Professional Pizza (Ballin')

Today was an intense day. Even though I did one trail (one-day in a restaurant where I literally trailed the chef), today wasn't a trail -- it was the first day of my externship: time to put the feet to the fire, so to speak. The (unpaid) work is for credit toward completing my culinary degree. In theory, there will be a job there for me after my apprenticeship. And that job will be Pizza Cook. Chef de la pizza? Pizzaoilo? Assistant Pizza Chef?

The point of culinary school is not to turn the student into a celebrity chef, or even a chef. It is to teach a standardized set of skills, theory, and techniques so that when you go to a joint and say, "Gimme a job, I gots me a culinary degree yo," they'll have a reasonable expectation of what you can do. I felt that in full effect at the restaurant (which for purposes of anonymity, I'll call "Prospect Heights Fine Pizza" or PHF here).

I arrived at 1pm to meet the head chef/manager of the kitchen, let's call her Chef R. Got on my comfy chef shoes from school, put on my cycling cap (with sweatband lining it.) Without much pomp and circumstance, we got straight to it. She pulled out a chart with the formula for the dough, the foundation of any pizzeria. Without giving too much away, the dough is a 50/50 mix of Italian double 00 and organic high-gluten bread flour -- not the stuff of a run-of-the-mill slice joint. After seeing how much dough is left over from yesterday, it's calculated how much dough is needed for the day, and how much new dough is needed -- the mix is 10-20 percent old dough, to give a certain depth to the flavor of the dough. With the extra old dough, foccacia is made.

The flours, salt, and fresh yeast are placed in a Hobart floor mixer after the liquids are put in the bottom (warm water, olive oil, a bit of whole milk). Chef R stood with me, telling me the signs to look for when the dough is ready to come up, and warned me that if I'm going to walk away to turn off the machine (as it can go from perfect to overmixed in a matter of seconds). About half way through, we chucked in the right proportion of the old dough. It took both of us to unload the dough into a carton and bring to the front kitchen that is open to the dining room, where the 'za is made.

The dough had to rest and relax for a minimum of an hour. While R took care of ordering and administrative stuff, she set me up to make flourless chocolate hazelnut cake. Unlike all the warnings in c-school, I was given a recipe and enough space to get the task done relatively comfortably. This is where my c-school training helped. Separating 16 eggs was no problem, setting up and getting the robocoup ditto, zeroing out the scale whatevah, whipping eggwhites to stiff-peaks got it, beating in one step, folding in another, understood. No silly questions, into the oven, cleaned the station, good impression (hopefully) made.

Then we got ballin'. For the 26 kilos of dough we made, we had to portion out different sized for the slice pies, the individual pies and the kiddie pies. Once portioned, they had to be rolled in a circle in cupped hands to make perfectly even and round spheres. I've been shown this technique in class, in the pizza tutorials I've taken, and taken a crack at it home, and still hadn't got it. This time, under the pressure of wanting to be taken seriously as a professional, I got it on my second try. That's for the best, as I did it about 200 more times right after!

I sat in the backyard and ate a few slices as service began around 5pm. Talk among the staff expected a heavy night -- tonight was the 2nd presidential debate, and judging from the vice-presidential debate, everyone wants pizza to accompany the enlightened discussion of the issues (snort). As the night rolled on, my main task was to stretch the dough as the orders came in. Following Chef R's lead and technique, I avoided thickened edges and tried to make the dough perfectly even and round all the way through. First slap the dough down, then stretch with one hand while holding it down with another, then pick it up and use the knuckles-going-round/tossing method to achieve the final size while detecting and reacting to thin and thick spots. The first few came out wrong -- I've been aiming to go from thin in the middle to thick at the crust for such a long time -- but this technique was different and, I daresay, more elegant. Chef R comforted me, saying it takes some practice to get some feel. Midway through the night, she was tossing compliments my way for my dough stretching.

So I would stretch, Chef R would top with the various combinations on the menu and slide them into the oven, I would prep the boxes or plates, pull the pies when they got appropriately charred, slice them, finish certain pies with post-oven ingredients (like basil on the Margarita, arugula, and cherry tomatoes with salt and olive oil on the tricolore), and either call out 'order up' for in-house or place them on a rack with the ticket for delivery.

Chef R & I got into a rhythm, dancing around each other clumsily and getting the pizzas out. The night stayed quiet, but there was an uptick around 8pm for delivery, but the deluge never came. The owner visited and joked that this was because of the bad luck the new guy brought, ahhh thanks. Despite it being 'slow', tickets ganged up on the board and I lost track of how many doughs needed to be stretched, what was in the oven, what needed to come out and be finished, plates or boxes....I was quietly in the weeds, due to my lack of inexperience. I just poked my head in the oven, stretched more dough and looked for cues from Chef R, who was clear and comfortable and probably didn't even notice I was lost. I soon picked it up again and before I knew it, my 10 hour shift was over.

Chef R made pies for whoever wanted one, clean up was relatively straightforward and easy, and best of all, unlike friggin' c-school, this place hires someone to wash the dishes. Chef R asked me how it was, I could only come up with the words, "whole lotta fun." Due to jury duty, school obligations, and going away this weekend, I'm not starting my externship formally until next week, but I'm looking forward to getting in there and getting my hands dirty on more pie.

BREAKFAST: 9am, organic cornflakes with good milk, banana, 1.25 bowls, hunger 3/5

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, slice of yellow cake with chocolate frosting, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
On the way to the restaurant, feeling nervous, didn't want to get there too early, stopped by a nice bakery.

LUNCH: 5:15pm, 2 square pizza slices, water, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Eaten standing in the industrial but pleasant backyard of the brownstone the restaurant is in.

DINNER: 10:15pm, diavolo pizza, root beer, 2 bowl, hunger 4/5
Fresh moz, thin peperoni, some hot pepper flakes, hit the spot after rubbin' n' slappin' dough all evening.

EVENING WATERING: 11:30pm, quart of water
Winding down slowly.