As is the case with any working environment there are those that do and those that make it appear that they do. Anyone that knows me well knows that I am a hard worker. That I put my nose to the grindstone, and although sometimes begrudgingly, I get the job done. It has always been that way and always will be.
Since joining the professional kitchen world I have observed on more than one occasion (read weekly if not daily) that while I am toiling away getting stuff done as others just stand around having a chat or appearing as if they are doing something. It frustrates me. It irritates me. It also makes me sick to my stomach.
I could go into any number of examples from where I am working but I feel it would be fruitless. Needless to say I am not the only one that notices. Moreover, L and I often share a look that says; “Look at that lazy fuck.”
Yesterday I arrived for work at 10:15 am not sure what time I was working. When I walked in I found out that I was working at 2 pm. However that was no big deal. I had, as always, a trusty book at my side, and I was ready to go and read for a few hours. As luck would have it however the kitchen was down a body and with all the goings on this week Executive Chef told me to punch it and have at her. Which I did. I’ve been working a little less lately (as I have learned) because we are in a end of summer lull which is about to come to a crashing halt for the next few weeks. We are going to be busy. And by working a little less I mean 50 hours instead of 80.
Yesterday I observed, several times, and much to my frustration, what I term as laziness but moreover disrespect for the kitchen and all the Chefs. At my review Head Chef had let me know that this was going to happen. That I would work my little tail off and see others not pulling their weight and that it would frustrate me. It does however give me an opportunity to learn. What can you learn from watching the laziness of others you may ask? Well, first off, that I never want someone to look at me as if I am lazy. Secondly, it is an exercise in managing my own mental state and frustration. Yesterday I didn’t do it so well. But I am quite sure that it was only evident to a very few people.
There is a running joke in the kitchen about all day job. That is a job which one does very slowly and thus the term. There are currently three people in our kitchen that take the term to heart and can turn even the smallest ten minute job into a two hour ordeal. IT PISSES ME OFF! It makes me want to scream. It makes me want to lash out. But as I said before I treat it as an opportunity to master my own mental states.
Yesterday I did some work on a two o’clock tasting which kept me busy for a couple of hours and then I ran through the prep lists for myself and the body that we were down. I did it with a smile on my face and the regular banter that accompanies our kitchen.
Toward the end of the day we had two parties. One at 5 and another at 8. They were relatively small parties. The first for 50 and the second for 49. These are parties that L and I regularly do on our own. Just the two of us and then a Chef to expedite when the time comes. Yesterday there were five of us plus a Chef which means that there was a lot of time, for those that choose to, to fuck the proverbial dog. The whole time, from 5 until around 10:15 when I left I was working. Tearing down stuff. Putting stuff away. Cleaning the kitchen. The walk in. Clearing the rolling racks, vac packing, etc. I think I reached my boiling point when after caramelizing 29 brulee’s I was vac packing some stuff and I asked someone to put something in the walk in. He just looked at me as he lazed against the prep table with a vacant stare that said; “Huh!” I looked right at him and told him that he was being lazy. I even raised my voice a little. Did he care? No! Did it make me feel better? No. But it had to be said. He made some off remark to which I responded I may be called a lot of things but lazy will never be one of them. As A often says to me; “Sometimes you really have to want it.” This person looked at me and said that as A sometimes says it to him to. I was irate. In a way I still am.
I guess everywhere you go there is always going to be that one person that just lazes by and gets away with it. All I can do about it is keep working and doing what I do best. Get the job done.
Rant over! But it is a part of the kitchen culture that I have witnessed and this blog is the real representation of what I experience.
There is an old Norwegian proverb that says; The lazier a man is, the more he plans to do tomorrow.
That is why I do every day!
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The Nature of Departure (file under all part of kitchen culture)
So yesterday I found out that one of the cooks is leaving. He has been with us for about a year and I suppose though I am not sure he feels that he has learned all that he can learn or conversely that the opportunity was such that he can’t turn it down. R.B. is moving onto a kitchen which is substantially smaller than ours. It will be him, another cook and the Chef. He is set to depart next Wednesday.
