What Makes a Good Cook

As I work more in restaurants, and I learn more about how to run one, I see why so many fail.

It's because people are stupid.

Well, to be more accurate, people are stupid about the restaurant industry. All the business instincts that you learned in the classroom, or out in another industry aren't going to apply the same way. A restaurant is a living, breathing thing that needs constant babysitting and adjustments by the minute. There are no set rules, and you will probably find yourself creating many on the fly.

I'm sure a lot of wealthy people are attracted to the accessibility and glamor of a restaurant. Anybody can do it and you don't need a specialized degree. But then they get in to it expecting it to be a cake walk, and they are unpleasantly surprised when the paper goes up over the windows, and the doors are closed for good.

My grievances aside, the point I'm trying to make is that if I have learned a golden rule to a restaurant it is this; fill it with good employees.

It's that easy, and it's that hard. Running a great restaurant is more about filling it with good employees, than with good customers. Everything will fall in place from there if you can hire a team of dedicated, hard-working, passionate people who have a dogmatic sense of integrity, and a fine repertoire of skills.

How many people out there possess those qualities and want to work in restaurants? The answer is very few. And if the restaurant world is already competitive over customers, I think it's even more competitive over employees. Poaching employees is a behavior that could make you a hated outcast very quickly. In the words of Tupac Shakur, "you find someone good, you hold on to them." That means treat your employees well, make them proud and happy to work for you, and the world will be a better place.

And by the way I'm talking every employee in your restaurant, not just the key players. From dishwasher to manager, you need a team of people that adhere to a set of core values. Your core values. And they better be good values.

But let's talk about line cooks. The veritable grunts of the industry, the soldiers slogging it out in the trenches.

What makes a good cook? I've never really summed it up in a list before. I just tried to accumulate a bank of skills and neuroses that would make me a more efficient part of the line. As I try to separate them in to coherent thoughts that non-pandas would understand, I find the list to be inexhaustibly long. But I will try to be concise because I appreciate you guys reading my verbose bullshit anyway.

1) Be obsessively clean.

The most important thing I learned at Oceanique was to have a neurotic sense of cleanliness. I think Chef Mark was ecstatic to have his brand new stage spelunk behind a blazing convection oven to scrub the walls. But as I gave the slightest sigh when he commanded me to do so, his mood changed immediately, and he gave me the first stern look I've ever gotten from him and he said, "A really important part about being a chef is cleaning. Get used to it."

Taken aback by his sudden seriousness and menacing look I obediently climbed behind the oven with my tail between my legs, and a ball of steel wool in hand. Picture this; Chef Mark looks like fucking Santa Claus who survived the 70s but didn't really leave them. His angry face made my balls shrivel.

Kitchens should be cleaner than hospitals. They should be immaculate. Not just because of health concerns, but being organized and clean is the first step to being efficient. And efficiency is the other most important thing to being a cook. When the orders are coming in, dinner rush is punching you in the nuts repeatedly, you can't be bogged down by a messy station. It's sloppy, it's unprofessional, it slows the line down and affects your mindset. If you even need to spend an extra second looking for your chive garnish, or wiping a cutting board to split an order of cheese tarts, all those speed bumps are going to accumulate and put you in the shit.

At Va Pensiero I cleaned my burners constantly, wiping them with hot water and getting the crap out. I like keeping my cutting boards clean, and the lips of my sixth-pans wiped. I sweep the floors after each item I prep (especially onions because the papery skin gets EVERYWHERE), I wipe counters wherever they need wiping, I set everything at right angles as best I can. Since I was slow and messy about cooking, I needed to make sure I was on-point about organization and mise-en-place. Sous chef Chuy would always give me this puzzled look as I scrubbed at my burners during a free moment, and he would gesture towards his own clean burners that didn't need wiping and say, "Maybe if you weren't so fucking messy to begin with you wouldn't have to scrub all the time, guey."

At Lula, they clean the shit out of the kitchen between service, and after dinner. I'm talking everything is scrubbed til shiny. The floors, the walls behind the prep tables, the undersides of counter tops, the little nooks on door handles. The lunch crews and dinner crews find their kitchen perfectly clean every time they show up. On Wednesdays they clean the hood, which is a god-awful, horrifying process that will leave you feeling greasy for days. The hood is that massive roof above the stoves that sucks in all the vaporized grease and smoke from cooking. Cleaning it weekly is pretty bad already. Most restaurants clean it anywhere from once a month, to twice a year. Imagine the horror... the horror.

At Le Bernardin, the legendary fish butcher, Justo Thomas, wraps a whole 8x10 room in plastic film; ceilings, floors, walls, everything, EVERY day as he portions and cleans fish. He throws the film out at the end of his shift, and the room is clean under its makeshift condom. Fish scales fly everywhere and a more careless person would probably have left the corners caked in fishy debris after 20+ years at that restaurant.

Clean, clean, clean.

2) Be efficient.

If you're standing around doing nothing, you're probably doing something wrong.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, being a cook is often a battle against the clock. Some restaurants have ridiculously high volume and are less about precision, more about prepping massive quantities of produce. We call those "turn-and-burn" joints. Others, like many fine-dining four-stars, have dishes that have 15-20 components and take 5-7 minutes just to plate one dish in a marathon of a tasting menu. That requires prep work of such detail and accuracy it could kill an unorganized cook. Even if your restaurant is somewhere in between, time is a cook's most valuable resource.

There's always something that can and should get done. You sure you're completely caught up on your dupes? You sure your station is prepped? What about for tomorrow? And if by some miracle your station doesn't need any prep work whatsoever, there's always a walk-in refrigerator or two to clean and organize. There's always floors to sweep, there's always containers to wipe. There's most definitely something you can wrap in plastic to minimize air exposure. Keep your mind and eyes open, and there will be an opportunity to make something better. Always.

3) Be a team player.

