Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Winter Q&A Pt 2 Ep. 32
Transcript
- 0:00Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs, PSA
- 0:02podcast. I'm your host Entre natera.
- 0:04On today's episode, we're going to get into Q&A part to
- 0:07continuation of last week's Q&A so stay tuned.
- 0:22So before we begin, I'll give you a quick update.
- 0:24I've been on a couple of podcast this week, if you follow me on
- 0:27social, you'll see that I posted on my was on flavors unknown.
- 0:29Doing a panel discussion on leadership, go check that out.
- 0:31I thought the conversation was great.
- 0:33I was also on the line cook thoughts podcast discussing Ai
- 0:38and then I've recently recorded another episode of, you know,
- 0:44crossover episode with roots hospitality and chefs PSA and
- 0:48that'll be out later this month. So I'm excited about about that.
- 0:52At, it's always good to be talking shop with other chefs
- 0:55and people in the industry and discuss discuss some of the
- 1:00topics. You know.
- 1:00It's good to do the question and answer format.
- 1:02Actually that's a reason why I'm doing this Q&A part 2 because I
- 1:06do enjoy the Q&A format. So, you know, I could come up
- 1:09with a subject on my own and then you ramble on.
- 1:13But I enjoy when you all send me questions and things that you
- 1:16want me to talk about on the podcast.
- 1:18Because I know that's that's something that interests you
- 1:20also. That benefits me to talk about.
- 1:22Them. And I know that it benefits you
- 1:24to hear my perspective on them, so that's good.
- 1:27The other thing I want to talk about is I started writing the
- 1:31kitchen Art of War, and I got to tell you that I am loving
- 1:37writing this book. So, you know, for those of you
- 1:40that are unfamiliar, The Art of War is, you know, to Eastern
- 1:43philosophy. Classic written by Sun Tzu and
- 1:46it's basically a book on strategy War tactics, you know.
- 1:52The military's all over the world have actually been using
- 1:55this for years and it's a book that I enjoy, it's very short
- 1:59read so it's maybe 18 pages long.
- 2:02If you haven't read The Art of War, you should.
- 2:04I think the Art of War should be read by anyone especially if
- 2:07you're a chef so you understand strategy.
- 2:08So what I'm doing is I am reading The Art of War, I'm
- 2:11sorry, I'm writing The Art of War and what I'm doing is, I'm
- 2:14matching it exactly to the book. So for example, if there is
- 2:19chapter 2 in The Art of War is Waging War.
- 2:22There is 20 bullet points in Chapter 2, chapter 2, for the
- 2:26kitchen, Art of War will be 20, bullet points as well.
- 2:29And they will be an interpretation through a chef
- 2:32size of you know the classic Art of War written by Sun Tzu.
- 2:36So I'm having a lot of fun writing it.
- 2:40I get to I get to channel my inner Sun Tzu.
- 2:43I think you all will enjoy it. I'm trying to make it very
- 2:45applicable to Kitchen life and make it very relevant to some of
- 2:50the problems that a lot of chefs and Cooks Face.
- 2:52In the industry. So I'm going to enjoy it.
- 2:54It's going to be an e-book. I don't think I will print it.
- 2:56So I'll probably just sell the ebook version just because it's
- 2:59going to be so short, it'll be a roughly 18 to 20 Pages.
- 3:02I'm going to incorporate some of the art that I've been making on
- 3:07mid-journey. Submit journey is at AI
- 3:09software. That does basically a, i
- 3:12generated art, and I've been working with it.
- 3:14Recently its, I'm Blown Away with the quality of the art,
- 3:17that is able to be created on mid-journey.
- 3:20So if you haven't messed around with You should you go in, you
- 3:23type in a prompt, you type but you know imagine and then the
- 3:26prompt that you want, there's some tricks to it, you can put
- 3:29weights and different styles of art that you want the better.
- 3:33I get with it, you know the better the quality of art inside
- 3:37the inside the book and also in future projects, I'll start
- 3:43using mid-journey a lot. It's, it's a great resource.
- 3:46If you haven't started using mid-journey, if you know, if
- 3:48you're paying someone to do your art for, you should highly
- 3:51consider it. Because it's much cheaper and I
- 3:57pay for it so I could so I could mess up a lot, right?