My reason for bringing this up is that early in ones kitchen career it is common for one to stay jut long enough and then move on. However, when I look at the kitchen that I am currently in I am fully certain that there is much more to learn than is possible in a year. EVEN FOR ME! I mean I am an apt student, duteous and highly intelligent. Even if Executive Chef and Head Chef spent every waking moment with me for a year I am quite certain that I would not have gleaned all that I could from their teaching. Moreover I AM CERTAIN (not a slight) that R.B. HAS NOT!
It does however give me pause to think about what is most important at this stage in my development. After all when I joined the kitchen, THEIR kitchen, I came in as a blank slate. Sure I had some knowledge about basics, but even the most rudimentary knife skills were not present in me. I do not make a lot of money. In fact I make less money than I have made in my adult life. But that is the trade off, I want to ascertain a certain level of respect for food, a basic foundation from which to build and as much knowledge as is humanly possible to aid me in my own personal goals which I have discussed here before. Executive Chef and Head Chef gave me the opportunity to become more, in THEIR kitchen, and I jumped at it. And I am still jumping at it.
I guess I bring all this up because I have seen it time and again in all the reading that I have done this year. A cook will stay in any given place for a year or two and then move on. Usually with the assistance of the Chef that they worked under. In R.B.’s case however he just saw an opportunity and jumped at it. To me, and I genuinely believe this, I think he should have discussed it with both Executive and head Chefs before making the move. When R.B. discussed it, again, after the fact, Head Chef had suggested that he should have first done a stage there. A stage in order to ensure that he would like it there. That he fit in. When R.B. told me about this last night I felt that Head Chef was giving him a point of view that represented his desire to ensure that those who come from his flock and eventually leave it, are happy and satisfied with the station that they are going to. I think, though it may have been lost on R.B., that Head Chef was not only being a stand above Chef but also a man who cares for the development of others.
So, I wish R.B. continued success in his life going forward. I know that we will stay in touch, have drinks and laughs and share war stories. As I will with everyone when they or I leave. But I also wanted to state outright that I, myself, am nowhere near leaving. I HAVE MUCH MORE TO LEARN! EVERYDAY, for the rest of my life.
Dave Mustaine ( I know me quoting Dave Mustaine) once said; “Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
My reason for bringing this up is that early in ones kitchen career it is common for one to stay jut long enough and then move on. However, when I look at the kitchen that I am currently in I am fully certain that there is much more to learn than is possible in a year. EVEN FOR ME! I mean I am an apt student, duteous and highly intelligent. Even if Executive Chef and Head Chef spent every waking moment with me for a year I am quite certain that I would not have gleaned all that I could from their teaching. Moreover I AM CERTAIN (not a slight) that R.B. HAS NOT!
It does however give me pause to think about what is most important at this stage in my development. After all when I joined the kitchen, THEIR kitchen, I came in as a blank slate. Sure I had some knowledge about basics, but even the most rudimentary knife skills were not present in me. I do not make a lot of money. In fact I make less money than I have made in my adult life. But that is the trade off, I want to ascertain a certain level of respect for food, a basic foundation from which to build and as much knowledge as is humanly possible to aid me in my own personal goals which I have discussed here before. Executive Chef and Head Chef gave me the opportunity to become more, in THEIR kitchen, and I jumped at it. And I am still jumping at it.
I guess I bring all this up because I have seen it time and again in all the reading that I have done this year. A cook will stay in any given place for a year or two and then move on. Usually with the assistance of the Chef that they worked under. In R.B.’s case however he just saw an opportunity and jumped at it. To me, and I genuinely believe this, I think he should have discussed it with both Executive and head Chefs before making the move. When R.B. discussed it, again, after the fact, Head Chef had suggested that he should have first done a stage there. A stage in order to ensure that he would like it there. That he fit in. When R.B. told me about this last night I felt that Head Chef was giving him a point of view that represented his desire to ensure that those who come from his flock and eventually leave it, are happy and satisfied with the station that they are going to. I think, though it may have been lost on R.B., that Head Chef was not only being a stand above Chef but also a man who cares for the development of others.
