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Recipes vs. Intuition

Do you consider yourself a good baker? A great cook? A top notch chef? Are you a blue ribbon winning home baker? Have you begun an underground restaurant because you gave such stellar dinner parties? Do you think your palate is superior to anyone you eat with? Is your cookbook collection the envy of everyone? Is your recipe based blog highly trafficked? Do you give homemade candy as gifts? Have you taken innumerable cooking classes? Do you consume eggbeater for the recipes,  or for insight into professional cooking? Did you read Michael Ruhlman's Ratio? Did it radicalize or bore you? Inspire or confuse you?

Recipe: a method for achieving some desired objective.

I'd like to pose a question.

Do recipes get in the way of learning to cook, bake?

At what point does a baker, a chef, no longer need recipes, or, when are recipes needed and when are they crutches?

It's too many questions, I know. Not of which can, truly, be answered. But I'd like to involve you in considering them with me.

Because I've worked a number of professional cooking/baking venues, and I've recently jumped from large scale bakery baking to tiny batch plated dessert component baking, these questions have come banging on my door in the middle of the night. They're many, and loud. And they don't let me sleepwalk through. They don't let me stay still. They make me itch with their curved lines and that enigmatic dot at their end.

?

Questions.

Questions without answers.
But questions that beget learning, delving, growing, understanding.

And then there are more questions.

Recipes, to get back to the subject, are validated. Everyone likes a good recipe. Recipes are passed down on notes, in book, translucent oily index cards. Unique handwriting scratchings. Recipes are whispered, graffitti'd, brought to the grave, tattood and celebrated.

Millions of trees have been cut down in the name of recipes. A cookbook is born every second. Recipes are facts. Recipes are coveted. You can trade a recipe like money, and there are as many recipes that 'wprk' as there are that 'don't work.' No one can argue with a good recipe, right?

And some recipes will live forever. In our hearts, in our minds. O recipe, we love you. For cliches ever on.

Is it blasphemy, then, to want to do away with recipes? Will I be witch hunted and burned alive for public view? Should I now beg for mercy, while you're silently collecting stones?

Recipes.

What are they, though?

Recipes represent certainty. They are certainty. They represent logic, arithmatic, and maybe even math. And we hate, we despise, we murder, we denounce uncertainty. We approve of Empirical and we're not afraid to erase its opposite.

We love facts. We love when things make sense.

Well, many of us at any rate.

Intuition.

Intuition represents uncertainty. Intuition is touchy-feely. Intuition is something beyond logic and is sometimes re-named as common sense. Intuition is related to psychic and many people would disregard all such subject as hokus pokus, never even needing to wash their clean logical hands of it because to them it never existed in the first place! Intuition is not empirical. Intuition is heart and love and none of these things exist under a microscope.

You either have a good sense of direction or you don't.

Intuition.

What is it? We define it by what it is not because we don't know what it is. And we despise uncertainty. We discard illogical. We call it crazy, hysterical, ridiculous, a farce, a scam; we want to stand on the other side of it and put it in the dunce's corner.

But you know what?

It's fear. We are terrified of uncertainty. We embrace safety & surety and we do everything in our power to keep groundlessness at bay or, better yet, throw it in the bay.

Can intuition be taught? Inspired? Can inspiration be dispensed? Does it take one great teacher to move you beyond, and delve you deeper, or many? Or none? Do you either have it or you don't?

What if you're somewhere in between? What if you sit on a fence, are a switch, can go both ways, are all ways, like bois & grrls, can see beyond what's at the tip of your nose, have a thing for sublimating the paradigm, live outside the pink box, use a recipe and intuition both, think with all of your brain, don't believe in opposites?

I believe in recipe and intuition both. Combined. In tandem. A guild, if you will.
I believe, though, that recipes can {sometimes} block intuition. {Especially when used alone.}
I believe if one places the recipe before what one knows to be true, that's where {some of the} trouble begins.
That's when "Bad Things Happen."
And, so, I beg of you to consider this.
I ask you to step outside the comfort and safety of recipes, especially only ever making a recipe once, or casting aspersions upon a recipe and it's supposed author/parent because 'it didn't work!' for you.

A recipe is a guide. A recipe is a series of suggestions, of possibilities. A recipe is a ratio.

One of the very first 'cookbooks' ever suggested to me was Le Repertoire de la Cuisine. While it is a compilation of recipes and methods, there are no measurements, no implicit instructions. Upon first glance there are merely lists. And yet, what one finds, upon closer and inquisitive inspection, is patterns.

And within patterns, there lies quiet learning.

Protein always does the same thing, whether in flour or chicken, egg whites or oranges.
Leavening can always be relied on to rise, whether via yeast, baking powder, egg whites, steam.

You may cook and bake for very different reasons than I, I know. You may not be seeking what lies around the corner from your tried and true tested recipes. You may think I'm relating recipes to life in a way that's silly and indulgent. You may not think everything is related, as I do.

I'm not asking you to set fire to your cookbook collection or never spend too many hours again on recipe based food blogs. I'm not even asking you to humor me by swallowing what I have to say whole.

All I'm asking, suggesting, is that you consider.

Consider stepping back from recipes. Consider how you learn, how you jump to the next level of learning, how you quietly cross lines and borders into new cooking/baking territory.

When you feel the bicycle under you, un-held, unsupported, for the first time, it's an exhilarating, terrifying, ebullient thrill! You don't know how you don't tip over; it's magic!

Baking is alchemy.

Tried & True Science, and mystery both.

Ingredients respond as much to logic as they do to love.

Recipes are ratios, but no ingredient stands still. Flour is not one thing, and neither is water. Ever block of butter, all around the world, will react differently. Even two sugars are not what you think they are, even though they look the same under a microscope!

If ingredients are alive, and changeable, then so must be recipes. And us; those who use, abide by, share, trade, give, alter, mix, fight with, discard, write & re-write, must also be amenable to holding on and letting go both, all.

Recipes & Intuition live on a spectrum. They are not opposites. Both are certainty & uncertainty. Two sides of one coin.

