The Other White Meat

Forty years ago pork was given quite a bum wrap, no thanks to that nasty trichinosis. Of course while most people realize that cured pork products, like bacon and ham, are nothing to worry about - people are still very concerned that they will fall ill from trichinosis present in pink pork.

Seeing as I haven't blogged in, well, months, I thought I'd jump back into things with a few tidbits about the other white meat in the hopes that people will stop asking that the shit be cooked out of their chops.

For starters, nowadays shipments of pork slated for intrastate commerce are subjected to some pretty high federal inspections standards. That, plus improved feeding techniques has allowed trichinosis to become, in essence, a thing of the past. I am not encouraging anyone to start chowing down on raw pork loin, but cooking pork to an internal temperature of 137 degrees F is enough to kill any trichinae that may, although most likely won't, be present in a cut. Experts recommend an internal temp between 150 and 165 degrees F. Yet people are still cooking and requesting their pork be cooked as well done as possible, meaning internal temps well beyond 170 degrees.

I know from personal experience that well done pork may help improve jaw strength, but it's certainly not one of culinary wonders of the world. I, like many others, held the mistaken belief that pork had to be cooked well done for many years, and I regret that I may have butchered a few meals that could have been wonderful. Now I roast or grill my pork to 150 degrees and I've never been happier.

A Few More Pork Facts For the Less Informed:

-The freshest pork is available from Oct. to Feb.
-Pork can be stored in the fridge (wrapped in wax paper) for up to 2 days and wrapped airtight in the freezer for up to 6 months.

Celeb: Priscilla Presley

Marie, a hostess/manager pulled me aside before the start of service on Saturday. "At 6:30 you're getting a table of 12. Johanne took the reservation. They are very VIP." Emphasis on the "very."

"Well, who is it?" I inquired, thinking little could shock me.

"You can't say anything to anyone, but it's Priscilla Presley."

"Elvis' wife?" Being thirty years too young to care about either Priscilla or Elvis I needed clarification.

"I think they were divorced when he died." It's impossible to work at Al Forno without succumbing to the occasional desire for gossip and scandal. "But you can't tell anyone," Marie continued, "she doesn't want to be fussed over or fawned at."

"Don't worry," I assured her, "I won't say a word."

Granted Mrs. Presley (the former Mrs. Presley?) is, I'm sure, very popular with my step-father's generation. To me, however, the mention that the former wife of the former King of Rock and Roll was about to appear at my table in my restaurant in my city meant very little. I felt like a little kid at Christmas who unwrapped the big present underneath the tree only to discover it wasn't the Barbie Dream House but a new piece of bedroom furniture.

In the last year and a handful of months I have spent serving grilled pizza and made-to-order desserts I have seen and/or waited on a larger number of celebrities than I would ever expect to see in a city the like and size of Providence: Richard Gere, Danny DeVito, Michelle Obama, Steven Speilberg, Katherine Heigel, and several New England Patriots players (including my favorite, Tedi Bruschi) among them. Sometimes I think that perhaps I should keep these "celebrity citings" to myself, (they're more feedings than citings anyway.) I have heard the same speech about helping them keep a "low-profile" time and time again. They need privacy. They want to sit in the corner, facing the wall. They're just normal people, and they want to be treated as such.

"Is that Kate Capshaw?" a table will ask.

With a smile and gentle shake of the head we say, "No, I don't think so," and walk away, chuckling under our breath.

It seems to me that a multi-million dollar paycheck might negate the whole, "low-profile" thing. And these people earned their station in life through a combination of talent and the unfaltering support of their earnest fan base whose money continues to result in the royalties that pay for mansions, cars, and bottles of Dom.

What is that they always say in every Oscar speech, after "God" and "my family", "I'd like to thank the fans." Well, go on then, here's your chance.

So Saturday, when a less than tactful sous chef announced to the whole kitchen and half the waitstaff, "Apparently Elvis has not left the building," I couldn't help but laugh. Priscilla Presley did drive up in a white, super-stretch Hummer, after all, which doesn't exactly scream discreet.

Celebrity Chef - Ina Garten

Anthony Bourdain wrote, "The new celebrity chef culture is a remarkable and admittedly annoying...Fans of our many TV chefs, and the multitudes of people identified as "foodies," have come to believe, it appears, that chefs are adorable, cuddly creatures who were spotless white uniforms and are all too happy to give them a taste of whatever they're whipping up at the time."

