Little Story #25

When you work in an open kitchen you're kind of - on a stage. Sometimes the work demands your attention and you forget that people can see you. Sometimes (most times) people are eating and not watching you.
One afternoon my friend and I were working the front of the line. We noticed two young women smiling at us. Were they flirting? Were they about to ask for a job? Finally they walked up to the pass bar and one said - it's great to see women in the kitchen. We smiled and said thank you.
They meant a professional kitchen of course. There was a rather extreme irony in the idea though. Women have been trying to get out of the kitchen and into the work place. My work place was a kitchen and it was (is) male dominated.
In one of my early jobs I washed dishes. The chef was upset when I was hired because he swore a lot and didn't want to stop. One day something pissed me off. I don't remember. Probably trying to get baked on egg white off a poach pan. I launched into a string of invective that (as the mommie might say) would make a sailor blush. The chef relaxed. He got me out of the dish room and onto the line. He fed me the first asparagus that didn't make me gag. He taught me all the mother sauces, which I didn't realize were the mother sauces. He taught me how to roll a quiche dough that wouldn't leak.
I've worked in kitchens all around the country. I can swear in five languages including Mayan. There is a way in which my work life was about learning how to make men comfortable. I didn't really think of that way. I liked swearing. I didn't mind licentious jabbering. I never saw direct harassment. I was really lucky. I worked in many restaurants owned by women and, for the most part, I worked with really nice people. And I managed most of the kitchen I worked in. What ever discomfort men may have felt working for me they hid pretty well.
Professional kitchens are rough and tumble. And yet...
In one place we were doing a game menu for the month. We did a roasted boar and fried rabbit. My coworker was really good at butchery. He'd had an uncle who taught him. His job was to cut the whole rabbits into smaller parts, something we did with chicken daily. The rabbit arrived with their little furry feet still attached. This guy was a really large man with tattoos and piercings. He was a very gentle loving soul but to look at him you'd think he was quite rough.
I looked over and realized his head was down and he wasn't cutting up the rabbits. Then I realized he had tears in his eyes. I said - you OK? He looked up - it's the feet. The little furry feet. And then he walked out of the kitchen.
And then he came back and did his job.