Chocolate-Caramel Slice

When I first came to be introduced to this, er, dessert, I was underwhelmed. One could even say I did not like it. At all. Boring, insipid, blah, came to mind.

I heard the name, and a different sort of caramel than the one who met my mouth, upon eating said thing, had been my wish. I wanted buttery, creamy caramel, and instead it was merely milky. Dulce de Leche, to be exact.

The dough was dark as darkest chocolatey night and what happened on my tongue was a dry midnight desert sandy storm. ick.

Why, you might be asking, am I reviewing a confection I seem to despise so much?

Because my thoughts have recently changed. Now every time I make this easy going treat, I secretly slice off a piece of my own and eat it in tiny   slow   savoring   bites.

The story of Shuna and The Chocolate Caramel Slice is one of many layers.

Let me first say this:

You do not know what a good, bad or indifferent baker/pastry chef you are until you work alongside someone who is better/worse than you. This is not at all to say that if you are an outstanding home baker, you are deluding yourself. But as far as professional cooking & baking go, it is my experience that unless you push yourself really hard to stay away from your sweet spot comfort zone of I-Know-All-I-Need-To-Know-And-I-Feel-Very-Comfy-In-This-Job/Kitchen-Thank-You-Very-Much, and move kitchens or chefs or hire people who are much closer to your level than you feel comfortable having them, you will become stagnant in your baking skill and knowledge.

The professional cooking & baking world is alive, like bread dough. Just following a recipe, whether it be the one of your life or one for a soup, isn't enough.

Unless it is.

In which case you should stop reading now and move onto another blog/book/TV show that fits your mediocre lifestyle/career.

Becoming a better pastry chef isn't about copying all the bigshots and making food from non-soluble powders and mists and freeze-drying every plant you can get your tongue around. You can become a better ______ and still follow your heart.

This is what you have to ask yourself at some point: what am I learning? who is challenging me? why am I fighting change so violently? what scares me? how much failure can I live with? what are the absences/holes in my career/education and where can I go/who can I work with to fill them?

My inner critic demands a spot: How on earth can Chocolate Caramel Slice stand in for life lessons? Come on now, you have to be kidding me. Haven't you seen the headlines? The world is in crises.

But everything is everything, yes? In my world, all is language and all languages are about communication, right?

And when I ate this fine looking sweet treat and I hated it, I delved into why. When I asked the baker about it, she became defensive and said, "People like it! It's a regular thing of ours!" And I thought, that's not an answer, it's an excuse.

Because, let's face it y'all, People Like Things Made With Sugar. Very fucking few people are critical about sweet things. It's the baker, the author, who needs to be discerning. JUST FOLLOWING THE RECIPE IS NOT ENOUGH. No, it ain't. "Well, I followed the recipe..." Is not an excuse for mediocrity. A recipe is merely a guide. It's a secret language for people at various levels understanding its hidden grammar, meaning, message.

Ever wonder why one recipe can achieve countless results?

Because IT DEPENDS ON THE BAKER/COOK, yo.

Make that recipe yours.
Own it.
Learn it.
Make it more than once, more than thrice.
Taste it as you go along.
Eat it. In full. Taste every component/ingredient as you assemble it.
Find out why the author cast flour as the leading role, or butter, or egg whites!
Sing it.
Whisper it close.
Sleep with it under your pillow and ponder it while sitting on the dock watching the buggy skaters do their thang.
I'm serious, yo.
Learn, don't just follow.

And so, without further ado, I introduce you to

'the recipe' for the Chocolate Caramel Slice:

Here's the thing. It's dead easy.

Line a shallow baking pan (preferably with removable bottom) with parchment paper. Make sure parchment reaches up sides at least one inch above pan's edge.
Line with chocolate short dough, let's say 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick.
Bake until just done (best to err on the side of under-baking here).
Spread slightly salted (I prefer sea or Kosher) dulce de leche [ddl for short] over cooled chocolate crust. Thick, at least 1/4 inch thick, but really I don't know the amount. (recipe for dulce de leche - boil one unopened can of sweetened condensed milk, with water covering the can completely, for at least 3 hours. open can when it's not super duper hot. voila! caramelized milk. if you want a much more complicated, highly finessed method, please climb over the wall to Chez Pim's house.)
"Crumble" chocolate short dough over top of ddl & bake again until crumbled dough on top is done.
While I agree it's difficult to tell if chocolate dough is 'done,' look closely at how the colour of it changes in the oven. Touch it--it's shouldn't feel like mashed potatoes, but it shouldn't feel like wood either.

Pull parchment away from slice when cool-ish. Parchment walls are there to hold caramel in place during baking.

Slice with non-serrated knife, straight down motion, when cooler. (I'll admit I prefer eating it when it has a bit of warmth to it.)

Refrigerate slices you're not going to inhale the day you bake it. While I don't usually believe in refrigerating pastry, this one could use the extra hit of moisture it will get inside your cold box.

I have come to like and appreciate the Chocolate Caramel Slice because of it's stupid simplicity. That's a compliment. Sometimes the easiest things are the easiest to mess up. Look at bread. Flour and water. And who the hell makes it at home anymore?

I have come to enjoy eating and making the Chocolate Caramel Slice because I made that recipe mine:

• I cooked the dulce de leche until it was nice and dark. {colour is flavour in baking}
• I added delicious tasting salt to the ddl. {I have been appalled at the use of Table Salt in professional kitchens in London.}
• I under-bake the bottom crust slightly.
• I taste every component and make sure they're just right before I bake it. {I am not relying on the recipe, I am relying on me as a baker/taster of many a baked good [of my own and others' making]}
• And I do not sell the Chocolate Caramel Slice after more than a few days of it sitting out at ambient (= retail bake speak for room temperature.)

Do tell me what you think if you make it. Perhaps you'll have a process too?

MONTEREY MARKET NEEDS YOUR HELP!! PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD

PLEASE MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD.
PLEASE go to Friends of Monterey Market and show your support/read about what you can do.
PLEASE WRITE A LETTER.
PLEASE DO NOT SHOP AT MONTEREY MARKET AFTER JUNE 3rd UNLESS BILL FUJIMOTO takes back his resignation.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD THAT MONTEREY MARKET NEEDS EVERY ONE'S HELP to make it clear that Bill Fujimoto IS Monterey Market and his resignation is not an option.
PLEASE MAKE IT CLEAR TO THE ENTIRE FUJIMOTO FAMILY that you will not support a market that places its bottom line before family.
PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD.

