Catering vs. Restaurant Cooking

I have spent the last 3 days in the best catering company I have ever had the pleasure to work for.
This place makes just about every chef, pastry chef, prep cook, dishwasher, sous chef
in restaurants
look
bad.
If catering isn't organized, it's nothing.
And if food coming from a catering kitchen doesn't taste good,
unfortunately,
it's normal.

You might never catch me saying this again, so take your seat:
Sometimes too much organization can be a bad thing. In commercial cooking environments.
An insane amount of organization is linked with
    corporate kitchens
        and Master Pastry Chefs.

It's a fine line we walk when the imperative is NO WASTE.   

There's a lot of math when it comes to organizing recipes in catering kitchens.
Allow me be more specific.
Today I needed to bake off approximately 200 pot de cremes.
In demitasse cups. (They are a bit larger than espresso cups.)
The little ramekin-like containers needed to be placed in "200 pans" = meaning shallow stainless steel Hotel Pans. Very tightly.
First I spaced them nicely and counted 18 per pan.
Pastry chef came along shaking her head.
Reminding me that I had about 800 custards to bake today, she said cram 'em in tight.
This goes against my internal overprotective pot de creme baking parent, but I did as she said.

In convection oven we could fit 3 200 pans. In still oven, 2.
I had about 125 custards baking at the same time for about 6 hours straight.
I managed to lock in 23-26 cups per pan.
Some ovens move faster than others.
It was a fun day.

This catering kitchen employs a big gun. A lot of ammunition.
They are using restaurant tricks, but in a large scale environment.
They hire restaurant chefs and cooks
and then play the game better than restaurants
can.
    boo ya!

Restaurant cooks think catering is for wusses.
There's a whole hierarchy in restaurant cooking mentality that places restaurant cooking at the top
and a whole slew of other food jobs below.
It's a macho thing, yes, but also
a creative gripe.

The idea is that catering is about repetition.
But not in the same way that actual line cooking is.
Catering is about numbers.
Of guests. Of dollars. Of food you can re-heat on the fly.
Of desserts that can wait out side for people to get married.

The concept is that there's more spontaneity in line cooking or restaurant work because little is set in stone, (the exception being, of course, Corporate environments. Example above.)
But what if for every party you book you do not offer the same menu as the last party or the party this very same client got last year or month?
What if every catering chef could pick his or her team and ingredients?
What if the prep team actually did their job and finished their list and was held to as high a standard as the higher paid officials?
What if all that organization meant there was more time for creativity because one wasn't always putting out stupid fires?

What if that catering company hired the best cooks and pastry chefs and butchers in the land?
And made everything from scratch?
And, [are you sitting?], paid everyone a living wage?

Just like restaurants.

Oof. Watch out.

       /Now who's the shoemaker?

No kitchen is perfect.
And not every type of cooking environment is for the next person.
I don't think I'll ever end up in a hotel kitchen, for example.
But my g-d has been known to have a sense of humour before.
So I never say never.

But this catering kitchen is nice.

And if your restaurant mind is open to the possibility
you could learn a few
or a thousand
helpful tricks.

In 3 days, my highlights:
Made a full sheet pan & a 1/2 of cream biscuits.
Cornmeal-Thyme crisp topping for peaches.
Big batch of cracker dough.
Sheeted cracker dough into transparently thin full sheets all day.
Brushed crackers with egg white wash, sprinkled with salt and some of them took seeds as well.
Baked crackers.
Made the largest batch of creme brulee base I've ever encountered ~ @180 egg yolks, 5 Gallons manufacturing cream & 1/2 & 1/2, and over 5 # sugar... !
Learned how to use a hand held stainlesss steel conical liquid dispenser/portioner!

This is my new favorite tool.

Today I will work "on site." The catering company is packing out 5 or 6 parties for today. Unlike a lot of restaurants in the Bay Area, they're busy.

And me?
Yes, it's nice to be in challenging environment where learning is possible no matter which way I turn.
Not married to any one particular kitchen.
Still "At Large."

But so happy to be of service.

                ~ p.s. the coconut cream pie faerie has visited me again btw...

