Duck ... Wear Sunglasses

Life is hard in the big city.

If you’re a duck.

You get used to people who know you, talk to you, feed you. They treat you real nice-like here.

Then you notice that some of your friends go missing. There’s a pattern. They go on Wednesdays.

Then, one Wednesday, your number comes up.


I spent most of yesterday kneecapping ducks.

Chef laid it down. “You see the ducks in the box? Kneecap ‘em.” Sounded cool-like, kinda detached, like he was barely there. Couldn’t look at me when he said it. He was calling to me from inside the frig.

I work for Chef. He says ‘”Kneecap ducks”: I do it.

Life is hard in the big city if you’re a duck.

I put some Blues Brothers on the player. “Baby, Dontcha Want To Go?” Cranked up the volume. Gotta go out rockin’. Put on my glasses.

Then I went for the ducks.


I kneecapped the ducks, frenched the lower legs, disposed of the feet. Chef seasoned them and they went into vacuum-seal bags with a little EVO (extra-virgin olive oil). I ran the machine for about 10 minutes, and the legs spent all last night and will spend most of today in a very slow oven, stewing in their own juices. They will be delicious.

See steamy oven picture (above).

It’s a duck’s life.

Way to go.

Quack.

No funky chicken for this Chef. He got duck.

I Smell Like Fish

A Brief Observation On The FISH

Fish in this trattoria come in three ways ... jarred, frozen and very recently dead.

The jarred (anchovies) are mainly used with tartare (beef and rabbit).

The frozen sometimes are popular ... Cogollo is deep in the mountainous area of NE Italy, and there is no fresh fish outlet here serving crab, shrimp, lobster, cod, hake or scampi. We have to make do with frozen.

The recently dead I have become depressingly familliar with today ... I smell like fish and scallops. I’ve shucked about 6 dozen scallops this morning before 10, and followed that up with about an hour and a half of dealing with a variety of Branzino and Orata.

Each of these comes expired. Dead. And entirely whole, complete; ready for the breath of life, I suppose, if they weren’t packed in ice.

Each starts by having all fins but the dorsal removed with scissors, then removal of the scales with a scale-scraper.

The Orata are gutted from below (slit the belly) and then have the gills removed. Thus the belly can be packed with seasoning, and the fish presented to the customer. It will look like a fish.

The Branzino are dealt with in a more complicated fashion. After removing the fins and scales, I start with removing the gills. Then I make two slits along the back, cutting down into the beast from the top on either side of the dorsal fin, right down to, but not through, the belly-skin. Then I remove the backbone in one piece, gut the fish, remove bones and finish by turning it almost inside-out. The fish is then ready to have the inside dressed (porcini, potatoes, whatever inspires Chef), the fish to be baked or roasted, and served.

Today I had about 20 fish to do in less than two hours, And clean all the scallops. This was to be done before noon. And make bread from scratch ... four different kinds, properly weighed, using a delicious natural fruit yeast starter. And make sure the bread has time to rise (about an hour), and get baked, and the kitchen to cool down so I don’t wreck the fish by working with them in a hot kitchen.

Then the trattoria opened for business and it has been a non-stop day of up the stairs to the large refrigerator, down the stairs to the patisserie. Fetch this, find that. Yes, Chef, No, Chef. Cut up rabbit to make a small ragout to go with mini gnocci, saute beef tournedos, shell and prepare shrimp, deal with a lot of vegetables, make creme brulee in several forms (including a deadly pistachio one!), make gelato, run a vacuum-sealing machine, disembowel and dismember a rabbit, french some lamb chops, make salads, prepare baked bufalo mozarella six times, flambee something I can’t even remember now, and deal with a gazilion small things that just need to be done and right now and fast and 10 minutes ago and why don’t you know what this is in Italian yet? Yes, Chef! A working commercial kitchen at full throttle is an unforgiving place ... the pressure is intense ... the drive for perfection and creativity enormous.

Part of my job is to learn the menu, not by name so much as by the ingredients and processes so I can anticipate what Chef will need. This sometimes means making a run to the freezer in advance of a need, or getting up three hours early so the bread can be made and the kitchen will be free when Chef comes in at 11. Many of my work days start at about 8:30 in the morning, and we just quit a few minutes ago and it is gone midnight.

