It’s a Food(ie) thing…...

What is a foodie really?  Is it someone who loves food?  It has to be more than that, I’m quite sure that non-food lovers are in the minority, I mean, everybody loves SOME type of food, I’d bet on it.  Is it someone who works with food professionally?  I suppose it could be, but then aren’t you getting paid, decent incentive to be a foodie.  I’ve known several people who work with food professionally who take no interest or pleasure in working with actual food.  Maybe it’s a person, who may or may not work with food professionally,   who chooses to work/cook/photograph/ponder/write about food and it’s preparation/origin on a non-compensatory basis, they just do it because they love to.  I’m good with that, how about you?

Now that we have established what a ‘foodie’ is, what should we call them/ourselves.  How should we identify them/us as ‘foodies’ without actually using the word foodie, because apparently ‘foodie’ isn’t good enough or proper?  I can understand that, it has a juvenile and unprofessional ring to it.  Many ‘foodies’ started out as such and have been able to turn being a ‘foodie’ into a business.  So perhaps something more fitting is necessary.

It does seem odd though to have to devise a word or term for a group of people who love food, specifically because I can’t come up with any monikers for people devoted to other interests.  Music lovers are ‘musicers’, photography buffs aren’t ‘pictophiles’.  Are you saying there are people who consider themselves ‘clownies’?  With that in mind, is ‘foodie’ really that bad?  Sure, it sounds somewhat childish, but it is still able to convey an idea of who you are and what you love.    I feel like trying to define what we call ourselves is blurring the focus of what drives us, the food, recipes, photos and stories associated with all.  For all I care, you can call me a ‘sumnabitch’, just as long as I get to spend my days being passionate about food.

I’m a chef, I have been for 25 years, I’m also a ‘foodie’ and I’m not ashamed to say it.

Vietnamese Beef Pho...

Vietnamese Beef Pho

No matter the situation, if you look hard enough you’re bound to find a silver lining. Something that makes all the hell you’re going through worth it, or just something you want to take with you. I’ve posted several times about my experience with corporate cooking, how it wasn’t a good fit and how I felt completely and utterly stifled. Yet, I was able to find a food to fall in love with, Pho.

Pho is a beef and noodle soup that started in the north of Vietnam and made its way south until it became a country staple and is traditionally it is eaten as a breakfast food. Variations are numerous and you can add a myriad of ingredients that I haven’t used in this recipe. Other Pho might use, shrimp, chicken, peppers, offal or meatballs.

At the casino, there was a large contingent of Asian gamblers. This was one of the reasons that corporate decided to move the corporate Asian chef to Colorado. Specific dishes were added to the menu to appeal to these gamblers, Pho being one. For all the grief I give corporate America when it comes to food, once in a while, and I hate to admit it, they get something right.

The Pho was rich with a homemade veal stock, simmered for 24 hours, scented with ginger and spices. I could smell the stock cooking next to my kitchen; I couldn’t wait for the next fresh batch. It was prepared on the buffet a la minute. I would trade the little Asian cook great slabs of medium rare prime rib for a bowl of pho, brimming with tender beef, rice noodles and bean sprouts. I had a bowl on my last shift. Then I set to making my own at home. This is what I came up with this morning; I’ll be making it again…

Vietnamese Beef Pho
8 cups veal stock (you can substitute sodium free beef broth)
1 shallot, rough chopped
1 medium yellow onion
1 piece of ginger, approximately 3 oz.
3 green onions, rough chopped
1 lime
4 star anise
1 tsp whole peppercorns
1 tsp coriander seed
1 cinnamon stick, approximately 2 inches (you can substitute ¼ tsp ground)
3 Tbs. fish sauce
1 oz soy sauce

Method:
1. With a pan or the back of a knife, smash the unpeeled ginger to soften it up.
2. On a grill or in a cast iron pan, preferably in a grill to avoid the smoke in a kitchen, char half the onion (reserve the 2nd half for service) and the 3 oz. of ginger till it blackens on the outside lightly.
3. Place those onions and ginger in a large heavy bottom sauce pot.
4. Half the lime and squeeze one half into the pot, place the used lime in the pot as well.
5. Add the veal stock, shallots, half the green onions, star anise, peppercorns, coriander seed, cinnamon, fish sauce and soy sauce.
6. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer, uncovered, for 1 hour.
7. Strain into a 2nd pot and reserve.