If you have eaten ANYWHERE IN THE BAY AREA, you have supported Monterey Market.
If you have ever shopped at ANY FARMERS MARKET, you have supported Monterey Market.
If you have ever blogged about new fruit in season, new fruit available in the USA, climbed upon the great pumpkin interactive sculpture in North Berkeley, or made anything in any home kitchen or restaurant or catering kitchen with any fruit or vegetables, you have supported Monterey Market.
If you believe in farmers, chefs with integrity, great produce, eating seasonally, eating locally, supporting local business YOU BELIEVE IN SUPPORTING MONTEREY MARKET.
AND YOU WOULD CONSIDER SHOWING YOUR SUPPORT TO A MARKET, A TEMPLE, A STORE, AN INSTITUTION that was in need of help.

MONTEREY MARKET NEEDS YOUR HELP.
PLEASE BLOG ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW AND LET GOOGLE AND THE FUJIMOTOS KNOW WE WILL BE HEARD.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT BILL FUJIMOTO'S RESIGNATION.
WE WILL NOT SHOP AT THE STORE IF THE FAMILY ACCEPTS HIS RESIGNATION.
PLEASE TWEET ABOUT MONTEREY MARKET and the petition.
PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING.

I love Monterey Market.
I always have.
I always will.
I support Monterey Market from accross the USA and into the United Kingdom.
BUY EAT AT BILLS AND WATCH IT WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW PILED INTO THE LIVINGROOM if you don't believe me when I say this is a place that must be saved!!!!!!

**If you have time to leave a comment here, you have time to write a letter to the Fujimoto's.

Hamantaschen for Purim

 they look so innocent.
leetle triangles.
filled with goodness.
hand formed.
delicate dough.
baked to order.
smaller than the palm of your hand.
a few bites.
one brief Jewish Holiday.
Purim.

HAMANTASCHEN.

thousands of them ordered.
sheeting, cutting circles, filling, egg yolk 'glue' washing, forming & sealing, freezing.
just a little cookie.
no harm no foul.

just 4000. that's all.

who needs sleep?

The price of a racehorse

The price of a racehorse

Neither defines its worth nor designates its place
She is only as good as her last day
Only as fast as she can be

There are no guarantees

No insurance.

What is the return on investment?
When is the horse trusted to run fast?
Really fast?
Everyday.

The price of a racehorse
Is relative
Only to the price of other racehorses.

{If housework was quantifiable,
Men would have to be stay-at-home moms too.}
       good thing wives come cheap.

The price of a racehorse is hope.
Hours of training go unaccounted for.
You'll never pay for a trainer’s lost sleep.

Dedication cannot be bought.
Inspiration cannot be forced.
Legs cannot be bound
So they never break.

How does one train a horse to run fast?

Is it through force or suggestion?
Inspiration or starvation?

Will the owner, the payee, ever be satisfied?
Will the return on investment ever be noted?
Noticed. 

You could be doing better. I know you can.

Or is it part of the game—to constantly push, to constantly hope, to constantly withhold, to constantly demand and admonish.

Every race a new track. Every gun fired for the first time. Every gate, every judge, every clock, without memory, without prejudice.
Eyes unseeing.

The racehorse runs until she dies.
{This doesn’t have to be as terrible as it sounds.}

What was it all for?
Was her investment returned?
Was she more trouble than ribbons? Did her cost balance her wins?
Will people remember her when she’s left the track?

There is no price one can set for another.
There is no return on investment if one is never satisfied, if one plays so hard, pushes so fiercely, demands the world
Every day.
moments of amazing streaks of speed and grace,           are missed.

Faerie dust in the dustpan.
Horses  after horses after horses,
and where o where to put the decimal point?

There is no insurance that the race will always be won because it never happens always.

Trust
Is built, not demanded.
Trust is faith.
        Not empirical.

The price of a racehorse is dreams tied together with hope surrounding a package of desire.
        It is elusive at best.

And the horse?
She will run as fast as she can

Because she loves the feel of air
Coursing fast over her face, ears set back, four hooves afloat
        A streak of will and heft, power and grace
Both.

A pull from within
To be as bold as wind, singular as horizon
Inspired by no     one     named

Owned by             nothing
But that moment,

that whoosh.

2 January 2009

How Many Hours a Day Do Chefs Work?

Being a chef and having a blog means fielding dozens of questions from people all over the world who want to know the path to becoming a chef, cook, pastry chef or stagiere. Both in the comments section of eggbeater, and on the side, questions come in both frantic and even, inquisitive and demanding. Lately I've had a number of inquiries about how many hours should one work without getting paid.

It's no secret that cooks/chefs do not work 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week over a consecutive 5 day period. This example, in fact, would be called Part Time by most in the industry. The running joke at The French Laundry was that one day off was a weekend, and 2,vacation. For years I heard that in order to take an actual vacation from a cooking job, one must quit altogether, as paid vacations are a delusional fantasy for most of us in the field.

Even when a cook's schedule says arrive at 8 am and leave at 4 pm, there are hidden hours assumed. No cook who arrives on their station at 8 am will be ready by 11 or noon for service, unless their place of work demands very little prep from them. For those of us trained in fine dining, a 10-14 hour day is normal, even if our paychecks reflect 8.

Is this illegal? Yes. Should it be another way? Perhaps. Has it always been so? Yes. Will it continue on, even in free societies? Probably. Is this the only way to become a chef? Basically.

I belong to a worlwide organization that has an inside joke. It goes like this, depending on where you live, "We are not for people who need us, we're for people who want us, otherwise we would gather in Shea ________ (fill in your area's blank.) Stadium every day."

Being a professional cook is something like this. You should be passionate about food if you're going to enter the doors that lead to Chefdom. It is not the career path for everyone. Being a chef is not even for all the people in the world who love to cook, have a knack for cooking or are fantastic at it.

