I remember fondly the first day at The Four Seasons in Georgetown. There was a very tall New Zealand Chef in the Season’s Dining Room Kitchen named Charles Hanji. He was kind enough at first, showing me around the hotel and taking me to HR to get a locker. He insisted they give me  two small lockers because I had tools to store in addition to clothes. So I was impressed with that aggressiveness. I thought, cool these guys take care of the cooks.

Soon I was in the kitchen, on the line with my new coworkers. Three pantry cooks, me, Gerald and Armeda, the saucier Jose, the rostier Deana, and Bernard the entremet. Along with a floater, Louise. The cook training me was Gerald. He was a British Guiana immigrant. He had a sort of Jamaican/ Spanish accent. He was knowledgeable, but it soon became clear to me he wasn’t a classically trained chef. So he would value work over knowledge.

When I meet aggressive people I  give a nervous first impression. But I work hard and that impression whether it lasts or not soon is disregarded. But for now I remember Gerald turning to Charlie when he got frustrated with my clumsiness, and saying “where’d you get this guy?” But Charlie was alert to my performance and he said confidently “Don’t worry bro he’s gonna be good, I can tell”  Gerald was looking for a worker. Charlie saw the big picture, luckily for me,  and saw me as his new apprentice whom he could teach everything and which incidentally (I learned years later) makes his life a little easier.  One of the jobs of a chef is to teach. You must pass on the finesse it takes to make beautiful, tasty food. While learning and doing this you are sort of doing the chefs job.

Gerald Got to like my work ethic regardless of our obviously different personalities. We got along fairly well, as long as I was cool with him being the boss, or as I saw it the senior cook. Because that was ALL he was. I mean, we were both working in the pantry station. The lowest of the line cooks. The only thing less admired was a salad girl (as we called it back then) or a prep cook down in banquets.
I can’t remember if it was the second or maybe third day. Charlie was supervising my training with Gerald, and he decided to start giving me a hard time to see what kind of metal I was made of. To a chef there is no greater trainee than an Intern or strait out of school cook. They are eager to work and make a living, eager to learn new things and awed by the vast knowledge of a well traveled chef. Charlie was putting on the pressure! “Help Gerald finish his Mis en Place! Make carrot juice for the entremets special! hurry and Peel thirty pounds of Steamed shrimp!  You need to clean your station!  Hurry up and finish the shrimp because I’ve got some work to do in the butchers shop and yooouur helping me!” This last bit was a treat, he was giving me a nice thing. He was going to show me how and then let me butcher some fresh fish with him. Maybe something cool like Dover Sole or even Abalone.

Gerald all this time is getting pissed off. He has finally got a new cook to train and Charlie has taken me away to do HIS job. Me, I was thrilled! I was busy and tired but learning and absorbing a lot and doing what I know which was cooking. “So you think your gonna come out of school and be a chef huh? You think you can walk in here and be the man? Your just a Pussy arse! You ready for the real world?” “Yeah Chef!” This is how you anwser. I would smile and go faster because I knew this is how Charlie gets going. He was a great chef but he was very excitable. He would get going and not be able to stop. Most Chefs are this way. There is a lot of pressure and a need for urgency when you dealing with hungry guests and hot food that needs to be served. It takes a lot of steps to do this and there are a lot of different personalities in a restaurant. A Chef must control them all to achieve a well run kitchen. Back then and there that was how it was done.

Charlie was famous for being an arrogant ass whom would not admit a flaw or mistake ever occurred. He was rude “Here you! Is this  your first day?”  I remember one day leaving the butcher shop, he had me cornered, and was going on about porch monkeys and Hitler and bitches. I think he thought since I was a white boy from Maryland I was a farmer or something. He would often call me a farmer when I did something that looked sloppy.

I can understand where Charlie came from,  I know why he acted this way. The Executive Chef, Chef Doug McNeil was an Old School chef from Scotland and just as hard and mean. A monster even. But a master at the craft. Once Charlie told us of a Christmas Eve where the chef had screamed at him all night. Charlie really got it good and he left without telling the chef Merry Christmas.

I myself had a Thanks giving Day with the Chef. One of my first Holidays at The Four Seasons. The Chef called Charlie and told him to send down a case of Anjou Pears. So guess who went down to the Banquet kitchen? I got down there and the chef sent the pears back, screaming they were to green. The next case was given to me by receiving and my dumb ass didn’t check it, and it was Bosc Pears. Charlie was running down the hall ( the chef had called upstairs and screamed at him) with my third case to meet me ” I thought he said they were the wrong kind. I can’t understand the fucker” He had a very heavy accent.

I got in the banquet kitchen with the case of pears and set it by the chefs table for him and turned to head out. But when I turned around  ” Here! where are you going! Do I look like a pear pealer to you? Hey Chef Richard Do I look like I peel pairs for a living?” ” No Chef ” with a smile. I turned around and the chef calmly turns to me gets me a Chinese mandoline and calmly shows me how he wants the pairs done, half peeled and jullienne and half jullienned with the peels on. I set to work “no problem Chef” knowing that upstairs Gerald is waiting and I’m supposed to be helping prepare and set up for what could be one of the most important and busiest nights of the year.

I however was in heaven as far as cooks go. I was working one on one with THE chef. On his specials for tonight, Thanksgiving! Upstairs they knew there was nothing they could do. I was called by the chef and one thing the chef had taught them was to always be prepared for a wrench in the plan.

That was how it went for about two more years, until I finally got out from under the new guy stigma. There was plenty of new people after that and I was expected to do my job with no oversight needed. I had been trained in the ways of Chef McNeils kitchen and I should be able to handle anything. That’s the thing. I worked for two Monsters. I could have left. I tried to leave many times in my four year span there. Nothing seemed to be as good as The Four Seasons. There were other big time restaurants in town. I didn’t want to go to another place where I’d have to prove my self to a bunch of egotistical artists again. I felt I had done some good time and I wanted to be a big part of a sucessful team. Not just another New Guy.