On The Line

Saturday Evening - 7:45PM

Temperature on the line reads 120 degrees Fahrenheit

'Boilin'... bakin'.... you could could fry an egg on my stomach..... '
-Sexy Beast





I really like the fact that I have yet to open a can of anything at the bistro. Chef buys everything in bulk and we break it down to its component parts, denature it and put it into the context of something that resembles a meal.



This last week we had a catering gig that Daniel was putting on for a Catholic church here. It was a birthday for someone important with around 160 people. This was $24 a head and included salad, bread, butter and CHICKEN CORDON BLEU.

Cordon Bleu Prep
Chef tells me to go into the cooler and get chicken breasts. Take the jambon de fume (smoked ham) and gruyere cheese, both in bulk.

Instructions: Go to the slicer and slice thin, but not too thin, ham and cheese x 160.

Trim the chicken breasts and WEIGH them, no more than 6 oz per filet.

Make a slice on the side such that you can STUFF the cheese and ham, rolled up into the cavity - TIGHT... (non, non, non. not tight enough,!!! Like zeees! ...tuck, fold, PRESS!!!)

Lay out filets on large sheet pans. Get an elongated metal pan with flour, salt and pepper. Make an egg-wash and third pan fill with cornmeal.

Three steps: Dredge chicken breast with four, then egg-wash and into the cornmeal keeping one hand DRY and one hand WET - not easy to maintain - fingers start to look like little cornmeal stalactites. Constantly sifting the cornmeal to get out all of the bits of eggwash that have accumulated.

Prepped chickens back on to the sheet pans. DO THIS 160 TIMES - Chef fries 'em up.

If you ever had illusions of swanning around in yer sparkly white chef's coat... you tend to lose these delusions around the 200th potato you've peeled that day. I will say however cooking on the line during a dinner rush is, well, a rush. An adrenaline fueled, heaving, seething rush to get the food, to customers, as good and consistently as possible. Make it so and do it EVERY TIME.

Chef, being a French Chef, is prone to cook foods near and dear to his little Frenchy soul. Nothing warms the cockles of his heart like daily specials of braised pig's feet, cassoulet and most recently sweetbreads. Sweetbreads are neither sweet, necessarily, nor is it bread... as in bread'n butter. They are innards. Most often the thymus gland, usually of a cow, or the pancreas, heart, etc., but never the brain. The term 'sweet' is relative here. These little meaty jewels have a more delicate taste and are 'sweeter', if you will, than the more direct, savory flavors that come from muscle flesh. The word bread or old English 'braed' meant flesh, at least, according to Google. I ask Francois these questions but he simply shrugs his shoulders and waves his tongs or big spoon and tells me to go "chop some veggee'table".