- 4:00Because I think you only get like 25.
- 4:03I think you'd only generate 25 images with a free version so I
- 4:06pay for it so I can have an unlimited version of images.
- 4:09I can create I did a poll on Instagram, I selected two
- 4:15covers. I just wanted people to choose
- 4:16which ones you like this one or that one.
- 4:18And I give a third option, which was or none of them and keep
- 4:22working at it and most people selected none of them keep
- 4:24working at it. And so I put up all the versions
- 4:28of the cover for kitchen Art of War that I didn't like and
- 4:32everyone seemed to like two or three, the one that one.
- 4:38So for those of, you know, you couldn't see the results because
- 4:40I said like it, if you do The one that you like the most, the
- 4:42one that one was the, it was like a sketch with a coffee cup
- 4:46on it, and had some, some drawings, and little chess
- 4:49pieces on it. So, that's the one that one
- 4:50that'll be the cover, but I enjoyed making the other images
- 4:53so much. I'm going to incorporate those
- 4:56into the e-book, so you'll have the kitchen Art of War.
- 4:59Plus, you'll have some of the art that I generated through mid
- 5:01Journey. It'll be fun.
- 5:03Nonetheless. But anyway, let's get into the
- 5:06Q&A. The first question I have here
- 5:10today is, do you think being a cook today is harder than when I
- 5:15was coming up as a cook, and, I mean, heart is hard.
- 5:19It's all it's all relative. I don't know if it's necessarily
- 5:21harder now, having come up in the era that I came up in and
- 5:26having, you know, manage kitchens in the air that cooks
- 5:28are coming up. And now, I think it's easier for
- 5:33For a cook to come up now for a couple of reasons.
- 5:36And I'm not saying better, I just think that there's, there's
- 5:39certain things that do make it easier.
- 5:40One, you have better access to cooking equipment, in general,
- 5:44you know, you have Combi Thurman's circulators.
- 5:47All sorts of tools and gadgets that are more readily accessible
- 5:51were, you know, in my area that was coming up with basically
- 5:53sautee, pans, tongs, and ovens and stoves, right?
- 5:56It was much more basic. So now, I think you have much
- 5:58more tools at your disposal. I also think the access to
- 6:01social media. Allows you to learn techniques
- 6:04much more rapidly, and you have access to things like podcasts
- 6:07videos, things like that, where you could learn where before it
- 6:10was, like, when I was coming up as a cook, it was just yourself
- 6:13and the chef in the cooks around you.
- 6:14So that's all you really had to learn from it.
- 6:15If you were in a, in a restaurant job.
- 6:17Now, think about this, right? So I'm a line cook, 1997.
- 6:22And the only people I'm talking to is the saute cook that works
- 6:27next to me and my chef and back, then, you know, chefs were a
- 6:33little bit reluctant to share recipes with you.
- 6:35So the only way you would learn was by watching right watching
- 6:37people move in the kitchen. So nowadays, you could, if you
- 6:41don't have the confidence to ask yourself the question, you could
- 6:44Google it, you can listen to a podcast, you can search on
- 6:46YouTube etcetera. So the access to information
- 6:48makes it a little bit easier and then also you know, it's The era
- 6:53of cooking that I came up and there was just certain things
- 6:58that were expected and people understood that there.
- 7:01You know, the unwritten rules like, okay, you got to come in
- 7:03and your line needs to be set up at this time.
- 7:06So you got to figure it out. So that means you might need to
- 7:10come in early. You might need to come in off
- 7:11the clock. You might need to take some prep
- 7:12home, and that was just normal. No, no one thought twice about
- 7:15it. We're now, I think, at least, at
- 7:18least in most places because I'm sure there's still some places
- 7:20that do that. But in most places you get, For
- 7:23what you work were previously and you know, the error that I
- 7:26came up and you didn't always get paid for what you worked.
- 7:29And so I think that's a good thing.
- 7:30I think, you know, getting paid for what you work.
- 7:33It's a much more respectable approach to to cooking.
