I'm a little uncreative of late so forgive me if my titles seem to follow the "interrogative pronoun + culinary related term" pattern. But it remains convenient to express some ideas that have been stewing (get it?!!? LoLZ!!) in my head.
I don't know if I have enough culinary experience to start examining my personal style. Well, actually I know for a fact that I don't. But I can't help but ponder anyway about what I like to eat, what I think others would like to eat, and dream about the opening menu at my hope-it-can-happen restaurant.
Young cooks, chefs to be, you are generally not allowed to be creative. When you are earning your chops and slogging your way through someone else's kitchen, the chef's word is the word of God. You do not question it unless asked, you follow it with loyalty and faith. Now, a smart chef will turn to their talented staff to contribute their own creativity and skills (see David Chang of Momofuku fame ... his greatest strength is probably hiring talented cooks who continuously develop his empire), but a good chef will also know how to lead and discipline their team. That means no customizing the menu as you see fit, or deviating from the plan, just do as you are told once the dish is set. Keep it up, one day the chef will turn to you to come up with a new dish for your station. And you may panic (see first edition antipasti menu at Va Pensiero, 2010).
That being said, it takes a long while for you to get a chance to flex your creative muscles. I think a lot of people get in to this career (I know I did) thinking that everyday you can try something new and invent dishes near constantly. But the truth of the matter is professional cooking is more about consistency and advanced planning than it is about abstraction and off-the-cuff cooking.
Still fun to wonder though, right? Most of the food a chef puts forward in their restaurant is a representation of who they are. It's the food they grew up with, love to eat, love to cook, and they hope you will also. In the words of my chef, "I'm a big fat guy, I like big fat food." That's why you never saw small tasting platters at Va P, never saw overly fancy presentations, and NEVER saw inedible garnishes. Everything on that plate has to be edible, it's rustic, classical Italian flavors with traditional French technique. And although it's nothing that will change the world of food, it is tasty nonetheless.
So I am yet again forced to examine myself. What would my true self be in edible form? Does my soul have a warm, cheesy center like a fried cheese curd, simple and delicious? Or is it salty, buttery and crispy like well-rendered chicken skin? Or better yet, fatty, rich and balanced like a slice of lardo on a warm, garlic-scented crouton?
I know this much, that food is a craft not an art. Every time I hear someone say cooking is an art, it kind of makes me cringe. Food can be artistic, it can be artful, it can be beautiful, but it isn't art. Now some people meant "art" to describe the beauty of the deft skill and experience that shines through a master cook. I think that's what Julia Child meant. But other people mean it in a dirty, corrupted hipster way to suggest that the idea of what someone is cooking is beautiful in its new-ness, is misunderstood, and revolutionary. Just because it has never been done before and is unheard of doesn't mean it tastes good. And being misunderstood in your lifetime doesn't help anyone anymore. If you're misunderstood in your lifetime then you are unsuccessful and will likely starve, rather than survive as some sort of Van Gogh or Mozart.
The difference is in practicality. A plate of food can look gorgeous, I'm a firm believer in letting the visuals of a plate launch its flavors in a diner's mind. But if a diner is only disappointed or their palate is confused by the actual taste of the thing, then you have failed as a cook, I don't care how many assholes are blogging about how "innovative" you are. Frank Lloyd Wright is probably my favorite architect (hint: he's the only architect I really know), I think he accomplished some amazing things in his lifetime. And I think his work is outstanding, timeless and genius in all senses of the word. But the chairs he designed are the most uncomfortable fucking things I've ever put my ass to. They represent his personality, his architectural style for sure, but I swear to God if I wasn't developing an awful case of hemorrhoids by parking it in his chairs. The lesson to learn here is that it has to taste good, just like how a chair has to be comfortable to sit in.
Say it with me now, FOOD has to TASTE GOOD.
That's why cooking is a craft. Your labors serve a practical purpose; to feed people. The purposes of art are less tangible and concrete, the enjoyment of art is much more subjective and abstract. Food can be very subjective as well, we've gone over this, cooking indeed shares many qualities with art. But you are always held up to the standard of deliciousness, and that is a sensation all humans share (just sometimes don't agree about).
So we got that out of the way, what do I like to cook and eat then?
I grew up with an extremely unsophisticated palate. Chicken McNuggets were among the Pantheon of great culinary techniques, and McDonald's its Mt. Olympus. If you get to meet my mother she would love to regale you with stories of my childhood relationship with the Golden Arches that she suffered through. And when it wasn't breaded, fried chicken scraps it was the Chinese-American equivalent; sesame chicken. A (news flash) double-fried delicacy slathered with what is essentially sweet-and-sour sauce. I liked fried foods, I was a fat kid, all things in life make sense.
But I do have memories of more authentic Chinese delights. Ti-pang, a pork butt braised in soy sauce, garlic, rock sugar and star anise for a whole day and then broiled for the last hour or so. Slightly crispy, super fatty sweet flesh served with garlic chives and white rice. That might have to be my death row meal. Mystery stir-fries put together from scraps by my mom's chef, Peking Duck, dim-sum, Szechuan-style tripe braised with hot chiles and copious amounts of garlic. There are so many good things in Chinese cuisine beyond the Americanized versions of take-out. Perhaps it's my mission to combine classical technique with Chinese flavors (not that that hasn't been tried) in my own fashion.
