07.01.08
Posted in 1. 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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06.09.08
Posted in 1. The Story at 8:05 am by Chef Matt
As the seasons change, we have to change how we rethink the menu. I’ve of course mentioned this before. We like to keep the same mix of items on the menu though, we just like to use them in different ways. For example, our grilled tuna salad has now become a light, cool tuna tartare that is perfectly adapted to a summer menu. (Served with diced tomatoes and cucumbers, topped with a pickled corn whipped cream and served with plantain chips, it is awesome!)
Another dish we need to rework for the summer months is our chicken. Last summer, we served a fried chicken that was a breast we cut off a whole chicken, butterflied, stuffed with herbs and butter, rolled up, poached, unwrapped, then breaded and fried to order. It was a fabulous dish, but a ton of work. For the winter, we served a brick chicken that was oven roasted with a wonderfully crispy skin. With summer returning, Chef wanted to bring fried chicken back onto the menu, but in a format that would require less work beforehand.
In case you need to see what my fried chicken looks like again… |
Recalling his days at another restaurant, Chef was reminded of a fried chicken he did that soaked overnight in buttermilk. He said the resulting dish when this chicken was fried was remarkable. I was standing on the other side of the room, but at this comment, my ears pricked up. Some of you may remember that I posted a recipe for awesome fried chicken whose secret was a buttermilk brine. I developed it while in culinary school, and it was named “Slap My Momma Fried Chicken” by one of my fellow students.
I went over to Chef and asked him about his chicken recipe - was it a buttermilk brine, or just buttermilk. He said it was just buttermilk, and so I gave him a brief description of my version which involves making a brine. He was a tad skeptical at first, but he didn’t say no, and when it came time to butcher up the first batch of chickens for the new fried chicken, well, that was my job, so I whipped up a batch of my brine and let them soak away in it.
Hmm… having a photo of Pepto Bismol in a post talking about my cooking… maybe not such a good idea. |
The thing is, my brine recipe has paprika and cayenne in it for a little flavor, which naturally turns the buttermilk pink. Chef was the one on station for the inaugural night of sending this fried chicken out to the public. He opened the container of brining breasts, and I was sure to watch his face as he did it. Yes, the mild shock he must have felt at opening a case of chicken breasts that appeared to be soaking in Pepto Bismol and crushed garlic was hard for him to hide.
But he went forward with it nonetheless, and the results turned out really great. I should point out that his method for applying the final coating to the chickens differs from mine, and since that’s his recipe, I’m not going to share it here.
The real redemption came the next night though as another sous chef was working the line and he was impressed with what an amazingly tender chicken was coming out of the fryer as a result of this brining. Chef acknowledged that the tenderness was awesome, and he looked at me and said, “You have the recipe for this brine, right?…”
“Of course I do, Chef!” I said with a smile.
Of course, I think he meant I had written it down for them, which I haven’t as of yet. But hey, all they have to do is read my blog, right?…
Chef Matt
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06.03.08
Posted in 1. The Story at 10:21 am by Chef Matt
I guess I knew what I was getting into. There were plenty of warnings that being a chef would be a hard, tiring job. Heck, several people tried to warn me away from becoming a chef if only because it is such an incredible increase in effort. But I ignored those people since I was raised in a family that was always willing to let me know what I wanted to do with my life. While growing up, the most common phrase I heard when I thought up a new career choice (which admittedly was often) was “Oh, you don’t want to do that…” As a result of this indoctrination, I rarely listen to people’s advice on career decisions since that would only keep me from trying out new things.
“And as we can see from your career profile aptitude test, you are best suited to be a priest, stand-up comic or lumberjack. Good luck with that.” |
Once again, it is only fair that I point out that my family was 100% supportive of my decision to become a chef. At no point did they try to dissuade me from this path. (Which was a welcome surprise…)
I have mentioned before how it is challenging to “pull a six” in any given week when what you are used to is a five day work week. Well, these past two weeks I not only had to pull two sixes back to back, but within this stretch, I had to pull multiple doubles as well. The reason for all this? I was filling in for a fellow sous chef who was taking his vacation in Japan - his first trip out of the country.
