Owe, Stingy: five minutes in the life of…

I just started working at Tulio Ristaurante on 5th avenue in Seattle. They are actually trying to work with me to get me up to speed and work the very busy lunch shift on the line.

“Fire a Ling, Rav and Tort.” I place three pans on the star-top range, turn around and reach into a drawer for pre-portioned ingredients.

In that time, 15 seconds go by. As I am turning around with the goods, I hear “Fire another Tort and an Ear.”

I grab another pan and put it on the fire. I make a mental note that the Tortelli is now a double order. I turn around and grab a second batch of five Tortelli to drop into the bubbling water in the deep fryer (we use a deep-fat fryer full of water instead of oil to cook off pasta). Five ravioli are dropped into a basket in the water, right next to the one with the Tortelli. I start working the other dishes by adding oil or butter to the pans, as needed.

A flattened mass of sausage goes into a pan for the Ears. Shallot, lemon zest, white wine, salt & white pepper go into another pan for the Ravioli and get bumped up to high to reduce and intensify in flavor. The Tortelli get diced zucchini, shallot, poppy seeds, salt & pepper.

For the linguini, I add diced preserved lemon, garlic, chili flake, white wine and a double-fisted grab of clams to the pan. I throw another, smaller, pan on top of them. It’s 30 seconds later now and I hear another call.

“3 Ears, 2 Ravs and 2 Riz, solo on you.” That means I am the only one making dishes for the ticket. Nobody else is going to be waiting for me to be done, other than the customer. I can delay it slightly if I need to. I pull the ingredients out of the drawer to remind myself what needs to be made.

Another minute goes by. “How long on the Ling, Rav, Tort?”

“Two minutes,” I respond. “Waiting on the Rav & Tort.”

Two minutes go by: “Can you take another call?”

I only have six bruners to work with, and only five of them have working pilot lights. “Let me sell first, my board is full. I have a Ling, Rav, Ear and two Torts.”

“Sell!” comes the order. I then plate and garnish the first five dishes as a charger plate and four charger bowls get dropped in a stack behind me.

First five Ravioli (Rav) get placed on a massive charger plate, then add more cream and lemon juice to the pan so I can make more sauce for the next order. Next, I twist Linguini (Ling) into a charger bowl and dump the clams & sauce over the top. One pan off the star-top.

Then the Orecchiette (Little Ears) goes in a bowl, dusted heavily with Parma Reggiano cheese. Another pan off the range. Ten Tortelli get dumped into a pan and tossed with the Zucchini and yellow grape tomatoes. They then get plated into two charger bowls in neat lines of five, sauce & goodies poured carefully over the top so they look even and sprinkled quickly with poppy seeds.

A third pan off the star-top. That means I have one burner occupied by a pan with enough sauce for two orders of Ravioli and room for four more pans if I need it, which I do. I place two more pans on the star-top.

I add about two tablespoons of butter to one pan, and about one tablespoon of oil in the other. The first pan, as the butter starts to melt, I add shallot, salt and pepper, about 8 ounces of vegetable stock and two par-cooked portions of risotto to cook down. Three flattened patties of sausage get placed in the other pan, now smoking hot, and shaken twice to make sure they are not going to stick. Salt & pepper go over and I let them brown.

“Give me another call!”

I hear; “Fire Gnocchi!” Then a pause, “Make that two Gnocchi, all day.”

The term “all day” means they want me to know there are exactly two orders, not two more orders on top of the previous one called out.

I pull a pan off the stainless steal shelf in front of me and drop it just a little too hard on the star-top. I pull 24 little dough cylinders out of the drawer and place it on my station. I add a few ingredients to a couple of the pans I already have working, flip one a couple times and check the doneness on another. I place a nice glob of butter into my pan designated for the two orders of Gnocchi and watch it start to melt almost instantly.

Twenty-four Gnocchi go into two baskets in batches of twelve each. Much more than that in a basket, and they come out in a single mass. I pull two small bowls and throw them under the salamander.

Thirty seconds, that’s all the Gnocchi get. The butter is starting to get nice and brown now, out of the water and then directly into the pan. The second basket is a little wet, so the pan shoots a fireball straight up to singe the hair on my right arm. The pan gets a quick shake to make sure they are not sticking (Gnocchi LOVE to stick – to the pan and each other). Salt, pepper and minced sage. Flip. The time it takes for you to read this is nearly is nearly exactly how long it takes to cook the Gnocchi.

“I’m selling two Gnocchi!”

“Sell!” I hear.

I pull the bowls out from the Salamander and onto my cutting board. I then carefully place 12 Gnocchi in each, squeeze Mascarpone over in a rough lattice pattern, plug a fresh sage leaf sticking up out of the middle of each and put each screaming hot bowl onto the copper counter in front of me. Around I turn and check the pans I have working.

After dropping three portions of “Little Ears” into one of the larger baskets. Then I pull the two orders of Ravioli out of the water and drop them into the pan of reduced cream sauce. I then add the remainder ingredients to the pan working the Tortelli as I call out my sell request.

My left hand is a dry side-towel, and my right is a pair of tongs. I no-longer have hands in the standard sense. They are now tools. School was never like this, and that is exactly what I expected.

I have a 4-inch burn on my left forearm, and singed hair on both. I have a grease spatter burn on my left hand and numerous new little nicks and cuts all over both of them. Last Friday I almost took a chunk out of my left thumb. If it weren’t for my thumbnail, the tip would have had a nice 1/8th of an inch nicked off the tip. People are making heated comments and demands for two and a half solid hours of my day, almost non-stop. And I have three-foot flames shooting up in front of me the whole time…

To be totally honest, it’s really been a great first few days!

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