Adventures with Knives
Surviving
1,000 Hours of Culinary School
Bob Foulkes
Adventures with Knives
Surviving
1,000 Hours of Culinary School
Bob Foulkes
Copyright ©
2011, 2012 Bob Foulkes
ISBN 978-1-927371-53-4
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http://adventureswithknives.wordpress.com/
To my mother, Lillian Edna Foulkes (née Marose), who raised four children on a small budget with boundless energy and an iron will that was shaped and tempered by life on the Prairies throughout the dirty thirties. Like millions of women everywhere, she kept home and hearth together, without recognition or thanks. My father and mother gave much. All they wanted was that we make something of ourselves. My mother is now 91, and I’m still a kid in short pants whenever I’m with her. I’ve finally forgiven her for serving rhubarb without sugar for all those years.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Introduction:
A Taste For Adventure
1
Blame It on Ratatouille
2
Life Begins at Sixty
3
Mutton Dressed as Lamb
4
Never Catch a Falling Knife
5
Goodbye Kraft, So Long Paul Newman
6
Big Stocks, Big Pots, Big Bones
7
Street Food and Street Smarts
8
Making Peace with Rhubarb
9
Feeling the Grind
10
Surf and Turf
11
Passing the Baton
12
Breaking Bread and Finding My Religion
13
Honing Our Sweeter Skills
14
Practical Lessons at Halftime
15
Moving onto the Front Lines
16
Finding a Place in Heaven for Dishwashers
17
Discovering the Secret to Menu Creation
18
Chefs Wear the Tall Hats
19
Reflections and Renovations
20
Feeding Others to Feed Ourselves
21
Facing the Final Stretch
22
A Culinary Hat Trick
23
Elvis Has Left the Building a Changed Man
24
My Favourite Recipes
This book is a delightful read. Bob describes the day-to-day life of a student during his six months of culinary training at Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts with clarity, reflection, and humour.
Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts is the proud recipient of the Consumers’ Choice Award for business excellence in the category of Best Trade School in British Columbia for five consecutive years, from 2006 to 2010. Our graduates’ successes are a testimony to our commitment to training excellence.
Bob has sought out a variety of adventures to enhance his life. His perseverance, enthusiasm, and commitment to Adventures with Knives makes for an educational, engaging, and accurate account of his daily experiences at our school. I highly recommend Adventures with Knives to anyone who is considering training in the culinary arts.
––Sue Singer President & Founder Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts
Introduction
A Taste for Adventure
Every adventure has a high and a low – if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be an adventure. The low point of an adventure, the black hole, is dark and scary. You feel alone, and you want to go home. Something you ate has caused you to fear being 10 feet from a toilet. You want your mommy. You’re one of those pathetic figures in Rodin’s sculpture, The Gates of Hell. If your adventure doesn’t test your deepest emotional reserve, it’s not a real adventure. On the other hand, the high that comes from an adventure, the sweet spot, is glorious. The brights are brighter, and the adrenalin rushes through your veins. Adventure is drama. My adventure with knives didn’t fail me. I got both my black hole and my sweet spot.
My black hole came in late November 2009, five months into my cooking school program. It had been a rough night in the front kitchen with too many mistakes, too much yelling, and lots of do-overs. I finished late and was sitting half-changed in the empty locker room. My colleagues had cleared out to go drinking. It was Friday night, party night for them. I was exhausted – a 60-year-old man with sore knees and a cut on my finger that pulsed with pain. My chef whites were speckled with unidentifiable splatters, reeked of sweat, and desperately demanded laundry. My feet hurt, and I had to trudge home through the cold, pouring rain – 45 minutes of slogging to the gulag barracks that I called home.
My apartment was at its worst. I had a 100-square-foot corner of my former bedroom that I called the bat cave, and the rest was stripped to the concrete awaiting renovation – a bombed-out war zone. One light, no fridge, no stove; my only salvation was that both the TV and the coffee maker still worked. I hoped. Without energy or a social life, I could only look forward to a weekend of sleep to recover enough to do it again on Monday. I was in way over my head. This sucked. What was I thinking when I signed up for cooking school?
The sweet spot was as glorious as the black hole was bottomless. It was the last day of school. My six months of hands-on learning was being tested in one final practical exam. We each had three hours to prep, cook, and plate a four-course meal for two, including an appetizer, a pasta dish, a main course, and a dessert. It was a scary blur of too much to do in too short a time. I was jumping with energy and manic with excitement. This was what I’d dreamed about; high-stakes action in the kitchen, just me and the challenge. I plated everything on time, and the three chefs who had ruled my life for the past six months, Julian, Patrice, and Johannes – the demigods of my narrow universe – were ready to judge my submissions. They would decide my fate. Would it be pass or fail? Was I a hero or a goat?
As I was arranging my dishes for judgment, Julian, the executive chef, wandered over. He looked at my plates, taking special notice of my pasta dish. “Not bad,” he said, with a hint of admiration in his voice. “You’re showboating a bit, aren’t you?”
I knew then that I had passed! I walked out of the school that final night feeling like I had discovered insulin. A simple comment from Chef Julian erased all of my self-doubt, and every dark moment of fatigue, anxiety, and pain fell away.
They loved me! I had hit the sweet spot in my adventure.
This is a book about getting up and off the couch, doing something, and taking some risks. It’s about deliberately making ourselves uncomfortable. It’s about trying out new things and, even though they may not always arouse our passion, it’s about believing these adventures will keep us alive, active, and engaged.
