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the rest of the ingredients in there and
then
you can do the little shaky-shaky thing that you guys like to do.”
    Other students don’t move enough. The family meal crew stands around a pot of rice, stirring occasionally. “How long are you going to mother that rice?” LiPuma calls to them. “Put a lid on it and go away, do something else.”
They don’t understand
, LiPuma says.
Every time they stir it, they’re cooling it, and it’s taking longer to cook. They do it because they’re nervous, and it’s a comfort zone. But they’re wasting valuable time that they could be using to prep for the next few days of service.
“What are you doing, man?” LiPuma asks Ronald. “Cooking the mushrooms,” Ronald replies. “They’re in the oven! You can’t even
see
them! Get outta here! Go do sumthin’! Go bag up the chilis!” LiPuma walks past Zoe. “Are you leaning, Zoe? Don’t
lean.
There’s a bunch of other stuff you can do!”
    Some students don’t communicate enough. An order comes in for lamb, and LiPuma yells to Ronald, “Take the lamb and put it in the oven.” He hears nothing. He yells again, with a bite: “Take the lamb and put it in the oven!” “Yes, Chef!” Ronald replies. “That’s a good answer,” LiPuma says. But LiPuma is having a problem with all the “Yes, Chef!” he’s getting. When he calls out a quantity of something, he wants them to tell him what they heard:
Two fish! One pork!
    Other students communicate too much. The pastry chef calls twice for a food runner while the waiters talk among themselves. “Hey! Hey! Pickup pastry!” LiPuma screams. “Shut up now and pay attention!” The back waiters ought to know better; they were the last class of cooks in this kitchen before this one.
    Students put things on their cutting boards—hot pans that will scorch them and clean plates that will pick up liquid and scraps from them. They don’t know their meat temperatures, nor how to measure them. And nobody keeps a clean station. The whole service, LiPuma pushes pans aside, carries them to the dishwasher. In the middle of service, LiPuma gets on the microphone: “Whatwe’re working on today is
organization.
Take a look: The fryer has leeks all over it. The stations are all dirty, things are greasy.” But LiPuma expects these issues, all attributable to nerves and inexperience.
    At 1:30 p.m. service is done. “I’m gonna show you how to break everything down,” LiPuma says. “Take all your proteins and bring them to the butchers. Take all your sauces, put them in the correct size container. Go put them in an ice bath, label it. Everything that’s dirty—pots, pans, everything—bring them to the dishwasher ever so nicely.” Within 15 minutes the spotless hot line gleams like no cooking happened at all.
    At 2:00 p.m. they gather to recap the day. “The barking is over, it’s all about the love now,” LiPuma says. “How was your day? Just okay, right? And that’s
okay.
Five days from now, it’s gonna be all automatic because you’re gonna be organized, you’re gonna know systems, you’re gonna have station management, you’re gonna be able to elevate your cuisine. As you become more organized, you’ll see that you’ll save time. It’s all about ergonomics, finding the right way of cooking, the sequence and order of cooking—pork in the oven, potato down, apples in, spinach going.” This is what LiPuma calls
flow
. “Once you find a system that works best for that dish, you just keep that wheel running. You do the same routine over and over again to get muscle memory and get faster and faster.” LiPuma points his students toward tomorrow, when they’ll work on communication and their “callbacks” to the chef.
    They’ll need these