Just Don't Do It!!!

"Don't do it!"

Far too often this is the rote response from a colleague or hospitality-food & beverage professional/expert when approached by someone seeking advice:
"Do you have any suggestions for someone who is looking to get into the restaurant industry?"
"Don't. Do. It!"

These are the same people that will usually lament that there are no good applicants for vacant jobs, whinging about staff shortages and the lack of training for the staff that do eventually show up at the back door. There may be an easy solution to this problem: we should work hard to make people want to join the hospitality industry instead of scaring and steering them away.

The number of people whose first job is in the hospitality industry is over 30%, and it is consistently one of the industries that employs the most people in this country. So why is it that we have staff shortages? It seems like the jaded old-timers are focused solely on the negatives of the industry, and won't even allow new employees the time and space to figure out if they like the work, and the culture, on their own accord.

I know that it is hard. It is hard work. It is hard on a person both mentally and physically. It is hard on sobriety. It is hard on relationships with anyone outside of the industry, including spouses, children, friends...acquaintances.But these same challenges can pay huge dividends as well: it is an industry that opens the world up for you to travel in, the typical hours of restaurant work open your schedule for other creative endeavours and taking advantage of the "gig economy" during your off-hours. You will learn valuable skills, (cooking, interpersonal communication, problem solving, critical thinking, inventory control, purchasing, merchandising, marketing, promotions, time management), many of which you will use daily for the rest of your life, regardless of your final career path.

Chef Gary Hunter, Vice Principal for Hospitality and Adult Learning at London's Westminster Kingsway College laments the lack of new entrants into the field despite the popularity of TV cooking shows. As a professional educator, he has a simple three-part plan to attract new employees which includes the embracing of apprenticeship programs, and putting potential employees into paid/real-world-experience positions. Get them into restaurants, hotels, and clubs and let them see, first-hand, how rewarding--and challenging--a career can be.

And just because someone isn't a "hard body," or they don't have that slightly masochistic personality, or they have a different career in mind doesn't mean that we should close the door to entry before they've crossed the threshold. In fact, some of the best cooks I have ever employed were merely "passing through," and were working to get through college, or figuring out what they wanted to be when they grew up. Yes! This was frustrating at times, hopefully they will look back on their time with me and say that it was valuable in one way or another (beyond a pay check or lift pass). These employees are just as vital to the continued success of the industry, and we shouldn't pass them over.  Hopefully, they will work for you and think, "hey! This is pretty cool" and end up spending more time than they had planned in hospitality, or even ultimately make it their career (which is exactly what happened to me!)

And I think we can all agree that there are some challenges to being a hospitality industry employee that are challenging; these shouldn't be exaggerated to hyperbole or sugar coated. And the benefits are myriad, and these too should be delivered in a realistic and measured way. This honesty and transparency will both attract and repel, we just need to be collectively smart enough to welcome those that are attracted into the fold.

Putting the work in

It's springtime, and a chef's fancy turns to mentoring; specifically through judging state-level/high school ProStart culinary competitions. In the course of seeing 100's of young cooks cooking I was reminded of the beginnings of my career and my apprenticeship. I am also reminded of my overblown sense of self-worth which cost me the opportunity to work for a highly regarded, award winning chef, and how I must have looked to people who interviewed me for a job.


After completing my apprenticeship I moved to Arizona and embarked upon my first job search in five years. It took a while to gain traction, but I remember getting some okay responses, finally landing a position with a nationally flagged hotel chain; which I subsequently quit because the position was "below me and not what I want to do with my career," (I was subsequently rehired with a promotion and a raise).

As I worked in the hotel's banquet kitchen I convinced myself that I should be a sous chef/executive chef somewhere else, and within six months I filled every day off I had looking for a new job. Not surprisingly, (ok, in actuality--and looking back, I had NO reason to expect call backs, let alone interview for anything more than a line cook position), I was getting called in to several restaurants to interview for sous chef positions.