And I've learned a lot since then, opened up my palate to new things. I love offal; chicken livers, foie gras, tripe, sweetbreads. I love seafood (I used to HATE seafood); scallops (my favorite), lobster, oysters, sea urchin, striped bass. And I love well-prepared vegetables; ramps, bok choy, rapini, haricots verts. There are only more things to learn from here.
How do you combine it into a focused vision? How do you amalgamate a lifetime of food experiences into one restaurant, one menu?
There is a way to classify restaurants that I only recently learned from The Flavor Bible by chef-husband-wife team Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. They classified a restaurant's food by the motivation behind their creation.
A restaurant celebrating the physical realm of food is focusing on excellent produce. Places like Dan Barber's Blue Hill or Alice Waters' Chez Panisse focus on the natural deliciousness of earth's bounty. Tomatoes that make you feel like you've never eaten a tomato (quote Bourdain, thank you), well-raised and tenderly cared for fruits, vegetables and livestock treated with respect, almost minimal technique and fuss. My mom's new favorite restaurant? Blue Hill.
A restaurant celebrating the emotional realm of food is generally focusing on a type of cuisine. An Indian restaurant cooking the food their mothers used to cook, a Rick Bayless establishment where he shares his love of Mexican food with the world, a soul food joint in Harlem, that's what we're talking about here. Food that has a deep connection to someone's life experiences, prepped for service and shared with the public, often a humble place with a deep fan base.
A restaurant celebrating the mental realm of food is trying to, pardon my French, mind-fuck you. These are the people who are stretching our understanding of food, using the newest and strangest of techniques to present food in an unexpected way. The original gangster, Ferran Adria at El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal at The Fat Duck, Grant Achatz at Alinea, Homaru Cantu at Moto, Wylie DuFresne at wd~50, Jose Andres and the whole country of Spain, this is their territory. This is probably the most outrageous and popular new trend, restaurants of this type are popping up in hordes, but very few survive. But those that do make it are veritable legends as these types of restaurants heavily populate the World's Best 50 Restaurants list. This is where food begins to tread dangerously in to the territory of art while losing its soul as a craft, where the priority of making something new and beautiful can transcend the importance of flavor. It's a thin line to walk, and many fail the test. So I have to give those that excel at this a lot of respect, their popularity is well-deserved.
And then we have the spiritual realm of restaurants, the most vague and difficult to categorize. A "spiritual" restaurant is not just trying to wow you with food, but it is trying to give you a life-changing and awe-inspiring experience. These are highest of high-end restaurants with the most exceptional of exceptional service, reinventing and exemplifying the notion of hospitality, creating a temple at which food and service are worshiped. Daniel Boulud, Jean-Georges, Alain Ducasse (unfortunately a victim of French douchebaggery once he came stateside), Patrick O'Connell, Thomas Keller are not just creating the highest-quality food, but are also constantly adjusting the meaning of an "excellent restaurant." I struggle to put the meaning in to words, but you'll know it when you see it. A place of beauty, elegance and refinement that doesn't forbid you entrance with a proverbial moat of pretentiousness. A place from whence you leave, you will leave a different person.
Now a restaurant doesn't have to be strictly pigeon-holed. Restaurants cross boundaries a bit in this rough rubric. Thomas Keller was often striving to recreate the American classics he grew up cooking, David Chang uses a little molecular gastronomy to redefine the Korean home-cooking he loves, etc. So I hope I can do the same. I love home-cooked Chinese food, I love the Chinese-American classics that have been dumbed down (I agree they need a face lift) by cheap takeout joints, and I love the authentic and sometimes exotic regional cuisine of China. I think people would really enjoy a reinterpretation and reintroduction to these types of food, so long as it was done well and tastefully. So that's why I need a strong foundation of classical technique, and build from there, brick by brick.
I know sometimes (okay, a lot of the time) this blog is a sounding board for myself, a motivational poster in verbose, profane, nerdtastic format, an organization of my pet peeves and helter-skelter ideas. Really, I appreciate it so much that people actually take time to read this. But perhaps its time for more doing and less talking. What that exactly means I'm not sure, but once I get back from this wedding, I'll let you know.
Click, click, click.
EP6
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Why We Cook
Not that you guys need to be exposed to my existential and culinary rantings any more than you already are, but I don't think I've ever really examined my motivation behind this career, even for myself. I'm also pretty sure that last sentence was a run-on. Even though I don't know what a run-on sentence is...
First and ten, Northwestern!
But seriously, the question is hanging there ... why do we cook? Why do we work this lifestyle?
The decision that brought me to cooking and restaurants was a lot like my decision to play cello instead of violin.
I'm Asian, I have to play a string instrument. I was a chubby and lazy child, sitting down is more comfortable than standing, conclusion; I play cello.
Fast forward 10 years and it's like, "I don't like sitting at desks. Office work destroys my soul. Hey, how about cooking? Oooh! Fancy!"
