I fought the stage and the stage won

I bet you think the word stage rhymes with rage.  Wrong.  In this case it is a French word that rhymes with dodge.  (Originally, in my ignorance, I thought it was spelled stodge.)  What is staging?  It is the grand tradition of working for free in a kitchen to gain knowledge, a sort of kitchen apprentice.  Most people can't afford to do long stages anymore (could they ever?), so the modern meaning is more of working a shift or two for free to see if you fit in the kitchen.  A try out, so to speak.

Last Friday, I got to stage at Bouchon.  Yup, Thomas Keller's Bouchon.  They actually called me (!); the interview went well - I bonded with human resources over french fries and epis (baguettes shaped like wheat stalks).  But it doesn't matter how well I can charm the human resources, what matters now is how will I fare in the kitchen?

So the stage was set and...

Look, I know I wouldn't be walking into a Thomas Keller kitchen and be allowed to actually do much.  And I know that high volume kitchens have a lot of grunt work to be done and it's important that it's done correctly because it's the foundation for everything.  (Cue the "there are no small parts, only small actors" mindset.)  But it was a bit more mindless than I realized it would be.

To begin, I was nervous.  Like throw up in the bathroom before I walked into the kitchen nervous.  But once I got in and had my tour and met everybody (only about three of whom's names I actually remember), I was more or less fine.  The kitchen is beautiful - it's on the second floor, surprisingly airy and light filled.  There are less pleasant places to toil away for hours certainly.

What did I do?  Portioned: 100 pounds of cookie dough, (I wish I were exaggerating), coffee cake batter, bouchon batter.  Then I got to zest and juice 70 lemons.  All the while I cleaned and maintained my station, cater wrapped everything and generally tried to stay out of the way.

Though I felt I acquitted myself well but I left with a feeling of failure and defeat.  True to form, I have not heard a peep from them since.  And yes, I did call to thank everyone.  Even more discouraging?  I wasn't the only one staging, I wasn't even the only pastry person staging.  Though I did stay the longest.  10 hours.

So there you have it folks.  Odds are if you have eaten a chocolate chip cookie in the past week at the Beverly Hills Bouchon, it was lovely scooped by none other than me.  It will have been delicious, of course.  The bitterness didn't come until later.