of milk crates, loaded with plastic-wrapped côtes du boeuf, entrecôtes,
rumpsteaks, racks of lamb, lamb stewmeat, merguez, saucisson de
Toulouse, rosette, pork belly, onglets, scraps, meat for tartare, pork
tenderloins larded with bacon and garlic, pâtés, rillettes, galantines and
chickens. I sign for it and push the stack around the corner for Segundo
to rotate into my stock. Still downstairs, I start loading up milk crates of
my own. I try to get everything I need for the day into as few loads as
possible, limiting my trips up and down the Stairmaster as much as I
can. I have a feeling I'm going to get hit on lunch today and I'll be up and
down those stairs like a jack-in-the-box tonight, so those extra trips
make a difference. Into my crates go the pork, the liver, the pavées,
filets, some duck breasts, a bag of fava beans, herbs and vinegar for
sauce. I give Ramon, the dishwasher, a list of additional supplies for him
to haul up—the sauces to be reduced, the grated cheese—easily
recognizable stuff he won't need a translator or a search party to locate.
On my station (sauté), I've got only a six-burner Garland to work with.
There's another range next to it which is taken up with a bain-marie for
sauces and onion soup, the rest of it with stocks—veal, chicken, lamb;
and pork—which will be reducing at a slow simmer all day and into the
night. One of my burners during service will be occupied permanently by
a pot of water for Omar to dunk ravioli in, leaving me five with which to
work. Another burner, my front right, will be used mostly by him as
well, to sauté lardons for frisée salads, to sear tidbits of hanger steak for
onglet salad, for sautéing diced potatoes in duck fat for the confit de
canard, and the cockles—which will leave me, most likely, with three
full-time burners with which to prepare a wide range of dishes, any one
of which alone could require two burners for a single plate. Soon, there'll
be a choo-choo train of sauté pans lined up waiting for heat, requiring
constant prioritizing. If I get a six-top, for instance, with an order for,
say, two orders of magret de moulard, a porc mignon, a cassoulet, a
boudin noir and a pasta, that's nine sauté pans needed for that table
alone.