The Chef Apprentice

Pretend you are me. You are sweating. You are standing over a hot stove, stirring a ragu. It's a hot day outside, and the air conditioning and ventilation systems in the restaurant kitchen aren't working well.

To beat the heat, you first pour yourself a glass of ice water, and you attach your name to it with masking tape. That way, no other chef will steal your water or drink from it with their sweaty, sauce-stained lips.

But hydration isn't enough. You need to chill out. So you turn down the flame on your ragu and take a trip to the "walk-in."

Ahhh. That feels good.

The walk-in is just like its name implies. It's a refrigerator that you can walk into. At Oliveto, the walk-in is about 6 by 12 feet wide and 81 inches tall. It is kept at a constant temperature of 39 degrees Fahrenheit.

Stepping into it is like going from a Sacramento summer to Alaska, except that the cupboards are filled with Italian treats.

On your left, as you enter, are trays and trays of fresh, hand-made pasta. Above those are some meats - perhaps some hams or prosciutto. Straight ahead are more meats - pans of lovingly prepared hen breasts, or rabbit legs or meat scraps for a sugo. To the left side might be some handmade sausages and salami. Above that you might see a pig's foot sticking out from a top shelf.

To the right are the condiment trays and leftover sauces and then further to the right are vegetables, raw and prepared, as well as herbs and salad greens. Be careful as you walk around. Down on the floor are several five-gallon buckets filled with stocks - lamb stock, fish stock, goat stock, etc. You don't want to kick those as you move around.

The Chef Apprentice never knows what his first assignment may be upon arriving in the morning.

My first job today? Cleaning and cutting up ten pounds of squid.

By now, some of you may be grossing out at the photo. Yuck! But this wasn't any squid. It was super fresh, straight from the Monterey Bay, and it was going to be turned into a luscious squid braise -- the launch of a particular pasta sauce at Oliveto. 

My first step was to pull the head apart from the mantle -- the main body of the squid -- thereby pulling out the innards. Then I carefully extracted a piece of cartilage, the transparent "quill" that is inside each squid mantle. Using my paring knife, I pushed out all the guts and threw them in a waste container.

The next step involved cutting the squid between the eyes and tentacles and taking out and tossing the "beak," which the squid uses for chewing. The tentacles are then placed in a pan on ice, along with the clean mantles.

With help of Denise Cadet, a nurse and prep chef who works part time at Oliveto (seen left), I spent the latter part of the morning performing this operation on each squid, and then cutting the mantles into half-inch rings. I'm taking a lunch break now. In a few minutes, we'll heat up some olive oil, cook some garlic and mirepoix in a stew pot, and then start braising the squid.

Squid is nearly a year-round menu item at Oliveto, although it is prepared in many different ways.

My favorite is charcoal-grilled squid stuffed with a savory bread stuffing that includes shrimp and herbs.

Yuck, squid? No, yum squid.

Photos by Stuart Leavenworth

One perk of this sabbatical, other than the delicious food I sample each day, is the chance to read the blogs of other food writers. There are zillions of 'em. If you were to throw a stone in the Bay Area alone, you'd likely hit a food blogger.

Yet some are better than others. One of my favorites is David Lebovitz, written by a former pastry chef for Chez Panisse who has been living the sweet life in Paris since 2002. David's blog has luscious photos of chocolate and other desserts, recipes and tales of exploration.

He even offers tours, including one on May 10-16 that promises to take you to "the hidden laboratories and shops of master Parisian chocolatiers."

It sounds so good I'm tempted to take a sabbatical from my sabbatical.

Today, with the help of Brandon Trammel at The Bee, I updated my blog roll to reflect what the Chef Apprentice is reading. If you have a tasty food blog that should be on my list, post a comment below or send me an email.

Photo courtesy of David Lebovitz.

In my opening installment that described my first day at Oliveto, Chef Paul Canales used his small French paring knife to 'turn' a potato, and then he handed it to me to do the same on a whole bucket of spuds.

That prompted several readers to ask: Why turn a potato? Why not use a peeler? What is the advantage of turning and paring it with a sharp knife, potential risking a thumb?

It's a reasonable question, and one I was asked again today by Jeffrey Callison on his radio show, "Insight," on Capitol Public Radio. (Find the archive of the interview here.)

The answer is fairly easy. If you are working with a big russet potato, which may be used for dicing or slicing, a potato peeler is fine. But if you are working with a smaller new potato, such as Yukon Gold, you might want to turn it and pare it, particularly if you want to shape all of the spuds into uniform shapes so they cook in a consistent manner.

