Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Food Festivals & My Thoughts On Them Ep. 20

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Food Festivals & My Thoughts On Them Ep. 20 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello chefs. You're listening to shop space a
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  podcast. I'm your host hundred a Tara.
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  On today's episode we're going to talk about all things food
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  festivals so stay tuned. So first, let's talk about what
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  I've been up to. Here's an update.
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  I finally finished doing my portion of the editing for the
• 0:25
  line. Cook survival manual.
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  So now I've sent it off to the editor.
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  Hopefully, they don't mess it up, sometimes they mess it up.
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  I've caught a couple of errors and some of the other books and
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  I've had to redo things. So, what happens when you're a
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  one-man show and you have a lot of ideas like I do, my brain is
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  constantly go anyway. If you know me in real life, you
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  would know that. Nonetheless, the book is wrapped
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  up, get it back from the editor. Hopefully, they turn it around.
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  Quick. It's a short book.
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  I think it's about it's fewer than 90 pages I believe.
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  Anyway, it's a little longer than the first book.
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  The red one, how not to be the biggest idiot in the kitchen,
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  but it's much shorter than the black book.
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  Culinary leadership fundamentals, it's kind of in
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  between the book is really intended for line Cooks, new
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  line Cooks, new cooks in the kitchen or chefs that want to
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  give something as a gift to new cooks in the kitchen.
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  I've also finished the culinary leadership.
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  Fundamentals course. It's a it's a A companion to the
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  book and just a couple more edits and hopefully I'll have
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  that out roughly at the same time as the new book.
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  And then the audio book is coming along very well for
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  culinary leadership. Fundamentals, it's about halfway
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  done, audiobooks, take a little bit longer.
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  I'm recording this podcast a little bit early because on
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  Sunday, September 13th, I will be doing a dinner in El Paso,
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  Texas, with some other chefs, these would be like the Latino,
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  Chef Illuminati Gaber, Alice Rico Torres, Omar Flores.
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  A lot of others. Myself alone Delgado.
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  Anyway, it's gonna be a good time.
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  If you're in the El Paso area come meet the chef's.
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  Talk to us. Pick our brains, maybe you'll
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  get a secret handshake and by anyway.
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  Moving on. Let's talk food festivals.
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  Now, I have to qualify that. I know a little, something about
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  food festivals. I've been doing them for 22
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  years. I've been doing food festivals.
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  I sit on the board of an organization specifically that
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  specializes in food festivals. I've organized food, festivals,
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  myself and invited other chefs to participate.
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  So, I know a little something about food festivals.
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  I've done a lot of them. So I wanted to talk about, As a
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  chef, if you've never been to a food festival, you know what the
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  process is? And how you should plan your
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  food for food festival. And I also want to talk about if
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  you're a cook, why you should go to the food festival.
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  So anyway, let's talk strategy. You're a new chef and you've
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  never been to a food festival, you get invited.
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  If you're early in your career and you're trying to build up
• 3:01
  your name, you need to go say yes to as many food festivals as
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  you can. Because you want to start to put
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  your name out there. A lot of these food festivals,
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  you might not get a lot of return on your initial
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  investment, but the more you go, the more you get invited, the
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  more you get a custom to what the food festivals are all
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  about. Also, Interchangeably.
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  I use the word food, Grazer, you know, like your grazing food on
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  the pastor's anyway, you get you get it.
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  So I say food. Grains are a lot, a lot of
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  people say food festivals. I'm going to use those
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  interchangeably so if you get the invite go and there's a lot
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  of reasons that you do want to go.
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  You're going to start to network with other chefs, you're going
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  to start to get your name out there.
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  You have visibility. You're going to interact with
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  people, you get to promote your restaurant and when people don't
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  know you you need to say yes. Now there's A couple of things
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  that you need to be prepared for is a lot of these food
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  festivals. Do not reimburse you for your
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  time or food, a lot of them do, but a lot of them don't and
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  early on in your career until you've established a name for
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  yourself. I if you could afford it again,
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  if you could afford it, you should say yes.
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  Because it starts to build your network, build your connections
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  and get your face out there. So early on in your career, I
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  think you need to say yes to as many food festivals until you're
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  in a position where you can start saying, no.
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  When it Comes to food festivals that I participate in.
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  Now, I in and granted. I don't do that many anymore.
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  I do it occasionally, but some qualifiers for me to do a food
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  festival is and I encourage you to do this is, is it the crowd
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  that you want to be in if your name is already established?
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  So let's just say, you know, you've been on the Food Festival
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  circuit for a few years, you have a greater Network.
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  You have a greater greater social presence.
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  People are starting to know you I would say yes to the things
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  that's like okay do I want to be in the crowd with those chefs
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  and not that you think that you're better than them?
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  But from a marketing standpoint you want to say, okay, when they
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  think of this restaurant and they think of that restaurant, I
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  want them to think of my restaurant also, because we're
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  on the same level. So position yourself with other
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  chefs and restaurants that are kind of in your competitive set,
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  you'll get to know the chef's. People will start to associate
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  your restaurant with those restaurants.
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  You'll begin to expand your network, but those are the That
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  you want to go to. So one of the first things, you
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  know, I'm notorious for saying this, okay.
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  Who's going to be there, right? It's a little bit of a shitty
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  answer sometimes but it's the truth.
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  When you're starting, build your name up and you're on the come
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  up that's who you want to be associated with now as your name
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  starts to expand and as you gain a lot more clout and street cred
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  that's when you could start saying no to certain food
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  festivals because they do take a lot of time.
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  There are, there are a lot of hard work and a lot of times
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  you're donating In your food and energy.
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  And by the way, I want to make sure I put a little disclaimer
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  here. Always say yes for to a food
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  festival, if it supports something that you believe in
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  regardless, if they pay you and the level of participants
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  because for example, you know something that's been near and
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  dear to me has always been, you know, helping young culinary
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  students or I used to do a lot of events for the autism
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  Treatment Center. When I lived in Dallas, I would
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  always say yes, regardless of Who's involved, I'm going to say
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  yes because that's a charity that's near and dear to my heart
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  or Been young and future, culinarians.
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  I want to give my time to them, so it didn't matter who I was
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  doing it with, I would do it regardless.
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  So, again, caveat is if it's something that's very important
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  to you, and you have a philanthropic Spirit, then you
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  should do that. But let's just say, it's just a
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  food festival, for the sake of being a food festival.
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  Say yes to the ones that you think are going to help build
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  your brand. Because a lot of those food
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  festivals are massive. And when I say massive, I mean,
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  like, you know, you're going to do food for five to Thousand
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  people no one's going to pay attention to you.
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  There's a there's so many chefs involved you're going to get
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  lost in the noise. So some of the bigger food
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  festivals nowadays, I don't say I'm going to do, I try to do the
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  smaller ones the more intimate ones where it's fewer chefs.
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  I don't want say fewer chefs higher quality but you
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  understand what? I mean?
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  If you're doing food for 2,000 people versus food for, you know
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  fewer than 300, you're going to choose a different menu item.
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  Now, let's talk about food items and kind of the etiquette
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  whenever you go to a food festival You want to do
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  something that's going to showcase the food that you do,
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  but is also going to be easy to prepare.
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  So a lot of mistakes that I've made throughout my career and a
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  lot of chefs that do, you know, they're kind of on the Food
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  Festival circuit, you know, they'll tell you like their
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  first ones. They think it's a food
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  competition, it's not a food competition.
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  Sometimes it's literally a food competition, but most of them
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  are not food competitions and because it's not a food
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  competition, you don't need to go in with such a competitive
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  mindset. You want to showcase your food
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  from your restaurant, you want to showcase what you could do.
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  But you also want it to be easy and executable, right?
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  So keep that in mind when you're doing a food festival because if
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  it's your first one, a lot of people have the tendency to
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  like, oh I'm going to blow them away.
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  I'm going to show them all my tricks.
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  I'm going to make the most difficult thing and then you got
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  to do it for like 1,000 people and then your quickly regret
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  like shit. Why did I decide to do this?
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  This is a totally a bad idea but you don't know that until you've
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  done lots of food festivals. So keep that in mind, the dish
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  that you're doing, should be easy to execute with about
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  three. People because usually that's
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  what you take do. Sometimes you take more,
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  sometimes you take fewer, but about three people is what
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  you're going to have. If you're the chef you want to
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  position yourself at the front of the booth so that you're
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  handing the food. And so that you're engaging with
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  the guests. This is important because I see
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  a lot of chefs they'll stay in the back and they don't want to
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  talk to the people. The people that are going to
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  food festivals or paying a ticket.
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  Usually because they want to speak to the chef, they want to
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  engage with them. So it's your job as the face of
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  the person with their name, on the, on the booth to be upfront,
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  engaging with the guest you Speak to your food, most likely
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  better than the culinary student that they've assigned to help
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  you. So you want to make sure that
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  you position yourself up front, then there's the amount of food
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  to prepare now food. Festivals are notorious for
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  telling you more food than you really need.
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  Now, not all of them but they're gonna say, do do food for 500.
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  But really you only need to do for food for like 300 or
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  sometimes. They'll say do food for 1,000
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  but like 800 spine. Anyway, you don't want to end up
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  with a lot of leftover food. So if you have experience in
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  those particular, Euler food festivals.
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  You kind of know like last time they said 1,000 but I'm always
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  like consistently 200 portions under you start to kind of play
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  the numbers game a little bit. Prepare food, just the right
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  amount. It's like a art to running out
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  of food at the last minute because you know if you run out
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  of food then you have less to clean up less to transport less
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  way. So running out of food is a bad
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  thing. If you run out very early and
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  people are wandering around saying this jerk ran out of
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  food, they're pissed off and they remember that.
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  But then there's the Pull that say, you know, I got to try
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  their food. There was it was great.
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  So you want to make sure that you have enough portions for the
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  amount of people. But like I said, towards the
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  end, the last 10-15 minutes, you start to run out, it's not the
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  end of the world. If you run out too early you
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  could expect to not get invited back right.
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  You get the reputation as being that Chef that runs out of food
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  and then goes and screws off and gets drunk at the festival.
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  So don't run out of food too early but it's okay to run out
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  towards the end, depending on, right?
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  So, I'm talking food festivals. I'm not Going about like you're
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  doing a dinner with you know a bunch of high-end chefs and it's
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  like your course I ran out. No no I'm not talking about
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  that. That's a completely different
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  situation. I am talking about a food Grazer
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  where there's thousands of people try and small little
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  plates of your food like food and wine festivals.
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  The other thing is you want to make sure you have collateral,
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  you know, whether it's coupons, business cards, a QR code.
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  So people could follow you or find your social page, whatever
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  you can do. Just make sure you have
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  something that you could give to people so that they pay
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  attention, they could take it with them and they Were you so
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  always bring a little bit of something when it comes to
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  having people in the booth with you, when I used to do food
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  festivals, when I was a chef, I would arrive with an Entourage.
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  Sometimes I would, you know, sometimes it's a you can only
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  bring three people. But I show up with like 8 and
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  you know, when they're setting up, no one's paying attention.
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  No one's really checking you in at a lot of these events.
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  But I'd want to show up with, as many people as I can.
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  Because I wanted to be that guy, like, people like fuck that guy
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  always shows up with a whole Entourage.
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  One, it's easy to clean up at the end, but to you kind of want
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  to make yourself a little bit stand out in these food
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  festivals, not just to the guests but also to the other
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  chefs and I'll tell you why. The reason I would show up with
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  a lot of people is because I wanted other chefs to be like,
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  man, those guys are cool. I want to go work for them.
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  I also use it as a recruiting opportunity, so that people
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  would want to come hang out and talk to our booth and I would
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  always bring something. Little bit exaggerated for
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  myself and my team or you know the chefs around me.
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  So what I used to do, it food festivals is that would bring a
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  big Kilo tin of caviar and hand out caviar bumps occasionally,
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  handed out to other chefs and we people do those.
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  You know, those are those those douchebags with the caviar,
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  whatever, right? Yeah.
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  Yeah. That's clearly who we were but
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  it's like well, we did it, not just to be those guys but also
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  because we knew that it would put eyeballs on us and if people
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  Were talking about us. It's like they're either jealous
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  because they're not included in the in the club or, you know,
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  they want to be included in the club.
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  So that's why I would do some of those things like that.
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  It's a little bit of marketing, it's a little bit of antics, but
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  I would always do something. That would just like, okay,
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  let's get a little bit more attention because you do get
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  lost in the noise, when there's a lot of people there.
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  So whatever that maybe do something, whether it's don't
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  steal my idea of bringing a tin of caviar.
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  But, you know, whatever it is that you do, make sure you do
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  something that's unique to you. So you have your food that
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  you're showing and then you bring something for your tent
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  that you could hand out to some other Chef friends that, you
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  know, I'm not talking about for the thousands of people that are
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  there. I'm just talking about for like
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  20 or 30 people. Anyway as I like to say I roll
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  deep, a role mob deep anyway, that's how I did food festivals.
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  Let's say you get to a bigger chef This and then now you can
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  start to command a little bit of money for appearance to show up
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  to those food festivals because a lot of the food festivals that
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  you're going to get invited to just just aren't on brand.
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  You know, I talked to a lot of my chef friends and they'll say
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  I'm not the type of Chef that I am.
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  I'm not going to do the burger Festival like it's just not what
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  I do so make sure that it aligns with what you do and that the
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  audience is the Right audience for the restaurant that you have
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  and the chef that you are. So keep that in mind when you're
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  saying yes or no to food festivals, I know a lot of
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  Chef's that won't show up. Unless like, we're talking
• 13:34
  earlier that, you know, it's the right mix of chefs but also they
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  got to get paid, you know, some of these bigger chefs do get a
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  lot of money to go to these food festivals.
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  If you have the right marketing team behind you and the right PR
• 13:44
  and you've, you know, you've built quite the name for
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  yourself. I'll tell you there's some chefs
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  that get paid a lot of money to go to these festivals.
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  I know a chef that gets paid 50,000 dollars just to speak at
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  an event and that's that's a huge amount of money.
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  You know, he'll show up at a big festival and Fifty thousand
• 14:04
  dollars appearance fee. When you get to that point as a
• 14:07
  chef looks like, well, you could command whatever you want.
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  You want me to show up, you want me to you want me to make
• 14:12
  appearance? This is my fee, it's good for
• 14:14
  them. I can't knock the hustle.
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  So you want to start to put yourself in a position where you
• 14:18
  could get invited to those festivals.
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  And they pay you, right? They cover your costs, they fly
• 14:23
  you in. You know, they take great care
• 14:24
  of you. Those are the festival's, you
• 14:25
  know, the, you know, the more Elite festivals and just because
• 14:28
  you're in one of those festivals doesn't mean they're going to
• 14:30
  treat you like the elite Chef. So keep that in mind.
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  Like there's festivals where it's like okay there's 50 chefs
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  but like two chefs are getting the VIP treatment and everyone
• 14:38
  else's not yes it's unfair but it's the reality of the
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  situation. So what you could do instead of
• 14:44
  getting upset about that is position yourself.
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  So you could be one of those chefs so you could you could
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  make the money or so. Could change the rules and say
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  you know, if you want to be generous and they gave you 30
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  thousand dollars for your appearance fee and you don't
• 14:57
  think it's right, then you could split your money with the other
• 14:59
  people. There, do you, but position
• 15:00
  yourself in a position of power, so you can make those decisions.
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  Now, wrapping it up, if you're a young cook and you get invited
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  with your Chef to go to one of these food festivals, I would
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  say, go the fact that you're being invited means that the
• 15:14
  chef likes you. They want to spend time with
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  you, they want to talk to you, they want to get to know you.
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  They respect your work ethic. They know that.
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  You're going to work hard, right?
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  So the fact that you're even getting invited is a good sign.
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  So take the opportunity, don't view it as punishment.
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  A lot of newer Cooks view it as like, oh, what's gonna end up
• 15:31
  happening? Is I'm gonna go to the food
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  festival and I'm going to have to clean everything up.
• 15:34
  I did a chef's PSA on this. The price.
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  You pay for getting invited to the food festival.
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  Is you clean up but it's still an honor and a privilege to go.
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  You get to do something different.
• 15:45
  It's different than just staying at the same old kitchen every
• 15:47
  day and doing the same thing, you get to interact with people,
• 15:50
  you get to Network, you get to meet new chefs, you get to
• 15:53
  expand your network, maybe even set up job opportunities for the
• 15:56
  future. But I could tell you, I used to
• 15:58
  go to Chef festivals when I was a young cook with my chef and he
• 16:02
  would drag me to all these and I used to hate it because I knew
• 16:04
  it was like shit. I'm gonna get stuck cleaning up
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  while he was out there, drinking wine and networking with all his
• 16:09
  buddies. I used to hate it but in
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  retrospect, I appreciate it very much and I'm glad he did that.
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  It said a lot about what he thought of me and it also
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  exposed me to a lot. A lot of chefs that have
• 16:21
  mentored me throughout my career.
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  You know I don't know how many certified Master Chefs I would
• 16:27
  get to talk to and know my name and know my face.
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  And oh, there's Andre. And, you know, I just became the
• 16:33
  person that would sit around, you know, the young cook that
• 16:35
  would sit around and listen to all these masterchef's having
• 16:37
  conversations and just being a fly on the wall.
• 16:41
  And I used to love that, and I appreciate it much more.
• 16:44
  Now, now, I'm not saying you're gonna be around a whole bunch of
• 16:47
  Master Chefs but you're gonna be around top-level chefs if you're
• 16:50
  a young cook. Not just your Shuffle.
• 16:52
  You're most likely going to be around a lot of other top-level
• 16:54
  Chef. So, take the opportunity go to
• 16:56
  the food festival. Yes.
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  You might have to clean up. I'm sorry, but it's worth it,
• 17:00
  right? It's part of, as they say,
• 17:02
  making your bones in the industry, right?
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  To summarize. It food festivals, are fun.
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  Go to them. But make sure as you start to
• 17:09
  build your brand that you start to align yourself with the right
• 17:11
  festivals that are right for you.
• 17:13
  It's okay to say, no, I know I've gotten to the point where
• 17:16
  now I say no to a lot of things because I just don't have the
• 17:19
  bandwidth. So, You got to do.
• 17:21
  You don't say yes to everything, but do position yourself to
• 17:25
  start. Getting your name out there and
• 17:26
  go to these food festivals, whether it's, you know, food and
• 17:29
  wine, or whatever the case, maybe, maybe it's a local event,
• 17:32
  but start start to participate. This will help expand your
• 17:35
  network at also help. Expand your career.
• 17:37
  Anyway, if you want to support the show go to chefs PS a.com
• 17:40
  and see all things that I do. So books, merch t-shirts, water
• 17:46
  bottles, whatever, all those things, support, the show,
• 17:49
  subscribe and leave. Stars on whatever platform
• 17:52
  you're listening. So someone's have to be a
• 17:55
  two-star review on Apple. And I think that's funny because
• 17:58
  it's like, you went out of your way to leave it to Star reviews.
• 18:01
  Like this is not a two-star podcast, it's a five-star
• 18:03
  podcast. So you're a liar and most
• 18:06
  likely. You're just a hater anyway.
• 18:08
  Don't be a hater. Don't be like that person.
• 18:09
  And if you see them publicly shamed them for being a hater.
• 18:13
  In this industry, we need more people that support each other
• 18:15
  and help lift up the business versus haters that try and tear
• 18:19
  it down. So follow chefs, PSN all
• 18:22
  platforms Instagram, Tick-Tock YouTube Etc, go to chefs, PS
• 18:26
  a.com. Hit the Subscribe button and
• 18:30
  thank you all. We'll see you next week.
• 18:32
  The porno music.