Like most of the arts, and paths to master craftsmanship, one should be more passionate about this than most any other thing in their life, if one wants to wear the temporary crown of Chef one day.

I say temporary because even at the top, with a Michelin view and booked reservations until the end of the next century, anything can happen.

Becoming a chef is a personal thing. It's more inward and private than one might think, seeing it from the outside or through a TV set. Cooking professionally is a secret society with rules and language and posturing and jokes and we have all this

because the hours are brutal.

And the only reward

is our integrity. Which we go to bed with alone every night, even if we're holding onto someone else.

And it's possible that that person we're holding onto every night can't understand, at all, why we have to work so many goddamned hours. She may ask us to quit and get another job. He may demand we spend more time at home. She may say we should quit this profession altogether. He may leave us because of it.

You have to be dedicated, really fucking dedicated, to your career and education in this field, if you're to stick out all those unpaid hours. You have to take and take and take during those unpaid hours. You have to watch and stare and ask questions and borrow tricks and put your head down and try and become faster and neater and more economical and efficient,

so you can do your job faster and better every day, and the next.

Not that you'll work less hours because of it, but you'll be able to take more on, and learn more, if you can manage your time better.

This came to me in a letter recently, from a fellow cook and close friend,

"You are, indeed, a professional, and that doesn't just mean you can bake, but that you know how to manage yourself on and off the job as well.

Remember one thing though... You are your hardest critic.  If you pull back a little, it hurts because you know somewhere that you can give more.  But you know what... They don't really know that, and even if they did, they would be ecstatic with the amount you are giving them.

Pull back and save a bit for Shuna."

          I've been cooking for 16 years and I forget too.

There are a lot of pressures in this industry. And like a vacuum cleaner, they don't shut off until you pull the plug. One can only do so much in a day. One can only manage so well if one never takes a day off. One can only notice so much if one sleeps 4 hours a night. One can only work so fast, so efficiently, if one is on one's 12th day in a row of 15 hour days.

There's no accounting for all the unpaid hours we clock in, off the clock. There's no one carving the macho notches in our cook's belts, and when we walk in the doors to our next job they won't know we never slept and had no life outside of our last kitchen. Every job we start over in we have to prove ourselves again.

And in time, over the span of years, we do get better and faster and more organized and more efficient. And it IS possible that at a certain age, both in years and in experience, we can slow down, maybe, and work a little less. If we choose.

We can also choose to look at it a bit differently. Can you quantify all the hours you stayed up reading with that watermarked piece of paper you received one day in early summer after four or six years of semester after semester of worrying, studying, taking tests, borrowing books and listening to lectures?

If you feel like an immediate dollar amount should be attached to every minute you have a uniform on in the kitchen then you may want to consider a Union job or another profession altogether. If you sit down with a calculator and divide all the hours you spend in the kitchen by your paycheck, you will be aghast by the tiny number under that line.

Or you can go to bed every night with a stronger sense of self because you go into the kitchen day after day prepared to listen more closely, watch more intently, be more humble, give more generously, admit more wrongs, teach more patiently, learn with an open heart and feel proud to work among the people you do and make the food you make.

Cooking may or may not be an art, but it most definitely is a craft. And all crafts take loads of unquantifiable hours of practicing and studying to learn; to know intimately. To be paid for a concert one must have played their scales over and over until they couldn't stand it and then did them some more.

How many hours a day do chefs work?

If you're forcing me to count, I would have to say 25.

Restaurants That Bounce Payroll. Or, What To Do When Your Employer Is Being A Low-Down-Dirty Scoundrel

Everyone is having a hard time right now. Even if they don't know it. Everyone is getting smacked financially. Even if their Master hasn't demanded they drop their pants just yet, it's coming.

A spanking fest is coming to a restaurant near you.

Now it's time to weed out the doe eyed culinary graduates from the serious, stamina-strong line cooks. The hope is that fewer restaurants mean fewer shoemakers. Or, shoemakers will be all that's left when the good cooks and chefs go to where they're appreciated, paid on time and cooking food with integrity.

Now is the time, Restaurant Owners, to take that arithmetic class you've been waiting for. Because those percentages? They ain't on your side. And chefs? Just because you're a damn fine cook with mad skillz, shiny whites in your mouth and around your puffed-out chest, don't mean you can run a kitchen.

        It's on.

Someone more adept at this than I said last March 20th, "It's going to be just like the 90's and the Dot Com Bust: a clearing out is going to happen. And many restaurants will fall, only to leave the strong ones standing."

People will see some of their favourite restaurants close. Busy places that, 'must be doing really well.'

And so it begins. Only those restaurants with money in the bank, money set aside and gathering what little strength it can; so one day [soon] those innocent pieces of paper will grow up to be a magic carpet ride, gathering up the house to carry it through these brutal times.

As a good friend of mine says, I want to hit the 'do what I want, dammit' button right about now. But I can't. I waited and pieced together what I could here until another land seemed better. Any land with a job, in fact, seemed better.

But I took a question recently that made my heart sink. And then my blood boiled.

"What can I do if my employer is not paying me us?"

And I remembered. I remembered walking to work one morning in the Flatiron district in NYC. I passed a large, hip restaurant where I knew the latest and former sous chef, and some of the cooks, and I looked at the front door and kept walking. And then I did a double-take. A double-take that can only happen on the early morning empty streets of New York City.

I saw a chain with links the size of my torso wrapped around the whole building with a padlock bigger than my arm span holding it together. I thought I might be on a movie set. And then I saw the flourescent sticker. "City Closure. Do Not Enter Premises."

Bouncing payroll is illegal and paying employees cash is not optimal, but not paying people at all? It's really illegal.

Because you know why? The money you are giving your workers is for HOURS THAT THEY HAVE ALREADY WORKED. The check you sign is not a fucking gift. It's not a thank you note or a bouquet of flowers for bedding you.

When you hire someone, whether they are "on the books" or off, you make an agreement with them, albeit an uneven one. Your employees do not owe you anything past the agreement, least of all sympathy for your mismanagement of the money they help you earn.

