from behind the stove

Becoming

The past few months have been a whirlwind for the restaurant. We have received some amazing press. Business is up 40% from last year. We have paid off all of our debts and are now completely debt free. When I set back and look at all we have done in these first 3 1/2 years of being open, I am amazed considering we started out pretty humble.

When we opened the doors there were only 2 other people who really believed in us beside ourselves: Jen's dad and my mom. My old boss gave me 3 years before I would come crawling back for a job. Many people I knew in Vegas didn't take us very serious when we moved away. I think more than a few expected to see us back. And since we were completely unknown here in Traverse City, no one gave us the time of day for the first few months. We have had to fight and scrap every step of the way. Saying we opened the restaurant by our boot straps is a gross understatement. We spent most of the initial investment of just a few thousand dollars on opening costs and began our new venture with less than $2,000 in the bank. Not the best business advise I would give anyone, as it is usually advisable to have at least 6 months projected revenue in the bank before even thinking of opening a restaurant.

Ours was not a typical restaurant opening. We didn't have a big budget; our opening staff was me, my wife Theresa, Jen, and my son Calvin. The pans we used, and are still using, were not bought new, instead they all came from our houses. They are a hodge-podge of 5 or so different brands. Jen often comes back from the thrift store with new find, and we add it to our small collection. Many of our pans don't even have handles. Our dishes were not, and still aren't, fine china. Theresa and Calvin had never worked in a restaurant prior to us opening. Their training consisted of a Knute Rockne inspired speech, a few dos and don'ts, and a good luck; then off we went. From there we simply winged it, solving problems as they cropped up, hoping like hell whatever the next issue would be wouldn't cost to much, or that our guests wouldn't notice. We opened the restaurant with no backup plan. We had no choice but to make it work. We thought we had a pretty good thing and hoped everyone else would think so also, so we decided to just do what we do and let things naturally happen from there.

Now 3 1/2 years later we are much more established and stable, but our style hasn't changed. We are not a restaurant one goes to if they are looking for a well polished performance. Our style is much more organic (pun intended, mostly,...well, really more like 70/30, OK 60/40) than that. We do, and let the cards fall as they may. I am infamous for leaving for a catering and having no idea where said catering is, but I know we'll get there on time. I don't mean to say we don't plan, which we do, it's just that we plan differently from most everyone else and then just let things happen. It's how we opened and it's still how we do it. Our staff has, for the most part, become used to the seat of the pants approach we use. Most of them don't even have to carry paper bags to breath into anymore since they are learning, ever so slowly, that it just works out if we let it. I wouldn't recommend this approach to everyone, but it works for us.

Now, as a self professed obsessive type, I must admit that at times I wonder if I shouldn't get more worked up about our bit more laid back style; if perhaps we should make more of an effort to be more polished. Each time I think about I come to the same conclusion: no. And I'm going to tell you why.

I'm not an end of the road kind of guy. I don't care if I ever get to my destination. For me the important thing is in becoming. The most important thing I look for in my cooks and wait staff is are they in the process of becoming. Give me someone who wants to be and I can make them a cook. But no matter the talent, if a person thinks they have already arrived, then there is nothing I can do with them. I would rather have a teenager in the dinning room fumbling awkwardly but trying like hell than someone who can't be taught. Polish comes with time, and I am a patient person. There are some who think we are moving to slow but I keep saying that in the long run we will be better off if we focus on getting better and not being perfect now.

I like our kind of restaurant. I like the fact we have blemishes. I like it that people can come in to eat and not feel any intimidation. I believe our shortcomings are just important as our successes. Years ago I was a perfectionist in the kitchen. In the process I have had two nervous breakdowns and I am sure the stress I put myself under to attain an unattainable goal has taken a couple years off my life. Now-a-days I am happy to look out into the dinning room and see happy people, knowing full well that we could do better and with full confidence that tomorrow we will.