Well, it was a little more sophisticated than that, but that's definitely how it started. I have a short attention span, and I have a need for real-time accomplishments. I don't want to sit at a desk wearing business casual wondering if my 8-hours is going to have any tangible results. I want to get my hands dirty, I want to eat, I want to play with fire, I want to labor, sweat and toil. I want to put a finished plate in the window after a 4-pan pick up during dinner crush on Saturday and yell, "Halibut! Up!" in a cathartic, bestial roar, only to swiftly return to my fire. I want to know that someone is going to love that plate. I want to see the smile and satisfaction on a diner's face.
And apparently I'm not the only one. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting deeper in to my career, or if this is an actual phenomenon (not one of my many conspiracy theories of which I would love to indulge you with over a cold Guinness), but my generation seems to love food and cooking. Food is having its own veritable revolution, with the focus on organically grown and home cooked food growing by the minute. Whole Foods and its empire of hipsters is growing to Genghis Khan proportions. And cooking is becoming a respected and desirable profession. College kids all go through an existential crisis these days, not knowing what to do with themselves. They didn't have the sink-or-swim attitude of our parents' generation, where they just had to get a job to make a living. Clint Eastwood likes to call us "the pussy generation." Now we have the luxury of exploring our options, and suffer through decades of questioning our existence. Cooking is a career in which one can "express themselves" and "be who they really are" and avoid the tie-as-noose environs of the office world, and they can truly rebel against the years of their parents' oppressive reign!
If it wasn't clear, that was just a bit sarcastic. All the young American cooks I meet and see seem to be tattooed and pierced up the waz, and like to self-administer heavy dosages of controlled substances. Yeah! I can party, and look crazy and still make money in a fun career! Well, some of that is true. There is a dark side to cooking that has a powerful allure to society's less orthodox members. I blame Anthony Bourdain for inspiring a generation of wannabe rock star cooks. And yes you can do all that, but there are plenty of serious ass cooks out there as well. Guys and gals who can't afford to get hammered before Sunday service because they are pushing the culinary envelope. They are the vanguard of the ever growing food movement and are basking in the limelight of a restaurant revolution. They can't fuck that up too often just because they have the freedom to do benders. They have to work their asses off. To quote Bourdain, they, the young cooks in the restaurants changing American dining, are often "whippet-thin, under rested young pups with dark circles under their eyes; they look like prisoners from a Japanese prison camp, they are expected to perform like Green Berets." I love that quote. That's exactly what I want to be. Bone-tired everyday because I pushed myself to the limit.
So while I do have tattoos, you won't see me in 10 years with a rainbow splattered ink sleeve running from my wrist to neck. I won't be inking "Cook Free or Die" or a pair of forks and knives on my wrists. That's not what cooking is about to me. It's not a cultural rebellion, an existential liberation, or an excuse to party. Cooking is a means to an end. Yes, I love food, I love the absolute rock show and adrenaline rush a good night of service can be, but I am trying to open and run a great restaurant. Whether it will be world-class is up to the pencil pushers to decide, but I want to be able to sleep at night feeling good about my establishment.
I love restaurants. It just took me 20 odd years to realize it. There are many sacrifices and downsides, but to me it is a lifestyle worthy of respect and honor. Now that I wait tables full-time, I have to say my favorite moments are going beyond the call of duty for a customer. Danny Meyer's book Setting the Table has all sorts of hilarious anecdotes of when he was required to go beyond just being a restaurateur. One incident involves him spelunking in to one of his customer's freezers in their apartment to rescue a bottle of champagne, and leave a box of petit-fours. I haven't had anything that epic, but I do occasionally get the opportunity to show how much someone's patronage means to me.
The situation at Futami is rather unique. Our customer base is largely made up of one-time, solo diners from the hotel. We rarely are able to make them regular customers, they probably can't give us a ton of word-of-mouth advertising, but we must treat them well anyway because that is our mission in hospitality. So someone comes in from the hotel, they are spending the odd night in Evanston and they have a lot of dietary restrictions and they have never eaten sushi. I have 5 other tables needing my attention, but I will give him my full services and try to take care of everyone else as well. I answer every question, give as many explanations as I possibly can, and when his food does come there are some things he realizes he can't eat. He feels bad about it, I feel worse; I should have drawn some of my conclusions. Duh, if he doesn't really handle fried food well then he probably isn't going to be able to eat the lemon-butter sauce with the seafood entree. Well, shit. I beg and plead with the chef to serve up a new plate, something steamed and fresh. He gives me A LOT of shit and hate for it. I don't care though because he doesn't know I've been on that side of the window also. As a cook, yes it is annoying to customize menu items for picky customers. But frankly, that's part of the job, and though you don't necessarily see direct benefits from doing so, just shut up and do it. You can grumble about it later.
Anyhow, I bring him a new plate as soon as I can of lightly steamed seafood and vegetables and he is ecstatic. Some fresh sashimi and seaweed salad later, he is thoroughly pleased. He leaves me a great tip, but that isn't what makes me happiest. It's when he comes up to me as I'm closing out some checks and thanks me and apologizes for his fickle diet. And then he tells me he is converted to sushi for life. A wholesome, body tingling buzz runs down my spine. That feels good. I want to be able to make everyone feel that way when they leave my place. That is why front-of-the-house is so important, that is how you earn a customer for life.