At the risk of sounding hubristic, I’ve become pretty good at my job. (I should hope so, seeing as how I’ve been doing it for over a year now.) So I’m usually able to finish up after just 11 hours on a usual day. (If that makes you shudder, then being a chef is not for you…) So an average work week is about 55 hours for me.
These past two weeks though, working six days each with several 13-14 hour days involved, I’ve figured that I worked a total of 148 hours. Back in the world of cubicles, it would usually take me 19 work days to work that many hours. But since I always had 5 day work weeks back then, 19 work days would be spread out over 25 calendar days. This stretch was 12 work days spread out over just 13 calendar days. The same amount of work in almost exactly half as many days.
To say I’m working twice as hard now that I’m a chef isn’t much of an exaggeration.
How could he not have a good time? He was away from work, and got to eat lots of sushi! |
So all that is a way of me saying two things:
- I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while - I’ve been busy.
- Man, I’m tired.
But the real payoff came when my fellow sous chef returned from his trip on Sunday. He had an awesome time and was ready to get back to work!
Made all my effort to cover for him seem worthwhile.
Chef Matt
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05.19.08
Posted in 1. The Story at 11:49 am by Chef Matt
Can you believe it my loyal readers? It has been a year since my first day at Rustico. (Actually the anniversary was yesterday, but give me a break, I had to work that day…)
As I mentioned before, when I took this job, it was my third restaurant in one year. I was worried about the implications of how I could possibly be perceived as a “jumper” who could not commit to a restaurant for any serious period of time. In short, while I was gaining experience, I was turning myself into someone who was undesirable as a hire. Thankfully, I’ve now proved to all the naysayers - and to myself - that this is not the case.
And that being said, I’m hardly looking for a new place. Hell, I worked for WWF for 8 years, so it is of course possible for me to stick around in a place I enjoy working. And such is the case for me at Rustico.
I have NEVER understood why Kevin Costner posed like that for this movie poster… |
I look back over the past year, and there is so much I have learned. Before this, I was much more in the “Field of Dreams” state of mind with respect to restaurant entrepreneurship: “If you cook it, they will come.” I thought that the only thing that really mattered was the food - if that was good, everything else would fall into place. But after a year of doing the purchasing (and making sure we meet our necessary food cost), employee scheduling, hiring, discipling and even letting a person or two go, it has taught me that the cooking is hardly the whole story.
But that’s not to say I haven’t learned a ton of new cooking tricks and recipes as well! Brewpops not withstanding, I have learned more about pickling different foods than I ever thought I would need to know. (I swear, these guys would pickle a brick if they could…) From making homemade sausage, to learning how to brew root beer, to butchering whole pigs, to making prefect roulades and terrines, my time in the Rustico kitchen has been a non-stop learning experience for me.
And now, with summertime approaching once again, I’m looking forward to long days and weeks of filling in for my staff as they all get to go on vacation while I stay behind and fill in the gaps. I’m not going to lie to you, it’s rough work running a restaurant. But each day I learn a little more, and am preparing myself that much more for the day when I take the ultimate jump.
So, in honor of one year at Rustico, here are some links to some of my favorite stories of what has happened in the past year:
- New Pants - The first time I had you all vote to guide my actions.
- Heavy is the Head… - One of my first experiences where I realized I really was in charge and had to solve all the problems of the kitchen myself.
- The Recipe for a Rough Day - It was a hell of a Sunday then, but I read it now and laugh seeing as how this the case for pretty much every Sunday now…
- Making Root Beer - What a fun learning experience this was - even though I spent more time inventing the recipe than we spent selling it.
- Yet More Kitchen Humor - One of the all-time great food pranks.