Professional cooks, Bourdian argues, who work in the bowels of restaurant kitchens five to seven days a week, eight to fourteen hours a day are ill-suited to be television personalities. Professional cooks cook in private, and tend to be egotistical, megalomaniacs who curse like sailors, drink like rock stars, and take cheap shots on whichever poor dishwasher or busboy happens to be walking by. In short, the professionals of the restaurant world are more comfortable peeling potatoes or dicing onions than in front of a live studio audience, half-heartedly trying to disguise their arrogance as whit, while shouting some ridiculous catch-phrase like, "Bam" or "Yummo."

Celebrity chefs are a little bit like kings and queens looking out over their vast culinary empires: restaurants, cookbooks, television shows, etc. Some are die-hard culinary ingenuous and restaurateurs who attended prestigious cooking schools. Others are simply people who love food, and have the passion and personality to pursue a career as "chef of the masses." Ina Garten is one of those people.

Although I have seen and waited on many notable celebrities in my time at Al Forno, spending a Tuesday night with Ina Garten was probably the most exciting table of my career thus far. Aside from being incredibly nice, polite, and funny - Ina was simply fascinated by and impressed with the food. And even though she has made an île flottante probably a hundred times, the one she had Tuesday was, "The most delicious thing."

I can't say if Ina Garten would, could, or should ever attempt to cook professionally. (She's not, after all, a trained or experienced restaurant cook.) But her recipes are good, and she, herself, sweet as pie. I will continue to watch the Barefoot Contessa, and embrace the fact that I have met Ina Garten and she is as adorable and cuddly as Anthony Bourdain predicted.

Calamari Nightmare

The Friday after Thanksgiving I was working in the downstairs dining room, having a pretty decent night. The kitchen was a little slower than usual but drinks were flying from the bar and all of my tables were in relatively light and jovial spirits, it being the holiday season and all. Around 7pm, Mark sat me a table of four: elderly parents, middle-aged daughter, and her female friend? Companion? Girlfriend?

Right away the table ordered salads then proceeded to spend a half an hour staring at the menu. They needed me to help them choose appetizers, entrees, desserts, and wine. While part of my job is offering suggestions and descriptions about signature dishes I do not have the time to hold a table's hand through the entire menu, the patience to make decisions for them, or the authority/desire to design a new menu based on what they're in the mood to eat. (I've had tables request Veal Marsala, Chicken Parmigiana, Beef Carpaccio, Chocolate Souffle, Creme Brulee, the list goes on. Do you see it on the menu? No? That's cause we don't have it. Why don't you try the Olive Garden.)

Al Forno is really not the kind of restaurant that enjoys change. Anytime a table wants to modify a menu item the modification in question has to be presented to the chef for review. Sometimes he agrees to cook the meal as the table has requested, sometimes not. Some people get very offended when I tell them that Al Forno's customers aren't always right. Certain things can't be done, certain dishes won't be changed. That's the way George and Johanne designed Al Forno, that's just the way it is, so if people want to eat there they're going to have to deal with it.

My Friday night table, the four-top from hell, asked to modify every single item on their check: no salt, light oil, different pasta, different side items, sauces on the side, cheeses on the side, gremolata on the side, etc. After twenty minutes of a back and forth with my customers (particularly Mom) and the kitchen I walked away from the table incredibly drained, but with a food order in hand, and because the elderly parents were well into their eighties the kitchen agreed to ever menu alternation requested.

After their salad course the table had pizza and calamari, which the mother informed me was cold after spending ten or so minutes on the table. She did not want the kitchen to make another one. At that point there was nothing I could do but say, "Sorry" and walk away. Food, particularly food that's been sitting out, gets cold when it's not eaten. Neither my job nor my responsibility is to keep it warm

The daughter, apparently, disagreed. I "should have offered them a bowl to keep the food warm."

How long can it possibly take for four people to eat a few ounces of calamari? We do not bring bowls out to tables to keep food warm at Al Forno. George would become irate and start pulling out his hair if he saw empty bowls sitting on table. Besides, food at Al Forno certainly doesn't arrive to the tables cold. We have no heat lamp for dishes to sit under, so when food is pulled from the oven, grill, fryalator, etc. it is immediately taken to the table, where (the consensus is) tables eat their food as soon as it arrives, instead of letting it sit on the table, growing colder by the minute. But nonetheless I "ruined their meal" with my reaction to their cold calamari. And despite the fact that every single modified dish arrived on the table promptly and exactly as requested daughter dearest left a 12% tip.