- 7:36So, do I think it's easier? No, because heart is hard,
- 7:38right? A 10 hour day is a 10-hour day.
- 7:40Standing on your feet. It's hot.
- 7:41The kitchens are still hot, the pressure is still there, the
- 7:44tickets are still coming in. So I don't think that's changed
- 7:46from the air that I was coming up or the error that people are
- 7:49cooking and now. But what I do think now, that's
- 7:51different is the The access to information.
- 7:54And some of the the work practices and the kitchen
- 7:57culture, I think is a lot better.
- 7:58So anyway, hope that answers the question.
- 8:00The next question I have here is what's the hardest part since
- 8:03retiring about not being a chef? Now that's a really good
- 8:06question because people that may know if you've been listening to
- 8:10this podcast or if you know me, you know, that I stepped away
- 8:12from cooking about a year ago and I decided to focus full-time
- 8:15on Chefs PSA. Now, what you may not know is
- 8:18for about the first six months after I retired, so I retired in
- 8:21January, I really It starts chefs PSA until until July.
- 8:25So, for the first six months or seven months of the year, I was
- 8:29doing nothing. I was sitting on the couch, I
- 8:30was getting fat. I was eating, I was smoking
- 8:32cigars. I was on the beach, whatever.
- 8:34I wasn't really doing anything. And then file is like, okay I
- 8:37gotta hustle and I got to get after it.
- 8:39But I think the biggest thing that's been difficult is when
- 8:42you're a chef or you're a cook in a kitchen, you have a tribe
- 8:46and you're part of a community and your, your part of that
- 8:48community of cooks and chefs. And once you leave that, All of
- 8:54a sudden you're out there in the world and it's like, I don't
- 8:57have that relationship with people the way I did in the
- 9:02kitchen. You know, we laugh at the same
- 9:03jokes, you know, we know what to talk about.
- 9:05We can talk about food, whatever the case may be.
- 9:07And, you know, you're with your people, you're with your tribe.
- 9:10And now I went from constantly being around people, so just to
- 9:14give you an example and my previous job, I had over 100
- 9:19employees 20, Sous chefs, something like that.
- 9:23But there was a ton of people that also worked in the same
- 9:25building. So let's just say there was 800
- 9:27people constantly around. So if I wanted to have a
- 9:29conversation, there was always people around there was always
- 9:32something to do. There was always action.
- 9:34There was always excitement where now it's like, oh shit.
- 9:39Who am I going to talk to all my friends that are chefs current
- 9:42work. Why is it?
- 9:42Hey, what are you doing? The like, we're busy working.
- 9:44We're not all retired. We're not all just sitting on
- 9:46the couch and posting memes on Instagram.
- 9:49So I would say that's probably been the most difficult thing.
- 9:52NG in my transition from Chef to no longer being a chef is that
- 9:57just just having people around to talk to you, you really take
- 10:00that from for granted is just being around people having your
- 10:04tribe around. That's that's probably been the
- 10:06biggest thing that I miss the most I miss the camaraderie.
- 10:09I don't necessarily think I can't wait to get back in the
- 10:13kitchen because I want to make this like that's not what I
- 10:15miss. What I miss is just being around
- 10:17my team of chefs and just that excitement and that Adrenaline
- 10:20Rush being around people. So anyway, hope that answers The
- 10:24next question is, how does someone who's new in the kitchen
- 10:26impress you? I would say how they work, how
- 10:29they move. Obviously if you've been in a
- 10:31kitchen, and if there, if there are new employee, I could tell
- 10:34right away, like what level of kitchen they came from.
- 10:37Did they come from a three-michelin-star kitchen or
- 10:39did they, you know, come from, you know, straight out of
- 10:42culinary school. You could tell how people work
- 10:44and how they moved. They have a sense of urgency.
- 10:46How clean do they work? You know, how did they set up
- 10:48their station? You could tell how experienced
- 10:50someone is just by how they move.
- 10:52Throughout the kitchen, what I like to call Kitchen karate,
- 10:55right? I would say that's something
- 10:56that impresses me a lot. When someone knows how to move
- 10:58in a kitchen, I don't care about it's your first day.
