For some reason loyalty has been given a bad rap in recent years. Loyalty need not refer to blind support of an individual, company, product, party, or even country – loyalty is something that is earned and constantly reinforced, but once present provides a level of respect and comfort that should carry a load of…
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CHEFS – THINGS JUST AREN’T WHAT THEY USE TO BE
Looking back over the past 18-months it is hard to grasp just how much things have changed in the restaurant world. It made me wonder if all of this change (some planned, some unexpected) is good for the culinary world or not. Having long been an advocate for the importance of change, I find myself,…
LIFE IN THE KITCHEN – WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN
Quite often I have read posts from individual cooks who express a high level of dissatisfaction with their choice to work in kitchens. In some cases this dissatisfaction leans towards contempt – loads of anger pointed at the job and those who employ cooks in service of the guest. While many of the concerns expressed…
THE FALLACY OF RECIPES
Let me begin by setting the stage for this articles title: I do believe in the importance of recipes, but…. they are not the answer to consistently great cooking. Recipes fail in the following ways: Recipes do not factor in variances in the quality of raw materials based on freshness, maturity, the impact of soil…
THAT KITCHEN SENSE OF URGENCY
There are some things in life that can’t be taught. Only the experience of impending doom can push a person to dig deep and find solutions that they never thought were possible, discover skills that were never present before the challenge occurred, and either sink or swim under the pressure of creating order out of…
GETTING INSIDE THE CHEF’S HEAD
Worldwide there are hundreds of thousands of individuals who hold the title of chef. It is a title that seems well defined, yet each individual portrays it differently and fits the position with a unique set of qualifications. It would be somewhat naïve to try and classify all of these chefs into specific silos, but…
MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR BEING A CULINARY TRADITIONALIST
It seems that too often, in conversations with those younger cooks who have some level of serious interest in a kitchen career, that food talk is all about experimentation. I have lost track of the number of culinary students who (and I paraphrase here) state: “When are we going to move on from the basics…
HANGING ON TO QUALITY
When did the desire for quality fade away; when did it become an option instead of the standard? We are all born with a desire to please those around us from the time we are able to crawl, walk, talk, build, create, learn, and grow. Every achievement is aimed at being great and pleasing to…
HEY CHEF – WHO ARE YOU?
What does it really mean to be a chef? Is it strictly a position of authority – a position well-earned through time, trial and error, loads of cooking skills, business savvy, and a brand that helps the operation and the person? Or, are there other responsibilities and opportunities that come with the turf? It was…
THE PERSONAL CHEMISTRY OF THE KITCHEN
I can only speak to my own experiences and as a result formulate and support my own beliefs about immigration and the value of diversity. As I have said many times before – I feel that the greatest advantage of a life in the kitchen is the chance to work with people of all different…
