Harvest America CUES BLOG

Since we were able to walk – summer has represented a time of freedom, fun, blue skies, dipping our feet in the ocean or a neighbor’s pool, and great music to sooth the soul. Well, if your career path focused on the kitchen then “hot fun in the summertime” didn’t hold up its end of the bargain.

         Meteorologists have been jabbering about the “heat dome” that is descending on the U.S., a byproduct of global climate change, and how intense heat is destined to make our lives miserable and downright dangerous with extended temperatures pushing past triple digits. We are encouraged to hunker down, turn up the air conditioning (unless overuse causes power outages), drink lots of water, and ride it out until life is safe again. Sounds like a plan – unless, of course, you are wearing houndstooth pants, a double-breasted white chef coat, and tying on an apron.

         There is heat and then there is heat. Unless you have spent time in a commercial kitchen you really don’t understand what it means to be unbearably hot. One could easily compare working in a commercial kitchen to spending time in a tropical rainforest where heat and humidity combine to form a deadly cocktail. Cooking is, after all, the application of heat so there’s no getting away from it. However, this is heat with active flames, scorching hot pans, oven doors constantly being opened, sizzling portions of meat, steam rolling off a chef’s table bain marie, splattering droplets of 375-degree fat from the deep fryer, and ambient humidity from the dishwasher topping things off.

         The temperature in the kitchen might hover around 100 degrees but standing next to an island of stoves with every burner cracked up to 10, ovens pushed past 500 degrees, and char-broilers nursing 6-inch flames searing steaks and chops, will bring the temperature around every cook way past that mark.

         Service may only last four or five hours, but the kitchen is never cool. Sweat pours down a line cook’s back, and that skull cap or chef’s toque struggles to contain the same beads of sweat forming on foreheads. Pan handles are super-hot, so the cook never wants to forget to have DRY side towels close by. A damp towel and hot pan handle will cause deep steam burns that bark all night with painful intensity. The fry cook is constantly fighting with splatter burns from that 375-degree fat when it encounters anything with moisture, and eyebrows are constantly in danger from renegade flames flaring up from a sauté pan or char-grill.

         Everything is hot: the air, stoves, pans, steam table, plates, and, of course, the food. Cooks are always aware that “hot food is served hot”, so they do everything in their power to make sure that rule holds true.

         Some may ask: “why don’t you air condition the kitchen?” Please reference the rule above, “hot food is served hot.” An air-conditioned kitchen will struggle to adhere to the Cardinal Rule. Well, just make sure you drink enough water. Yep, got it. In fact, you can’t drink enough, fast enough to keep up with the sweat. Besides, if a cook was able to retain water by guzzling quarts during service, when would he or she be able to stop for a bathroom break? When the floodgates of service open, a cook is committed to a station until those doors close. At the end of the night, a cook is drained, soaked, headachy, red in the face, and likely suffering from a few burns. All in a day’s work.

         Adding to the kitchen’s perpetual “heat dome” is standing on throbbing feet for ten or more hours, pivoting on those over-used knees, trying to concentrate on the task of the moment so that a razor-sharp knife doesn’t attack an appendage, bending and lifting constantly, and dealing with the stress of time and multitasking. You must wonder why anyone would subject themselves to this line of work.

         The answer is simple – as hard as the work is, most cooks love what they do. They love the adrenaline rush, the sheer excitement of what is coming next, the creativity, the challenge, the teamwork, and the realization that they can balance everything and slide a beautiful plate of food down the pass. Like an athlete, most cooks understand that this part of their kitchen career is short-lived and that they either need to move up the food chain or eventually find another line of work. In the meantime, BRING IT ON!

         So, as we hunker down for unprecedented heat over the next few weeks; while we dip our toes in the pool to cool off and drink another iced tea, beer, or gin and tonic; while we crank up that air conditioner to 10 and wonder how much longer we will need to endure this taste of hell – think about the cooks in your local restaurant. Thank a cook when you see one, send back a cold drink to the kitchen after you enjoyable, air-conditioned meal, and understand what it truly means to be unbearably hot.

PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER

Harvest America Ventures, LLC

Restaurant Consulting

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