- 11:02Do you know the recipes I care? Do you know how to work in a
- 11:05kitchen and you could see that right away, if you've been
- 11:07around kitchens long enough, you know, who gets it and who
- 11:09doesn't like within within just a couple of minutes of them
- 11:12setting up their station. So I would say that impresses
- 11:14me. The other thing that impresses
- 11:15me, it's the simple things, right?
- 11:17Do they listen to they show up with a notepad?
- 11:20Do they engage with other people in the kitchen?
- 11:22Are they? Friendly.
- 11:23Are they polite? Do they have a big ego on day
- 11:26one or they coming to you and telling you every where they
- 11:28stashed and all their menu ideas and all this other blah blah
- 11:32blah? Like no one cares about that on
- 11:33day one, they want to know. Do you fit in with the team?
- 11:35So that that is important to me is like how are you as an
- 11:39individual? Are you the type of person
- 11:42that's going to come in and Shake everyone's hand or you're
- 11:44the type of person that's going to come in and you know, talk
- 11:48about how you did it at the last job, right?
- 11:50The person that comes in and says oh at my last job, Why do
- 11:53you do it that way? At my last job, we thought it
- 11:54was this way. It was better, actually like no
- 11:56one likes to hear that shit on the first day.
- 11:58So I would say that is what impresses me is someone that's
- 12:02respectful and has a sense of urgency and knows how to move
- 12:05in, move in a kitchen. Those are the things that
- 12:07impressed me the most but good question.
- 12:10The next question is, what is something terrible?
- 12:12You have seen in a kitchen. I've seen a lot of terrible
- 12:16things but I'll tell you a story.
- 12:18So, this is a good story because there is, there is, you know,
- 12:22kind of a Minute. So, I used to work for this Chef
- 12:24early on, in my career and I won't say who it was, but I, you
- 12:28know, he was, he was a little bit of an asshole.
- 12:30Had a back of alien nature about him and I was still very young
- 12:34and in culinary school. So I asked him as part of my, as
- 12:39part of my training, if I could Shadow him for a day and just
- 12:42see what he does. So I can learn what it takes to
- 12:43be a chef and he was like, yeah, of course you can Shadow me.
- 12:46So he's like, we're going to do a kitchen walk and I want you to
- 12:48see how I do a kitchen. Walk around the kitchens,
- 12:51inspect the stations and Interact with the chef's.
- 12:53I said, okay, so the first thing he did was he's like don't say
- 12:57nothin, just take note. So I'm just walking around with
- 12:59a, you know, a pen and a clipboard.
- 13:02And he grabs a handful of silverware, and the first thing
- 13:06he does is he throws it in the trash and then he puts more
- 13:08trash on top. And I kind of look at him and he
- 13:09just puts his finger to his lips and makes the shush, don't say
- 13:14nothing and I'm like, what, why did he do that?
- 13:17Like that costs money? I didn't understand why he did
- 13:19that, and then we proceeded to walk around the kitchen and he
- 13:23would taste the mise en place, and he would check people's
- 13:25things. And he would back then, it's
- 13:26like you pick up someone's knife and you'd feel it and if it
- 13:29wasn't sharp, it was very normal for the chef, to throw your
- 13:31knife in the trash. Pick it up.
- 13:32It's not sharp goes in the trash.
- 13:33So I was watching him to all this and again, this is not
- 13:36surprising stuff. It's probably surprising now but
- 13:38it wasn't surprising, then, right?
- 13:40You walk up to someone and if their Bane water was dirty, it's
- 13:43like okay, you got to drink it, you're not going to drink it.
- 13:45You better drink it or then you better change your brain water.
- 13:47So these were some of the things that he's doing.
- 13:49I'm watching him, he's tasty and throwing that away.
- 13:50That means and plus sucks isn't, you know, dump it.
- 13:53But you're not 86 in anything, you better be ready for service
- 13:55and that starts in 30 minutes. And so I'm watching all this and
- 13:58I'm like, boy, this guy's hardcore.
- 14:01Anyway, we go back to where we begun the walk and that is where
- 14:05he threw the silverware way and he calls over someone from the
- 14:08stewarding the lead Steward. And he says, have you been doing
- 14:14garbage can Audits? And what that means for people
- 14:16that might be unfamiliar with the term is back in the day.