Chef Canales also had this to add: "On the day you came in, I needed someone to turn some potatoes. So you were there, and I needed potatoes, so I had you turn a few."

So there. It wasn't just an exercise in hazing, or a brutal audition, as some have surmised. The chef needed some spuds. And as we have learned in the kitchen, the chef is always right. Always. 

Photo by The Bee's Carl Costas of me "turning" a potato.

So am I sick of food now that I work with it five days a week?

No way. I still maintain a garden plot. It is currently producing peas, broccoli, arugula, parsley, spinach, onions and strawberries that keep me busy. I also hit the Sacramento farmers market this morning, where, on a lark, I purchased some Medjool dates.

Dates are the fruits of a desert palm, Phoenix dactylifera. According to Harold McGee, author of "On Food and Cooking," farmers in the Middle East and Africa began irrigating and pollinating these date palms more than 5,000 years ago.

The dates I purchased today came from a more local artificial oasis. They were grown in the Imperial Valley, where water from the Colorado River has transformed the desert into a vast farming region.

So what did I do with my Southern Calfornia dates? I married them with a Northern California goat cheese. On the jump are photos and a recipe for California Medjool dates stuffed with goat cheese, pistachios, lemon and rosemary.

The Chef Apprentice hits the radio airwaves Monday at 10 a.m.

Jeffrey Callison, host of Capitol Public Radio's "Insight," is curious why a journalist would take leave from a prestigious editorial board to risk his fingers -- fingers that are essential for typing -- to work as kitchen slave for no pay, for six months.

It's a good question. It's one I ask myself many days, as I do this crazy train-bike commute daily between Sacramento and the Bay Area. Tune in on Monday morning to find out what kind of answer I pull out of my toque.

"Insight" is broadcast daily at 10 a.m. during the work week on Capitol Public Radio -- KXJZ-FM, 90.9 in Sacramento. And now, back to work...

Self-portrait shot today on Amtrak, passing by the vernal pools of Yolo County.

Fava beans? Asparagus? Artichokes? I love them all -- I've prepared them all. In a matter of weeks, I'm no longer scared of my wonderfully sharp Shun paring knife. It is my friend, and it's helped me prepare boxes of 'chokes this month.

But let's face it. An intern at Oliveto doesn't want to just prepare vegetables. He or she wants to cook some meat.

And so on Wednesday I moved to my next challenge - the preparation of a sugo.

The sugo is the foundation for many a meat dish at Oliveto. It means "sauce" in Italian, but that doesn't begin to describe it. The sugo is the result of browning scraps of meat and vegetables, gradually building up a brown layer of caramelized solids in the pan. These you deglaze and reduce, deglaze and reduce as you rebuild the foundation - la fond, as the French say it - again and again.

When finished, after a full day of work, you have an intense and naturally thickened sauce that goes perfectly with the finer cuts of meat.

Pellegrino Artusi, a 19th century Florentine silk merchant and gastronome, described a sugo di carne in his seminal cookbook, "The Art of Eating Well," which he self-published in 1891.

"You really should watch a good chef make this sauce," wrote Artusi. "I hope, however, that my instructions will allow you to produce at least good, if not excellent results."

I feel the same way. Words can only hint at the nuances involved with making a sugo. But if you are passionate about making Italian food, you should have this sauce in your repertoire. The following photos and instructions may inspire you.

Vegetarians beware: The Chef Apprentice is rapidly transitioning to the world of preparing and cooking meat.

If this offends you, or if you are a carnivore who would rather not know how your meat gets from farm to plate, then avert your eyes.

As for the rest of you, keep reading and learn. I'm sure learning.

Yesterday, Executive Chef Paul Canales instructed the interns, including yours truly, on how to properly cut up a leg of pork -- this one being a 25-pounder that had just arrived from Riverdog Farm in Yolo County.

First Paul judiciously cut off the skin and fat layer on the leg. Then he used a saw to cut off the hock and trotter (feet), as you can see in the photo to the left.

In a matter of minutes, using a sharp, curved boning knife, he had taken apart this leg and separated it into the top round, the bottom round, the top sirloin, the eye of round and the knuckle. And he made it seem so easy.

Sorry I don't have a video of the process. I'll work on that in the future.

Later today, I'll post an extensive entry, with photos, on how to make a "sugo di carne" -- a highly reduced, basic meat sauce that is at the heart of fine Italian cooking. At Oliveto, they make this sauce nearly everyday, using scraps of lamb, goat, pigeon, pork or whatever is left over.

I made my first sugo yesterday, and it was a success. Check back this evening for more info. I need to get into the kitchen right now for another day of learning and cooking. 

