Occupation: Cook

At the beginning of the year I had illusions of grandeur when it came to Being a Chef. I felt that despite the hard work i was going to make it no matter what. Slowly and Painfully i realized there is much more to being a Chef than you’re led to believe. Sure you cook, manage, and use your creativity to its full potential, but nobody ever tells you about “earning your bones” “earning your stripes” whatever you would like to call it. I am not a Chef yet, and the longer and longer I’m a cook I feel that being a Chef has no merit. in these days that start out the new year I would rather be called a Cook than a Chef. Let me tell you why. .  .

A cook is sharp, tough as nails and heat resistant. Put a cook through a 16 hour breakfast through dinner Rush, say 500 covers in one sitting. He’ll come out saying “Lets have a drink and celebrate!” A cook wakes up hung over or exhausted from any situation the night before, whether it be from a Girlfriend or boyfriend fight, YouTube, homework etc. and just watch him start the days prep at 8am with no complaints. A cook is almost immortal. They seem to never feel pain, or fatigue. You earn respect this way. the scars on his hands and forearms tell stories of dinners that went horribly wrong but still making it through to see another service. Cooks are the bad boys, Seal Team 6 of the kitchen world, the ones doing the grunt work, and the things nobody else wants to do, or should i say can do.

To be a cook you have to be abnormal. when your body tells you “no more” you push forward, when you start dreaming of dishes, or services you embrace it. While your friends and family are on vacation for Christmas or new years you’re on the line pumping out food like you’re ending world hunger, and be completely comfortable about it. In fact there isn’t anywhere else you’d rather be.

I could go on for days and days on why a Cook is the Real deal but i have to tell you why a Chef is no match for a hardened Cook…

A Chef has been in a desk and off the line too long, His scars are healed and his hands soft again. He can only Delegate and use his knowledge to direct people on how to do something. Chefs work long hours as well but its spent on a Computer now, not behind a hot Range. His coat clean and crisp and very presentable for any customer wanting to hand out a compliment, or to talk business with an investor. A cook who decides to be a Chef has had one of a few things happen to him/her. They decided that the people in charge are doing a horrible job, They want to have a normal future, or maybe they came about it by circumstance, not asking for it but it fell into their laps and the pay was too good to pass up. either way a Chef and a cook are completely different species. Cooks share a camaraderie, Chefs share an Ego and snobbery.

Now occasionally you’ll run into a hybrid, a true Monster, the Chef/Cook the ones who despite their occupation and responsibilities of Chef are on the line day in and day out right there with their cooks, keeping sharp, feeling the adrenaline, and THOSE people are few and far between, but i assure you, when you meet one you’ll know.

So don’t Call me Chef, I haven’t given up yet. ha.

What Is A Chef…

Lets cut out the gristle and get to the good stuff. What is a “Chef”?

Many people in the normal 9-5 world know Chef as the guy cooking their food, as the guy in the tall hat and white double breasted coat, or the guy smoking out back on a late Friday night. First things first, you need to know where the word “Chef” came from. You need to know why they became “Chef” and did not stay at just “cook”.

Chef:  comes from the French word meaning “Chief”. Somebody in Charge of something, a Leader of some sort. (Insert definition for Chief Here)

So now that we have that settled I want to say that if you know anything about Leadership in any aspect of the professional world you know that its not easy, Leaders are not born, they are made. And they come from the most unexpected places at times. Chefs Lead the Kitchen, The Dining room, and all other aspects that influence hundreds of other people in one dinner service. Lets start with the basics shall we?

A Chef Runs the Kitchen, So knowing that and Him/Her is the head of said kitchen you know they should be very proficient in anything from saute to Dish hole. from expediting to Desserts. The Chef knows all these stations like the back of his/er hands or a bad dream. The Chef needs to be able to handle curve balls during a dinner service. If you’re out of your veggie entree and you have a vegan guest what do you do? Your dishwasher is broken or your Oven is out again for the hundredth time this week how do you compensate? Two of your cooks called in sick and you’re expecting 150 guests tonight, Or maybe your Grill guy just cut off his finger in the middle of service and your feeding the Mayor? Out of corn starch? how do you make a sauce thicken? etc. etc.

Okay Next, If  the Chef is a restauranteur then that means he is also running the  FOH. which means he needs to be able to teach and delegate to servers on the standards and polices of working in the front. so that means knowing how to use and fix and change the POS, how to handle customer complaints and how to up sell anything and everything except the kitchen sink. Proper silverware placement, Proper serving techniques proper EVERYTHING.

Now lets see what you have so far, Running the kitchen, Running the dining room. What else could there be? hmm well let me tell you some more.

