I walked into Consolidated Theatres last Sunday harboring unprocessed grief and still a tinge high on magic mushrooms.
Read more#23 - Would You Still Be A Chef
What if you were in a car accident tomorrow and your dominant hand had to be amputated and you could no longer work in a kitchen. Would you still be a chef?
What if you got fired or lost your restaurant empire for sexual misconduct?
What if one day you woke up and realized that working in the restaurant industry was doing you more harm than good and for your own sake you had to get out.
What if you lost your job or restaurant due to COVID-19 and couldn’t find another one?
What if you left your chef career to start a family?
Would you still be a chef?
#22 - And Dim Sum
It wasn’t so much the taste as it was the texture.
Tiny bones and fingernails slithering out.
Soft and spongy.
Spiced gelatin melting into my…
Read more#21 - Start From The Beginning
Bay Area Chef Paul Bertolli cooked “…food grounded in a tradition, yet enlivened by the act of greeting the process and the ingredients anew.”
In his cookbook, “Cooking By Hand,” he talks about…
Read more#20 - The Mango Moment
On a sunny July morning I had a moment with a mango
As I pierced the skin an intoxicating perfume erupted into the air like steam billowing out of a hot tub on a cold night
An aroma so sweet assaulted my brain
Lighting it up like a…
Read more#19 - Good Food Wasted
#18 - Deliver To 558 Sacramento
It’s 2004 in downtown San Francisco.
The alley I work in is cold and damp. Sewer sludge. Whipping wind.
We have one of those trap doors in the pavement out front that…
Read more#17 - The GM-Chef Relationship
A chef has two wives.
Three, if he has one at home too.
But at work there are two: his sous chef and the general manager.
The GM-chef relationship is an interesting one. It’s unlike the
Read more#16 - The Butter Test
There comes a time in a young line cook’s career when you’ve worked in a couple of high end restaurants, you’ve received a lot of good feedback and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. So you decide to take your career to the next level.
This happened to me around year 3 of my career. I’d worked in the two best restaurants in San Mateo where I lived in the bay area and it was time for me to…
Read more#15 - Food Memories That Mold The Chef: Oyster Crackers and Pin bones
I devoured seafood as a kid growing up in San Diego.
Even when my friends labeled fish as “yucky” and “gross” I happily indulged. Sadly, I developed a severe shellfish allergy around 10 years old that has limited my seafood consumption to only fish ever since. But before that…
Read more#14 - That Time You Thought You Nailed It
As she wiped the rim of both plates she gave herself a silent pat on the back and walked them out to the dining room.
Beaming, she presents the owner and wife with the evening’s special––Pork Milanese. Leaving them with essentially her heart on a plate she walks back to the hot line.
“How was everything?”
Read more#13 - Did That Stage Just Count On His Fingers?
It can be intimidating to walk into a tightly knit kitchen and try to seamlessly slide in.
If you put your head down and perform every task with care and a sense of urgency you might earn their respect and be invited back. If you act like a know-it-all, or become a liability, enjoy the shift meal, if you get one, because it will likely be…
Read more#12 - Kings Of The Dish Pit
How many chefs have truly put their time in?
In the hot, humid corner of the kitchen where the dishes never stop coming, everyone always needs something from you and the cooks drop off pots so scorched they look like they have been smoldering in a wildfire for months.
I know a few who have. But not many.
The dish pit. The heartbeat of the kitchen. The most…
Read more#11 - Whatʻs Your Specialty
I can hear my fellow chef friends laughing now.
And the reason is this.
There isnʻt a question we loathe more than…
Read more#10 - Where Chefs Go To Cry
It’s cold and wet.
The smell of braised meat and stock cooling circulates via forced air.
Cases of juicy, red, ripe strawberries stacked tall begged to be pilfered.
Tears stream while icy condensation…
Read more#9 - The Witching Hour
Merriam-Webster defines The Witching Hour as, “the time late at night when the powers of a witch, magician, etc., are believed to be the strongest.”
For the first chef de cuisine I ever worked with, it meant 4:30 p.m. Exactly one hour before we…
Read more#8 - Always Testing
I admire the chefs that will test several iterations of a dish before being satisfied with it.
Being willing to try things that may not work. Being OK with failing in front of your cooks. Inviting constructive criticism. This all takes courage.
Each time you test you…
Read more#7 - No Gain If Blame
Remember those times when the dinner crew blamed the lunch crew? Or, when the server blamed the host? Or, when the kitchen blamed the server? Or, when you blamed the guy who worked your station on your day off?
Did it resolve the problem? Did it make you feel better? Did it make you look better?
The act of blaming is
Read more#6 - Why Do You Want To Be A Chef
I met with a chef one day who couldn't answer the question: Why?
He spoke of all the whats and hows.
But he couldn’t tell me why.
There is a disconnect when you…
Read more#5 - Appreciate The Struggle
“Can’t I just have one day when everything goes smooth?”
How many times have you asked yourself that question?
It’s always something isn’t it?
Here’s the thing, there is always going to be
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