Sonoma Summer: That's a Wrap!

We have so much to discuss, gang.

Sep 04, 2024

My friends! My family! My certified goofballs united! I cannot express adequately what a welcome pleasure it is to be speaking with you on this day. As I write this, I am a number of weeks removed from my final day at SingleThread, cozied up back in MN, feeling my health meter crawl gradually back to 100. I thought this day would never come! And yet, here we find ourselves.

Let me own up to something right away before we dive in, eh? I did not uphold my promise to write monthly this summer. In fact, I failed so miserably that it’s been over two months since our last chat. Please boo me in the comments, hurl those rotten tomatoes, lock me in the stockade in the town square, I deserve every bit of it.

To provide some context for my deafening silence, those two months without a peep were chock-full of the toughest kitchen days I have experienced in my young career. No doubt about it!

Some factors that contributed to that reality:

Those hugely busy weeks ahead that I predicted in June’s edition arrived with maximum force! When I began, the sous chef who trained me in said the busiest he’d ever seen the restaurant in the multiple years he’d worked there was one night of 78 reservations. In July and August, we routinely saw nights of 80+ and many more of mid-70s throughout each week. That was —> a lot! Our prep list it was lengthy, the walk-in it was jam-packed, the deliveries from our purveyors they did tower over me.
And as the summer progressed, so too did the range of fruit and veg coming through the door each day. Eggplant, squash plus their blossoms, lettuces, cucumbers, peppers, flowers galore, herbs, berries, the whole shebang. But perhaps the starkest sign of peak summer was the tomatoes. Crate after crate of little beauties with adorable names like sungolds, sweet 100s, and champagnes were spread out on sheet pans and nestled shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder on a rolling speed rack in our dry storage. In June, I was organizing the speed rack one afternoon – consolidating each produce variety, trying my best to save space and preserve freshness – and a line cook walked by and remarked ‘just you wait until this entire rack is full of tomatoes.’ At the time, it held a couple sheets of tomatoes, peaches, apricots, apples, bananas, lemons, and limes. As I surveyed the rack, I tried to conceive of a world in which that was even remotely possible. Where would the fruit go? How would we manage so much inventory? Stunningly (and apparently inevitably), a few weeks later, the rack was stuffed with exclusively tomatoes, as was written in the stars. I would estimate thousands were in our rotation on any given day. And when that storage filled up, it was time to play high-stakes Jenga and pile the remaining crates wherever they’d fit. And the fruit that once called the speed rack home? We migrated it to the walk-in where it likely displaced another tray of fruit or avocados or mushrooms who now needed a new home. And so it was now up to us to find a new resting place for all THAT produce. And on and on and on and on, you get the idea. As much of a constant test as that workflow was, it sure was fun to open the door to the walk-in as the summer wound down and be able to immediately diagnose what was out of place, what should be reorganized, and how best to restore our precious storage space to its former consolidated glory.
Considering I worked in essentially the same role from my first day in late April until the last week of the program, the standard I was held to when it came to speed, cleanliness, and organization only intensified. I’d been working this station for almost three months! Why were prep tasks taking so long! Why wasn’t the farm delivery put away faster! Why did the walk-in look so disheveled! Didn’t we know better! All of these comments and more I heard on a daily basis. And while of course such commentary was in the pursuit of constant improvement (and while such questions were certainly valid), after many months of hauling crates of produce and ribs of beef around, scrubbing mussels in ice water until me and my fingers had a falling out, and clipping herbs in a backyard run by a swarm of personal-space-insensitive flies, my patience was tested! I won’t lie! In combination with that situation, I was left wanting when it came to a variety of experience throughout the summer. Naturally, and understandably, the richness of my experience was certainly not a priority as the restaurant handled its busiest days to date. No one in a management position had the time or energy to reflect on my time thus far and in turn make an effort to shake things up, have me work a different station, or pair me up with a new cook to learn from. And while I definitely can’t blame the restaurant for that, the experience I was sold when I interviewed was far more diverse than what I ended up doing. And I think I would have felt far less disappointed had that been acknowledged before it finally was in my final week. But, as I reflected on the summer in my final days, I realized that the unprecedented workload that fell on the restaurant’s shoulders – even though it prevented me from movin’ around – forced me to be more independent than I thought I was ready to be. Halfway through the summer, our Sous moved to a new station, leaving me and the other CIA extern to lead things on our own. On top of being in charge of our usual workflow (and its rapid increase in July and August), we also trained in four new employees who started on our station. Such a rewarding moment to recognize how much I’d learned as I found myself able to articulate our best practices to a new student of the restaurant. So! In sum, not the experience I’d expected, but one I ultimately feel very grateful for and one in which I learned to push my boundaries as new challenges popped up and popped up and popped up.