So, I wish R.B. continued success in his life going forward. I know that we will stay in touch, have drinks and laughs and share war stories. As I will with everyone when they or I leave. But I also wanted to state outright that I, myself, am nowhere near leaving. I HAVE MUCH MORE TO LEARN! EVERYDAY, for the rest of my life.
Dave Mustaine ( I know me quoting Dave Mustaine) once said; “Moving on, is a simple thing, what it leaves behind is hard.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
In the Service of Food not Food Service (file under personal philosophy)
I came to where I am today by searching deep within myself to determine what was real and what was the proverbial sheaf. I had longed for years to be doing something honest, something real, something that brought me joy and at least helped to create a personal sense of worth. Food became my answer. It had for a long time been the way that I entertained guests and though I had always been told how good I was I did not believe that I was good enough to be a “professional.”
While my personal odyssey began on January 18th of 2008, this year, it had in reality begun long ago. Now that journey has changed. As I have learned more about what it means to be a chef and more importantly (at least seemingly) what it means to be a good cook.
I have read a mountain of materials this year. Many of them speak of the food service industry and its adherents. However, one of the reasons that I came to become a professional cook is because I believed that there was an inherent honesty in it. The bigger the mountain became that I read the more I came to understand (as I have written about) that I am in fact in the service of food and not the food service industry.
What does that expression mean? In the service of food? Does it mean the same to me that it will for you? I’m not sure but herein lies my belief as to my own relationship with food and how I believe I am in its service.
Now I have never had offal. However in my readings of the past eight months I have come across tales of it repeatedly. I have also heard (and have now tasted) about pig trotters and other parts of animals that most people cringe at their mere reference. Anthony Bourdain always talks about the measure of a cook being able to use these parts in such a way to create a meal which is both appealing and delicious. Thomas Keller’s role model, mentor and friend Roland Henin, taught Keller about offal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal), how to prepare it, etc. These two examples demonstrate how a great cook and chef are in the service of food and not the food service industry.
You see when I hear the food service industry I conjure up images of suit wearing, board room executives, who are contemplating the best way to get chickens to market as a McChicken or in KFC buckets. I too consider the monster chains of so called casual dining such as T.G.I.F. or The Cheesecake Factory. These to me represent the food service industry. The fast served, cookie cutter, same in Minneapolis as in back woods Alabama. However, what I seek to do, what I am in the process of doing, what I hold dear is that I am in the service of food.
How can I demonstrate this to you so that you will see where I am coming from? Well, over the course of the next few years, armed with hundreds of posts, thousands of recipes and countless hours of blood, sweat and tears in the kitchen I know that I will be able to demonstrate clearly that I am in the service of food. That I can take an apple and make it taste like an apple and have t be appealing to you. Or that I can take offal and cook it to perfection so that you somehow believe that what you are eating is the most expensive part of an animal.
I have grown considerably in the past eight months and a lot of beliefs I had before I entered the kitchen have been blown out of the water while others have been most beautifully and wondrously confirmed.
In the service of food I aim to be better tomorrow than I am today. I seek to learn new things, to experience new ways, to find the subtle and sometimes non apparent truth that is inherent in each and every ingredient. AND I seek to do it with a smile on both my face and my soul. For that is what this journey is for me. A betterment. Not just of myself but also of the world we live in.
Anthony Bourdain speaking about offal once said; “Chefs who work with offal, says Bourdain, "are generally giving you all they got." Not so with the 10,000th order of steak frites or steamed lobster.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
While my personal odyssey began on January 18th of 2008, this year, it had in reality begun long ago. Now that journey has changed. As I have learned more about what it means to be a chef and more importantly (at least seemingly) what it means to be a good cook.
I have read a mountain of materials this year. Many of them speak of the food service industry and its adherents. However, one of the reasons that I came to become a professional cook is because I believed that there was an inherent honesty in it. The bigger the mountain became that I read the more I came to understand (as I have written about) that I am in fact in the service of food and not the food service industry.
What does that expression mean? In the service of food? Does it mean the same to me that it will for you? I’m not sure but herein lies my belief as to my own relationship with food and how I believe I am in its service.
Now I have never had offal. However in my readings of the past eight months I have come across tales of it repeatedly. I have also heard (and have now tasted) about pig trotters and other parts of animals that most people cringe at their mere reference. Anthony Bourdain always talks about the measure of a cook being able to use these parts in such a way to create a meal which is both appealing and delicious. Thomas Keller’s role model, mentor and friend Roland Henin, taught Keller about offal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal), how to prepare it, etc. These two examples demonstrate how a great cook and chef are in the service of food and not the food service industry.
You see when I hear the food service industry I conjure up images of suit wearing, board room executives, who are contemplating the best way to get chickens to market as a McChicken or in KFC buckets. I too consider the monster chains of so called casual dining such as T.G.I.F. or The Cheesecake Factory. These to me represent the food service industry. The fast served, cookie cutter, same in Minneapolis as in back woods Alabama. However, what I seek to do, what I am in the process of doing, what I hold dear is that I am in the service of food.
How can I demonstrate this to you so that you will see where I am coming from? Well, over the course of the next few years, armed with hundreds of posts, thousands of recipes and countless hours of blood, sweat and tears in the kitchen I know that I will be able to demonstrate clearly that I am in the service of food. That I can take an apple and make it taste like an apple and have t be appealing to you. Or that I can take offal and cook it to perfection so that you somehow believe that what you are eating is the most expensive part of an animal.
I have grown considerably in the past eight months and a lot of beliefs I had before I entered the kitchen have been blown out of the water while others have been most beautifully and wondrously confirmed.
In the service of food I aim to be better tomorrow than I am today. I seek to learn new things, to experience new ways, to find the subtle and sometimes non apparent truth that is inherent in each and every ingredient. AND I seek to do it with a smile on both my face and my soul. For that is what this journey is for me. A betterment. Not just of myself but also of the world we live in.
Anthony Bourdain speaking about offal once said; “Chefs who work with offal, says Bourdain, "are generally giving you all they got." Not so with the 10,000th order of steak frites or steamed lobster.”
Are you dreaming big and inspired?
A la prochaine
SDM
The Soul of a Chef (file under Michael Ruhlman)
Hello all! I hope this finds you wings spread in flight towards your dreams. As has become my custom in the past couple of months I picked up a couple of books last week. The first is written by Michael Ruhlman called “The Soul of a Chef… The Journey Toward Perfection.”
Michael Ruhlman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruhlman or http://ruhlman.com/) is a true original. As I sat at the bookstore looking through the various books that I could get I kept on coming back to the one I ended up getting. Something about the title intrigued me as I am not entirely sure that there can be “the” soul of a chef. Nonetheless I picked it up and immediately began reading it.
Ruhlman chose to write about the Certified Master Chef test which is put on by the Culinary Institute of America. The CIA is the preeminent school on this side of the Atlantic for the culinary world. From its grounds on the Hudson River, students from all over North America come, to begin the wonderful journey to becoming or improving as a Chef. However, the rare breed that chooses to do the CMC come from far and wide to prove something not to their teachers but to themselves.
The CMC is a grueling ten day adventure which causes the candidates to the rigorous standards of the CIA. To put this in context sine the test was created in the early 1980’s fewer than 100 people have become CMC’s. Ruhlman, as a writer, traveled through the testing following as 7 candidates tried to become the newest CMC’s. What follows is an interesting tale of perseverance, success and failure. It is an interesting expose of how detailed one has to be in order to become a CMC. I must admit that the read is fascinating. Moreover, that it causes one (i.e. ME) to look at what it is I really want.
