As promised: the Saga of my First Chef Competition- Long

[Tsiyu]

(Thank you AzDemDist6 :loveya: )


So I am watching the ten o'clock news one Saturday night and I keep seeing these ads for a Pastry chef competition. I get close to the little black and white TV so I can read the names of the restaurants competing. It might be fun to attend if I like the restaurants. All of a sudden my heart leaps into my throat.

Our restaurant is listed! "WHAT!!!!!!!!?????????!!!!!! I'm the freakin' pastry chef and nobody told me?"

I WAS headed to bed but instead I leap out of the chair and grab all my cookbooks, grumbling "What the hell is wrong with him (the EC)? Why didn't he tell me? What am I going to make? I'm going to fail miserably!!!!"


I decide I will make truffles if I have any say in what to make.

The next morning is Sunday Brunch. I get there early and corner the executive chef over by the coffee machines.

"So I'm watching TV last night..." I begin, telling him about seeing the ad.

"Wow," he says. "We should go to that, huh?"

"Uh. We're IN it!" I practically scream back.

"Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you." Nice....

SO turns out he wants truffles too. The sous chef gives us an idea for something different - zapotle - a chocolate fruit he has eaten in Mexico.

I concoct a recipe (when I find it I'll share it - but I think its written down in a book I loaned to a friend when making Christmas cookies cuz it's not here right now.) My secret ingredient, besides the zapotle, is Godiva liqueur. Oh yeah...

For days I make truffles, handrolling them and dipping some in crushed pistachio, some in shaved white chocolate, some in cocoa. The staff will NOT leave them alone.

They joke with me about the addictive qualities of my truffles. "These are better than sex!" says one server. They all decide they want to get the whole mountain addicted and then they can start offshoot truffle rehab programs. They are trying to butter me up as they steal the truffles. I finally run everybody off and get the required 650 made (and hermetically sealed!). It is 3:00 am the night before the competition before I am done.


The next day, Sunday Brunch again. I drag myself into the restaurant and in between making biscuits, etc for brunch I take a huge bar of Callebaut dark chocolate and use melted white chocolate to pipe our logo on it.

The EC wants me to go to the competition. "I brought you a clean chef coat" he says when I complain that my own is filthy.

"I just want to go home and go to bed and forget about truffles." I am sick of truffles. A small emergency arises and I end up "having" to stay back at the restaurant. I finish my stuff, go home and fall into bed.

I awake hours later and the news is on again. Bleary-eyed, I wonder how we did. But we are "hillbillies" and we were up against very, very well-known, stiff, big city culinary competition. I have no illusions.

Here comes the report about it on the news(the station was a sponsor.) I see my EC wandering around in the group shots and a shot of our display (with my big chocolate bar front and center - great for the restaurant, I'm thinking) and then the announcer says that the winner was - our restaurant! I am in m y skivvies jumping up and down like crazy and when I grab the phone I find lots of congratulations already on it. I can't believe it.

Now, Best of Show went to one of the big restaurant sponsors, but we won People's Choice and Best Presentation, so we only won two of the three awards but I am beside myself.

So that is the story of bhg's one and only chef competition.

I would love to hear your stories too!

It's really good to be back on DU, btw.

Happy cooking!

[mtnester]

1. Thank you!

You have to be proud going against the big guns....

Would you do it again?

[Tsiyu]

4. Definitely

The funny thing is, before the owner fired his nasty ass, the EC fired me for calling in sick (the first time ever) when he had a big catering event and wanted me to do all his work. So much for busting my ass for that cokehead.

The owner didn't even know about it! After he was gone I did some other events for her and we were discussing entering more competitions (I think she liked those plaques hanging in the foyer!).

The new EC is way cool, but alas, the restaurant burned this fall. We are all hoping it can be rebuilt soon.

Thanks to you and AzDemDist6 for getting me back over here :)

[Longhorn]

2. Congratulations!

What a great story! :yourock:

[Tsiyu]

5. Thanks!

I think it's funny that I hate TV (but without internet I had to have something) and yet I learned about the competition and about our win - on TV!!!

[NMDemDist2]

3. hehehehe

that was totally worth the $10 for the star

:evilgrin:

you can pay it forward when you can and CONGRATULATIONS!!!! :yourock:

[Tsiyu]

6. You so silly! And so wonderfully generous to boot :)

I have another chef story from this year.

Actually two.

But one story is being told in a book I'm writing. The story is about the day Desmond Tutu came to our restaurant this spring. That was a trip.

But the story I can tell here is about the EC before the EC in my OP.

The former EC (I'll call him Gabriel) was one of the most talented chefs I have ever known. He could make a plate look like a masterpiece without even trying. He was also one of the most cool human beings I've ever known. A lot of EC's hate women in their kitchens but Gabriel loved women chefs and when he FINALLY invited me to cook for him (we were at a party at the time) I was thrilled. No shit music in his kitchen. He had hundreds of CD's he made for us with the best stuff.