Comments

[Natalie Sztern]

Take everything you said and add: Kosher...in Montreal a caterer needs to be Kosher if he/she is going to be anywhere near a bar, bat mitzvah or wedding in a synagogue...and many outside a synagogue for those that are not religious but eat Kosher (especially since the rabbi and his family are always invited as an honour)....

Kosher not only has everything u said but includes a man who is paid highly to stand around and make sure not even a spoon touches the wrong food - he stands over each cook and chef and has the absolute right to deny any ingredient before it is opened...if :bad" happens the shit hits the fan: everything is thrown out: the entire food and product purchased, cleaning and 'kashering' of each and every utensil incl the plates etc begins in the kitchen and prep and cooking begins again....add to that the cost of a heavy fine as penalty and none of the extra cost of anything can be paseed on to the client....

one more thing: on Shabbat ovens cannot be started so they are opened Friday before sundown and are on all day Saturday before cooking begins at sundown (think summer)

and i am only telling u what i know: which is limited

[sugarbuzz]

I'm pretty sure I know what caterer you're talking about..on a street that begins with H. I had an interview there a couple of yrs ago for the pastry chef position..which I promptly had to pull out of due to scheduling conflicts. I still regret it.
I've worked in catering as well & knowing how to make desserts for 20 - 2000 people has come in handy. What with all the local benefits some restaurants do you have to know how to get 1100 pieces of whatever done in between making everything else for restaurant service. People who've only worked in restaurants have no idea what pressure is until they've worked at top of the line caterer. 250 covers tonight..so what..try 2500 & see how that is!

[Aran]

oh yes! I worked for a large hotel where we had different divisions with different goals withing the culinary team. Our banquet kitchen worked like the catering business you described. Super, super efficient. Then we had the fine dining restaurant where the food cost was probably 80% (well maybe not but about 45%). Crazy. So I learned incredible amounts of things from both. Banquet=efficiency, repetition=becoming fast, organization=leadership... and fine dining meant free mind, exploring, challenging taste buds... completely different worlds.

[chadzilla]

Everytime we interview prospective interns we remind them of how much more there is to learn than what they will learn on the line of a well-known restaurant. Not to take away from the many great chefs out there in free-standing gigs, but that's why so many contestants flop big-time on shows like Top Chef when they break out the 'catering challenge.' All of a sudden, it's like none of them know how to cook and it's the culinary special olympics.
I'm glad you are keeping busy and motivated, Shuna.
Ditto on the 'kosher' catering comment. Usually the best you can hope for is the rabbi will have a taste for the Maneschevitz (*sp) and back off a little.

[sam]

I love catering. It's so much fun. When I was a teen I used to cater a local tennis tournament for two weeks every year. My customers back then told me I should go into it as a career. I am ashamed to admit that at the time I thought it was 'beneath me' to do such a thing as my parents had pushed me to be more academic than that and to try and get a degree instead (because they had never had the chance). I don't really have any regrets about what I have done in my life and the opportunities that have arisen for me out of the education I had, but still I love to do a bit of catering especially as a hobby. More recently I catered a film shoot which was nerve wracking but successful and cooked meals for a pregnant friend who was on bed rest. To me, catering is far more appealing than being a restaurant chef. I can understand why it appeals to anyone.

[Raspil]

with the thousands of things that can go wrong, catering is most definitely not for a wuss. i think you've got to be a little bit insane to want to do catering. the most i ever did was about 3000 and the fewest was 2.

[Tartelette]

The chef that trusted be with my first pastry position opened his catering company a few years back and I fly to go help him when he needs staff. I like the rythm, the different sort of precision and atmosphere. Although I don't "know" you, I can't see you tied down to one particular place very long. I think this is something to be enjoyed.

[lainie]

Oooh. . congratulations on learning a new tool. I love those things, too. I started in catering and them moved on to restaurant work. . .I think it was a great foundation - especially if you're working some where that you can be proud of. I did production and was lead chef on-site. . .it was all at once exciting to be RIGHT there when people ate the food you cooked. . .and sort of scary, too. Good times!