Assemble the Pho

1 lb beef top round, trimmed and shaved thin
1 lb rice noodles
2 Tbs. basil, chiffonade
¼ cup cilantro leaves
½ yellow onion, sliced thin (use the 2nd half from the recipe above)
3 scallions, sliced thin
2 oz crimini mushrooms, sliced
Sriracha (optional)

1. Soak the noodles in room temperature water until pliable.
2. Return the broth to the heat and bring to a hard boil.
3. In 4 bowls, divide the meat, noodles, basil, cilantro, onion, scallions and mushrooms.
4. Pour the broth into the four bowls and allow to sit for 2 minutes, garnish with a tsp. of sriracha and serve.

So YOU wanna be a Chef?...

You’ve watched the Food Network since you were knee-high to a Wagyu calf. You helped your (mom, grandmother, older sister, best friends uncles mistress) in the kitchen and like a sponge you soaked it all in. You’ve thrown dinner parties that were such a success (they still talk about your Thanksgiving turkey) that people have wondered why you don’t do it professionally. Now, you’re bored with your career and looking to do “what you really love”. Or your fresh out of high school and couldn’t swing a tour at one of the colleges you applied to, let alone get accepted. You’ve done your homework, picked out a culinary school or gotten in at a local eatery in your neighborhood making salads. You’re up for starting at the bottom, the long hours, mediocre pay and non-existent benefits package? GREAT! But before they give you the pretty white jacket with your name on it above the cool logo, there are a lot of rungs on that ladder of success.

Over the course of the last 12 years, I’ve had students of every age and background. From snot nosed kids out of high school to 50 year old IT dotcom busters having to start again. What I have noticed from all these students, regardless of age, intelligence or social standing, is that they all have the same misconceptions and they all make the same mistakes their first time in a kitchen. Now granted, I don’t expect you as a student to come into my kitchen and know the ropes; chefs understand the learning curve although some are more patient about it than others.

Working in a kitchen is dangerous. The whole point of a kitchen is to induce a controlled damage upon flesh, whether it is cow, chicken, pig or fish. Knives and sauté pans and char broilers do not distinguish between human flesh and animal, they will burn and cut you as they were intended, as if you were on tonight’s menu.

That being said, I’ve compiled a list of things every FNG should know before walking into a kitchen, whether it is off the street or straight from some prestigious culinary institution. A few of these are to keep you out of harm’s way and a few are to keep you out of the Chefs way, who generally will not bother to remember your name until you’ve lasted about a month in his kitchen. If you find these helpful, please pass them along, any that I may have overlooked, feel free to add in the comments section.

First, one of two phrases will be put on my tombstone. Either “Watch your back!” or “Behind You”. These 2 phrases will eliminate 80% of all possible catastrophes in the kitchen. Cooks work on a hot line designed to allow them to take as few steps as possible. Therefore, cooks spin all night long from mis en place to cooking unit with knives, hot pans, food and all other manner of things, they are not expecting you to be standing there. If you walk behind someone, let them know, loudly.

Never start a sentence with “At my last job…” unless your last job was at Alinea or some other bastion of culinary extravagance. Chefs are trying to differentiate themselves, trying to set themselves apart. If the chef wants your opinion, he’ll ask for it, just make sure you give him YOU’RE opinion.

Graduating from culinary school does not make you a chef, sous chef, or chef de cuisine, nor does it grant you any type of favor in the kitchen. It just gives you a broader knowledge with which to start with. The transition from culinary school to a working restaurant is difficult; you need to gut it out.

Come to work prepared. Don’t ask if you should bring in your own knives, that is like a tennis player asking if he needs to bring his own racquet to Wimbledon. Have on the right shoes, clean, unripped pants, preferably black and a hat if required.