Many cooks defend and honor "the line" with zeal and loyalty. It is a decidedly dangerous place that belongs to the cooks. But it isn't just a collection of tattooed college dropouts and baller Mexican cooks. It is a unified entity. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

At some point or another, if you're cooking professionally, you're going to be in the shit. You're behind on prep, you're behind on orders, something is going wrong. That is when your fellow cooks jump in to save your ass. It happens to all of us, everyone has bad days, just learn how to do it better next time. And just don't let it happen too often, or you may be staring down a firing squad.

So it's important that everyone on the line knows how to work every station. It should be that every cook could step up to any given station, plate nicely, and work it in a pinch if someone calls in sick. And by the way, "sick" for cooks means someone in your immediate family died or you have an illness that literally prevents you from standing. Otherwise, you're not sick. Show up, pussy.

The line does its best work when the cooks on it are helping each other out. Little things here and there, like "Hey, can you pull 6 plates for me?" or "Hey, can you help me sear these scallops?" go a long, long way. On a severely busy night, near the end of my tenure at Va P, I was starting to get pretty reliable on the line. But if we were doing 200-250 covers, I started to slow down around 7 PM, bogged down by orders. I tried my best to fight my way out of it, but Chuy almost always had to come to the rescue. The scallops always fucked me. To perfectly sear 12-15 scallops at once while juggling ravioli and pasta orders was a lot for me. I only had four burners, I hadn't mastered the timing yet. But Chuy, being the saute fucking boss that he is, didn't have hotter burners, but somehow got the scallops done better and faster. It always reminded me how much of a pro he was, and how grateful I was for him saving me from getting crushed.

And the line has to coordinate dishes so that everything comes out hot at the same time. Only amateurish restaurants have plates that go out to diners at different times. If it's on the same course, it goes out together. But obviously a steak and a ravioli dish have different cooking times. It's up to the cooks to get it right. As the steak is 3 minutes from medium rare, the grill chef may tell the pasta cook "Alright, let's do it." That way the ravioli is cooked through, and the steak is rested and beautifully pink-red on the inside as the plates are delivered.

Or you can do what Luis used to do. He would make a motion to "pump the brakes" or simply say "orale, puto!" to let me know if it was time to rock. To this day, "Orale!" is my favorite word in Spanish. I don't think it has an exact definition, something along the lines of "let's go!" but it will forever be associated with some of the crazier adrenaline rushes I've had in my life.

The line has to work together. If you only focus on yourself without helping the cooks around you, you will soon find yourself on the outside, a pariah with deteriorating value.

4) Be humble.

I was watching Tony Hsieh, CEO of the wildly innovative Zappos.com deliver a speech on his interview process. I admire him because I think a lot of his business philosophies apply to restaurants, as well as online shoe companies; take care of your employees, make them happy, customer service comes before profits. Anyhow, one of the core values of his company is "Be humble." But that is something that's quite difficult to assess during an interview. You can't ask someone "Are you humble?" because you're going to get some ridiculous response like "Shit yeah, bitch! I'm the most humble muthafucka there is!"

Being humble is a big problem for a lot of cooks and subsequently a lot of chefs. The kitchen is a pretty macho place. It is not unlike a battlefield in many ways. Surviving and excelling in such an environment is bound to nourish some egos. And a little bit of ego can be good, in the same way that confidence is necessary to succeed. But frankly, I don't think there is room for any serious egos in any serious kitchens. Like in the later half of a season of Top Chef, there are going to be some cocky young guns with the skills, but all the cocky young guns who couldn't back it up are long gone, a forgotten page in reality TV history.

At Thomas Keller's restaurants, all the cooks greet each other with a "Good morning, Chef" and a handshake. It doesn't matter if you just started and you spend the whole day picking herbs and hauling trash, you are "Chef." During prep they all wear blue aprons. In French kitchens, the color blue signifies an apprentice. Only chefs wore white. So blue was a quick way to recognize a commis, or apprentice, who had not ascended to chef-dom yet. So all of Thomas Keller's cooks wear blue aprons to remind themselves that there is always more to learn, to keep your ego in check, to always keep an eye out for improvement and an opportunity to learn.

That's an important part of being a good cook and a good chef. You have to tell yourself you really aren't that sweet nor awesome. There's someone who's right behind you about to be the next big thing, and doing stuff with food you've never even thought of. The dining movement is a collaborative one between all those who would call themselves chefs around the world. It's a big network of people who love food and are constantly pushing the envelope. You can never, at any point, assume you have mastered it all. The day you are too happy with yourself, and let your ego inflate a little too much, is the day you get left in the dust by the next great young chef.

5) Be hungry to learn.

Grant Achatz often cites his natural curiosity as one of the most important factors to his success. A desire to question, and know why something is, how something works, or how something can be better is integral to being a good cook.

A cook's life is the constant pursuit of perfection while knowing that it is an unobtainable goal.

If you think I'm being overly poetic, and/or that sucks a lot of balls, well... it's the truth.

There is no such thing as perfect food, or a perfect dish. Everything can be refined, something can be done better. You could spend a lifetime on one dish and still not have truly mastered it. You have to enjoy the process of striving for perfection. You have to accept mistakes as part of the process, and learn from them, not repeat them. If you read the Momofuku cookbook, it almost seems as if many of David Chang's dishes were happy accidents. Leaving vegetables in the oven too long, dehydrating them. Forgetting about a whole torchon of foie gras in the freezer. Having an ungodly amount of pork fat from making ramen broth. He made something great out of all those little mishaps. If one keeps an open mind, and a constant desire to refine, then mistakes can almost be good things. They can be indicators of how to improve, of what's working and what's not.

I wish Va Pensiero had been open just a bit longer, because the week after we closed I was set to trail Don Manuel through morning prep and pump out stuffed pastas like a boss. Don Manuel works as a dishwasher at night, and he did menial prep in the morning for us. He's never really cooked on the line, and he's definitely an old man. But he makes perfect, perfect stuffed pasta. Just the right thickness (if you ever read of complaints about thick cappeletti at Va P that was probably my bad, not his), completely uniform in shape, organized meticulously. There was a lot to learn just by watching him. He wouldn't be able to explain anything, he spoke no English, I speak remedial Spanish. But just watching him could unearth a wealth of ravioli making technique. The key is an eye for detail and an appetite to learn. The thing about people who are experts at something is that they make it look easy. So easy that you can miss the subtleties that make them experts.