But he could be the biggest asshole as well. Like most EC's I guess.

WEll, he was really really sick and decided to blow it all out, and I won't go into the details of us trying to keep a kitchen going with the EC tripping balls but let's just say it was a culinary adventure every day.

Normally I took his shit but one day I was really ill because my butane was out and I had to use his stoves to heat my heavy cream for the creme brulees. I should have known better but I told him to just leave me alone and not make any comments and I would be out of his kitchen soon. I might as well have asked him to harrass me. I knew better.

WE ended up in a big shouting match that ended with me just leaving my stuff and walking out.

He finally was fired for his substance issues and moved to a big city restaurant. WE asked about each other from time to time and I went back to the restaurant after he was gone but I never saw him in person again. We'd all partied together long before I worked for him so the friend part of me loved him as much as the chef part of me was thankful the new EC treated me with more respect.

Long before his time (but not without the expectation of this) he died. In his sleep. Watching TV. He got to see his beloved Giants win the week before.

HIs funeral was sad, but if you knew him you'd know all his former chefs were coming up to the casket shooting birds and he would have loved it. The new restaurant where he was working and all surrounding restaurants put up a spread and opened their bar. I was beside myself with grief becasue we'd not made up and I felt tremendous loss and guilt. Over fucking creme brulees of all things! But other folks assured me he loved me as much as I loved him and that he had no hard feelings toward me. It was just the nature of the business.

So I'm at the bar after everyone has given a big toast, remembering him with his mom when the owner of the restaurant comes up to us and says,"I have the last six creme brulees chef made. You guys are welcome to enjoy them."

I laughed out loud. The Mofo got the last words on the gd creme brulees after all! I shot the ceiling a bird and everyone laughed.

"Fuck you, Gabriel!" I said out loud and everybody completely understood. I swear I heard him laugh his ass off like in the old days.

Ah, the joys of cooking.....


Stay sweet ADD6 :hi:

[NMDemDist2]

9. I worked for years in restaurants but never in the kitchen

but there were often fireworks in there :rofl:

I was always 'front of the house' crew and the fire department thanked me :rofl:

sorry about your friend :hug:

[Tsiyu]

10. lol, "the fire department thanked me"

God, if you only knew all my screwups....

Thanks for the words about G. He was a mess. Restaurant work is like nothing else. More yelling and throwing of stuff than at a wrestling match

I started reading "Kitchen Confidential." Have you read it? So far it's good but I just started it.

[The empressof all]

7. What a Scream!

And you won it with Truffles! That's terrific! Goes to show you that you never know how good you are unless you put yourself out there. Congratulations!

[Tsiyu]

8. Thanks! You're right.

You have lots of failures in the kitchen if you cook for any amount of time, but the successes more than make up for it!

:)

[housewolf]

11. How wonderful!

Congratulations and thanks for sharing that wonderful story! I love both of them that you wrote... you've got great story-telling/writing skills right up there with your pastry skills.

All the best to you...

[Tsiyu]

13. Thanks housewolf you are way too kind

Sloppy storytelling but I still get a chuckle out of those frickin creme brulees. I've got "Gabe's" picture framed on my altar for deceased peoples and critters and I still laugh at him and shoot him birds when I walk past it.

Restaurant work is one soap opera for sure. Maybe someday I'll write that bestseller and I can just visit restaurants for fun!

:hi:

[spindrifter]

12. Congrats!! That is so cool!

[Tsiyu]

14. Thanks spindrifter!

You never know what's gonna happen in this life. Here I was thinking for sure we had no way of winning and then we won. A lot of credit should go to one of the managers, too, who make all sorts of cool topiaries with fruit dipped in chocolate. He really won the Presentation part - even though that huge bar of Callebaut was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself ;) .

[Stinky The Clown]

15. A Star is Born

Congrats, BHG!!!!

:yourock:

[Tsiyu]

16. Aww shucks, Thanks H2S

:blush:

It's nice to win one once in a while! How've you been? :hug:

[sandnsea]

17. Congratulations!

What a thrilling accomplishment! I imagine your EC was more confident in you than you are in yourself and knew this was just how you would have to be dragged into the thing. Next time I bet you'll go yourself. :)

[Tsiyu]

18. Yeah, he started out being really nice to me

because he knew I'd walked out on "gabe." Then he started making everybody else do his work and he was not so pleasant.

But he did always praise my cooking...he's back in Israel now and the restaurant has to be partially demolished and rebuilt so I'd be under a new EC. I admire and love the owners and would do whatever I could for them.

But next time I will have so much more confidence. You are right about that.

Thanks for your kind words! :hi: