So I got a spot on a local t.v. station to do a little cooking. No biggie, right? I know cooking, I know how to talk to people (sort of). I can do this, right?
Except that I've never cooked for the public before....I've never even worked on an open line..and I've still got a lot of line cook in me.
It's got me thinking, though. How did all of today's celebrity chefs get their start? Did they do local t.v? Did they bomb the first time? Were they as terrible as I might be?
I feel like Rocky in Rocky II, where they made him do those commercials....
Maybe I'm not cut out for t.v....
Friday, August 21, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Students.......
I (generally) love a culinary student. Any young person with the balls to actually take on this industry and want to make themselves something within it deserves at least a little credit in my books. Maybe they'll make it, maybe they won't. Maybe they'll burn out when they're twenty and go into construction. Point is, they see some sort of future for themselves in this business, and at the very least, they have some sort of passion for it.
There are other students out there, however, who get a part-time or summer job with a company and have the fucking balls to DARE and look down on me and my staff.
Let this be known: Me and my staff work harder and longer than any of you fucks will. Will we ever make as much money? Possibly not. Are we better than you? In the broadest sense of it: yes.
A good cook knows that other people always come before them. It's very likely they are somewhat downtrodden, maybe poor, maybe even scumbags. But they all have manners, they've all been trained to put others before themselves because that's what they do for 8 hours (at the least) for (at the very least) 5 days a week.
We thrive on challenges. We look failure in the eye every day and tell it to take a hike. We adapt to whatever is thrown at us. We're fit, even though we barely look after ourselves. If we're not fit, we sweat like dogs to get everything done until we ARE fit. We are as sharp and keen as the knives we use. And even though we all have mouths that would turn a sailor blue, we've got more common sense and practical intelligence than half of your university's education department.
We multitask. Fuck do we multitask. We do more in one day than you'll do in a month. We balance budgets while chopping herbs, boiling pasta, reducing veal stock and making caramel. While my baker makes coulis, brulees, cheesecake, biscuits, fills a few orders, makes notes for the next days order and lists for that days mis, she's running half the hot line and filling her own bills.
More than manners, work ethic,and inner strength to carry on even though every part of you aches and you haven't had any real sleep in days or sat down to a good meal in over a month though, my best cooks are good people. To paraphrase a great japanese chef: "You are only as great a cook as the person you are." And this is true for them. They are some of the finest people I will ever have the great pleasure to know, and I would not trade them for the world.
However, if you are some snide, sneering, nose-turned-up, too-good-to-be-here, silver spoon-fed, ivory tower, at-home-with-your-parents-living, fast-food-loving, doesn't-give-a-fuck-about my-kitchen-or-the-people-in-it, or the customers that are paying your inflated wage, motherfucking, sycophantic, sucking-up-to-with-MY-food-and-UNSUCCESSFULLY-hitting-on-the-waitresses-while-you-could-be-doing-work! CUNT, you had best stay the hell away from my kitchen. I might have a position for you though, as a dishwasher. Although, my dishwasher says he doesn't like you, and I can't be responsible for what happens to you after work.
Needless to say, I'm not hiring students anymore. Maybe culinary students. Some of them are alrights.
There are other students out there, however, who get a part-time or summer job with a company and have the fucking balls to DARE and look down on me and my staff.
Let this be known: Me and my staff work harder and longer than any of you fucks will. Will we ever make as much money? Possibly not. Are we better than you? In the broadest sense of it: yes.
A good cook knows that other people always come before them. It's very likely they are somewhat downtrodden, maybe poor, maybe even scumbags. But they all have manners, they've all been trained to put others before themselves because that's what they do for 8 hours (at the least) for (at the very least) 5 days a week.
We thrive on challenges. We look failure in the eye every day and tell it to take a hike. We adapt to whatever is thrown at us. We're fit, even though we barely look after ourselves. If we're not fit, we sweat like dogs to get everything done until we ARE fit. We are as sharp and keen as the knives we use. And even though we all have mouths that would turn a sailor blue, we've got more common sense and practical intelligence than half of your university's education department.