Always question things. Even if you've had a signature dish for 20 years that everybody loves, I'm sure there's something about it that could be done better. Even if you are an ACF Certified Master Chef, there is always something new to learn about handling food. Even if you are a 3-Michelin-star kitchen's entremetier (the vegetable dude) you can still spend your day off working on the meat station, honing your butchering skills.

You're going to create a ceiling for how far your career can go if you keep an attitude that you have learned enough. I don't like ceilings, except when it's raining. I think they are stupid. Ceilings are poopy. I think the most exciting thing about restaurants and cooking is the very fact that there always is something new to learn. No two days are alike, a restaurant is a work-in-progress that doesn't finish until you close the doors, or you die. Revel in it, it's never boring.

I'm wondering if you are surprised that I haven't mentioned anything about actual cooking skills. Like "be ninja with knives" or "be zen with fire" or "be so intimate with a pig, you know its sexual history." The thing about culinary skills is that there is often no one, best way to do something. And even if there was, anybody could learn to do it with the proper attitude.

Unlike sports, you don't really need natural gifts to excel at professional cooking. It's all attitude. The famous maxim from Pixar's Ratatouille, "Anyone Can Cook!" is quite accurate. Anyone can cook, and anyone can succeed in the food industry if they have a big heart, a little luck and thick skin, metaphorically and literally (the hands ... I will never live down the nickname "Bitch Hands"). I mean you may not be the next culinary "Pope," as Bourdain would call it, a position reserved for Keller, but you can be successful in your own right.

So, you cut yourself? Put a band-aid on it, put on a finger-condom, they never stop being funny if you are 11-years-old at heart (Because it's like a condom for someone who has a really small penis?? Like the size of a finger? Get it!? Comic gold!), and start slicing away again.

Burned yourself? Run it under some cold water, use a dry towel next time. Apparently wet towels conduct heat faster or something. I don't know what science is, but that's why they tell me I has boo-boos. Oh, and put some burn gel on it when no one's looking.

This pig kicking your ass even though it's dead? Fun fact, you can use power tools and saws on a dead animal. That'll teach that fucker what's up. In no time you will be a pig carcass destroying machine.

I think my new idol is Frank Crispo. Real working stiff, blue-collar kinda guy who grew up washing dishes in Philly and doing plumbing jobs with his dad. Then he went to the CIA and started cooking like a boss for all the ballers in New York City, including being Daniel Boulud's sous-chef for two years. After decades cooking for other people, and having to get a double-hip replacement for his toils, he buys a space in the West Village and renovates it himself. I'm talking plumbing, furniture, flooring, kitchen, heating, the whole fucking building refurbished and built with his own hands. Nobody has really heard of him, but all the kitchen crews in New York know that Crispo is the real deal. He's not doing anything fancy or new, just very high-quality ingredients, impeccable technique, sagacious business acumen, and good ole' hard work. Not to mention he can fix just about anything. Who needs a repairman?

I think that's my best hopes of success. I am not nearly as handy as Frank Crispo (he welded and fashioned the wrought-iron patio outside of his restaurant ... who does that!?), and I don't think I'll ever be the creative genius that Grant Achatz is, or have the seemingly endless charm and appeal that David Chang has. But if I can focus on being a good cook, then focus on being a good chef, then focus on running a good restaurant, keep my head down, and my heart on the goal ... then maybe I'll be on my way.

EP6

PS - I really need to find a new way to end posts that isn't "inspirational summation for myself." It's like masturbating, I don't think it's doing anyone else any good... I'll work on it.

How Restaurants Can Hate You

I'm going to have to give you a guide on how not to be a douchebag... at restaurants. If you still pop your collar, "make it rain" at the bar to impress girls, or are another of the faceless army of striped, partially unbuttoned shirts at the club ... well, you're on your own. But restaurants, a matter with which I am deeply personal with, is a whole 'nother thing.

I am a firm believer that there will always be three absolute indicators to the character of a man. The kind of company he keeps, the way he treats animals, and the way he treats restaurant staff.

With restaurant staff, you are in a position of power. There is no clearer glimpse into the window of someone's soul than to see them in a position of power. Yes, we as waiters are here to serve you. Yes, we generally are required to meet your every beck and call, and yes, we do want your patronage. But that doesn't give you an excuse to treat us like garbage.

I don't know if it's because Americans have been on the wrong end of a misanthropic Applebee's server or something, but being a waiter is considered a cop-out, bullshit job. We depend on your patronage, your tips to make a living, and the job is unique in the sense that you can pay as much as you think we deserve. If a doctor is an asshole or even bungles up your diagnosis, you've still got to make the co-pay. If for some reason you just didn't like us or you think an extra few bucks would really break your bank, you have the choice in that matter.

This is not meant to be an essay in defense of restaurant workers suggesting that you should always give 20% and think nothing of it. If a server sucks you should let them know that. But there are more constructive ways to go about it.

If a server sucks; is neglectful, poor hygiene, rude, incompetent, etc., then make note of that to their manager. And leave a bad tip. But if you just leave a bad tip, that doesn't tell us anything. If I think I did a good job and you give me 10%, I assume you are a tightwad McScrooge. Also, if you let a manager know, nine times out of ten your next visit will have some sort of comp on it. Constructive criticism will free us all.

So it's important to us that you like us, that you think we are doing a good job. But you may think it's unimportant how we feel about you. And you'd mostly be right. Even if you are the most miserable asshole to be around, we will treat you well regardless. And we won't spit in your food or tamper with anything else you may consume, contrary to popular belief. So it may not be an overstatement to say we are frankly powerless against you. There will be no repercussions for earning our wrath. But I will say there will be rewards for earning our love. So I present to you a brief guide on how to not get restaurant workers to hate you.

1) Don't chat endlessly before ordering.

