eggbeater

plated dessert IV - chocolate_licorice

 

chocolate-licorice delice {pot de creme}, caramel sauteed plums, almond cocoa chili wafer {pectin based tuile}, chantilly, chocolate granita.

plated dessert III - tropical_meringue

 

hazelnut meringue, coconut-guava-vanilla bean sorbet, tropical fruit salsa of mango, pomegranate seeds, pineapple, lime leaf, ginger, fresh coriander {cilantro}, palm sugar, mint, galangal and lemongrass.

plated dessert II - pumpkin_pomegranate

 

pomegranate & brown butter vinaigrette, toasted kataifi, warm spice butternut squash custard, amchur sugar-salt dusted pumpkin & sesame seed crunch, feta & goat's curd sorbet.

plated dessert I - miso_fennel

bonsoy jelly. moromi & white miso, amaranth financiere. honey fennel caramel ice milk. amaranth-fennel lavosh dusted with sumac & maldon salt. honey, slow toasted cashew, fennel, cocoa nib & cumquat marmalade florentine.

Hot Chocolate in London

When it gets cold out, or suddenly chilly, or Autumn's leaves begin to whisper in, or scarves begin living around my neck, I think of Hot Cocoa & Hot Chocolate {no, they are not the same.}. I want to drink hot chocolate liquid for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I do, in secret or in public, as often as I can.

In London, part of the EU and in very close proximity to countries boasting the best chocolate making in the world, finding hot cocoa or hot chocolate worth a swallow, is harder than one might think.

But I have recently found 3 locations doing their best to convince me otherwise.

Pictured here on the right is Story Deli's little glass mug of deeply hot chocolate joy. Neither Novel, nor deli, Story Deli is a modern organic pizza restaurant deep within the folds of crazy manic super duper trendy Brick Lane madness.

When my ex pastry chef companion ordered it off the menu, we practically cried with happiness, after trial sips, at the fact that it was indeed real dairy & chocolate they had decided to put in that glass! Hot cocoa in London mostly consists of water, or skim milk if you're lucky, artificially flavored cocoa-ish substance and way too much sugar. {Can someone please tell me why a country producing some of the best dairy in the world has embraced skim milk for all of their cafes & restaurants?}

The second restaurant to completely take me off guard with it's organic milk and slow moving, practically ganache, river of chocolate wallop was Leon. With plenty of locations around London, I might have expected chain-like beverages & insipid concoctions, but no. I went to a knitting 'event' put on by Stitch & Bitch London last week, and when someone ordered the hot chocolate and the perfume attacked me from across the table, I knew. I knew I had inadvertently discovered another.

Pictured on the left is a hot cocoa worth runner up mention, for grace, poise and effort. Flat White's hot cocoa plate could be the best looking hot cocoa in London, but it was short on taste I am sad to admit.

So for third place I have to say The Modern Pantry is doing its very best to create a London hot chocolate worthy of mention. If you make it there, be sure to have a small one, at least, and tell me what you think. Being such a fan of theirs, I've secretly shared some of my opinionated thoughts with them.

Always on the lookout for fantastic hot cocoas & hot chocolates in London, please do share your favourite spots-- any list of liquid chocolate locations is a friend of mine!

rochelle canteen, arnold circus e2

 

there's a secret doorway in east london.
it's on a round-about with a circular park in the middle.
you press a bell. it's labeled canteen.
you need to know that the hours they keep are odd, and few.
you need to be free for lunch.
on weekdays.

it helps if you're not overly privileged, or think that restaurants must be a certain way to please you.
this one's quiet, like the shy smart girl wearing stripes in the library.

the food is hearty, a little frenchified; maybe a dose of california and the setting is quiet and quirky.

  the menu is small and changes daily.
arnold & henderson
are the restaurant.

they seem like powerful women
i'd like to meet them one day.
do you think they would like it if i brought some cake or lyle's golden syrup toffee/caramels?

 
p.s. arnold & henderson also do weddings.

Duck Breast on Apricot & Red Onion Tart. The Harwood Arms

More photos on Flickr.

Yes, I like the Harwood Arms. A lot. /too much.

One can't help but appreciate a chef who can create savoury food and desserts, both exceedingly well & delicious. I'm talking about Stephen Williams.

101 Cookbooks & Big Sur Bakery Hide Bread

If you want to know what I'm doing right now, just about every day, for hours upon overlapped hours at a time; I'm working. Restaurant schedules, otherwise known as ROTA's in London, are quite a bit different than they are in the US. Most restaurants have 1 shift per day-- it is a day. Lunch & Dinner is what you work, if you work that day. Especially in Michelin rated restaurants.

My job is a little more human. If you work from morning to morning it's considered 2 shifts and it's called a 'double.' But we don't work them every day. In fact most of us only work 1 double a week, with a cap on 7 shifts.

But tomorrow I go in for a double which will be followed by a double, so I won't re-surface until my 'lie in' on Saturday. And then I work Saturday night.

But I wanted to pass something on to you.

A bread I'm obsessed with making/perfecting.

Heidi, over at the inimitable 101 Cookbooks, has kindly passed on a recipe from the new (anyone wanna send me one?) Big Sur Bakery Cookbook. It's called Hide Bread and you'll have to read her post, or better yet the cookbook, to know why it's called that.

All I know is that it's one helluva bread, and you don't even need yeast or a mixer to make it! Two bowls, a floury surface, a knife and an oven. Check.

Here in England the flour is really different than it is in the States, so I've been tweaking and toying and teasing this fine bread bun into healthful submission, a wee bit at a time. Know this before anything else: flour is REALLY absorbent here. If you think you need more moisture to feed this thirsty beast, you do. Do not keep cakes and muffins and cookies and bread away from the hydration they crave.

If you do, you will be left with a crumbly mess, a baked good worthy of nothing more than a smudge of forgiveness, something to drown under cream or custard; or is in the case with bread: Breadcrumbs.

This bread, this resource, is a keeper. It is an amazing bread toasted. It keeps, wrapped after cooling down completely, for 3-5 days on your kitchen counter. It's great sliced for eating and cubed for croutons. I love it with butter and marmalade, but it's also great at room temperature & naked.

I'm serious when I say I have a fixation on getting it just so. And now I have a kitchen to do it in.

As one word of 'warning': sunflower seeds, when baked, put out some sort of plant-chemical and they turn seriously green inside the bread. Do Not Be Alarmed-- this is natural and normal and it is not mold.

Until I recover from my four shifts, my two doubles, my deep immersion into the land of breakfast-brunch-lunch-and-dinner, retail baked goods, new & improved plated desserts and bread basket baking, I bid you farewell.

Please consider making this bread. And if you do-- tell us all your results, yeah?

Cheers, thanks. Ta.

plated desserts, in words

devil's food cake
crunchy buckwheat
amedei milk chocolate cream
chocolate-almond-buckwheat dacquoise
hot fudge sauce
dark chocolate granita
milk chocolate-cocoa nib-crunchy buckwheat-maldon salt 'candy'
        --plated on a plate

crunchy buckwheat is buckwheat groats simmered in oil until toasted
'candy' is made by melting cocoa butter & chocolate, rolling between layers of parchment & chilling
dacquoise is not a true dacquoise because I've added buckwheat flour as well as crunchy buckwheat, but it still has that light but unleavened quality indicative of an egg white cake

spicy thai coconut soup sorbet
cilantro (fresh coriander)-kalamansi lime-cucumber-thai basil soup
mango slivers, diced jicama, cherries, nectarines, watermelon triangles
        -- plated in a bowl

coconut sorbet is infused with galangal, ginger, green & red chillies, fresh & dried coriander, mustard seeds, basil, and dessicated coconut, then mounted with coconut milk
dessert is inspired by highlighting summer fruits & veg in gazpacho

ginger jelly
forbidden black & sticky rice
coconut cream
coconut caramel
fried sticky rice, two ways, sprinkled with amchur-salt-sugar
fresh dice pineapple
        --plated in a glass

ginger jelly has a kick from a long infusion/boil
forbidden black rice has one of the most amazing flavors & colours of any ingredient i've come accross. it's purple and black & blue mixed. while it is not 'sticky,' it works well with a sticky rice because both have their own distinct personalities
sticky rice is fried after it is cooked and sheeted single layer. it is also fried after sheeting much finer between two pieces of lightly oiled parchment, left to dry on stove & fried. the former method created little crunchy bits, the latter creates a rice 'cracker,' ---- light and aerated, like a puff

summer fruit desserts, in London.

I'm back working in a restaurant after what feels like many years. Moving thousands of miles can do that-- separate you from what you know, and remove the ground from beneath your feet. What was a recent experience can feel far away in lieu of disorientation.

For the last 11 years, the ground beneath my chef feet has been seasonal, local, mostly organic fruit; and my moniker, 'fruit-inspired pastry chef,' has been my guiding force. I have picked fruit, worked for farmers at favorite farmer's markets and eaten my weight in citrus and stone fruit many times over. I said for years anad years that I stayed in California for its gratuitous fruit array.

But here in London, fruit is an afterthought. Besides apples and pears in autumn, and gooseberries, elderflowers and strawberries in summer, which few do better than Britain, fruit comes from very far away and few people know when to buy it at its peak. Most fruit and vegetables are here year round, but flown in from various countries and continents catchers-catch can style, making fruit buying confusing at best.

And because few fruits are grown in British soil, they arrive with a high price tag. Using fruit as a primary focus for a plated dessert, here in London, is a bad idea, cost-wise. But also flavour-wise, because seasonal fruit in South Africa or Spain, or even a country as close as France, is probably not picked and shipped as ripe as one would hope.

All this said, I have found trusted places to buy UK seasonal fruit. And the restaurant I work for is produce-centric and we use an amazing produce purveyor, so I feel infinitely grateful/lucky to have well-chosen product close by.

That said, what desserts are on the horizon?

I'm thinking about tahini, white chocolate, bananas, tamarind, black sesame seeds, grapefruit; Thai coconut soup sorbet; manouri, strawberries & pink peppercorns; gooseberries, mint, rosemary, elderflowers & corn; mango inspired gazpacho; buckwheat & chocolate; brown butter, raw sugar, frangipane & nectarines; young coconut, black rice, caramel. For our retail shop I'm contemplating sandwich cookies, chocolate bouchons, Lamingtons, real graham crackers, verbena profiteroles, tart lemon drizzle cakes, peanut financiers, and rich bread & butter puddings.

Moving to a new place means thinking different. Cooking and baking professionally for a new public means learning about their collective palates and historical connections to food, fruit, baked goods, salt. I can still bring me to the table, but I have to compromise too. I can't move forward: careerwise, dessertwise, bakingwise; if I do not take into consideration new soil, new people, new fruit, new seasons, new pace, new price-point, new retail environment, new attitudes about communication/confrontation, new communication styles, new everything, really.

I look forward to changing styles a bit. While I will always be a fruit-inspired pastry chef, I look forward to thinking differently, in a new way, to meet my new surroundings and continue to grow. One can get too comfortable/ too ghetto-ized/ too smug in one's niche/ geographical area/ style. Stuck.

If nothing else, it should be interesting.

Underground Restaurant by @MsMarmitelover. Kilburn, London 13.06.09

you have been on twitter for a while
but when you move 8000 miles away twitter becomes something else, explodes
suddenly it's like when you first met the internet
everything new, you are innocent and trusting
and go to people's houses
you've never met, in Real Life, before.
Oneday
in the land of
nothingness that is neither working nor vacationing
you get a DM
'hey-- you wanna be a guest chef at my Underground Restaurant?' the person's name is @MsMarmitelover.
you say yes and head to her house
even though you have no idea what train you're on and how to get there.

you both talk about a lot of things.
but what catches your breath is that you speak of one of your most favoritest dishes to make and eat
EGGPLANT PARMESAN
you both agree:
when it's Done Right
it takes all day.
and an idea is born.


you know British strawberries will arrive just before June 13
and you don't know what you'll make for pudding/dessert
but you know it will be All About Those Amazing Strawberries.

while you've never been to or cheffed at an Underground Restaurant, you've done a fair amount of onsite catering and know you can handle it. you don't sweat the small stuff and you can pass on a few restaurant tricks. but it's not about any of that. it's about
COLLABORATION
COMRADERIE
COMMUNITY
ACCESS
REVOLUTION
HOME
HEART
GENEROSITY
delicious food.



to see the menu in it's entirety, photographed by the fabulous @MsMarmitelover, go to her blog The English Can Cook. The craziest thing you'll see is me in a dress in the kitchen !

My favourite lines from her inital post on our dinner:
"Shuna Fish Lydon is a specialist in patisserie and custards. What she doesn't know about eggs is not worth knowing."

*

For the photos I managed to catch between prep, plate-up, keeping tidy and generally taking in the whole scene with my heart and mind, check out my set on Flickr.