My ego was enormous!

I would tell potential employers during my first interview that I would not do huge, lengthy prep tasks. I would refuse to work certain days. Every answer in an interview I gave then, are the exact same answers that would stop a potential cook's interview to work for me, now, before it started! Not surprisingly...I remained at the hotel as a banquet cook; no one was hiring me to be their sous chef.

"Their loss..."

Then one day I got a phone call for an interview for another sous chef position.  But this was not an average sous chef position. This was for the OG chef in town. One of the early practitioners of Southwestern Cuisine. A contemporary of Fearing and Miller. A James Beard Award winner. An early champion of exploring and resuscitating the lost indigenous foodways of his surrounds.

JACKPOT!

I headed off to the interview. I arrived and was welcomed into the restaurant by the chef de cuisine, and met The Chef.  I answered some preliminary questions, and was dispatched to do a bench test in what could be best described as a garage off of the chef's office kitted out with plastic folding tables to prep on.

I gladly and cheerfully embarked on the tasks set before me. When I was done, Chef came out to talk to me. He thanked me for coming in and that he enjoyed meeting me...but I wasn't going to get the sous chef job.  He did offer me a job as a line cook, a position which he was not hiring for previously, and was creating solely to bring me onto his team...which I turned down out of hand.

I'm a SOUS CHEF, damnit!

It would be another two-years before I would be offered, and accept my first sous chef position. Two-years of hard work, learning, college classes, staging, volunteering for opportunities to work with other chefs for free, reading every cookbook and culinary magazine I could get my hands on...

Seven-years after my interview with The Chef, I found myself in his dining room, in his newly-custom built restaurant; I was a chef myself by this time. He came to the table; sat with us and discussed the menu. Asked my date and I what our wine preference was and recommended, (and comped), a bottle of his favorite wine. He was cordial far beyond standard professional courtesy.

He sent a message without saying a word.

Now, as I mentor cooks and chefs I can't help but relate my experiences as I help them navigate their own career paths. There are no shortcuts, and they need to live a purposeful life; knowing that every move they make today needs to be moving them closer to their ultimate goal. Be humble and never turn down an opportunity to learn. When it's your time, and it will come, you will know; be patient but be continually working towards where you want to be.

Put the work in.

Mise en place! Mise En Place!! MISE EN PLACE!!! pt. 2

It was a lonely walk to the South Side of Syracuse.  One where my anger had slowly become self-loathing.  In the course of 6-hours I had gone from being, (at least what I perceived), "The Chosen One" to a cook not worthy of preparing family meal.  In my mind I was sunk.  Time to move on, but where?  By the time I arrived home I was emotionally drained, and had beaten myself up pretty badly.  I went to bed hoping that things would "sort themselves out" in the morning.

The next morning I woke up.  The sun was shining.  I was still a shite cook.  Almost three years gone of my apprenticeship, nearly 5-years into my cooking career and I.  Was.  Shite.

I threw some ska on the stereo, turned it up so that I could hear it outside, and headed to the picnic table in the front yard armed with coffee, cigarettes, pen and paper to figure it out.  Smoking cigarette after cigarette, I stopped feeling sorry for myself, and turned my venom outward.

"[Bleep], Chef!"

"[Bleep] that place!"

"I don't need to put up with that kind of verbal assault!!!  [Bleep]!!!  Him!!!"

And then, without even realizing it, I turned the corner.  I was going to work tomorrow, Thursday.  If I didn't, Chef would beat me.  And there was NO WAY he was going to beat me!  And then I realized he may have been right about me.

Both that I was a colossal screw up, and that I deserved that shot at a Tuesday night shift.

Up until this point, I had survived my apprenticeship as the comedic foil to the chef, as well as by being THE grammar/spelling resource of the kitchen.  And I did have some average cooking chops at that point.  The day before had really driven home the point that the truth hurts.  I was not ready for service, and what I thought was mise en place wasn't close to actual mise en place.

