By Ryan Boehm 

At the prep table, she appears as if she is 5 years old; elbows propped, grabbing food and shoveling it onto her plate.  Her forearms tell a different story: a cross-hatch pattern of oven burn marks, a true testament of years in the kitchen.  She is the eldest cook in the kitchen of Urupel, located in San Sebastian, Spain, by a good 20 years, which keeps her out of the usual kitchen antics.  But she is not foreign to a joke, a smile or a chiding. 

Arancha, in her late 50s, has been with the restaurant since they opened.  

When she told me 27 years, I said "You’ve seen a lot."

She replied, "He visto todo," - Spanish for "I’ve seen it all."

When it is time for the mid-day meal, referred to as "family meal," I have the privilege of sitting across from her at the marble prep table.  She is always the first to the table; she waits for no one — besides God — to begin. 

At family meal, there are fewer formalities than at your own kitchen table.  The "boarding house reach" is common.  If you have to stand up and walk halfway around the table to grab a steak, you do it because platters with a dozen steaks or terrines of soup are not easily passed.  Pieces of meat are picked up with the fingers; bones are picked clean and neatly lined up along the rim of an omni-useful shallow bowl.  Bread is ripped piece by piece from the 3-foot-long baguette.

Arancha is the least formal of all, moving pieces of meat or fish with her fingers until she finds the one she wants. These same fingers, licked clean and passed under water, will touch every piece of food in this Michelin-starred restaurant where people will pay $150 per head for the opportunity.

Removing her glasses, she makes the sign of the cross, pours a glass of rosado, tears off the heel of a baguette (the heels are always reserved for her), helps herself and starts eating — not even pausing to wonder why no one else has started.

The rosado wine is always poured for others before yourself — except in the case of Arancha.  Fingers, the most useful tool the gods gave us, are used in full effect. The bread crust — the second most useful tool the gods gave us — acts as spoon, pinching tool and plate cleaner.

She lingers, she chuckles, but when she rises, the meal is over.

When I have time between peeling potatoes and cleaning foraged mushrooms, I stand unobtrusively next to her station and watch her work. Her nicked fingers and solid, strong hands would make an awesome photo, called "Kitchen Time."  As she works, she is constantly making a loose toothy whistle, just for herself, no one else.

One of the more popular dishes in the restaurant, any restaurant really, is that bottom-dwelling scavenger, the lobster. To watch Arancha prepare a live lobster is truly a sight in emotionless efficiency.   Live, mind you. No PETA-sanctioned, headfirst plunge into boiling water, no knife point to the cross on the back.  First she rips off the claws to disarm her prey. She then hefts a huge, scimitar-like blade that would make any executioner proud. Thwack. Crunch. In one simple movement, the entire lobster’s body is split in two and placed on a stainless steel platter for cooking. Little legs clawing, grasping, reaching for anything, but only finding a sprinkling of salt. Its anatomy has been permanently changed; its purpose changed from scavenger of the sea floor to dinner. Different organs pulsate for the last time.  The tail muscle, which we prize as one of the most succulent of meats, quivers and contracts  with its last instincts to propel itself away from danger. But it is dead. It’s been dead since the knife broke the exoskeleton, but like the headless turkey, the body doesn’t know it.

Did Arancha ever have to come to terms with her executioner-like responsibilities? Or are they simply one more knife stroke before the night is done? Whatever the case may be, she made her peace long ago. As she grabs another victim, pulls off the claws, she hefts her blade and flinches, not out of mercy, but to gather strength. Thwack. Crunch. Dinner.

Chef Ryan Boehme is the chef/owner of Bravo Catering. Ryan enjoys long walks in the woods foraging for mushrooms, candlelight butchering and bittersweet chocolate. He dislikes mean people and narrow-minded eaters.

As the server places the plate in front of you, a number of senses take in the meal you have ordered.  Your eye follows the placing of the different elements, from the height of the protein to the splash of the colorful sauce, as it would a well-composed painting.  The aromas lift off the plate, dancing through the air like a Cirque de Soleil dancer suspended in air.  As your fork breaks the crispy skin, your ear hears the rim tap of a snare drum keeping time.  In the first bite you feel the warmth, the crispness, the melting softness of all of those components coming together.  And finally you taste.

You may have already declared this dish a "piece of art" before you even tasted it, just by the eye-pleasing components.  But now that the acidity of the sauce is juxtapositioned to the fatiness of the protein and the vegetable provides jest a hint of bitterness to the saltiness of the starch, you realize the well-tuned balance of this piece could only be inspired by a true artist: a chef.

But is it really art?  Is the line cook in the kitchen, working 60-hour weeks for a shade above minimum wage the next Rembrandt? Bach?  Or is he working here to buy his next guitar so he can be the next Jack White?

With so many celebrity chefs hocking their wares and books on TV, you would think all it would take is to eat at TGI Fridays seven days a week and you too could be the next Guy.  But I’m sorry to tell you, it’s not like that.

Just because you pay a for-profit institution to show you how to hold a knife, doesn’t make you a chef.  Oh, there are different types of chefs in a working kitchen brigade.  The commis is the foot soldier of the kitchen, peeling potatoes and fetching items for the chef de partie who is responsible for a specific station.  The chef de partie is under the direction of the sous chef who is responsible for the day to day operations of the kitchen.  In larger operations, the sous chef reports to the chef de cuisine whose duties extend beyond the kitchen and today’s needs to the functionality and success of the operation.   The executive chef is responsible for all including the vision and direction of the operation, but even he has to answer to the hydro ceramic technician once in a while.  So just because you worked at a sandwich shop, doesn’t make you a sandwich chef.

Most chefs spend years honing their skills and resumes, often apprenticing under more notable and accomplished chefs.  Many were brought up in the trade, learning from family members or in my case, dish washing in order to buy ski lift tickets.  Years are spent working for free in the pursuit of learning all the elements, the so called tricks of the trade.  How to balance the look, feel & taste of a dish.  Similar to how a mason must apply the proper elements to construct his wall.

So, am I an artist?  No, I am a craftsman.  An artist doesn’t need to paint, to sculpt, to play music in order to survive.  But I need to cook in order to eat.

As I tell the commis in my kitchen: Take what the good Lord gives us, and don’t mess it up.

Chef Ryan Boehme is the chef/owner of Bravo Catering. Ryan enjoys long walks in the woods foraging for mushrooms, candlelight butchering and bittersweet chocolate. He dislikes mean people and narrow-minded eaters.