It's been far too long

With reopening the kitchen for the new school year, I realized that I was missing something.  Ah, yes, my blog.  It was right where I left it, dusty and waiting to be taken out for a spin.  It felt good to be back in the saddle, as it always does.  A place where I can kick off my shoes and say what I need, without repercussion, without being told, "Turn it down, people are trying to sleep here".  I figured out that I need this place as much as it needs me.  Without each other, neither of us is any where.  So here's to you, my misplaced blog!  May you not be misplaced in the future!

You're only as good as your last service...

It's been a while since I posted last, but I felt that this one needed to be shared. 

It's cliché but it is ultimately true.  Your last service is what everyone measures you by.  If you have a great night, you are the star, a bad service and you don't know what you are doing, in over your head, etc.

As a chef you learn a lot about yourself.  You learn, quickly, that you are one of the people who always strives for perfection but yet, never seems to see when you are close.  You will always nit pick your work, nothing is ever good enough.  That is what keeps you going, keeps the edge.  It helps you make that plate even better next time.  It also wears you out.  It leads to great self doubt.  A bad service will haunt you for a while.  What could I have changed and what outcome would that have had?  It is enough to drive you insane.  

I wasn't even supposed to be here today...

Walking into work, after hours is always a bit weird.  I always see the place through my work eyes, not the visitor eyes, that most everyone else does.  I see the issues with the service tables, the garbage cans not properly lined or set up, the little things.  It is difficult shutting off that part of the brain, to say the least.  


I went in the other night to see the Lower School musical.  We took the older kids and the toddler, since most of the students know all three of them.  Additionally, Mrs. Koegel, wanted to see some of the students she used to teach, when she was working here.  It was the start of a good evening, the older kids were happy when we picked them up, the toddler was happy and things were running right on schedule.  Dinner was good, but it was Walker Bros., so how could it be bad?  We arrived at school and entered through one of the doors most people don't use, just so we could avoid the crowd.  The Theater Lobby is far too small to have the receptions that they try to host there, but there is no real good place to conduct them otherwise.  


Not two minutes after walking through the door, I remembered the reasons why I don't attend after hours events.  I didn't even make it into the Theater when I was asked to find a garbage can, because there was no can in the set up, and no one thought about it when actually putting the set up together.  The parents can't be blamed, they don't set up events, who ever does the set up should have a checklist to go through, to make sure the little details are taken care of.  As I was starting to look for someone to get a can to the space, I was approached by one of the faculty saying that the doors were not unlocked and what could I do.  Luckily, I have a key card that will program the doors, so I was able to take care of that.  The whole time I was walking back to the Theater, from doing the hunt for a garbage can, I kept thinking, "I wasn't even supposed to be here, today..." in the whiny, Dante from Clerks, voice.

I know that it stinks for everyone in my family, that I go off and start taking care of problems, within two seconds of arriving.  I get it.  I also am aware that the parents know I will get things done, so they ask.  It takes a few minutes and takes care of them and their event.  This only helps our department, because they associate that we will make sure they are taken care of, even when it not an event that we are doing.  When we do that, they speak to other parents about how we took care of them, and it just goes from there.  Word of mouth is a powerful tool around here, and it does get noticed, when you do something small.  It is small for us, but it is monumental for them, since it is their event.


Sometimes the little things are the most important.  I know it is a difficult balance and I thank Mrs. Koegel, for being the wonderfully supportive wife that she is.  I wouldn't be able to do all the things I do, without her.

When in doubt...read the manual!

Standardization is a good thing.  It keeps the wheels of a professional kitchen running smoothly.  Without it, ordering is impossible as you could run out of or have too much of whatever product you are using.  Flavor is impossible to recreate dish to dish, day to day, let alone month to month, as we run a 5 week cycle menu.  We work our recipes multiple times, in order to make sure that they are honed to a fine edge.  A miscalculation of an ingredient can be covered, most of the time, as we deal with large quantities; though sometimes it is a disaster waiting to happen.  There are computer programs to scale recipes up or down, but those have to be watched too, since they scale all of the ingredients in a recipe...including salt.  When scaling a recipe for Thai Red Curry Shrimp, the new calculation called for 2 cups of salt!  Yikes!  Most cooks will watch for it, some will not. 

 It is my job to make sure all measures are correct for whatever dish we are working on.  You would think that once we have a recipe figured out, tested and finalized that would be the end.  Not so.  Sometimes the cooks decide that the way we had been doing it is too difficult or too time consuming, so they change things.  Granted, sometimes there are better ways to do things.  Short cuts are great, if they do not compromise the final product, which rarely happens.  


When it comes to teaching staff, you can be the best teacher, with the best techniques, but you are only as good as your students.  If your staff do not buy into the level of excellence you are expecting, then it is all moot.  Case in point; last week's lasagna.  When we put together the recipe for meat lasagna, we measured (scaled) everything using what we have in house, scoops or spoodles.  Spoodles are serving pieces which are scaled to a particular size, to get a consistent portion; i.e. a 4 ounce spoodle, gives 4 ounces of what you are serving, if it is leveled with the edge of the side.  We also used a ruler to see that it was a height that looked appealing, also.  This was work done over the course of 3 of the first years I was at the school.  We do a two layer lasagna, one layer of cheese and one of meat sauce.  For assembly, we put 20 ounces of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan, then a layer of noodles.  On top of that we put 40 ounces of ricotta and egg mixture, followed by another noodle layer.  Finally, we top with 50 ounces of meat sauce.  That gives us a slice of lasagna that is 3 inches tall.  When they are cut, we are serving almost a perfect cube of lasagna.  What happens when you doing follow the recipe?  You end up with a lasagna that is about 1.5 inches tall and looks bad.  The cheese layer was cut down because there wasn't enough ricotta in house.  Instead of saying anything or going to the store, it was decided that the cheese layer should be cut back, to only about 20 ounces of cheese per pan.  Half of what it should be.  Luckily, there was only one pan that was made that way, I caught the rest before they were assembled.  After much "discussion", usually by me in a loud voice, the cooks saw it my way.  Now, will this stick for next time?  Probably.  The staff usually doesn't make the same mistake twice.  If only they had gone through the recipe book.

It's been a while

Has it really been a month since my last post?  So much has gone on since then, it seems like only yesterday and yet a whole year, at the same time.  We have been busy, busy, busy.  New recipes to be tested, revamped and tested again.  Corporate reports, pricing updates and the newest item to hit the world, the webinair.  How on earth did we ever live without a webinair?  Oh, technology, how you can make our lives easier and more difficult and all encompassing, at the same time.  There are almost no places on the planet that don't have some sort of cellular or satellite coverage.  Phones are more sophisticated and have more computing power than the first computer built.  Basically, 90% of the working population is always "on".  Forgot to order a case of tomato paste, punch up the website on your phone and add it on.  No muss, no fuss, anytime of the day or night.  The supply house is fully automated, there are robotic order pickers, order packers and truck loaders.  I toured our broadline supply house facility.  It was amazing.  Seeing the robots do all the work.  They even put the incoming stock on the shelves.  Yes, this eliminated human order pickers, loaders/unloaders and their supervisors.  With jobs being cut all over, it is hard for some people to stand by their decision to eliminate the positions and go fully automated. 

That is, until you hear the rest of the story.  By going fully automated, the company streamlined their operation across the board.  There were error reductions in each aspect of the supply chain.  There was a 4 hour reduction in picking, alone.  They were able to set their operation up for 24 hour picking.  This was eliminated about 10 years prior, because they could not find people to work the third shift.  Mis-picks almost entirely disappeared.  This was huge.  When there is a mis-pick, 90% of the time, it would get delivered to the customer because all the picker is aware of is the label, not what is printed on the case, so there is a box and it has a label from the order, saying it is tomato paste, when the case says it is balsamic vinegar.  While it is not the pickers problem that someone stuck the wrong pallet in the slot for tomato paste, the picker didn't bother to see that the wrong item is in the slot, and let their supervisor know.  This means that case of balsamic vinegar is coming to your door.  So it has been picked, packed, loaded and now the driver is unloading it to you.  The driver won't catch the mistake, because they are not aware of what you ordered, only that all the cases have labels with your establishments name one them.  So, it comes to your door, into your delivery area and you get to tell the driver, nope wrong product.  They load it back in the truck and it makes its way back to the supply house.  This happened at least twice a month, in our facility anyhow.  The last report showed just how bad it was.  Just by eliminating the extra work that goes into replacing a mis-picked item, with the correct one, not even accounting for the reduction of salaries that the human workers, the company saves a minimum of $14 Million dollars per year.  That is huge.  This was not made to benefit the bottom line, though it doesn't hurt it, it was made to benefit the customer.  By having more accurate orders, the customer saves time and money, because they don't have to source their product from someone else, until the replacement comes in.  And the supplier passed the savings onto the customer.  Pricing dropped after the automation went online, which made for a lot of loyal customers.  So when I place my order from my office, on my computer, I know that it is queued up and will be picked within the next 3 hours.  I also have the reassurance that it will come in right, with minimum mistakes, saving me from having to do extra running around to cover someone else's mistakes.  We do enough of that on any given day anyhow. 

It's nice to have one thing taken off your plate, so thank you, technology.  Thank you for making sure my orders are a lot more accurate and thank you again, for making it possible for me to "attend" a meeting and not have to pay attention, while I could be doing other things, like working!  