If anyone out there is interested in professional cooking I do strongly suggest reading this book as it illuminates quite clearly the dedication and force of will that one requires to enter this world.
On a personal note I had a conversation with Head Chef about the CMC resultant from reading this book. I asked him whether or not it was relevant to go after your CMC or note. Thoughtfully he explored both sides of the equation for me. As Ruhlman explains in the book, those who adhere to the principles of the CMC think that it is an extremely valuable test which vaults those above. However, Head Chef did point out to me that most Chefs look at the CMC as less than ideal. It tests classical cooking such that Escoffier might produce and in fact the test (the classical portion) is heavily rooted in Escoffier philosophy.
Head Chef told me that it is an extremely personal decision to take the CMC. It is a standard by which others are measured but that measure may or may not be respected by those Chefs that are in the trenches of the hot line every day. Day in and day out, toiling, sweating, creating and pushing through the demands of every day kitchen life. Many that take the CMC end up running large industrial (read Hotel or cruise ship) kitchens and many do not cook at all and when they do it is in ‘competition.’
Reading Ruhlman I thought about whether or not I found the test relevant for myself. I asked myself the tough questions but none more important than what is the soul of a chef.
Not yet a Chef I explored my own personal biases as to what I thought the soul of a chef was and how that related to my own personal experience. What I came up with is what follows;
The Soul of a Chef is composed of the following things;
A desire for personal greatness
A solid foundation of creativity from which to express the inherent qualities of an ingredient with an adherence to integrity and honesty
A belief that you can always do better
An understanding that perfection is unattainable but its pursuit is gloriously hard and rewarding
A personal honesty that extends beyond the kitchen and in fact touches all areas of your life
A desire to learn everyday
A passion for relating to others what you have learned on your own journey thus aiding others personal odyssey
The understanding that each day offers new and exciting possibilities
The knowledge and firmly held belief that tomorrow is another day
The knowledge that mistakes happen and that they are the most rewarding because they inform your future
A desire to help others
A desire to inform
A desire to get better each and every day
The ability to play just as hard as you work
This is what I believe the Soul of a Chef is today. I think that as my personal experience continues this list will expand to include much much more and it has caused me to start working on my own personal manifesto.
Ruhlman also spends a lot of time with Michael Symon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Symon) who is the Chef Patron of Cleveland’s Lola (http://www.lolabistro.com/) his personal blog can be found at (http://www.symonsays.typepad.com/). I like Michael Symon. A LOT! If I could spend some time with any one Chef right now it would probably be Michael Symon because I believe that I fit into his model of the world. I believe that his food is honest. That he doesn’t try to be or represent something other than he is. If I could spend time working with him I feel like I could learn a lot. And who knows maybe someday I will.
Ruhlman also speaks of how he became the cowriter of Thomas Keller’s “The French Laundry Cookbook.” Believe me sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But I will leave you to discover that story on your own.
At any rate, I think that Ruhlman’s “The Soul of a Chef” is a great read. So much so that I went out and bought his other book “The Making of a Chef” which naturally I will tell you all about in a future post.
Mario Batali once said; “When I was a cook and 24 years old... I read the kinds of books that were the inspiration to understanding the value of simplicity in cooking.” Funny, that’s what I’m doing 9 years later.
Dream big and inspired.
A la prochaine
SDM
Michael Ruhlman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ruhlman or http://ruhlman.com/) is a true original. As I sat at the bookstore looking through the various books that I could get I kept on coming back to the one I ended up getting. Something about the title intrigued me as I am not entirely sure that there can be “the” soul of a chef. Nonetheless I picked it up and immediately began reading it.
Ruhlman chose to write about the Certified Master Chef test which is put on by the Culinary Institute of America. The CIA is the preeminent school on this side of the Atlantic for the culinary world. From its grounds on the Hudson River, students from all over North America come, to begin the wonderful journey to becoming or improving as a Chef. However, the rare breed that chooses to do the CMC come from far and wide to prove something not to their teachers but to themselves.
