AT THE TRIBECA GRILL WITH TOP CHEFS

Last night at school Chef Lee Anne Wong asked for a volunteer at the Tribeca Grill for Top Chef Winner, Harold Dieterle and Stephen Asprinio. So, this morning I'm going to the Tribeca Grill to cook for them. It should be interesting at least to have my first experience in a professional kitchen (outside FCI and L'Ecole) at the Tribeca Grill with the Top Chefs! As you can see from the release I've included below from the Tribeca Grill website, it's a 6-course tasting menu that will be served Wednesday.

An update tonight...

THIS EVENT IS CURRENTLY SOLD OUT.

The stars of Bravo's hit show Top Chef, winner Harold Dieterle and runners-up Stephen Asprinio and Lee Anne Wong will be preparing a special 6-course tasting menu with wine pairings at Tribeca Grill on Wednesday, June 28th. If you are a fan of the show, this is a unique chance to meet the stars and taste their food. Canapes and cocktails will be served from 6:00-7:00 PM and dinner will begin promptly at 7:00 PM. The price of the dinner will be $95 all inclusive. If you would like to attend this exclusive event, or if you have any questions, please RSVP to the Tribeca Grill at (212)941-3900.

We also invite you to attend a wine tasting at Crush Wine & Spirits on Tuesday, June 27th from 5-8 PM. Top Chef's Stephen Asprinio will be making an appearance and talking about his favorite wines for the summer. Stop by to taste a flight of Stephen's top picks for the season. For details, please call (212)980-9463 or log on to www.crushwineco.com. This event is free to the public.

UPDATE: I arrived ten minutes early but several other volunteers had already arrived. We were introduced to Harold, shown the upstairs kitchen we'd be using and then we changed in the well-worn locker-room and helped load up a cart with food, stocks and supplies. Harold seemed like a nice enough guy, serious certainly about his food. He asked me if I really planned to wear the standard-issue FCI neckerchief all afternoon ("Come on man, you're going to die in here!") started me on lamb T-bones, separating bone from the meat to use for a stock, handing me a cleaver and telling me, "Now go slow. Don't chop a finger off. This is a shitty job!"

I'm not crying by any means but so you can see what your hands can go through while learning what you're doing (and even when you know what you're doing...) I've included a picture (left) of my pointer finger which I shredded with the top of the cleaver somehow. After the meat I minced garlic for a marinade, crushed peppercorns with the bottom of a frying pan because we couldn't find a grinder (about six handfuls of pepperrcorns), added some Vietnamese chili paste, honey, oil and perhaps mustard. I got busted on for having dirtied the fridge handle with the marinade ("you're losing points and you're a Yankees fan..."), he said my finely minced shallots were sloppy (there were, slightly, but I worked them over again--I need practice) and he kept calling me "handsome." It was either "brother," "handsome," or "buddy." I've been called worse but I'll have to add that to a post-in-the-making about kitchen-language.

Chef Lee Anne Wong wasn't in the kitchen with us and Chef Asprinio was otherwise engaged most of the day though he did stop in to give us copies of the menus, instructions as to how to prepare his dish, a Tuna with Nicoise Brunoise. We had lunch at about 1:30 p.m down in a side-room of the restaurant. It's a huge place, at least three floors with labyrinthine storage hallways, walk-ins and prep areas-- at least it seemed that way today.

There was much discussion of the show during lunch brought up mostly by the other volunteers (I would think they'd be done talking about it by now), talk about what some of the contestants were doing, stories about Stephen's feisty interactions with front of house people not quick enough to seat them in some bar/club/lounge place, college stories about his proclivity for wearing a smoking jacket and being able to tell Grey Goose vodka from rail-subsitution, as well as investor and restaurant space conversations. There was also, as you might imagine, much good-natured ribbing of Stephen by Harold during lunch ("You going to pick up a knife today?), discussion of the class of Top Chef versus the lack of it on Hell's Kitchen (Gordon Ramsey's new tv chef smack-down), and talk of cameos on the second installment of Top Chef (sans Katie Lee Joel as I understand it)..

I had the hamburger (okay, not as good as Dumont or the Shack) but Harold and one of the volunteers seened to enjoy the brisket sandwich. I tasted the peekytoe crab rolls which another volunteer ordered, those were tasty. Speaking of the other volunteers, everyone was pretty cool. We've all had common experiences at least as we were all from FCI-- two of them graduates, one an instructor visiting from Philadelphia who told me something I've heard repeated recently, that when you leave school you go out into a real kitchen where you supposedly get your butt kicked, humiliation in the quest for perfection. You're in the ARMY I mean kitchen now, kind of break you down build you up deal (more on this and having fun later...I have a feeling I'm going to hear "Smile America! If you want to have fun go work at Chuck E. Cheese").

Back upstairs in the kitchen what was supposed to be 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. had flown by pretty quickly but turned into 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. While we got a tomato water drip going for Stephen's dish we didn't quite finish the two quarts of red bell pepper brunoise (some further instruction on how to do this more quickly from Harold was really helpful). Harold was using a Shun knife with a 70/30 blade edge and at the end of the night he was using a polishing stone of sorts to sharpen it. That's what I need for my own new Japanese knife. I'm going to look for it at Korin when I get a chance to go there.

While I only thought I was signing up to help out today, they need us again tomorrow so I'll be returning for an 11 a.m. call at the Tribeca Grill before class-- a double-shift! To be continued.