Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / The Local Elephant in the Room Ep.33

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The Local Elephant in the Room Ep.33 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, you're listening to chefs, PSA podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host on Trina. Tara, on today's episode, we're
• 0:06
  going to talk about the elephant in the room, which is local
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  food, so stay tuned. So before we get going, I'll
• 0:25
  give you a quick update. I'm writing currently the
• 0:29
  kitchen art. Oh, of war.
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  And I have to tell you, it's not often that I like my own
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  writing, right? I'm hypercritical I go back and
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  I reread things that I've written and I look it was like,
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  I don't know if I like that. I don't know if this makes
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  sense, but this is possibly my masterpiece.
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  It's the best thing I've ever written.
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  Now, I say that but I can't take full credit for it.
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  Because what I'm doing is I'm basically translating Sun Tzu's
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  Art of War and taking it from the perspective of Chef and I'm
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  using the examples of The Art of War and say, okay?
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  How would, how would this apply to a culinary situation in the
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  kitchen, a chef, or cook, or whatever the case may be?
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  And as I write it and I'll send it to a couple of Chef friends
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  of mine said, hey, what do you think about this?
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  And I was like, oh, it's so good.
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  It is a different style. So when you all get it, assuming
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  that you're going to get it, when you get it, you're going to
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  look at it and be like, okay, this isn't like the other stuff.
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  This is not, you know, line. Cook survival, manual or
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  culinary leadership. Fundamentals, it has a very
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  unique style. It's written in the style of
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  Eastern philosophy. It is just like The Art of War.
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  And what I'm doing is I'm translating line by line.
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  So the style of writing is going to be very different from the
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  way that I've written before and sometimes it's difficult to
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  translate it, like one of the chapters I just wrote was on
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  spies and it's hard to translate Art of War spies into kitchen
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  spies and some of it's like a little bit rough and I'm like oh
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  this sounds kind of sneaky but fuck it.
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  I'm going to translate it anyway so Anyway, I'm translating the
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  book. I'm having a lot of fun with it.
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  I'm hoping to wrap it up by the end of the week.
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  Knock on wood. It will be done by the end of
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  the week and then I'll hopefully have it out within a, you know,
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  do a couple of edits and then have it out within a no later
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  than two weeks. I'm also working on the audio
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  book for the kitchen Art of War and but most likely that won't
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  be released at the same time because the audio book does take
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  a little bit longer to produce and then the line cook survival
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  manual. Audiobook is also on its way but
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  here's something that I did this week.
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  Week, I was a panel speaker at the Indy lodging conference that
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  took place here in Austin. It's basically For independent
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  hotels, owners asset managers marketers Etc.
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  People that run in the world of independent hotel chains and I
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  was on the panel as the FMB expert.
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  So anyway, I got to talk about a lot of things and towards the
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  end they asked a really good question, which is really the
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  inspiration for this podcast. And the question I got to say
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  the question, like kind of it, I don't want to say it.
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  Rubbed me the wrong way, but I felt like it was an attack.
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  On my people and my people being people that work in kitchens
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  chefs, Cooks etcetera. And the question was and I'm
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  paraphrasing. This wasn't the exact question
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  is from the audience. It was, how can we get our
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  chefs? And this is coming from the
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  perspective of a manager Hotel owner.
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  How can we get our chefs to make sure that they're serving more
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  local and sustainable food? And I thought about that
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  question and I thought well you're not going to like my
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  answer But hopefully, whatever I say, you know, we'll make sense
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  and hopefully it'll get me invited back because I might
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  have pissed a lot of people off from the ownership standpoint.
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  So anyway, without further Ado, let's talk about the elephant in
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  the room, which is the local food, local food, scene and the
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  quality of it and the seasons and the stand the other.
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  And why, sometimes it's a problem and how we could
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  potentially fix it, figure out a better way to navigate to this
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  this elephant in the room because I think there's a lot of
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  things that people need to talk. About that or not being
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  discussed. Now, the first thing I should
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  say is that I am a big believer in supporting local farmers,
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  local Artisans, your local community.