Granted, I'm not always a spectacular waiter. Sometimes my own mood swings and frustrations with the restaurant present themselves in my work. I'm not proud of it. And yes, money is a big motivation. But I hope as I mature and grow I can learn to seek and give that kind of hospitality every time someone walks through my door.
And I just hope I can get there. As I mentioned, this life is not without sacrifices. I never had a normal family life. My mother started working when I got home from school, and I would only see her briefly before I had to go to bed. I never had regular sit down family meals, I was generally left to eat by myself in front of a TV. My grandmother never could kick the habit of Chinese women eating after the men, and would do house chores while I ate with Steve Urkel. Afterward I would struggle to communicate with her with my lackluster Mandarin, and scribble down gibberish to make it look as if I had done my homework. My father died when I was 11, and I saw him less than my mother even before then. My sister and I share a pretty sizable age gap, and it wouldn't be until high school that we really grew closer. Yes, the restaurant world has its downsides, and I spent a large part of my childhood minding my own business.
Sometimes, there's nothing I want more than a normal family life. I want to learn how to cook, I love to cook beautifully for customers, but I imagine there would be nothing more satisfying than cooking for your family. At the heart of cooking is love. Wanting to feed and please others is an act of pure love, something that is obscured by the other aspects of restaurant life. A grandmother slaving over a stove may not have a better seafood tomato sauce than Michael White at Marea, but the love it represents will make you remember it as the best meal you've ever had.
So yes it seems ironic that while I want the stability of a family at times that I found the one career that may not allow me to do that. I wish I had a 9-5 sometimes so I can hang out with my friends, have a normal relationship with a female where we could actually go on dates on weekends, have weekends off so I could play ultimate as long as my knees will allow me to. Maybe I won't get a lot of those things, and it will make the already difficult marathon to owning a restaurant that much harder. I hope I don't break before then, because with all my free time now I must admit I am really enjoying being able to see friends and family more, to play ultimate when I want.
But Daniel Boulud shared the same concerns (well ... maybe not about ultimate). And he admitted that yes, you will always want more time with your daughter. But there is a family in the kitchen waiting for you. An incredibly diverse spectrum of people whom you grow close to in the fires of service. That if this life is really for you, it will fulfill you as much and sometimes more than a normal family life could. That there is a way and means to balance everything in life, so long as you have the presence of mind to do so.
So here's hoping.
EP6
First and ten, Northwestern!
But seriously, the question is hanging there ... why do we cook? Why do we work this lifestyle?
The decision that brought me to cooking and restaurants was a lot like my decision to play cello instead of violin.
I'm Asian, I have to play a string instrument. I was a chubby and lazy child, sitting down is more comfortable than standing, conclusion; I play cello.
Fast forward 10 years and it's like, "I don't like sitting at desks. Office work destroys my soul. Hey, how about cooking? Oooh! Fancy!"
Well, it was a little more sophisticated than that, but that's definitely how it started. I have a short attention span, and I have a need for real-time accomplishments. I don't want to sit at a desk wearing business casual wondering if my 8-hours is going to have any tangible results. I want to get my hands dirty, I want to eat, I want to play with fire, I want to labor, sweat and toil. I want to put a finished plate in the window after a 4-pan pick up during dinner crush on Saturday and yell, "Halibut! Up!" in a cathartic, bestial roar, only to swiftly return to my fire. I want to know that someone is going to love that plate. I want to see the smile and satisfaction on a diner's face.
And apparently I'm not the only one. I'm not sure if it's because I'm getting deeper in to my career, or if this is an actual phenomenon (not one of my many conspiracy theories of which I would love to indulge you with over a cold Guinness), but my generation seems to love food and cooking. Food is having its own veritable revolution, with the focus on organically grown and home cooked food growing by the minute. Whole Foods and its empire of hipsters is growing to Genghis Khan proportions. And cooking is becoming a respected and desirable profession. College kids all go through an existential crisis these days, not knowing what to do with themselves. They didn't have the sink-or-swim attitude of our parents' generation, where they just had to get a job to make a living. Clint Eastwood likes to call us "the pussy generation." Now we have the luxury of exploring our options, and suffer through decades of questioning our existence. Cooking is a career in which one can "express themselves" and "be who they really are" and avoid the tie-as-noose environs of the office world, and they can truly rebel against the years of their parents' oppressive reign!
If it wasn't clear, that was just a bit sarcastic. All the young American cooks I meet and see seem to be tattooed and pierced up the waz, and like to self-administer heavy dosages of controlled substances. Yeah! I can party, and look crazy and still make money in a fun career! Well, some of that is true. There is a dark side to cooking that has a powerful allure to society's less orthodox members. I blame Anthony Bourdain for inspiring a generation of wannabe rock star cooks. And yes you can do all that, but there are plenty of serious ass cooks out there as well. Guys and gals who can't afford to get hammered before Sunday service because they are pushing the culinary envelope. They are the vanguard of the ever growing food movement and are basking in the limelight of a restaurant revolution. They can't fuck that up too often just because they have the freedom to do benders. They have to work their asses off. To quote Bourdain, they, the young cooks in the restaurants changing American dining, are often "whippet-thin, under rested young pups with dark circles under their eyes; they look like prisoners from a Japanese prison camp, they are expected to perform like Green Berets." I love that quote. That's exactly what I want to be. Bone-tired everyday because I pushed myself to the limit.
