Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / A Chef Can Cook, But A Cook Can't Chef Ep. 63

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A Chef Can Cook, But A Cook Can't Chef Ep. 63 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs, This is Chef's PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host on Trinatara. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:04
  to talk about the differences between cooks and chefs.
• 0:07
  Stay tuned. So on today's episode, what
• 0:21
  we're going to get into is we're going to talk about the
• 0:22
  differences between a chef and a cook.
• 0:25
  And we're going to expand upon the old expression, a chef can
• 0:28
  cook, but a cook can't chef. And what does that really mean?
• 0:32
  Also, at the very end, I'm going to tell you what my top five
• 0:34
  cookbooks are because a lot of people have been asking me what
• 0:37
  are the five cookbooks that I recommend.
• 0:39
  So wait till the end and I'll make sure I tell you what my top
• 0:42
  five favorite cookbooks that influence me are.
• 0:45
  Now before we begin a brief update.
• 0:47
  I just released Food Cost Mastery.
• 0:50
  It's a free ebook. You could find a link in the
• 0:53
  description below. It's a companion to the
• 0:55
  three-part episode I did on Food Cost Mastery, so hopefully you
• 0:59
  go back and listen to that if you want to learn all about food
• 1:01
  cost. The ebook basically summarizes
• 1:04
  what was in the podcast with maybe a little bit extra and
• 1:07
  maybe a little bit more polished.
• 1:08
  Because, you know, sometimes I just get lost in thought
• 1:10
  bubbles. Go check that out.
• 1:12
  It's free. It's free education.
• 1:14
  Why would you say no to something that's free or you can
• 1:16
  pay me? I mean, I I do appreciate a
• 1:18
  little donation to the cause. Always appreciated Chefs
• 1:22
  psa.com/books to see all the books.
• 1:24
  Everything's in the show notes and if you want to support the
• 1:26
  show there's a link in Spotify where you could donate and all
• 1:30
  donations are appreciated. I also have just released the
• 1:33
  Bad Sue Good Chef book in Italian, so for those of you
• 1:36
  that were waiting for the Italian version that is out, I'm
• 1:40
  finishing translating the last two which is Line Cook Survival
• 1:42
  Manual which I'm working on currently.
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  I'm more than halfway done. And then the last one, the Red
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  Book. The biggest city in the kitchen
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  will be done and I'm gonna pump the brakes for a little bit.
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  After that, I'm working on two other ebooks.
• 1:53
  I'll announce those soon. And then one last update.
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  If for those of you that were asking the how to manage like an
• 1:58
  executive chef class, it's exclusively available on my
• 2:01
  YouTube channel. So if you want to watch that
• 2:03
  class, a lot of you have seen the Instagram reels with me in a
• 2:06
  suit talking nonsense about menus or food cost or whatever
• 2:11
  that's available on YouTube. I'm putting up the whole Class 2
• 2:13
  episodes are up. Episode one and episode 2 I just
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  put out on Kitchen Culture Episode 3 a little bit later
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  this week. Anyway, we digress the subject
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  matter. What's the difference between a
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  cook and a chef? So the expression a chef can
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  cook but a cook can't? Chef basically.
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  Is that, contrary to popular belief, every chef most likely
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  started out as a cook. I'm sure there's exceptions to
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  the rule and people are going to slide to my DMC.
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  I know a guy that, you know, graduated from culinary school
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  and his parents bought him a restaurant okay.
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  Of course, there's always exceptions to the rule, but an
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  exception doesn't disprove the rule.
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  Most chefs started in kitchens and work their way up regardless
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  of culinary or formal training. So they have the ability to
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  cook, but they also have something extra, and that is the
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  ability to run the brigade or lead the kitchen.
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  In French, the term chef translates as leader.
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  So the way that we're going to use Chef in today's context for
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  the podcast versus cook is a cook will be someone that works
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  the station on the line. So you know, the saute cook, the
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  grill cook, the veg cook, the entre Bay, the pastry cook, the
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  prep cook. That's what we mean by cooks.
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  And when I'm Speaking of chefs, I'm talking about the person who
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  is leading, the person who's leading, the brigade making the
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  decisions and ultimately holds responsibility over the
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  restaurant or the culinary operation.