The Chef could do 25 covers working out of a cooler with one arm tied behind his back because he could, after years of training.  There was no way I could do that then, (I still freak out a little in my head when I have had to cover a line solo).

And like a swift slap to the face, I was enlightened.  I truly understood what mise en place was.  Not only did it mean making sure I have enough food prepared for my section for service- and this is a huge part of it- it also meant making sure that my bain-marie of utensils was stocked with what I needed for service and in the same place every time, that I wasn't just prepping, but setting myself up for success."Why reach into the cooler every time I need a certain condiment instead of keeping it in an ice-bath on the counter?'  "Why not slice and toast my burger buns ahead of time and just reheat them when I needed them?"  It all clicked.

There was nothing cool about failing to do my job and set my section up, and let the Chef down.  I would rather look like a newbie and have every piece of mise en place in ice-bath at arm's reach to make it through service successfully with satisfied guests and a happy Chef.  I was in-it-to-win-it.  My days of being the class clown were over, or at least tempered by the fact that i couldn't just coast by anymore.  I was about to be dumped out of the nest and I needed to get.  It.  Together.

As I walked to work on Thursday I spent the majority of my time thinking about what, and how, I would do things differently.  To make things right; and I made a decision that I was going to do it "the right way" every time for the rest of time.

I slunk in the kitchen door that day, hoping to avoid Chef at all costs.  He saw me.  But, it was never spoken of again, and I know that the fact that I returned to work, (early for my shift even), earned me some respect and credibility from Chef and all of the other cooks who had already heard about my epic ass-chewing!!!

The lesson learned was that mise en place is EVERYTHING when setting yourself up for success.  Most of us keep absolutely meticulous lists of the minutia needed to run our sections down to filling the salt and pepper grinders.  From the outside I'm sure it looks like cooks have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, put without obsessively making sure that every food item, no matter how trivial, is prepared, or making sure that the fish spatula is where the fish spatula belongs in the bain marie the "wheels would come off" during service.

And take it from me that that is NOT what you want to have happen as either a guest or a cook.

Mise en place! Mise En Place!! MISE EN PLACE!!! pt. 1

Mise en place is a fairly common term in kitchens: literally "put in place," it is an essential ethos for making sure that your section is prepared, physically and mentally, with all of the necessary ingredients to execute a service in place.  A place for everything and everything in its place.  I had heard the term mise en place since my days as a dishwasher, so as a cook I was certain I knew exactly how to prepare proper mise en place.

Then one day while still in my apprenticeship, a day that became as pivotal in my becoming a chef as any other -a conscious moment of "this determines what happens from here on out"- I truly learned what mise en place was all about:

My apprenticeship was far more well-rounded than the horror-story-apprenticeships of cooks who did nothing but sit in a basement room and polish copper pans all-day.  Or stand in a scullery 16-hours a day peeling root vegetables that would never be used for more than family meal, just to come back and do the same task day-in, day-out, for months on end...with no chance of ever cooking on the line.  Wednesday's was a heavy prep of mise en place for the garde-manger station for the week and working the occasional cold garde-manger shift on the line.  Thursdays and Fridays were prep and private events.  Saturdays were almost always weddings, the ilk of which featured florist bills that eclipsed my yearly earnings.  Sundays and Mondays were taken up by brunch, prep, and either private or charity events for well over 300 guests.  And then there was Tuesday.

Tuesday night was the "prestige" shift for the young commis and chefs de partie.  It was the night when you worked the a la carte line solo.  No Executive Chef.  No Sous Chefs.  No safety nets.  No one else except for a bartender to take food orders and run food.  It was a young cook's chance to prove to the Chef that they were ready for bigger tasks and to be trusted on the dinner line as more than a "salad shooter."

