Day 26: Proper preparation prevents poor performance
THE METAPHORIC TSUNAMI builds on the horizon.
“We’re going to get hit today,” Sheila warns me, as we high speed shuffle to the other side of the kitchen, collect plates and high speed shuffle back to our section.
It’s Day 31 of my 100 Day Chef Stage, and I’m working in La Finca, a one-star Michelin restaurant near Elche in Alicante. So far, some days have been a masterclass in crustaceans, or making hollandaise, others have been a matter of survival like the day of the exploding eggs.
Today is Spanish Father’s Day. Which means a full service.
Even Susi is on The Pass.
Executive chef Susi Diaz is often in the kitchen, but this is the first time I’ve seen her at the helm, shouting commands.
We shuffle faster.
Most chefs prefer a busy service, but there is a tipping point and falling over other side is nasty.
I’ve been there. In the last kitchen I worked, during one fast service, my mind turned to mush; it wasn’t nice. As the pressure built, I found I needed to slow down, to think clearly but how on earth do you do that when you are behind and need to go faster?
To understand a kitchen under stress, watch Stephen Graham in the brilliant Boiling Point. Filmed in a single-take, you can feel the tension building in real time as Graham spirals out of control.
And so, we’re bracing for it, this incoming force that promises to smash into us anytime soon and take us over the edge into the abyss.
Everyone is fast shuffling.
I blanche and refresh. I slice and I dice. While others churn and quenelle. And toast and roast.
And then there’s the matter of the 200 olives.
Fat, green Gordal olives that have been macerating overnight in rosemary, thyme and vinegar, and now to be stuffed with an anchovy and caper cream.
It’s a riff off a classic Basque pintxo invented in honour of Rita Hayworth and the film Gilda which premiered in San Sebastian in 1946; a little spicy, a little salty.
The Gilda Pintxo consists of a salty cured anchovy, a green olive and any number of pickled, hot piparras and normally looks like this:
But today, it’s been refined and looks like this:
Briny, salty, spicy. It’s a clever, tasty mouthful but fairly fiddly to prepare, and not something you want to be doing last minute. Just about the time we are filling the last olive the shout goes out from The Pass.
First guests in. It’s Susi letting the whole kitchen know that customers are now in the restaurant, that we’re about to begin service. Brace, brace.
The waves begin to roll in, one after another. But truth is they are only waist high and break lightly. It’s hardly a tsunami.
It’s fast, but controlled.
When I look for plates - they’re there. When I need olives - they’re ready. Soon we’re sending out the asparagus ice cream and before we know it we’re onto plating up the desserts.
That tsunami? Bah! Just a ripple tickling our ankles. This service, that really could have presented a load of problems, has been made easy. We didn’t get close to boiling point let alone to bubbling over.
How so? Well, I believe it’s down to the preparation. This is a highly organised kitchen that runs like clockwork, systems are in place to prevent mistakes happening in the first place.
It’s the 5 Ps in full effect. You’ll hear this a lot thrown around in sport: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
Proper Preparation. I am laughing as I write that, as I’ve been trying to think of an example, a sporting memory from my Olympic days of how I’d prepare, something to back up the point I am trying to make, and the first thing that comes to mind was a cross country run, when I was ten years old and got the preparation hilariously wrong. Maybe it’s worth telling anyway?
Was a cold, rainy day. We kids are all lined up, waiting for the starter’s gun. But in my wisdom, I have decided to keep my tracksuit on until the very last minute. But then…bang…the gun goes off…oh no. I yank the tracky bottoms off over my trainers. As I do I pull one trainer completely off my foot. Everyone has begun to run, so I do too.
Ten year old me decides to run the race with just one trainer.
With each step, the white sock elongates, soaking up the mud, wetter, and muddier, and soggier, and longer with each step. I don’t win the race.
Full marks for effort.
Zero marks for preparation.
In sports being prepared can be as simple as arriving in good time for an event and having everything you need in your kitbag. Or as complex as a nutritional plan that begins 10 weeks before an event.
It can mean hours of meticulous tactical preparation and week’s of training to get yourself ready.
Proper preparation prevents, or at least lowers the chance of mistakes happening, and if/when mistakes do occur then thanks to the preparation you’re better equipped to deal with them.
Under stress, we will fall back on our preparation, and if it’s not there we will fall harder.
The 5P’s are critical for success in any walk of life, and are very apparent in a professional kitchen, even more so in their absence. If you’ve prepared properly, however, then those tsunamis are just waves, and service runs like clockwork.
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