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  There's the expression we're all cooks, but we're not all chefs.
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  And I know a lot of chefs sometimes renounce the title,
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  you know, out of a sense of humility, saying, you know, I'm
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  just a cook, I'm not a chef. We're not going to get into that
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  today. I know a lot of people will just
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  say, no, I don't wear the fancy chef coat.
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  I just wear a tshirt. Or you know what, I don't have
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  embroidery on my coat. We're not talking about that.
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  We're talking today in context, the difference between someone
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  that's leading the kitchen versus someone that's not.
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  And what are some of those differences?
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  What's interesting is when I was coming up and again, times were
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  different. But saying someone was a cook
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  could be a compliment or it could also be a pejorative.
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  And I'll, I'll tell you what I mean, like, like I said earlier,
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  sometimes chefs would be like, no, I'm just a cook.
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  I just want to get behind the stove, pots and pans and make
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  delicious food. We're all cooks at heart.
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  And then other times, like if someone wasn't good at what they
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  did, you would just say, oh, that person's just, they're just
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  a cook, they're not a chef. Right?
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  And it was, it was meant to be a, a subtle dig at them in terms
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  of skill level. They would say things like stop
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  acting like a cook. So when we're talking about what
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  some of the big differences are, a lot of times people will say
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  the expression, a chef doesn't run in the kitchen, a cook runs.
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  And that usually has to do with the fact that they're calm,
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  they're efficient. A chef shows up exactly where
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  they need to be when they're supposed to be there.
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  When I was a chef, I used to have one of my sous chefs.
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  I'd pop into the kitchen and I'd like right when the kitchen was
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  crashing, I would, I would show up, you know, because at this
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  point in time I had multiple kitchens that I oversaw and I
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  would just show up right in the kitchen right when it was
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  crashing and then help them get through the push of service.
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  And then my sous chef would come up to me like, how do you know
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  to show up on time all the time? Like you have this instinct and
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  I said, you know what, my chef force, right.
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  So I chokingly use the term chef force.
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  It's like this instinct that chefs has.
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  It's The Sixth Sense, whether it's with cooking or knowing
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  where to be at a certain time or, you know, sometimes your
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  chef instincts will go off and say that person's going to quit.
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  They're not coming back from vacation or whatever the case
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  may be like. You start to, you start to pick
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  up on things. Intuitively, it's what I call
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  the chef force, right? I tell my sous chef, I just know
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  my intuition based on who's on the schedule, how many covers we
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  have, who's working, who's running the service team, the
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  weather. I don't know doing that.
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  I just know that I probably needed to be in the kitchen.
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  And sure, should I did, I'd show up and boom, they needed me.
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  That's the difference between a chef and a cook is the chef is
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  thoughtful of where they need to be and where everyone else needs
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  to be. The chef moves officially.
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  The chef uses time management not just to manage their time,
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  but also to manage the time of the team and move them around.
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  Chefs make lists. Chefs order food.
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  Chefs write schedules. Chefs sit down to cooks and stop
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  them from arguing. Chefs sometimes have to write a
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  menu on the fly, right? Well, I'm working on a project.
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  I won't get too into it, but I had to write a menu really quick
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  this past week and I haven't written, you know, start to
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  finish menu. And this is for, you know,
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  something they want, like to be a top restaurant in the city.
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  And I was like, okay, sure done. I turned it around and less than
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  a day, half a day of writing a menu, right, four or five hours
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  in front of a computer, boom. I'm pretty happy with the way
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  the menu came out. But a lot of times, you know,
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  I've, I've talked with cooks in my career.
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  I need you to come up with a special and they struggle like I
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  don't know what to do. You know, they're really good at
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  the line and they know how to cook.
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  But sometimes when it comes to the creative process, that's
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  also sometimes the difference between the cook and the chef.
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  And that's not bad because a lot of people do enjoy the the being
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  on the line. They don't want the
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  responsibility. They don't want to move up.
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  And managing A brigade, you know, different brigades,
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  different size, that's stressful.
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  You know, chefs, chefs sometimes age very quickly because of the
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  amount of stress that they're dealing with.