- 14:20You know, it's a big deal silverwares expensive and
- 14:22restaurants. So a lot of times people will,
- 14:25you know, lay out some plastic on the on the loading dock or
- 14:28the delivery area and they'll dump the garbage can and they'll
- 14:31rake it. See if their silverware and
- 14:33their to audit and hopefully preserve their equipment.
- 14:37And so that's called a garbage can audit and that was very
- 14:41common practice you know back then I'm sure it still is.
- 14:44But anyway I that's the that's what a garbage can audit is and
- 14:47so he goes up to the lead Stewart and says did you do a
- 14:50garbage can on it? And the lead Stewart says, yes,
- 14:53chef. I do them every day.
- 14:53He's like, are you sure? And he says, yes chef and he
- 14:56says, so if I dump that garbage can over, you're telling me
- 14:59there's going to be no. So We're in there and he says no
- 15:01chef. And so the chef gets the
- 15:04garbage. Can he dumps it all over the
- 15:05floor? And then he says, well then what
- 15:07the hell is that? And he points at all the
- 15:08silverware in the, in the garbage can and he says, clean
- 15:12this up and he storms off and that was the end of our walk.
- 15:15And I'm like, what the hell did I just witness like?
- 15:17That was a total setup and I was like, what the hell is this all
- 15:21about? Like, my mind is spinning, so I
- 15:23go up to the chef, I go into his office and I say Chef, why did
- 15:26you do that? And he's like, because he's
- 15:29like, do you know how much of an asshole I'd be if I dump that
- 15:31garbage can over and there was Has no silverware in there.
- 15:33He's like, if I did that, and there was no silverware in
- 15:37there. He says, I have to be stuck
- 15:39there. Cleaning it up, and I'd be an
- 15:40asshole. He's like this way, I'm not the
- 15:42asshole, but I know. I have a very good man in my
- 15:46lead, Steward, that is checking the garbage cans.
- 15:48Anyway, it's a pretty screwed-up story, and I felt bad for
- 15:55everyone involved. Myself included because I'm
- 15:56like, jeez, the chef is teaching me the wrong way.
- 15:59I had to go back to my culinary school and tell my chefs like
- 16:02guess what? I just saw anyway.
- 16:05They explained to me at school like, hey, the shit happens.
- 16:08So, anyway, long story short, that's something screwed up,
- 16:11that I've seen in a kitchen. That's a terrible thing.
- 16:13Don't do that, don't emulate that chef.
- 16:16But the, I guess the lesson there is and maybe don't do this
- 16:19yourself but, you know, have a make sure you have a plan, A,
- 16:23and A Plan B always because things aren't always going to go
- 16:25the way you want. So anyway, good question.
- 16:29The next question is, what music do you listen to in the kitchen?
- 16:32Now, I think I posted about this long time ago.
- 16:34I don't listen to music in the kitchen and most kitchens that
- 16:36I've come up and it's been no music.
- 16:38And the reason that was the type of kitchens I came up and was a
- 16:42quiet, kitchen is a focused kitchen.
- 16:44So there was never a musical out now, early on in my career one
- 16:49of my chefs had promoted me up and so is my first executive
- 16:52chef job but the former executive chef was still in the
- 16:54building. And one of the first things that
- 16:57I decided to do when I became the chef Was like, I'm going to
- 17:00change the rules music in the kitchen.
- 17:02I want to have music in the kitchen.
- 17:03So I told the cooks that as your new leader as the new Chef music
- 17:08is back on, everyone's allowed to listen to music and this,
- 17:11that and the other. So, we put the radio in the
- 17:12kitchen and after so many years of never having music in the
- 17:16kitchen, I didn't really like it.
- 17:17So listening to music in the kitchen is like, how I don't
- 17:19know if I like this and because, you know, I'm trying to be a man
- 17:23of the people, I would let them decide what to listen to.
- 17:25So in this particular case, they were listening to some Good
- 17:29music. And I heard two of the ladies
- 17:33arguing over the radio station, that come around the corner and
- 17:36they were literally fist fighting in the kitchen.
