Photo illustration by Donna
Inspired, manic post from Shuna on The Weeds, working harder, working faster, cooks' ethos and the chef's responsibilities.
–You've got to be able to dice five carrots for every one the cook you're training does. Nathan Klingbail, a talented Chicago cook, told me if for nothing else every cook in his kitchen respected the chef because they knew that that chef at any moment could walk onto their station and cook better and faster than they could; I'll never forget that; I know it made every cook in that kitchen push themselves every day.
–Dan Turgeon: "You can ALWAYS work faster."
–But Eric Zeibold: "Don't work faster, work smarter."
–But: working smarter makes the work faster. They're both right.
–Nice Shuna. I know how hard it is to get that kitchen energy, that kitchen mind, into words. On the money.
It’s true! There is nothing quite like a roomful of hungry people all having expectations of YOU to produce…no excuses, because we chose to be there, but no deadline compares to a line of tickets and knowing only you can get yourself out of it, and that you are the one who got yourself into it in the first place!
I have to agree with Ruhlman. “In the weeds” in the context of a professional kitchen does not translate well to very many other jobs; especially desk jobs.
What I loved about Shuna’s post is that it really can apply to almost every profession. Everybody gets in the shit from time to time, and you tell a lot about a person’s character and professionalism in the way they handle it as an employee and/or a manager or boss.
that’s actually not accurate. how i would phrase it is that every profession stands to learn a great deal on how to handle their own personal weeds by taking a lesson from very good professional cooks. there simply is nothing like the stress, the humiliation of the weeds when you’re a cook. it’s personally devastating. There’s also an extraordinary physical expression of responsibility and accountability in the professional kitchen which doesn’t apply to most white collar jobs which i find elegant. as i’ve written before, it’s hard to lie in a kitchen.
Any cook worth their salt has “weed” nightmares.
http://saltyskitchen.blogspot.com/2007/12/weeds.html
Michael,
A little off topic but, are you in New Paltz a lot? I hear Chef Pardus lives there and if you’re ever visting him, there’s a new seasonal homestyle Japanese restaurant where I’m a cook, and we all want you to stop by!