And lastly, have fun, act like you want to be there and learn. As chefs, we are natural teachers. It is a very specialized industry and the only way for us to further that is to pass on what we have learned to a new generation of cooks. Take notes; ask questions, oohhh and aahhh when appropriate, stroking a little ego goes a long way some times.

You’re in for a long ride, for some longer than others. But you will have that night where your creation was featured, it sold like gangbusters, the chef slaps you on the back and buys you a beer, and for one of THOSE nights, you’ll realize the whole thing was worth it.

How much is that bottle in the window?...

Restaurant wine pricing, is there anything more aggravating than paying $40 for a bottle of wine you could pick up at the local liquor store about $15? It really doesn’t seem all that fair and as a consumer you’re certainly obliged to feel like you’ve been taken to the cleaners. You’ve heard the arguments that you’re paying for the service, the experience or even the ambiance and they sound like excuses to you, but hold on a minute, maybe there is a bit of truth to that.

Let me start by saying I’m not a wine expert, I am an expert in the business of food & beverage. I love a good bottle, especially with a meal. I’ve tasted through some of the best portfolios of the biggest distributors and rubbed elbows with little known winemakers and winery owners looking for placements on my list. I’ve written and implemented wine lists for restaurants and hotels, hosted and cooked close to a hundred winemaker events and I am intimately familiar with the way a restaurant decides upon the price you pay for a bottle of wine.

The truth is, most restaurants would shut the doors without this type of pricing on their wine, and it is the restaurants greatest source of profit, liquor to a certain extent and food least of all. Without boring you to death with all the expenses a restaurant owner faces, it is the wine sales that pay the bills, that keep the door open to your favorite restaurant. Restaurant owners are well aware of the fact that customers today are savvier (I wasn’t sure that was a word, but Microsoft spellchecker says it is…) and well informed thanks to the internet, the Food Network and 1001 wine magazines. They know you are most likely familiar with the retail price of the wine you are drinking.

The problem for owners is that margins on food are very slim. Some dishes take hours to prepare, put together by people making an hourly wage, all of which is considered when deciding on a sale price of that entree. Most upscale restaurants with an average wine list don’t have the capacity to do a banging bar business as margins on liquor are both decent and fair, so wine becomes the safety net. Without the profit from that bottle of wine, it is harder for a restaurant to remain in business making your favorite (insert your favorite restaurant dish here) and supply the level of service you enjoy. But to be fair to the consumer as well, restaurants that employ this type of pricing need to be providing you with the meal, service and ambiance to earn that sale.

Many restaurants are adopting a new policy of $15 over wholesale. This, in theory, is a great concept for busy restaurants doing high volume, the type of place where sellouts occur regularly. But for the average eatery with a slower midweek and fairly strong weekend, it becomes much harder.

Many times the wines do justify a hefty price tag. Sommeliers and owners are constantly trying to find unique, small production wines to add depth to their list. These wines which can’t be found in any liquor store or internet market place do have steep wholesale costs sometimes. Those wines that require special storage and service methods incur a cost to the business as well.

Restaurants do need to be fair by utilizing a common sliding scale in their pricing. If you’re paying $30 for a $10 cost (wholesale) wine, that doesn’t mean you should be paying $300 for a $100 unless the special circumstances mentioned above apply. Most restaurants slide the scale back with higher end bottles. So if the $30 bottle is at 300%, the $100 bottle may be around $160, a 60% markup.

To be a successful restaurant you have to find that sweet-spot between gouging the customer and losing your shirt. Customers likewise should understand that you have that favorite place to go to again and again because the price on that bottle of wine pays for all you experience on your night out.

If you really want to be pissed, do some research on the markup of that Starbucks mocha frappe latte skinny coffee you’re drinking.

Pumpkin-Ginger Panna Cotta...

Originally Posted: 04 Nov 2009 12:47 AM PST

I, like many chefs, have always had a bittersweet anticipation of the holidays. That stretch from Thanksgiving through New Years is filled with holiday parties, special dinners, romantic dates, midnight kisses and lots and lots of alcohol. Unfortunately, not so much for myself or my chef brethren. We are the ones who work so the rest of society has a place to celebrate. That 5-6 week stretch is when most restaurants make the bulk of their money, or at least see a decent bump in revenue. We are not alone, servers, managers and staff all work just as hard. For some it is a wakeup call that perhaps the restaurant industry is not for them. In the last 20 years, I’ve had off for 1 New Years Eve, 2 Thanksgivings and 2 Christmas Days.