Chef  handles the payroll, handles the Product ordering and handles the budget for anything and everything, so he has to be a part-time accountant, part time cook, Chef needs to know how to market too.  Chef needs to know how to bargain as well with purveyors. The Chef must play Oprah at times. You have to be able to Train all your staff. You must be able to find solutions quickly and calmly during stressful situations.  You must be able to plan new menus constantly and come up with flavor combinations that will appeal to your clientele. Chef must be a part-time health inspector as well. Cannot stress that last one enough.

Cook/administrator/consultant/accountant/therapist/health inspector/bargain hunter/Mr. Nice guy = CHEF.

I hope you get an idea of what a CHEF really is. Hes more than just a cook and now you know that unless you have the passion and drive to put up with all of this work, and i did not even include the back breaking work needed to achieve  the Position of Chef, that this idea of a “Chef” is not one to be taken lightly.

Is It Real?

So today I was drinking coffee with some co-workers and we were going over our business plan for our restaurant and life in general was getting in the way. Things with Family, things with friends. These topics were just way to heavy for the night. I feel as though I see The world differently, Sometimes it feels like i see it clearer than most and at times it feels like i see it cloudier than most. But here is the thing. Working on a line makes my problems go away for a while, it makes beautiful food and happy costumers thee only thing that matters. The adrenaline, the heat,  the screaming chefs or servers. all that makes me feel away from it all. I don’t understand why people get so focused on the bad things that are happening at the moment? yes they are pretty serious, yes they hurt, I’ve been there, my entire life growing up has been trouble, pain, death, and depression. and not always by choice. We’ve made it out fine, hearts bruised and knuckles scraped but we made it. I am not known for taking life seriously, and i have reasons for that. I seem like the person to make light of heavy situations because they have always been there in my life. I don’t like to think about them and dwelling on things like that have always left me depressed and in self pity. That is why it seems i am not serious about anything. but let me assure you. i know what things are serious and what things are light, i am sorry if i don’t know how to comfort you in your times of pain. Its not that i don’t have a heart or i don’t care, its because growing up nobody did it for me and i wouldn’t know where to start. Maybe that’s why i ended up a cook? That gets me thinking, do i abuse cooking? Is cooking my drug that i come back to time and time again to get away from the world? Is it healthy? Some people use drugs, or alcohol, or music. When i need to get away from anything in my life i always head to the kitchen, either a Friday night dinner rush, or a quick dinner in my house. but it makes things go away. Am I just running from my problems? or have i found my outlet for pain and depression? One more question comes to my mind during all of this….are there other cooks out there like me? with the same problem? or addiction?

Leave Your Coat At The Door

Alright so this is a topic that is a bit touchy. Drama is the word, and it is definitely a word of many stories. Lets start off by talking about the restaurant.

When you work at a restaurant you’re there for the customer, you’re there to put out great food for the people, with the money looking for a good lunch or dinner. They are not the cause of your problems, or your heartaches or our debt. so that ends with “dont blame them for your problems”

alright so second is leave your baggage at the door. What I mean by that is, do not for the love let your problems effect your work. When you’re on the line use it to focus you, use it to put out better dishes, use it to push yourself to do better here. If your too busy worrying about something, and your all up in the clouds your food is going to suffer and its gonna look bad. Not only because you burned the last two salmon or over seasoned the pasta dish but it is going to give off a bad vibe to the rest on the line with you that night. Think about it this way, You come in to work really angry and your vibe is angry for some reason the rest of the crew picks up on it and become easily irritated just like YOU.

Now if the drama comes from within then you have very little options to choose from. If you had a fight with one of the cooks and you happen to work on the same line as him then chances are your gonna end up hurting each other. Cooks and hot restaurant equipment do not mix. if its a drama like relationship drama its best to keep it to yourself. Its unprofessional and in the end will effect the food and the atmosphere that has been set before it started. It could make things awkward, everyone on the line will be too worried about what is going on with you and that cute server and if its a bad relationship then they would worry about every word or action you do or they do to not offend somebody. it just gives everyone else in the place something more to worry about besides what they were brought there to do. sometimes its so deep that it could cause the whole business to go down if it got out.?

Seems kind of harsh, for me to sit here and tell you the blunt truth, that the world Does NOT revolve around you and your problems. But it is a truth that must be said. We run a restaurant for the people and without those people we have no reason to be here. To wake up every morning and practice our passion. It is hard sometimes but when it comes down to it. think about the people around you, think about the establishment, think about the customer.  Sometimes you have to just let it go ….

