07.28.08
Posted in Other Fun at 1:53 pm by Chef Matt
There’s a Rachael Ray cookbook in my kitchen at work.
I was cleaning one of the shelves the other day and an unmistakable and unfortunately all-too-ubiquitous face was staring back at me from the spine of one of the books. One of her cookbooks had somehow managed to infest my cookbook rack.
I was going to doctor the cover photo, but then realized, I couldn’t make it look any stupider if I tried… |
“What the hell is this?!?” I asked to anyone who could hear holding the book between two fingers as if it were some manner of rotting mammal.
“Oh, that was a gift someone gave me - I guess as a joke…” said one of my cooks.
“And so you brought it here?…”
“Yeah, I don’t really want it, so you can do whatever with it…”
Seeing as how this cookbook (and I use that term loosely) has been darkening my shelf for too long now, I think it is time to actually do something with it. So does anyone out there have any good suggestions as to what to do with it?
Should I actually try cooking from it and report on the recipes to you all?
Give it as a gag gift to a fellow chef friend?
Burn it and see if it smells like too much cumin?
Any and all suggestions are welcome! And whatever we decide upon, of course I will report on the results back here to you all!
Chef Matt
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07.22.08
Posted in Rants and Raves at 2:18 pm by Chef Matt
Sorry, but I really love old propaganda posters… |
This is a tad off-topic, so I’ll be brief.
As many of you know, and have enjoyed talking to me about, I graced my left shoulder with a pig tattoo a little over a year ago. It’s a decision that I’ve neither regretted nor second-guessed even once in the time I’ve had it. However, there was one unintended consequence of this action.
I was unable to be a blood donor in the past year having gotten the tattoo. Now, I’m not saying that people should avoid getting tattoos for the sake of remaining in the blood donation pool, but for those of you who have not gotten one in the past year, please call the Red Cross (1-800-GIVE-LIFE) and schedule an appointment.
I’m now eligible again, and yesterday I donated a double unit of platelets, and I plan on going back again in two weeks.
Someone you love, at sometime in their life, will need blood in some form. I wish it weren’t the case, but I guarantee it.
Please be thankful for your good health, and then pass on this blessing to those who are less fortunate. Someday, it might be you who needs this help. And if you’re counting on me to save you, well, I may be off getting another tattoo…
Please give.
Chef Matt
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07.21.08
Posted in The Story at 6:33 pm by Chef Matt
This story begins about three weeks ago in my walk-in. One of my pizza chefs asked me if he could have off on Sunday (yesterday). Since he was asking well in advance, and since he had recently been covering for a lot of other people, I told him that was fine. If need be, I would cover for him. (Thunder rumbling in the distance…)
This is gonna be bad… |
A few weeks later, as I was reworking the schedule for some of my staff, Chef told me that he was going to be out the upcoming Friday and Saturday for family reasons. Of course he didn’t need my permission, but I knew I would have to work it into the schedule to make sure we covered for him. (First drops of rain beginning to fall…)
I walk in on Saturday morning, and see a note in the chef’s log book that my PM sauté chef would be out on Sunday for family reasons, and one of my sous chefs had agreed to cover for him. (Radio stations interrupting broadcasts with instructions…)
Saturday afternoon comes around, and as we are preparing for the dinner shift, I’m working on my paperwork and order forms in the office. One of the other sous chefs walks in and says “I sending D—- home.” D—- is our evening pantry chef who has been a constant problem child for us. Her work is generally good, but she is always giving us static and attitude in conjunction with her performance. She finally decided that today she would not make a dessert for a customer when we asked her to (seeing as how it’s her job) as she would rather set up her station. This is not an acceptable course of action for her, and while this would mean we would be down two people in the kitchen on a Saturday night, I was ready to handle it. I stopped my paperwork in the middle of my invoices, and worked the pizza station on a Saturday night as we moved the person usually in that position over to pantry. (Locals head for their tornado shelters….)
As a side note to this story: I had never worked pizza on a Saturday before where I was the one making the pizzas and putting them in the oven. I have worked as the guy cooking the pizzas in the over several times, and it is actually fun. But rolling crusts and topping every pie as the orders come flying in - that is a whole new level of tough, and the whole shift is just me barely keeping my head above water. By the time I got out of there, I had put in 14 hours on my feet with no real break. And I had to be back in the next morning at 8AM. (Old man walking by with two giraffes, two hippos, two lions…)
Hmmm… what’s missing from this kitchen?
Oh yeah! All my fricking cooks! |
Sunday comes by and as I’m setting up, I take stock of my line for that evening. My pizza cook is out on vacation. My sauté chef is out for family reasons, and my pantry cook is suspended/quit. In a line that usually has 5 people on it for the busy Sunday night rush, I have exactly two people. And I had friends coming in from out of town, and was so tired I was basically dead on my feet.
Let the rain begin to fall!
So how does one get out of this situation? I put one sous chef on sauté, the other on pizza. So now we were down one person. And this is where the magic of the kitchen community shows up. One person leaves one day, the very next day, someone brings in their cousin/niece/friend to fill that position. Our new-commer was ready to work, and proved to be a fast learner as well. We cobbled together her paperwork and threw her on the line as fast as we could, and she did great. Personally, I hung around until about 8 (a mere 12 hour day) to make sure that everything was running smoothly for the dinner rush, and that we were past the first major push. We made it through, and I went home to await the arrival of my friends.
