Fun In The Pot Sink. . .

First, a history lesson.

The French are wonderful cooks and chefs, from the country housewife of Normandy to the 3-star Michelin-rated Parisian top chef. However, I know a dirty little secret. The French owe most of what they know to the Italians.

Yes, it's true, but they'd never let you know.

Some many centuries ago, Catherine de Medici married French King Henry II and in the process brought with her a plethora of culinary ideas and techniques by virtue of her Italian servants and cooks. This laid the foundation and groundwork for centuries of culinary refinement, an evolution of cooking and technique beyond scale. The French are owed a great deal, but it was the technique and knowledge of the Italians that started it all.

My first "real" chef was a Frenchman named Phillipe. Phillipe cut his culinary teeth suffering through the apprentice system in France, which is more or less like an extended boot camp that lasts for years. According to Phillipe, during his formative years he spent hours upon hours tournéeing carrots, peeling potatoes for pommes Lyonnaise, frenching racks of lamb, etc. Many days early in his career, much of his prep ended up in the stock pot. "Do it again," demanded the old-line chefs! It's a hard way to learn and the dedication it takes to survive is incalculable.

He was a wonderful man, a compassionate man, a great chef, and I learned more from him than I could ever write in a blog post. I, at some point, became his apprentice while working at a 5-star hotel with a name that sounds a lot like Ditz-Barlton. Yes, I'm trying to protect their image because one day, we defaced Phillipe and the pot sink in the main kitchen all in one fell swoop. The local health department would have had a stroke had they known.

Sssshhhh! This is insider information, so don't tell anyone.

On Phillipe's last day, in great culinary tradition, we hatched a plan to humiliate him by dunking him in something, or dumping something on him or somehow damaging his psyche prior to his departure. This is the food world equivalent of dumping the Gatorade cooler on a winning coach after a football game. This ritual says many things and it is different for each person involved. Some people are showing love, others are saying "goodbye asshole!" and a few are involved solely because it means making a huge mess without repercussion.

For Phillipe's departure, the evil pastry folks downstairs whipped up some colored meringue or Chantilly cream for plastering him and our plan was to corral Phillipe, dust him with flour as we hauled his big, lanky ass to the pot sink and proceeded to defame him with the whipped delights. At some point, an unknown genius decided to prepare a special garbage can brimming with the filthiest foul and filth known to the culinary world for a final, nasty deluge of goodbye for Phillipe.

Poor Phillipe put up a helluva fight as we carted him towards the pot sink, his body draped across five of us and the rest of the kitchen staff in tow. As all plans seem to go, it misfired, and the flour intended for Phillipe ended up coating the face of my buddy Carlos, sending him into a fit of gagging and wheezing as several of us crammed Phillipe down the narrow passageway. Then some fool spastically hurled the garbage can of food jism at all of us, covering most of our team in an indescribable, smelly ooze. Luckily, the majority of the bilge hit the mark of Phillipe as we slammed him into the pot sink, whereupon we unloaded liberal doses of the whipped something-or-other on him.

Many weeks later, when I had the evidence I had captured on film developed, I realized that the garbage wasn't the greatest insult of the exercise, nor was it the slathering of the whipped something we applied. In the mayhem of the moment the statement was lost. I took another long look at the photograph and had a great chuckle as I realized the significance of what I saw. .


Viva La Italia Phillipe!

So, you see, stupid pot sink girls? You ain't got nothing on real chefs. Stick to frying chicken. And bathing your rotund bodies at home.