Hiring, high volume style.

Don't get me wrong. I make quality food. I take a lot of pride in my food, and I take a lot of pride in the speed that my food goes out. We put out a high end culinary product, but we put it out at stunning speed.
This speed is a turnoff for your average culinary school garnish specialist. We tend to repel the pastry ring and puree types. My place is more for adrenaline junkies.
This said, we often have to look at people the average chef wouldn't consider, and ask ourselves "Can we turn this thing, this beast, this hideous human derelict into something with a sense of pride and craftsmanship in his work?". Most of the time, the answer is, "we have to try, because like every other kitchen in the country, we're fucked for staff."
Interviewing for me is one of the most interesting parts of my job. And the most amusing.
I play games with some of them. Like the kids that come in with their hats on backwards and gold chains hanging off of every possible undernourished oversedated appendage they have. "Where's your sense of professionalism? I'll tell you what...go home, dress like you actually want to get a job, then we'll talk."
Usually what I have to do is quickly get to the nature of why they're too fucked up to get a regular job. Generally it falls into one of 3 categories: addict, criminal or idiot. The criminals I'm happy to take in, the addicts are dependent on a number of things (did you catch the pun there?) and the idiots I can do without.
This week I had 2 staffing concerns that are typical and somewhat exclusive to kitchen work.
I had a nice quiet girl, with a passion for cooking that was looking for a job, so I hired her. She showed up on time everyday, put out beautiful food, was impressing us in every possible way. Then yesterday she called in sick. Today she called in again, to discuss why her past prevents her from working for us at this time. Apparently her probation offer won't let her work in a licensed establishment. So long to her.
The second interview was the friend of my sketchy schizo dishwasher, who has just turned 19. I told the kid I'd consider hiring his friend, but that if I did I didn't want any of the bullshit that goes along with having friends work together.
The friend turned out to be older than me. He had what first appeared to be acne marks all over his face, but what we later recognized as sores. The resume is the kind of resume that one frequently sees in this business. 10 years back he was a cook in one of the province's better golf and country clubs. From there he held, several positions in culinary management. Then the quality of job plummetted. From Assistant Manager of Burger King, to cook at Burger King, to part time oven guy in a take out pizza place, and finally laborer.
He had difficulty following our conversation, was shifty and constantly scratching, and visibly struggled to convert his thoughts to words.
My sous-chef and I (who appears to be backing me up by the way), went off to the side after telling him we'd be in touch, and both of us agreed instantly that he's obviously a meth-head.
It's one of the things I love about being in this industry. As an ex-downtown streetkid, I developed a lot of street level smarts. This business tends to run as close to the streets as possible. I've had 3 employees in and out of homelessness this year for example. I've hired drug dealers with the understanding that my sous chef and I will break their legs if we catch them selling or using. I can't think of another career (other than cop or outreach worker) that would allow me to use my streets as much as this one. I can spot the differences between a drunk, a junkie, a cokehead, a meth-head and a pot-head a mile out. And on a sad and simultaneously humorous note, I'd consider 2 of the aforementioned types as probable hires.
Just felt like discussing this today, because I find it amusing. Flip through my resume file, and rather than MBA, or Great Skills! you'll see notes like:
doper
sketchpad
burnout
alky
punkass gangsta
dealer
I love this biz.