Do you work in a restaurant that is withholding your pay? Are you a waiter whose house is taking your tips? Are you a sometimes worker who gets a heavy envelope some weeks and a light one on others? Have you agreed to be a "Consultant" without getting anything in writing from those lovely people who seem nice enough but won't answer your emails after you've invoiced them? Is your boss absent on payday?

If you work in California the labor laws are written for employees. This is not true for all States and not all countries. If you work in San Francisco you may speak to a real person anonymously to find out your rights or just sneak into a nondescript office to pick up pamphlets. In many languages, not just English.

        An injury against one is an injury against us all.

Here are some links that will help you:

Minimum Wage questions?

Office of Labor Standards Enforcement has many links leading to all sorts of amazing resources.

A few California Labor Lawyers, Should you get serious about fighting The Man.

Are you a low wage earner? Is English your second language? The Legal Aid Society, Employment Law Center serves you directly.

Questions about Paydays, Pay periods and Final Wages? Want to know exactly what law your employer is breaking given your individual circumstance? The California Department of Industrial Relations is your place to visit. Take a seat.

"Violations by an employer of any of the Industrial Welfare Commission Orders respecting payment of the minimum wage, payment of overtime, failure to give meal and/or rest periods, reimbursement for uniforms, payroll record keeping, and cash shortages." This is just one paragraph from the California Government site concerning filing a claim with The Bureau of Field Enforcement.

And last, but definitely not least, you may file a claim against your employer by tracking down the information also on the Ca. Gov site. You can be an employee or a former employee. We're not talking Mad Max here, you will only be doing what's right for you, your fellow workers and the employees that might come after you, if the restaurant stays afloat. It's called a WAGE CLAIM and you can find out more by visiting 455 Golden Gate Avenue, SF, Ca. or going to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement = DLSE, near you.

Even if you go to a DLSE merely for educational purposes, it's a long-lasting educational tool. Knowing your rights can be a blessing and a curse, as my grandmother would say. It has been both for me.

If you want to stay a wage earner your whole career than you don't need any of this advice. But the minute you turn into a manager/ owner/ partner enforcing local and federal labor laws, you'll need this bit of schooling. Better to get it now and keep it in the tool box, sharp, for a rainy day spell such as this one.

"The Weeds." Restaurant Speak: Lexicon of Cooks.

For every lesson there is a learning curve. Some are as steep as 90 degree angles. This family of learning is known as one or all of the following:

Sink-Or-Swim
Fish Or Cut Bait
Shit or Get Off the Pot
Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire

Other lessons aren't as harsh. Someone has patience, takes time, mentors. You get shown once, twice; there may even be time for endless instruction.

In kitchens there's a lot of the former, and very little, or none, of the latter.

A cook needs to understand everything now and produce it yesterday.
And every day said cook needs to be more efficient and organized, cleaner and faster, than the day before. Every day the food, the task, need to be executed better. 

There are a few ways to teach a cook Imperative.

One is to tell him.

"We need you to accomplish this five hour task by the time service starts, in 1 and a half hours."
"Hey, I need these carrots for service. Yeah I know you think it will take you longer than 30 minutes but it can't, right, because I need them to cook for the first order which is in, well, now, 28 minutes."
"You need to move faster."
"Every day your list is going to get longer."
"Managing your time better means doing more than one thing at a time. A lot more."

And so on.

Another is to show her.

Get in there, take the peeler out of her hand, and peel those apples faster, talking and showing as you go. Give instruction in a clear, concise way backed up with answers to why and show the how. Take another spoon out of the bain marie and quenelle 10 for every three she does. Show her how to move faster, stay cleaner and teach form, grace and economy of movement. Be more organized than your staff, showing them it can be done. Inspire them to want to be better.

Some cooks like their lessons served up military-style.

Kick cooks out of their stations, off their lines, and show them up. Break their egos with yelling, psychological violence and oneupmanship. Show them who's boss. Remind the line you're alpha and will fight to the death for that position, like a cock, or dogs. Constantly remind them they're nothing without you. It's Boot-camp. War. It's the emergency room and you have to push on through, no matter what.

There are cooks who call this abuse. And chefs who will tell you without this treatment they would have stayed mere civilians. There are cooks who only better themselves under this pressure, even when the other side of their mouth is telling you something else.

Other cooks learn through empowerment.

Sometimes giving a cook more responsibility than they may be able to handle, given their skill level, is a great way to assess and grow a cook. Certain cooks blossom with this treatment. For others it's not enough structure or guidance. Sometimes the mere act of wholeheartedly believing in someone (even before they feel confident themselves) will push them to step up, to improve.

There are cooks who grow only by verbal compliments and others who would rather their daily work towards greatness was an internal, private affair. Many cooks look to their teams to support them and others want to be the Chef's pet.

In short, there are thousands of ways to manage a kitchen. To teach a cook a lesson. Lessons.

But first things first.

Who are you?

Do you know your strengths?
Weaknesses?

I'm here to say what you don't want to hear:
You must know how to manage yourself, how to ask for help/ support/ assistance before you can manage others effectively.

        I hear you talking all this talk.
           - But for fuck's sake, step up.

The Weeds.

It's an expression we have. It means a few things but basically the expression defines getting into deeper and deeper water, and not being able to see trees for the forest.

The ticket machine starts at 5:29 and doesn't stop punching out orders until midnight.
You haven't had time enough to prep before service.
Your partner is hungover. You have a fever. Your wrist is broken. It's your 46th day in a row without a day off. The ventilation doesn't work and it's 116F outside at 7 pm and you can't think straight. Your boyfriend just broke up with you and your mind is elsewhere.
Your chef has never worked your station and has no clue about your firing times and so keeps waiting until the last minute to fire food off your station that takes three times as long as he thinks. You're pre-firing food that hasn't been called and now you've lost track of what is what, for what order and at what temperature.
Your mis en place is melting, you're plating cold desserts on hot plates and the ice machine is broken.

You're so behind you can't remember when you weren't. Your deep in the weeds you don't know when it snuck up on you.

