Week 5: Crunchify!

This weekend was a lot of fun but also exhausting. It all started with the volunteering at the Food Network’s Wine and Food Festival Burger Bash. I arrived at the location at the scheduled time ready to go, however that day was very cold, I had checked the address and it was close to the water on Pier 36 on a place called Basketball city, so I had assumed it was indoors. Well, it wasn’t. The volunteer director assigned me a “very big job”, which was standing next to the freezer truck and making sure that from now on and during the event all the meat boxes that came in out of the truck were properly labeled with the restaurant’s name. You had to be kidding me! I knew that volunteering meant doing whatever I was told to do, but this was inhumane. My knees were shaking my hands were turning purple (like the joke in Spanish: no siento ni las paticas, ni las alitas, ni el piquito). So after 45 minutes, I thought what the hell I am going to talk to the coordinator. I told her : “Hi, listen I am not complaining, but you didn’t give me heads up that it was outdoors, and unfortunately I am not dressed properly to spend the night next to a freezer truck with this weather, and I cannot allow myself to get sick I have class this weekend so…” Thank god she immediately spoke with the director, I was a culinary student and I was supposed to be helping a chef, not guarding the truck. So the director came by with 2 young girls that were dressed worse than me, and said to them “I have a very big job for you, Anabella hand them the sharpie” I felt so bad for them, but oh well. He then asked to change into my uniform, and report to Bobby Flay’s booth. Bobby Flay! Yes!!!!.http://bobbyflay.com/

It was so cold, that I left my sweat pants on, put on my chefs pants, left my shirt under the jacket, and headed to Booby’s Burger Palace’s booth. I introduced myself, met the guys and was ready to work. They asked me to wear a BBP T-shirt, so I asked for a large and wore it on top of my jacket, hence I look like a piñata in the picture, but at least I wasn’t that cold. I was asked to put together the plates and napkins, which was basically impossible with all the wind, did I mentioned the wind??? I then was put at the end of the “assembly line” for the burgers. My job was to “crunchify” the burgers. Let me explain. I had to take 5 to 6 chips, make a little tower, take the top bun, and put a stick in the middle. Seems easy right? .No. When we did the first run through, the head chef said: Anabella that is wrong! Wrong! ( in my head I was laughing because I felt I was in an episode of hell’s kitchen), and seriously I had no idea how it was supposed to be done, so more power to me for trying. So according to him, I had to take the top bun with my left hand pick the chips with my right put them on the bun, hold the chips with my thumb, put them on top of the burger like “pillowwwws”  and then put the stick through the middle with my right hand, the burger needed to have height. I can assure you performing surgery is easier. This “method” is Bobby Flay’s signature thing –adding the tower of chips- you can add it to any of his burgers and it’s called to crunchify.  If you want to learn more about the art of crunchifying visit: http://www.bobbysburgerpalace.com/index.php

 The VIP’s started to arrive around 6:30, and the pace was fine, I had time to put “the pilowwwws” perfectly. But then the chef warned us “prepare yourselves for this, we are going to have tons of people coming at us at the same time, and we need to stay on top of the game, we need to win, are we ready to crunchifyyyy!!!????” Yes Chef! I cannot explain the amount of people that showed up at the same time, just imagine that Bobby’s had 2000 beef patties. So my plan of going around trying burgers, taking pictures and meeting chefs went immediately out the window! Still shaking because of the cold, I started assembling burgers like there was no tomorrow, to hell with the “pillowwwws” we had to do it fast. The last time I had heard faster, faster was during a spinning class in 1995. Once in a while I recognized a voice and put my head up: oh! There’s Rachel Ray, oh! There’s Alex Guarnaschelli , Kathy Griffin, Alain Ducasse! I did meet Bobby Flay, but we only exchanged hello and thank you. Finally at 10, the event came to an end; I hadn’t had water, peed or eaten since 3 p.m. At the end I asked to try a burger, which was delicious – goat cheese, honey mustard, watercress, crunchifieeeed- the guys were in shock that I hadn’t eaten anything, but I was fine, I smelled like a grill – since I kept standing next to it to get warm-, tired, but super excited, . We said our goodbyes and the most rewarding part was when they gave me their cards and said to me: “You did an awesome job, if you ever need a job, a reference or whatever please call us”. That made everything worth it!

Class this weekend was good, we finally made all the stocks possible, I think I did well on my test, and had my assignment typed and printed ready to be handed in. We did had to butcher a leg of lamb, and I basically channeled “Dexter” and chopped away, I made a big mess, and apparently I didn’t “follow the boooone” which is what our Chef tells us every time. At least I didn’t cut myself.  We also learned to make, roux, and beurre marie, which are thickening agents, and of course we chopped and chopped like crazy.

Next week we finally get to make the mother sauces: Béchamel, Espagnole, Hollandaise, Velouté and Tomato Sauce. I can’t wait until next Saturday.