Real Cred VS Street Cred

I might as well tell y'all up front. I haven't had any schooling as a chef. I'm old school. I started as a dishwasher in a busy nightclub, where these hot 20 something waitresses walked around in the tightest and shortest mini-skirts imaginable. One night the cook walked out, and the manager came in chuckling with an order for me to make.
"I don't know how to make this!" I protested, a little terrified at the prospect.
"You're not going to let that stop you, are you? You're the cook now!" and with that I had my first cooking job at age 15. From there I worked my way up in the business, until eventually I took on my first Chef job in a hotel at about 27 years of age.
I've always been self conscious of the fact that I don't have any papers to back up my claims of being a chef, and have viewed myself as kind of a poser. Thiw has motivated me to go out and purchase Wayne Gisslen's Professional Cooking for Canadian Chefs, 6th Edition, the book that is the text book for those studying for their red seal.
I've been sort of redeemed to discover in the book, that there is no paper prerequisite to the title of Chef, other than running a professional kitchen. For the first time, I'm comfortable calling myself a Chef, having now run 4 different restaurants.
I still intend to challenge the exam for my red seal however. Reading through this book for instance, I've found that the knowledge I don't have concerning cooking is vastly greater than the knowledge I do have. I'm looking forward to picking up paper creds to back up what I've earned in the heat.

Uppity Dickheads

The reason for all of the recent posts on professionalism is this:
I have a cook that can handle a rush better than anyone, who gets everything I ask him to do done, and comes to work with a big, infectious smile and positive attitude...most of the time.
Some of the time, the guy is an absolute cancer. He swears and curses about every new bill that comes in, bitches at the waitresses about not running food, and is what could generally be called a sourpuss, negative nellie, whiner, bitch, etc.
Last night I went in to place my order as I do almost every Saturday night, and he was swearing up a storm. The staff that were working with him were terrified.
The Front of House manager told me that this is the kind of behaviour she sees from the guy every time he works.
So I pulled him aside after his shift, and explained to him that all of the things that he was pissed off about are constant factors in our business...being short staffed, getting a rush without notice, getting a run of sales on the most difficult item in the kitchen to make. I told him that I didn't believe he had what it takes to be a line cook, and I've busted him down to dishwasher.
I probably should have fired him. But there is a light somewhere in this kid, that I'd love to tap into. If he could be the good version of himself, he'd be the most accomplished guy in the company.
Here's the thing about being a Chef. There are a lot of reasons a person chooses this career. For me it's a combination of things...I'm an adrenaline junkie, I love food, I like being in charge, and the speed of the work keeps ennui at bay. One of the most fulfilling aspects of this job however, is having an effect on troubled young people. The people that tend to wind up in high volume kitchens have generally made some mistakes in life, and most of those mistakes have involved a lack of perspective and guidance. As a chef I have a tremendous opportunity to lift a lot of young kids above the statistical probabilities that their lives offer.
Sometimes it means I piss around too much with fuckballs like Adam. But when it comes together, and that fuckball turns into a dedicated and passionate chef or sous chef, there aren't many better feelings.

He's Got My Back

My Sous Chef that is. In an earlier post I had expressed some reservations about promoting one of my guys. I made the promotion anyway, and thus far he's proven himself more than capable, and quite trustworthy. Thought I'd update on that. More to come later.

Propz to da Chef.

I went in to work tonight to do my order, and see how things were running at the club.
I had to pass through the hotel to get there, and as I moved through the hall, I noticed three somewhat drunken hotel guests staggering towards me. They were young men, and pretty fired up and rowdy, and two of them had their shirts off. They had the look of young guys spoiling for a fight.
I tensed a bit as we drew towards each other, and then one of them piped up "Good evening Chef!" I said good evening right back, and I was a little stunned, because he said it quite respectfully. As they continued off behind me I heard one of them say "What the fuck did you call him?" with a bit of a chuckle, and the kid that had wished me a good evening replied rather angrily..."I called him Chef, didn't you notice the Chef jacket?" and then the other guy quit giggling.
Apparently Chefs are no laughing matter...well, all except this one. The Statler and Waldorf quotes at the end of this one are highly applicable as well :)

The Statler and Waldorf quotes in this one are highly applicable as well :)

Restauranteurs, You Can't Afford Not to Read This

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/entrepreneur/sales_marketing/article.jsp?content=20090201_30010_30010

Professionalism, from Professional Cooking, 6th Edition, Gisslen

STANDARDS OF
PROFESSIONALISM

What does it take to be a good food service worker?
The emphasis of a food service education is on learning a set of skills.But in many
ways, attitudes are more important than skills because a good attitude will help you
not only learn skills but also persevere and overcome the many difficulties you will face. The successful food service worker follows an unwritten code of behavior and set of attitudes we call professionalism.Let’s look at some of the qualities a professional
must have.