- The Real Use for the Pig Heads… - A pig’s head and a reciprocating saw. Awesomeness ensues.
- A New Pizza for Autumn - By far my most successful menu addition.
- Death in the Kitchen - Some of my beloved equipment shuffles off this mortal coil.
- A Surprise Field Trip - A pack of kindergardeners is about to descend on my restaurant. Anyone wanna give me a heads up?
- My Very Own “Big Night” Moment - Not necessarily about Rustico, but still an amazing internal dilemma that strikes at the core of my becoming a chef.
- Don’t Fear the Nettles - I think the discovery of how to use new ingredients is one of my favorite aspects of being a chef.
Here’s hoping the next year will be as good as the last!
Chef Matt
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04.21.08
Posted in 1. The Story at 2:44 pm by Chef Matt
The fun thing about being a professional chef is the ability to work with ingredients that are not only hard to find, but in many cases are ones I have never heard of. It’s the collaboration with those who are more experienced than me that make my career into a daily learning experience. Sure, I can’t wait for the day to come when I’m the one with all the answers and experience, but in the meantime, I’m of course enjoying the chance to learn everything I can so I’ll be ready.
Pretty soon, every garden in Northern Virginia will look like this… |
Springtime is upon us here in DC, and with the return of greenery on the trees and flowers on the azaleas comes a resurgence of fresh vegetables that are once again available. Even in this modern age we are subject to some degree of seasonality with respect to what ingredients we have to surrender in the winter months.
As I squeezed into our management office (read: closet) to begin my daily paperwork a few days back, chef stopped me and told me the latest ingredient he wanted me to hunt down.
“I want some stinging nettles, Matt,” he said.
Since he had not prefaced this as I did for you that this was an ingredient request, this sentence at first seemed a tad odd to me. The somewhat blank look on my face probably conveyed this. But his follow-up statement didn’t help much either.
“I want to make spaetzle.”
The only thought in my mind was, “Well, OK, then go make some…” but I opted for the less recalcitrant position. “Sure chef, I’ll see what I can track down.”
So much more than just a garden nuisance. But really, who’s the first guy who tried to eat this thing?… |
A few weeks later (when they became available) I had a bag of stinging nettles in house. The bag was full of serrated dark green leaves and everywhere I looked on the plants, there were tiny needles pointing right back at me. All of them standing strictly at attention in a pose that was screaming, “lawsuit!” in my ears. Still, I had been able to order these through a food purveyor, so I was guessing they were edible, but they sure didn’t look it.
When chef and Andrew arrived later that day, I showed them the bag - thinking that I was going to be laughed at for ordering something so obviously inedible. Instead they got right to work, taking the leaves off the stems (while wearing gloves of course) and then blanching them in boiling water to make them tender - including the pointy barbs.
“Here, give this a try,” Andrew offered me as he held out what could have easily been a piece of cooked spinach. It was nothing short of delicious. Andrew then went on to explain a lot of the different uses for them which was all really quite fascinating. But true to chef’s word, we worked them into a batch of spaetzle that night which was served with a pork chop special. Even with the description of a “stinging nettle spaetzle” accompanying the chops, this dish sold out in almost no time flat.
It’s funny how something so simple can turn into a really interesting learning experience. And I think I learned quite a bit. For example, I learned:
- Stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) are not only delicious, but they can be used in a bunch of ways and are quite nutritious as well.
- Just because something both looks and sounds dangerous, doesn’t mean it is inedible (but that is still the way to bet…)
- Trusting in the experience of others can lead to some amazing discoveries in the world of food.
- Customers are willing to be more adventurous than you may expect when ordering a special off the menu.
and finally:
- “Stinging Nettle Spaetzle” is an awesome band name.
Chef Matt
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04.08.08
Posted in 1. The Story, 4. Teaching Classes at 10:13 am by Chef Matt
As I mentioned a few weeks back when describing my vinegar class to you all, t