I’ve tried a wide range of adventures, and many didn’t work. As with clothes, some were the wrong style for me. They didn’t fit or, more precisely, they didn’t fit me. Golf never worked. I was more tense and stressed after a game of golf than before it. Full-time employment was a non-starter. I had worked at part-time jobs since short pants and had been an employee for most of my life. A job now would be like a straightjacket, too restrictive of my freedom. My attempts at volunteering usually tagged me for fundraising and public relations, my old work specialties. It would be just like work without the pay. These weren’t adventures.
Travel, on the other hand, was pure adventure. I took advantage of my freedom to travel for weeks and months at a time. Macchu Pichu, the Galápagos Islands, Patagonia, Egypt, the Mayan Temples in Central America, rafting through the Grand Canyon – these were all delightful. I made new friends, shared memorable experiences, and developed a thirst for more. Exciting travel adventures are everywhere. All I need to do is choose one and sign up.
I soon learned, however, that travel can’t fill my life. I can’t just eat dessert, and I definitely shouldn’t eat it every day. It’s not healthy. I crave the anticipation of travel, of packing and jetting off to somewhere new. But I know travel is best enjoyed occasionally, as a treat. Dessert should be dessert – an indulgence made more special by its rarity.
I tried an adventure called international democracy development. I talked my way into a two-week assignment in Kuwait for a respected foundation dedicated to strengthening democratic practices around the world. I was an election observer for the second round of presidential elections in Ukraine in January 2010. Two weeks observing Ukraine’s election was like a vacation on steroids. On election day, we were standing at the doors of the polls freezing, when the village officials arrived at 6 a.m. to ready them for opening. We completed our observation duties 24 hours later, as votes were delivered to regional tally points. This was a vivid personal affirmation of my faith in democracy: a communist regime that, in less than two decades, had transformed itself into a democracy. I wanted more.
I became an adviser for Action Canada, a brilliant leadership development program for Canada’s future political, business, and policy leaders. Working with smart, ambitious, young Canadian leaders is energizing and challenging. I learned more than I taught.
I’ve been a runner for a decade, and I’ve trained for and finished countless 10-kilometre races, a significant number of half-marathons, and 10 full marathons. I made great friends and experienced the indescribable joy of crossing a finish line – upright, smiling, and in full control of my bodily functions (two out of three of those were usually considered good enough). I’ve run with both my son and my daughter, which were memorable bonding experiences. There’s something about the discipline, hard work, delayed gratification, and the final achievement of crossing the finish line that justifies but never fully explains the mystery of why we run. The side benefits aren’t too shabby either. If you’re fit, you can hike the Inca Trail; if you aren’t, you take the train.
I’ve taken up cycling and swimming. Competitions drive my training. I run a fear-based training program. I sign up for something scary, then train like hell for it. I’ve come to crave these self-inflicted tests of my perseverance. Even when I finish at the back of the pack, I’m thrilled.
All of these adventures acclimated me to change and its highs and lows, the sweet spots and the black holes. While not quite a turmoil junkie, I’ve developed a taste for adventure. If nothing else, these attempts at filling my new life have expanded my world, providing me with flexibility and openness to personal, career, and lifestyle change.
I’ve also moved around a lot. They always send the small moving van for me when I relocate. You learn to travel light after a while.
Going to a real cooking school and learning to cook like a professional would be my next new adventure. Little did I know what an adventure it would be, my adventure with knives.
Before you read this book, let me tell you what is not here. This book won’t give you a checklist of all the things you can do to make your life rich and full. I haven’t got a clue what you should do. I’m making this up as I go along. I think true fulfillment comes from trying new things and finding a fit.
This is not a financial planning book for the retiree. I can balance my chequebook, but I can’t offer much in the way of financial advice for making your money grow, keeping it, and keeping it from the taxman.
Introduction
This is not an inspirational book – that would be a conceit of narcissism over experience. Having made as many mistakes along the way as I have, I simply can’t hold up my life as a fine example of what you should do with yours.
This is also not a cookbook. I could never masquerade as a chef. That was never my purpose. I was looking for an adventure, not a career. If you’re looking for recipes and tips, I have a few. For a real cookbook, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
I prefer to call this a pass-it-on book.
In my restless, self-absorbed search for meaning in my life, I bored my friends and pestered acquaintances and strangers with questions about what they were doing as they moved through the stages of their lives. They helped me a lot, and I’m hopeful that I can show you my roadmap of my life journey and enhance your life journey. Actually, I can’t believe I even tried to blow that old “roadmap of my life journey” bullshit past you. Forgive me.
This book has only one simple goal: to tell you what I did and how it worked out. If that helps you make some choices, I’ll be delighted.
If that isn’t enough warning, I have a final caveat. They say experience is gained from making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. If that’s the case, should we really emulate the experienced, the mistake prone? Make your own mistakes. Gain your own experience. My fervent hope is that you’ll stumble upon an adventure as glorious as my adventure with knives.
Chapter 1
Blame
It on Ratatouille
The idea of going to culinary school was, at first, eccentric bordering on delusional. Who knows where these ideas originate but, once formed, this one survived. It ran through my head like a bad song, over and over, and I just couldn’t get rid of it.
Rational arguments against it didn’t work. The idea even survived my secret fear of people calling me deranged or stupid. “Imagine, Bob going to cooking school at his age. He’s really lost it this time!”
The idea settled at a little spot in my mind reserved for romance with movie stars, unicorns, and instant weight loss – whimsical, outrageous, fantastic, and impossible.
Then it morphed. Other thoughts took over: the fun of cooking, the shock of something so completely different, the novelty of such a unique adventure, the audacity of it all. None of my friends had done this before! When I took the idea for a test drive with my children, Kristen and Blair, I was surprised at their reaction. Ever supportive of my previous adventures, they were thrilled with this idea.