The End of an Era

I'm shocked, but not totally.  I'm at a loss for words, but only barely.  I cannot imagine the worlds without him, well I can but it is totally boring and insignificant.  The chef who inspired countless others, even if it was by belittling them at full volume, started so many trends, that it is impossible to believe he began them all and was a huge hero to me, Charlie Trotter, is calling it quits.

I'm shocked because it seemed like Trotter's would always be there.  That you always would get back to it again, after your first dinner there.  That you could always count on Trotter's being a fixture of Chicago.  25 years later, it is closing it's doors.  Chef Trotter is taking a well deserved break.  Being at the restaurant every hour the doors were unlocked is bound to take a toll.  One thing it never took a toll on was perfection.  Everything was as it should be, for every moment of those 25 years; or it was pointed out with such disdain and language, questioning the offenders ability and desire, that it was certain to never happen again.  The stories are legendary, but not so that they are unbelievable and it never stopped the endless line of applicants ready to fill a vacant position.  Anyone who stepped through the door knew what they were in for.  His name is on the marque and his reputation was on the line each and every night.  If he wanted perfection and he was paying your salary, you were going to provide it or die trying.

I never worked for Chef Trotter.  I have had the occasion to meet him a few times.  Mostly, unmemorable for him, I'm sure, but for someone fresh out of culinary school, a head full of ideas and a slew of cookbooks, he was my idol.  Each meeting had such an enormous impact on me, as a person, as a cook, as a dreamer.  I always had a dream of working at Trotter's, though I never had the nerve to follow through.  I did, however have the occasion to have dinner at Trotter's once.  The experience was amazing.  The service was impeccable, the presentations were beyond anything I had imagined and the food...well, the food was something that made me rethink everything I had done up to that point.  Every course built upon the other, taking ingredients that should have not worked together, and making something extraordinary.  I seriously wanted to go home and throw all of my kit away and hang it up and at the same time, figure out how he did it.  I felt like I knew nothing about cooking and should just find another career.   It pushed me to my limit and beyond.  That dinner made such a huge impact on my cooking.  I am saddened to see the era end.

It's rudimentary, My Dear Watson.

You live the job.  You breath the job.  It is what you do.  It is part of you, your heart, your soul, your passion.  If it isn't, you should probably find another career.  But when does it become a career?

Does getting paid to do work the hours we do, with the hazards we face on a moment by moment basis, constitute a career?  Granted, we are not as likely to be in harm's way as say a solider or police officer, but working arond hot equipment with sharp implements, wet floors and a fast pace.  Does that hold enough weight to call it a career?  Does working at the same place for 10+ years, make it a career?  Does any of that matter when push comes to shove?  I asked one of my cooks this very question today, "Is this a part of your heart, your soul, your passion?"  They looked at me like it was crazy.  I wanted to evoke a reaction.  A spark.  Anything to get them back into the game.  They have gone through an extremely tough time, as of late, and I wanted to make sure I could depend on them.  Not only, showing up everyday, but showing up ready for anything.  Ready to do battle.  Ready to give the best service possible.  Too tall an order to ask?  I don't think so.

Some days, it seems it is too much to ask. Pulling salad dressing to wash the insert tray; seems like a no brainer.  Should be done on a daily basis, you would think.  But should that happen 5 minutes after service has started?  I think not.  Fresh bread comes in daily, on racks from the bakery.  Fresh bread is used daily.  Almost completely, every day.  Why would we all of a sudden not have fresh bread?  Why wouldn't you look deeper into the stack of bread racks, other than the top one?  Why wouldn't you ask someone, "Hey, where's the bread?"  It's these little things that seem to beg the question; where is the passion?

When I asked said employee this question, I also followed it up with the direction to take a week or two to get back to me with an answer.  I am using that time to observe their actions, as well as how they are taking direction, to see if the passion is really there, or if they are just collecting a paycheck.

It's the little things that make up our business.  Anyone can be taught to cook.  Not everyone can put together the little things that make up a great dish, great service, great experience.  It takes time, commitment and the ability to see things from the customers point of view.  Would you pay for this?  Would you serve it to your family?  If you cannot answer those questions with a yes, you should start over.  It's not how many covers you can bang out, it's how many guests will return because of the experience you gave them.

My passion for cooking started way back with my grandmother.  Cooking with her in her apartment in the city.  We would bake bread, make homemade salad dressings, clean and clip string beans, make soups and talk the whole time.  I have very fond memories of that time.  I can almost still smell the chicken dumpling soup, a dish I've never been able to quite recreate.  There is just something I'm missing, maybe it is my grandmother, that just makes it seem just a bit off.

It all boils down to the little things.  Make sure you cover the little details and people will notice.  And, at the end of the day, you will know you did your best.  Always strive for perfection, if you miss the mark, at least you will have attained a level of excellence that you can be proud of.  I'm paraphrasing a quote from Charlie Trotter, there.  He was an incredible inspiration to me, that quote in particular.  Oui Chef, I'm striving.