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  And this is something that not a lot of people see.
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  They don't see the chaos behind the scenes.
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  They don't see that it's constant problem after problem
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  after problem. They don't see that you're
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  checking your phone in the middle of the night and
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  tomorrow's your day off. And then you realize you got to
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  come in because a certain cook called off and there's no one
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  that could cover. And you've been working 20 days
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  straight. And then you call the one person
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  that always has two days off and you say, hey, it's my only day
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  off tomorrow and I have plans with my with my family.
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  Can you cover for me or can you cover this cook?
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  And they say, sorry, I'm busy too, right?
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  So a lot of people don't see some of the chaos that the chef
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  has to deal with. And trust me, from experience,
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  I'm telling you, it's it's probably the most difficult
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  thing. Cooking sometimes is the easy
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  part. And when I was running kitchen,
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  sometimes I would prefer like, just put me on a board, put me
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  on, put me on the pass, let me call service.
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  I'd rather do that than have to deal with some of the problems
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  that I have to deal with on a daily basis.
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  And that's sometimes what separates, you know, a cook from
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  a chef. And and like I said, not bad,
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  just different. It brings me to that thing.
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  Everyone's a chef. I cook at home, I make a TikTok
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  video. I'm a chef, right?
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  No, you're a home cook or you're cooking for Instagram.
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  If someone asked me today, you know, and I I'm cautious about
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  this because a lot of people still call me chef and I I I
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  recognize that it's a term of respect.
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  But to me, Chef is the title and I'm not leading a brigade right
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  now. Maybe Chef's PS:.
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  A is the brigade, right, Chef's PS:.
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  A army out there. Maybe they look at me as chef,
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  but I'm not leading A-Team. If I was to take a job and I
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  walk into a kitchen and they hire me to be the fry cook, I'm
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  not going to walk around and say, well, you got to call me
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  chef because I've been a chef before and I went to culinary
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  school and I've been an executive chef 9 times.
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  They're going to say none of that matters.
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  That person over there is the chef and you're the fry cook.
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  And that, and I have to accept it because the chef in certain
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  places is the title. That's the person that is
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  responsible. Now when we look at the French
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  brigade system, you know, the term chef means leader, as we
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  talked about earlier, and the head chef was the chef, the
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  cuisine, the chef of the kitchen, the person who's
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  running the culinary team, that's the chef, the cuisine.
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  Here in the United States, you see the term executive chef
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  thrown around a lot, meaning, you know, they're the executive,
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  they're the head boss, right? Same principle applies.
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  But then you have your Demi chef, your chef departee, your
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  chef Comey and so on and so forth, your chef patisserie,
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  etcetera. So all of these are different
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  positions that are also running certain teams.
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  So the chef departee usually runs a team of Demi chefs or
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  chef comeys, etcetera. A sous chef typically runs chef
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  departees. Maybe you have an executive sous
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  chef and a lot of hierarchies like junior sous chef, senior
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  sous chef, executive sous chef, assistant executive sous chef.
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  I don't know, some some of these titles get wild out there.
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  But anyway, you get the point. A chef is usually the person
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  who's leading a brigade. So then you look at like social
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  media influencers, like, I'm a home chef is like, well, I don't
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  fucking go around and say I'm a home doctor because I prescribe
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  myself Tylenol or anything like that.
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  So it's kind, it's kind of disrespectful to the profession,
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  right? And I think on a certain level
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  we need to bring that professionalism back to the
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  culinary industry because anyone with a TikTok account and some
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  spaghetti and Velveeta can call themselves a chef.
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  And it's it's kind of ridiculous.
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  Like I didn't have such a problem with it before, but now
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  it's starting to get to the point where everyone's just
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  bastardizing the term chef and they're just throwing it around.
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  And anyone, anyone that's making a sink full of noodles with Taco
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  sauce is calling them a chef. I, I, I, I love watching chef
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  reactions. I find that guy hilarious and
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  and some of his quips are like just spot on and on point.
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  Super sarcastic. I I love, I love watching.
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  Anyway, we digress. One last thing I'm going to say
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  when it comes to chefs and this this might be like all when I
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  say this. All the all the cooks are going
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  to be like, yeah, we know, right?