I was at best a peripatetic cook. I cooked without confidence. Working through a recipe, I was tentative, uncertain, and anxious about the outcome. I couldn’t guarantee that what I produced would look anything like the picture accompanying the recipe. If it did, I was mostly surprised. Cooking was like craps in Vegas; every recipe was a new roll of the dice. I had inclination but no skills, enthusiasm but no education, desire but no delivery.
As a bachelor, I had a choice. I could eat in restaurants, I could eat out of a plastic takeout container while standing over the sink, or I could make everything into a sandwich and eat it in front of the television. Each alternative branded me a loser. Cooking school gave me an option. I could learn how to cook a decent meal, for myself, or to share with friends.
I also knew that I should make more informed food choices as I turned 60. Living well meant staying healthy and eating right. Left unrestrained, I could see a future that included heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and an ever-enlarging wardrobe. I had tried every diet fad ever conceived and failed at most of them. In my experience, the only sure way to lose weight is by going through a breakup – enough said.
I wanted to make food interesting again; ignite my senses, inflame my taste buds, inject and infect myself with a renewed passion for food, and do it wisely. More love, less hate. I was getting tired of paying honking-big restaurant bills at the end of every month, and eating solo was expensive without the fun.
Cooking school became a way to realize these desires and bring positive, healthy attitudes to my life. We all eat. Why not make it full of joy, full of flavour, and full of health?
Then I turned 60. I felt compelled to do something; to get off high centre and charge madly off in some direction. They say most of our wounds are self-inflicted. At least I could inflict some different wounds. Even painful change was becoming preferable to boredom and ennui.
The Monty Python folks changed skits with chaotic whimsy, some might say lunacy. They announced, “And now for something completely different,” and moved on. I thought I might change the skit that was my life and do something completely different.
There was no real logic or rationale. I just wanted a new adventure. I needed to feel passionate about something. Inexplicably irrational, I developed my own self-justifying reasons. My son and son-in-law say they’re proud of me. They claim that I changed my life and charged off into the unknown on a quixotic adventure in culinary fantasyland after watching Ratatouille, the animated children’s movie.
I can’t argue with a great story. I saw the movie and decided, wiping back the tears of emotion, to become a chef. You can’t fight a storyline like that, especially if it’s grounded in some truth.
The movie Ratatouille is about a French country rat that loves food. He ends up in Paris and becomes a chef, magically working through his human surrogate. Work with me here, or at least go rent the movie and watch it before consigning me to your loony bin. The message of the movie is the power of a simple dish, ratatouille, to recreate the Frenchman’s most poignant childhood memories of his mother’s home cooking and his favourite food – a fitting summation of the essence of French regional and classic cooking.
I fell in love with the movie, but more importantly, I fell in love with the movie’s idea of food as a transcendent force in people’s lives. I’ve always loved France and the role that food plays in that country’s daily life. I’ve been a frequent traveller to France. Paris is my favourite city. In my peripatetic life, I hoped to live a more balanced, idyllic existence, where long lunches, passionate discussions amongst friends, and the enjoyment of simple pleasures would bring balance, contentment, and harmony to me. This little movie captured that joie de vivre and celebrated it. The chef was, and still is, the centre of that celebration of French cooking, French life, and the passion that the French have for communion over meals with family and friends. If I couldn’t be French, at least I could learn to cook like them and maybe even live a bit like them.
Whether it be a movie about a rat who pursues his dream to be a chef, or a quixotic idea to change my relationship with food, or just a desire at the age of 60 to inject some passion into my life, I was ready for an adventure. I also ended up in the perfect place to start such an adventure, Vancouver.
I discovered Vancouver late, in my fifties, and have grown to love it. In 1999 I moved here to take up an executive position to cap off my career. The job provided a geographic cure. I was able to flee Calgary, my home of 20-odd years. Calgary had become a place with too many memories and not much future.
The great thing about geographic cures is that I could leave behind bad memories of a marriage that had slowly deteriorated then failed completely, shed an accumulation of bad personal habits, and walk away from a job where I had peaked long before retirement age. The challenge with geographic cures, however, is that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. I knew I needed to change me as well as change cities. Vancouver provided me with an opportunity to reinvent myself, to start over, and to try on a few new personalities. I could go to the tickle trunk and try on a new me.
Vancouver is one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world. It’s an outdoor-, sports-, and recreation-oriented city. As a newcomer, I was convinced that I would need to spend six months getting fit before venturing outdoors. I joked with friends that, when I first moved here, I was afraid to go to the beach. I was worried that if I was spotted lying on the beach at English Bay, five Greenpeace volunteers would try to roll me back into the ocean.
And so I got active. I started running. I dragon-boated. I bought a road bike and learned to unclip my shoes from the pedals before tipping over. I discovered the Grouse Grind, a gnarly hour-long StairMaster-type climb up Grouse Mountain, underneath a gondola used by lesser mortals. I lost weight!
I moved into Vancouver’s West End, a diverse community on the edge of Stanley Park, with several pools, a seawall, an extensive bike and walking path system, and the most colourful rainbow of neighbourhood restaurants imaginable. I became a regular at Delany’s, the local coffee spot – my anti-Starbucks. Work was located within walking distance from my place, and every evening on my way home from the office, I passed the neighbourhood’s intriguing array of ethnic holes-in-the-wall. Never good at resisting the temptation of tasty food and the instant gratification that is its side dish, I stopped at them all. I was single. My social life was an open book. My running buddies became my social group. The West End became my home, and I hugged the hell out of it.
Foolishly, in 2002, I moved away for a few years. I ended up in a city where I was an outsider and, in many respects, an alien. When my reason for being there wandered off, I returned to Vancouver like a prodigal child. It took a two-day real estate whirlwind tour, but I found a new place in my beloved West End. Retreating with as much dignity and grace as I could muster, I returned, happy to be home and vowing never to leave Vancouver again. It feeds my soul.