I know you're real excited and all that Katie just met a new guy, and he's soooo talented and funny, but you came to a restaurant to eat and drink, did you not? Once you finish the Chocolate Lava Cake that you swore you weren't going to eat you can chat as long as you like over coffee about the diet you swear you'll start tomorrow. But just fucking order already. Ask questions if you have them, take your time to peruse the menu, but just order it and we'll get out of your way. On a busy night servers don't have time to come check on you every 5 minutes to wonder if you've started looking at the menu, and we don't want to interrupt your conversation however inane it might be, so just order and get on with it.

2) When you are ready to order, make sure you are actually ready to order.

A good waiter will make rounds on the dining floor to make sure if anyone needs anything. For the most part, you won't need to hold on to us this one time we're at the table because you'll never see us again. We'll be back I promise. So that being the case, take your time to review the menu and be ready to order when you say you are. Nothing is more annoying than when you say you're ready to order and all I'm met with are 3 minutes of "ummms" and "hmmms." You're not ready, you lied to me. You're reading the menu and trying to make a decision on the fly and I'm standing here looking like a jackass and trying my damnedest to not put on my "impatient" face. Then I have to be like "maybe you'd like to take a few more minutes to look at the menu?" and make an excessive return to your table. Oh and if I ask you that, don't be like "wait, wait, I've almost got it!" like you were fiddling in the dark for some poor girl's G-spot or something. In the eternal words of the Governator, I'll ... be... back. Chill.

3) Don't sit there forever and chat about the diet you swear you'll start tomorrow on a very busy night.

Alright, conversation is engaging, you're in your own world, you're having a great time. But are you really oblivious to the line of people and absolute cacophony of the restaurant? It's Saturday, there are people waiting for tables, the restaurant is trying to turn yours for the next guest. I mean I'm not going to kick you out, but maybe you could be polite and move your chit-chat to another venue. And if you're some of the last guests? This is the quickest and easiest way to get a restaurant to hate you. We all want to go home or go out, and see our loved ones who we can't have dinner with on a weekend. Either go make some bartender's night or go home and open a bottle of wine. We've closed the curtains, dimmed the lights, cleaned the dining room, that's a pretty clear sign that we would love for you to go home.

4) If you have diet restrictions, tell us, but realize how much of a pain in the ass it is.

I've been on both sides of the window, cooking plates and bringing plates to customers. It is annoying to customize the menu for you. I'll do it, gladly, so long as you realize this. Don't come up here with your sense of entitlement like we should be so thankful you have a gluten allergy. I know you didn't ask for it and you'd probably prefer to be able to eat pasta, but getting a random vegan, gluten-allergy, shellfish allergy, whatever... that throws a fucking wrench in the plan. A severely busy restaurant only requires one table to take too long, one kitchen mistake to fuck up the whole night for EVERYONE. It is a Butterfly Effect that we avoid at all costs. So show a little gratitude, or be a little apologetic, it goes a long way because it's very difficult for us to accommodate you, and the good restaurants will always want to.

5) Show gratitude when it's deserved.

While we're on the whole gratitude thing, please tip as much as you can afford to. I know not everyone can go out to a fancy restaurant every weekend, and when they do it is a special occasion they saved up for. I'll understand if you saved up $250 to take your girlfriend out and you can't tip 20% on that big of a bill. But seriously, if we do a good job, reward us for it. We do this for a living, if I need to reiterate that any more. And most of us work hard and try hard to earn that living. So like I said, if a waiter is doing a shitty job make that clear, but if we're doing a good job make that clear also. Communication! It's a wonderful thing.

6) Don't split a check a bajillion ways without telling us about it first.

When we take your order and you don't tell us you want it split, it goes in rather haphazardly. That means I only kind of remember who the fuck got what. Okay, fine I do remember, but that's because I know when I see a table of 8 sorority girls to itemize it carefully because they lacked the foresight to tell me they are splitting the check. And also because I have a spectacular short-term memory. So when it comes time to bring the bill, I'm such a sucker, but every time I hope, just pray so hard that you'll just need one bill. But nope, never the case. All of you want it split by order and then charged individually to daddy's Mastercard. Realize that the sheer mechanics and computing time it takes to divvy up your bill takes me at least 10 minutes of haggling with my obsolete computer. You are fucking up my shit. Ten minutes may not seem like a lot, but it's a fucking eternity when I'm not on the floor watching over my customers. So please, if you're going to be annoying, at least warn me about it so I don't go apoplectic in the middle of dinner service. Also, don't be so fucking surprised that there's a flat gratuity charge for your party of greater than 5. Have you ever been to a restaurant? And if I'm not mistaken that is a Prada purse. I know the real shit when I see it.

7) Be clear and polite about what you want, be calm and collected if you don't get what you want.

There's nothing more disgusting than to see a customer rage out at a server. I would say 1/100 times it's actually deserved anger. The other 99% is most likely you, angry man, taking out your frustration on a person who will take it. Yeah, sorry you got fucked by corporate bureaucracy or if your new office isn't on the corner lot, but don't take it out on me, okay? Your girlfriend is not turned on, and if she is? Well you two are sick fucks and I'm glad you found each other to take your sexual depravity out on one another. Seriously, I can't stress how important proper communication is. Just tell us what you need, talk to us like we're five if you really think we're that stupid, whatever, and we'll try our best to meet your needs. If it doesn't come out exactly the way you like it, then please just tell us. If you remain calm, we can do our job and we'll almost always comp you something for the mistake. Any restaurant worth its salt will want your patronage enough that they will be more than happy to try to make amends, you don't have to angrily demand compensation.

8) If we do screw up, realize that it's almost always the kitchen's fault.

Yes, I am a waiter as of now, but my heart is in the kitchen. I am a cook by breed. So I readily admit that if there is a serious error; your food is taking too long, it's under or over seasoned, it's not cooked right, it's cold, etc., it is the kitchen's fault. You just happen to be able to take it out on the waiter only. The waiter is the messenger, don't kill them. Yes, they make errors also, and when they do I get super pissed about it, but generally, it's the kitchen's problem. It's unfortunate there isn't a better way to communicate than to use the waiter as a mediator, but such is the way of restaurants. You leaving a bad tip, without explanation, for an error that was most likely not the waiter's fault seems kind of unfair, doesn't it?

