not blamed for a three star review, but definitely other things...

I'd like to brag, just for a moment... not that I had any part in this, but it is cool that I'm lucky enough to be an extern at Gramercy Tavern during what might be it's "revival"... not that it ever really seemed to disappear...

New York Magazine just published this review that bumped up the rating from 2 stars to a 3 stars... out of 5... Hope you'll read it!

I can say, the chocolate bread pudding is awesome, and the ice creams (& sorbets) are made on premise and delish... although the chocolate - toasted almond - coconut ice cream does it for me... that is served with the coconut tart.

Otherwise, things are going well. Much better than last week, that is for sure. I'm getting faster at my tasks, although I have a long way to go. Three of the four days I worked I was able to go upstairs during service and learn the plating, help plate desserts and watch what it is like around the kitchen. I'll tell you one thing it is every night... HOT! I learned tonight that the new chef, Michael Anthony, prefers not to have the AC on. Something that is good for his hot dishes, but not so good for our cold ones! That means I have to get really good at scooping ice cream if I ever get the opportunity to take the reigns the next time I get to help with service.

Here's something that bums me out a little bit... I feel like I automatically get blamed for mistakes by the chef and sous chef. Two examples...

Saturday night my chef asked me to go through about 15 lbs of coffeecake streusel and break up the (large, tablespoon sized) butter chunks because they hadn't been fully incorporated. I haven't made streusel for coffeecakes since before the Hobart got fixed and it was unlikely that it could have lasted for over a week and a half. Her tone was what made me feel like I was being blamed, but when I looked at the handwriting on the label, I knew it wasn't me. So what am I going to do? Tell her that I wasn't the one who made the streusel because that isn't my handwriting? Doesn't change the fact that there are butter chunks in the streusel and it can't exactly be used the way it is! So I chalk it up to a very valuable lesson learned... I will always (like I've been doing since I was taught how to make it) check for butter chunks because I don't want to have to think about the poor person who will have to dig through streusel to break up cold butter chunks if I don't do my job correctly the first time. Doesn't change the fact that I was pretty mad I had to do it in the first place...

Tonight the sous chef reiterated how important it was for me to smell all the containers and lids used to store batters, sauces, etc. because we don't want our pastry to smell like onions, garlic, fish, etc. if it isn't supposed to. The reason this was said was that part of the coffeecake batter had to be thrown out from the batch made Friday night because the lid smelled like onions and had permeated the batter a few inches down. I haven't made coffeecake batter since Thursday night... which I had taken full credit for when the coffeecakes weren't baking up correctly - possibly because of a mismeasurement on my part. But again... when I started, I was told to smell everything, so I smell all the containers and lids! And also, what am I going to do? Argue with the sous chef? No... so I take it as one more lesson learned... how my actions (or someone elses' that I get blamed for) affect the work and production of desserts by my co-workers.

More lessons learned this week; more progress to be made next week. And great news, a new extern starts on Wednesday which means maybe I can break the Hobart and blame it on her so she knows what it feels like to be blamed for things she didn't do and how it feels to batch out (what seems like endless) batches of that stupid, haunting coffeecake batter & streusel!!!

Nope... not going to do that... although I do hope to see her stuggle a little bit, just to verify that my experience is as normal as everyone says it is.