Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / The More Things Change the More They Remain the Same Ep. 72

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The More Things Change the More They Remain the Same Ep. 72 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs. This is Chef's PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Andrea Natera. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:04
  to talk about how the more things change, the more they
• 0:07
  stay the same. Stay tuned.
• 0:21
  This episode of Chef's PSA is sponsored by J&R Grills and
• 0:24
  Smokers. Many of you have heard of J&R
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  smokers and grills that typically last for decades.
• 0:28
  I've had the pleasure of using them for over 5 years at one of
• 0:31
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• 0:33
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• 0:36
  flavors I wanted. I'm thrilled to have J&R as a
• 0:38
  sponsor. Their commitment over the past
• 0:40
  50 years speaks for itself. They understand your passion
• 0:43
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• 0:48
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• 0:51
  J&R, they'll stand with you. They've always stood with me.
• 0:53
  Go to jrmanufacturing.com to learn more.
• 0:56
  Now, before we get into it, here's a quick update.
• 0:58
  If you only listen to this podcast and you don't follow on
• 1:01
  social, go follow on social media.
• 1:03
  Right now. I've started a Facebook page.
• 1:05
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• 1:10
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• 1:14
  to chefspsa.com where you can get all the books that I've
• 1:17
  written including the Free ebooks Culinary Leadership,
• 1:20
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• 1:24
  Cook Survival Manual, and How Not To Be the Biggest Idiot in
• 1:27
  the Kitchen as well as a Culinary journal.
• 1:30
  I think the PSA I put up today was talking about making sure
• 1:34
  you write shit down and how everyone needs a journal and
• 1:37
  keep good journals right. I wish I had kept a lot of my
• 1:39
  journals when I was younger. Anyway, I have a very nice
• 1:42
  journal for chefs. Go get it.
• 1:44
  Show some support to the show and of course I have some
• 1:47
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• 1:54
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• 1:58
  Anyway, there's a lot on there at chefs psa.com.
• 2:01
  Go check it out and find the right thing for you.
• 2:04
  It helps support the show, goes a long way and it allows me to
• 2:06
  continue to bring content to you weekly.
• 2:09
  The other thing So I was talking to some chefs this week and I
• 2:13
  discovered that there's a game that a lot of chefs are playing.
• 2:16
  And apparently I say we digress a lot, which I do.
• 2:20
  I'm well aware, and the game is every time I say we digress, you
• 2:24
  all are taking a shot. I didn't realize that was a
• 2:27
  game, but now that I know it's a game, make sure you have your
• 2:29
  shots ready. And if I lost my train of
• 2:31
  thought earlier, what I was going to say is make sure you
• 2:34
  follow on Instagram. Every Sunday I do a chef's PSA
• 2:39
  Q&A cigar Sunday. Shout out to Escobar Cigars
• 2:42
  where I answer questions. It's a short time, so I got
• 2:45
  about 30 seconds to answer questions, but if you have
• 2:47
  questions, that's the best place to direct them towards me.
• 2:51
  I'm recording this on a Wednesday, the podcast is
• 2:54
  usually released on a Thursday and I think the Michelin Awards
• 2:57
  are going on. I just saw that Smith in Chicago
• 3:00
  is the newest 3 Michelin star restaurant.
• 3:02
  Shout out to those guys, great restaurant.
• 3:04
  I've never been, but I've often wanted to go and it's been a big
• 3:08
  inspiration for me as a chef to look at their food and and see
• 3:11
  all the cool things that they're doing.
• 3:13
  So congratulations to the team at Smith on your three Michelin
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  stars. Now, I've done a few podcasts
• 3:18
  where I talk about how the times are changing in the industry,
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  which sparked an interesting conversation between me and a
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  group of chefs the other day about how things haven't changed
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  at all. That the that the more things
• 3:30
  change, the more they stay the same.
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  And how food trends and style trends may change, but the
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  dynamic in the kitchen hasn't changed because the big elephant
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  in the room is we're still dealing with people.
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  And even though the food has evolved, besides technology,
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  people haven't really evolved and we're still dealing with
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  human nature and human emotions throughout the kitchen.