- 17:39Over the radio station and I had to break it up and I just
- 17:42remember thinking, oh shit, like look at like the first first
- 17:46couple of days of allowing a radio in the kitchen and you've
- 17:49already had to break up a fist fight.
- 17:51Anyway, does that always happen? No, but I stopped music that day
- 17:55and I've never listened to music in the kitchen since it's just a
- 17:57personal preference. I know a lot of kitchens is do
- 17:59like having music in the kitchen.
- 18:02It's an argument that I've gone back and forth on with many
- 18:04chefs that have worked with me. Like, why don't you allow music?
- 18:07I just don't like it. It's a personal preference.
- 18:09I came up in kitchens without music, so I don't like music in
- 18:12the kitchen during covid though. And when we all came back after
- 18:16our kitchen opened, we had music in the kitchen and I got to tell
- 18:22you it felt weird during prep to be blasting music.
- 18:25So, to answer your question, what kind of music do I listen
- 18:27to it was You know, early 90s 2000s.
- 18:32Hip-hop, so Wu-Tang Nas, Biggie, Tupac Gangstar.
- 18:37That's the kind of music that I enjoy.
- 18:39Listening for that very brief moment in time when we were
- 18:42listening to music in the kitchen.
- 18:44That's what I was listening to so I hope that answers the next
- 18:49question is what do you think a chef needs to do to stand out?
- 18:54I'll give you an example by the way.
- 18:55This is a really good question. I think in today's world you
- 18:58need to stand out with your food.
- 19:00You need to stand out on social media and in a best-case
- 19:03scenario you're going to stand out in a combination of the two.
- 19:06So you have a you have a public Persona and then you have the
- 19:09food that you're putting out, so both can get recognition.
- 19:13Now, I'll tell you that when you're looking at social media,
- 19:16if you're like me and you're scrolling and you're scrolling
- 19:18and you're scrolling, and if you follow a lot of chefs, you see
- 19:22pretty food, pretty food, pretty.
- 19:23Food, pretty food. And then all of a sudden, you
- 19:25see something different in you stop and you pay attention
- 19:27because after a while all the pretty food starts to blend
- 19:30together and you can't tell if it's from this Chef for that
- 19:32Chef for the next Chef, you know, it all kind of looks the
- 19:34same. It's all pretty rights.
- 19:35All some beautiful fish with some green oil in a broken sauce
- 19:39and a beautiful plate with a canal of something, like it all.
- 19:42Looks the same after a while. But every now and again, you see
- 19:45someone doing something different.
- 19:47Whether that is a cooking real or plating or behind the scenes
- 19:51or interviewing, their team in the kitchen, or something
- 19:55different other than just the plate.
- 19:56So, if, if I was to tell someone like, what would, what would I
- 20:00do to stand out? If I was a chef right now, I
- 20:03would be showing everything except the food baby, my
- 20:06personality, maybe the personality of my team.
- 20:07So I think they need to Showcase something that's unique to them
- 20:10and make and humanize them a little bit.
- 20:12Give them a little personality. Give them Little bit of
- 20:14character, let people know who you are other than just a pretty
- 20:18plate. So, that's number one.
- 20:19And then number two, when it comes to food, I would say,
- 20:22Obviously do you write, what is your food and stand out and do
- 20:27something that's interesting and unique to you?
- 20:30Because, like I said on social media, when you're scrolling all
- 20:33the food, looks the same. Well, the same thing applies to
- 20:35the restaurant world, all the food out there, and a lot of
- 20:38restaurants starts to look the same.
- 20:39So if you run a specific type of restaurant, then you got to have
- 20:41these five dishes on, it doesn't matter what genre you're in.
- 20:44So maybe you think to yourself? Well, if everyone's doing this
- 20:48maybe I could do that right? If everyone's going right maybe
- 20:51go left or vice versa. So I say if you want to stand
- 20:53out with your food you need to do something that's different
- 20:56and unique because if you're doing the same thing that
- 20:59everyone else is doing, you end up at the same place as everyone
- 21:02else. If you want to end up somewhere
- 21:03different, then you need to do something different.