9) Don't shout at me.

You know the scene in As Good As It Gets where an OCD-afflicted Jack Nicholson yells his order from across the restaurant? Yeah, a bit hyperbolic, but you get the point.

Do not whistle, shout or snap at me. This may seem like it should go unsaid, but seriously ... don't do it. I'm a person, not a dog. I know I look Asian on the outside, but believe it or not I am a college-educated American. I speak Engrish, herro prease.

More effective means of communication:

Scanning the dining room for me. Searching heads is a warning sign to us.
Trying to get eye contact from me, and when you do, a polite nod or a raised hand. Don't jump up and down in your seat trying to be a flagpole in the middle of my restaurant.
Once you do get eye contact from me you can also mime a scribble to signify that you'd like the check.

So simple... so simple...

10) The golden rule; treat me like a human being.

All of the above, sarcasm and cynicism abound, is warranted for me because I feel like I honestly try to do a good job. I will be the first to admit that most waiters don't want anything to do with restaurants in the future, but are doing this as a means to an end. I will also admit that there are many lackluster waiters and restaurant staff out there who don't do a very good job. But there are also those like me, who want to do this for a living (in some form), and many more who don't necessarily want to make a living out of restaurants, but work hard anyway.

We are trying, but we are human. We are prone to mistakes and having bad days just as much as you are. Try to see us as equal human beings, rather than less-than-human servants. SerVERS, we are. Not serVANTS. There's a certain degree of respect required of that relationship. And as I said before, your efforts, if we can call them that, can go rewarded.

It's almost a bad thing to be considered a "regular" somewhere. I see nothing wrong with that. I in fact think its terrible that that would ever have a negative association. If you like a place, like the people, have an honest rapport with them and like going there, then why not go there as much as you like? Now you don't have to go somewhere weekly to become a regular, but if you start popping up once a month, or for your special occasions, a restaurant will notice and care for you. If you tip us well, if you've always been such a wonderful person to wait on, you can rest assured that we will do our damnedest to take care of you. That means all the attention you want, comped appetizers and/or desserts, maybe a few drinks on us, generally we promise it'll be a good experience. Regulars are more valuable to us than anything else, and we will make sure you know that.

So if not for just being a better person, confirming for your date that you are a wholesome and decent human being, do it for the rewards. Treat us well, be loyal to us and we will respond in kind.

EP6

How We Define Our Cuisine

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

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

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

Braising

I don't do educational "how-to" guides to cooking very often, because frankly I don't find myself very qualified to do so. Though I read a lot (well, with what English skills I have mastered by now) about food, I eat a lot, and I did at one point cook a lot, I think a cook could spend a lifetime mastering a single dish. Many have in fact, and it is sad that their art is dying out to the evils of mass-produced, industrialized food and even the rapidly growing restaurant business. But that's another post...

I will discuss some things about braising, though. A most wonderful technique, something that becoming proficient at will transform your cooking. Though it does take time, I'm talking more about careful preparation than actually standing over a stove for a few hours. So really, these are perfect set-it-and-forget-it kind of wonders. Kind of.

To quote a man I kind of want to be, I'm going to paraphrase Thomas Keller.

"A filet mignon is a filet mignon - there's little difference between the raw meat and the cooked meat. But short ribs, veal breast - they become completely different entities after they're cooked. They transcend themselves, developing a full, complex, satisfying taste and aroma. What we're doing here is taking cheaper, tougher cuts of meat and transforming them into beautiful, tender, exquisite dishes that are far more satisfying than filet mignon or rack of lamb. Again, to me, these dishes are what cooking is all about. It is a most powerful technique."

Okay I'm too lazy to go get my French Laundry cookbook to get the actual quote, but it goes something like that. Whether or not he says "powerful technique" is irrelevant to my considering myself a Chef Panda Street Warrior.

Braising is a fundamental and extremely useful technique. It is one of the trinity of French culinary methods (along with sauteing and roasting). Originally it meant to cook over low coals, but what you are doing in reality is cooking something over low heat partially submerged in a flavorful liquid. Anything that improves with time and slow heat can be braised with excellent results. Cabbage, mustard greens, pork bellies, ducks, almost anything. But since I'm an unabashed meat enthusiast I will discuss mainly proteins.

Let's Talk MEEEEAAAAATT

You know nowadays when you go to a bar you have to calculate some ridiculous plot to talk to a strange woman. You have to spend time, money, mental energy on a girl that is likely using you for a drink. Back in caveman days you come home with a haunch of mammoth meat and you are adored, and generally assured a mate. How I see it?

Present
"Can I buy you a drink?"
"No."

Past
"MEAAAATTT!!!"
"Yes."

The point I lost during that whole tangent was that meat is fabulous. Every animal is a complex organism. A pig offers so many varieties of textures and flavors, it is an incredibly versatile beast. But yet, you and I are not so different from them. Once you start thinking of yourself like a cut of meat, you'll understand why braising works so well.

Imagine you are a farm-raised animal. You don't do a whole lot of activity, you eat a bunch, and you tenderize your muscles by drowning them in alcohol. Pretty much your average American college student. After you get rejected by all the sororities you wanted to be in (DAMN YOU KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA!), you get depressed and gain a solid "Freshman 15." At this point in a farm animal's life (right after a pig gets rejected by the all-knowing sorority computer), it gets slaughtered. So imagine you are getting sent to the butcher.

Though you were not particularly active, your leg muscles were still used more than your abs and back. Hence the connective tissues, sinews and muscle fibers are all a bit tougher. Now your squishy belly and less used arms (think of your flabby triceps if you got 'em) are going to be nice and tender. The connective tissues have not been very developed, they're not going to put up much of a fight to the tooth.