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  It's a lot of the premise on some of the books that I've
• 3:54
  written, Kitchen, Art of War and Bad Sue, Good Chef.
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  The same things that are written in that book would have applied
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  50 years ago, 70 years ago today, and most likely 20 years
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  from now and 30 years from now and so on.
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  So today I want to talk about some of the things that are
• 4:10
  unique to the kitchen that I don't see changing anytime soon.
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  This is the industry that we've selected.
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  We volunteered to become chefs, and cooks weren't forced.
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  There's plenty of other jobs out there.
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  This is what we chose out of passion or maybe just out of not
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  knowing what else to do or we kind of fell into it.
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  But nonetheless, this is the career path that we're on as
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  chefs. And I think what's shocking to
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  most people when they become cooks and chefs, the first thing
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  that shocks people is the amount of work that goes into working
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  in a kitchen. I was shocked when I became a
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  chef at the long stretches without days off, how my feet
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  were hurting, the pace in the kitchen.
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  And when I would talk to the older veterans, that didn't
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  change. They experienced the same thing.
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  Long is long. A 10 hour shift is a 10 hour
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  shift on your feet. It doesn't matter what year it
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  is, 10 hours on your feet is still 10 hours on your feet.
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  And what makes our industry so unique is that even though
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  there's technology coming in and food styles are changing and
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  we're getting kitchen equipment that is smart and more
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  efficient, we're still not doing it sitting down.
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  We're still doing it standing on our feet.
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  There's a certain physicality that goes into being a chef that
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  hasn't changed since the time of becoming a chef.
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  The physical aspect is probably one of the hardest things to
• 5:26
  adjust for a new cook. Just the stresses on your body
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  that this industry gives, it's like, you know, like you're a
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  semi pro athlete. There's squatting and lifting
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  and turning and bending and it's hot, and that hasn't changed.
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  And I don't see that changing anytime soon.
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  And now some of you may be saying, well, the robots are
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  eventually going to come replace us.
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  Well, then at that point it's not our industry anymore.
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  It now belongs to the Terminators.
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  The other thing that's interesting about our business
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  is the new people coming in. It doesn't matter what year
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  we're talking about. When someone steps into the
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  kitchen for the first time, there's a significant learning
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  curve of learning the kinesthetic abilities that go
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  with being a shot. You have to learn how to use a
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  knife. You have to learn how to cook
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  with a saute pan and flip. You have to learn product ID to
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  know the difference between ingredients or what ingredients
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  are that you've never heard of. You have to learn cooking
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  methods when someone says I need you to braise this or I need you
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  to saute that, and you have to learn what needs to be braised
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  and cooked for a long period of time and what needs to be
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  sauteed and cooked quickly. That doesn't change.
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  It doesn't matter what year it is.
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  If we're talking 20 years ago or 20 years from now, the new
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  person coming into the industry is going to have a steep
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  learning curve because if we're speaking about kinesthetic
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  ability, when you're learning how to use a knife, it doesn't
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  matter how many videos you watch, you still got to use the
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  knife to get good at it. Like I said, cooking is almost
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  like an athletic sport. There's a big level of skill
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  that's involved and you got to learn it.
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  There's no other way around it. You can't download it.
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  You don't have a neural link in your brain yet.
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  And so the fact that there's always new people coming into
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  this industry, there's always going to be a little bit of
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  frustration in the team of or the people that have to teach
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  the new people. Because also in this industry
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  along with the new people, there's veterans in the kitchen,
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  salty veterans that have been doing it for 10/20/30 years that
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  are stuck in their ways. We'll tell you about the good
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  old days and how they used to do it, who don't have the patience
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  for the new cook that's coming in and doesn't know anything.
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  And so you have polar opposites of skill set, someone that is
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  greenest spring coming into the kitchen and someone who could,
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  you know, slice onions with a blindfold on without nicking
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  themselves and they're working side by side.
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  That doesn't change. Then there's this chaotic rush
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  of orders that come in and you get slammed out of nowhere, and
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  in order to make restaurants work, the margins are usually
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  pretty thin. I I know a lot of people are
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  like, oh, everyone's making all this money.