- 21:07And a good example is if you look at all the most influential
- 21:12chefs and the past, You know, 20 years, your Thomas Keller's Rene
- 21:16redzepi easier. Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz.
- 21:21Whatever the case may be, they all did something that was
- 21:24unique to them, right? They were doing them where other
- 21:29people were copying them. So that would be.
- 21:32My advice is do something that's unique to you, whether it's your
- 21:37food that you've created that's original ideas, or maybe it's
- 21:40food that from, from your hometown or that you grew up, in
- 21:42whatever the case may be, but make it your Our signature to
- 21:45stand out, right. Let people know that when they
- 21:47see that food ah that came from. So and so anyway that would be
- 21:50my advice to a chef that's looking to stand out.
- 21:53Now is one you have to embrace social media.
- 21:55It's not going anywhere and to make sure your food is
- 21:58interesting as well. Okay, last question before we
- 22:03wrap it up is, what do you see that we are not paying attention
- 22:06to right now. Now, I spoke about this on
- 22:10another podcast. Not on line, cook thoughts in my
- 22:13interview there. What I'll say is, I know a lot
- 22:19of people may be reluctant to look at Ai.
- 22:21And I've been working with it with chat GPT and I've been
- 22:24looking at Mid Journey for images and things like that, and
- 22:27I could tell you that AI is not going anywhere.
- 22:29It's kind of like Google, like Google's not going anywhere and,
- 22:32you know, 20 years ago or whatever, when Google came out
- 22:35to say, you weren't going to embrace it, you would have
- 22:39today, you'd be looked at as a fool if you didn't embrace it,
- 22:41like I don't see it going anywhere.
- 22:43So I think it's important to understand that you need to
- 22:45start embracing Seeing this. Now with that, you start to see
- 22:48a lot of layoffs in the tech world.
- 22:50So, Twitter, Facebook, Google, a lot of these, a lot of these
- 22:55larger tech companies have started doing major layoffs.
- 22:57I think I read the other day. That Microsoft laid off, I do
- 23:02remember, anyway, it doesn't matter.
- 23:03Anyway, Microsoft laid off a bunch of people so you're seeing
- 23:06a lot of layoffs in the tech world and you can't help but
- 23:09wonder if a lot of these layoffs are due to a I right.
- 23:12They might not come out and say it.
- 23:13But I mean, we don't know. We're not in.
- 23:16Positions, could it be that they've just found it's more
- 23:18efficient if they have a I do some of these other jobs that
- 23:21people used to do. So let's just assume right?
- 23:24Just just put your tinfoil hat on for a moment and assume that
- 23:27that's the case. Now what ends up happening is
- 23:30when you have a large group of people in an industry that have
- 23:34become displaced, is they have to find new jobs now.
- 23:37Everyone thought o AI is going to come along and displace all
- 23:40these chefs and it's going to cook our food.
- 23:42I don't think that's the case. I don't see a I coming in and
- 23:45cooking for For you, I see it helping you write recipes and
- 23:48things like that. Organize, your kitchen.
- 23:50Do a lot of the admin work but I don't see it coming for the
- 23:53culinary jobs may be in super fast food McDonald's and things
- 23:57like that. They might have robots and
- 24:00whatnot where it's, you know, relatively step one, step two,
- 24:02step three and sell, but the second that you have to have a
- 24:06Cook's intuition, I think you still need to cook.
- 24:09I don't know if the robot can tell the difference between salt
- 24:12and sugar, or MSG, or AP flour and pastry flour and bread.
- 24:16So on and so on. Are they going to put powdered
- 24:18sugar? They can put flour in the in the
- 24:20recipe. So I do think that you still
- 24:23need a cook, there is the AI robot going to know that the
- 24:26milk is spoiled or that the tomatoes aren't ripe or that the
- 24:29bananas are overripe. I don't know if I don't know if
- 24:32we're there yet. So I think a lot of the
- 24:35blue-collar work will be the first thing to be displaced.