One of my favourite pastimes has always been to take the water ferry from the West End to Granville Island on a Saturday morning. Granville Island epitomizes all that is Vancouver to me – it’s new and exciting and different. Granville Island is my gateway to food!
Vancouverites are food snobs. Restaurants are discussed with a passion usually reserved for politics or religion. Local chefs are part of the cultural elite – the equivalent of politicians in Ottawa. We follow their every move with sharp eyes and sharper tongues. Restaurants, food, and cooking are big here. In fact, one of the only bookstores in North America totally dedicated to cooking thrives here, Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks.
There are several cooking schools here, and one of them, Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, or PICA, I knew quite well. My first introduction to PICA was at my daughter’s wedding in August 2008. A friend had held her wedding there the previous year and had raved about it. When Kristen looked for a place to hold her reception, I suggested PICA.
PICA’s event planner, Giulia, was helpful, the menu met my daughter and son-in-law’s wishes, and the price met their budget. The food was almost great, the service was touchingly amateurish, and the dessert bar was delightfully decadent. The price was to die for.
The night was capped by the finale of Vancouver’s annual fireworks festival, which was visible from the walkway beside the school’s dining room. Only in this city do you get such fireworks for your wedding reception. My son Blair and I enjoyed one of those sweet spot moments during the fireworks, marvelling at the joys of life.
Occasionally, I bought bread from PICA’s bakery. I peered into the windows and could see all the apprentice chefs in their crisp, white uniforms, bustling about amidst pots and pans, stoves, and sinks. They were cooking wonders in the making.
On such occasions, my fantasies fuelled the outrageous notion that I could be one of them. I could be the one everyone is looking at in my crisp, white chef’s jacket, casually sautéing a foie gras. In a mind’s instant, I became the next superstar chef. Women would swoon, men would envy, small children would worship – all for my cooking.
As a big idea, it all seemed to fall into place. Serendipity is powerful. I had time, I had the idea, I had PICA sitting at my doorstep, I had the desire, and I had the watertight tautological rationale of the madly deranged.
Shortly after I took the big leap, Julia Child gave me my best and most enduring inspiration for my adventure with knives. I’ve always been a good eater. I love food. A few weeks into culinary school, I went to see the movie Julie & Julia. It’s in large part a story about Child based on her autobiography, My Life in France. She brought classic French cooking to the American kitchen. She should’ve been given a Nobel Prize.
In 1948, Julia’s husband Paul is offered a government post in Paris. The couple relocates, and Julia finds herself with no job of her own, nothing to do, no plans, and no ideas about how to fill her time. The two try to figure out what she should do to take advantage of the fact that she’s footloose and free in Paris.
In the movie, they close in on her options.
“What is it that you really like to do?” Paul asks her.
“Eat!” Julia responds immediately.
“I know, I know, I know,” he says, “and you’re so good at it.”
Her love of France, French cooking, and the lifestyle of the French launched Julia Child’s career, one that changed American culinary habits forever.
I walked out of the movie thinking she was absolutely right. If “I love to eat” was good enough for Julia Child, it was good enough for me.
PICA commands the entrance to Granville Island, a former light industrial and fabrication centre in the heart of False Creek on the edge of downtown Vancouver. Granville Island is Vancouver’s food bazaar. It was transformed from a dreary industrial site into a downtown foodie cornucopia. It boasts fresh fish, vegetables, flowers, bakeries, pastry shops, a butcher, a charcuterie, a renowned art and design school, galleries, wine stores, shops, theatres, restaurants, a microbrewery, and its own sake distillery.
PICA fits Granville Island’s aura. The island is a magnet. Its fresh food, its various restaurants, and its food kiosks are compelling. Locals and visitors alike shop there regularly and, in so doing, amble past PICA. Created in 1996, PICA trains aspiring chefs for this vibrant, eclectic, and sophisticated epicurean city. The school has its own restaurant, an adjacent café, and a small bakeshop, increasing its profile further.
When I was deciding which of Vancouver’s culinary schools to attend, PICA’s location on Granville Island tipped heavily in its favour. What a great place to go every day, I thought. It’s close to my home in the hood, and I could walk there. I also wanted an intense, hands-on program that trains cooks to work in real kitchens. At PICA, each class is limited to the chef instructor and 15 students. That means face time with the chef, the only person who really matters. The emphasis is on direct work with the instructor, as opposed to just watching him do demos or describe things in a classroom. PICA is boot camp. Completion of its intensive culinary program requires between 900 and 1,000 hours in the kitchen, learning the art of classic French cooking.
The chef instructors at PICA are a who’s who of Vancouver culinary professionals, and each has decades of experience. The curriculum emphasizes the basics – knife skills, stocks, key recipes, classic cooking techniques, and careful attention to presentation.
The first three months of the course are spent in the teaching kitchens at the back of the school, learning the necessary skills expected of any serious cook. In the second half of the course, senior students move to the front of the school and, within months, are cooking for customers. The rubber hits the road pretty quick in this program.
I did some research on other programs in the city (due diligence on a crazy idea is reassuring, but it doesn’t make the idea less crazy). In the end, my research was totally biased. I’d already decided that PICA was the best for me. The several other options just didn’t meet my criteria. I had made my decision.
But a few practical concerns still needed to be addressed. Could I afford it? The cost of the program was steep – an attention-getting, focusthe-mind bit of coin. I decided my savings on restaurant bills alone would more than justify the cost.
The course fee, however, was only a part of my financial risk. There were still a few clients who paid me to be available when they called and do work when they needed it. I couldn’t risk losing my lucrative consulting income while spending serious money to learn a skill that doesn’t pay much in order to prepare me for a job that I didn’t really want. The math and the logic didn’t work.