Cut From A Different Cloth

So sitting outside the restaurant taking a break, and just taking in the night air. My mind started wondering and remembering a few blogs and stories I have read before about the lifestyle of a cook. How most of the people who are not part of the industry only know the polished T.V. version of this world. They never see the cuts and burns, or the long hours spent on ones feet. the high stress levels that come with an 8 O’clock dinner rush. The long list of techniques and organization skills needed just to keep up on one station let alone two or three at a time. Or the late clock outs, and extremely early clock Ins.

The people who are in the kitchens of many restaurants in the country, from Mom and Pop shops to the Michelin star hot spots are filled with this different breed of peoples.

I am going to let you know what its really like, because sometimes Television makes things look easy, and like anyone can be a part of this world. Alright so to start it off there is no restaurant to this day where you only make one dish and have all the time in the world to finish it. 30 minute meals? try 5 minute meals! no better yet try 200, 5 minute meals all in the time span of maybe 2 hours sometimes you run out of prep during that time and have to prep on the spot for all those plates. sometimes you mess up an order or lost track of something and have to start over. sometimes you have a headache, or your dog died, or your girlfriend/boyfriend just broke up with you? Sometimes your just plain sick but nobody can cover your shift so your out there anyway.

Moving so fast sometimes you cut yourself, so that means stopping your station completely to get fixed up, Maybe you lost your dry rag and have to grab something hot and you burn yourself. Your arms and hands are covered with oil burns, cuts and bruises from the chaos. All these things occur on a daily basis all around you and you do not even realize it. Some people just reply with a comment like ” Well if you dont like it then why dont you get another job?”.

Truth is for many this is all we have, its our little slice of sanity, our home away from home. A place where all the realities of life slip away as if in a dream world where everyone can vote. We do not wake up one morning and say to ourselves, ” I think im going to put myself through high levels of stress and heat exhaustion and physical injury in the forms of burns and cuts and sometimes the occasional Lava like oil droplets. No sir this world is not for the faint of heart. Instead of demeaning us with those comments of false hope in the boring micro box world you live in, you should buy us a drink, a smoke or even a thank you. We’re here in YOUR stead. We’re here so YOU don’t have to be. We’re here so you can get off work for your daily lunch break and not have to choose the high calorie fructose ammonia soaked meat on a bun the world seems to love and obey so well. All that money you save on the chemical treated food you will end up paying in medical bills, cholesterol medicine and probably the sweet pink nectar we call pepto.

I am going to be completely honest with you about who we are. Chances are everyone in this line of work has something wrong with them, some kind of vice they cant shake, something that in the normal world would be looked down on and banished to the ogre shack in the swamp. Sometimes it seems like kitchens is where the community sends its turrets afflicted children to keep out of the public eye. And on that rare occasion when one actually makes a conscious sobered decision to be in this world and it seems there is nothing wrong with him, its painstakingly obvious THAT alone is what is wrong with him. But then again  if your like  Anthony Bourdain, You just like it here.

a quick list of requirements if you decide to tread the chum filled waters of the Hospitality industry.

• Physical: Standing on your bad knees for over 10 hours straight,work near dangerous unforgiving equipment, Dexterity, and sometimes personal hygiene
• Teamwork: moving in the kitchen, completing dishes with another cook must all be perfectly timed and it should imitate a ballet, to execute at top notch the cooks should run on ONE heartbeat like a heard of Gazelles gathered around the waterhole eying the tall grass with a suspect look.
• Hours: working the extreme hours that come with Prep for the day, cleanup, and dont even get me started on baking, and pastry shifts. truth is your 5 day weeks will be 7 day weeks with minimal sleep and rest time. the days you have off will somehow end up back at the restaurant. kiss that social life goodbye, this IS your life now.
• OCD: develop this NOW, if you walk into a kitchen and leave crumbs, rags, bones, parsley flakes, well actually anything that looks like your room at home your going to wish you had the ability to turn back time. Chef will eat you alive, and if he does not the dinner rush will when you cant find where you set down the salt Mise.

In The Weeds

So this is part two of Dysfunctional family. just letting you know.

your Entree order is in, your finishing up your app and talking about that joke Steve made at work yesterday. Everything is calm and fun in the dining room. Your servers walk by and fill your drinks, it gets a bit warm so they also turn on the ceiling fans to keep everyone comfortable. you glance over at the bar and the 20 year old bar tender is doing tricks with empty bottles and maybe winking at the cute girls sitting at the bar in awe of them.

Into the kitchen:

Its already around 100 degrees in the kitchen and things are in full swing now. The dinner rush hits them Harder than that bully you had in high school. Usually your cooks will have the speed and talent to keep up with the entree orders and apps. Their focus is on code red. Servers. and i don’t just mean one or two, but ALL of them decide that they need to enter their tables orders at the EXACT same time. The Ticket screen on the line belonging to the cook making YOUR entree just filled up completely. Not only have his previous orders been moved and bumped into by the sea of tickets the servers just put up. But the heart of said  cook just froze.