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  I'm a big believer in that and a lot of the work that I do
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  outside of chefs PS, a-- does help local restaurants, local
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  chefs, local farmers, Etc, and I'm heavily involved with some
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  Charities and things like that. So this is something that's an
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  important subject to me. And I'm passionate about it
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  because I don't think that we're As an industry fully transparent
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  with it. And what I mean by that is, I've
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  gone to restaurants before where they will say, you know, it's
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  all local, it's all sustainable. It's all forged.
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  I know restaurants, certain restaurants have gotten in
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  trouble for saying that everything is local.
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  And it's, you know, procured within a 80 mile radius or
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  whatever from the restaurant. And, and it turns out it's not
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  true. And I've gone to restaurants and
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  been like, you know, these are the tomatoes.
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  They just got picked from this in this farm.
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  And I'm like, that's, that's, I know that's not true because I
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  know that farm doesn't have tomatoes right now, or I'll look
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  at him be like Those Tomatoes came from Fresh Point.
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  I'm not picking up fresh point, but those Tomatoes came from
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  pressure point Cause I got the exact same tomatoes for my
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  operation, whatever the case may be.
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  And so, I think it's a problem when chefs aren't fully
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  transparent. When they say this is local.
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  And this is local and this is local.
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  And it's not like I think that's I think that's a bigger problem
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  Than People realize and I think if you're doing that from a
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  marketing standpoint look, I get it.
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  You know, we're all fighting for customers.
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  We all need to make a buck but it's, you know, it's not the
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  right thing to do, quite It's not the right thing to do to say
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  you're doing this, when you're actually not.
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  Honestly, I think it's actually legal to say that you're serving
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  something when you're not, I'm not certain all across the world
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  or in every state, but I don't want a lot of places you can't
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  there's something called Truth and menu, you have to, you have
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  to be selling what you're advertising.
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  So number one, I think there's a big problem out there with a lot
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  of restaurants saying that they're serving local and it
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  turns out that they're not so that's problem.
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  Number one, problem number two is I also think that there's a
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  problem with With the customer comes in and they say they want
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  to support local, they want the food to be seasonal sustainable.
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  You know, all these all these words that a lot of times they
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  don't even know what they're talking about, but then they go
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  in order. Something that's done of that,
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  right? So, you know, they want to say
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  they're doing this. So they could, they could feel
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  better and they could, they could do their their public Good
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  Deed of the day, but really it's meaningless and they don't even
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  know what they're talking about. So, I also think that's also
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  think that's part of the problem.
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  But anyway, the other thing is really like it.
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  The conversation needs to happen between ownership and the chef.
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  Because I think there needs to be honest, dialogue and
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  transparency with what needs to happen if you want to serve,
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  local sustainable, ethical food and that is number one, a lot of
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  times it is more expensive. So owners and restaurateurs are
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  saying, hey we want to serve local, we want to do this than
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  the other, but you need to hit this certain food cost
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  percentage and don't raise the prices.
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  It's like, well you can't have both.
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  So a conversation needs to be had I'd like, hey, if we are
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  going to serve local produce and local meat and local disk on the
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  other, and it's going to all be organic.
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  And does that there, that there is a cost associated with that.
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  So you have to be okay with that because don't come screaming at
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  me and threatening my job and you know, threatening to fire me
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  or whatever, because I've raised food cost by x amount of
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  percent. If that is what you want, then
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  there is a trade-off, right? You get better quality and
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  you're supporting your local community but sometimes not all
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  the time. A lot of times, there is a cost
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  associated with it so I think that's a conversation.
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  Number one conversation number two, is that a lot of people
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  don't understand that when you're cooking locally and
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  you're only serving local food that you may be affected much
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  more by the seasons if you don't grow your own food, I think
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  people especially Americans right?
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  Sometimes you don't sometimes you don't have a full
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  understanding of what it's like you know in the summer.
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  How good are the tomatoes? How How long does tomato season
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  last right? And depending on where you are,
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  like in Texas, for example, you know, we have season for tomato
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  sometimes is late summer. So if you're going to say, we're
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  only serving seasonal tomatoes that are local.
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  Well, you might only be serving them for a month, right?
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  You may only be serving them in August period.
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  And so, Again that conversation needs to be had like okay well I
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  need a lot of flexibility with my menu to change things.
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  When things are ripe, when things are good or you might be
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  serving something that's out of season from you know not within
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  your 100 or 80 mile radius or whatever it is that you're
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  saying you're doing. So I think that has to be a part
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  of the conversation and I'm not saying it's impossible because
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  there's a lot of restaurants out there that do a really good job
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  with this, but there's a lot of restaurants out there that say,
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  oh, we only serve local tomatoes and it's in the middle of
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  winter. Up Tomatoes.
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  It's like what local Farm is serving these Tomatoes.
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  This given you these Tomatoes. We just had a big winter storm
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  here in Texas and you know, I had some plants in my garden and
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  they all Dell died. Ironically, except for the time,
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  the time is still alive in this age, everything else died.
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  But if I had something growing And you have this winter storm
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  like okay, well, you don't have a lot of options.
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  So if you're going to really cook seasonally, then you have
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  to start thinking about, okay? How are you going to preserve
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  things? Are you only going to serve,
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  canned tomatoes? When tomatoes are out of season,
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  or you going to do, you know, what's your pickling program?
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  What's your fermentation and larger program look like a lot
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  of these things have to be considered, are you that, ER,
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  even that type of restaurant or are you just, you know, the case
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  of the the speaking that I was just doing At this conference,
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  are you a hotel manager who just likes the idea of saying I'm
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  serving local food but when you go into the restaurant, you
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  know, the owner or whatever, the case may be, and you say, hey I
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  want my sandwich, but why is there no tomatoes on it?
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  And then they say, oh, let's but well, tomatoes are out of season
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  like, well, I want Tomatoes, right?
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  So again big conversation needs to be had there between the chef
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  and ownership of like, okay, you want to there's going to be
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  additional cost and there's also going to be much more
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  flexibility on the menu because there's going to be times during
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  the year. When I can't get the things that
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  you want, I'll try to get as much as I can local, but there's
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  going to be times. Well hey, you know what, guess
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  what? There's going to be no tomatoes
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  on the sandwich this week or you know, there's gonna be no
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  tomatoes on the sandwich for the next ten months.
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  How about that right? Are you okay with that?
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  So that's another part of the conversation that needs to take
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  place and the third thing that needs to take place in this
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  conversation and, you know, this, this actually might get me
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  a little bit of trouble but it's true.
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  Is that local produce isn't Always better and it's not
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  always consistent and if you're a chef you want delicious
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  tomatoes and I'm just using Tomatoes as the example and you
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  want beautiful arugula but then your farmer comes ins like oh
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  you know, the ruble Is Not Great this week but here you go and
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  it's like well then your customers are complaining and
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  then it's affecting your business and you can make the
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  argument well if you want to support sustainable and local
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  when you have to do it all the way.
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  But let's be honest, a lot of people a lot more people say
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  they want that then people that actually do it.
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  So again, it's a little bit of a problem.
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  The tomatoes might not be as good, and you might be serving
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  tomatoes that that are local right.
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  Your local Tomatoes but they're not as good as the tomatoes that
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  were coming from California or the avocados that are coming
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  from California or whatever the case may be.
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  So, again, these conversations need to be had.
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  So, what I had said to, you know, the people in the audience
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  was like, if you truly want to serve local food, that is
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  organic and sustainable and supports the community, then
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  let's have the conversation. You need.
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  Need to be aware that you may be incurring a higher food costs
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  number one. Number two, you need to be aware
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  that there's going to be times when we're not going to be able
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  to serve many things because we're only serving local.
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  Correct? And number three, there are
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  going to be times when the quality may not be as good as
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  the commercial product that's coming from South America or
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  whatever the case may be. So those are the things that you
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  have to consider and if you're a chef and this is this is you
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  know kind of where there's some opportunities you could serve
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  local things or maybe it's a local olive oil or it's you know
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  the local cheese or the local cream or the local be for the
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  things like that so you can start having more of these local
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  things on your menu. But I'd venture to say that a
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  lot of these restaurants that say they're they're serving, you
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  know, local it's probably like 20 to 30 percent of what their
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  menu is and the rest. Co coming off the big truck,
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  realistically, realistically. Now, I'm not saying that's all
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  restaurants, because there's a lot of restaurants out there
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  that you don't have the farm and have the relationships.
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  But that's, that's the truth. And a lot of these smaller
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  Farms. Can't keep up with the demand of
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  every restaurant to serving local.
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  The reality is a lot of the small farmers will come and say,
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  I just can't keep up with that much supply and demand.
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  So a lot of small farms work with, you know, top-end chefs
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  that usually have smaller restaurants or they'll only say,
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  you know, I only work with these, these restaurants are a
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  lot of fun. Let's just say, I only grow for
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  these restaurants, there's a restaurant here in Austin, where
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  I'm at, that started their own farm so they could just grow
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  what they want and they're looking at like heirloom seeds
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  and things like that. So anyway I think that's pretty
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  cool. If you have that opportunity, it
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  makes a huge difference. One of the chef jobs that I had,
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  we used to have a garden where we would grow.
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  A lot of are a lot of things, right?
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  We'd grow cruciferous vegetables and berries and things like that
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  and watermelon. And we had a fig tree anyway,
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  what I figured out you know when I started doing that I posted a
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  chef's PSA. The day, if you really want to
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  understand food better to plant a garden because when you start
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  to plant things, you realize like, oh, God, it watermelon is
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  a summer fruit, but where we are, it's a summer fruit.
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  It's more of an Indian summer fruit.
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  So late September, right? And you only have watermelon for
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  like 1 month and you better eat it because then it's no good.
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  Or you'll notice like some of these cruciferous vegetables,
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  like Kohlrabi or cauliflower something like that, like the
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  colder, it gets sometimes the better they get, right,
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  cabbages. And whatnot.
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  But in Texas we have these hot spikes so it could be super cold
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  one day and then super hot the next day and that kills those
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  cruciferous vegetable soup. If you really want to understand
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  food, plant, a garden. So you could understand what
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  these Seasons look like. And when you tend to them,
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  you'll have a much greater appreciation for what you're
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  doing now. I know that was a little bit of
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  a rant on making sure we're discussing, you know, the
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  elephant in the room when it comes to local produce.
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  But what I will say is that when you are working with some of
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  these local Artisans, what you'll notice also is that their
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  quality is significantly better, right significantly better than
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  some of the other, you know the the mass commodity stuff.
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  So the milk might be better. The eggs might be better.
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  Sometimes it is more expensive but they are better, right?
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  The cheese might be better. So whenever I have the
• 15:06
  opportunity Maybe to work with local products, I would write,
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  maybe it's grains, whatever the case may be.
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  So I would highly encourage you, if you could do it, do it.
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  But to sit here and say that you have a 100% local restaurant but
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  make sure the costs are in line and make sure I always have
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  tomatoes and make sure the tomatoes always perfect.
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  You gotta sit those owners down, you got to sit down those Hotel
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  managers and those Country Club managers and those operators and
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  say, hey, that's it does not work that way.
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  Because the worst thing you could do is just sit there and
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  say, oh yep, we're doing it. We're doing it, we're doing it.
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  And that we're not, and Again, what I picked up in this
• 15:37
  conference is that these people, they just don't know, right.
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  Everyone likes to throw around the buzz words but they might
• 15:42
  not fully understand what it is that they're talking about.
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  So I think it's important as you do in your restaurant, you're
• 15:47
  the chef you should be the educator of the other people
• 15:51
  that are around you. Anyway, moral of the story
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  today. Have tough conversations with
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  the ownership team that you work with plant a garden.
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  Understand what seasons are Understand how these seasons
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  affect, what you do? And start building relationship
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  with the local farms and Artisans and purveyors in your
• 16:12
  area. So, you can start to see the
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  product that they have, and I honestly, like I said, it's a
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  nice beautiful reciprocal nature.
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  You know, you work with them. They give you sometimes the
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  better stuff, they save stuff off to the side is like, oh, I
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  grew this just for you. Go to the Farms, I'll tell you
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  there's a moment in time when I used to live in California and I
• 16:33
  moved from Texas to California that I moved back to Texas and I
• 16:36
  moved to California. Again, and I was a chef in
• 16:38
  California for a bit. And I remember like my learning
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  curve of going from Texas to California was exponential as a
• 16:44
  chef. And the reason was is because of
• 16:46
  the quality of produce. I was like Blown Away with how
• 16:49
  good the produce was and you know, the Napa San Francisco
• 16:53
  area compared to what we had in Dallas Texas at the time.
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  And then I moved back and then I went again and I was in Southern
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  California, you know? Sometimes they rate produce like
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  the number one and a number two. So number one would be really
• 17:04
  good in a number two is mediocre.
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  And I remember when I was in California and we got the number
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  twos, and I was with one of my, one of my chefs into the like,
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  oh, these are, these are crap. And I was looking at him there
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  were, there were like yellow squash and I was looking at him
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  was like, these are the most beautiful yellow squash I've
• 17:18
  ever seen in my life and he's like, oh no, these are crap.
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  These are number two. So I'm like, holy shit.
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  What are the number ones like like, the number two is in
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  California was like the, you know, the a plus plus and in
• 17:29
  Texas. So, you know, if you if you're
• 17:31
  fortunate to live in these areas where you have beautiful produce
• 17:34
  and and you know abundant local Versus take advantage, but the
• 17:37
  fact of the matter is, a lot of places don't have access to
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  Great produce like that locally or great farms etc, etc,
• 17:44
  especially when you're in a more of an urban city.
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  So get connected to food chefs, it's going to be a game-changer.
• 17:50
  I remember I was in one last story.
• 17:53
  I was in the farmer's market in San Francisco and I was with a
• 17:57
  group of chefs and someone had a grape and they were selling
• 18:01
  grapes and they're like here, try this great but I'm like, I'm
• 18:04
  all right. I've had a great before I do.
• 18:06
  Need to try another grape and my friend tried it and he's like,
• 18:09
  holy shit, you know, try this great pose.
• 18:11
  Like, I'm okay, I've had grapes before.
• 18:13
  He's like, no. Seriously.
• 18:14
  Tried this great but you know, just to placate him.
• 18:16
  I was like, okay, sure. So I tried to Grape and I was
• 18:19
  like, oh my God. It was honestly the best grape
• 18:22
  I've ever had it. Tasted like grape bubble gum
• 18:26
  tastes like grape, bubble gum in a grape and I was like, holy
• 18:29
  shit. How do you grow grapes that
• 18:31
  good? And I had a new appreciation for
• 18:35
  some of the produce. That is grown in California by
• 18:39
  some of the small farms and artisans in.
• 18:41
  Yo, you just go and you get a sandwich.
• 18:42
  That's just like arugula tomato. Olive oil, and a fried egg, and
• 18:46
  it's and bread, and it's like the best egg, the best bread,
• 18:49
  the best tomato, the best olive oil.
• 18:51
  And you notice that those simple things, you know, when your
• 18:54
  ingredients are so good, and if you have access to really good
• 18:57
  ingredients, you become a better Chef just by using those
• 19:00
  ingredients, right? The ingredients don't need you
• 19:04
  as much as you need them, right? A really good chef and a really
• 19:09
  mediocre chef and you tell them. Okay.
• 19:11
  Just make like a tomato sandwich with eggs is like, okay, you
• 19:16
  give one like you know, access to generic produce and you give
• 19:20
  the other one access to the farm.
• 19:22
  Sometimes it doesn't matter who's the better Chef because
• 19:24
  the person that has access to the better ingredients instantly
• 19:26
  becomes the better Chef. So anyway, food for thought
• 19:30
  Well, that was a rant, if you all want to support the show, go
• 19:33
  to chefs. PS a.com.
• 19:34
  You can find everything that I'm doing there, the books culinary
• 19:37
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• 19:39
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• 19:41
  And then there's a free ebook there.
• 19:43
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• 19:45
  I also have the culinary leadership fundamentals.
• 19:49
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  Subscribe, make sure you leave five stars on whatever platform
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• 20:00
  Thank you all very much. See you next week, hit the porno
• 20:02
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