There are others for whom the holidays mean working Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Doctors and hospital staff, travel industry employees, police and fire and many more. It is thankless, many friends and family don’t understand why you’re working every holiday. Why you put up with those hours, but it is part of what is required along with “days, nights, weekends, must be flexible, must be willing to work all holidays”. It is a mantra that appears on virtually every advertisement for a cook/chef position.

On a more positive note, it is a time to create and play with the more traditional holiday foods. If I have to be open and working on Thanksgiving Day, I don’t want to have to do a plain, traditional roast turkey plate. I want to do something fun, different without crossing the line (too much). Perhaps a white truffle stuffed sous-vide turkey breast with caramelized apple gastrique, mmmhh, now we’re talking. For dessert, a marriage of Italian simplicity with an American holiday staple, such as this Ginger Pumpkin Panna Cotta.

Ginger-Pumpkin Panna Cotta with Cranberry Sauce and Candied Ginger

Panna Cotta or “cooked cream” is an Italian specialty hailing from the north in and around Piedmont. Cream is flavored with nuts, spices or vanilla and set with gelatin and served cold. Most times with berries or chocolate. The preparation is simple and the variations that can be produced are virtually limitless, provided you account for this while deciding on the amount of gelatin you will need. Too much gelatin and you will have to chew the panna cotta, not pleasant, like eating dried out Jello as a kid, don’t tell me you’ve never done that. Too little gelatin and your panna cotta won’t set and maybe runny or fall into a somewhat yogurt consistency. To test, place a spoon or shallow dish into the freezer, once your batter is made, place a little on your frozen spoon and let it set. From there you will know if you need to adjust.

Regarding the use of ground cinnamon, you never want to add ground cinnamon to cold liquids. It will clump and not be attractive or easy to work with. Anyone who has ever added cinnamon to cold French toast batter knows what I’m talking about. Instead, heat up your milk, add the cinnamon then add to the egg mixture. In this recipe, I have added the cinnamon after the cream has already been scalded.

This recipe will produce about 1 quart of batter, enough for eight 4 oz. dishes.

Ingredients:
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (fresh or canned)*
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. cinnamon, ground
• ¼ tsp. nutmeg, ground
• 1 oz fresh ginger, grated
• ¾ oz. powdered gelatin
• 3 oz. cold water

Method:

1. In a small sauce pot, combine the cream, milk, ginger, vanilla and nutmeg.
2. Bring to a boil and remove from heat immediately.
3. While the cream is still hot, add the cinnamon.
4. Set aside and allow to cool slightly.
5. Measure 3 oz. of cold water into a mixing bowl.
6. Add the powdered gelatin and let it bloom (soften/dissolve) for 2 minutes.
7. Pass the milk through a chinois or fine sieve.
8. Add the warm milk mixture and mix well.
9. Add the pumpkin and mix well.
10. Pass the batter through a chinois or fine sieve.
11. Pour into 4 oz. cups and set for 2-4 hours in the fridge.

*To use fresh pumpkin, half a pie pumpkin and scrape the seeds. Place cut side down on an oiled pan with 3 oz water and cover with foil. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until the pumpkin is soft. When cool, scrape the pumpkin with a spoon and puree smooth. If the pumpkin is excessively wet, you may want to put it in a warm pan over a medium flame to dry it out, stirring often.

Cranberry Sauce

Ingredients:
• 8 oz. fresh/frozen cranberries
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1 cup water
• ½ cup sugar

Method:

1. Combine all ingredients in a sauce pot with a lid.
2. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 40 minutes.
3. Puree till smooth in a blender.
4. Pass though a chinois or fine sieve.
5. Adjust sweetness with more sugar or honey to your liking.

A ‘Chef’ by any other name....

