Two years ago, even last year it seemed like every restaurant was short staffed. The quality and caliber of a lot of the cooks that were being hired was bad. Chefs were having to hire people who were under qualified because their was such a need for cooks in the industry. Cooks were a hot comodity and they were restaurant hopping like never before. There was always a new restaurant opening and lots of new oppourtunities for everyone. Under these circumstances the quality of the food can suffer.
Last year restaurant managers were hiring people with less serving expierence to fill job openings. This can effect service. The servers who survive through the recession are proffesional and expierenced. Smart restauranteurs know that the slow times are when it is even more important to impress customers with solid service and all the little extras.
Now that lots of cooks are unemployed the ones that do have jobs are holding on to them with dear life. Natural selection, survival of the fittest is taking place. The good restaurants are using the recession to weed out the hacks and add new strong cooks. Cooks that can bring special skills such as charcuterie and other house made specialties . The quality of the food is going up because chefs have the time and the experienced cooks to do things that weren’t possible before. There is a lot more time when suddenly every cook in the kitchen is solid and nobody is babysitting or picking up anybody else’s slack. Good restaurants are building dream teams during these slow times, tightening up menus and patiently laying in wait for busy times to come. When business picks up again they will be armed with new house made charcuterie and innovative techniques. The bar gets raised when the best cooks come together and have time to do tests.

Kitchen whites, are they just for hotel cooks and old men? No, but I refuse to wear a paper hat or a neckercheif, fuck that, I’m new school. We wore t-shirts at the last restaurant I worked at and it made me question wearing whites. I asked around to my cook friends and most of them said that they still like whites. One of them said that when he was in Portland he saw a reputable chef wearing a shirt and tie with an apron. At another restaurant the cooks were dressed in hipster looking clothes and skate t-shirts. T-shirts are okay if you are in the basement of a restaurant during the hot summer, but not in an upscale bistro with an open kitchen. Or maybe it is okay, I don’t know.
Lots of cooks now days wear dish washer jackets, as a sign of humility and also for the light comforable material. Kyle loves putting on his whites in the lockerroom and looking in the mirror and getting his ‘game face’ on. A nice crisp jacket and clean apron can make you feel ready for anything on a Friday night. It is easy to feel a little disjointed cooking in a t-shirt. Plus they have some super nice whites available these days if you order from the right people (Bragard, Clement). I think it also depends on if your restauant has a linen service.
Some restaurants have a linen service, this keeps the whites clean and crisp. When one restaurant first opened they had the nicest short sleeved whites in the softest material that said the restaurant name on them, they felt like quality. I still remember how happy I was to get my first jersey. They never had a linen service for their whites and so after 6 months of the cooks washing their jerseys at home in shitty apartment washing machines they all turned stained and grey. Eventually we all just started wearing t-shirts. I was used to wearing a large jersey and when I saw that the guys had t-shirts I was stoked because I usually wear my boyfriend’s big t-shirts when I go out anyway. They gave me my shirt and it was a girls t-shirt, super tight with capped sleaves. I was so pissed. I was on meats and when I would skim my stocks the tender skin just before my armpit would hit the hot edge of the large stock pot. In the walkin it was so much colder in my tiny T. I missed my whites then, but eventually I got used to my shirt and started liking it.
People say that a linen service for cooks is a waste of money, but it is more of a waste of money to order a bunch of whites that without proper drycleaning look fucked after 6 months. T-shirts are easy to wash at home, but nothing beats a nice crisp jersey.

A cook came to work with us last summer and he was really experienced and really cool, and he did alot of his prep with a cleaver. He was the most laid back person I have ever met, he was on Garde Manger and he was fast! His brunoise and segments were perfect and he did it all with an $11 cleaver that he bought in China Town. He said it was super fun to prep with and he kept it razor sharp. He was a really positive team player type of guy, and he kept me going. Without him, and the conversations we would have, I wouldn’t have lasted as a cook through that summer. I decided I wanted to be like Eugene so I bought a cleaver as a symbol of solidarity. There we were chopping like mad, side by side, making salsa verde with our cleavers. Mine was $14 at Ming Wo, Eugene said I got ripped off.

I get so much use out of this cleaver. It’s good for using on the pig and for chopping nuts.

Since I’ve been unemployed I’ve been doing odd modeling jobs to get money. Last week I modeled accessories at the Bay. I showed up for the first day of the job and the stylest gave me a disgusted look and told me to put my hair back (a little to much bed head). She also gave me open toed shoes (I don’t want to talk about it). It’s okay to have split ends and chipped toe nail polish in the kitchen. That afternoon I booked an appointment to get my dead ends trimmed and I gave myself a pedicure.
I only had to work for 1 hr and I got paid more than I would for 12 hrs in the kitchen. I’d still rather find a good kitchen to work and learn in. I really miss it. These is are my most recent modeling pictures. Owen put himself singing Atlantic City on his blog…and I really liked it.

puff before it is rolled out

I love making doughs. Pictured above is some puff dough I made last night for a beef wellington dinner tonight. I feel like one small part of being a strong cook is to understand how to make a variety of doughs. Puff dough, quiche/pie dough, gnocchi dough, pasta dough, choux paste, bread doughs, etc. I have a dream to learn how to make noodle dough, for hand pulled noodles, but I don’t have a good dough recipe yet. Dough, dough, dough!!!

A Stage is a trial shift at a restaurant to see if you want to work there or if they want to hire you. I did a stage just recently that was really good. The time went by really fast. I felt busy and useful and I saw some beautiful products. I saw some crazy shit I ain’t never seen before called radicchio castelfranco, it’s beige with maroon speckles. I also saw the most beautiful fish I’ve ever seen and they said that he wasn’t even that nice compare to what they usually get.
I was really happy to finally meet a cook named Kirby. Lots of my other friends know him and love him and now I know him and love him. He really knew how to handle a stage too! He gave me jobs and carefully showed me how he wanted them done so that he got what he wanted as an end result. He showed me a brilliant garlic mincing trick, how to properly clean black trumpets and a ton about pasta. His generosity with his knowledge warmed my heart. If that wasn’t enough, during a really busy Friday night service he managed to make me little tasters of the menu items. It’s people like that that make you want to work at a place. Also, when staff meal was up I was finishing a job for the guy on garde-manger, Matty. Even though Matty was super busy he plated up some staff meal and brought it to me. That was really nice because I hate to admit this but I always feel really shy about eating staff meal during a stage (I know, I’ve got worrying problems). It was a good day.