This student-cook is writing to you, and enjoying a good, well-chilled beer.

Trattoria Life Starts

I live above a trattoria in Italy.

The time in ALMA school is over now, and all of us from George Brown Chef School in Toronto, and ALMA in Italy, are out on stage, at trattorias, restaurants, hotels and fine spas all over Italy. Some students have gone to small places in Sicily, some to large cities. One is in Venice, one in Bologna. Students are in Savona, Piacenza, Cortona, Cuneo, Rome, Parma; all over the place. ALMA has placed us with the finest cooks and chefs in Italy.

A trattoria is not a large restaurant ... it is more of a small, intimate operation, run by two or three people, completely dedicated to the typical produce of the area. For me, the ‘trattoria’ implies a work-in-progress, a personal investigation on the part of the Chef.

In Italy the idea of ‘typical’ is everywhere in the food world ... I see advertisements for typical food on little bars, trattorias, almost everywhere. It is a concept that most people here take enormous pride in, and have deep concern for. Typical implies respect for the land (so it can keep producing), for the methods used, for the presentation, cooking methods, wines available, even the manner of presentation (see the previous blog about Mr. Marchesi for deeper detail on this.) Manner and style are very important here ... nothing is just cranked out and banged down in front of customers who happen to lurch through the doors ... the choice of where to dine, when and with whom is carefully and deliberately made. (Canadians who have not travelled much have SO much to learn from this concept!)

I have the good fortune to work with Chef Cristian Zana at his trattoria, “Trattoria All’Isola” in Cogollo, near Vicenza, about 100 km to the west of Venice. Chef has had the trattoria open for about 7 years. He runs the kitchen and his delightful partner, Sylvia, runs the front-of-house operation. Sylvia is a sommelier, highly-trained and knowledgeable. Sylvia and Chef have welcomed me with open arms into their life of work and play. They are bright, very talented and enthusiastic. And they set one furious pace! Everything here is hand-made. We get along well in a mix of their excellent Italian and our self-generated mash-up of English and Italian. Their concern for my learning is strongly evident. They are unfailingly kind and generous.

A few examples will suffice, I think, to demonstrate the furious pace. I arrived on Friday at about 4 in the afternoon, and after taking a fast nap of 25 minutes , and taking time to change into whites, I went to work in the kitchen starting at about 5 until 1 in the morning. We served 2 people that night ... customers linger ...

Chef had me watch some operations and executions for the first 20 minutes, firing off fairly rapid Italian mixed with some English. Then I had to start producing ... and managed to. Last night (my second in the trattoria) we served 17 customers (a large number for this small place and tiny kitchen) ... our work evening started at about 5 PM and we walked out of the restaurant together at 1:45 AM to go for pizza! I rolled into bed just before 3.

Chef had me making parts of dishes ... steak tartare, prep of many vegetables, making bread, making pasta, making a kind of vegetable tortellini, plating dishes, making octopus salad, peeling spuds, carrots and running for him to the refrigerator (up a flight of ancient stairs), to the freezers, to the patisserie area, helping with making sauces, preparing rabbit ragout, preparing duck legs, running a vacuum-seal machine, forming pasta frolla into tiny baking dishes, and making it all a joy! His Mum comes in at night and runs the dishwasher and cleans, and Sylvia looks after making sure everything goes through the door on time, in order. What an operation.

And what a joy to be part of ... work hard and play hard. As Andrew, one of the other George Brown students said when we were all together at ALMA, “Face it ... We’re a bunch of adrenaline junkies getting our fix playing with sharp objects and peoples’ digestive systems.” He was right.

Everything we were taught at George Brown Chef School in Toronto and at ALMA is absolutely correct. Thanks, George Brown and ALMA.

With this entry are three photos only ... the kitchen at the trattoria and one of the general area of the town. And one of chef Zana and Sylvia.

Cogollo is deep in the Dolomites, and when I look out of my window in the morning I gaze across the road and village at gorgeous mountain scenery and a little hamlet. Cogollo will be home for almost 3 months for stage.

Today’s question is from Chef Zana ... when you put food on a plate, what are you doing?