Pretty much the same goes for livestock. The muscles the animals use most (legs, shanks, shoulders, bellies are in between) are going to be tough, and they are also loaded with all sorts of muscle fibers that do intricate work. The less used ones (tenderloins, short loins) are going to be nice and tender from the get-go. But just because something is tough to start with, doesn't mean it can't become otherwise. All those tough muscles are loaded with collagen and gelatin. That's what makes up all the connective tissue. These lovely substances melt at low and slow temperatures.

Now remember what makes a good stock have body and luscious mouth feel? Collagen and gelatin. So when you melt out the goodies from a cut of meat slowly, and then those goodies are introduced to a liquid, what do you get? A luscious braising liquid. And wait, we melted out all the tough connective tissue from the meat? What happens to the meat now? Oh right, it's fucking delicious. And tender. And succulent. And mmm... mmm ... good. (Don't sue me, Campbell's)

That's the basic idea of braising, after one or two sorority girl tangents and many expletives later. Got it? Okay, next.

The Basics

So you need low heat, flavorful liquid, and a tough cut of meat. That's the basics. To meet all of those needs you should have a good braising container, an oven, stock and a tough cut of meat.

A good braising container has to be ovenproof. You can braise on the stovetop, but the results are less than ideal. You should braise in an oven. The constant, low-heat environment is exactly what you're looking for. A sauteuse, a cast-iron skillet, a Dutch oven, or a roasting pan are all good containers.

Stock. How many times I got to tell you, you should keep good, homemade stock on hand? Well fine, don't listen to me. The results you will get with good, homemade stock are going to be spectacular. Store-bought stock, the results will still be pretty good. So I guess if you're past the "I have to impress my mate to get laid" phase, you can just use store-bought.

And a tough cut of meat. Just because restaurants shell out a little more for heritage breeds, heirloom animals doesn't mean you can't. Find a good butcher (admittedly rare), buy online, or do what you can with what Whole Foods will offer you. When you make a dish your starring ingredient needs to be of the highest quality. You'd be amazed at what a difference it makes. Some restaurants focus their entire menus on the virtue that they have stellar produce. So don't go cheap on the goods.

Now that you have everything, you can get down to business.

The Basics Part 2

Now the actual cooking requirement of braising is pretty straight forward. You sear the outside of your meat in hot, hot fat. Obviously the crispy component will be taken away by the liquid, but the point here is to get the flavor from searing your meat. Maillard reactions, browning, basically coloring meat = flavor. It seems insignificant but it will pay big dividends later. Just do it.

Then you set up some aromatic vegetables in your pan of choice, you put your meat in, you pour in enough of your flavorful liquid medium to come up about 2/3 of your protein, and you put it in a low oven. A few hours later, voila, braised meat.

It's that simple, and it's that hard. There are a few pitfalls to avoid, and a few ways to improve upon the bare minimum requirements. I'll break it down in to a To-Do list.

How-To-Do-Braising-Good

1) Marinate your meat
2) Protect your meat (optional)
3) Flour and sear your meat
4) Set up your aromatic vegetables and/or herbs
5) Set up your braise
6) Put it in the oven
7) Watch it carefully
8) Let it rest overnight

1) Marination is important. The common myth is that marinades, which always have an acidic component that differentiates them from brines, tenderize meats. This is not really the case. But they do impart flavor and the acidity will do wonders to brighten the flavor profile of your dish. And supposedly, the acids get your salivary glands and amylases working so as to tenderize the meat for you. In your mouth. Yeahhhhhh ... (That was supposed to be creepily suggestive Chris "yeahhhh")

Wine makes an excellent marinating medium. So many ingredients, aspects of time and complexity go in to wine production. One bottle represents a lot of time and effort, and it will do wonders for your food. But alcohol does not do anything good for food. Almost anytime you use alcohol in a dish, you have to cook the raw alcohol off. Raw alcohol affects the surface of proteins and meat, and prevents full absorption of flavors. If you're making a wine or any alcohol based marinade, cook off the alcohol first with your aromatics (remember the risotto lesson? Smell your food, once the vapors don't burn the back of your throat, you know the alcohol's gone). Let the mixture cool to room temperature, and then marinate your meat for 24 hours.

Save your marinade. We're gonna use it.

2) Okay, next. Protect your meat (hehe). Remember this is all optional, but it can really help keep your braise perfectly succulent. Back in the day it was expected to lard your meat. And yes, it is what it sounds like. You take a larding needle, basically a big, fat, hollow needle and sew your meat with lard. The end result is the meat looks like a porcupine laden with fat. As it cooked, the lard melted and basted your meat, ensuring juiciness.

That technique is falling out of favor. It's incredibly time-consuming, arduous and tedious. Something that is easier is to wrap the meat in caul fat. Caul fat is the layer of fat that surrounds a pig's intestines. It looks like a big spider web of delicious, fat. It sticks to itself, it's large, and seems almost custom designed for encasing meats. It's not easy to find, but if you can get some, you can wrap cuts of meat prone to drying out in caul fat, and get fantastic results.

Barring that you can observantly baste your meat, or use thinly sliced back or belly fat from a pig to protect your braise in the oven.

3) Here we go, its cooking time. You don't want to cook your meat at all in the high heat environment of a saute process. You just want to brown it. Dust your meat with flour, season it heavily with salt and pepper, and hit it hot and hard in some canola or grapeseed oil. The high cooking temperature of those oils will serve you better than olive oil, butter or an olive oil-butter combo. There's going to be plenty of cooking coming up but none of it is going to be the high heat needed to brown proteins. You'll need that now, and the meat will give off plenty of fat and flavor. You won't need the butter. Remember basic searing techniques - very high heat, don't move it around in the pan, let the crust develop in the heat.

4) Now take your marinade that you saved. The liquid is going to have some meat proteins in it, specifically albumins, from marinating in the fridge. There will be some solids in your marinade as a result of this. They are impurities, you should remove them. Now separate your liquid and the vegetables. Saute the vegetables in the pan that you browned the meat in, just a little bit to get some caramelization on them. Now you're ready to set up the braise.

