A few days ago, I decided to hang up my chef’s toque. After 55 years working and teaching in kitchens, it was time to step aside. This did not mean I would no longer be working on something food related, just not at the same level as I had for all that time. Simultaneously, my wife of 48 years and I have been clearing out much of the “stuff” accumulated over five decades, sifting through memories, laughing on occasion, and wondering why on earth we hung on to all of this. Some things were precious and hard to discard, while others were quick fodder for the trash can.
I came upon an old wooden box tucked away in my shop, decades of dust pushed aside I opened it to find a few rusty metal files, an old pair of scissors, some hinges from a door long ago discarded, and under it all my first French knife – a wonderful tool that I had been missing for maybe 40 years. It was a 12-inch Sabatier carbon steel knife that weighed around a pound, ebony handle, perfectly balanced, and shamefully rusted. I held it in my hand and sat down filled with thoughts of a career well spent.
I had worked in kitchens since I was 15 years old; this I have mentioned a few times in this blog. Like many of you I started out washing dishes and then helping the breakfast cook (Millie) during the rush. She taught me a few basics and I was hooked. Suddenly, I could push aside those thoughts of becoming a rockstar drummer and focus on a career in the hospitality industry. Sure enough, after two summers working in the diner, I headed off to one of the few two-year colleges on the east coast dedicated to hotel and restaurant management.
Now, I was not the best academic student, not because I didn’t have the ability, but simply due to a lack of focus. But when I was in the kitchen I came to life. A visiting knife salesman convinced me that I needed a workhorse French knife and with the support of my family I was able to purchase this very Sabatier classic tool. It was way too big for me, but when I held it in my hand, I felt empowered to become a cook and set a course forward to become a restaurant manager. It was a first job interview for a restaurant assistant manager that pulled me into the kitchen. “Son, you don’t know enough to be a manager. Your education is important, but the school of hard knocks is where you will discover how to lead and manage. You need to go back in the kitchen, learn the trade, and slowly work your way into management.”
Holding my head down and carrying that trusty Sabatier with me, I took his advice and found a culinary apprenticeship. Once there, I never really left. The kitchen was where I belonged. If that knife could talk it would have spoken about countless experiences as a prep cook, banquet cook, line cook, eventual sous chef, and my first shot at leading a kitchen team. It would have spoken about countless trips to the emergency room for stitches and burns that should have received immediate attention, but the board was filled with tickets, and I just couldn’t leave. It would have highlighted the nights when everything went perfectly and those when the team was right on the edge of crashing and burning. The knife would have mentioned the people I had the pleasure to work with: the serious chefs, French butchers, Italian pâtissiers, alcoholic banquet chefs, legal and illegal immigrant workers, college graduates, apprentices, and high school dropouts, pirates moving from job to job, and lifers who started in one kitchen and never left. The knife could have told stories about cooking for celebrities, political figures, musicians, writers, foreign dignitaries, and people of all walks of life. There were banquets for two-thousand people, nights when sixteen banquet rooms in a hotel were all filled with sixteen different events, restaurants that we opened and restaurants we sadly closed, snowstorms and remnants of southern hurricanes, nights when we were short staffed and in the weeds, and other nights when we were a fine-tuned machine. This knife experienced everything that I experienced in those early days, and it never complained, never resisted, never let me down.
It is a 100% carbon steel knife – something you don’t find anymore. It holds an incredible edge, one that you could shave with, but alas, it doesn’t look pretty like stainless. I shook my head at the rust on this important part of my life and chastised myself for letting it disappear and fall into disrepair. This knife that served me so well must be disappointed in my lack of attention. I must make amends.
It was this knife that helped me realize, from the first moment I gripped it in my hand, that I belonged in the kitchen. It was this knife that stayed true as I learned how to dice, brunoise, julienne, mince, and chiffonade. It was patient and knew eventually I would get it right. It was this knife that occasionally taught me a lesson about respect. When I ignored what it had the potential to do it would send me to the ER for another stitch.
This was the blade other cooks would laugh at: “shit man, that knife is bigger than you are”, or “do you think you can ever live up to the size of that thing?” Together we proved them wrong. Through 55 years of focus I feel my career speaks for itself. Unfortunately, the past forty years were without my Excalibur by my side. Instead, it was hidden away in a wooden box in the basement, unable to witness the twilight of that career. How unfortunate, I must make amends, I must tell the balance of the story and allow the knife to shine again as an integral part of a career in front of the range.
I stopped sifting through additional memories, I had the time now to make things right. The knife would receive my undivided attention as I worked to bring it back to life, not to cut another vegetable, but to stand tall and hold court as one of my most important possessions. It is the least that I can do.
So, I worked to restore this special blade, tried to remove the deep pitted rust, and bring back that ebony handle with brass pegs that held it in place. It still needs some work, but I am focused. The memories are too important, this knife deserves better.
PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER
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