day two: fitting <em>toques</em> and becoming a “square”

January 6, 2009

the start of each class means we gather eagerly around Chef’s demonstration table to learn the proper technique for the tasks of the day. here we also are often subject to the kitchen horror stories that come with owning a restaurant for more than 30 years: knives impaling hands and fingers; assorted burns; and worst of all, wasted or ruined food.

but we also catch wonderful pearls of wisdom, like the power of reduced cider vinegar to save overly acidic tomato sauce or burnt consommé.

but we were miles from reducing vinegar for sauces. day two instead brought julienned leeks; potato frite cuts, which we later would turn into a medium dice of potatoes; and a tourner of potato, or a seven-sided cut that looks something like a little football. we began by opening our knife kits to dig around for paring knives and tourner knives. Chef Pierre barked that we all must staple our chef hats so they fit correctly and look neat. “Lo-REN! no earrings!” he said, wagging a finger at my groupmate, who promptly covered her ears with blue band-aids. i instinctively adjusted my own toque and made sure i had taken out my earrings.

pete, still hatless, pushed his toque in my direction. “i will never get it on my own.” i smiled, grabbed the stapler and fitted the hat carefully to his head. “thank you, dear,” he said. i knew we would be friends from that moment on.

now if only my vegetable chopping issues were as easily solved as an ill-fitting hat. with little trouble, i julienned my leek into piles of 2-inch green and yellow-green blades of grass. but the potato sat there on the edge of my board, waiting for me. i peeled and halved it, to attempt a series of shrinking rectangular boxes with my chef’s knife. i sighed as i mangled it into some sort of trapezoid. “Chef? would you please help me with my medium dice?” i asked. “i can’t seem to make 90-degree angles out of potatoes or any other vegetable.”

“mar-gar-et,” he said, smiling. “first of all, this hair in front should be tucked in your hat.” i sheepishly turned around and shoved every strand of my bangs under my hat. “now, you wanted help with something,” he said, putting on his spectacles. he lined up one side of my mishapen potato with the edge of the cutting board, picked up my knife and made a few quick, clean slices to square off the edges. “maybe you need spectacles too, mar-gar-et?” he joked. then he said, “you know, some of us are not born square. i was not. it takes some time, but you will learn it.”

we next learned to craft the little potato footballs by slowly turning quartered potatoes, skinning off bits of flesh in a curved motion. Chef told us to practice by running our knife along the curve of an egg.

“yours is beautiful!” pete gasped, leaning in my direction to watch as curls of potato fell from my little tourner. “really?” i asked.

i realized that Chef was right in saying i wasn’t yet a “square” when i held out my potato tourner as he passed. “pretty good, mar-gar-et,” he said.