Kitchen Strong

'Culinary Crossfit' will wear you out...

Plating a black cod dish on the first night of service.

The fundamental principle of crossfit is that you will get stronger faster by switching things up: Your body figures out how to do whatever standard routine you do in a way that expends as little energy as possible, so throwing a wrench in that may be painful, but results in greater gains. This concept extends well beyond the gym.

I recently did a pair of dinners at Seven Acre Dairy near Madison, Wisconsin. These were the first big dinners I’ve cooked in many months, and as usual, I had no idea what I was walking into. This I’ve grown accustomed to: wildly varying kitchen equipment, space and crew. Helpful chefs and those who are, well, less so.

Through it all, I’ve muddled through, usually managing to serve good food to whoever shows up. But like a new gym routine, or those first days on the salmon boat, that reintroduction to the rigors of kitchen life is brutal on the body, at least to this middle-aged cook.

It’s not just muscular, although standing, carrying food, working over hot stoves, and chopping for hours and hours will take its toll. The long days and the change in work situation always renders me susceptible to whatever bug is flying around, so I often get sick on top of it all. This happened.

Sore throat, sinus infection, and at night, roaring fevers. Probably not Covid — like the last time this happened, at Grouse Camp in the fall of 2023 — but I knew the feeling immediately. Here we go, gonna suck. Embrace it. Wash your hands 100 times a day and soldier through.

Because the show must go on in the kitchen, no matter what. And no matter how helpful the rest of the staff is — in this case, very helpful — it’s your food, your show, people are here to see you. No pressure, eh?

There is something pure about all this.

Your world narrows. Cut onions. Lots of onions. Halve Brussels sprouts. More than 20 pounds of them. Make spatzle. Form meatballs. How many? At least 400. Calculate how long seemingly simple actions will take, given the scale of what we are cooking.

This is a big one. Fifteen years ago, I was vividly reminded about this when I decided to serve a sliver of perfectly fried garlic atop a duck tartare I made for an event at The Grange in Sacramento. It had to be from a large clove, and only the widest, center slices. Easy-peasy in a home kitchen. Now do this for 130 people. I began to panic as time ticked on, and service grew closer. I needed help. I got it, and it was fine. Eventually.

Every “touch,” or element, on a finished dish requires thought, time and execution. This is why my food generally has far fewer touches than those of younger chefs. Age is absolutely a factor. Male chefs, like male birds, love to flash their bright feathers, to strut like the cock of the walk. Look at me, their food screams, I am a chef!

Female chefs can fall prey to this, too, but invariably shed the frilly in favor of the flavorful far faster than the boys.

As for us men, well, the best of us eventually follow our female colleagues’ lead. I have. No dish of mine in the two dinners at the dairy had more than three touches. I pour all my skill, flavor and love into the core dish, so that in the end it needs only a fillip of, say, herbs or fresh black pepper, or a quenelle of sour cream.

Adding some sour cream to mushroom goulash.

Feeling physically low sharpens all this. Create the best food that can be served simply. Hunker down and dampen any urge towards the flashy. Look California for the guests, but feel Minnesota inside.

None of this is to say that you can hunker down so much that you ignore kitchen etiquette. You are a guest in someone else’s place, an interloper. A change agent, a glimpse of another world. Don’t contradict the chef to staff. Be kind. Do menial tasks, like cutting all those onions, with the same focus and joy as designing the dish itself. Lead quietly.

Everyone is valuable, especially the dishwashers. I started as one, so I know. The kitchen literally stops if the dish pit is in the weeds. There’s also often a roving “beast,” too, typically a Mexican with few English skills but who can step in and crush tasks when given instruction. At Seven Acre, this was Ines, a middle-aged Chilanga from Mexico City who, with three minutes of instruction (in Spanish), cranked out 15 pounds of spatzle for my kaesespatzle recipe.

Just in case you’re wondering, that means setting up a hotel pan over two burners and getting some salty water boiling. You set a perforated pan over this and flop a glob of the batter on top, then use a bench scraper to push it through the holes. This requires strength. Once the little dumplings float on the simmering water, skim them out and coat with oil. Set on a baking sheet to cool. Repeat over and over and over.

Ines saucing fish meatballs.

With long days like this, most of the hard work is done by 5 p.m., and so service itself was surprisingly easy. Everyone is focused and free to jump in where needed. Even the second night, where we had 102 guests all served at once, went off with only one hitch: We had a last-minute gluten allergy we were never told about, which set us all scrambling; Chef Ben Serum took charge of that. (Read more about these curveballs.)

After the last plates went down, I managed to chat with the guests for a while before everything caught up to me. I suppose it’s not surprising that within seconds of closing the door to my room, I began to shiver uncontrollably, feverish and weak.

It had all been adrenaline.

I glanced at my sports watch, which has a thing called a “body battery,” with numbers from zero to 100, higher being more rested: It read 5. Ouch. Five ticks until dead, I guess… A few steps to the bathroom, and sweet, sweet Nyquil — Green Death — quieted my unhappy body. I slept nine hours, got up, and started again.

Had I kept at this, day after day, my body would adapt, and the work would grow at least a little easier. But professional cooking is not a healthy job.

Kitchen life is hard physically, mentally, and emotionally. Injury, anxiety and roaring cases of Stockholm Syndrome are common; this is why when I was a full-time cook, many of my girlfriends were fellow cooks who smelled like fryer grease or sweat. But at our best, we do what we do so you can have a wonderful, memorable meal.

Oscar, Herman, Victor, Leo, Ines, Danny, Osa, Julian, Byron and Ben, thank you. Without you all, I would have failed.