Chapter 28: My Philosophy

THE CHRONICLER OF THE KITCHEN                                          July 2012

Mike Campbell

MY PHILOSOPHY

“Do my best, and forget the rest".

        

USE  YOUR  HEAD

Your brain is the best tool you have!

SAFETY

“I HAVEN’T CUT MYSELF YET” is not a reason to be reckless. Knives are carried pointed down and rolls are sliced on a cutting board NOT the palm of your hand! Close the blade before you clean the slicer! Water turns to steam at 212 degrees F; so do not put your hand in immediately after opening. “USE YOUR HEAD”.    

YOUR  FECES  DOES  STINK !!!!!!!

There is only one God and He does not wear checked pants! He also does not work in a kitchen. We human vessels are weak, we blunder, and we are less than perfect, so don’t try to pass yourself off as “CHEF ALMIGHTY” and expect others to genuflect to your magnificence.

APOLOGIZE;  IT’S  THE  HARDEST  THING  YOU’LL  EVER  DO  IN  THE KITCHEN.

The “right” or “wrong” of a situation is not the issue. The paramount challenge is not poisoning your work environment and personal relationships. The constant stress of continuing an argument will make you and those around you miserable. I advise swallowing your pride, maybe feel uncomfortable for a few minutes, and moving on to a happy place.

THINK

USE YOUR HEAD FIRST AND YOUR BODY SECOND.

TREAT  OTHERS  AS  YOU  WANT  TO  BE  TREATED

Don’t talk down to others, and do not take them for granted. You can learn from everyone. You will need help at some point so do not alienate those around you.

KEEP  AN  OPEN  MIND

Try new things and new combinations. If it sounds crazy, try it anyway! You will never broaden your experiences if you travel in a rut.

ALWAYS  ASK  WHY

NEVER STOP THINKING, things can always be done better. Do not accept the answer; “I’ve been doing it this way for years”. Things change, techniques that made sense at one time may loose their relevance. Search for more efficient methods. You will NEVER know all the tricks of the trade!

WHAT’S  THE  NEXT  STEP ?

Prepare! Is your station stocked and backed up? What happens when you run out of an item? The time to answer these questions is before service not when you are in the weeds! Can I make my life easier by doing a little extra now, instead of standing around? Get out of the kitchen mindset of doing only what is required to survive this shift!

I   AM   MORE   IMPORTANT   THAN  THE  CUSTOMER

This is simple math. There may be 100 customers being fed by 3 or 4 cooks. Therefore, one cook is responsible for 25% to 33% of the plates, while a customer is one percent. A disgruntled customer may infect a few others and ownership may lose 5%. If a cook goes down, 25 % of the customers will be ill served.

TRAIN  YOURSELF  OUT  OF  A  JOB

 I learned this tenet from an old Accounting boss. How can I advance if there is no one to take my place? Train those with less skill than you. There is no faster way to get something done than to have someone else do it. I once worked for a Chef who acted as the receiving clerk and stored all the deliveries. He refused to train someone to place things where he wanted them. Instead he spent years moving boxes while lesser-paid staff was available. I WILL NEVER BE THAT CHEF!

MANAGEMENT

 This is work. Management is not pontificating and assuming things are the way you want them, just because you said so! Management requires communication, education, understanding, encouragement, accountability, and follow up.  “Follow up” is the hardest aspect of management, NEVER ASSUME. You must ensure that staff followed you instructions. If there is a mistake you want to find it first and not be embarrassed by a customer or look unqualified to a boss. If the staff is properly trained a good manager can quickly ascertain a situation. Staff must know you have performance standards. These standards must be enforced all the time, not just when you are in a bad mood!

LEARN  WHAT   NOT   TO  DO

Emulating a mentor is a great idea. Discovering qualities, characteristics, practices, or techniques in others that you admire and make your own will help us evolve. Only an active mind will seek to understand what is occurring around it. If positive attributes are rarely encountered, then study qualities that are not productive. I have found it easier to catalogue traits that I find offensive than to analyze what is being done well. A boss’s irritating traits come to my mind much quicker than the positives. When someone’s behavior irritates you, resolve not to imitate that action.