So while I do have tattoos, you won't see me in 10 years with a rainbow splattered ink sleeve running from my wrist to neck. I won't be inking "Cook Free or Die" or a pair of forks and knives on my wrists. That's not what cooking is about to me. It's not a cultural rebellion, an existential liberation, or an excuse to party. Cooking is a means to an end. Yes, I love food, I love the absolute rock show and adrenaline rush a good night of service can be, but I am trying to open and run a great restaurant. Whether it will be world-class is up to the pencil pushers to decide, but I want to be able to sleep at night feeling good about my establishment.
I love restaurants. It just took me 20 odd years to realize it. There are many sacrifices and downsides, but to me it is a lifestyle worthy of respect and honor. Now that I wait tables full-time, I have to say my favorite moments are going beyond the call of duty for a customer. Danny Meyer's book Setting the Table has all sorts of hilarious anecdotes of when he was required to go beyond just being a restaurateur. One incident involves him spelunking in to one of his customer's freezers in their apartment to rescue a bottle of champagne, and leave a box of petit-fours. I haven't had anything that epic, but I do occasionally get the opportunity to show how much someone's patronage means to me.
The situation at Futami is rather unique. Our customer base is largely made up of one-time, solo diners from the hotel. We rarely are able to make them regular customers, they probably can't give us a ton of word-of-mouth advertising, but we must treat them well anyway because that is our mission in hospitality. So someone comes in from the hotel, they are spending the odd night in Evanston and they have a lot of dietary restrictions and they have never eaten sushi. I have 5 other tables needing my attention, but I will give him my full services and try to take care of everyone else as well. I answer every question, give as many explanations as I possibly can, and when his food does come there are some things he realizes he can't eat. He feels bad about it, I feel worse; I should have drawn some of my conclusions. Duh, if he doesn't really handle fried food well then he probably isn't going to be able to eat the lemon-butter sauce with the seafood entree. Well, shit. I beg and plead with the chef to serve up a new plate, something steamed and fresh. He gives me A LOT of shit and hate for it. I don't care though because he doesn't know I've been on that side of the window also. As a cook, yes it is annoying to customize menu items for picky customers. But frankly, that's part of the job, and though you don't necessarily see direct benefits from doing so, just shut up and do it. You can grumble about it later.
Anyhow, I bring him a new plate as soon as I can of lightly steamed seafood and vegetables and he is ecstatic. Some fresh sashimi and seaweed salad later, he is thoroughly pleased. He leaves me a great tip, but that isn't what makes me happiest. It's when he comes up to me as I'm closing out some checks and thanks me and apologizes for his fickle diet. And then he tells me he is converted to sushi for life. A wholesome, body tingling buzz runs down my spine. That feels good. I want to be able to make everyone feel that way when they leave my place. That is why front-of-the-house is so important, that is how you earn a customer for life.
Granted, I'm not always a spectacular waiter. Sometimes my own mood swings and frustrations with the restaurant present themselves in my work. I'm not proud of it. And yes, money is a big motivation. But I hope as I mature and grow I can learn to seek and give that kind of hospitality every time someone walks through my door.
And I just hope I can get there. As I mentioned, this life is not without sacrifices. I never had a normal family life. My mother started working when I got home from school, and I would only see her briefly before I had to go to bed. I never had regular sit down family meals, I was generally left to eat by myself in front of a TV. My grandmother never could kick the habit of Chinese women eating after the men, and would do house chores while I ate with Steve Urkel. Afterward I would struggle to communicate with her with my lackluster Mandarin, and scribble down gibberish to make it look as if I had done my homework. My father died when I was 11, and I saw him less than my mother even before then. My sister and I share a pretty sizable age gap, and it wouldn't be until high school that we really grew closer. Yes, the restaurant world has its downsides, and I spent a large part of my childhood minding my own business.
Sometimes, there's nothing I want more than a normal family life. I want to learn how to cook, I love to cook beautifully for customers, but I imagine there would be nothing more satisfying than cooking for your family. At the heart of cooking is love. Wanting to feed and please others is an act of pure love, something that is obscured by the other aspects of restaurant life. A grandmother slaving over a stove may not have a better seafood tomato sauce than Michael White at Marea, but the love it represents will make you remember it as the best meal you've ever had.
So yes it seems ironic that while I want the stability of a family at times that I found the one career that may not allow me to do that. I wish I had a 9-5 sometimes so I can hang out with my friends, have a normal relationship with a female where we could actually go on dates on weekends, have weekends off so I could play ultimate as long as my knees will allow me to. Maybe I won't get a lot of those things, and it will make the already difficult marathon to owning a restaurant that much harder. I hope I don't break before then, because with all my free time now I must admit I am really enjoying being able to see friends and family more, to play ultimate when I want.