POSITIVE ATTITUDE TOWARD THE JOB
In order to be a good professional cook,you have to like cooking and want to do it well. Being serious about your work doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. But the enjoyment comes from the satisfaction of doing your job well and making everything run smoothly.
Every experienced chef knows the stimulation of the rush. When it’s the busiest time of the evening,the orders are coming in so fast you can hardly keep track of them, and every split second counts—then, when everyone digs in and works together and everything clicks, there’s real excitement in the air. But this excitement comes only when you work for it.
A cook with a positive attitude works quickly, efficiently, neatly, and safely. Professionals have pride in their work and want to make sure it is something to be proud of. Pride in your work and in your profession is important, but humility is important too, especially when you are starting out. Sometimes new culinary school graduates arrive on the job thinking they know everything. Remember that learning to cook and learning to manage a kitchen is a lifelong process and that you are not yet qualified to be executive chef.
The importance of a professional attitude begins even before you start your first job. The standard advice for a successful job interview applies to cooks as well as to office professionals: Dress and behave not for the group you belong to but for the group you want to join. Arrive neat,clean,appropriately dressed,and on time.Get noticed for the right reasons. Carry this attitude through every day on the job.

STAYING POWER
Food service requires physical and mental stamina, good health, and a willingness to work hard. It is hard work. The pressure can be intense and the hours long and grueling.
You may be working evenings and weekends when everyone else is playing. And the work can be monotonous. You might think it’s drudgery to hand-shape two or three dozen dinner rolls for your baking class,but wait until you get that great job in the big hotel and are told to make 3,000 canapés for a party.
Overcoming these difficulties requires a sense of responsibility and a dedication to your profession, to your coworkers, and to your customers or clients. Dedication also means staying with a job and not hopping from kitchen to kitchen every few months. Sticking with a job at least a year or two shows prospective employers you are serious about your work and can be relied on.

ABILITY TO WORK WITH PEOPLE
Few of you will work in an establishment so small that you are the only person on the staff. Food service work is teamwork,and it’s essential to be able to work well on a team and to cooperate with your fellow workers. You can’t afford to let ego problems, petty jealousy, departmental rivalries, or feelings about other people get in the way of doing the job well. In the old days,many chefs were famous for their temper tantrums.
Fortunately,self-control is more valued today.

An Interview Unlike Any Other.

Interviewing for line cooks is unlike any other interview you're likely to encounter. The average interview for a line cook is fraught with expletives, occassional threats, jargon that's completely unfathomable to the outsider.
I had the pleasure of such an interview just this weekend.

Chef (me): You've got some pretty good experience here...

Guy: Yep.

Chef: There are some long gaps here...

Guy: Uh yeah...you know how it is...I started some jobs, but I was within my 3 months, and they were kind of bullshit jobs, so I just quit.

Chef: Tell me about this place (points at job on resume

Guy: That place was fucking crazy. We'd be in the shit from open til close, generally running short, doing everything on the fly, workin' 14 hour days minimum.

Chef: You lasted longer there than anywhere else.

Guy: What can I say? I love chaos.

Chef: I'm going to straight up with you. I know everybody in every restaurant in this town. I called around about you and what do you think people said?

Guy: (hesitates nervously) They probably told you I'm fast, put out good food, work hard, don't miss shifts...

Chef: Yeah, they told me that. And they told me something else too. They told me you like to deal drugs on the side.

Guy: (shoulders sink, heavy sigh). That was a rough time man. I was doing it to help out a friend at the time, and I've gotten rid of all those goddamn numbers from my phone, I even changed my own phone number. I don't want anything to do with that shit anymore.