Advice for young chefs

Almost a year ago I wrote a post giving some advice for young line cooks. Today I would like to take a moment and give some advice for chefs who are still somewhat new to their positions. To say it is a huge step going from line cook to sous-chef to Chef is an understatement. I took over my first kitchen at the ripe ol' age of 24, which is much, much to young to be in charge of a professional kitchen. I had only one sous-chef position before my first Chef position. Boy, O' boy, was I lost. Needless to say my learning curve was a steep one at that. I really didn't get a good hold on my position until I had ran two or so other kitchens. So, with that said, here is some advise I wish I would have been given:

1) Be passionate that borderlines on the obsessive. The passionate part goes without saying. If you are not passionate about your food, get out. You are doing no one any good; not yourself, not your employer, not your cooks, not your guests. A chef with no passion is worthless. Now, as to the borderline obsessive part, this is where good chefs and great chefs part ways. It's easy to be a good chef. It takes a rabid, obsessive, single-minded, maniac to be a great chef. In his memoir's, Escoffier said it would be difficult to recount the number of hours he spent in the kitchen after everyone had gone home trying new flavor combinations and new dishes. Great chefs live food and nothing gets in the way of this obsession. It is entirely up to you just how far you go and how well you do in your career.

2) Get used to being tired. A chef who is not tired, is a chef who is not doing his/her job. Eight hour days? Those went out of the window when you were a line cook. Now your average day is 12-15 hours. Sleep is optional. There is never enough time to do all that needs to be done. Your to-do list is never finished. You will go home tired and you will wake up tired. That is what the kitchen demands. If getting your 8 hours sleep is important, you might want to consider another career path. Personally, I live on an average 4-6 hours and am doing just fine.

3) Never stop learning. Now that you have attained the coveted position of Chef it does not mean in anyway that you have "arrived". No, you still have a long way to go. I look back at my early days as Chef and just can't believe myself sometimes. Keep reading cookbooks. Keep learning from other chefs. Don't tune your cooks out, they can often times teach you a thing or two. A chef who doesn't read cookbooks is like a writer who read other novels. You cannot advance in your position in a vacuum. Keep up on current trends. Learn new techniques. Push yourself everyday to learn something new.

4) Stress. It's best to become its friend now, otherwise it will be your nightmare later. I read an article some years ago that was discussing the most stressful jobs in the United States and professional chef was up in the top five, right alone side of air traffic controllers, tramua doctors, and police officers. The stress you felt as a line cook and sous-chef is nothing to the stress you are going to feel now. Now, everying is your problem and your fault. The customer wants what they want, when they want it. It is your job to give it to them. Are you up to it?

5) Do not hang around with your crew. Your are the boss now. You are the taskmaster whose job it is to crack the whip. Those working for you are no longer your friends. They are your cooks. You cannot maintain the respect of your crew if you go out with them. There has to be a gap between you and your crew. It is the job of your sous-chef to fill that gap, but you must remain somewhat aloof.

6) Be firm. Disicpline is not an option in a well ran kitchen. It is the job of the Chef to set the standard and it is the job of the Chef to make sure that standard is met with each and every plate. You can only do this if there is a firm disicipline in place. Get it known right away whose standard they, the cooks, are to follow. YOURS. Firm dicipline does not mean abuse. Mario Batali was once asked about his opinion of chefs who spend their time yelling and screaming at their cooks. His answer was spot on. He said that a chef who finds they have scream at their cooks is a chef who has not properly trained them. There is no place in a kitchen for abuse or personal attacks, no matter what you may see on T.V. or have personally seen in your own training. Being abused by a chef in your early career does not give you the right to abuse. The cycle of abuse stops with you.

7) Be firmly in control of your kitchen. The buck stops with you. If the food is brilliant, it is because of you. If it is a flop, it is because of you. You are the leader. Your cooks will only go as far as you lead. If you don't lead, then the assylum is under the control of the inmates, and that is never a good idea. See everything. Hear everything. Nothing should get past you. Learn to pay attention to every detail. Not a plate leaves the pass with you tasting it and seeing it; and it doesn't leave the pass if you don't approve of it. You tell the cooks what to do, not the other way around. Every kitchen has it's own pulse. It is your job to find that pulse and use it to conduct your cooks in their jobs. I let it be known that my kitchen is NOT a democracy. It is a theocracy, and I am god. If you are young, this is not as easy as it sounds. My first few kitchens found me as the youngest cook, and it was tough. It will take sometime to gain respect from your older cooks, but stay with your guns. Listen to the older cooks, but don't let them tell you how to run your kitchen. You are going to make a lot of mistakes, so make them with authority.