~

Underground Restaurants -
putting the u back in Guerilla.

underground restaurant above ground menu {ideas}

On Saturday June 13, Shuna fish Lydon is a guest chef at @MsMarmitelover's Underground Restaurant Extra Ordinaire!

Here are our ideas for what it will look like, although everything is subject to change because of availability

or whim.

bread
seeded crackers

starter
chunky gazpacho
goat yogurt granite + basil jelly
chilled fresh tomato soup, croutons

main
eggplant parmesan

salad
rocket + chicory + lemon + pinenuts

dessert
strawberry bavarois + strawberry & herb salad
rosemary shortbread, strawberry relish, ricotta mousse
strawberry granita, sheeps yogurt lebne, pistachio salad
carneroli-bay laurel pudding, strawberry salad, pistachio & rose petal shortbread

Menus are ideas, thoughts, musings, concepts, theory, themes, tradition, revolution, albums, one-offs, off the cuff, pre-meditated, conjecture, psychotic breaks, dreams, stolen kisses, drunk black outs, cock walks, demure courtship, powerplay, negotiation, vanilla lovely dovey rool arounds, theater, dance, Be Ins, walkouts, strikes, community efforts, and...

They grow in the ground, near the sea's edge, in our hearts.

I'll let you know via photos and musings how the day and night went once all is told, fed, washed, minced, chilled, forked, spooned, quenelled, poached, whisked, baked, tasted, nibbled, imbibed,

satiated.

Until next time.

Tamarillo! my new favorite fruit.

TAMARILLO !

The Mystery Fruit is Solved.
Thank you to all who participated! Many of you were spot on. The rest of you were close or had great guesses.

The lovely Tamarillo is sweet & savoury
tomatoey & melony
elusive like a papaya,
enigmatic fruit like cucumber,
gorgeous to look at
deeply scented like a handsome farmer,
"rich in vitamin E but low in carbohydrates,"
photogenic
sexy



Tamarillo. Tamarillo. O Tamarillo!



Tamarillos are
edible
raw
or cooked



seedy, crunchy, jelly-like
voluptuous
strong
quirky
strange

Tamarillos straddle many fences.
Not everyone will like them.

Tamarillos will keep you on your toes.
And tease you
taunt
with their
je ne sais quoi
flavour.

What is the Tamarillo flavour?
Sun ripened tomato  melon  papaya  guava  red beet.



Tamarillos are the pride of New Zealand.
Yet another reason to go there.

*


This post is dedicated to Keith, who first introduced me to the Tamarillo with his poetic words about Tamarillo Jelly (jelly is something very different outside of the States) and then brought me to The Modern Pantry where I experienced poached tamarillo in Greek yogurt, garnished with New Zealand's famous Manuka honey. After that I was never the same. Obsessed.

So, thank you Anna Hansen for introducing London, and me, to this magnificent fruit!

This post is also dedicated to Bea Vo of her eponymous bakery, Bea's of Bloomsbury. Last week I had the honour of playing in her illustrious kitchen and she sent me home with a flat of raw tamarillos!

And you? Do you have a fondness for this fruit? What do you love about it? What do you do with it?

The Harwood Arms, Gastropub Extra Ordinaire. Fulham, London

Not all 'gastro-pubs' are created equal.
Some are just pubs with a big kitchen.
Some are superfancy fried food joints.
And then
there's pubs like Anchor & Hope or
The Harwood Arms
who blow you away.

Compared with food-centric American cities, London is not known for 'destination eating.' Meaning, unless for a Michelin rated experience, Londoners will rarely travel clear across the city for a meal, a drink, a baguette or a sweet thing. One has one's 'local,' and that about does it. For the food obsessed, though, there are of course exceptions.

I went to The Harwood Arms once, by happenstance. Close friends of mine were married in Fulham, and booked the gastro-pub for their meal and reception afterwords. It was one of the most seamless restaurant 'large party' experiences I was ever part of. The house decorated a long farmhouse table in clementines and rose petals, and when our pre-arranged meal came out, many of us were rendered speechless as the food was gorgeously presented, well-executed and stunningly delicious.
But every time I attempted to go there again, from late winter to early spring, they were booked to capacity and unable to seat me.



Until last Bank Holiday Monday.
San Franciscan friends were visiting and I wanted to introduce them to a piece of London they might not otherwise be in the know about.

