10.02.07
The More Things Change…
The other night, after I had finished my kitchen work, and had entered all the invoices into our QuickBooks system, Chef came by to ask me if I could help him with a new layout design he was thinking about for the recipes we have in house. You see, most restaurants write down the recipes they are using in house so that if one chef is out for some reason, and more gremolata (for instance) needs to be made, then another chef can quickly take over for the absence of that item.
It just makes good sense.
 “Dammit, the recipe for our mushroom sauce has got to be in here somewhere!” |
The problem at Rustico - and we all agree it is a problem - is that our “menu book” has only about 60% of the recipes in it, and the ones that are in there are placed in no discernable order, and with no consistent style/layout. Any time I want a recipe for a salad dressing, I have to scan the whole notebook, and even if I do find it, I may or may not understand what the recipe is telling me.
So Chef wanted me to help him with a standard recipe layout for our in-house book. One that was clean, yet professional, and stylized enough that if he ever wanted to go for the “next step”, he could use it as a starting layout for his own cookbook from Rustico.
It was time for me to show him what I could do. I mean, I had done this for 8 years - surely I could show him a few skills in layout design and so forth?
Well, it took a few hours for me to get something together, but it was looking pretty sharp by the end of the night. Chef was getting more and more excited as we went along and he saw it all coming together. So much so he went out into the kitchen and had Armando make me a steak while I worked. He only sort-of asked me if I wanted a steak though. He was in a hyper-manic state of production - something all chefs get into when they get into the “zone” - so the conversation went like this:
- Chef: “Haveyoutriedoursteak? Doyouwantasteak? Youlikeitmediumrareright? ‘Mando! Onesteakmediumrareformattrightnow!”
Me: “Umm, a steak would be great. Thanks chef!”
 “Just when I think I’m out… they pull me back in…” |
So the layout went well, and Chef is excited about the implications of where this can go to help the restaurant out. My Adobe Illustrator skills continue to be weak, and the fact that I had about three beers over the course of this project did not make them any better for sure. But the part that amazed me was how Chef said that if I needed to take a class to improve my skills on Illustrator, he’d be happy to have the company pay for it.
And there it was. Here I am, away from the computer world, working in a professional kitchen, and I’m still being offered free computer training classes. It is indeed funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
But I’m hardly complaining. I mean, after all, my steak was delicious!
Stumble it!
Phil said,
October 2, 2007 at 11:03 am
Matt, that’s awesome. The free steak, I mean. You wouldn’t believe how many times someone comes up to me asking to fix their broken rocket, and they don’t give me so much as a beer.
Eize said,
October 3, 2007 at 2:32 am
Huh, and all the nice people offer here are pancit and the occasional fast food (McDonald’s, Jollibee, etc.) when the boss wants us to work overtime. Lucky you!
How hard is it to use Adobe Illustrator? I’ve been meaning to expand my repertoire, and I’ve done some pretty decent stuff with Photoshop.