5) Take your ovenproof container and lay the meat down in a single layer. Scatter your veggies and herbs around the meat, and pour in your marinade. Now pour in enough chicken or veal stock to just barely cover the meat. If you've been seasoning every part of the way (as you should have been), there should be no need to salt now. Since you're going to adjust the consistency of everything after it's finished, you should be all set to go for now.

6) Now we can talk lids. I've tried a few lids while working in a professional kitchen. I've tried a matching, fitting steel lid. I've tried aluminum foil lids. And I've tried a parchment lid. Generally I agree that the latter two produce the best results. You want some evaporation of the water in your braise, but you also want to be able to protect your meats from the raw heat of the oven. An aluminum foil lid is pretty straight forward. You wrap the top of the vessel with aluminum foil (shiny side up) and poke a few holes in it. But aluminum foil still allows vapors to condense on them and return to the braise, the only virtue being the few holes you poked in it. A parchment lid is a little more complicated, and requires an understanding of geometry I don't necessarily possess. It is Thomas Keller's preferred method and allows free evaporation while offering complete protection to the meats inside. In his words "It's like having lid, but without a lid." It's kind of like making a paper snowflake. A very simple one.

Parchment paper is cheap. Buy some once, and you'll have it for a variety of applications forever. Now get yourself a big square of parchment just bigger than the pot. Fold it in to a triangle. Fold this triangle in to a smaller triangle, as if you were making a paper airplane. Do so again. You'll end up making about 5 or 6 folds. Place the tip of your triangle in the center of the pot as if it were a radius (whoa ho! MATH!) and then snip the tip. When you unfurl the lid you should have a crinkly, papery lid with a hole in the center that fits your braise. You can nestle it right on top of whatever you're working with.

7) Now watch it. It's kind of a set-it-and-forget-it procedure, as I mentioned before, but there are a few things to look for. You should check in on your braise at least once every half hour for a 5-6 hour braise. If it's drying on top, baste a little braising liquid over top. If it's boiling, you need to turn the heat down. It should start at a lazy simmer, and then when the braising liquid begins to thicken, become sort of a thick, slow bubbling. There is nothing sexier than pulling a braise out of the oven and see bubbles struggling to break the surface of a thick, unctuous braising liquid.

8) Alright it's done, just a few more things. Well, how can you tell? Take a nibble. It should be melt-in-your-mouth tender and succulent. It should be so fall-apart-delicious that you have to handle it like a baby when you take it out of the braise. Every cut of meat is different, so if you're following a recipe see what they say. Otherwise you're going to have to check yourself.

So take out your braised meats, set them aside in a separate container, something that's going in your fridge. Strain your braising liquid through a fine-mesh sieve. The herbs, the vegetables, the stray bits of meat are spent, their flavor exhausted. You can munch as you like, but they would be unacceptable for the table in a restaurant. Cook another side of vegetables and starches to go with your braise.

Now braises improve with time after they cook. The flavors have more time to marry in the fridge, and everything will taste better a day later. What's happening are aromatic molecules are being further distributed and combined throughout the mixture. But it's happier and easier to say they are marrying. You can store your meats as they are, or in the braising liquid. I prefer storing them in the liquid, and then the next day the fat will solidify on top. The meat will stay moist, and then you can do what you like with the fat. You can saute some veg in it, you can emulsify it in to the sauce you make with the braise. It's potently flavorful and useful.

How to finish it? Reheat the meat in the liquid until it just becomes warm. Don't cook it, it's pretty much taken as much cooking as it can. Once it's warm you can use reserve braising liquid to make a sauce. It's pretty simple, just reduce it. If it needs richness add some cream or butter, or braised fat. Learn to use your palate to adjust a sauce. If it doesn't quite taste as it should, most of the time it needs a little salt. If it is kind of dull on the palate you're going to need a little acid, and maybe a little fresh ground pepper. If it's too watery you can find a few different ways to thicken it; roux, butter, cream, corn starch. Keep experimenting, keep tasting.

Voila. Braising. It's not so hard, but like with all cooking techniques and pretty much everything in life, it takes a bit of experimentation and practice. The summer months are coming up, so the heavy, luscious feel of a braise may not be what you're craving right now, but that doesn't mean you can't practice for the next Chicago winter. Or that you can't master BBQ pulled pork sandwiches. This is an ancient cooking technique, something that developed from eating out of necessity. Don't call it stewing (completely submerged in liquid, generally small cuts of meat), don't rush it, don't fuck it up. It's pretty hard to, anyway.

Love!

EP6

A New Kitchen

Kind of like "A New Hope" but minus the space smugglers and whiny bitch protagonists.

Boy, we're already starting this one off on a nerdy note.

Anyway, don't let the title fool you. I haven't gotten a new job yet. But I did asked to brave the crucible known as the "stage" (pronounced stAHge, since people keep asking).

Sometimes a stage is much like the kind I did at Oceanique and Va Pensiero. An extended period of employment in which it is understood that you work unpaid in exchange for an education. I worked part-time at Oceanique for about 6 months. I worked part-time at Va Pensiero for about 4 months before I got a job.

Sometimes people consider a stage a short tryout that lasts maybe 1-3 days, and the intent is that it is an unpaid trial period that is meant to assess your viability as an employee. It's a trail where you hang around a kitchen, work and hope for a job. That is what we'll be talking about today.

A stage is part athletic tryout, part audition. You work longer and harder than the rest of the staff, you do everything they don't want to do themselves, you have to prove you're fast and competent, and that you're a personable enough human being that the brigade would enjoy being around you 10-12 hours a day. It's unpaid, punishing and doesn't bear any tangible rewards over the course of the day. That is, unless you get the job. (Well they were kind enough to treat me to as many PBRs I could want. Which is not that many.)

I've only worked in a few kitchens, and they all have followed a fairly similar pattern. You do your prep on the line with a few cooks, dry goods in the back, perishables in the big walk-in cooler, maybe some soft music in the background for morale purposes and a little fun (more often than not, traditional Mexican folk music and polka).