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  And it's a big truth. That is the head chef, the chef,
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  the cuisine or executive chef in the kitchen is not necessarily
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  always the best cook. They're not paid to be the best
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  cook. I think Alon du CAS has a quote
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  where he says the chef doesn't need to be the best cook in the
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  kitchen. They need to be the best taster.
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  Then you'd have the best palate, which goes back to my point.
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  A chef can cook, but a cook can't.
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  Chef. The cook may be able to execute,
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  but the chef is the one who's able to create and correct and
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  with experience have a lot of solutions to the problems which
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  may arise. I might be wrong if everyone is
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  a chef. So back to the point that I was
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  trying to make, there's a lot of times the sous chef or the chef
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  the cuisine. You know, if there's a
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  multilayer like executive chef, chef, the cuisine or sometimes
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  there's just a really strong cook in the kitchen that is like
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  the best cook on the line and also maybe the driving force
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  behind the menu creation, it's not necessarily always the chef.
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  I mean, look, I'm going to dispel a myth for a lot of
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  people that think you're going to go into Gordon Ramsay's
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  restaurant in Las Vegas and find them probably not there.
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  And he probably has a corporate chef or a chef to cuisine in
• 12:59
  that particular restaurant that writes the menus.
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  That's the reality of it. And I promise you, a lot of very
• 13:06
  large, big name chefs do the same thing.
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  I promise you, Guy Fieri and Bobby Flay are not on the line
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  in their restaurants. Guy Fieri's not making the
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  Donkey sauce. Sorry to disappoint.
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  I don't even know what Donkey Sauce is.
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  It's probably tasty. It's worth a fortune.
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  And then I should say, you know, just to just to kind of wrap up
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  the chef versus cook is, I would say, if you want to become a
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  chef, if you're just starting out and like I said, maybe in
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  your kitchen, everyone is called chef because I've know I've
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  worked in those places where it's just a term of
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  professionalism and we all call each other chef.
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  We all say yes, chef. Even if the person who's calling
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  the pass isn't a chef, we'd say yes chef or we chef out of
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  respect because they are in charge, right.
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  So maybe that's the type of kitchen you work in.
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  So I'm not trying to discredit it.
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  Like I said, for this podcast in particular, I'm I'm using the
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  difference between the person who's leading the brigade versus
• 14:02
  the person who's working on the stations.
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  But if you want to go from cook to chef, understand that the
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  biggest thing that needs to happen, one I should say the
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  gatekeepers always you need to be good with food at a certain
• 14:15
  level. You need to be the best cook in
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  the kitchen, or at least towards the tip of the spear.
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  But the rest of it is the leadership qualities.
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  Being able to look at a problem, whether it be a people problem
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  or a food problem, and knowing how to correct it.
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  Looking at the service line and saying service would be much
• 14:32
  more efficient if we changed this, this and this.
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  That is how a chef thinks. A chef is thinking far ahead.
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  They understand that the decisions that they're making
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  are going to affect more than just themselves.
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  They affect the entire team, They affect the finances, they
• 14:48
  affect ownership, they affect the guests.
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  And a chef understands that the decisions that are made today,
• 14:53
  they may have to suffer the consequences of that long term
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  anyway. Now, on to the other thing.
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  Five books that I think for me were the most influential.
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  I might, I might not do exactly 5, but the reason I'm doing this
• 15:07
  is because I get a lot of DM saying can you can you recommend
• 15:09
  some books? So so here we go.
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  These are the books that I recommend that influenced me so
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  understand that the era that I came up in is slightly different
• 15:20
  than the current era. So some of the books may seem a
• 15:23
  little bit dated but these were the books that influenced me.
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  OK, I'm going to give you 10 books.
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  I'm going to give you 5 that influenced me and then five and
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  maybe a little bit more recently.
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  So the first book that I would put at the top of the heat for
• 15:35
  me, French Laundry Cookbook. I think so many chefs say that
• 15:39
  this is the book that influenced them the most because it was the
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  first book in that era that had the beautiful pictures, the
• 15:45
  stories, the narrative, the precise recipes, and to
• 15:50
  understand. Like the food in the French
• 15:52
  Laundry cookbook when it first came out.