Sorry, I started that list expecting each bullet to be a handful of sentences long, but got a little carried away and wrote a chapter for each. So, now that we’ve made considerable space for me to have an introspective therapy sesh, let’s get into some of the lovelier details from a bonkers summer.

Ugh, actually, before we go any further, I didn’t quite get through as much talk about the walk-in as I wanted, so here are some pics from when we organized it so nicely it nearly brought a tear to mine eye.

It may not look like much, but this is my magnum opus.

Ok, enough blah blah blah about the stupid fridge, no one cares!

While variety was not the theme of the summer, I did get to enjoy a delicious Friday at the farm one week. I have never been so willing to leap out of bed at 5am and rocket up the freeway, because in doing so I made it to the farm just as the sun began to peek above the hills. There, I met the full-time farm team for the first time as well as the short-term interns who were there spending a month or so at a time learning the ways of the farm. We sipped our coffee, stretched our legs, hips, and backs in preparation for the day’s harvest, and had those sorts of semi-delirious, sand-in-the-eyes, foggy hazy morning chats. It was pure medicine to have such a concentrated dose of serenity in those late summer days.

The day’s harvest board (below) awaited us, its scale impressive, and after a quick debrief on who’d pluck what, off to the fields we ventured.

Not assigned anything to harvest but a vital member of Pato and my team was Pato’s pooch, who he rescued as a little pup and who never left his side. A true morale booster.

I started with ripe strawberries (testing for quality with a munch here and there, obviously), moved into underripe green strawberries, then on to cucumbers, eggplant, baby turnips, blackberries, squash blossoms, and precious little cucamelons. Photos in the morning light were taken, deep (deep!) breaths of farm-fresh air were gulped, and the urge to just lay in the middle of the fields for hours on end was only slightly resisted.

The aforementioned adorable cucamelons:

Mother Nature was so far ahead of those pastry influencers who make cakes that look like other stuff when she dreamt up a cucumber that looks like a micro watermelon. Genius babe, genius.

Some symmetry followed by shocking asymmetry:

Line up blossoms! Don’t lose your buddy!

This overachiever is just showing off.

One of the biggest perks of working the farm is you get to carry along a container and fill it with whatever suits your fancy. For me, that was this spectrum of reds, oranges, and yellows:

Mamma mia is all that can be said about this.

Once the harvest was complete, we gave the lot a shower, packed em neatly into their containers, and headed to the restaurant for the drop-off.

Some pre-shower baby turnips:

Now, usually, the dreaded knock at the door signaling the farm delivery had arrived would send a seismic shiver down my spine, but on that Friday, I was fortunate enough to do the door-knocking myself.

I thought in the moment it would be a fun, kooky idea to help drop the produce off, pat my brothers in arms working away in the restaurant on the back, and wish them well as my day ended. But I underestimated how tense the vibe can get in the kitchen during the busier days, so as I showed up with a smile on my face, crate after crate of produce in my arms, and met the eyes of my coworkers who were very clearly pushing incredibly hard to finish on time and did not share the same smiles back, I felt —> quite awkward. But! Since I only worked at the farm for one day, that was a mistake I could only make once.

Continuing the theme of new experiences as the summer reached its last weeks, blissfully, I was allotted a bit of time working in the main kitchen during service.

That Monday, I worked alongside the cooks on the hot line, prepping and plating a second course potato dish, tempura fried squash blossoms stuffed with a cod puree, a squash dish with herb tofu and a piece of grilled Japanese fish called Tachiuo, and the main protein entrees. Wow! So much fun to be doing something new, alongside someone new, and in a new setting. Set my brain —> on fire.

And oddly, that experience was far less anxiety-inducing than my previous weeks considering I was essentially transported back to the beginning of the summer when I worked with an expert on the station. So much more relaxed a day when all I’m expected to do is follow instructions (and hopefully not royally goof up the food).

Squash dish complete with poached and grilled baby squash atop a small pile of squash salad and beside a squash-wrapped piece of herb tofu. Once the Tachiuo arrives, the dish gets dots of lemon gel and basil puree and is garnished with micro basil and itty bitty chervil. Major tweezer workout lemme tell ya.

Main protein entree, served that night with duck breast, baby turnip blanched in a seasoned dashi, spring onion stuffed with an herb puree, the infamous turnip cube dusted with dehydrated ramp powder, pickled rakkyo onion, a turnip custard, and duck jus. The skin on this duck is so stupid crispy tasty unctuous wonderful it makes you laugh out loud.

After that one day assisting the hot line, I worked my last four days with the station responsible for the menu’s tomato dish and final savory course before dessert. I alternated working prep and service for the station each day. On prep days, I was given a couple projects that had to be completed for service and a laundry list of projects to be completed for the next day.

