END OF MY INTERNSHIP AT THE WATER CLUB

In August I joined my friend Tim Kline, taking an internship at The Water Club, a two-floor restaurant and banquet hall off the FDR Drive at about 33rd Street. Tim had been suggesting I join him for about a month but I initially resisted...

There were a few reasons. For one, I'd recently left my job at The Times and for once in 5 years I was enjoying not going to work! I also had my hands full with school and knew I'd be gearing up for my final project and my final and didn't want to overextend myself (at left, cheesecake ready for service at the pastry station as demonstrated to me when I first arrived in August).

I also had reservations about taking a job with friends. Another classmate, Jane Crocker, also worked there and unfortunately, we hadn't been getting along at the time. The idea of working for free wasn't endearing but there were some gaping holes on my resume where restaurant experience should have been. I felt I would have more confidence after graduating if I'd gotten some other work experience. Previous to FCI I'd worked at Burger King the summer after my senior year in high school and years later I'd made cappucinos, cut cakes and waited tables at a dessert cafe in Rockville Center during time off from Georgetown). I still had some cash from unused vacation pay from The Times so I still had a little money to get by (above right, strawberry shortcake).

Ultimately, it seemed wise to take a 200-hour unpaid internship at The Water Club in order to get some restaurant experience outside my school restuarant, L'Ecole. From August 11th through October 3rd I worked on average three nights a week, most often Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, from 2 p.m. to midnight. Most often I worked at the pastry station at the front of the restaurant. Thursdays and Saturdays were my busiest nights, with anywhere from 100 to 235 covers a night (creme brule, right).

The Water Club is a two floor restaurant with a roof-top bar and outside dining. Part of the restaurant is a large boat and during bad weather you can feel the barge move slightly underneath. You wouldn't just walk by The Water Club and decide to stop in for dinner. You could, technically, because it's right on the water along a sidewalk that follows the river where people go running, but it's unlikely. The restaurant practically has it's own exit on the FDR drive. It's also next to a helipad and isn't terribly far from the water taxi dock. One of the bartenders at the restaurant claims that one of the scenes in Cocktail was filmed at the Water Club's decently long bar. There's a lot of bridge and tunnel, weddings and a lot of corporate parties. The restaurant is owned by "Buzzy" O'Keefe, who also owns the River Cafe and the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. I heard a few rumors about The Water Club, none of which I can verify of course, about it's heyday and how it was originally started, one quasi-involving JFK-- "do you see any other restaurants like it on the waterfront?" one employee explained to me.

Across from the coffee station near the swinging doors into the dining room, I learned how to increase my efficiency and improve my timing while quickly plating the hot and cold desserts shown in this post. I plated cheesecakes, berry bowls, sorbets, ice creams, chocolate layer cake, ice cream sundaes, banana financier, molten chocolate cake (right) while making raspberry, hazelnut and almond tuiles, biscuits and cornbread for service. The molten chocolate cake, while very tasty took 8 minutes to cook and could be a real tense pain. It had to be cooked at 400 degrees and could break if not made and then handled the right way.

My initial reservations quickly became a thing of the past and I settled in quickly. I rarely worked at the same time as Tim but the idea of it being a bad idea to work with friends became moot by working hard and becoming friendly with just about everyone who worked at the restaurant, even some waiters (at right, Eddie)!

Of course, I didn't become a pastry chef in two months but I did get good basic pastry experience from making things like buttercreams, tarts, ganache (despite some initial setbacks), assembling cakes, tiramisu, brulee base. I learned how to time and plate desserts for weddings and banquets for 250 people, how to mass produce, how to keep up on inventory, and other important things about how a large restaurant works.

After my first month I sometimes felt like I was gaining weight just from inhaling the scent of caramel sauce and buttermilk biscuits and soon, spinning sorbet, making tuile, baking biscuits, turning out cornbread from the iron molds, and managing six tickets with a 20-top on a Saturday night while trading kitchen barbs and talking about women, sparring about the Red Sox with "Big Papi" (at left) and Sindu (on the right), gave me the familiar rush of adrenaline and joy that I remember from my best moments as a journalist. There were many interesting people that worked at the restaurant from the hostesses (one, a nurse-in-training on the lookout for a rich husband) and the Polish banquet waiters and waitresses I could swear were from my neighborhood, Greenpoint, to two charm-gilded gravelly voiced bartenders who worked the busy nights and had intriguing views on the opposite sex.

Between leaving The Times, going to school and working at the restaurant I felt as though I was starring in my own version of Quantum Leap, landing in new situations in different places, inhabiting different aspects of my personality that I hadn't enjoyed for years. Aside from Chef Victoria Love, left, most of my pastry coworkers were almost a decade younger than me.

In fact, Katie, my direct superior (left, prepping Sunday's brunch dessert table) didn't turn 21 until Aug. 26th! Katie was hard-driving, brash, skilled, loud, brilliant at creating improbably tasty quick snack combinations (mashed potatoes, bread and tabasco?) and didn't suffer fools-- she'd kill me for saying this but underneath it all she's a big softy. All the girls, Katie, Sandra and MC, were alot of fun to work with. And amidst the work and the pressure of production and service there was a lot of razzing and a lot of laughing. I was also indoctrinated into the tradition of post-shift drinks, industry discounts and quickly learned what life would have been like had I not returned to finish school.

With Jack FM blaring in the pastry kitchen and Journey's "Wheel in The Sky" a staple of the two-month soundtrack I felt at times like I was living someone else's life, with consequences both good and bad. I learned alot at The Water Club among other things that there's a chemistry to a good kitchen staff. I also gained some personal insight, the best being that I'd made the right choice to leave the golden handcuffs at the paper and that I could have fun again in the workplace, something I'd largely lost towards the end of my time at The Times.

At left, the pastry staff during the end of the summer when I worked there, from left to right: Tim Kline, Chef Victoria Love, me, Katie Backlund, MC, and Sandra. There were still many things I knew I could come away learning at The Water Club but there weren't enough opporunities to work on the production side and at my age, I need to be continuously learning.

When I graduated from school and got the call from Pearl Oyster Bar about an opening I knew it was time to move on to another place, a smaller though very successful restaurant where I could learn something new about the business. I'm sad to leave-- I'll miss the friends I made there but it's time for another leap, into a new adventure.