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The Hardest Kitchen Job I Had Ep. 53 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:01
Hello chefs. This is chefs.
0:02
PS a podcast. I'm your host Andhra.
0:04
Tara. On today's episode I'm going to
0:06
talk about the hardest job I've ever had.
0:09
Stay tuned. Now, before we get started, just
0:23
a brief update, this what I was up to.
0:25
So last week, I was in Dallas, I was doing a dinner at Jose
0:29
restaurant with several other chefs on a statue key, Nona's,
0:32
Philip Speer, Rick Lopez myself. Got together, part of the Texas
0:36
Food & Wine, Alliance wine, and dine series.
0:38
It was good. I did a talk about this in the
0:41
last week's podcast. I did it grilled octopus dish
0:44
with a Tamarind glaze and a PPP on, which is You got to think
0:49
that like a sauce made from pumpkin seeds, Mexican sauce.
0:52
Anyway, it was good. I was happy with it.
0:55
I loved the flavor of it. It was a good event if you were
0:58
in Dallas for that. Thank you for coming out.
0:59
It was a great success packed house.
1:02
Soon. As I got back, my next stop was
1:05
in San Antonio, Texas. I was doing a leadership class
1:07
out in San Antonio, Quick Trip in and out one day leadership
1:11
seminar. But while I was there, I was
1:13
staying at the hotel ammo. So here in San Antonio, stay at
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the hotel. Emma.
1:16
It's really nice. Honestly, I stayed On hotels,
1:19
because of what I do. So, I'm a bit of a digital
1:22
Nomad. We're probably the majority of
1:23
the time. I'm on the road.
1:25
I don't even know why I live in one location.
1:27
These days. I should just get a backpack and
1:30
travel. Anyway, when I was at the hotel,
1:33
Emma, they have a great shower. Like you measure a lot of places
1:38
based on the shower, like when you're talking about hotels and
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like shower pressure, I love a shower that has high pressure.
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So Hotel Emma. And not only does the water get
1:48
hot But it has great shower pressure.
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Good hotel, it's beautiful. I don't know if it's a five-star
1:54
hotel, I think it is if they're not a five-star hotel, they
1:56
should be. But anyway, they got a great
1:58
food scene right there at the pearls of The Culinary Institute
2:00
of America is right there in San Antonio.
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A lot of small restaurants. They have a food Hall.
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This was a quick trip for me. So I actually had a quick burger
2:10
at henbit, which was really good.
2:11
Anyway, we're getting way off subject, we digress, some quick
2:15
updates. All the books are live on
2:17
Audible now. So all five of the books that
2:20
I've written also have audio book companions, I am working
2:24
right now currently on translating the books into
2:27
Spanish. So culinary leadership
2:29
fundamentals was the first one that I did.
2:31
I just finished that today. All the translations Has done.
2:34
Now, I just got to work on formatting but let's say, it
2:36
takes me a week. If you were looking to purchase
2:39
that book in Spanish I will have it available by the end of the
2:42
week. I promise I can't promise that
2:44
it would be accurate because I don't have anyone to tell me if
2:47
I'm wrong. So I'm just gonna have to trust
2:48
the translator after that. I'll do the remaining books in
2:51
Spanish. So that's the next project that
2:53
I'm working on. For those of you that know, the
2:55
backs where the one thing I get requested for the most is the
2:59
happy chef hat. I'm not wearing that today.
3:01
I'm wearing a hose a hat from Jose and Yes.
3:03
But everyone always ask me where could I get the happy chef hat?
3:06
I can't sell it. The risk of losing my
3:10
merchandise store. If I sell that hat, I'll lose
3:13
the store. So I can't sell Happy Chef, but
3:15
here's what I did. I don't know why it came to me
3:17
so late. Someone message me or comment on
3:19
one of the posts about the hat and I was like I could do happy
3:22
cook because today's post was about happy Cooks.
3:24
Make good food. Well, I can do happy cook.
3:27
So Happy Chef is no longer available.
3:29
It won't be available, but happy, cook is and it's a stoic
3:33
face. Face and it says, happy cook its
3:35
sarcastic. So if you get easily offended,
3:38
by stoic faces, that say the word happy, I'm sorry, you got a
3:43
lot of issues. If you get offended by stoic
3:45
faces, that's a happy. Go get the Hat, it's available.