As you sit in your chair complaining about how long its taking to get your food, you tell your friends. “how hard is it to cook a steak?” yeah, anyone can cook a steak but what you fail to realize is the kid, back there is cooking 20 steaks all different temps different cuts, and fish, and chicken and burgers. while fixing the sides and then plating them to the restaurant standards, and keeping it Hot. . . . so back to the kitchen, He struggles to prioritize his tickets Because hes a bit new, he makes one thing then another and the tickets keep piling up, Hes nervous now and the adrenaline is pumping. He feels to embarrassed to ask for help so he tries to push on. Its one of those light at the end of the tunnel moments for him. hoping, wishing, praying, for a way out of the current situation.

But he just cant get passed it. out of sheer desperation the dishwasher comes up to help him plate dishes, the salad guy comes to help cook food and keep order of tickets, and a manager comes up to help push the food out through expo. nobody but that shell shocked cook knows what the proper portions are, what plates they go on, or even what window to put it through. the kitchen is totally backed up now, with four guys on a one person station. food is falling everywhere, and being put up in every window, the servers struggle and cuss at every plate being put up because they cannot figure out which one is to what order, their gratuity is getting smaller by the minute, but they could care less that its kind of their fault. somehow all the screens are cleared. food went out cold, incomplete, overcooked, undercooked, or just completely wrong. Not even mentioning how long the tickets where. probably over 40 min entrees and 30 min apps.

Well, what have we learned today? that the 30 min you spend in the dining room feeling hungry maybe a bit anxious is something you can handle? maybe next time your out at a place during a dinner service you’ll have a little more compassion for the people preparing your food? probably not. But at least for those of you who have some sort of heart there it is. Notice i did not do a third course? dessert? probably because you already left the restaurant after your cold or half frozen chicken tender.

Dysfunctional Family

SO have you ever  gone to a restaurant to eat  with your family, friends , significant other? well i am here to tell you a bit about what goes on in the BOH (back of House). And let me put out this disclaimer its not going to be as glamorous as T.V. or as clean as your mommas china collection.  I wont use any names so i don’t get sued.  lets start off by describing what you see during your time at X-restaurant.

Walking in: Part one

Alright so you and your significant other are walking up to your favorite family restaurant, and there is music playing outside,Already you have this sense of tranquility fall over you, knowing you can relax and enjoy some time with people while eating decently priced food and a very warm environment. All the servers and waiters are acting as if there is not a care in the world, HA.

your seated and your drink order is taken while you look over a menu. I consider this stage 1 of a series of events, so far so good.you get your drinks and are in the mood for an appetizer to tease your pallet, your awfully nice server is glad to take your order, she leaves to place the order and let you wrap your mind around what entree you are in the mood for. (now it gets interesting)

So your server put the order into the POS system and the line cooks have not gotten it on their screen yet,  They are currently in the weeds trying to put out about 15 other entrees of people who arrived 20 minutes before you.  The line cooks are hard at work to put out all the components of a dish at thee exact same time as every other cook on the line. with 15 or more items on a screen that fits maybe 10-12 orders it can get pretty hectic, while your cook has a set order he is knocking out these orders your appetizer just popped up on his screen in the middle of two entrees throwing off his groove and to top it off your appetizer has come up with a “RUSH” icon because your server who is working hard for your gratuity is trying to impress you by getting your food out to you as quickly as possible, this causes even more confusion to the already in in the weeds cook who now thinks there was something wrong with an appetizer he sold off before that it had to be made again?

Back at the table your about done deciding your entree and are growing impatient due to your hunger, your server is nowhere to be found because little do you know shes in the back hiding from you because shes too afraid to have to tell you your food is running late. She/He is in the back yelling at the cooks about where the 15min ticket appetizer is and how they still have yet to put out the other entrees they placed before YOU got there. The cooks face inundated with sweat and tears, Adrenaline running so high they virtually do not feel pain while they pick up the blazing hot pans, picking food straight out of the oil bare handed, grabbing things off the grill with nothing more than a latex glove to protect them from the flames. Still keeping his/her cool the cook yells “its coming” or “working” maybe even a  “heard”. not saying a word as they try to accomplish a task that at times may seem physically impossible in temperatures that sometimes exceed those of summer in a southern state like Mississippi or Louisiana…

Finally your appetizer is put out and taken to your table. Now before you start munching away at your appetizer you place your entree order. I will write more later on part 2. trust me it gets better.