Photo by Stuart Leavenworth, showing Paul Canales (left) and Pablo "Tigre" Mendoza Gavito in the background. 

Since launching the Chef Apprentice blog a week ago, readers and amateur chefs have sent me a number of touching responses.

"Some of us are living a dream through you."

"I'm doing this whole process vicariously through your experience."

"You are on a journey that will both inspire and fulfill a cook's need for adventure."

I also received questions. One of the best came from Otis, a retired commercial truck driver from Fresno, who sent me an email entitled, "Can I be a chef 2?"

In a subsequent email, Otis told me he's taking culinary classes at his city college and likes Cajun cuisine and food with Asian influences. He wants to know where to start.

"My question to you is: Can I become apprentice chef in training like you?" Otis wrote in an email. "If so, where at?  And to whom do I communicate this interest to?"

I was so taken aback by this question that I decided to pose it to Paul Canales, the executive chef of Oliveto. Here's Paul's advice:

Here's the question I hear most often from my friends back in Sacramento:

"Do you still have all of your fingers?"

Ha-ha. Such a funny bunch I run with.

"Oh yeah," I respond. "All digits attached."

Or sometimes, just to play along, I will display one of my hands, with one finger hidden, as in the photo to the right.

If you work in a restaurant kitchen, you must keep good humor about potential injuries. Otherwise, you'd likely move to a safer occupation - like working in the Alaskan crab fishery.

The reality, of course, is that a nasty knife cut or burn can come at any moment. As readers of my first installment remember, I cut into myself (just slightly) on my first day.

Since then, I've seen two other chefs - ones with more experience than this rookie - nearly fillet their thumbs.

As this internship and this blog progresses, I plan to spend time with farmers who supply Oliveto with meat and seasonal produce. One of the first farms on my list is Riverdog Farm in Yolo County.

Whoops. As it turns out, Trini Campbell has beaten me to the punch. Trini and her husband, Tim Mueller, own Riverdog, a 300-acre organic farm in the Capay Valley. In Sunday's Forum section of The Bee, she has written a first-person account of their life on the farm.

Spend some time with this story. Trini is a graceful writer and an accomplished farmer. Her story is illustrative of how multitalented people are being drawn to the art and science of producing food, even with the hard work involved.

Over the last week at Oliveto, I've helped to prepare stuffed pasta with Riverdog Farm pork and to wrap pancetta around asparagus recently harvested from Riverdog's fields. The farm's meat and produce is consistently first-rate, thanks to Trini and Tim.

Photo of Trini Campbell by The Bee's Randall Benton.

My day at Oliveto usually starts with several close encounters with vegetables.

Lately, I've been spending a lot of time with boxes of artichokes, asparagus, fava beans and baby carrots.

I'm also gaining expertise in the preparation of green garlic - a seasoning agent for all sorts of spring dishes on the menu.

Green garlic is the stock of a garlic clove that hasn't fully matured. It resembles a scallion. Some cooks prefer it because it doesn't have the clingy, oily and sometimes overwhelming flavor of regular garlic.

So how do you prepare it? Here is one way:

First you trim the tops of the green garlic, leaving about 2 inches of the green leafy part above the white stock. Then you use your well-sharpened chef's knife to finely chop the white stock and remaining green part.

This chopped garlic goes into a mortar and pestle - something that should be part of every home chef's armory. At Oliveto, the kitchen is equipped with a pair of heavy stone mortars, like those used by the Aztecs.

This gig exhausts me. I'm on my feet eight hours a day. My feet are sore. My back aches. But at Oliveto, there are some perks to being a chef-in-training - the nightly "testers."

The restaurant changes its menu daily. And because of that, the line cooks - those manning the wood-fired oven, the saute station, the pasta station and the salad station - prepare sample dishes on the menu, particularly the new items, every single night.

As these plates come off the line, the sous chefs and other chefs gather around, sticking their forks in beautifully plated food, tasting it and critiquing it.

If a plate passes the test, it is taken to the back of the kitchen where the service staff conducts their own critique. If the chefs find fault in a dish, it is redone or scrubbed from the menu.

Tonight I hung around for the testers to learn what had become of the food I prepared and to sample some.

The roasted beets that I lovingly peeled became an artful antipasto, paired with fresh mozzarella, Cipolline onions and salsa rustica.

The potatoes I diced were flash-fried and tossed on the edge of a charcoal-grilled swordfish with spring onions and aioli. These golden cubes of spud added a crispy texture to the fish.

I had already bloodied my thumb and forced my chef friend Paul Canales to rescue a lamb dish I had oversalted. Thus, I assumed that, on Day Three of my apprenticeship, the Oliveto restaurant would relegate me to a job suited to my talents - such as sweeping the floor.