The CMC is a grueling ten day adventure which causes the candidates to the rigorous standards of the CIA. To put this in context sine the test was created in the early 1980’s fewer than 100 people have become CMC’s. Ruhlman, as a writer, traveled through the testing following as 7 candidates tried to become the newest CMC’s. What follows is an interesting tale of perseverance, success and failure. It is an interesting expose of how detailed one has to be in order to become a CMC. I must admit that the read is fascinating. Moreover, that it causes one (i.e. ME) to look at what it is I really want.
If anyone out there is interested in professional cooking I do strongly suggest reading this book as it illuminates quite clearly the dedication and force of will that one requires to enter this world.
On a personal note I had a conversation with Head Chef about the CMC resultant from reading this book. I asked him whether or not it was relevant to go after your CMC or note. Thoughtfully he explored both sides of the equation for me. As Ruhlman explains in the book, those who adhere to the principles of the CMC think that it is an extremely valuable test which vaults those above. However, Head Chef did point out to me that most Chefs look at the CMC as less than ideal. It tests classical cooking such that Escoffier might produce and in fact the test (the classical portion) is heavily rooted in Escoffier philosophy.
Head Chef told me that it is an extremely personal decision to take the CMC. It is a standard by which others are measured but that measure may or may not be respected by those Chefs that are in the trenches of the hot line every day. Day in and day out, toiling, sweating, creating and pushing through the demands of every day kitchen life. Many that take the CMC end up running large industrial (read Hotel or cruise ship) kitchens and many do not cook at all and when they do it is in ‘competition.’
Reading Ruhlman I thought about whether or not I found the test relevant for myself. I asked myself the tough questions but none more important than what is the soul of a chef.
Not yet a Chef I explored my own personal biases as to what I thought the soul of a chef was and how that related to my own personal experience. What I came up with is what follows;
The Soul of a Chef is composed of the following things;
A desire for personal greatness
A solid foundation of creativity from which to express the inherent qualities of an ingredient with an adherence to integrity and honesty
A belief that you can always do better
An understanding that perfection is unattainable but its pursuit is gloriously hard and rewarding
A personal honesty that extends beyond the kitchen and in fact touches all areas of your life
A desire to learn everyday
A passion for relating to others what you have learned on your own journey thus aiding others personal odyssey
The understanding that each day offers new and exciting possibilities
The knowledge and firmly held belief that tomorrow is another day
The knowledge that mistakes happen and that they are the most rewarding because they inform your future
A desire to help others
A desire to inform
A desire to get better each and every day
The ability to play just as hard as you work
This is what I believe the Soul of a Chef is today. I think that as my personal experience continues this list will expand to include much much more and it has caused me to start working on my own personal manifesto.
Ruhlman also spends a lot of time with Michael Symon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Symon) who is the Chef Patron of Cleveland’s Lola (http://www.lolabistro.com/) his personal blog can be found at (http://www.symonsays.typepad.com/). I like Michael Symon. A LOT! If I could spend some time with any one Chef right now it would probably be Michael Symon because I believe that I fit into his model of the world. I believe that his food is honest. That he doesn’t try to be or represent something other than he is. If I could spend time working with him I feel like I could learn a lot. And who knows maybe someday I will.
Ruhlman also speaks of how he became the cowriter of Thomas Keller’s “The French Laundry Cookbook.” Believe me sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. But I will leave you to discover that story on your own.
At any rate, I think that Ruhlman’s “The Soul of a Chef” is a great read. So much so that I went out and bought his other book “The Making of a Chef” which naturally I will tell you all about in a future post.
Mario Batali once said; “When I was a cook and 24 years old... I read the kinds of books that were the inspiration to understanding the value of simplicity in cooking.” Funny, that’s what I’m doing 9 years later.
Dream big and inspired.
A la prochaine
SDM
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