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  I don't know when it came out, 1999 or whatever.
• 15:57
  It was light years ahead of everything else.
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  Not even close. The photography, the imagery,
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  honestly, still to this day I would say of all the Cocos, it's
• 16:08
  still for me #1 number 2C Trotter.
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  And there was a whole series of Charlie Trotter books, but the
• 16:15
  one that I would put on the list was the book Charlie Trotter.
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  The I think it's maroon or purple.
• 16:22
  It was so beautiful. Also again, beautiful photos.
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  It didn't have the same amount of stories as the French Laundry
• 16:29
  cookbook but the recipes were super interesting and and you
• 16:32
  know back then the food that Charlie Trotter was doing was
• 16:35
  like the equivalent of like what Noma's doing today, what he was
• 16:38
  doing vegetables and all that. Go watch the Charlie Trotter
• 16:41
  documentary. Very good.
• 16:44
  It's a it's a time capsule of how great things were #3 white
• 16:48
  heat Marco pure white gangster book he he looks so cool.
• 16:54
  Every every single chef wanted to be Marco pure white back in
• 16:56
  the day he had that you know the black and white clothes.
• 16:58
  There's a photo with him on a shark and smoking a cigarette
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  and, you know, looking like a rock star.
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  Marco Pure White. Honestly, that book, one of the
• 17:06
  best cookbooks out there, it's small.
• 17:08
  It's not as large as like The French Laundry or Charlie
• 17:11
  Trotter. It had fewer recipes, but
• 17:13
  outstanding book. And then the imagery.
• 17:15
  And look, back then you were cool if you had the Marco Pure
• 17:18
  White cookbook. Next was Alondu Casa's culinary
• 17:21
  encyclopedia, Grand Leaf, the cuisine giant book.
• 17:24
  I don't, I mean, back then it was like 250 bucks.
• 17:26
  I don't know how much it is now. And I remember I had to save up
• 17:29
  as a cook to get it. It was big.
• 17:32
  I don't know. It's like 500 pages.
• 17:34
  And then the recipes are just like beautiful photos, detailed
• 17:40
  recipes. And it goes on forever.
• 17:42
  Great book. It was like only only gangsters
• 17:46
  had that book. Like cool kids had the Marco
• 17:49
  Pierre White book, but like only gangsters had Alon du Casa's
• 17:54
  book. And then #5, I would say Joel
• 17:56
  Rubichan's Lataglia book. It was really well done.
• 18:00
  I remember I got it and it's it's a book with many chefs that
• 18:04
  worked under him and the food is beautiful and the technique is
• 18:08
  sharp. And of course he's famous for
• 18:10
  the Rubicon potatoes, one of the greatest chefs to have ever
• 18:13
  lived. I'd recommend that book now,
• 18:16
  books that are, I hate to say, more modern, but maybe, maybe
• 18:21
  the last 10 or 15 years modern. I don't know if we could even
• 18:26
  say that, but shit. Anyway, Noma, I'm going to put
• 18:32
  that up. There is probably the number one
• 18:36
  of the in the modern section. You know what Renee Woods EPI
• 18:40
  did? I mean besides the the ants.
• 18:45
  I don't know if I'm into ants. But anyway, besides the ants,
• 18:47
  Renee Woods EPI had one of the most brilliant books.
• 18:49
  He was the first one to start introducing the foraging and
• 18:51
  that Nordic style plating. At least first time I saw it and
• 18:54
  the fermentation and all that, like just great.
• 18:58
  I mean, you could maybe, like you could argue that maybe the
• 19:00
  fermentation book could compete for that, but nonetheless, no
• 19:04
  mind put that right at the top, I should say.
• 19:08
  Maybe I could have argued the The New French Laundry per se
• 19:11
  also because I think The New French Laundry per se is just as
• 19:15
  good as the original French Laundry.
• 19:17
  It's the updated version with a lot of newer techniques in
• 19:21
  there. You know where they're talking
• 19:22
  about, you know the the prehydrated xantham gum or the
• 19:25
  veg Blanc that they used to cook vegetables.
• 19:28
  And so there's a lot more detail.