If I had my way I would not grovel to a table like that or beg forgiveness when accused of something as ridiculous as "ruining their meal with my reaction to cold calamari." I had to, of course, grovel and apologize, although I thought, and continue to think, the table should have apologized to me. I ruined their meal. Well, they ruined my night. They made my job miserable because they felt the need to change everything on the menu from what is was designed to be to what they wanted to eat and they were not grateful in the slightest that I haggled with the kitchen to make them the meal that they wanted.

Also, I have decided that waiting on a senile old woman is no different than waiting on a five year old child. She can't decide what she wants, she can't remember what she ordered, and she whines about everything.

If I had known the extent to which I would end up resenting that table by the end of the night I would have said no to every single request they made with a simple wave of the hand and a "the kitchen won't do that," sigh. I'm sure that would have made them really angry but in simple George fashion I would have happily told them, "That's our policy. If you don't like it you can leave."

It will not be a loss to the restaurant or to me personally if that table never comes back. In fact, perhaps they should consider spending their evenings at home, since clearly they do not wish to eat anything offered on a restaurant menu and at least at home they'll have plenty of bowls to for covering their calamari.

High School

These past few months at Al Forno have been a social utopia. I have friends, at least I think I have friends, who feel more like family than friends. One little altercation, however, can burst that pleasant bubble. And then I'm left to understand that while a few of the relationships made in the fiery depth of dining rooms are real and meaningful, many of them are, in reality, no different than high school.

I've come to this realization before, I remember the first time as if it were yesterday.

I had been bartending for maybe a few months when the bar manager and general manager took me outside of the restaurant for a private conversation. I hate being spoken to in private, because good things can usually be said in front of a crowd. They, Joe and Gene, sat me down and told me with great humility and sadness that my fellow bartenders had been complaining about me: about my attitude, my work ethic, and my interaction with the customers. I was completely dumbfounded - winded because I have a generally positive attitude, an extremely high work ethic, and consider myself to be a pleasant individual. Apparently my fellow bartenders didn't agree.

I cried, of course. I was twenty years old and naive enough to be completely devastated by the hurtful comments my peers (I had previously even considered them friends) had made. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong, why no one had spoken to me about it personally, and what could be done to make it better. I cried and told Gene that I was done on the bar. I wanted to go back to the floor and I wanted all of those people who had said all of those negative things about me to go to hell.

So I went back to the floor.

Later that week, one at a time, the bartenders approached me and each individually claimed that none had said anything negative about me, my attitude, or my work ethic.

"Well, Gene said that everyone said that same thing, except Lindsey," I reminded each of them. Lindsey remains, to this day, one of my oldest and truest restaurant friends.

"I didn't say anything," everyone said. Every single person.

One person who I was sure had lots of mean things to say, even though she said she said nothing mean at all, was a twenty-eight year old bartender named Jade. Jade was a mess. I don't know if she's gotten her act together since I bartended with her five years ago, and frankly I don't care, but when I knew Jade she was a drug-addicted, chain-smoking, alcoholic undergraduate student at Emerson studying film or photography or something like that. Jade and I tolerated each other but we never really got along because Jade was unpredictable and unreliable and I was a goody-two shoes who stopped after three shots and never tried heroin, cocaine, or meth.

It was a Sunday, weeks before my one-on-one sit down with Gene and Joe. I was taking bread out of the oven and when I turned around one of the prep cooks, Neri, was standing right behind me. To prevent any head-on collision with her and the hot tray of bread I bent my elbows and caught the tray between my forearms and biceps. My flesh sizzled under the heat of the steel pans. To this day I have two scars on each arm from that damn bread tray.

The burns were second, maybe third degree. They throbbed all morning, but there was no one to replace me on the bar and so, with the help of some expired burn cream, wet towels, and aspirin I somehow made it to five o'clock when the night time bartenders arrived for their shift. Erin and Jade were on the bar that night and as soon as they got there I asked if they would mind I left. Without restocking.

In the restaurant world not stocking what you've used is a big no-no. I was stupid enough to think that four third-degree burns would give me a free pass.

"You used it, you need to stock it," Jade replied. She was right. I used it. So I stocked it. And since then I've never expected anyone to feel sympathy for me whether I'm sick, maimed, or dying.

So...Gene and Joe sat me down, made me cry, and I went back to the floor. A few month later every bartender but two had left the bar: some moved, some quit, Jade and her boyfriend Nate were fired. And so I did make my way back to the bar, a little less trusting of my fellow bartenders but a lot more aware of my own abilities.