8) Trust your crew, but have a plan B ready. Some chefs micro-manage, I don't. I trust my crew to do their jobs. I've trained them the right way and they know not to deviate from the path. BUT, always have a plan B at the ready. Trust your crew to do their jobs, but have a plan if they don't.

9) Make yourself a place of sanctuary. I cannot overstate how important it is to have a place you can go to and get away, if only for a few moments. My office downstairs is my place. It's a hoval, but it's mine and I go there often when I just need a moment away. Ever wonder why the Chef sometimes disappears into the walk-in cooler for extended periods of time? Because the cooler often provides a quick repose from the chaos outside.

Good luck. You're going to need it.

My Crew

We were closed for a couple days last month for a very large wedding dinner we had been contracted to do. The first day we were closed was for prep purposes. One just doesn't wake up the day of such a large event and pull all that food out of a hat; no, prepping for a party as large as the one we were getting ready for (410 guests) requires a good 18 hours work prior to the actual day. We had our usual kitchen crew plus a couple other cooks we hired on mercenary terms, so all in all there was 10 of us cooking for the party.

The next day we all arrive to the restaurant at 8:00 am to make the final preparations needed before departing to the site of the wedding. After 4 more hours work we were ready to go. All the preliminary work was done, the vehicles were packed and it was time to leave. As Jen and I were walking to our cars I happened to look over see the other 8 cooks of our team walking together as a group to their cars; I had to stop and just smile.

There they were, a rag-tag bunch if I've seen one. There was my sous chef, in whom I see a lot of myself at that age; intense, motivated, singly driven by food. I've three kids younger than 18 in my kitchen. One has been with me since he was 13. He's a Jewish vegetarian who, at the drop of a hat, will taste a dish of pork to make sure it is properly seasoned. One is an 18 year death-metal musician with hair down to his waist and plays a wicked set of drums. The last one just barely 17, wide eyed and just a little bit innocent. I've reassured her mom that the kitchen will take the innocence away and she should be foul mouthed and jaded in just a few short years. I think mom was hoping I was joking, but I've seen it to many times. Hell, I credit growing up in professional kitchens as the source of my own foul mouthed jadedness. I, and so many like me, learned my social skills from the sketchy mercenary like cooks who were my elders as I was coming up through the food chain. Lastly are my two interns. Freshly out of cooking school, full of ideas, with an entire career ahead of them. I remember that stage of my own career. If you would have asked me back then I would have told you I was pert-near the best damn chef on the planet. Now I look back and shake my head because I now understand just how little I knew then.

As I drove out to the catering site I got to thinking about my current kitchen crew and of past crews I've been a part of, or have been the chef of. Kitchen workers, cooks and dishwashers alike, are a breed apart, though no two are alike in any way except they share the common trait of cook, which is a trait that, from personal experience, typically means they can't fit into proper society with it's proper jobs and professions. Most cooks have something about them that just isn't right, and trying to put your finger on just what exactly it is is like trying to define time, we all know what it is, but nobody can define it; that is how I describe the typical cook. I've had cooks who were former nuns; former gang members; either just released from prison or on their way in; freshly out of the French Foriegn Legion; going to plumers school. Well I think you get my point.

So, that's my crew. Not a one of them on the same page, until...until you get them in the kitchen, then they come together as one to produce beauty. They are all these different cogs who, by any enginenering defination, should no mesh, but when put into the confines of the kitchen have the ability to put aside differences and cook. I've had cooks in the past who literally hate each other. Who would rather go out back and beat the shit out of each other and spit on the other's grave before saying a kind word in return. But on the line during a busy dinner rush I've seen these very cooks work together like they were made for each other.

The longer I am in the kitchen, the more I understand what Guy Savoy meant when he said, "The restaurant is the last civilized place on earth." The very nature of the restuarant creates unity. Everyone from the wealthiest of customers to the lowliest of dishwashers(who, by the way, are the most important people in the kitchen, but that is for another post) are united by one thing; a plate of food.

That one plate of food is what brings all of us together everyday. It's that one plate of food that has brought us together since we first discovered fire and cooking. We cooks, no matter our differences, come together each day and night, put our differences aside for the single purpose of providing you with a plate of food. And it has been like that since the very first cook. We might no play well in the sandbox with the other kids, but give us a mud pie and we will bring all the other kids together.