The item on the menu you prepped the least because it's been a dud all week is on every goddamned ticket and you're trying to figure out how many orders you have so you can put them on count but you know it's more than likely you'll miscount and have to 86 it while there are still tickets on the board and then every waiter will hate you not to mention the chef and meanwhile you're cooking in six saute pans and, shit, you missed that last call, what was it?

The Weeds

will take you no matter how smart, clean, efficient, organized, you are. The Weeds will find your weakness. And live there. The Weeds wait for every cook.

        In plain fucking sight, yo.

The Weeds will take your lunch money and throw sand in your face and take your girlfriend and steal your pride. The Weeds do not discriminate. The Weeds wait. The Weeds are patient. Quiet. Confident. The Weeds strip you naked and leave you out to dry. And the next night? They'll be back again.
Refreshed.

Some chefs teach their cooks by dropping them into the weeds head first, hands tied behind their backs. I have an expression for this:

Setting someone up to fail.
It's a shaming method.

And you know what? Sometimes it works.

I don't say this because I'm a horrendous despot. A leader without conscious.
On the contrary.

There are people whose pride is so great that even when they are deep in The Weeds and not only sinking their own personal ship, but also the rest of The Line, they refuse to raise a white flag.

Just so we're all clear: SURRENDER does not equal pathetic.
         Sometimes bravery is quiet. Saying you need help is actually stronger than pretending you're Superman.

Every kitchen is a team. A team is made up of individuals, yes, but if the individuals do not see themselves as a Part of the Whole, all that happens is a lot of slam dunks and very little proper basketball playing. The cream will rise to the top. And if a chef is smart she can see who does what best and who needs to be pushed. How hard.

Managing is about bringing out the best in people.
It is about seeing the whole picture. It's about forecasting. Planning ahead. And taking the inevitable challenges into account.
Managing well is about turning problems into solutions. Plural.

And sometimes the whole team is being obscured by the mug of a cook who will not see her place. Be blind to how his actions, or inactions (as is the case in the point I'm making here) affect others, namely his team.

Sometimes a cook will be pushed into The Weeds. Sacrificed. Shown and shamed into seeing how it takes The Whole Line to push out the orders.

To be an effective manager, though, one must recognize one's own weaknesses. Otherwise it (= the problems), will always be someone else's fault.

Otherwise known as: Absence of Accountability.

AKA Scapegoating. Or, "The Blame Game," and "Not my Job."

Yes, even Restaurant Owners and Chefs and Sous Chefs can have this ailment.

And if the buck stops with no one, or everyone (which is the same problem really), then the final result is doomed. And because cooks produce edible results, this is a problem. A problem for the cook, the team, the chef, the diner, and the looming bottom line.

The Weeds.

It's an expression for line cooks by line cooks, but it is also something much larger. A euphemism. It's an in-the-moment, during service expression.

But it can also refer to your whole career.

The Weeds

can take a whole department. A station. A restaurant. A person and their career.

On The Line the weeds will usually let you out of its stranglehold after the last table is out.
But if you're really stubborn, The Weeds might have a lesson for you that takes a week, or five years.

When I train cooks I say the same thing over and over.

There are no cowboys on islands in kitchens. If you can be smart and honest enough to see The Weeds getting near, and you can ask for support before The Weeds claim you altogether, I and we can help you push through. But if we don't know you need help until you're drowning, not only is it too late to help you, it's too late to save the food from merely being banged-out. And I don't know about you but I have more pride in my food than to allow it to be banged-out.

Banging-Out is for Shoemakers.

Most people are not being set up to fail by others,
        they are being to set up to fail by themselves.

Most people are in their own way. This is an off shoot of The Weeds, another swamp, if you will.

{Communication is The Most Important Thing in professional kitchens.}

I am calling out to all cooks, all chefs with these words. While I understand that the recipe for success in kitchens is a strange concoction for which there is no standard recipe, ingredients include this contradicting mixture:

humility [definition of humility: the quality of being humble and modest], pridefulness, cockiness, deference. One must be: an independent, team-player, creator of ideas, idea executer, teacher, student, and apprentice.

Like an alchemist, cooks mix potions daily, for each job, with varying proportions of all these ingredients and descriptors. A pinch of confidence and a splash of humility; saute, and deglaze with liquid courage and hope the plate reads 'Believe in me. I believe in me.' Each cook dons a new persona, ever increasing in confidence, but attempting not to reach too high, too far, too fast.
Or so I hope.

Because with each leap, each promotion, each new station and position learned, a cook's ego has been battered and bruised, but not broken. The hope is that said cook will drag themselves out of bed and want to do a better job the next day. Show her chef what she's made of, show his sous chef he means it when he says learning a new station by next menu change is what he wants.

It's a precarious line we cooks walk. If one enters a kitchen meek, quiet and unassuming, one might very well leave that kitchen much the same. And if said cook is working their way up; with a goal in mind to one day be a chef, a manager, a difference maker, an inspirationalist, an overseer, an idea maker, a mover-and-a-shaker; he and she must take risks, speak up, push to learn more, and enter The Weeds not like a sheep going to slaughter, but like a goalie taking it for the team.

Cooks support fellow cooks. Cowboys on islands become clueless chefs who lead their team into The Weeds every night single-handedly. For every one celebrity chef there are hundreds, and maybe thousands of cooks and sous chefs that have given over their lives to perfect that shiny person's food. Not a single chef is a chef alone.

On every team there are Rock Stars, yes. If it's you, shine on. But know this: even rock stars need back up bands, producers, record contracts and fans who help rock stars meet bottom lines. Even if it's art is for art's sake you're creating, it cannot be seen without an audience.

I beg of you, raise that flag before it's too late. During service yes, but more importantly, or as training for the bigger picture: your career.

Get out of your own way. If you can't ask for support until you're drowning, remember this:

It is more arduous and embarrassing a prospect to be drug out of the swamp by an emergency call than by your own admission to being human.

And if you disagree, I have one question:

How's that working out for you?

Slow Food Nation Re-Cap: Voices Heard & Wanted

Labor Day weekend in San Francisco hosted Slow Food Nation put on by Slow Food USA. The reports say over 60,000 people participated in some way and that doesn't count over 2,000 volunteers and all the vendors who made, sold, gave away, prepped and educated people about their foodstuffs.