I am a positive person with a great work ethic and can work up a congenial relationship with strangers. I knew that about myself then, but at the time I was too young and sensitive to believe it. Now I know better and in a sense that experience has taught me a lot about what it takes to survive in restaurants.

There are four de-facto rules that regulate the attitude I have now regarding my fellow servers. It may be harsh, it may even be a little bit negative. But my altercation this evening with a fellow server I consider a peer, maybe even a friend, has reminded me of the lessons I have learned and to this day continue to learn.

She thought (thinks?) I was talking about her behind her back which although I wasn't at the particular moment I am accused of, I'm sure I have before and I might even again. But I don't ever talk about people to be mean or spiteful or to merely create conversation. In this business we talk about each other as a means to vent, to express frustration, to commiserate with the grievances of our fellow employees. I have realized that even the comments made about me years ago were not acts of spite. No one I worked with at the time, however, had the gale or the integrity to speak to me personally about any frustrations or grievances they had. I try not to make those same mistakes.

But, if anyone is going to lead a happy, successful life at the table there are a few things that it is helpful to keep in mind:

1. People will always talk about you behind your back.
2. You can't take what they say personally.
3. I, personally, will say behind someone's back only what I would (and often do) say to their face.
4. The only people you can truly trust in the dining room are yourself and your mother.
4. Most people never outgrow high school.

Foriegners

Never trust the French - to tip 20%.

In an age with lightening speed access to information and little to no infringement on inter-continental travel between the United States and Western Europe, it seems that rules and mores of social etiquette are slipping through the cracks.

The adage is foreigners don't know how to tip. My question is why?

Do they presume that because they are not Americans they are not subject to the same social guidelines? If that is the case I would say that instead of worldly travelers foreigners are nothing more than prototypical ignorant interlopers.

Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but this issue has come to the forefront of the dining room in the past few weeks.

The general hypothesis is that with the devaluation of the American dollar to the euro, Europeans are taking advantage of our poor economic situation to plan, book, and pay for trips to the United States. As a result, the number of foreigners at my restaurant on a given day is significantly higher right now than it was at this same time last year.

They arrive at the restaurant as late as possible. If the kitchen closes at ten, rest assured a French family will arrive at 9:55 to enjoy a four or five course meal complete with wine, sparkling water, and espresso. When they have finally had their fill of food and drink and saunter out the door at quarter to twelve they have left a $40 tip on a $450 bill. Meanwhile, their server and bartender have been piddling about the restaurant for three hours with little to do but watch the table eat. The chefs working the grill, the oven, the saute station, and the pasta station have just finished cleaning, the poor pastry chef has not yet begun cleaning, and the dishwasher will be scrubbing pots, pans, and plates for another half an hour.

If one has the audacity to enter a restaurant right before close and order enough food to feed an army he should at least have the decency to leave a gratuity large enough to compensate people for the their time.


If one is wealthy enough to spend hundreds of dollars on dinner, one is wealthy enough to tip properly.

If one has enough internet know-how to plan a trip to a foreign country he has enough intelligence to research the tipping customs of that country.

And, if any of the aforementioned declarations seem in any way incomprehensible, reprehensible, or outrageous, go back to France.

Waiting on Politicians

If you have ever wondered what a politician does during the last few hours of polling, before he or she has officially won or maintained his seat in whichever legislative branch for which he campaigned so diligently, I can tell you.


He eats dinner.


Yesterday was Tuesday, never an extremely busy day in the service industry, and it was also a Presidential Election Day - meaning the upstairs dining room closed at 8pm. But before I served my last espresso at 7:45 I waited on incumbent Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, who a few hours later celebrated his win over Republican challenger Tingle at the Providence Biltmore.


It was slightly surreal to see Reed on the 11 o'clock news dressed in the same dark suit and blue tie with his wife in the same odd, paisley blazer I had seen only hours before. Yet Reed didn't see me at all last night. Even though I voted for him, when I stood next to his table I was...inconsequential. I was not a voter. I was a server.



When we see politicians at a campaign rally or speaking at a debate we fall under the spell. They convince us all of our eternal importance, the power of our voice, and their promise to make us heard. Meeting politicians outside of the political arena is different, and it is slightly disappointing to realize how much a relationship can change in forty-eight hours. On Monday Reed and I were equals and he was there to serve me, to work for me, and in order to do that he needed my vote. Last night, despite the polished rhetoric of last week's speeches, as soon as the polls closed and the election was won, we all returned to our stations in life.



Jack Reed is a senator. I am a server. The political facade slips away. He is just a man, like anyone else, who barely notices the person serving his spaghetti.