

My third and last half day there we didn't have too much time to spare, so we didn't make any special plans. We started the day by attempting to visit the opera house. But when we arrived we were told the only way to see it was to pay €10 for an hour-long guided tour and frankly, we were just not that interested. 

Instead, we decided to walk around until we found somewhere to have coffee, which we chose to do in a less-than-ideal neighborhood. When we sat down at a table in the plaza our waitress even warned us not to leave our bags on the table in case someone were to run by and snatch them up. So we sat there drinking our coffee for a while, speculating on the elaborately-doored building adjacent to it. Since our communication had long descended into a ridiculous Spanglish, I told her that it was probably a "pequeño churcho" (a small church). Her response was to sing an ode to it:

 "Pequeño churcho, pequeño churcho;

¡Olé, olé, olé, olé!"

Next we took a long stroll down La Rambla, the main tourist strip of the city, stopping to take a look at this palm-filled plaza.

 Sunny

On our way to Plaça de Catalunya, where I had to catch my bus to the airport, we happened to spot one of the coolest street performers I have ever seen.

This guy's a goner.

We reached our destination and sat people watching until I had to get on the bus. All in all, it was a great little quick trip!

And another one gone...

Halfway through October we were abandoned by yet another good friend and Cordon Bleu student, Lesley Kim. She returned to her beloved Canada, leaving another big gap in our social circle. But that's okay because now we have someone nearby to visit when we are Stateside again.

Just before Lesley left, we accompanied her on a mission to a village called Épernay in the Champagne region to return a few bottles of wine to the Dom Perignon headquarters. It was lovely driving through wine country, where neither Charlie or I had ever been. Aside from vast vineyards, the countryside is also dotted by quaint little crumbly villages such as the one for which we were destined that day.

Despite Lesley having called ahead to confirm that the return could be made, she was met with the usual French response to many perfectly sensible requests: C'est pas posible (It can't be done). Of course it can, you just have to go through the process of arguing about it until the person with the red tape concedes. Just about anything can eventually be accomplished if you know that French culture expects you to argue for it a little bit.

Anyway, she eventually succeeded and we proceeded to wander aimlessly around the town. This didn't last long because we were running out of daylight and still had cigars to smoke and video to shoot. This is the fruit of our labor that day:

Stay tuned next week for an update from Chef Charlie and more Smoking in the Park!

October? More like ROCKtober!

So much happened in October that I'll have to give it to you in small doses.

First, with my fancy new mac freshly imported from the U.S., I devoted myself full time to my freelance translation work. As it turns out, if you are available and good (which I am, of course) people will throw more jobs at you than you can even take. Finally I have managed to break into gainful self-employment. I make more money than I ever have, I actually care about and enjoy my job and I can do it in my pajamas! It's not without its setbacks, of course. For one, unless I consciously moderate it, I will work 12-hour days and completely neglect any semblance of a social life. Since I began I have slowly started to re-coup some of my own time, but it's hard to say "no" to clients when doing so too many times may imply them never asking you again. The work-life balance is definitely tricky. But hell, it beats commuting and being office bitch to someone who makes more money than me. In my last 15 years as an employee I have managed to work for some real dicks. No more.

My "office"

The first couple weeks of the month were filled with food and friends, namely Brian, who would be departing for the U.S. soon. His departure also implied that we would (temporarily) be taking in his feisty feline, Sriracha, in order to find her a new home that was not the animal shelter. Two months later, she is sitting at the foot of my bed as a type this.

Before he left there was some serious fun to be had. My personal favorite bit of this was our outing to the Jardin d'Agronomie Tropicale just outside of Paris where we had a picnic and, of course, smoked in the park.

The following weekend we went to dinner with Brian and his friend Leslie at his favorite restaurant, Chateaubriand. This particular restaurant only offers a set, multi-course meal for dinner and the majority of what we ate was absolutely delicious.

Beef cooked sous vide, apple infused with celery juice and seaweed

Blood pudding, purple potato, potato and lemon chips

Haddock filet with seasonal vegetables, (radishes, daikon), beurre blanc

Chicken breast sous vide (with fried skin), wild mushrooms and an oyster

 Goat milk yogurt sorbet, mint, basil, caramel chips

No complaints here!

The next morning while I slept in, Charlie and Brian took Leslie to Bastille market where Charlie bought the ingredients necessary for Brian's goodbye dinner at our place that evening.

Much to my dismay, this consisted of preparing the stinkiest dead animal that my nose has ever come into contact with: wild hare.

 The search is on.

 Is this what you're looking for?

 Taking Bugs' pants off

Captive audience

 The first course that evening was this tasty tartare of mackerel with persimmon and tangerine. 

The main course was braised wild hair, mushroom parmentier, glazed turnips and balsamic-glazed figs. 

Everything tasted good, but I had difficulty bringing myself to eat much of the hare after smelling it in its various stages of preparation throughout the day (an odor akin to landfill).

As I'm sure you figured out by now, the cooking never stops with Charlie. Hence, a few days later, ravioli.

 Filled with mushroomy goodness

I'll leave you with this last photo of us during a stroll through the Jardin des Plantes one afternoon.

In love