But Daniel Boulud shared the same concerns (well ... maybe not about ultimate). And he admitted that yes, you will always want more time with your daughter. But there is a family in the kitchen waiting for you. An incredibly diverse spectrum of people whom you grow close to in the fires of service. That if this life is really for you, it will fulfill you as much and sometimes more than a normal family life could. That there is a way and means to balance everything in life, so long as you have the presence of mind to do so.
So here's hoping.
EP6
Thursday, June 3, 2010
What It Takes
I can't stress enough how little I know. I grew up in restaurants, I've worked for about a year as a cook, a little more as a waiter. But I think the path to becoming a restaurant owner, a chef-owner, is a long, arduous one. It will take years to reach the point where you can open your own place, and when you do open up and realize a dream, it starts all over again. A learning process starts that will never stop. Or at least you hope it won't.
So that's a great part of the appeal. You can always be improving, you must always be learning. Every time you do something, you can choose to try and do it better the next time. Something as tedious as peeling blanched tomatoes, shelling fava beans can bring to light a whole new dimension when you focus and harness the will to improve. Cooking, management, budgeting, cleaning, all of it. It is a never ending pursuit of knowledge, and a never ending practice session of technique.
The goal for me is to own my own restaurant. I have zero aspiration to be a celebrity, to light up a blogosphere, to become a brand, to own an empire, to be on Top Chef. I don't disrespect any of that, and if it comes to me I won't necessarily say no. But there's too many other things to focus on, there's too many other things to consider first. There are a lot of ideas I have for restaurants. If I can realize a few of them, that'll be many dreams come true. But really, to be able to own and run one respected, good, genuine restaurant will be more than I can ask for in this life.
So that being the goal, I've obviously thought about what it's going to take. What kind of personality, what kind of lifestyle decisions, what kind of education, what kind of people and technical skills it will require to reach that point and hold on. As I said before, I don't know a lot now, but I've dreamed about it obsessively enough that I have a rough idea.
How did I look at it? It starts with education obviously. You look at the best restaurants in the country and you learn their story. How they got there, what they learned, why what they do makes them the best. Overwhelmingly, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park kept popping up. There are more CIA alumni with Mobil Diamond Awards and James Beard Awards than any other school. So that was an obvious step. At some point, you got to go where the best started, especially because I lack a strong culinary background. I would need as much culinary education in as short a time as possible.
It's also important that I be able to excel at school as well. Nobody enjoys struggling and you can't get the most out of your education if you aren't a little prepared to begin with. You can't learn calculus (what's a slope?) before you've mastered basic arithmetic (this one's fading quick, too). So I took an internship, did a stage, moved myself up to the line, learned the basics, and tested myself in the crush of service.
But restaurants aren't just about cooking. Sure, the CIA can lay the groundwork for you becoming a great chef, but that doesn't mean you know shit about running a restaurant, managing people, managing finances. Coming from a classical music background, there was much of the same story. I knew a lot of really talented musicians growing up. At Juilliard a lot of the students had the potential to be a star, but a few things kept them out of the limelight. Some people just couldn't play in front of a crowd. Their playing fell flat, or they got nervous, or they just couldn't command attention. Some people couldn't manage their practice efficiently. They spent too much time practicing the wrong things, or too little time practicing anything (ding!). Some people just didn't know how to play the game, how to get the favor of the professors, get connections for jobs, go to the right music festivals. My point is talent, and especially specialized talent, can only take you so far. You have to be well-rounded to achieve success.
That was the most important lesson I learned from my brief chat with Chef Bill Kim. Here was a guy I knew had worked his ass off, had earned his chops. He was skeptical of me wanting to go in to restaurants. In his words, my "college degree and classical music background already makes me assume you are weak." He assumed that I was doing this because I had bought in to the fairy tale of Top Chef, of Food Network. I wanted so much to tell him "NO NO NO," I promise I have a more level headed approach to this. It was frustrating for him to have so little faith in me, but really I understand why. And then he said something that was really enlightening.
"When you open your restaurant, it's not about food. Food is a given. There is so much more to restaurants than food, and it starts with knowing how to clean a grease trap."
Food is the main reason people go to restaurants. Yes, that seems like an unnecessary observation to make, but it isn't the only reason. And food is so subjective, which is why kitchens have to deal with people customizing the menu for their own palates. That's just the way it is. Yes, something can almost be objectively delicious, but really there is no such thing as perfect food, there is no such thing as "the best" food. The end goal is to just make people happy.
In your own restaurant, you use food as a medium of expression. You hope it represents who you are, what you like to eat, what you think others should try, what kind of food you grew up with. You hope it's well executed and tasty to others. But not everyone is going to love what you do. So how else can you create a restaurant worth returning to? How do you keep the doors open long enough to expand your career?
You need a personality that will keep you and the people you hire obsessively focused on the goal. You could really use a set of technical skills outside the culinary theater that will help you immensely. Like choosing to be a carpenter or a blacksmith on The Oregon Trail, it'll just make your life easier, make running a restaurant a bit smoother. When your axle breaks, or you need to build a boat, it's better to be able to build one yourself, then pay for someone else to do it. When your oxen drown, it's easier to be able to use a Water-Walking Charm to ford the river, then to find a new beast of burden.