• 19:29
  We get really granular on brining fish and anyway the
• 19:32
  French Laundry per se book, really great book, highly
• 19:35
  recommend that when I would put that in there too.
• 19:37
  Octa Philosophy by Andre Chang, great book, I've read it cover
• 19:41
  to cover, really enjoyed it. He's got an interesting way to
• 19:44
  think about food and some of the flavor combinations he pulls
• 19:47
  like, so when I read a cookbook, I read it end to end.
• 19:49
  I don't just look at the pictures, I read every single
• 19:51
  recipe and I put a bookmark where I left off.
• 19:52
  And when you start to read some of the recipes in Octa
• 19:56
  philosophy, it's like he takes some very simple ideas And then
• 20:00
  like, oh, I would have never thought to put that in there.
• 20:02
  I don't, you know, I wish I could give you a good example,
• 20:04
  but I'm making this up. Maybe it's like miso and the
• 20:07
  kale puree or something like that.
• 20:08
  But, you know, he was, he was always taking something that
• 20:13
  looked visually beautiful. But then you read the recipe is
• 20:15
  like, oh, I would have never thought that really good book,
• 20:18
  11 Madison Park. You could argue which one was
• 20:20
  better, 11 when the 11 Madison Park book came out, the first
• 20:25
  one. I loved it.
• 20:27
  I thought that the photos were beautiful.
• 20:30
  It was one of the best books at the time when it came out and
• 20:33
  you could say it was like the book when it came out.
• 20:36
  Obviously super talented chefs that work there, great
• 20:40
  restaurants, the number one restaurant for a reason and the
• 20:43
  book shows why. And also, you know, not in the
• 20:45
  cookbook list, but Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Godera,
• 20:49
  Great book. Honestly, one of the best books
• 20:51
  I've I've read big time into culture.
• 20:53
  And I think it's one of those books that if you're in the
• 20:56
  industry, whether you're a chef or you're on the service side,
• 20:59
  you should be reading that book. Unreasonable Hospitality, but
• 21:02
  not on this list. That's a different list for
• 21:03
  another day. Last one.
• 21:06
  You know, it's it's tough for me to say, but because I don't know
• 21:08
  if this would go into my first list or to my second list, but
• 21:11
  it should be on the list either way on one of them.
• 21:13
  But I'm going to put on this one.
• 21:15
  The Alinea book Grant Atkins Legend.
• 21:17
  He's on the Mount Rushmore of Chefs.
• 21:20
  And when that book came out again, it was like no one was
• 21:24
  doing food like that in the United States until Grant and I
• 21:28
  I've talked about this before, but I was a chef in California
• 21:31
  at that time around that, around the time when that book came
• 21:34
  out, and I remember I had the albouli book.
• 21:37
  The albouli book came with a CD, and then I had the Alinea book,
• 21:40
  and I was doing that style of cuisine out in California before
• 21:45
  people were really thinking about it.
• 21:47
  And I just remember thinking like that Alinea book was like
• 21:50
  light years ahead of everything else because, you know, I'd have
• 21:52
  my scales out with my alginettes doing that kind of food.
• 21:58
  It was just, it was just advanced for the time.
• 22:00
  It was like Grant Akets, Wiley Du Frey.
• 22:03
  I can't remember who else was doing it in the US Oh, Homarak,
• 22:06
  Khantu Ramoto. But there was, I think they were
• 22:09
  really the only three. And I dabbled in it a little bit
• 22:12
  in California. And I didn't get too much into
• 22:15
  it because, you know, when I started, I think I left that
• 22:18
  restaurant within a year before I could really make my name
• 22:22
  doing that kind of food. But anyway, we digress.
• 22:24
  Those are my book recommendations.
• 22:26
  I'm sure I missed some. I should probably include a list
• 22:28
  of books that you could read, right?
• 22:30
  I could probably do it real fast, like Anthony Bourdain.
• 22:34
  Boom. Okay.
• 22:34
  Next, add in Marco Pierre White's book The Devil in the
• 22:37
  Kitchen and then everything else, right?
• 22:40
  Anyway, that's going to wrap up the show today.
• 22:42
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• 22:45
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• 22:59
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• 23:00
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