Chef: Look. I don't care about that. Anthony Bourdain once likened running a kitchen to running a pirate ship. Most of the guys are borderline criminal underground types at some point in their lives, and that's normal. Half my team are ex-dealers, starting with me, all the way down the line. So I don't give a fuck about what you did with your life before, but I'll tell you this. I do care about what you do with your life in my kitchen, and if you peddle that shit here, I'll personally break both your fucking legs, understood.

Guy: (nodding emphatic agreement) Understood Chef.

Local Food, the Farmer's Market This Week.

When someone has a passion for something, it really shows through in their work. Such was the case today at the Farmer's Market. I bought some absolutely gorgeous chocolates from Chocolates by Abrielle. This girl is a complete artisan. She studied at the prestigious Ecole Chocolat in Vancouver, and it looks like she absorbed every detail of the craft.
This is why I love going to the Farmer's Market. Discovering amazing, hidden treasures and talents like this, at a completely accessible price.
The chocolate pictured with this blog is a strawberry balsamic, described as strawberry preserves paired with balsamic vinegar from Modena, Italy in a white chocolate butter ganache and enrobed in dark chocolate. I bought a package of 6 chocolates, and chose 2 of these strawberry balsamics, since there really is no greater pleasure than a good Balsamic used properly.
In addition to this we picked up a Hazelnut Maple Gianduja, a dark chocolate cone filled with milk chocolate and maple candied hazelnut gianduja, an Orange Spice dark chocolate ganache infused with mixed spices and natural orange flavour in dark chocolate and a Maple Sugar Caramel, consisting of maple sugar caramel in dark chocolate topped with a maple candied Ceylon cinnamon pecan.
At a cost of $1.50 per chocolate, you're getting the kind of decadence usually reserved for the most elite.

Drinkin' the Blues Away...Unfortunately They're Doing It At Home.

Well, it's not so bad for me.
We were just looking at our P&L for this month. My food sales are responsible for more of the mix these days. We saw it long before this report. The casual drinker is less eager to let go of their extra dollars these days.

My new sous chef.

My new sous chef has worked for my present company before in the capacity of sous chef. At that time he walked off the job. Reliable sources tell me it was a rational choice that showed good judgement, given that the Chef at the time didn't delegate, so much as abdicate.
I was hesitant to bring this guy into my circle of trust. He's the room mate of my boss, and I've been under pressure since my first day with this company to lose the sous chefs I had and promote the current one, whom we'll call Kevin from here on in.
Kevin is capable. But he's too close to the boss for my comfort. I feel sandwiched, and it's not a good feeling.
There is no getting around hiring him as sous chef however. He has the qualifications, the experience, and he's the only one that does in my kitchen. It's just that my gut is telling me that now that he's in line for the throne, I'm about to be assassinated.
People tell me that I'm being paranoid, completely ridiculous. But here's the thing.
Hitler killed 6 million jews. The only reason that he managed to kill 6 million jews without them rising up in a fight to the death, was that the majority of them were hoping for the best. Human optimism, and faith in the goodness of man, is as much a liability as it is a benefit.
Knowing this, I tend to give my voice of terror, panic and distrust more credibility than perhaps I should. However, at this point, I don't have much choice in the matter. Kevin is my sous chef, like it or not. I have to trust him. And after that...I guess I have to hope for the best.

So You'd Like to Own a Restaurant?

So many people tell me they'd love to own a restaurant. They ask me questions about how to do it, what they need.
I always tell them that what they'll need more than anything is a desire to live and work in the restaurant, foregoing any and all family and social life for at least the first 5 years.
My nephew had come into some money at one point in his life, and was grilling me about running a successful restaurant. Finally I said to him "Look, maybe you should go work in a restaurant for a few months first, so you'll know if it's what you really want or not."
Do you know what that hapless fuck said to me?! "Oh, I don't want to work in a restaurant, I just want to own one."
Jesus Christ! He'd own one alright. For about 3 months before it went completely fucking bankrupt because he was spending all his profit paying others to run it for him.
Here's the deal. Restaurant work is one of the most difficult and thankless jobs there is. You have to have a passion for the fire and the flame and the noise and the buzz. You have to be willing to go through your garbages to find out which one of your cooks is tossing out that extra .5% of food cost that you can't seem to find. You have to be willing to send everyone home and work the last 10 hours by yourself to make sure you stay within your labour budget. And at the end of it all, if you're like most independents, you'll take home about 10% of sales in profit. If you're really slick you might even squeeze out 20% But you're not going to do it by being some pretentious absentee assfuck that just pops in on occassion to tell all the customers that you're the owner. That ain't how this business works Jack.

