Experience @ the French laundry kitchen 

At last the moment arrived .. December 19  2012, i was accepted to have the honour to stage in The French Laundry kitchen . My first  day started @ 12 am . I met all the Crew and chef Timothy assigned me to help garde manger and meat chef de partie with prep projects. First thing that everybody think will be that i felt stress , well no really , before i start my stage i spoke with one of the best bulgarian chefs for advice - he just told me -  

:just relax and enjoy the experience" , so i did. No stress, just pure joy, heaven... and until i was helping with celery preparation for one of the meat courses, a hand push me - i turn around and i saw the Man himself- Thomas Keller . He just greeted me (shaked my hand), asked me for my name and walked away to spoke  with chef de cuisine.During that time  my heart took decision to speed up twice my heart beat :) . During dinner service i had to stay in front of the pass and i was able to see  whole operation. Discipline , everybody call back the tickets in the same time like soldiers- really impressive. After end of service we cleaned all the kitchen i had meeting for the menu for the next day.

Second day i went with an hour early to picture all the kitchen in order to be able to share what i saw:

Minutes after that started  to prep for dinner service , which starts usually around 5 45 pm. When first tickets arrived in the kitchen  i was  helping the commis to  whapped up the back area and went to the pass. It was Very intence service , some mistakes from the front service as always create pressure in the kitchen . Around 8 pm Chef Thomas show up with bunch of cards to sign in his office and follow the service from the office ( which they called - the Box ) . Around 10 15 pm Chef Thomas came next to  me and started asking me for some general information qbout me . Suddenly, chef Keller put on his apron and went to speak with the chef de cuisine, he told him that we have single diner in the house . After a minute chef came next to me again  and take off my towel from my apron and he told me- " now you are going to have dinner ", i turned around and saw that runner was putting table cloth on the desk in the " Box"- in that moment my brain just sent unknown signal to my legs and throat , for first time i felt so special , just couldn`t believe what was  happening. I`m sorry that coundn`t discribe how i felt , it was one of thosee few moments in the life that you are not in charge of yourself.

So i sit in the ofiice and chef just decided to cook for the last tables, lucklly i ate some of that food ... That was a real honour for me . I was thinking that this is my Christmas gift and if the world will end tomorrow (21 december) i didn`t care any more ... i would die as someo f the happiest young chefs... 

Chef sent me 13 course menu + chanpagne and wine ... usually worth  500 $ if you are lucky enought to get a table ....the rest was details ....

Chef Keller brought me the beef course in the office and he ask me if i liked it ... conclussion : chef is the most generous and genuine chef that i`ve even seen . Real mentor and down to the earth man,real inspiration...  no doubts why he is so successful. At the very end He signed me the menu and he told me .."Well Yordan remember it`s all about finesse.... Here is some of the pictures ot the Dinner :