Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [103]
A runner should be able to pick out a medium-rare steak from a group of other donenesses, read a 'board' as well as the chef, and maintain that rabid, pregame, caged-animal mentality one looks for in a professional fullback. I want my runners hyperventilating like Marines about to take a hill before the rush comes. As far as I'm concerned, I am General Patton when it comes to questions of judgment or strategy. Their mission? Get that food out there and get back here fast. I have my beautiful food dying under the heat lamps? I don't want my runner stopping off to decrumb a table or empty an ashtray.
And it's useful if my wide-bodied runners can be utilized as enforcers, dealing subtly, if forcefully, with interlopers who would invade my domain and impede the serious business of cooking and serving my food. Some 'friend' of the owner, salesman or chatty waiter is blocking the lane in my kitchen? He's gonna get an elbow in the kidney every time one of my chunky runners passes him by. After a few of these 'inadvertent' bumps and elbow-checks, people usually get the message that they're in the way.
A really good runner is a rare and beautiful find. In the best cases, there is a near-telepathic relationship between chef and runner, requiring only a glance or a facial expression to communicates cads of information. A really good runner will read the dupes over the shoulder of his master, between orders, immediately identifying what will likely come next and where it's going. Some diplomatic skills are nice, too, as my cooks are likely to take umbrage if asked to refire a steak or rush an order in a tone of voice they find grating.
A runner who's willing to snitch on his old pals out on the floor is useful as well. I always like to know if there's some pocket of dissidence welling up there. If some jumped-up maitre d' is bad-mouthing me or my specials I'll probably have to deal with it somewhere down the road, so I'd rather know sooner than later. Early warning is always a good thing. Did a busload of tourists just pull up outside the restaurant, all of them planning on jamming a quick three-course meal into their maws before curtain goes up for Miss Saigon? If my runner doesn't tell me, who will? The waiters and hosts will be too busy shoving tables together and arguing about whether to tack 18 or 20 percent on their bill.
Though nominally floor staff, in time, as runners become comfortable with the customs and practices of the kitchen, they begin to acquire the same unique world-view: that xenophobic, slightly paranoid perspective of everything that exists outside the kitchen doors, the same ghoulish sense of humor and suspicion of non-kitchen personnel. I like to encourage this, making sure my runners are fed better, flattering them on occasion, taking an interest in their personal lives and finances. I will, when necessary, put the full weight of my strange and terrible power behind them should they need it. Those part-time actors on the floor are holding out on one of my runners, shorting him on his cut? God help them.
The Night Porter
I wish I didn't need a night porter. But I do. Somebody has to clean the restaurant after service, take out the garbage, clean and scrub the insides of the ovens, toss out the dead mice, kill the dying ones, empty the grease traps, hose down the kitchen - all the tasks that no one else in his right mind would do for love or money. The problem is, you have the sort of person who is willing to do this kind of work alone and unsupervised in your restaurant all night long. It's thankless, dirty work - dragging leaking, smelly garbage bags out to the dumpster - and as the night porter is all by himself, he might well feel justified in taking full advantage of certain fringe benefits. He could call his family in Mexico on the house phone.