03 Cooking: Our Founder is a Rat
Click here to see the video for Ratatouille, the movie
Our Founder
I blame Walt Disney. People like me who have been in white-collar jobs for years are studying restaurant procedure. That’s a switch—all these BAs and MBAs moving into low-paying, sweat-inducing work. We were swayed by the clever Remy in “Ratatouille”. That rat knew his oregano from his anise.
We share the kitchen with the “Pastry People”, a class easily as large as ours. Our chef-teachers are always out-shouting each other.
Everyone in my class is—shall we say—unique? One new friend is very talented, very young, and has a tendency to think she knows more than the teacher (I knew everything when I was that age, too. I’m so much more ignorant now). Most of us are still wandering around in a daze, calling plaintively “Chef? Chef?”. The guys in class are a hoot—the biggest ones are the most gentle, like Great Danes. Most of my classmates are making an effort to meet each other and get along—a shy quick introduction while stacking stainless steel hotel pans or shuffling into the dish room—a mild name for the steamy windowless home of two gigantic rumbling kitchenware- and tool-washing apparatuses. When I’m in there, I like to think of it as a tropical vacation. On the equator. In the middle of Monsoon.