Tools of the Trade

In the early 80’s, you could count the number of celebrity chefs on one hand, and yes, that includes Jack Tripper.  With the public access to the internet still years away and the media relying only on analog methods of communication, chefs were limited to local celebrity status with the occasional national plug in magazines like Gourmet.  These were chefs who had risen through the rank, singled out for their culinary prowess and tasked with managing the culinary operations and staff of the restaurant or hotel.  They weren’t given the title Chef, they had earned it with long hours and hard work.  These were chefs, born from their environment.

Today, it seems the title Chef is handed out like merit badges to anyone who can put together a tasty recipe.  Entities like the Food Network have made it their business of selling chefs to the general public, whether you have heard of them or not.  That’s not to say the Food Network isn’t a great vehicle for promoting chefs, but is it possible that sometimes they go too far?  Culinary schools are guilty of the same thing, leading students to believe that upon graduation they are qualified to hold this position.  I know this because this is what I was lead to believe when I was in culinary school almost 20 years ago and I’ve had these students, fresh out of culinary school apply for Sous Chef positions, students who couldn’t flip an egg or dice an onion with any kind of confidence.  There is a distinct and noticeable difference between someone who ‘knows’ how to do it and someone who just does it.

Someone once asked me if I thought Paula Deen was a chef.  My reply?  No.  Not if she hasn’t managed and run her own kitchen.  Not if she hasn’t been responsible for putting food on a table in front of someone who is then going to take out his/her own hard earned money to pay for that meal, if you think about it, that’s a bit of pressure.  Just being a good cook does not make you a chef.  I’ve always said I’m a cook first and a chef second, because they are two separate and unique talents that don’t always have anything to do with the other.  I’ve known chefs that couldn’t cook and cooks that had no interest or chance of becoming chefs. The difference lies in the responsibility and accountability of the Chef.  If some TV chef makes a recipe on TV I don’t like, what am I going to do, call the Cable company?  If there is a recipe in a cookbook that is just plain horrible, am I going to complain to Amazon?  Yet, I can see Table 10 from the window next to the pass and I’ve already re-cooked his steak once.  I recognize the tight lips and flared nostrils of an unhappy guest, and I can bet he will be stopping at my window to let me know about it, because I am there and it is my fault.

Authoring a best-selling cookbook does not make you a chef.  Having your very own cooking show on television does not make you a chef.  So then who is responsible for Chef ‘whatever’ whom no one has ever heard of, guiding me through his version of Shrimp Scampi with Spicy Vodka-Tomato sauce on TV?  My guess is the PR people.  Let’s face it; adding to the title Chef to ‘Joe Schmo’ automatically gives him credibility to the general public.   Ask any laymen on the street how the title Chef is administered and I’ll bet they’ll look at you somewhat cross-eyed.  I can’t think of another single profession where adding the title of a job does so much for your reputation.

To be fair, I did some research on Paula Deen.  She does have her own restaurant that she built from the ground up, The Lady & Sons, two in fact as she also owns Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House. And even though nowhere on her website does she ever call herself chef, I will from now on.

‘The smell of fish clings to me like cheap perfume.’

Chicken Liver Pate with Dried Cherry Compote...

