Tomorrow night will be my first busy night working in a restaurant in over 5 years, almost 6. I've been meditating on this over this past week of prepping and getting ready for Valentine's weekend at the local Columbia restaurant. We'll see how it goes after the weekend. At the beginning of the week I was dreading it a bit. I'd been going back and forth with the restaurant owner on the menu, trying to get product ordered and then prep the menu. It's a bit of a trip to start consulting at a restaurant midway through one week and then completely overhaul their menu for the next weekend which is one of the busiest of the year in the restaurant industry. In the back of my mind thoughts of all the restaurants I've worked in and all the experiences I've had over the years have been simmering...stewing away. When I first returned to Columbia I worked in another local Columbia restaurant for 9 months. I didn't work many nights though, by design. Restaurants in Columbia are notoriously poorly managed. I knew what I was getting myself into by taking this consulting gig. I had no delusions. And truth be told it is a little better than I had imagined. I've seen much, much worse. What strikes me is the lack of organization, the "recreate the wheel everyday" mindset, rather than methodically planning ahead and following a detailed game plan. Anyone who's worked in a restaurant knows that things hardly ever go as planned but you need to at least HAVE a plan! Three different people order food for the restaurant. It's stupid, inefficient and leads to confusion and missed items. There are no prep lists, no order guide, no employee schedule, no chain of command. The fact that they pull it off with any measure of success on a daily basis is actually quite astonishing.
I've been lucky though. I've worked with some of the best chefs and staffs in the country. IN every kitchen, at every restaurant, in every hotel, on every property I've learned and learned a lot. I always pay attention to things. I always try to figure out how to do things more efficiently, more productively. I can't stand sloppiness and disorganization. It used to be really, really bad. When I was younger I had quite the attitude in the kitchen. Yep, I was a screamer. I'd fly off the handle and make an ass out of myself. Like many old school chefs I led by fear. I've long since abandoned that particular style of management. It doesn't work very well and is unhealthy for all involved. When I first take a position I watch. I listen. I watch how every single person works. I watch how they relate to one another. I watch how they react under pressure. I see how organized they are, how prepared. Insouciantly I judge every person's strengths and weaknesses. I make mental notes constantly and often at the end of the night I make written notes at home and never bring them into work with me.
Then I make a game plan. Before I've even taken the job I have goals in mind. I have things I want to accomplish. Once I've done a great deal of auditing I begin the real work. Dealing with employees is the single most difficult aspect of being a chef. Hands down. This is part of the reason you see so many chefs worn down and ragged. They'd rather do the work themselves than have it done improperly. To get cooks to do things YOUR way is the biggest challenge. It's a constant battle. The worst case scenario is when you don't have the power to fire someone. You might as well give up right there. Once a cook knows you can't fire him you're fucked. You've been neutered. All this talk of the bad ones is giving the wrong impression. There are many cooks out there who want to learn, who want to advance, who want to become chefs themselves. If you can find the right buttons to push, the right tack to take with these fellows you are in luck. I've tried to "bring people up" on every team I've ever led. I'll tell them, "I don't know everything but I'll teach you everything I know. What I don't know we can learn together."
It's been a crazy life. I'm thinking now of the last place I worked in Santa Fe before splitting to recover from alcoholism and drug addiction. I can't remember the exact numbers but over the Christmas and holidays we knocked the ball out of the park. At night in the kitchen of the luxury hotel there were three of us, four including the dishwasher. Myself, working the grill, expediting and leading the team, Neil, who was basically a sort of sous chef to me, working saute, and Jenna, who worked garde manger, mainly salads and desserts with a couple of hot apps as well. We cranked and cranked hard for those 3 solid weeks. It was a thing of beauty. We were a well-oiled machine the three of us. After prepping in the afternoon we'd clean up and psych ourselves up for the dinner rush. I'd play the theme from "The A Team" on the CD player in the kitchen and off we'd go. I don't think we had a single "re fire" come back to the kitchen during that whole holiday season. Table after table, plate after plate we churned out perfectly executed dishes. Unlike many restaurants there was no back of the house/front of the house animosity. We were a team. The food and beverage director wouldn't have stood for that kind of nonsense. He was the consummate front of the house manager. To watch him work the tables in the dining room or lead a staff was to witness top-notch professionalism in action. I wish I could say the same about myself during that time but I was more like the captain of a pirate ship then a decorated military officer.
Neil was from Guatemala. He understood English very well but could speak very little. I knew some "kitchen" Spanish and we never had any problems communicating. Neil was also the one who supplied me with cocaine. He'd reach down into the pocket of his baggy chef pants and slyly hand over a plastic baggie to me with a golf ball size hunk of coke in it. I disappear into the walk in cooler out back and chop lines onto a small white china bread and butter plate. I'd get one good line up one nostril and then fill the other. I'd wait a few minutes for the drip and then I'd reload each again. Instantaneously the world sparkled with excitement and energy. My mind raced with thoughts and I was ready to take on the world. "Open the floodgates! I'm ready to COOK!" Wide-eyed and electric I re-enter the kitchen and try to hide the fact that I was high out of my mind on cocaine. I'd nod to Neil and he'd leave the line and get his fix in the walk-in cooler. We'd keep an eye out for Cal, the f&b director. This always made me feel sick inside because Cal was a good friend, in addition to my boss. He knew I was a drunk (other stories for other days) but if he'd known I was using drugs at work he'd not only have fired me I know he would have been deeply, deeply disappointed and hurt. I couldn't help myself though. At the time I just couldn't stop the madness. If I could have stopped for Cal I would have. But I couldn't stop for anybody, not even myself. I'm sorry Cal. I hope that now, years later, you will forgive me for being such a fuck up in that way.
What is truly astonishing is despite the fact that I was a raging coke head and drunk I was an awesome chef. I'd return to my station and wait for the printer to start chattering away with orders. Neil, Jenna and I were organized, focused and fast. We didn't fuck around when it came to the food. Each plate had to be perfect. Nothing less would do. My work station was a work of art in itself: freshly cut meats lined up orderly in rows in refrigerated drawers, portioned fillets of fish neatly laid out in gleaming stainless steel pans, tiny metal containers of expertly diced vegetables and minced herbs, sauces holding a perfect "nappe." Everything clean, everything in order. When the printer would erupt with a fresh ticket I'd take it and call out the orders, "Fire a bisque, shrimp. Second course halibut, mixed grill!" Neil and Jenna would call back to me, "Firing a bisque! Firing a shrimp! Second course halibut! That's four all day!" Once entrees were fired Neil and I didn't even have to talk to each other to synchronize our dishes coming up at the same time together. We knew where each other's dishes were, what stage of cooking. All I'd have to say is "Fire 23!" and hear Neil yell back "Firing 23!" to know that it would take him 2 minutes to have the halibut in the window and ready to be served to the guest. On and on this went. Night after night, week after week, and month after month. I began writing about the three week holiday period but that stint of perfection was by no means a fluke. We worked like that together almost from the start. Neil and Jenna took a little grooming, sure. But as soon as we started partying together they were totally on board. More about that later. I best get some sleep. I've got a kitchen to run tomorrow night.
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