And so I sugar-coat the issue. My BlackBerry will keep me in touch. In an emergency, I can disappear from class and hit the computer in the student lounge. And, since this is an afternoon class starting at 2 p.m., my consulting responsibilities could be managed without my going totally AWOL and being found derelict in my duty. After all, 2 p.m. in Vancouver is 5 p.m. in Toronto – quitting time for most of my clients.
Isn’t self-delusion a wonderful thing? Vacuous rationales, you bet. I’m guilty as charged.
Before paying my money and committing to the program, I do one final check. I sign up for a one-day introduction session with Executive Chef Julian Bond. For one day, I can pretend to be an aspiring wannabe chef. This will be the final test. Do I really have the resolve to go through with this? Will I actually put my money down? This day in the kitchen will put a whole new spin on the old cliché, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Bali, the director of admissions, meets us and introduces us to Chef Julian. Julian is young, British, and handsome in his chef whites. He has the enthusiasm and energy of a whirling dervish. He literally springs into the room like Tigger on speed. Anybody with this much enthusiasm must like what he’s doing. He’s got passion. I could use some of his kind of passion in my life.
We get a quick tour. The classrooms, small and spare, are necessary but ancillary. The kitchens are the real focus, and they’re everywhere. Eight separate kitchens, yes eight, are fully equipped. There are gas ovens, gas burners, dishwashers, walk-in coolers, a walk-in freezer – everything an Iron Chef could want. Several kitchens are outfitted specifically for the baking and pastry class – huge mixers, barrels of flour, ovens, and racks of ingredients and spices abound.
Fronting it all is the dining room, which accommodates 40 to 50 for lunch and dinner, and 60 to 80 for a reception. Fond memories of my daughter’s event flood over me.
I’m finally inside the place that I’ve walked past so many times, my nose pressed up against the glass. Holy shit, I think, thankfully not saying it out loud. If I take this on, I’m going to cook for people who come here expecting a real restaurant meal. It’s one of those rare spine-tingling, sweat-inducing moments that aren’t unfamiliar to me. My last one was while standing knee-deep in a Texas lake wondering why I’d ever agreed to swim, bike, and run my way to 70.3 miles of no guts, no glory in a half Ironman triathlon.
Bali walks us through the facilities, explaining how they’re designed to educate future chefs. He shows us our first-term teaching kitchen, explains the station system, and points out all the hardware, pots, pans, whisks, spatulas, fry pans, and strainers hanging everywhere. More magical tools are stuffed under the immaculately clean work stations. There are food processors and other electrical appliances, the purpose of which I am only vaguely familiar. There’s only one microwave oven in the whole place.
The walk-in coolers are huge and chock full of fresh food. There’s more variety in this cooler than in the Queen’s kitchen. Racks and racks of vegetables, fruit, eggs, meat, fish, milk, cream, stock, and condiments are neatly sectioned off and stacked to seven-foot ceilings. In the dry-stock storage, the spice rack is six-feet tall and jammed with a cornucopia of huge spice containers. Cans, dry goods, and condiments take up the rest of the space. The walk-in freezer is big enough for a Mafia hit man to find useful. Obviously the chefs are lavishly endowed with ingredients. Bug-eyed neophyte, I’m still smart enough to know these guys are serious about cooking. This is definitely a good sign.
Even on a Saturday, with no classes and no students, the place bustles. The bakeshop is open. Fresh pastries are needed, and students are filling the bakery’s ovens. In another area, a student is practising for her upcoming practical pastry exam, trying to complete 10 different baked recipes in the short time allotted. Scary.
We head for the front kitchen, don our special PICA aprons, and meet Chef Julian again. “This is a cooking school,” he explains, “so we are going to cook. You all get to cook your own lunch.”
With that, we begin. Today’s menu is seared tuna on a bed of greens, followed by risotto and lamb chops. Chef Julian gives us the roadmap and does a demo, but he doesn’t hand out a recipe.
He offers vague instructions on how to make our own salad dressing. “We make all our dressings here, and all salads must be dressed,” he says. “We especially stress visual appeal and presentation for all our food, including a simple salad.” Already my mind boggles at how I’m having a serious discussion about salad.
He walks us through the steps to making vinaigrette. (Further instruction is available in the Appendix for those of you who wish to be freed forever from the tyranny and expense of store-bought crap.) We clean some packaged salad greens, add a small amount of our vinaigrette to coat them, and arrange the lettuce on a salad plate. Pride of creation aside, learning this simple vinaigrette makes my visit worthwhile. I never have to buy bottled dressing again, and that’s affirmation enough.
Greens prepared, we marinate the tuna in a glaze made of a light soy sauce and brown sugar, then sear it on both sides in a hot fry pan until the sugar caramelizes. We slice it and arrange it as artistically as we can on our greens. Chef Julian emphasizes arrangement, presentation, and visual appeal and gives each of us pointers as we carry our starter into the dining room. I already have visions of amazing my friends.
Next, we prepare risotto and lamb chops. Risotto! He must be kidding. This is way above my skill level. With my new can-do attitude, however, I charge into it with hope and enthusiasm. I do as told, and voila, I make my first real risotto! We add some grated cheese, and it’s ready.
We now scrape lamb chop bones, trim the fat, and grill them over a high flame on a small, grooved grill – a simpler version of the George Foreman one. Chef Julian shows us how to test the meat for doneness by touching it and comparing its firmness to a part of our hand (sorry – chef’s secret – can’t tell you more). We create a simple sauce, add some grilled veggies, and we’re done.