We multitask. Fuck do we multitask. We do more in one day than you'll do in a month. We balance budgets while chopping herbs, boiling pasta, reducing veal stock and making caramel. While my baker makes coulis, brulees, cheesecake, biscuits, fills a few orders, makes notes for the next days order and lists for that days mis, she's running half the hot line and filling her own bills.
More than manners, work ethic,and inner strength to carry on even though every part of you aches and you haven't had any real sleep in days or sat down to a good meal in over a month though, my best cooks are good people. To paraphrase a great japanese chef: "You are only as great a cook as the person you are." And this is true for them. They are some of the finest people I will ever have the great pleasure to know, and I would not trade them for the world.
However, if you are some snide, sneering, nose-turned-up, too-good-to-be-here, silver spoon-fed, ivory tower, at-home-with-your-parents-living, fast-food-loving, doesn't-give-a-fuck-about my-kitchen-or-the-people-in-it, or the customers that are paying your inflated wage, motherfucking, sycophantic, sucking-up-to-with-MY-food-and-UNSUCCESSFULLY-hitting-on-the-waitresses-while-you-could-be-doing-work! CUNT, you had best stay the hell away from my kitchen. I might have a position for you though, as a dishwasher. Although, my dishwasher says he doesn't like you, and I can't be responsible for what happens to you after work.
Needless to say, I'm not hiring students anymore. Maybe culinary students. Some of them are alrights.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Mother Sauces?
Antoine Careme was the first to lay down the basic mother sauces: Veloute, Bechamel, Espagnole, and Allemande. He also included Vinaigrettes.
Escoffier would later update this to include Tomato sauce, and Egg-Based Emulsions (Hollandaise, Mayonnaise). To my knowledge, his version, and the widely-accepted version did not include Vinaigrettes.
It is now roughly a century later. Isn't it about time to update the list? Espagnole is widely unaccepted in most haute-cuisine in favor of one type of reduction or another, be it beef, veal, or even pork. Veloute is still used, although less than in the past, and generally is replaced with a lighter kind of jus, making me wonder if it still deserves to be on the list. Cultural cross-over has brought in many new kinds of sauce which are widely used. Technology has brought us foams and emulsions and encapsulated sauces that were previously un-heard of.
I get asked the question by my younger, more ambitious cooks or apprentices: "What are the five (or sometimes four) basic mother sauces?"
My only response to them generally ends up with me debating with myself exactly what these are these days. I list espagnole, although, as I stated above, it is generally replaced with a reduction now, veloute, simply because it is still in use in some form or another, tomato and egg-based emulsions are still widely used, so I'm fairly solid on them being included. After that, though, things get a little fuzzy. Should I include vinaigrette? What about chemical emulsions and foams? Does the wide use of ethnic sauces earn them a spot? Or do they stay in the ethnic category? Does updating this list even really matter?
To the last question, I say yes. I have a feeling (and it is JUST a feeling, so you can take it or leave it as you like) that there's a lot of confused cooks and chefs out there that may not be being properly equipped by their teachers and chefs for modern cuisine. It is also my feeling that this leads to a lot of the fake-outs and outright lies that you sometimes see on menus created by people who would like to try new things and be ambitious but aren't approaching it in a structured, organized fashion, to the detriment of our craft.
I'd like to think that's what Careme and Escoffier were doing when they listed the mother sauces: saying that this is this and that is that and providing a structure upon which creative minds can work without sacrificing quality or integrity, and making what may have just been a chaos of one-offs and idiosyncracies much more organized and easy to work with.
Or else I'm wrong and this is just another pointless, self-indulgent ramble. Either way. I mean, that's what this is all for, right?
Escoffier would later update this to include Tomato sauce, and Egg-Based Emulsions (Hollandaise, Mayonnaise). To my knowledge, his version, and the widely-accepted version did not include Vinaigrettes.
It is now roughly a century later. Isn't it about time to update the list? Espagnole is widely unaccepted in most haute-cuisine in favor of one type of reduction or another, be it beef, veal, or even pork. Veloute is still used, although less than in the past, and generally is replaced with a lighter kind of jus, making me wonder if it still deserves to be on the list. Cultural cross-over has brought in many new kinds of sauce which are widely used. Technology has brought us foams and emulsions and encapsulated sauces that were previously un-heard of.