So I was pretty shocked when I was thrown in to the kitchen at Lula. I was introduced to the sous-chef, a wiry guy with patchy facial hair and a Southern twang on his voice, who gave me the grand tour. He's a very nice guy, he clearly gets stages fairly often and has a rehearsed means of crash-coursing them on the kitchen. He leads me downstairs and my brain is having issues taking everything in and processing it. Like many city kitchens, the line and the prep kitchen are separate. All the prep is done in the basement where there are an array of stainless steel tables, and then prepped produce is brought upstairs to be cooked during service. He leads me to the locker room to get me suited up and on the way I pass a whole variety of faces. There's Modest Mouse blasting off an iPod dock and I can barely hear people's names as they introduce themselves, and there are people running around everywhere with ice, vacuum packed goodies, and big pots of braised pork. It is alive, this kitchen is buzzing and I know I'm about to HALO-jump onto a breakneck, no-stop prep train. (In this instance I don't mean the video game Halo, I mean a High Altitude Low Open parachute jump that is used in the military to quickly and quietly insert yourself into a situation from the air. See, I'm not always a nerd.)

So Hunter (the sous-chef) leads me to the locker room (did I mention that the basement kitchen is just about 6'1" high, meaning I bump in to every ceiling fixture along the way? Yeah, way to make myself look clumsy already) and points,

"Jackets, pants, put your shit down where there's space, grab a knife, suit up, get rollin'."

And I do exactly that. Except I probably take 10 min. too long to get dressed. Why? A couple of reasons.

1) I have yet to need to use my own knives in a kitchen, so it takes me a while to decide what I should take, and get them ready to slice and dice. I decide on a chef's knife and a paring knife. Guns up, let's do this.

2) On the way in to the kitchen I acknowledge that for the first time I will be working with women. A lot of small women. Every jacket I seem to find is a tiny garb that would barely cover my thigh in chef whites. Without a mirror, I am self-conscious that my rippling biceps are probably too accentuated by the small jacket. But I risk looking awesome for service and get down to business.

And away we go! Prep time. Whatcha need, chef? Let's do this!

I look over at the white board and I am struck with both awe and fear. It's a beautifully organized board with print-out templates checking prep statuses of items between lunch and dinner, every cook's to-do list, any 86'd items. Everything is accounted for. And I even have a cute little section dedicated to me. Under the word "Stage" is a laundry list of to-do items that I know are going to suck. The words "Shell green almonds" and "Clean stinging nettles" pop out at me. Oh, balls.

Green almonds are under-ripe almonds. They come in compact, fuzzy green shells and need to be cut away with a paring knife, but be careful to not damage the tender nut (actually stone fruit seed) inside. They need a quart of them. I see two sheet trays (big, rectangular metal trays that probably measure about 36x24) in the walk-in loaded with green almonds. Well this should be fun. Too bad I drank a hipster cup of coffee and am jittery with caffeine and nicotine. Coupled with my slightly rusty knife skills, I murder a handful of green almonds before I start shelling them cleanly. Oh what I would do to cut some onions.

And then stinging nettles. Without going to Wikipedia, what I know about stinging nettles is that they are a North American plant that does exactly what its name implies. Sting you. It's covered in hairs and irritating oils that give you a painful case of the minor burn-sies and powerfully itchies. You need to double up on latex gloves to clean them. But once they are washed and cooked, the poison is inoculated and they are a hearty, tasty green vegetable. But staring at a giant box of them, and the possibility of a wicked case of hives, I am a little disheartened.

But prep work is refreshing. It's been awhile since working with food. The basement is hot, there's a huge staff of young, fun-loving restaurant workers joking around, but getting down to business (culinarily). The sous-chef is taunting people with a butchered lamb's head. A 5 foot Mexican woman is tending to a most delicious pot of braised pork shoulder, and is making quesadillas for staff meal. The very attractive intern from culinary school is making chef's whites look good (I guess a fairly passive action), and sharing the workload with me. And a whole slew of cooks are bustling around, and I am shaking hands and smiling a lot, dodging hot pots of stock, and banging my head on the fridge door.

It's good to be back. Back in a kitchen, experiencing new things, talking, learning, thinking about nothing except expertly extracting an almond from its furry pod (alliterations, high school English!). Being in a place where the clock blurs away, and the application of manual labor releases stress. Focusing on nothing except trying to absorb every smell, taste, sound, and sight of the kitchen.

Yes, it's good and what a wonderful kitchen to experience! Two staff meals a day. A staff meal, as I've described before, is usually an amalgamation of scraps and a meaningful application of economy, but here it just seems so good! Quesadillas with pork trimmings, black beans and rice with cilantro. For after-service meal some leftover BLTs, turkey sandwiches, guacamole and a fantastic chicken and black eyed pea soup, and a mediocre potato salad made by yours truly. There's PBR cases stacked to the ceiling, staff enjoying a smoke and a drink after scrubbing down the kitchen. This place has a reputation as being a place cooks love to cook in, and I can see why. It's foreign for me to work with people my age, speak English, to work with women (only kind of distracting), in a casual environment that really puts out great food. It only reinforces my desires to open casual restaurants, places minus pretension but plus great food, great wine.

It is an eye opening experience. Even if I don't get the job I think I need to start setting aside my weekends to work in kitchens again. I forgot how much I missed it. Perhaps I can spend my time doing just that. Being a mercenary cook whose price tag is just a little education, a chance to work, a chance to practice. Maybe it's possible to do a little time in a lot of restaurants, collecting experience and compiling an education from the whole city of Chicago.

So what did I learn? The importance of staff. The universally integral, absolutely essential importance of having good staff and treating them well. I could go on and on, but basically if you have good staff, you treat them well, you hold on to them, they are more valuable than anything else your restaurant has. And if they love to show up to work, if they have the energy and passion to put in their best day after day, then that is the hallmark of a great restaurant, a great chef. Someone who can lead, create an environment both welcoming and challenging.

It's also nice to have plenty of beer on hand.

Even if it's dirty hipster wine.

Sorry, Brendo, no offense.

Mua haha!

EP6