We plate it all and head for the dining room. Again, Chef Julian inspects our plates, offering some presentation tips. I walk into the dining room with my dish, imagining that I’m serving it to a customer. Then I sit down and pretend to be that customer. Damn, I’m impressed. How could I not be impressed? I just cooked a restaurant meal and served it to myself, and it tastes great.
After lunch, everyone leaves. I stay to help with cleanup and dishes. I get the unvarnished opinions from the students; the real story of PICA from people who’ve already paid their money and are taking the course. They give it good marks. It’s practical, and there’s lots of hands-on work in the kitchen, emphasis on the fundamentals, and direct training from the chefs. They rave about the chef instructors, the rock stars of PICA’s kitchens.
They also tell me about the dark side. It’s hard, relentless, demanding work, with lots of standing, lots of drudgery, and lots of heat. It’s also dangerous, with sharp knives, open flames, and boiling liquids. It’s high-pressure work under intense pressure.
I see the sharp knives, open flames, boiling vats of water, and other combustibles. I see the whirling electrical appliances with sharp knives and the ovens from Dante’s Hell. I see the danger and the challenge, but I’m not sure I see how I’ll survive when 15 neophytes are thrown into this strange and dangerous confined space for eight-hour sessions five days a week. In a way, this danger makes the whole adventure strangely compelling.
I wander home with a loaf of the bakery’s best in my complimentary PICA market bag and try to figure out what it is that draws, no, compels, me to this adventure. The meal I just cooked was delicious, but it wasn’t just about the food. This adventure is definitely exciting enough to transcend the tuition, the hours, the drudgery, or keeping my real clients happy.
It’s the kitchen itself. I love the kinetic energy – the activity, the heat, the flames, the clanging pots, the shouting of us all above the noise, the pace, the complicated drill of sequenced events, and the adrenalin rush that comes from having to get everything just right to plate a meal. I love the human energy around me, the kinetic sparks that fly between and among us, and the aura of magic that emanates from the kitchen. I love the smells, the sizzle, and the crackle of food cooking in a fry pan, on a grill, or in a deep-fat fryer. I love the colours of the fruits, the vegetables, the meat, and the spices. All this in only a short Saturday morning sampler of what will be full-contact cooking if I sign up.
If you’ve ever been to a performance by Cirque du Soleil, you’ll know what I mean. Every sense is involved, every awareness is heightened, every colour is brighter, every smell is more accentuated, and every sound resonates more clearly. It’s all orchestrated for maximum sensual experience. That few hours in the kitchen was as delightful as any Cirque du Soleil performance I’ve seen. Even better, I was an actual participant – a performer – in my own culinary circus.
I’ve always been one to crave too much to do. I hate boredom. Too many things happening at once calms me. During a crisis at work, I was always the calmest one in the room. The frenetic experience of the kitchen at its peak of activity calmed me in the same way. The cacophony resonated and sounded symphonic.
There’s something else that confirms my attraction to the kitchen. In the four hours of cooking with Chef Julian, I never looked at my watch once. I never looked at my BlackBerry. I put it away and forgot about it. In the search for a sign from the gods that this adventure is right, I could slaughter a chicken on the night of a full moon and read its entrails for affirmation, or I can read the clearer signs that come from within. This abbreviated adventure with knives so enthralled me that I completely forgot about the world outside. With my short, little span of attention, there’s no better sign from the gods. This is my divine affirmation.
The closing argument that tipped me into action came from a most unlikely source. I have some friends who recently lost their daughter to cancer after a long, painful struggle. Jaimie fought this cancer with a spirit that was indomitable, a smile that was constant, and a courage that consistently rose above the daily pain and suffering she felt. Her reaction to every suggested treatment was the same: “Bring it on!” At 23, she showed courage, grace, humour, and dignity well beyond her years.
A few days after my test-drive of PICA, she and her parents came out to Vancouver. On a bright, sunny day in April, I took Jaimie and her mother, Michelle, to lunch at a restaurant on Granville Island near the school. I talked a bit about the idea of going to cooking school, then hedged a bit. It’s too much work; silly idea; another time; I’m too old; it’s too expensive; I’ll think about it later; blah, blah, blah.
I asked what they thought I should do. Jaimie summed it up succinctly: “Go for it. Do it now. Don’t wait.”
That closed the deal. My conversation with Jaimie was more than serendipity. The timing of her advice was more than coincidence. I was at the right place.
A few days later, I showed up with a cheque and a sense of keen anticipation to sign up for the program. Bali, the admissions director, was delighted. In fact, he was so delighted that I had to ask him why.
“Well, Bob,” he said, “you’re the oldest person I’ve ever enrolled in the program.”
“Oldest?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, by a big margin. In fact, I doubt if I’ll ever get another student that’s older than you. And I’m not even going to try.”
Chapter 3
Mutton
Dressed as Lamb
(Day
1)
On June 29, 2009, I walk through the doors of PICA to start my six-month adventure in cooking.
My first day of anything is a challenge. I’m anxious, uncertain, and convinced I’m going to fail. “This time it’ll be different,” I say. “This is an adventure, my adventure – freely chosen, paid in advance.”
Two weeks before cooking school begins, and to celebrate my 60th birthday, I took my two children and their partners to the south of France. The vacation was a final diversion before the start of school. What could be more fitting in advance of my new adventure than enjoying the mysteries of French cooking in France?
We rented a small place in a delightful rural town in Provence. We toured, lazed by the pool, wandered about, ran hills, and even rode bikes over what was to be, a few days after we left, one leg of the Tour de France.
At the twice-weekly outdoor market, we purchased the finest, freshest fruits and vegetables and sampled cheeses and pâtés that, while available every day to the French, were unmatchable in Canada. Every morning, I wandered down to the village to purchase our breakfast: buttery croissants and flaky pastries of unimaginable decadence. We ate at several remarkable local restaurants. One, Chez Bruno, specialized in dishes featuring truffles. After a three-hour multi-course meal that left us drugged with richly savoured creations, I could think of nothing more pleasurable than being the creator of such meals in my own kitchen. The French have it right – communion with food, family, and friends is one of our great privileges.