Wait ... shit, I think I forgot how this works ... Start over.
For a kitchen, there are some skills that are very crucial that have nothing to do with food. It's pretty much essential that you speak Spanish. Basic repair and maintenance skills will be extremely useful. Even new kitchens start to break down in unexpected places due to daily use. How to negotiate garbage pick up, how to hire dishwashers, busboys, porters. How to fix an oven pilot light, how to maintain a walk-in cooler. If you're real engineering nerdy, how to fix a refrigerator compressor. How to clean a kitchen hood, how to scour a flat top. And how to clean a goddamn grease trap.
There are a whole set of interpersonal skills you will need. How to lead a team, how to hire the right employees, how to retain them. How to make them believe in you. In the S. Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the World list, the blurb for Alinea is very simple. After a description of their famous interpretation of a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich, it reads,
"We live and die by the vision of Grant Achatz."
You need to instill that faith. Make them believe that working in this restaurant is worthwhile, is fun, is exciting, is worthy of success. The people that are your employees are the most important cog in the machine of the restaurant.
Then even more intangibles enter the mix. Choosing a location that is going to attract the right crowd, and that will allow you to serve food at the right price. Giving your dining room a personality that is welcoming and complementary to your food, your staff. All sorts of personal touches you hope will add up to something substantial. And luck. Straight up luck. You'll need a lot of it.
The point is that there's more to it than just cooking. Yes, I need to learn how to cook. I need to learn how to cook exceptionally, in fact. But there are going to be a million other lessons I need to learn along the way. I jot down notes, I type up new ideas, I bookmark some great pages in my cookbooks. I can only hope that one day they will coalesce into something substantial.
So forgive my thinking aloud, but I have become lost. It's been about a month and a half since I've cooked professionally. The rote mechanics of wrapping containers in plastic wrap, cutting onions, sauteing greens seems so long ago. I miss it. Though the weather is nice, and the leisure time refreshing, I find myself entering a downward cycle of wanderlust. Time is being wasted, there's so much more to learn. My knife callous is growing soft again. Do you know how many stupid butternut squash I murdered to earn that callous?! The cuts and burns and scars are fading, and as Chef Kim suggested, there's a chance I'm becoming soft.
I turn to you, my friends. To allow me to use you as a soundboard through which I can galvanize and refocus. I needed to write out and remind myself how much work it will take, how much sacrifice it will require to succeed. What kind of skills I will need to sharpen. The Chicago summer is a tempting time to loaf and relax, but I think it's a valuable opportunity to learn. I leave this city soon, I have no commitments. I can be a mercenary cook and work in some kitchens unpaid and really learn some more things, broaden my horizons.
So with hopes of doing some more stages, and writing about it for all you folks I go. Knife bag (or Dexter kill bag, as Paul likes to call it) in hand, baseball cap at the ready.
EP6
So that's a great part of the appeal. You can always be improving, you must always be learning. Every time you do something, you can choose to try and do it better the next time. Something as tedious as peeling blanched tomatoes, shelling fava beans can bring to light a whole new dimension when you focus and harness the will to improve. Cooking, management, budgeting, cleaning, all of it. It is a never ending pursuit of knowledge, and a never ending practice session of technique.
The goal for me is to own my own restaurant. I have zero aspiration to be a celebrity, to light up a blogosphere, to become a brand, to own an empire, to be on Top Chef. I don't disrespect any of that, and if it comes to me I won't necessarily say no. But there's too many other things to focus on, there's too many other things to consider first. There are a lot of ideas I have for restaurants. If I can realize a few of them, that'll be many dreams come true. But really, to be able to own and run one respected, good, genuine restaurant will be more than I can ask for in this life.
So that being the goal, I've obviously thought about what it's going to take. What kind of personality, what kind of lifestyle decisions, what kind of education, what kind of people and technical skills it will require to reach that point and hold on. As I said before, I don't know a lot now, but I've dreamed about it obsessively enough that I have a rough idea.
How did I look at it? It starts with education obviously. You look at the best restaurants in the country and you learn their story. How they got there, what they learned, why what they do makes them the best. Overwhelmingly, the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park kept popping up. There are more CIA alumni with Mobil Diamond Awards and James Beard Awards than any other school. So that was an obvious step. At some point, you got to go where the best started, especially because I lack a strong culinary background. I would need as much culinary education in as short a time as possible.
It's also important that I be able to excel at school as well. Nobody enjoys struggling and you can't get the most out of your education if you aren't a little prepared to begin with. You can't learn calculus (what's a slope?) before you've mastered basic arithmetic (this one's fading quick, too). So I took an internship, did a stage, moved myself up to the line, learned the basics, and tested myself in the crush of service.