I get asked the question by my younger, more ambitious cooks or apprentices: "What are the five (or sometimes four) basic mother sauces?"
My only response to them generally ends up with me debating with myself exactly what these are these days. I list espagnole, although, as I stated above, it is generally replaced with a reduction now, veloute, simply because it is still in use in some form or another, tomato and egg-based emulsions are still widely used, so I'm fairly solid on them being included. After that, though, things get a little fuzzy. Should I include vinaigrette? What about chemical emulsions and foams? Does the wide use of ethnic sauces earn them a spot? Or do they stay in the ethnic category? Does updating this list even really matter?
To the last question, I say yes. I have a feeling (and it is JUST a feeling, so you can take it or leave it as you like) that there's a lot of confused cooks and chefs out there that may not be being properly equipped by their teachers and chefs for modern cuisine. It is also my feeling that this leads to a lot of the fake-outs and outright lies that you sometimes see on menus created by people who would like to try new things and be ambitious but aren't approaching it in a structured, organized fashion, to the detriment of our craft.
I'd like to think that's what Careme and Escoffier were doing when they listed the mother sauces: saying that this is this and that is that and providing a structure upon which creative minds can work without sacrificing quality or integrity, and making what may have just been a chaos of one-offs and idiosyncracies much more organized and easy to work with.
Or else I'm wrong and this is just another pointless, self-indulgent ramble. Either way. I mean, that's what this is all for, right?
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
INNNNNNNVEENNNNNNNNTORRRRRRYYYYYY!!!!!
I hate inventory as it is. Most cooks and chefs probably do. We'd rather be cooking or working on recipes, dreaming up a new dish or perfecting an old one than counting meat and tomatoes and crunching numbers. I have to admit though, there's a little satisfaction that comes from being on top of the business side of your kitchen and having all the numbers come out on your side.
At least...that's the way it was. I'll give you a little piece of advice that I just learned: If you are ever faced with a situation where you have to create an inventory system using PixelPOS or similar software and you are slightly more than say a sandwich shop or lunch counter or some ridiculous chain restaurant that buys everything in bottles; I strongly advise you to get the hell out of there...now.
Suffice it to say the inventory crap that I put about a month of ridiculous work into....does not work. At least not for me. I'm done with it. I'm done stressing about it and feeling stupid because I can't make it work right. To the best of my knowledge, it's never going to work right. At least, not for us, and not for the kind of operation that we have.
I'm going to have a meeting with the owner tomorrow to calmly explain to them that the reports they've been waiting for aren't coming. At least, not from that system, and that I'm going back to my old spreadsheets, and possibly some new ones, updating them, putting numbers in them, and will be back to making real reports in about a week.
Seriously, this almost made me want to quit cooking altogether. It made me feel like a failure. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good with business stuff and spreadsheets and food-costing and all that stuff. Some days, when I can make good progress on it, and everything is working just right, I actually kinda like it. But this...this was just a nightmare.
There's a strong possibility of there being some strong words used tomorrow. There's a possibility I might quit or get fired. Wish me luck.
At least...that's the way it was. I'll give you a little piece of advice that I just learned: If you are ever faced with a situation where you have to create an inventory system using PixelPOS or similar software and you are slightly more than say a sandwich shop or lunch counter or some ridiculous chain restaurant that buys everything in bottles; I strongly advise you to get the hell out of there...now.
Suffice it to say the inventory crap that I put about a month of ridiculous work into....does not work. At least not for me. I'm done with it. I'm done stressing about it and feeling stupid because I can't make it work right. To the best of my knowledge, it's never going to work right. At least, not for us, and not for the kind of operation that we have.
I'm going to have a meeting with the owner tomorrow to calmly explain to them that the reports they've been waiting for aren't coming. At least, not from that system, and that I'm going back to my old spreadsheets, and possibly some new ones, updating them, putting numbers in them, and will be back to making real reports in about a week.
Seriously, this almost made me want to quit cooking altogether. It made me feel like a failure. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good with business stuff and spreadsheets and food-costing and all that stuff. Some days, when I can make good progress on it, and everything is working just right, I actually kinda like it. But this...this was just a nightmare.
There's a strong possibility of there being some strong words used tomorrow. There's a possibility I might quit or get fired. Wish me luck.
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