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  It's not true. Restaurants aren't like these
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  money printers that everyone thinks they are.
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  They're working off very slim margins.
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  You have to figure out like we're going to sell food at this
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  price. So our food cost is roughly
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  going to be this, our labor cost is roughly going to be that you
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  got rent and utilities and everything else is going to come
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  out to this. And then it leaves like a small
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  margin for profit, assuming that you're having some profit.
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  A lot of places make no profit. That's why they close.
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  So this idea that people are opening restaurants and they
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  become printing presses, it's it's just, you know, erroneous
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  thoughts. But we digress.
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  I could tell you when I started cooking 27 years ago, the
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  margins were small. And today the margins are still
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  small. And so you have this financial
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  balancing act of trying to make the restaurant work.
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  Go back, look at restaurants that were hot 10 years ago and
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  count how many of them are still around.
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  Certainly there's outliers. There's acceptance to the rule
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  of restaurants that are iconic and last forever.
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  But for every one of those, there's 100 that didn't.
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  The other thing that you're dealing with, restaurants
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  specifically right now that we're talking about money, is
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  the person with the money who's making the decisions.
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  Maybe they're in a position of power, Maybe they're the owner,
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  maybe they're just your boss, but they have opinions.
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  And it's a strange relationship when someone's giving you money
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  because they might be wrong, but sometimes the person that's
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  giving you money is right simply because they're paying you,
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  which is a tough pill to swallow for a lot of chefs and creative
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  types because they're not necessarily smarter.
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  But if you want that check to keep coming in, sometimes they
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  are smarter. That doesn't change.
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  I put up a chef's PSA post today stating who makes the best cake,
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  the cake maker. Not the person with all the
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  ideas that runs the restaurant or the owner or, you know, the
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  manager or whatever the case may be.
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  It's the chef. The chef knows most about food.
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  It's the person that's putting all the time and effort into
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  researching, cooking, practicing, living it, breathing
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  it, going home, thinking about it, stressing about it,
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  dedicating their life to it and then being told I have a good
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  idea, Why don't you put this on the menu?
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  I think, I think it would go really well.
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  Now, do you bite your tongue and just put it on the menu?
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  Do you push back? Do you blow up?
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  Do you argue with them? Do you want that check to still
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  keep coming in or do they have a fragile ego?
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  I don't know. But that doesn't change and I've
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  seen that throughout my career. I'm sure it's going to continue
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  to happen, and I'm sure it happened to the previous chefs
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  of the last generation. I have that expression that I
• 10:12
  like to say everyone has Sex doesn't make you a porn star.
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  Just because you like food and just because you eat and just
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  because you barbecue on the weekends does not make you a
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  chef. But everyone thinks that because
• 10:22
  they do a little bit of it. Let me tell you, if you're not a
• 10:24
  chef and you happen to be listening to this and you make a
• 10:27
  good casserole and people like you should open up a restaurant,
• 10:30
  don't. Don't go spend all your money
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  because you have a good casserole.
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  Go work in a kitchen and understand what being a chef
• 10:36
  really is. It's hard.
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  That doesn't change. Human nature also doesn't
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  change. In every kitchen, there's that
• 10:42
  one person that's a jerk. There's that one chef that lets
• 10:45
  power get to their head and gets the overinflated ego.
• 10:49
  There's that one person that's very kind.
• 10:51
  There's the person that steals. There's that person that always
• 10:54
  calls off. There's that person that
• 10:56
  disappears when it's time to clean because they don't like
• 10:58
  hard work. There's that server that pockets
• 11:01
  the tickets. There's the server that always
• 11:03
  forgets to put the order in complete and then comes in and
• 11:06
  says, can you add this to the table?
• 11:08
  I forgot. There's that one person that's
• 11:10
  just a badass cook on the line and everyone looks up to and
• 11:13
  respects. There's that one cook that ruins
• 11:16
  service every time and gets in the weeds and you always have to
• 11:19
  bail them out and they just don't get it.
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  There's good people and there's bad people in every single
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  kitchen. There's people that you love,
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  that they become like family and you remain in great
• 11:29
  relationships with them for years.
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  And there's people that as soon as they leave, you hope you
• 11:34
  never see them again. There's that one person that no
• 11:36
  call, no shows, and you know they're done after the first
• 11:39
  time because you knew their character.
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  As soon as they walk through the door, the same characters keep
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  showing up over and over and over again.
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  No matter which restaurant you go to.
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  There's top performers and there's bottom performers.
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  Sometimes I talk to chef friends that I have that work in some
• 11:52
  really amazing kitchens, some of the best kitchens in the
• 11:54
  country, and they have the same complaints.
• 11:57
  We can't get good cooks. And you think to yourself, wow,
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  even some of the best restaurants in the world are
• 12:02
  facing some of the same problems.
• 12:03
  Then there's those people that get promoted very quickly.
• 12:06
  They just get it. You look at them.
• 12:08
  I know I've worked in my career and I've worked with some chefs
• 12:10
  that I see them. I was like, they got it.
• 12:12
  I they're 19 years old and they got it.
• 12:14
  They're out cooking everyone on the line.
• 12:16
  I've come across a couple of those throughout my career.
• 12:19
  Bright stars, all the talent. Some of them go far, some of
• 12:23
  them don't go very far because their talent turns into ego and
• 12:26
  they think that they don't have to work hard.
• 12:28
  Talent only gets you so far. And then they're in this
• 12:30
  permanent limbo of I got dealt a bad hand.
• 12:33
  Let me tell you, no one's coming to save you.
• 12:36
  You're in the driver's seat. I could give you advice all day
• 12:38
  long, but you have to act on it. And you could sit there and
• 12:40
  argue and say it's wrong or not. Me, I'm unlucky.
• 12:45
  Well, if you're unlucky, you could stop right there.
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  You're already saying it. I'm not saying it.
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  I say the opposite. I say I am lucky.
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  And there's those types of people in the kitchen.
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  A lot of times people get promoted and people wonder why
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  do they get promoted. And one of the biggest things,
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  and I gave this advice to someone personally the other
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  day, is the person who could find one solution is more
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  valuable than the person who could find 10 problems.
• 13:07
  And a lot of times we get it. We get sucked into this
• 13:09
  complaining trap. And kitchens are notorious
• 13:12
  breeding grounds for the complaining trap.
• 13:14
  Service team doesn't know what they're doing.
• 13:16
  The GM doesn't know what they're doing.
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  The chef doesn't know what they're doing.
• 13:19
  The cook next to me doesn't know what they're doing.
• 13:21
  Why does this not work? There's a leak here.
• 13:24
  There's a leak there. We need more equipment.
• 13:26
  We need the tools to do our job. And it's infectious.
• 13:29
  And everyone around you starts complaining because it's fun.
• 13:33
  It's fun to complain. It's fun to bitch about things.
• 13:35
  Meanwhile, you're walking around thinking all these things are
• 13:38
  broken and the chef doesn't even notice them, and you think that
• 13:41
  the chef doesn't notice them because the chef is not
• 13:43
  complaining about them with you. But what you may not realize is
• 13:47
  instead of complaining, the chef is busy fixing the problems that
• 13:51
  you don't even know exist. Not only fixing the problems
• 13:53
  that you're talking about, fixing the problems that you
• 13:55
  don't even know about as a chef. If someone comes up to me and
• 13:59
  has 10 complaints and thinks that I'm not aware of them, I
• 14:02
  can tell you I am aware. But while you're busy focusing
• 14:05
  on the problem, I'm busy focusing on the solutions.
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  And the cook that comes to me with one solution to me has more
• 14:10
  value than the cook that comes to me with 10 problems.
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  And that cook that comes through with solutions gets promoted.
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  They become the sous chef. They become the exact sue or
• 14:19
  whatever the case may be. And then everyone wonders, why
• 14:22
  did that person get promoted. They're not part of the
• 14:25
  complaint clique. The light bulb hasn't gone off
• 14:27
  yet. I promise you, if you start
• 14:30
  focusing on solutions versus problems, all the doors open for
• 14:33
  you. You have to rewire your brain
• 14:34
  and be solutions based and everything starts to fall in
• 14:37
  line. Everything starts to click.
