I'm going to be a fish cook!!!!!!!

Holy shit! My chef just spoke with me last night and said that they are going to start training me on fish! This is amazing...Fish is the most technically difficult of all the stations, especially because we do all of our own butchering. With fish, if you make any errors in butchering or cooking it, it's obvious and it usually means that the piece of fish is ruined. As my knife skills (and cooking skills) are still pretty poor, I'm really nervous.

I feel very lucky to have ended up at Restaurant X. It's a very small kitchen (3 man line) and a very busy one. This is my first real nyc restaurant job. I started as garde manger seven months ago and then became a swing cook covering hot apps, garde manger, pastry, brunch and expo. When I walked into the place, I was a newbie fresh out of culinary school who couldn't even sharpen her own knife, let alone use it properly. I used to watch the guys on the line from my safe little garde manger corner and dream that one day I'd be good enough to step onto the line. But as I'd watch them moving in this frantically controlled ballet, choreographing (sp?) the trajectory of smoking pans...over, under, cross, behind...I'd be full of doubt. Sure that there was no way I'd ever be ready. And let's be brutally honest. The first five or so times that they tried to train me on hot apps, I went down in flames (no, not literally). I sucked and was kicked off the line. Finally, though, I held the station. That has got to be one of the best feelings ever. Pure adreneline and euphoria.

I've given up so much to become a cook. Before I started cooking, I had a wonderful boyfriend, cushy job, money and free time. Now, I'm single, broke and work almost 24/7. Worth it? I really hope so...

Like a moth to the flame...

Yesterday was a pretty good day. We weren't that busy but my station got hit pretty hard. I almost lost it a few times but was ultimately able to keep it together and get all my plates out smoothly. I'm still so new to the hot line that I'm always nevous that I'm going to get in the weeds and lose it and get kicked off the line...Sometimes I have nightmares that I'm frantically cooking but I'm forgeting things and my chef de cuisine is like "where are the pork ribs? I need a fucking pork ribs!" And I wake up freaking out because I don't have a pork ribs ready...

But last night was ok. It helps that we have such a great crew in the kitchen right now. My chef de cuisine is the best. She is an amazing person and one of the tightest cooks in Manhattan. It's great working for her because she gives me so many opportunities to do stuff that most cooks of my level (of inexperience) would never be allowed to do, like breaking down fish. The guys on the line and garde manger are awesome too. We talk a lot of shit, but I feel like we take care of each other at the same time.

And then there is my sous chef....yeah, so I'm making one of the biggest newbie cook mistakes and sleeping with my sous chef. Such a bad idea. It's one of those things that you know you shouldn't do, but you just can't help yourself. We were attracted to each other for a while, but we were both in relationships. Then those relationships fell apart and we fell in to bed. And the in bed part is wonderful. But I like him a lot more than he likes me and I kinda get the feeling that he could just walk away from the whole situation with no problem, whereas I couldn't...I know that I'm playing with fire, but...