Our entire meal, complete with an ending of every single dessert (or pudding, as it is named in Britain) is documented in a set on flickr.
I beg of you to make a booking here. Especially if you know you're on your way to London.
I dare say you will not be disappointed.

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.

How Do I Get a Professional Cooking/Baking Job in a Restaurant?

As you know, I get a lot of questions from cooks or future cooks from all over the world. When I started eggbeater I didn't really understand the internet, and I didn't know people from everywhere would be reading it, or even that they would get to it from someplace other than the exact location I was writing it from. You could say I was naive. You'd be correct, and diplomatic.

People want to know how they can become a chef, pastry chef, or even start cooking professionally. People want to know what to do when the kitchens they work in suck. Female cooks want to know exactly how much harassment they should take. Everyone wants me to tell them which is the best culinary school. A lot of people want to know what the pay scale is. Many people ask Google how many hours they should expect to work as a chef/cook.

But the question I get most is how to land the very first job, stagiere, apprenticeship.

How do I get my first cooking job?
What will the interview be like?
How long does it take to become a pastry chef?
Can I work for you?

I write, and have written, the same email response over and over and over. You'd think by now I'd have a form-letter, but I'm still a little naive, so I don't.

And because I have recently started pounding the pavement again, I can say that my own advice, after 17 years, still works.

Here are my standard tips for getting into your first kitchen, and maybe some more, if you so choose to make kitchens your life, love and home.

1. Eat out as much as you can afford. Bring a little notebook and pen with you wherever you go. Take notes. When you find a menu you love, ask your waiter for the full name of the chef and pastry chef. Ask what the hours of said restaurant are.
2. Print out your resume/CV and bring it, in person, to this restaurant and ask for the chef/pastry chef by full name. Only go to a restaurant before services. If a place is open for lunch and dinner it's best to show up between 3-4 pm. Never ever ever ever call or go to a restaurant and ask for anyone managerial while service is going on.
3. Flattery will get you everywhere. Tell said chef you loved her/his food when you ate there and that you would love to work in their kitchen. Questions to come out of your mouth sound something like this: 'Are there any entry level positions open?' 'Do you have room for a stagiere?' 'Can I come in for a stagiere?' You are humble. You will take any position. You know little. But you are firm and have conviction. You go to that back door every day and ask for the person you need to speak with if it's the place you want to work.
4. Do not wait for a phone call back.
5. Do not email your resume/CV as an attachment.
6. Do not take rejection as such until you have exhausted all your options.
7. Do not take rejection personally. Do not take acceptance personally either. Most chefs love free labour and if you land an entry level position, you will still have to work hard to earn respect in the kitchen.
8. Read as much as you can about said chef/restaurant. If you make it into the kitchen spend all your waking hours reading local papers, food magazines, blogs, and cookbooks covering said cuisine.
9. IMMERSE YOURSELF. In all things food, cooking, baking, ingredients, agriculture, butchery.
10. Take notes.
11. Buy these things for every job and never go to work without them:
12. Thick Sharpie, A little notebook that fits in your back pocket and 1 indelible pen that is not a thick sharpie.
13. Always leave a little time before you enter the kitchen for Mental Mis en Place. This is as important as your physical tools like knives, off-set spatulas and shoes you can stand for 16 hours in.
14. When you are in the kitchen, learn everyone's {full} names and histories. Get their information and keep in touch with them long after you leave said job. It is from my relationships to other cooks that I have gotten 98% of my jobs.
15. Your knives should always be sharp. You do not need a lot of them.
16. Get to work early and stay late. Watch and learn from the best people in the kitchen. Fellow cooks don't talk or give advice a lot in the kitchen but their movements, set-up, and how they fare during service will tell you more than they could.
17. Stay humble. People who have been cooking for decades and decades will die knowing less than most people think they know in their first few years cooking/baking. Cooking is a craft, not an acquisition.
18. Stay in every kitchen for at least 1 year in your first 5 years.

No matter your age, gender, sexual preference, religion, and class, when you are at the bottom of the brigade/totem pole, you are truly at the bottom. Learn how to wash dishes even if it's not your job title. Be available for anything.

Even if you are a stagiere, act like the job is a job. If all the chef has available is a stage, make a serious intentional arrangement about time. Just going in when it suits you will not build enough of a rhythm to learn from, at least not in the beginning.

If you really want to cook professionally, and all the restaurants in your area are chains or run by Shoemakers, you will have to move.