From dishwasher to Executive Chef, it was a 14 year journey of the ins and outs of the restaurant business.  In those 14 years, I had seen everything, and I mean everything, from watching my waitstaff snort coke off the rim of a dirty toilet seat at one restaurant to sweating my nuts off in the galley of the Beard House in NYC.  Along the way you learn lessons from both your friends and your enemies in the business.  You make distinctions between what you would do and what you have learned you wouldn’t do and you begin to realize that the people in those positions, regardless of age or station, can teach you something.  This was a lesson I learned at my first executive chef post in 1999 from my chef who had left the kitchen to be the GM.  I had been the Sous Chef there for 2 years prior.  My chef was a kitchen guy through and through and I wasn’t sure how well he was going to be able to make the transition from back of house to front, not at all an easy move.
Within a couple of months we would go from a frantic, uneven, hurry up and wait restaurant to a smooth, consistently busy and manageable restaurant.  Cover counts were up and check averages were up, yet it seemed like the restaurant was slowing down.  When I asked my old chef and now new GM what was happening, his answer was both simple and complex.  He said, “Because I run the dining room like a chef, not like an owner or manager”.
A smooth running restaurant is predicated on everyone employed by the restaurant doing their job well.  This may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but many people don’t realize how fine a line a restaurant walks between extremely busy and ‘going down’.  Have you ever been to a restaurant and walked in without a reservation and been told by the host/hostess that you would have to wait even though you can see several open tables behind you?  There is a specific reason for this, one that exists to ensure that your experience is pleasant, both from a timing aspect and with regards to the interaction with your server.  That reason is pace.
When I refer to pace, I mean the volume of which tables are sat within the restaurant so that servers have time to focus on you or your needs.  It is paced so that the volume of food being produced by the kitchen is within its own ability to do so in a manner timely enough that the guests experience a pleasant and unnoticeable flow to their meal.  There really is no formula to figuring out what pace each restaurant is capable of handling, it is a determination made by managers and door staff.   Taking into account staffing levels (the restaurant may be shorthanded), experience of the staff (some staff can handle more than others), the style/type of food and even the physical size of the establishment, especially the kitchen.  A kitchen with 6 burners and one grill only has so much cooking space to produce food for a given amount of guests at the same time.  All these things go into deciding if you get seated right away without your reservation or if you will be asked to wait.
Good managers will find a way to make waiting more bearable, whether it is a free drink at the bar or something along those lines.  While I personally don’t condone giving ANYTHING away, there are times when I prefer that to risking a less than stellar experience because the restaurant was just too busy at that time to make you feel like we appreciated you choosing us as a destination to spend your money.
A little something to keep in mind, the next time you’re asked to wait on a table, restaurants are first and foremost looking to make sure you have the best experience possible, and if that means giving the kitchen a little breathing room or time to ‘catch up’, I hope you’ll know it is to make sure you leave happy.

Chicken Liver Pate with Dried Cherry Compote

No clever segue for this post between ‘Restaurant 101‘and the recipe, I just wanted to share one of my favorites.  This recipe is high in fat, therefore high in flavor, consume at your own risk J.  Recently I was asked if people even eat pate anymore, what I replied was “Sure they do!”, but what I thought was “Only if they have a love of food that transcends doctors warnings, government critique and the disapproving glances of vegetarians and picky eaters.”  If Tony Bourdain can admit that he is on cholesterol medication solely for the sake of being able to consume pork daily, what’s a little chicken liver pate in a country that chemically and genetically processes most of what we eat anyway?  If I’m going to put on a little weight and harden a few arteries, this is how I’d like to do it.

Chicken Liver Pate

• ¼ cup shallots, minced
• ¼ cup garlic, minced
• 1 ½ lbs. chicken livers
• 1 lb. butter, room temperature and cubed
• 1 bunch parsley, chopped fine
• 1 750 ml. bottle Marsala
• 1 750 ml. bottle brandy
• 3 cups red wine
• Kosher Salt

Method:

1. In a large sautoir or soup pot, sweat the garlic and onions in 2 oz. of the butter over medium heat, being careful not to color either the garlic or shallots.
2. Add the liver and cooked till well caramelized.
3. Deglaze with the Marsala, brandy, and red wine.
4. Bring the liquid to a boil.
5. Reduce the heat so that the liquid simmers and cook until the livers are almost dry.
6. Remove from heat immediately.
7. With a buerre mixer or in a blender, puree the butter into the livers a little at a time until the puree is quite loose.
8. Add parsley and season with kosher salt (It is important to slightly over season with the salt as it will dissipate when served at colder temperatures).
9. Pour pate into ramekins or molds.  If molding, make sure to line mold with plastic wrap.

10.  Chill for 4 hours to allow the butter to set.

Dried Cherry Compote

• 1 lb. dried cherries
• 4 cups red wine
• 4 oz white onion, minced
• 1 cinnamon stick

Combine all ingredients in a heavy bottom sauce pot and cook over low heat until the wine has been reduced by 3 quarters, meaning there should only be about a cup of liquid left when finished.  Cool and serve at room temperature.