DO  IT  RIGHT  -  THE  FIRST  TIME

If you perform your tasks properly the first time you will not be doing it again. This is especially important when you are busy, if the chef is unimpressed with your product or the customer sends an item back, you will be making the dish a second time. Develop and maintain a ‘TEAM CONCEPT’. A lazy action may save you time but how many other will pay the price? Return items to their proper spot! Others will waste much more time trying to find it. Do not take someone else’s prep!

LEARN  FROM  YOUR  MISTAKES !

This is how I developed my philosophy. I have made many mistakes, bad techniques, laziness, and bad decisions. I can always improve on my mechanics, motor skills get better and faster with repetition.

Improving myself, my inner being, THAT IS THE REAL STRUGGLE.

I owe, I owe, its off to work I go.

Into THE CAULDRON!

“The difficult we do,

                             The impossible takes a little longer!”

Is tuisce deoch na sceal

Chapter 27: Kidding Me - Servers

THE CHRONICLER OF THE KITCHEN                                  February 2012

Mike Campbell

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? (Servers)

BOZONE

“The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.”

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational

Have you ever wondered if all the talk of “attention deficit disorder” and the sad state of American education is true? If you exclude any kind of computer knowledge, the answer is a thunderous and resounding YES. “The Collie Look” is as much a part of a server’s uniform as an apron. Have you ever spoken to a dog that stares at you blankly, then tilts his head and continues to stare? This is “The Collie Look”.

There are many “professionals” in the server ranks and I do not speak of them. The job of server (the old and politically incorrect call these people waiters and waitresses) is mostly staffed by people waiting to “get a real job”, usually college students. Why would I bash someone working his way through college? Details to follow.  

A young server answers the phone at a club and then scurries throughout the building looking for the manager. There is a dilemma and she is confused. Mr. Jones wants to reserve the same table he had last week, but someone moved it. What should I do? ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? She actually thought the person wanted the same table, as opposed to sitting in the same spot.

It’s late in the night and a large table is seated. Service ends and the cooks are ready to go home, but this table has not had dessert. All the cooks stand around waiting and employing gentle verbal motivational techniques on the waitress. She delivers a list of the required desserts for the fifteen guests, 11 chocolate cakes, 3 pies, and 1 mousse. While the waitress watches, the cooks lie out fifteen (15) dishes and start to plate the desserts. The waitress picks up six desserts and starts to leave. We whisper quietly and inquire why she is leaving so many desserts behind. I was wondering why you did so many. We show her the paper and verify that the plates correspond with what she wrote, 1 mousse, 3 pies, and 11 cakes! That’s a two not eleven! ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME?  Of course there was no manager to witness this farce, so off she goes laughing. The cooks stare at all the wasted food and think of how much time was just wasted. The sad part is we all knew it was just a matter time before this stunt was repeated.

“How many chicken fingers do you get in the half dozen?” ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The waitress couldn’t understand why the cook would not answer her and reported the situation to her manager. The manager was dumbfounded and everyone else wondered who hired her?

A busy night is over and the staff is having a few drinks. A waitress leaves and then returns a few minutes later. She is babbling about backing into a blue car in the upper lot. Wait a tick, I HAVE A BLUE CAR IN THE UPPER LOT! Sure enough, the two cars are kissing. I look around and I am truly distressed. This is a large lot and there is thirty (30) feet between cars and mine is the only other car in the lot! ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? In a lot capable of parking twenty (20) automobiles, she struck a “bull’s eye” on the one occupied space!

Have we had angel hair pasta on the menu for the last six months? "The Collie Look”. Have you been asked the same question every week for the last six months? “The Collie Look”. The answer to the first question is “NO” and the answer to the second question is “YES”. SO WHY AM I HAVING THIS CONVERSATION AGAIN?  “But it’s in the computer”. ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? Have you read the menu?  “The Collie Look”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The server does not know what is on the menu but since an item is listed in the computer, it must be in the kitchen. I am well aware that the kitchen is a magical place, but I have yet to witness someone materialize a physical object from the Ethernet.