The Future is Uncertain

My sous chef turned out to be a back stabbing asshole. A sous chef is supposed to be like a Capo's Consigliere. The chef should be able to trust him with anything. I chose to trust my sous chef with some concerns I had about one of our supervisors.
Here's the jist of it.
The hierarchy at my restaurant is as follows. General Manager, then me. I've had an issue with one of my General Manager's relationships since day 1. He's living with one of my kitchen supervisors, and from the get go has been gently prodding me to get rid of my (originally 2) sous chefs, and promote his room mate.
One of the sous chefs was a complete boob, and realizing this he stepped down from the role. The other, was a good worker, could outcook anyone on the line, absorbed information, grasped concepts, often seemed able to read my mind. All of these things are crucial factors of being a sous chef. The only factor I was never sure on was whether or not I could trust him. And the only way to find that out was to trust him.
I told him that I had suspicions our jobs were in jeopardy from this line supervisor. This supervisor walked out on the company years ago when he was a KM, and has since returned. Having walked out however, he can't take on a big management role again, unless promoted into it. I told my sous it seemed that the GM was trying to knock us off one by one until he was left with no choice but to promote the super to chef.
Anyway, I told the sous chef that as long as were both united, our jobs would be safe. I wouldn't let them fire him, as long as he didn't try to pull a coup on me.
Within weeks he'd made the coup attempt, telling the boss everything I'd told him, claiming that I was unstable and was likely to kill someone. (hehehe)
The boss knows that I'm unstable and likely to kill someone. If you're not ready to kill someone over an improperly prepared sandwich, you really shouldn't be a chef.
Long story short the GM and my sous chef agreed that the sous chef should go, and now my boss's roommate is my interim second in command.
This is a situation I'm deeply uncomfortable with. I really want to believe that everything is okay, that my GM doesn't have a plan to drive me out and make his roomie the chef. But I also know that in situations such as this, people want to believe everything is okay, when it's quite obvious that it isn't. I'll keep you posted. I need to do regular paranoia checks with myself, and this is probably the best place for it.

Welcome to my first post!

Hello!
Thanks for stopping by.
I'm a chef/kitchen manager in a high volume kitchen. The company I work for refers to their kitchen managers as chef, regardless of whether or not said Kitchen Manager is certified. This makes me feel like a bit of a poser. I've had some training in classic French cuisine, but I've never tested to become a certified chef de cuisine.

The segment of the industry I work in is premium casual dining. We do food that is trendy, with a price tag, but we do it fast and with some corners cut. We bill ourselves as a sports bar with shockingly good food. While I'm definitely no Gordon Ramsay, I'm certainly no Rachael Ray either.
I'm something in between, like most of the kitchen managers and high volume line cooks in Canada. I'm an adrenaline junkie with the attention span of a gerbil on speed.
This blog is going to focus on my day to day experiences at work. It will chronicle the life of a chef. It's going to be my page to rant about the weak and the foolish and the damned that I deal with every day. It'll be my place to laud or decry the FOH (Front of House)people for their triumphs and tribulations. You'll hear endless condemnations of grossly inept suppliers.
It'll be entertaining for you, because I'm cynical, verbose, wildly enthusiastic and slightly delusional. I'm often paranoid, worried that there are tremendous machinations being construed against me, and I over-think and over-analyze any and all situations.
Stay tuned, and please subscribe :)