It was an all-encompassing kind of tired I felt as I walked in the door of my house. If I could just be spared a mere 10 minutes to get it back together, I figured I’d be fine. I opened my laptop to maybe see a funny video or something, and a notification popped up before I could do anything else:
July 20th is the anniversary of my first day being a professional chef. It has now been two years since I began working in kitchens.
I chuckled to myself, closed the laptop, put my head down, and slept until my friends arrived.
Chef Matt
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07.15.08
Posted in The Story at 9:26 am by Chef Matt
I have never been much of a morning person. I can get up when I have to, but it is not my finest hour by a long shot. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I accepted when my boss asked me to come in at 5:45am last Thursday. At least the reason was a good one: Holly Morris from our local Fox station was going to be broadcasting live from Rustico!
For those of you not from the DC area, Holly Morris the reporter who goes out “on location” every morning and talks about cool things going on in the DC area with a perkiness and enthusiasm usually reserved for cheer-leading captains and exercise video instructors. This was my chance to meet her in person, and actually be on TV in the process.
Well, of course I would not be the featured presenter. Chef Frank would of course (deservedly) be taking center stage on this broadcast, but as the usual morning chef, I would be there as well to help prep the food we were going to be making on air, and to ensure that everything ran smoothly between segments.
The focus of the show was how we featured a pizza class at Rustico, and so there was a lot of making of pizza dough and special pizzas with “challenge” ingredients. Chef was awesome in front of the cameras - he has had experience in this - and I was there to look like I was just along for the class. Well, I’m sure you want to see how it went, so without further delay, here are the clips:
Clip 1 - In this clip my job was to work the pizza crust like a student. Though I had to go slowly since we had 4 minutes, and I had only two crusts in front of me. Otherwise, my job was to STFU.
Clip 2 - In this clip, it was originally planned that I make the (very delicious!) strawberry pizza. Instead, in a last-second change Chef had me work the pizza oven behind him. I was making back-ups of all the pizzas you see there in case something went really wrong (read: dropped on the floor). All went well, so those pizzas I was making ended up feeding the crew.
So this is probably the most time I have ever had on TV. No, it’s true, my life just hasn’t been that newsworthy to date. And even though I didn’t have any lines, I still managed to mess up. Take a look at the beginning of clip 2 again. I did a glance over my shoulder to see if the camera was on me, and I determined it was not, so I took that moment to fix my hair. And it was all caught on TV. The instructor who taught me food safety in culinary school is likely gritting his teeth still.
I was not offered any lucrative TV deals to get my own cooking show as a result of this debut, but the experience did inspire me nonetheless.
Yesterday, I got a haircut.
Chef Matt
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07.01.08
Posted in The Story at 10:42 pm by Chef Matt
I would have to admit that I’ve come a long way in my two years of being a chef. I think back to how scared and unsure I was coming out of culinary school and into my first cooking position. Every day was a series of mis-steps, injuries and mistakes that chipped away at my pride, and cost my employer money. But I made it through I think because my heart was in it, and I refused to let myself get down on the errors that I knew I could improve upon.
And so it was with a small sense of anticipation that I was awaiting the arrival of our new extern to Rustico this past week. Chef told me that we couldn’t throw this one directly on the line (like we did our last extern) since this guy had exactly zero days of kitchen experience. Like me, he was fresh out of culinary school, and having been in this exact position myself, I knew that this meant he knew squat. Chef seemed to realize that I understood what this guy was going to be going through, and what he was going to need to get up to speed, so Chef scheduled him to mirror my working days - so I could show him the ropes.
He walked in the first day - 20 minutes early, good sign - and I gave him the line that I wish someone had said to me on my first day:
“You’re going to mess up these first few weeks. Frequently and badly. And we will not be afraid to let you know when you do. Just stick it out, don’t take it personally and you’ll get better. But these next few weeks are going to suck. Be ready for it.”
I could see the slight look of fear behind his eyes when I said this - as if he knew this was the case, but was holding on to the hope that maybe he’d be the exception to the rule. He, of course, was not. In fact, it didn’t take long for him to get to his first error.
Works so much better in the “ON” position… |
One of his first big mistakes (and still my favorite to date) was when I gave him 10 red onions to slice thin on the slicer on his first morning. I showed him how I wanted them peeled, and then set the slicer thickness for him for how thick I wanted them. He came back a few minutes later to show me some of what he had produced, to check if the quality was OK. The thickness (or thinness depending on your perspective) was fine, but the onions were ragged looking around the edges. I was wondering if maybe the slicer was dirty, or the blade dull, so I joined him back at the slicer, and he showed me what he was doing. He pushed the onion across the blade once, and I instantly saw the problem. I calmly and wordlessly reached over, and flipped the slicer switch to “On”. The blade on the slicer sprung to life and was ready to produce beautiful clean slices. He looked at me, and I said, “Try it now…” I think he was embarrassed enough that I didn’t have to drive that lesson home any further…
But all in all, he is an eager and hard worker. And while he occasionally does things that make me shake my head, I still see myself in him too much to become overly abusive towards him. All the same though, it makes me wonder: did the fact that my ass was put through the wringer make me a better chef faster; or is it a case that one will excel at their own pace regardless of how they’re pushed?
All I know is, the scars are still fresh enough in me to be too hard on him. I just hope I don’t stunt his culinary growth as a result…
Chef Matt
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