It was a fittingly romanticized affirmation of my decision to go to cooking school, and a serendipitous launch of my culinary adventure. This was food, glorious food, as only the French celebrate it. I was going to be a chef, creating mouth-watering, soul-satisfying food. I would be the culinary alchemist.
The last day of our French adventure morphed into my first day of culinary school eight time zones, a 12-hour flight, and a world apart.
I arrive at the school about an hour late, missing the administrative lecture and details about payment, attendance, and dress code. However, I do get the first of many “looks” from staff. Attendance is prized, and tardiness and absenteeism are recorded and strongly discouraged. If we miss more than four days over the next 60, we’re at risk of failing the program with no recourse and no appeal. I blame this one on Air Canada, but I’m on notice – good attendance is a must.
It’s our first dress-up day. The chef’s gear includes an impeccably white, starched chef’s jacket, funny, full-cut, baggy houndstooth grey pants (think Charlie Chaplin), and a goofy chef’s hat called a calotte. The calotte is not as ugly as a Tilley hat. It’s also slightly less ludicrous than the paper hats that pretend chefs must wear at the local Sunday morning hotel buffet, but it doesn’t qualify as a bold fashion statement either. Finishing the ensemble, we each wrap on a white apron that covers us from waist to floor, complete with two small towels tucked into each side. There’s one towel for each hand, like six-guns. The dress code for our student uniform allows for no exceptions.
Actually, as I briefly check in the mirror, I don’t look too bad. My jacket has that fresh new smell and is crisp with starch and white as virgin snow. The latter is made more vivid by a touch of fine blue piping around the breast pocket that showcases the PICA logo. That pocket is where I keep my pen and my special notepad for recording the secrets imparted by our chef instructors. There’s an extra pocket on the left sleeve, high up between elbow and shoulder. I don’t know its purpose, so I leave it empty – a question mark and a mystery to be quietly solved without exposing my lack of knowledge.
The jacket’s white double-front has a certain flair and it’s practical. If the front of your chef’s jacket is unfortunately splattered with bits and pieces of the recipe of the day, you just reverse it by switching the soiled top layer with the new, spotless lower layer.
There’s another positive sign. The measurements for my uniform make me a comfortable medium. What a bonus; I’m a medium! I’ve obviously ignored and conveniently forgotten that many chefs are the size of Pavarotti, and size creep has altered perceptions in the cooking world, but I care not. Why? Because I AM A COMFORTABLE MEDIUM. Won’t that amaze my friends!
The pants. Well, let’s just say they’re not fashion items. Made in a virtually indestructible cotton fabric, they’re at best utilitarian. A millennium from now they’ll be unearthed intact from the landfill, long after the plastic and other detritus have disintegrated. They’re not designed as much as manufactured (the manufacturer rumoured to be a local tent and awning maker). Final fashion indignity; they’re tightened by a draw string, presumably so they can be taken off in a flash in case they catch fire or have hot liquid spilled on them. They remind me of little kid jammy bottoms.
The only good thing about the pants is that they cover the shoes. Black, made from another mystery material to withstand everything, and built solely for comfort and endurance, the shoes are designed to support the arch and keep us standing for long hours. They’re built on thick nonskid soles and have safety toes. They keep us on our feet, and while they’re comfortable and safe, they’re definitely not stylish. In fact, they’re so ugly, many chefs prefer to wear old-fashioned Dutch clogs. Better to be seen as an eccentric than a fashion idiot, I guess.
All dressed and surveying myself in a mirror, I think I may have to revisit my “Bob, the chick magnet in his chef’s outfit” fantasy. As a fashion statement, the chef’s jacket, a menacing look, flashing knives, and a few fancy French kitchen words (spoken with an accent) may have to do it for me. On the other hand, I can’t imagine the French, so stylish in matters of fashion, allowing such monstrosities as the clogs, the pants, and the calotte to exist, much less wearing them with pride, particularly in a profession where egos abound. I may have to speak to management about this oversight.
I still have one issue to overcome, and it’s driven by personal vanity and excessive self-regard. For the past 40 years, all my working life, I’ve managed to pass my secret test, the one that says you should go through life without ever wearing a uniform with your name printed on the pocket. With the exception of brief stints as a grocery store bag boy, I’ve managed to avoid retail sales or service functions all my life – the jobs requiring me to wear a goofy uniform with my name on the front pocket. Now, here I am at 60, wearing a uniform with my name proudly stitched on the pocket – BOB – in bright eye-catching blue, just above the PICA logo, for everyone to see. I shiver. I’ve finally fallen into the vortex of shirt names. I’m in the service business. I’m not sure my adventure choices are leading me in the right career direction.
The rest of my class looks equally ill at ease. Of the 15 in the class, seven are women and eight are men. The average age looks to be about 25 to 30. As expected, I’m the oldest by a large measure.
We have the usual round of stilted self-introductions. Most are taking this course because it’ll provide a job or they’re just out of school and haven’t found what they want to do yet. Two are from the US, one is from Mexico, and the rest of us are mostly from Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
The youngest, Kiri, is not yet 20, but she wants to explore cooking as a real alternative to going to university. Her father is not amused. David, an early candidate for class clown, has left the construction business, partly because of the recent construction slowdown, and partly in search of a steady job indoors and out of the rain. Michelle was a sales rep for a beverage company, and the relentless pressure and unending boredom of a future selling cola products wasn’t very appealing to her. Glen, the closest to me in age, was a bookbinder. He was successful and had moved up in management, but the industry was dying and he decided to jump before being pushed. We even have a former account rep for L’Oréal – Felix – although he looks more like he should have been the Latino parts rep for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. He’s Cuban American and grew up in Florida surrounded by food and family gatherings. He immediately strikes me as the one person who should be here. Tyrell was a painter (houses, not portraits), but he saw no future in that. He’s tall, affable, and ready with a smile.