In retrospect, we probably made a lot more out of it than it was.  The menu was reduced to the Grille Room Menu: sandwiches, salads, and foods of the "fryo-lated" arts for simplicity of prep, execution, and clean-up...and minimizing our chances of screwing it up.  Rarely, if ever, did we serve more than 15 guests between 4:30 and 9:00 PM.  For these reasons it was the one shift of the week that the Chefs were guaranteed to have off.  It was idiot proof.

I finally got my shot at a Tuesday night shift somewhere in the last year of my apprenticeship.  When I arrived the Sous Chef, Jeff, was getting ready to leave for the day.  He gave me a brief rundown of  the lay of the land, pointed out a few small prep items to be completed and then bolted out the back door of the kitchen to enjoy the nearly six-hours of sunlight left in the day.

"I've got this!" I thought as I went about finishing the remaining prep, and setting up my mise en place for service.  Now, when I say that I "set up" it would be more accurate to say that I set up the line like the Chef or Jeff would have: very minimally as to facilitate little to break-down/clean-up at the end of the shift.  First solo shift, I can show that not only can I hang with the Chefs, I can do it just like them.

As we neared the 4:30 opening time I expected the parking lot that was overflowing with cars would start thinning out, and only the after-work golfers would be left to worry about feeding.  Two things I failed to recognize or take into account: 1) the main reason guests didn't come in to eat on Tuesday nights was because the Chef and Doug weren't there and they were loathe to be fed by the likes of me, 2) the Chef WAS there this Tuesday for meetings, menu consultations with future brides, and essentially making busy-work for himself in another part of the building to be my lifeline, but just far enough away so as not to destroy my (over)confidence by seeming like he didn't trust me with his baby.

And because Chef was there, and parked out front of the club house so that I wouldn't see his car, most of those members and guests who would have headed home, or away from the club at the very least, decided to have the Chef cook them dinner this particular Tuesday night.  Right from "Jump!" I was in the weeds.  I was not even remotely organized enough to be considered disorganized.  I had Z-E-R-O real mise en place on the line.  I was clown shoes.  I was going down, and quick...

And then Chef came through the swinging doors,  I must have looked relieved, and given the hint of a "phew! The cavalry is here!" kind of smile, and I watched Chef put an apron on over his street clothes.  What came next was awful.

While I know the gist of the message was about me not knowing what mise en place means/how to prepare mise en place/where is your mise en place?, I can not to this day remember the exact words that were hurled at me that night.

My Chef, my mentor, my friend, was tearing me a new orifice with the kind of veracity and ferociousness I had only heard from sports coaches during my youth.  But this was expletive laden.  Surgically taking me apart word-by-word.  Hours long, and 100% accurate.  I was cooking with both my head and my tail between my legs-on the verge of tears-and with only my stubbornness keeping me from walking off of the line and out of that kitchen, (honestly, I had watched a recent graduate of the Culinary Institute of America get kicked off the line the previous winter, and I knew that if I left the line- let alone the kitchen- it would only make it worse).  As the orders fired out of the printer it seemed as if Chef's tongue lashing only intensified.  After the longest service of my young career, it was over.  Everyone was fed and the parking lot started to empty.  I had survived, even if I had been screamed at maniacally for the last 3-hours.

I was feeling low.  My confidence was beyond shaken; it didn't exist anymore.  As a parting jab, as Chef threw his apron into the linen bag, I was told to make sure I left the place spotless AND to take the next day off.

BOOM.  Being given the day off like that was essentially telling me to eff-off down the road without actually firing me, and I knew it.  I had seen it before.  As I licked the wounds from my first solo service, I was feeling equally sorry for myself and pissed off at the Chef.  I mean, we had done 75 covers on a night when 12 would have been "busy."

After making sure that the quarry tiles under the equipment had been mopped, and that every inch of stainless steel had been scrubbed I made my way to the locker room.  I hurriedly changed, and slunk out the back door; cutting across fairways and greens on my walk home...chain smoking and planning my early exit from my apprenticeship the entire way.