I have been working at Nostrana for a week now, manning the grill, discovering the fragile web that separates rare from medium rare, and inhaling more smoke than the Rat Pack.
You see, one of the attractive things about Nostrana is their adherence to very pure and ancient cooking practices. The pizzas are fired in a wood oven, and the meats are grilled over a wood fire. That fire adds a lot of flavor to the food, but it also requires a lot of man power to keep the system running smoothly.
On my second day of work, one of the cooks–lets call him No Smiles, took me to the wood shed across from the restaurant and gave me a basic lesson in humility. See, up until that moment, I had assumed that my duties stopped in the kitchen. I was finding it adequately rigorous to manage the various proteins, coordinate timing with other stations in the restaurant, and clean the enormous grill at the end of the evening. I felt proud and a little bad ass about being the only woman running the grill station. Having all that meat under my control and making sure the fire didn’t die down, seemed tough and sexy, and worth bragging about. Leaving work every night, I smelled like a camp fire. My clothes were dusted with wood shavings and my fingers were covered with soot.
Which is why I sort of froze when No Smiles informed me that in addition to the strenuous duties I had already undertaken, I would also be responsible for chopping the wood. He pointed to a stump in the middle of the shed with an ax buried deeply inside it. I don’t think I could even heave an ax forcefully enough to plant it into a stump, let alone chop multiple smaller pieces clear in half. I kept imagining the axe slipping and my leg being cleaved clear in half.
Losing face, it turns out, is more frightening than losing a leg. So with the stoic look of an expert chopper, I placed a log on the stump, raised my axe and lowered it so forcefully that a tiny chip came off the edge! I squealed with delight. No Smiles…not so much. “Try to hit the center next time.” he said, clearly masking his great excitement over my accomplishment.
Second swing and I’m all stump. Third swing and I get a slightly larger chip. No Smiles tells me to put down the axe. He gracefully chops 6 logs in what seems like 10 seconds. When he finishes. He says, ” I usually do this job so no one else has to.” I try to look disappointed and mumble something about wanting to share the load equally, but, honestly, THANK GOD!
Lets all raise our axes to No Smiles for keeping my legs intact.
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