• 14:39
  And it's one of those things that that is true 10 years ago,
• 14:42
  20 years ago, It's true today, it'll be true tomorrow.
• 14:45
  The person that could bring you results is the person that you
• 14:48
  want on your team, period. Especially in a kitchen, you
• 14:51
  want the person that could execute Service Florida State,
• 14:53
  not the person who claims that they could execute service
• 14:57
  Florida State if they only had all these things go right in
• 15:00
  their life. It doesn't matter.
• 15:02
  It's what is. There's the mental and physical
• 15:04
  demands that go with it that we talked about, but the mental
• 15:06
  demands don't change. You're still going to have a
• 15:08
  rail full of tickets. You're still going to have to
• 15:10
  learn how to organize yourself mentally.
• 15:12
  Me some plus doesn't change. That includes mental me some
• 15:14
  plus. It's still a pressure cooker
• 15:16
  environment. It doesn't matter if we're
• 15:17
  talking 20 years ago and you had a rail full of tickets, or today
• 15:20
  and you have a rail full of tickets.
• 15:21
  You're still going to feel it. It's still going to feel
• 15:23
  stressful. It's still going to feel chaotic
• 15:26
  and it's not going to change. So I think the point of this
• 15:29
  rant today is to let people know the industry is what it is.
• 15:33
  You cannot control it. Not one single chef out there is
• 15:37
  exempt from going through the difficulties of being a chef.
• 15:41
  The long hours on your feet, the physical demands, the different
• 15:44
  characters, the work ethic, the mental stress, it's all coming.
• 15:48
  But this is the life that you've chosen, and you have the
• 15:50
  opportunity to get better and embrace the difficulty.
• 15:54
  Because there is a tipping point eventually when hard days become
• 15:57
  easy, when you don't know how to use a knife because your hands
• 16:00
  tremble, and then all of a sudden you do and you're the
• 16:03
  fastest cook and you could organize all the tickets in your
• 16:05
  head and they could throw anything at you.
• 16:07
  And you don't seem fazed and you're calm under pressure, Your
• 16:10
  hands don't shake and you get it and you find solutions and you
• 16:14
  get promoted and you love it. And this is one of the few
• 16:17
  industries that can get someone new, an outsider that doesn't
• 16:21
  fit in anywhere else. And they could come into a
• 16:23
  kitchen and find a family where they didn't have one before and
• 16:26
  they could come in weak and shy. And then after some time in the
• 16:30
  kitchen they could become confident and skilled and make
• 16:33
  beautiful food and impress people and feed people.
• 16:36
  And no matter how the times change, you're still eating and
• 16:39
  you're still hungry. And the 2nd that we stop eating,
• 16:42
  that's a whole other story. Embrace the grind, find the
• 16:45
  solutions, be the solutions face person.
• 16:47
  And I promise you all the doors are going to open for you.
• 16:50
  The industry might be changing, but a lot of things stay the
• 16:52
  same and the cream always rises to the top.
• 16:55
  It doesn't matter what year it is, be that person.
• 16:57
  If you're listening to Chef's PSA podcast, most likely you are
• 17:00
  that person. Only cool BMFS listen to Chef's
• 17:05
  PSA. Anyway, you all know what to do.
• 17:07
  Make sure you leave five stars on this podcast.
• 17:09
  It's a 5 star podcast. Someone asked me on the Q&A Why
• 17:12
  is why do you always say leave five stars?
• 17:14
  It's a fucking five star podcast.
• 17:16
  That's why. There's no other podcast out
• 17:18
  there for chefs that are bringing you this information.
• 17:21
  Teaching you how to survive in the kitchen, being real,
• 17:24
  teaching you how to manage food costs, how to get promoted, how
• 17:27
  to negotiate your money, what a critical path is to open up a
• 17:30
  restaurant and so on. Plus giving you free resource to
• 17:32
  go with it. Name another podcast for chefs
• 17:34
  that does that. I'll wait.
• 17:35
  Oh, there isn't one, is there? OK, thank you very much.
• 17:38
  Make sure you leave five stars. Go to chefspsa.com, you get all
• 17:41
  the books, all the merch. We'll see you next week.
• 17:44
  Hit the porno music.