The three projects for service that landed on my plate each day were as follows: I blanched, peeled, and halved enough cherry tomatoes for service (a task that used to live on my daily prep list, so I was unfortunately quite familiar). But! I got to do the project in the main kitchen and had not a single worry in my wee mind about a delivery showing up at an inopportune moment. As such, the rainbows, butterflies, and blue skies playing in my mind helped yield beauty beauty beautiful tomato halves:

Yeesh!

I husked, cleaned, trimmed, steamed, and grilled the babiest corn you ever did see, piped miso into a neat ribbon on top of each little ear, torched that miso, and then gently tucked that finished baby corn back into its husk and tied it with a strand of the softest portion of the husk. This was a truly insane task. One little bite for diners with ten million steps and ten million minutes of time allotted to get it right.

But gorsh, they did end up looking quite purty in their little husk coats and with their fresh torch suntan.

I am now proficient in corn origami. If ten-year-old me could see me now!

And finally, I helped the other prep cook roll tomato rosettes for the same dish the tomato halves feature in. Each rosette consisted of two petals of roasted Roma tomato, three pieces of cured Katsuo (another fish friend), and three to four petals of fresh heirloom tomato. More vegetable sculpture skills obtained! Or I guess fruit? Who cares.

Loved, loved, loved rolling these bad boiz. It was especially satisfying to roll one with one petal of yellow heirloom tomato, one petal of green, and one of red. Eye-popping!

Each of these would eventually be garnished with dots of tomato miso, teeny currant tomato halves, and a selection of flowers. SO many components to each dish. Such a wild labor of love.

That last week billowed some wind into my sails that had been absent for the weeks that preceded it, and that felt like the ideal note to end on. On that topic, in my last day, people shared some very thoughtful appreciation for my time there. That was supremely kind, especially as some of the cooks shared kind words during our full culinary team meeting. I was touched by their observations of work ethic, professionalism, and a desire to ensure things were always done correctly. And to punctuate a kind final day, I was treated to most of the menu! Something fitting about enjoying that beautiful food on a teeny square of available space in the prep kitchen while both hustle and bustle whirred around me.

Tomato course featuring my rosettes and tomato halves, a cheese foam with tomato jam buried beneath it, a fried green tomato topped with prawn mousse, prawn aioli, and a fresh piece of prawn, toasted brioche, and a shooter of gazpacho. The course is called ‘tomato picnic’ and, frankly, I get it.

A shot of some small bites (some already eaten) I took after frantically realizing I’d done next to nothing to document this silly moment. Got to enjoy one of my little corn fellas too. Reaping what I sowed.

Bites from a plum-heavy dessert. Honestly, I couldn’t even tell you the components of these dishes, but I’ll give it a ham-fisted effort. The little Club Penguin puffle sucker was like an ice creamy-custardy, chilled plum jam and cake situation. The hot dog lookin’ fella behind it was some crispy thin pastry filled with a different plum jam, more custard, gone in one bite. On the left is plum sorbet, but do NOT call it dippin dots, apparently, I guess, idk.

And just like that, I closed the door at SingleThread for the final time, packed my bags, and wrote a cathartic check mark inside the box beside “Work at a 3-Michelin-starred restaurant.” Will I pursue an experience like that again? I honestly am not sure. Maybe! Maybe one day! Time will tell.

In a week’s time, I will be back on campus for the fall semester! Awaiting me are five new kitchen classes, five new chefs, a new campus job, and a new stretch of months! We’ll chat about all that mess soon, promise!

Until then, here are some vignettes from sillier moments in the kitchen and dreamy ones outside of it:

Eat a hot dog, watch a game, eat a slice nearby, take a nap in a park. If there is an afterlife of my making, it looks a lot like this.

Raw pistachio meats is the funniest phrase I’ve ever read. For more info visit napa nuts dot com.

Did a lot of visiting the sea to regain my strength. Good for your constitution I hear!

Big dawg on the loose somewhere near, no doubt.

Buddy at work had never heard of Smith & Wesson and bought this bike. Incredibly hilarious. Begs the question of what other industries Smith & Wesson has dipped into. Scooters? Drills? Deodorant?

Sometimes you’re having a rough day and a little mushroom chap lends you a smile to get you through it all.

One of my final trays of shooting shiitake stars. Loved making little solar systems every day.

One of my favorite chefs would leave little doodles around the kitchen each day. This was some of his finest work and would surely fetch top dollar at the next high-profile auction.

Found this nestling of heart-shaped stones on a hike one day. Not a naturally occurring gathering if you can believe it!

Dropped in my own submission.

The lawn at The French Laundry is turf! The lawn at The French Laundry is turf! Tell your friends!

Four little rocks queuing up to become Big Rocks.

And after the Cali summer ended, I jetted to Seattle first to visit some dear friends and to the St. Croix River second for a bachelor bash. Here are some shots: