lessons learned

You know you'd think after an amazing Saturday things would turn out to be good...however that was not the case...which led me to learn a few very valuble lessons in life and a proffessional kitchen which I knew working before I would never do to future employees but I never fully understood it until now.

So lets talk about it.

lesson 1) Its very easy to be a person on the outside (be it authority or otherwise) to critisize another person and their work.

I know I may not be the most cleanest cooks in the world, however I have organized chaos. I clean as I go, but just because you walk in when there happens to be a little bit of a mess it doesnt give you the right to start critisizing and commenting. And reorganizing doesnt make it better. Let me do what I do..it works perfectly for me. If I may give an example from TV (I know thats bad), ona recent season of Hells Kitchen there was a very messy cook, he was however an amazing cook. And although his station was always helter scelter, his food was always the perfect tempurature, tasty, on time, and belive it or not organized adn clean plates. I am the same way. I may make a mess, use a lot fo dishes etc, however I do clean a bit as I go, and commenting pisses me off.

I work the busiest station in the kitchen, the most dishes and diverse from salad to dessert and literally everythign in between. One of the dishes I make is called Tarte Flambee, and yes its a very messy dish to produce adn after everyone I clean my table, and when I have to make 5 or 6 different appertizers at the same time I like to organzie my plates out so I can build them properly and quickly...my way works for me what can I say, and sometimes, other ways dont at all.

So here is where my lesson came to shine. After an amazing Saturday where I worked the way I like, adn everythign went out fine, yesterday came along , a busy sunday with two very big banquets. I did all the prep. however one of them was ordering off the menu. and they all ordered TArte Flambee. Now instead of directing me how to do it for 30 people (since we dont have 30 cutting board for tarte flambee) my sous chef who enjoys telling me i work very dirty if there is a spec of grated cheese on my tablekicked me off my station and went about making 30 tarte flamees. I can understand he's used to working alone and instinct kicked in, however a bit of communication would have been nice as to say we will go table by table you take care of a la carte ill do the party or something like that. and what a mess he made..it was like a nuclear bombs went off on my station. I didnt say anything, but learned the valuble lesson. Its so much easier to critisize and look at someone else than making yourself better. I hope I never forget that, and when I have staff of my own teach adn learn as opposed to critisize...that is such an important lesson. Help develope someones ways, since we are all different...(trust me there are alot of things i like about my sous chef, however there are just as many things I dislike and cant stand)

Lesson 2) dont cut corners when the restaurant gets busy. This afternoon it wasnt so busy and I wanted to make a dessert, since I will need it for a banquet on thursday (when I will be working alone). So he kept pushing it off etc, adn making excuses (I know he'll probably do it tomorrow alone, but whatever). And so he says to me i have the kitchen to myself..then orders start coming in and I have everything under control, and then he comes in adn tells me I can leave certain things in the oven longer when its quieter...or his line was....when its not too busy we can do things the right way when its busy cut corners...and I thought that was the stupidest thing I have ever heard...that is somethign I will never forget and why I want a small restaurant...doing big numbers sounds nice, but I think you should work on quality instead of quantity.

I read an interesting article about a chef in spain Adrian ferera I thinks his name, Hes the executive chef of the top restaurant in the world voted two years in a row. He is closing the restaurant for two years to travel teh world to discover new flavours and learn new pairing that will work with his restaurant. That says so much...the name fo the restaurant is called El Bulli, and the article was written by a chef who opened a restauarant in a small city I think in PEI with 350 people in the whole town...

I know I have a certain unique personality, my thoughts and opinions clash with lots of people..ok most people, however its who I am. I like the way I work, I work better that way. HAving said that I will always be learning, however as in in every place I have worked, I continue to take the things I learned, and the thigns I feel will better me as a chef and person, i take with me everything else I throw in the garbage.

However the plus to this all is I am learning some VERY valuble lessons on management and how to run a kitchen. I hope it all works out.

On a good note: another former employer of mine (restaurant owner of Le Select) has agreed to give me pointers and tips.

Yehuda