I’m expecting everyone to have worked in kitchens, but those with actual kitchen experience are the exception. A few have worked as wait staff or juniors in a kitchen. Antonio was working at Earls, a local chain restaurant, and Sarai’s parents own and run a restaurant and a small hotel, so she grew up in the business. Most had nurtured a secret dream to be a chef, and some had kept the dream alive by cooking as a hobby. We seem joined together only by our willingness to plunk down hard cash to be here and by some burning desire to become proficient and professional cooks. That’s a start, and a welcome one for me. I was expecting to be uniquely unprepared. Now I’m only unique because I’m old.
The good news is that, while listening to their stories, I discover the use for that little arm pocket. Everyone else has put a spoon or two in it. By shrewd deduction, I conclude that it’s where we store our tasting spoon and a small spatula for transferring tasty morsels from pan to plate. I quickly sneak a spoon from the school’s supply and make it mine, professionally tucked into its pocket.
We gather in the classroom and are introduced to the school and its leaders. Sue Singer, the owner of Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts, welcomes us. She created the school in 1996 to train professional chefs for the culinary industry. She took a big financial risk and, over more than 10 years, has grown her dream and this business. In an industry where even a few years of survival constitutes success, she’s that rarity – successful and growing.
Starting with a few students, she’s built her business with courage, street smarts, tenacity, and good old-fashioned hard work. She looks less like a risk-taking entrepreneur and more like someone’s favourite aunt, but the chefs, all twice her size, are respectful. She’s petite, approachable, smiling, and gracious. She welcomes us warmly and congratulates us on our decision to enter the school. My sense is that, way down the food chain of PICA life, it’s best to stay on the good side of this lady.
We meet the two most important people in our lives for the next six months: Executive Chef Julian and Chef Instructor Patrice, our leader for the first three months of our program.
Chef Julian, the Tigger with endless energy from my one-day introduction session, is an interesting guy. He’s tall, fit, handsome, and self-assured. He started life in a village in Yorkshire and, precociously, had an innate desire to cook. He was the only male in his class to take high-school home economics, and he suffered for it by spending a lot of time proving his manhood at the back of the school fighting rugby and football players. He got a reputation for being a bad boy with a self-described attitude problem, and he was expelled by the school before graduating.
The only local trade school to offer cooking instruction wouldn’t accept him without a high-school diploma. Undeterred, he showed up on their doorstep every morning for three weeks until they relented and gave him special permission to enroll.
He carved out a stellar career as a chef in Europe and North America, and he topped it with a stint as chef and owner of Star Anise, one of Vancouver’s finest restaurants, before joining PICA as Executive Chef.
Chef Julian is a leader. He commands a room when he enters it, and people listen when he speaks. Most of his chat to us is a blur, but his energy, passion, and boundless optimism are captivating and spellbinding. Some of his words catch my attention.
“There will be cuts, there will be blood loss, and there will be burns,” he says. “But they will be good cuts and good burns. They’ll mean something to you. They’ll end up as memories and markers of your experience here.”
Looking at my hands, I seriously doubt the notion that there’s such a thing as a good cut or a good burn. However, I do begin to grasp that there would be BURNS and CUTS, and that they would happen to me! An adventure in cuts and burns wasn’t on the curriculum, and it certainly wasn’t high on my list of things to do. I make a note to myself and buy bandages on the way home.
“Whatever your goals are today,” he continues, “be prepared to change them. The course will open up your eyes to all the opportunities available in the hospitality industry.”
That works for me. I don’t have any plans, so I’m wide open to change.
He describes PICA’s program as building the base of a pyramid. In other words, building all the foundation skills necessary to become a good chef in any setting – hotels, small restaurants, catering, or high-end or low-cost establishments.
We meet Chef Patrice. Serendipity has tapped my shoulder. It’s a small world. He has been a chef for three decades, and he created, opened, and owned – and cooked at for 14 years – my favourite French restaurant in Vancouver, Café de Paris. I had seen his name in the school’s promotional materials and had prayed to the gods of foolish adventurers that he would be my chef instructor. My prayers are answered.
He’s Parisian, so self-assured doesn’t quite describe his general demeanour. Parisians generally believe they, and they alone, embody savoir faire. The rest of us can only aspire to achieve a small portion of what comes to them naturally. Speaking English in a French accent, his first words to us are, “I don’t have an accent. You do.”
Chef Patrice also commands attention. He’s my height, about 5' 8", and slim, with a full head of greying hair. Again, he looks the part of a French chef, direct from central casting. In his chef whites, he radiates confidence and a sense of his own presence. He’s in his element here, and he naturally asserts his role as our chef instructor and demigod for the foreseeable future.
Back to his being Parisian. When I say Parisian, I mean real Parisian. Chef Patrice’s family was made up of bakers, proud of their tradecraft and well respected in the community. He broke ranks with his family by wanting to become a chef instead of a baker. He became a chef in the old system and apprenticed, rising through the stations to become a chef at increasingly more prestigious restaurants around Paris.
In his twenties, a precocious age for such a leap, he headed for London and landed a job at The Savoy Hotel, where he worked for two years, learning everything in the tradition of the grand hotel kitchens. He later showed us a copy of The Savoy restaurant menu.
“It was a big menu,” he says. “We used to say it was an encyclopedia.” It had everything, unlike the menus of today.