But restaurants aren't just about cooking. Sure, the CIA can lay the groundwork for you becoming a great chef, but that doesn't mean you know shit about running a restaurant, managing people, managing finances. Coming from a classical music background, there was much of the same story. I knew a lot of really talented musicians growing up. At Juilliard a lot of the students had the potential to be a star, but a few things kept them out of the limelight. Some people just couldn't play in front of a crowd. Their playing fell flat, or they got nervous, or they just couldn't command attention. Some people couldn't manage their practice efficiently. They spent too much time practicing the wrong things, or too little time practicing anything (ding!). Some people just didn't know how to play the game, how to get the favor of the professors, get connections for jobs, go to the right music festivals. My point is talent, and especially specialized talent, can only take you so far. You have to be well-rounded to achieve success.
That was the most important lesson I learned from my brief chat with Chef Bill Kim. Here was a guy I knew had worked his ass off, had earned his chops. He was skeptical of me wanting to go in to restaurants. In his words, my "college degree and classical music background already makes me assume you are weak." He assumed that I was doing this because I had bought in to the fairy tale of Top Chef, of Food Network. I wanted so much to tell him "NO NO NO," I promise I have a more level headed approach to this. It was frustrating for him to have so little faith in me, but really I understand why. And then he said something that was really enlightening.
"When you open your restaurant, it's not about food. Food is a given. There is so much more to restaurants than food, and it starts with knowing how to clean a grease trap."
Food is the main reason people go to restaurants. Yes, that seems like an unnecessary observation to make, but it isn't the only reason. And food is so subjective, which is why kitchens have to deal with people customizing the menu for their own palates. That's just the way it is. Yes, something can almost be objectively delicious, but really there is no such thing as perfect food, there is no such thing as "the best" food. The end goal is to just make people happy.
In your own restaurant, you use food as a medium of expression. You hope it represents who you are, what you like to eat, what you think others should try, what kind of food you grew up with. You hope it's well executed and tasty to others. But not everyone is going to love what you do. So how else can you create a restaurant worth returning to? How do you keep the doors open long enough to expand your career?
You need a personality that will keep you and the people you hire obsessively focused on the goal. You could really use a set of technical skills outside the culinary theater that will help you immensely. Like choosing to be a carpenter or a blacksmith on The Oregon Trail, it'll just make your life easier, make running a restaurant a bit smoother. When your axle breaks, or you need to build a boat, it's better to be able to build one yourself, then pay for someone else to do it. When your oxen drown, it's easier to be able to use a Water-Walking Charm to ford the river, then to find a new beast of burden.
Wait ... shit, I think I forgot how this works ... Start over.
For a kitchen, there are some skills that are very crucial that have nothing to do with food. It's pretty much essential that you speak Spanish. Basic repair and maintenance skills will be extremely useful. Even new kitchens start to break down in unexpected places due to daily use. How to negotiate garbage pick up, how to hire dishwashers, busboys, porters. How to fix an oven pilot light, how to maintain a walk-in cooler. If you're real engineering nerdy, how to fix a refrigerator compressor. How to clean a kitchen hood, how to scour a flat top. And how to clean a goddamn grease trap.
There are a whole set of interpersonal skills you will need. How to lead a team, how to hire the right employees, how to retain them. How to make them believe in you. In the S. Pellegrino's 50 Best Restaurants in the World list, the blurb for Alinea is very simple. After a description of their famous interpretation of a Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich, it reads,
"We live and die by the vision of Grant Achatz."
You need to instill that faith. Make them believe that working in this restaurant is worthwhile, is fun, is exciting, is worthy of success. The people that are your employees are the most important cog in the machine of the restaurant.
Then even more intangibles enter the mix. Choosing a location that is going to attract the right crowd, and that will allow you to serve food at the right price. Giving your dining room a personality that is welcoming and complementary to your food, your staff. All sorts of personal touches you hope will add up to something substantial. And luck. Straight up luck. You'll need a lot of it.
The point is that there's more to it than just cooking. Yes, I need to learn how to cook. I need to learn how to cook exceptionally, in fact. But there are going to be a million other lessons I need to learn along the way. I jot down notes, I type up new ideas, I bookmark some great pages in my cookbooks. I can only hope that one day they will coalesce into something substantial.
So forgive my thinking aloud, but I have become lost. It's been about a month and a half since I've cooked professionally. The rote mechanics of wrapping containers in plastic wrap, cutting onions, sauteing greens seems so long ago. I miss it. Though the weather is nice, and the leisure time refreshing, I find myself entering a downward cycle of wanderlust. Time is being wasted, there's so much more to learn. My knife callous is growing soft again. Do you know how many stupid butternut squash I murdered to earn that callous?! The cuts and burns and scars are fading, and as Chef Kim suggested, there's a chance I'm becoming soft.
I turn to you, my friends. To allow me to use you as a soundboard through which I can galvanize and refocus. I needed to write out and remind myself how much work it will take, how much sacrifice it will require to succeed. What kind of skills I will need to sharpen. The Chicago summer is a tempting time to loaf and relax, but I think it's a valuable opportunity to learn. I leave this city soon, I have no commitments. I can be a mercenary cook and work in some kitchens unpaid and really learn some more things, broaden my horizons.
So with hopes of doing some more stages, and writing about it for all you folks I go. Knife bag (or Dexter kill bag, as Paul likes to call it) in hand, baseball cap at the ready.
EP6
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