don't fuck with the duck (michelin part 1, hanging duck legs, beauty as a requirement for longevity)

This is a re-sharing of a culinary experience that I had back in 2022, working at a 2* Michelin restaurant, Birdsong SF. I posted an eight-part series on Twitter at the time, but it was never formalized in a longer format. I'm doing this to sort of immortalize the experience here since it was some of my earliest beginnings of living according to my values, doing what I found interesting, and finding beauty.

It's an experience that helped shape my first sabbatical and I'm revisiting some of these learnings as they mix with conversations and readings in my current sabbatical.

Each part will be about the same with some grammatical and intonation fixes, plus an updated reflection about beauty and work longevity at the end. Enjoy 😌.

hanging duck legs

Professional kitchens are actually not about cooking. They're about consistent execution. They expect you to hold the standard while moving fast, with accuracy.

The actual "fun" experimentation that you think happens with being a chef actually happens after hours (from midnight to 5 am after a 16-hour shift) and in the "in-betweens" (you finished your work fast enough and have some time to fuck around). Chefs pretty much don't sleep.

One of the first tasks I almost botched was washing off cure on duck legs. Before hang drying cured duck, one has to clean off the marination herbs and curing salts. Sounds easy right? Nope. 😐

It was actually quite annoying, because I had to wash off these little bits of juniper, peppercorns, and pine needles embedded in the hard to reach places. My sous chef came by twice to nudge me to move faster. "Let's pick it up Frank. You gotta move faster, Frank." I was already in the weeds.

I did a sheet tray's worth and still had a sinkful of duck to go. I don't think I quite understood the speed at which I had to move at. They say you could always go faster (and they're right). There's a lot of prep work that goes into a 12-course tasting menu, 40 covers a night. Even if you're confident you're fast, you're too slow.

In my haste to finish, thinking that a stronger stream of water from the faucet would somehow blow the cure off faster, I hadn't noticed the sink filling up with water.

"Whoa, whoa whoa, Frank, you can't let these legs sit in this water. You're undoing the cure."

Fuck. I knew this too, because of osmosis, water dilutes, blah blah blah. All my knowledge about water science couldn't save me now. My sous picked up a leg and inspected it. "Hm, it's fine, you can continue, but please, be careful."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Second day, and I could've botched an entire batch of legs. Luckily, I was only given a stern warning. Lesson learned. Knowledge as theory without context means nothing. I drained the sink, removed the legs, and upped the elbow grease.

Post-wash, I had to twine up the duck legs for dry-hanging using a noose knot. I prayed to not fuck this up because if the noose slipped, the duck would end up on the ground.

"Do this in the meat locker, five in a row for nine rows, just like this. Look at the knuckle and make sure they're all at the same height. If they're not, I'll make you do it again." My sous smiled.

I stood on a small, unstable step ladder in the meat locker, arms outstretched, figuring out the rhythm of tying these leg carcasses up, meat juices dripping into my eyeballs. It was cold, and after the first three rows, I felt my fingers begin to stiffen.

I was shivering at the end. I probably should've stepped out of the freezer for a little bit or grabbed a jacket, but my back was killing me and I just wanted it to be over. I pushed through.

My sous came back in to check my work - "fuck yeah, looks good". I gave myself a virtual fist pump.

I'll never look at anything cured the same way again. Do it right or not at all. Slow, clean, and well was better than fast, dirty, and shit. Every duck leg fucked was worth double or triple its purchase price.

Kitchens lose money by taking on a trainee. My responsibility was to respect that, close the gap, and not make it worse by doing shoddy work. I gather the sous could've done the whole deed - washing, noosing, and hanging in a fine hour or less - I think it took me three.

My learning was their cost, but without the patience of experience, future generations and apprenticeships would not exist.

beauty as a requirement for longevity

Looking back on this experience, it was easy to overlook the beauty and presence involved in the culinary world. I think that's why so many people stay in the craft for so long, despite the shitty hours and low pay. There's something special about bringing all of your physical and mental self to the task at hand everyday, and constantly finding ways to get better, despite the difficulty of the kitchen.

Being who I am now, I think I would've enjoyed the last three months at Birdsong much more than before. During my time there, I let pressure and monotonous process take me over. When you work at a place where the menu has been refined by years of expertise, it's only natural that the less experienced would be doing many of the same things to build their skills. If you stay present with your senses and really dive into what you're doing, it is indeed a beautiful thing. You won't last in this world if you can't appreciate the intrinsic beauty in whatever work you're doing.

In the moment, I think the majority of folks would hate to break their back hanging up duck legs but if they see and feel the details, there's a completely different story. It's this mastery of rinsing that leg until it's clean and dry, hanging them exactly three inches apart with seven inches of twine, and twirling a perfect noose knot with frostbitten fingers that just presents itself as this beautiful, hard-fought artistic process. Even thinking about it now, it gives me this sense of pride, and that is what is important for longevity.

part 2 ->