But on Day Three, Oliveto allowed me to me redeem myself. I helped prepare a rather tricky dish called a Sformatino - a vegetarian entree.

My day in the kitchen started at 10 a.m. At that point, I had been up for four hours, having biked to the Sacramento Amtrak station, loaded the bike on the train, disembarked in Berkeley and cycled eight miles (mostly uphill) to the Oliveto restaurant in Rockridge.

My heart was pumping as I entered the kitchen. A savory pigeon stock simmered on one of the burners, and the kitchen was bustling with interns chopping up vegetables and removing the innards from squid.

In the back room, Pablo Mendoza Gavito, otherwise known as "Tigre," was breaking down a lamb with the help of an intern. Mexican music drifted from a boom box, adding a festive air to the normal rhythms of the morning.

I grabbed a white jacket, apron and two towels from the linen closet, and after washing my hands, I reported to Paul Berglund, one of three sous chefs at the restaurant.

"You," said Berglund, "are going to make a bechamel sauce."

"You do know how to make a bechamel sauce, right?"

Upon starting at Oliveto on April 1, I assumed it would be weeks, even months, before I cooked anything of real value. After all, why would a fancy restaurant - one with a food rating of 25 in the Zagat Guide - assign a mere novice to cook for their customers?

Yet at the start of my second day, April 2, Chef Paul Canales informed me I would be browning and braising lamb that morning. To power up, I immediately went downstairs to the Oliveto cafe and poured a strong jolt of coffee.

In retrospect, I should have poured myself a double.

Welcome to The Chef Apprentice. For at least the next six months, this blog will provide an intimate portrait of life inside a restaurant kitchen, seen through the eyes of a novice. On April 1, I started interning at Oliveto, an Italian restaurant in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland.

A recap of my first few days in the kitchen ran today in The Bee's Food and Wine section. You can also find a copy of it in the entry below. The Bee's Carl Costas also produced a superb slide show of life within the kitchen. You can find it here.

Along with chronicling my trials and errors, I plan to profile the chefs and employees at Oliveto and the farmers who supply the restaurant. I also will offer regular cooking tips from the pros, and recipes that are suitable to home chefs, such as myself.

This is going to be a wild and unpredictable journey. I hope you'll join me on it, five days a week. Send me your thoughts and questions. When I'm not chopping, stirring, cooking and sweating, I'll answer them as promptly as I can.

The first day of my apprenticeship started - and nearly ended - with a wicked little devil of a knife.

The devil in question was a 2¾-inch Thiers Issard paring knife, an old-school French design that sports a handle longer than its blade.

I had never clutched such a knife before. But on my first day interning at Oliveto, an Italian restaurant in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, I was handed one by executive chef Paul Canales.

"Stu, I'm going to have you turn some potatoes," the chef said.

This was new to me. For my entire life, I had used a potato peeler, and I had "peeled" them, not "turned" them. Now, in the kitchen of a highly rated restaurant, with a crew of chefs watching me, I was about to wield a menacing and unfamiliar blade.

Imitating what Chef Paul had just demonstrated, I cut off both ends of a potato. I then folded my right index finger over the spine of the knife, cradling the handle in my palm. Slowly turning the potato in my left hand, I attempted to swipe the skin off in a series of back strokes.

"Keep trying," the chef said. "You'll get the hang of it."

Then he walked away. As soon as he did, I somehow stuck the point of the knife into my left thumb. Blood ran out, and my apprenticeship had barely started.

Improper knife care is one of the biggest mistakes that home chefs make. Some people spend hundreds of dollars on a knife set and then fall into bad habits that will dull their blades or cause other knife damage.

Mimicking what they've seen on television, home chefs will use the edge of their chef's knife to scrape minced parsley or veggies into a pile, and then flick it into a bowl.

Don't do this. Knife edges are intended for cutting, not scraping. Using them in this way quickly dulls the blade, particularly if you are chopping on a plastic cutting board.

Instead, use the back of the knife -- the spine -- to pile up and collect your cut food. Or use a scraper, a 4-by-6-inch tool that is handy for all kinds of tasks, including scraping bread dough off a board.

If you choose to use the or spine of the knife, just be careful when you have changed grips. At that point the knife edge will be pointing up instead of down.

Be certain nobody else is around when you do that fancy wrist flick to scrape veggies into a bowl.

During my first busy week at Oliveto, I had a mental lapse and scraped with the knife edge. Another chef noticed and reminded me of the proper technique. Too bad we all can't have  experienced cooks looking over our shoulders.