- 24:37Now we're at all ties, in is when I was a chef coming up and,
- 24:42you know, during the period of 9/11 and the 2008 A crash
- 24:48financial crash. There was a lot of people in
- 24:50many different sectors of Industry that decided to change
- 24:53careers and a lot of people went into cooking and that was
- 24:56because there was this major explosion of the Food Network
- 24:59shows like Iron Chef. And so you had all these people
- 25:03coming into an industry that weren't necessarily from the
- 25:06industry. And I could tell you as a chef
- 25:07because this was kind of this was my rise as a chef, as a
- 25:11head, chef executive, chef. And I remember I would have one
- 25:14position I have like 20 people applying Or so, it was the
- 25:17market for the people that were hiring for the chef.
- 25:19It was a Chef's Market. So you'd have 20 Cooks applying
- 25:22for one position and, you know, you wonder why there's low wages
- 25:27and this, that and the other and well, a lot of that conversation
- 25:31is because it was a supply and demand thing.
- 25:33There was so much for Cooks to get jobs, but there was only a
- 25:36finite number of cook jobs available.
- 25:38So you could pick and choose, right?
- 25:40I would I would literally have stacks of resumes like sometimes
- 25:4430 resumes for one job. Bob, and I'm not joking, it was
- 25:47a wild time. So then you fast forward to the
- 25:50area that we're in now. And at really the displacement
- 25:52after the pandemic, and you had all these restaurants closing,
- 25:55you had all these restaurants open yet, a lot of people that
- 25:58decided to change careers and you have the shortage of cooks,
- 26:01it became a Cook's Market where they were playing Arbitrage
- 26:04between restaurants and say, do they pay me $2 more here and
- 26:08they'll pay me three dollars more there and you keep going
- 26:09back and forth. And before, you know it,
- 26:11everyone has raised their rates. And I know for a fact, I've seen
- 26:15a lot of places Is go from a making this number up kind of
- 26:18like from $15 an hour for Cooks up to $25 an hour for Cooks.
- 26:22Now that's a huge rate, increase in a matter of a year or not,
- 26:27even a year, it's been three years right?
- 26:29So in three years to see about a 10 dollar increase in Cooks
- 26:32wages is absolutely crazy because we did it go from five
- 26:37dollars to Fifteen fifteen dollars an hour in you know
- 26:41probably 20-30 years before that.
- 26:45So it's interesting to see this major spike in pay.
- 26:49Now to the point that I'm trying to make is a lot of people are
- 26:53leaving Industries and they're going to think, okay, what am I
- 26:56going to do next as a job. I think you're going to see a
- 26:58lot of people change careers that their positions were being
- 27:03displaced through. A I are going to go back into
- 27:07the blue-collar work because they're gonna say, well, I have
- 27:09a passion for cooking. So let me go, let me go become a
- 27:12chef. Let me start cooking for a
- 27:13living and I think it very Quickly May shift again from a
- 27:18Cook's Market back to a chef's market.
- 27:21And so the reason I say that is because if you listen to this
- 27:24podcast one I'm giving you this information.
- 27:28I could be wrong but I might be giving you an advantage later on
- 27:31this. So if you know this the best
- 27:33thing you could do right now is to to get some stability in your
- 27:37position, get more money right now and really start to position
- 27:42yourself well within the company and that you keep the chef's.
- 27:45Cuz a lot of people may start coming into this industry that
- 27:49weren't in this industry and it may saturate the market a little
- 27:52bit again with Cooks. Because now we're not dealing
- 27:55with the massive reopening post covid.
- 27:57So I would say and I could be wrong, but I would say that is
- 28:00something that I have been thinking about it.
- 28:02I think that it's naive to not think about that.
- 28:05So anyway, that's my two cents on that.
- 28:07Maybe I'm wrong but I could be right, who knows?
- 28:11I don't know what you guys think, anyway.
- 28:14That's going to wrap it up for this week if you want to support
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- 28:31Go to Chef PS a.com. You can find all the things that
- 28:34we're doing. There we have the merch and put
- 28:35out a happy chef hat that I like it.
- 28:39I wear it. So black hat that says Happy
- 28:40Chef with a stoic face. I was inspired by the movie.
- 28:49Black Dynamite were Black Dynamite says, I am smiling, but
- 28:51he's not smiling. Anyway, that was, that was the
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