3:51
You go to chefs, PS a.com, you can see the store also in the
3:54
link tree and all my social channels, you can see that.
3:57
Speaking of social channels, we need to get people on Twitter.
3:59
Chef Twitter has the biggest opportunity to grow the
4:02
community, like Chef Instagram. It's a great resource for people
4:07
to look at food and get visually inspired.
4:09
However, the communication of ideas lacks podcasts are great
4:12
for that, but I have a podcast on talking to you while no one's
4:16
talking to each other. I think Chef Twitter is where
4:18
the conversation can move forward.
4:20
So if you all are not on Twitter, I suggest that we need
4:23
to get a chef community on Twitter.
4:25
I'm on Twitter, you can find me Chef's, PSA.
4:28
I've also started putting all the previous chefs PSA episodes
4:32
which didn't have video on YouTube so I just finished Just
4:35
the first one, which is chefs. PSA episode 1.
4:38
I put it on YouTube but I added b-roll to it.
4:41
It's fun for me because, like, now I'm learning how to edit
4:43
videos. To become a digital video
4:47
editor. So it's a new skill that I'm
4:49
adding to my toolbox of things that I know the first one.
4:54
Give me a break. Like it's the first one I've
4:56
ever done with nothing but b roll and audio behind but I want
5:00
to try and do as many as the as many of the old podcast that
5:04
didn't have video and put them on YouTube as I start to migrate
5:07
over there as well. So I'll be the podcast will be
5:10
available everywhere Spotify YouTube, Apple Amazon, Google
5:15
podcast. Audible, does anyone listen to
5:18
podcasts on that inaudible? I don't I just call you anyway,
5:22
one thing that I should let everyone know sign up for my
5:24
newsletter. If you go to Chef esa.com, you
5:26
can sign up for my newsletter, one of the reasons I started the
5:28
newsletter was one. I just send out.
5:31
Like little motivational tips, leadership mindset, chefs, PSA,
5:35
and then something that I might be working on.
5:37
But the real reason I started the newsletters because I
5:39
thought my Instagram account was going to get banned.
5:42
And got banned like, twice for no reason, people, complain?
5:44
Because I said a bad word. I don't know what I did.
5:47
But anyway, people complained, I just lost my Facebook account
5:50
and I have no idea why I've never even posted anything on
5:53
the chef's PS, a Facebook account, and it got banned.
5:55
I got a note that it was bands. Oh, I just don't trust things
6:01
sometimes, so If I happen to disappear off, Instagram for a
6:06
few days and you wonder what happened, I probably got banned.
6:09
I'll try and get my account back.
6:10
Hopefully, I'll have to start it up under a different chefs, PSA.
6:13
But you could always You can always follow me on the other
6:17
social platforms, Tick-Tock YouTube, Etc.
6:19
Twitter. Last thing I want to update
6:21
people on before we get into the meat of, it is a mentorship
6:25
program. A lot of people have been asking
6:26
me about the mentorship program. I cannot take on any new
6:29
mentees. I've said that and full, but I
6:34
am thinking about starting a group, so may be limited to just
6:37
a few chefs that want that. Don't mind being in a mentee
6:40
group, that's something that I will open up.
6:42
I'm working on what that's going to look like right now.
6:44
So for those of Of you that are interested.
6:46
If you are interested, go to chefs, PS a.com, there's a
6:48
contact form. You could sign up.
6:49
If you're interested in, then we can do begin the conversation.
6:52
Most likely it'll be over zoom in a group meet once a week,
6:56
four times, a month and cover everything leadership, marketing
7:01
difficult, people building your personal brand and of course
7:04
like how to be a chef anyway, speaking of how to be a chef
7:09
often, get asked, what's the worst job I've ever had?
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I wouldn't say this is the worst job I've ever had.
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But physically and mentally, it's the hardest job I've ever
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had, and it's more of a position and that is the position of a
7:20
banqueting chef for an events show.
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A lot of people that work in hotels were working catering
7:25
work in. Banquets, and I'll tell you
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early on in my career, I was working in restaurants and then
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I moved from restaurants, I was a sous chef at a restaurant and
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then I moved into a banquet and sous chef position.
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I had zero experience in Banquets and I remember being
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terrified when I walked into the banquet kitchen.
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So I don't know. I was like 22 years old.
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And I was a banquet chef at a hotel.
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And for me, it was the most difficult position to adjust to
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from every other position that I've had in the kitchen.
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So I've said before, I've worked all areas of the kitchen prep,
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guard monge dishwasher line Cooks.
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I'll take a butcher Saucier Etc. I've worked all positions in the
8:04
kitchen. But when I got my first
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leadership position and banquets, the thing that
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terrified me the most about Banquets was the mental aspect
8:12
of it, how they knew how much chicken to order, how much beef
8:17
to order, how much potatoes to prepare, how much sauce to make
8:22
when to fire things, went to start plating.
8:24
How to organize yourself? If you had multiple parties
8:27
going on, I'm not gonna lie. That shit was terrifying to me.
8:30
And when I took on my first bank, with sous-chef job with
8:33
zero banquet experience, I wasn't afraid of the cooking
8:37
part, but I was petrified of the mental organization part.
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I'm not knocking working in catering operations, because
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actually I think there's a I think everyone should work in a
8:46
catering operation because you will learn a lot.
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You'll learn how to be organized, you'll learn how to
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be Timely. You get exposed to a variety of
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different cuisines. I can often hear people say that
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they don't want to work in catering because the foods not
9:03
as good as restaurants, and I think that's, I think that's not
9:07
the right way to look at it because when you do work in
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catering, you get exposed to so much more than you do it in a
9:14
restaurant. So, let's say you're working at
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a restaurant and you're working on a station.
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You're only exposed to the recipes in the dishes that are
9:20
coming off your station. When you work in catering,
9:23
especially if you're working in a big catering house, big
9:25
convention hotel or something like that, the menu changes
9:29
daily. Most likely, you're doing three
9:31
or four different types of Cuisine a day.
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So you might be doing Italian Mexican.
9:36
Ian barbecue and French all for lunch.
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And so you're exposed to, let's say, 24 different main course
9:49
items. In a day.
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We're in a restaurant you're exposed to three or four dishes.
9:54
You're learning so much more. About food in a banquet and
9:58
catering setting. Now, the one thing like the
10:01
argument could be made, but it's not as refined as restaurant
10:04
food. And I agree with that, banquet
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food typically, isn't as refined as restaurant food and that's
10:08
because you're making it to scale, you're working in large
10:11
volume and so it's not that you're taking shortcuts but
10:14
you're finding the most efficient route to get it as
10:17
close to The ideal state in a restaurant, you usually have a
10:22
cook. That's more focused on a few
10:23
dishes were in a banquet operation.
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You have fewer Cooks to do more dishes, but what made Banquets
10:30
so tough for me? It was just the constant
10:33
non-stop. So if there is a breakfast and
10:35
your the banquet Chef, I had to be an early for breakfast, and
10:38
if there was a dinner, I'd have to be there for dinner.
10:40
So let's say I came in at three in the morning, because I needed
10:42
to make sure breakfast was done. I might have to stay till 9:00
10:45
at night to make sure dinner was done and in the restaurant, you
10:48
He didn't have to worry about that because you came in, if you
10:50
work the dinner shift or if you worked the morning shift, you
10:52
just came in and then you left. But in, Banquets is like know,
10:55
as a banquet shop. I had to go in when the banquet
10:57
started and I had to leave when the bank was ended.
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Sometimes a lot of places have an AM and PM banquet chef, but
11:03
in smaller operations, where you don't have multiple leads, you
11:07
might be the only person that's there from morning to night and
11:10
it's difficult. And that's honestly, one of the
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things that I used to say when I was working in a restaurant, I
11:15
was talking to one of my buddies.
11:17
That was corporate. Chef for a hotel chain.
11:20
And he was asking me, he's do you want to come work at hotels?
11:23
I said absolutely not. I never want to wake up at 3
11:26
a.m. for a VIP breakfast for the ownership that doesn't give a
11:29
shit. I never wanted to do that again
11:31
but that's that banquet life. You prepare pretty good food, in
11:36
most cases but then all of a sudden you have a VIP come in
11:40
and it's pulling out all the stops for people that are are
11:43
like Not even paying usually. So these fam trips which are
11:49
groups that come into hotels, that are basically there to be
11:53
impressed, and it's all free. And that's usually where you
11:56
showcase your best. Stuff is usually on the free
11:58
stuff versus the paid. Stuff.
12:01
Wild thing about banquet, you haven't been cooking in two
12:04
years professionally since I've stepped out of the kitchen.
12:07
Now, I've started focusing strictly on shuts, PSA, the
12:09
podcast, and the books, and all that.
12:11
But I occasionally still have nightmares about night,
12:14
stallions one might say, because they're bigger than mayor's,
12:16
that's a horse joke, if it was lost and the reoccurring dream
12:22
that I have is that I'm several hours late to work and a banquet
12:28
was supposed to go out and I haven't prepped it.
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If you've worked in catering, you understand that fear.
12:33
Like the reason it's the hardest job I've ever had is because I
12:37
was your usually playing constant ketchup, not in all
12:40
cases, but in many case you're playing constant catch up
12:42
because you might have big spikes in business.
12:44
So, Every one has been off and then they all have to come back
12:47
and then it's a rush to get prepped up and ready.
12:50
And you're in this constant fear of am I going to be ready?
12:53
Am I going to forget a party? Did I prep enough food?
12:55
Did you order it? And the ability to mitigate in a
12:59
catering? Operation is much more difficult
13:02
than in a restaurant. Said, give you an example of
13:04
what I mean. If you are working in a
13:08
restaurant as a chef and you run out of chicken and maybe you
13:10
need to sell 10 chickens, you can go to the store and most
13:13
likely they have enough chicken to get you through.
13:17
But if you're in a banquet setting and you forgot to order
13:19
the chicken for a thousand people or 500 people, I doubt
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you're going to be able to walk in a store and I say I need 500
13:25
chicken breast. I need 500 New York strip steaks
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or whatever the case may be. It's not likely.
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So, when you make a mistake and banquets, the consequences are
13:34
much greater the arguments with the catering managers, the
13:38
guests who are walking around with clipboards to make sure
13:41
that everything is just perfect. And on time, the constant fear,
13:45
that you're going to run out of food, or that you've prepped too
13:48
much in, you're going to be left.
13:51
With food for days that you got to deal with and you got to
13:54
figure out what to do with it. It's a very strange dynamic in.
13:58
Banquets, like, in a restaurant, it's normally Rush.
14:02
Then you prep, and then service and services, like, head down,
14:06
go. But in Banquets the pace is a
14:09
little bit different. It's like at a constant
14:13
seven-and-a-half all day long and you got to have this
14:16
constant Pace all day long. And then every now and again,
14:19
things get chaotic because you run out of something and you got
14:21
to go, you have this constant feeling of impending, doom and
14:25
banquets that, you're going to run out of food.
14:27
When I was a chef and I'd had banquet banqueting chefs.
14:30
Report to me, I had an order a hierarchy or the things that I
14:33
would say these are the most important things to make sure
14:35
that you have a successful catering.
14:37
Kitchen. Make sure the food is on time.
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Make sure you don't run out. Make sure how food is hot.
14:44
Cold food is cold. Make sure it tastes good.
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Make sure it looks. That is basically it in a
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nutshell. If you can nail all those
14:53
things, most likely you will have happy, banquet customers.
14:56
Now, imagine trying to do that and you have five different
15:00
menus, all going out of the same time and knowing how to time the
15:03
parties. And I'll tell you what, there's
15:05
a chef before that I do that says count everything.
15:08
If you've never worked in a banquet kitchen and someone
15:11
comes up to you, and let's say, you're just played it up.
15:13
It's like how many carats do you have?
15:15
And like you didn't count the carrots you're in for, You're in
15:19
for some problems. You're in for an ugly night, you
15:22
count everything. Every sheet pan has to be the
15:25
same amount of chicken protein. Whatever the case may be the
15:28
speed rack has to have the same amount of trays on it.
15:31
You just become extremely efficient and organized when
15:34
you're working in catering operation.
15:37
Anyway, I know that sounds okay, terrified, I never want to work
15:40
in, Banquets, I learned the most about being a chef while working
15:44
in catering operations, not necessarily a cook.
15:47
But as a chef, because the organizational skills, the
15:51
ability to handle multiple things going on the mental mise
15:54
en place is, it's called that all comes from working in a
15:57
banqueting or catering operation.
15:59
With all that being said, if I had a choice tomorrow to open my
16:02
own catering or to open up a restaurant, I'll take the
16:04
restaurant. Every day, I enjoy restaurants
16:06
much More. I enjoy the creative aspect.
16:08
I enjoy the pace of a restaurant more than I do.
16:11
The pace of a catering operation, even though I was the
16:14
self-proclaimed best banquet Chef.
16:17
I used to say it. Banquet Chef magazine, banquet
16:20
chef of the Year, 10 years in a row.
16:22
One last thing on the subject of banquet and catering because
16:27
sometimes I see the comments go back and forth.
16:29
I don't always engage, I'd sometimes I just sit there with
16:31
popcorn and let people quite, but the other day I was reading
16:34
comments back and forth on Chefs PSA and people were talking
16:37
about needing benefits and PTO better pay in restaurants and
16:44
something to think about is if that's something that you're
16:47
chasing, if you're chasing benefits, PTO like hotels, have
16:51
always offered that. At, and I know there's this
16:53
thing of hotels are not as creative as freestanding
16:56
restaurants, and I'm here to argue and maybe dispel that
17:01
myth. Now, I've been on both ends,
17:03
I've been a restaurant and I've been a hotel Chef, I've been a
17:06
country club shaft. If you listen to the podcast,
17:08
you know, that I've been a chef in many types of settings and
17:13
with everything there are levels.
17:15
So if you are in a small 200 room, Hotel mid-tier, yeah, you
17:22
probably don't have a lot of creativity on the menu, but at
17:25
the same time, if you are in a high luck, Mandarin Oriental or
17:32
Raffles hotel or Ritz-Carlton In a primary Market with a very
17:38
competitive restaurant, you probably have a ton of freedom
17:42
and creativity. Just if you are working in a
17:45
small mom-and-pop Diner that serves breakfast, do you think
17:50
that you have more creativity than the person that's the chef
17:53
at the Ritz-Carlton in Hawaii? No, of course not.
17:57
The idea of an independent restaurant versus a hotel.
18:01
Sometimes it's about what level you're at.
18:03
If you're at the type of restaurant that doesn't offer
18:06
creativity those exist. There's also hotels that don't
18:08
offer creativity on the top end. There's great restaurants, your
18:12
world's 50, best three Michelin star restaurants that are could
18:15
offer you a ton of exposure to new things.
18:18
But there's also hotels that house those restaurants.
18:22
There's hotels with restaurants that are on the world's 50.
18:25
Best Ur have been on the world's 50 best.
18:26
I don't know if all of them are by the way, did I not nail the
18:29
central call out? When I said Central would get
18:32
number one, I'm just saying I didn't nail it.
18:35
It I said Central would get number one and they did and ball
18:39
and that was like I was guessing, but the only reason I
18:41
was guessing it's because you have been around the awards game
18:43
and you know how things are going to play out.
18:47
I couldn't explain to you guys. I'm necessarily have a system.
18:49
It's more like an intuition. When you've been around it long
18:51
enough? Anyway, that's neither here.
18:53
Nor there. Back to my earlier point, if you
18:56
are looking for benefits, if you are looking for PTO hotels, have
18:59
always offered that corporate structures usually always have
19:02
that. So If you're looking for all of
19:05
that, plus the creativity than what you want to do is you want
19:07
to work in a high-end place, right?
19:09
Because those places do have creativity and flexibility and
19:13
all the benefits that people are looking for, right?
19:16
I just want to make sure that I'm setting the record straight
19:19
because a lot of times I feel like there's misinformation
19:21
based on both sides It's just something that's repeated
19:25
forever and it's a lie. Repeated long enough becomes
19:28
truth. Anyway that's it for today.
19:31
Hardest job I ever had was a banquet.
19:33
Chef shout out to all the banquet chefs out there.
19:35
You guys are working hard trying to all the chefs in general but
19:38
banquet chefs today this episodes about you and all the
19:41
hard work that you do and don't think it doesn't go
19:43
unrecognized. And I'm sorry about all the
19:45
nightmares that you have about running out of food or
19:48
forgetting to fire, the banquet, I have them.
19:50
Anyway, if you want to support the show, if you're listening on
19:52
Spotify, make sure you leave. Five stars.
19:54
Nothing less Because only good people leave five stars.
19:59
If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you hit the like
20:01
button. Subscribe, go follow me on
20:04
Twitter. Go get all the books.
20:05
They are all available on Chef space a.com which I have newly
20:09
revamped and revised go get the audio books.
20:12
Leave a review on the books, five stars, thank you very much.
20:15
See you next week, hit the porno music.