The chef anticipates a busy night and informs the servers there will be no takeout. This would seem to be a simple declarative statement, with only one meaning. But servers seem to have a “Bill Clintonesque” understanding of the English language. Evidentially, there are now many meaning to the word “no”. It took only five minutes for our first “take out” order to be received.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Mr. Spock would have applied logic to this anomaly and questioned the obtuse server. We tried and were told; “but they are in the building”! ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? What does the physical location of a person have to do with the word “no”? It appears to depend on what your definition of the word “no” is. I’m sorry, “what part of the one syllable two letter word did you not understand”?

Vinaigrette salad dressings are a combination of oil and vinegar. Like cooks and servers, they share a working space but must be forced to come together. Before serving it is common to emulsify the vinaigrette by shaking its container. If the lid is not tight, dressing will most likely be spread all over you. I heard a waitress scream after she splashed balsamic vinaigrette over her upper body. The vinegar was burning her eyes and had turned spots on her face red. This would make most people scream but this was not the cause of her pain. She was worried about her hair! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Potential blindness and burned facial skin were irrelevant if her hair was a mess! Needless to say, she was forever called ”BALSAMIC”!

Common sense tells you food can go from a raw state to varying degrees of being cooked. What happens when someone challenges this reality? A cook receives an order for meat cooked medium to rare! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Superman must be flying around the earth so fast the cooking process now works in reverse! Discreet inquires are made to determine the authors meaning and we are told; “I don’t know. That’s what they said”. ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? Did someone forget to put on her “thinking cap” today?

What’s the potato, veg, and soup ? The cook informs server #1. 
What’s the potato, veg, and soup ? The cook informs server #2. 
What’s the potato, veg, and soup ? The cook informs server #3.  
What’s the potato, veg, and soup ? The cook informs server #4.

ARE YOU F***ING KIDDING ME? Do I have to speak to every server tonight? Can’t you people talk to one another? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Every server will ask the same question every night without ever speaking to their fellow servers.

Why are hours of operation posted? So servers can make promises that someone else must do extra work to fulfill. Particularly in private clubs, members want to eat when they want to eat. Servers will order food with total disregard to time. Since lunch starts at eleven why would food be ordered before then? “They want to eat now”. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Who said the food is ready? There are three usual answers; (1) “The Collie Look” (2) server “X” said you would do it (3) you did it before. Do any of these answers remotely relate to “today”? The result is the customer is happy, the server gets tipped and the cook did all the work.

Serving staff a meal off the menu is a time honored pain in the ass to every cook. A meal is prepared for the “servers” and THEY TAKE A BREAK AND SIT DOWN TO EAT! This is a benefit taken for granted by so many, but it is enjoyed by few cooks. To make matters worse, they start to create their own menus! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  Salads with mixed greens are changed to just iceberg; diced cucumbers are needed on a hoagie, even though hoagies are not on the menu, and cheesesteak salad.

French onion soup is served with melted cheese in a hot bowl. The bowl will usually be placed on aluminum “sizzle plates”, for ease of handling, before going in the oven. The, extremely hot, bowl is extracted from the oven and transferred to a plate. A good server will have this plate ready. After requesting “French Onion plates” “ad nauseum”, the cooks would leave the sizzle plate and bowl in the window.  Would a “thinking man” touch a bowl that just came out of an oven? No, but most servers would. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

These are not atypical conversations between cooks and servers. If you are shaking your head, you are not alone. After one of these exchanges I heard a cook scream, “you have just wasted three minutes of my life”!

IT’S NOT MISTAKES THAT BEFUDDLE ME, IT IS THE TOTAL LACK OF THOUGHT!

I owe, I owe, its off to work I go.

Into THE CAULDRON!

“The difficult we do,

                             The impossible takes a little longer!”

Is tuisce deoch na sceal