Every major media source both online and in print wrote about it. Some protested it actively, many passively and most of the Bay Area didn't know it was happening.

No event at this scale can satisfy everyone, but I think we can all agree that it was a major thing to pull off. Slow Food Nation had issues galore, from the minute someone thought of it, to the day doors opened and let throngs of curious people in.

Stephanie Lucianovic wrote a scathing piece on KQED's Bay Area Bites about her experience as a volunteer. As of this morning the comment count was at 50. Many of the commenters were also volunteers and it might very well be the first well-rounded account of Slow Food Nation from a back-of-house perspective.

Slow Food has created a basic survey to get a sense of how SFN was received and experienced. Please consider taking it, even if you chose not to go. If you don't speak up here, consider your complaints and praise unheard.

A thoroughly researched and provocative article was written by local journalist John Birdsall in the September issue of San Francisco magazine. Replete with thought-provoking quotes from most of the major players behind Slow Food International and those who put on Slow Food Nation, Mr. Birdsall's article is a must for anyone attempting to either wrap one's head around this confused organization, or critique it for real.

This morning I wrote a letter to all the people I came into contact with via Slow Food and Slow Food Nation saying much of what I've said here. Here are a few quotes from from that letter:

"I think it's important to know the praise as well as the critique for SFN. I have been cooking professionally for over 15 years myself and have worked for and on some of the largest, most well-thought out and organized events in NYC and SF. I have worked for caterers, bakeries and restaurants. To this end I have had a lot of experience being a worker (volunteer or otherwise) seeing and going to food events as big as this, and some of them larger.

While I saw, read, knew and realized that Slow Food Nation had some serious issues in organizing and fundraising since its inception, I wanted the weekend and event to work out and was excited to be part of it. I knew the best way to wrap my head around its impending overwhelmed-ness was to volunteer; to be part and give.

My hope is that Slow Food USA, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Anya Fernald and the companies that SFUSA hired to promote and manage SFN will listen to all our voices when we say that the event, while successful because it happened at all, could do to listen and learn from the people who really made this happen: volunteers who showed up on those days but also volunteers who promoted and talked about and educated and wrote about the event long before the end of August.

I look forward to any and all response Slow Food USA, Carlo Petrini, Alice Waters, Anya Fernald and the companies that SFUSA hired to promote and manage SFN have, after the event, from their perspective, so that we can all understand Slow Food Nation, and "how it did," as a whole."

A quick search for other voices came up with Christine Muhlke's NY Times September 2nd piece, extensive SF Chronicle coverage, and much from the blogosphere. Jennifer Maiser's Serious Eats coverage offers some suggestions for Slow Food, which I hope they see and hear and pay attention to.

I'm still processing the weekend. It was grand and also deeply troublesome  on many levels. I'm really glad I volunteered. I find it's always the best way to navigate, understand and experience mega-events. If I did nithing else but teach half a dozen people from elewhere about the Bay Area's composting program, then so be it.

I hope you'll take the survey. And be brave enough to hear and create constructive critique. It is my belief that with honest communication, solutions can be formed from problems.

And me, I'd rather live in the solution than the whinging, whining and complaining, no matter how much speaking up and out {directly to the people who need to hear it} is frightening.   

Journalists Arrested at the Republican National Convention

Warning: this post is not about food.

While I realize most people don't read eggbeater to hear about politics, this video and subject has come to my attention and I can't stop thinking about it.

It's none of my business how you vote or whether you watch the news. It's very possible you live in a country where it's illegal to protest at all.

While I don't abide by protesting with violence, I do believe strongly in allowing media to report on all sides of a subject. Arresting journalists to silence viewpoints, as reported in the LA Times, either literally, or by killing them, is a terrifying practice, no matter how you slice it.

Both my parents are journalists. And as I am becoming one, I find this news of news being squelched, heartbreaking. Of course it has happened forever and it might always happen, but I am here to protest it as a practice.

we're not gonna take it lyin' down.

Cooking Professionally: Is it "Sustainable?"

This past week, "the economy" "took the life" of one of San Francisco's most venerable restaurants, Rubicon. The SF Chronicle reported on its closing party yesterday.

You might wonder why I don't report on the world's goings on as often as my blogging cohorts. And you might not believe the reason. Media affects me so powerfully that I have to travel inward to digest what I've read. It can take me months to allow how I feel to come through. Call me too sensitive. You wouldn't, and you won't, be the first. Or last.

The industry I work for is a luxury product. When people argue about how grapes are grown in Napa, all I can think about is the fact that wine is not sustenance. And the people who make your swirling, sniffing, tasting, arguing, musing, price-comparing, decadent auctioning, possible might never have the rights (many of) your pets have in this wealthy country.

People often ask me, "What do you do?"

"I'm in the pleasure business." I reply. Yes, mostly because I'm an upstart, but also because it's true.

I make sweet things.

I craft pleasure. I spin tales with sugar. I sear with caramel and sooth with iced cream. I taste of salt and season with sweet. I conjure, coax, and evoke. Come with me and I'll take you somewhere

else.

But is it art? Or craft? And is it important? Necessary?

We get all up in arms in the Bay Area protecting what we feel are our rights. We have a wealth of choices here, in all things food and liquid, soil and sun, weather and geography. We? Well a loud voiced we at any rate.

And then there's the "Purity Factor." We in Northern California like to challenge anything, look at it closely, and tear it apart; constructively or otherwise (ahh the delightful taste of passive aggression), to prove that it's not as pure as it says it is. You say you're a Locavore? Do you know where you're black peppercorns come from? Salt? Dish soap? Have you recently chose to become vegan? Do you eat honey? How about naturally occurring yeasted/fermented things? When you say you're a vegan because you want to preserve the life of animals, do you think of humans as animals too?

Think you care more than most people about Organic food? Do you know who owns the company that owns the people who plant and harvest your precious, perfect produce? Do you know who owns the water? Have you seen the list of acceptable pesticides and fungicides for Organic fruits & vegetables lately? Would you feed them to your children, straight?