People keep writing to me about their horrible kitchens. Chefs with little to no integrity. Dirty disgusting kitchens. Kitchens putting their workers and diners at risk with food and safety issues.

If you work in a kitchen that is not safe for anyone working or dining there, leave. If you want to make a difference, access your local authorities. You can not make an anonymous claim, though. If you're going to advocate, you have to be brave.

I took Whole Foods to the National Labor Relations Board {NLRB} and filed a claim with OSHA when I was about 22, so I don't want to hear you're too young or scared of your job or whatever when it comes to reporting the kitchen you show up every day to.

If you want to cook professionally you may want to stop watching kitchen reality shows.
If you want to cook professionally you should have money in the bank or very cheap rent or a spouse to support you.
If you want to cook professionally you immediately give up having a 'normal' life with 'normal' working hours.
If you want to cook professionally you will have to really want it. Above all else.
If you want to cook professionally go after it like nothing else. Stop at nothing.
If you want to cook professionally you will, if it's all you can think about. If you can afford to do so. If you set your mind to it.

When will you be a chef?

That I can't say. For that there is no bullet point list, no advice, no recipe.

I didn't start cooking profdessionally to become a chef or be a chef or arrive as a chef. I started cooking professionally because it was all I wanted to do at a very particular time in my life. I didn't go to culinary school, I did not own a single knife, I did not know what an 'all-day' was.

I learned everything on the job. And so can you. Or you can go to school. Or take all that money you would sign over to a school, put it in the bank, and go work for someone whose food you love for free and live on that bank account.

I'm here to say that flattery is the best way to get your foot in a seemingly solid steel door. I recently took a CV to a restaurant I like a lot. I said these words,

"Hello. I've only been here to eat a few times but I love it. I'm in the industry-- I'm a cook, and I happen to have my CV with me. But I want you to know this: even if you never call me, I am going to come back. I have recommended __________ to many people and I will continue to do so. Just in case the chef needs any help, I'm available for any position."

And I got a phone call. And a trail/day stage.

While I have no idea what will happen, a lot has happened already because I was able to work for 12 hours inside one of the most inspirational kitchens I have ever had the priveledge to be in.

When the chef asked me why I had given the restaurant my CV even though no position was being advertised, I said, "Where I come from, if a resume comes to me and I can not utilize said person, I pass it along to someone I respect who can. If I gave you my CV, and I love your food, and you did the same, I would trust that my name would be passed along to someone else I would want to work for."

Rule of thumb: the more people who see your resume/CV, the more likelihood of getting a job. And if you never burn any bridges it's great because the cooking world is small. I recently traveled 8,000 miles only to work with a pastry chef who had gone to school with and worked for some of the very same people I had, in the exact same kitchens!

And now I'm in a completely foreign city, connecting with cooks and bakers, following the same advice I'm giving you.

Be brave. Be bold.

This industry isn't for the faint of heart. It's for the passionate, the crazy, the driven, the competitive.
This industry is a knitted series of networks of people who are like tiny cities/families unto themselves.
This industry is my home, my heart, my love, my people, brethren.

But it's not a part time job. And it's not impossible to enter.

Perhaps I have now finally created my form-letter response...
I do hope this helps.

Fellow cooks/chefs/bakers/pastry chefs-- any more advice to add to the list?
People entering the industry-- what has worked for you? What hasn't?

Petersham Nurseries for lunch at the Tea House.

I just wanted to remind you, and you know who you are, to go to Petersham Nurseries if you have not yet been. I realize that it's quite dear to eat in the restaurant. And that it's a bit far away.
But you know what?
There's nothing like it.
It's gorgeous, enchanting, delicious,
and you can get there by boat or Overground, not just Rail. So there. Easy-peasy.
Need a photographic prod? Here, take a gander.



As a reminder, the cafe serves food just as delicious as the restaurant, but not nearly as expensive.
It's open Wednesday - Sunday 12 Noon - 2:45 pm

I realize there's a notion that expensive eateries are more firmly grounded than more reasonable ones, but I am here to state for the record, as a chef and friend of many a restaurateur, places like Petersham Nursuries need continual support to remain who they are striving to be. The food here is clean, bright, fresh, hearty, nourishing and made with love.
And the Eccles Cakes are not half bad either. {I have knowledge from the inside.}



I hope you make it out here. If you go for the first time because I've leaned on you, can you let me us know what you thought?

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.