No one is pure enough. Not even Slow Food Nation. You'd think Monsanto was setting up camp from the way a lot of "food people" are reacting. So what if they're a little disorganized? Or a lot. You try organizing 50,000 people with 2000 volunteers. No. Corporate. Sponsorship.* Gay Pride can't even say that.

     *This in from Jen Maiser: "From [SFN's] site FAQ's:
     "Slow Food Nation is funded by ticket sales (20% of revenue), corporate sponsors (50% of revenue),    foundations (25% of revenue) and philanthropists (5% of revenue)." For More Information, check out the FAQ portion of the SFN website.

My point? Yes, I have one.

I met with a friend yesterday. She's been in the business longer than me, totaling 20+ years. We talked about our options. Made vague references to who was courting us and what we hoped would be different about our next jobs. We talked about how many pastry chefs are out of work. We spoke of failed restaurants, recent Bauer reviews, the cost of delicious fruit as brought to us by wholesalers, working with the new breed of staff who expect to work less for more pay than we ever dreamed possible at "their age," the insanely high cost of living in the Bay Area, how 'having a life' outside of the kitchen was nearly impossible with a pastry chef job, and so much more.

All Doom & Gloom? No, but close.

We each have reached 40. Neither of us are married nor own the places we inhabit. Neither of us have a 401K. Both of us pay for our own health insurance. We've taught, owned, managed, struggled, learned, given, opened, closed and now we're thinking. A lot. Our minds could be a dangerous place.

But instead we supported. Heard each other out. Dished. Nodded heads. Shared industry secrets. Laughed because we knew. And then we did something else.

We thought of what the other person could do, besides. Instead of. I wrote some notes. We gave each other feedback, and received. We expanded our minds beyond the jail bars of this industry. We fought 'the voice.'

I'm going to say it. Move to a screen with a kitties now if you can't handle it.

My industry is not sustainable. Restaurants are not sustainable. Not for the employees. Or most employers.

Yes, we can buy seafood that's not as bad as some other seafood. We can know the name of the pig we eat and kill it our self. We can buy direct from the farmer and put her name on our menu. We can build our restaurants with re-claimed wood. We can burn only beeswax candles. We can sell our fryer oil to the biodiesel people.

If it weren't for unions rioting for years and years, and many a person dying, our employers might not have to give us days off or a minimum wage. The eight hour day would never exist without there having been years and years of bloody fighting.

And everyone knows the 8 hour day/40 hour week is for bankers, not cooks.

Not sustainable.

I can hear you gearing up for an argument. Good. Roll up your sleeves and get in line.

Then why have certain restaurants lasted for years and years? How come thousands of people sign checks every year over to schools that are going to give them an unflattering polyester outfit and a tall paper hat in exchange for what could pass as a mortgage payment in most American States? How come Top Chef is such a big hit? And everyone keeps opening restaurants? Even when the world's food crises is starving people in every nation and the cost of petroleum is doubling on every other breath?

Rubicon closed a few days ago. I remember when it opened. It's backers are major players, and savvy business people. The restaurant sat in the Financial District. It was elegant and quiet, private and charming. Rubicon's kitchen was dedicated to promoting great chefs to greater greatness, and no one who's cheffed in SF longer than a minute hasn't cooked with someone who worked there. Rubicon closed. No one is safe.

The economy sucks, you say? I'm just bitter because I was laid off at the beginning of the year?

Hey, it doesn't mean I'm gonna stop cooking. Or cease making sweet things. Or hang up my coat forever. It doesn't mean there's no reason for living.

I'm not saying anything other cooks and chefs and restaurant owners don't know. And there are chefs who make serious money. In America everyone is given the same opportunity to exploit or treat fairly. Work hard and you can make something of yourself. Step or jump out of your class. Your choice.

As employees we can fight for our rights if we want to know them. Whether you work for American Express or Burger King, if you are an American citizen, and you do not have the ability to hire and fire, you are covered by all of the same Federal Labor Laws, many of which were decided by or before 1920.

Cooking professionally is not sustainable. Selling food that people cook in real time is not sustainable. Not sustainable based on 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, year round. Not based on paying all food producers a market value living wage. Not based on treating soil and mountains and air and the water table the way we would if we really wanted to keep it viable for future peoples, not just "first world" peoples, in the future.

Radical? Me? Nah.

Just trying to face facts. And move on. And get my head out of the sand.

Not that my compost pile isn't worth something. Or my belief that fruit desserts should be made with seasonal, ripe fruit is going to go out the window. I'm not going to eat factory pork if I can help it. I'm not going to go work for Phillip Morris or order swordfish or stop eating out or start drinking or take up cutting or start telling all y'all how to be more pure.

Remember who made 'being pure' infamous?

What would we feel like if we lived in a country who displayed their unfair, corrupt, despotism with more transparency? Would we still be mad at Whole Foods for eliminating their bulk section?

What would we be grateful for if every time we got something, we weren't expecting more?

Who would we be if we gave up a part of our paycheck every week not at the bar, but gave it directly to the dishwasher at our favorite restaurant?

When will we be satisfied?

I'm not saying there's nothing left to fight for. I'm not saying 'Give up.' I'm not laying down with this knowledge. I hope to see what I look like at 50. I'm interested in seeing how I can Zelig as the economy continues to dip and I am definitely interested in getting a new president elected who says he wants change.

And, o yes, I want to make desserts in a restaurant again. I want to teach and learn. Crazy? Yes. I love doughnuts. I think the perfect croissant eaten in the most romantic city will change my life. My hopeless romanticism will not be evicted.

I think one day all of us speed induced (we want everything yesterday), technologically drugged, "choice" motivated whores (you know, the people who tell you it's their right and choice to smoke cigarettes and ___________ fill in the blank of whatever you judge "them" for), will stop. And see that if we continue on the way we have been, things we can never replace are really disappearing. Forever.

Please challenge me. Bring it on. Lift me up and carry me high so I can see the horizon. Tell me how to make it work.Tell me you think it can work. Even in small towns. In little corners of your world. I'm writing down what I know. What I see. What I've seen. But I'm not everyone everywhere doing everything.

That's what y'all are for.