Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Chef Bill Roll: Culinary School, Catering Business, and AI in Kitchens | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 136

Transcript

Chef Bill Roll: Culinary School, Catering Business, and AI in Kitchens | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep. 136 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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Hello Chef. This is Chef's PSA podcast.
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I'm your host, Andre Natera. On today's episode, we have Chef
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Bill Roll. He's currently the assistant
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professor of culinary arts and hospitality at Brookdale
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Community College, and he also runs his own catering company.
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He was an executive chef for over 19 years in hotels and
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clubs. And in this episode, it's a fun
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one. We talk about culinary school.
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Do you need to go to? Culinary school, what it's like
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being a culinary instructor, what his thoughts are on AI, and
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some of the realities of working in a rofessional kitchen.
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I think you'll enjoy this one. Stay tuned.
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It's good to see you. Good to see you too.
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So first time in Austin. Absolutely.
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First time in Austin. So tell me about dinner last
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night. Dinner was awesome.
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Ate at Emmer and Rye. Yeah.
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Sat at the chef's counter. Yeah, cool vibe there.
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Food was delicious. Sat down, I went solo in Austin
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by myself. I'm going to take you to dinner
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tonight. Oh, yeah.
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So tonight we're going to go eat at Junior's place.
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We're going to go to Juniper. OK, Yeah.
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But anyway, I didn't mean to back-to-back to Emmer.
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Yeah. They they treat you well.
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It was fantastic. Great service.
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Yeah. I love the idea of the open
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kitchen interactive with, you know, as interactive as they
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want to be with staff and stuff like that.
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So I actually, I got the the grill Cook's name.
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His name was Robbie. He was awesome.
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It was only me at the chef counter for the first like hour
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and we were just, you know, shooting the shit back and
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forth. It was really good.
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Had oyster first course. Yeah, fantastic.
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He talked about local Texas oysters and all that stuff.
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Nice and briny they were. Delicious.
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This this Robbie guy, by the way?
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Yeah, might be someone that's like 6° of separation.
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So I was consulting at a restaurant and I want to say the
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sous chef at the restaurant was consulting that was named Robbie
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and. Left good hammer and rye.
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Oh really? Yes, that might been there a
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year and a half. So it might be the same guy.
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He was a solid guy. Yeah, it might be the same guy.
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So shout out to Robbie. I heard he makes an excellent
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beef tartar. Oh yeah.
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I mean, that's was the place there.
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You got so funny story, the place where I was consulting
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when I was doing the menu, we did a beef tartar and you know,
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I don't remember it was on like egg yolk fudge, blah, blah,
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blah. And one of the cooks that was
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there, I said, what do you think?
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He's like? It's pretty good.
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It's almost as good as Robbie, Robbie.
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So I remember Robbie over that. So shout out to Robbie makes an
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excellent beef tartar. It was good, you know, I had
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that. What else do they have for a
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second course pasta dish? Yeah, the pasta program was
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awesome there. Yeah, they do an amazing job.
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Yeah, it was really good. Everything super well seasoned
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just to watch the flow of the kitchen, which I think a lot of
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people don't get to see in a restaurant without the closed
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kitchen. Yeah, it it's great to watch.
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Like there's 44 cooks in the kitchen.
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They were flowing back and forth.
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You have the chef's cuisine, I believe the chef's cuisine.
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She's at the past calling tickets.
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It was. It was a great vibe.
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Great first restaurant. Looking forward to tonight too.
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Do you when so for people that are listening, you teach in a
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culinary school, do you talk to the to the students, to the up
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and coming culinarians about when you're in a show kitchen,
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you're on stage? Absolutely.
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Yeah, because. That's very important now that I
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had a lot of restaurants are opening with show kitchens and I
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think people forget that everyone's watching.
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And the we have several kitchens at school.
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It's a small culinary school in New Jersey.
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There's several kitchens in the school and where the restaurant
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is is called the Windows. And there and there are windows
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where the guests can say into the kitchen.
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So the students that's scratching their head, hopefully
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not tasting the sauce and the riot stuff is the round stage.
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Yeah. And I'm constantly reminding
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them, hey, guys, everyone's watching, you know, customers
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are there, everybody. 'S everyone's like are you
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touching are you wiping your hands on your a friend right
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like did you know are you wearing gloves or you're not
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wearing like what is the standard right, I was just.
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We set the lights, everything. I was in a restaurant, so I ate
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in one restaurant, I won't say who, but it was like a really
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big name chef. And then I went to another
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restaurant of another big name chef and what?
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And both of them were open kitchens and one of the big name
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chefs, you know, the food was beautiful, but kind of fell
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flat, like everything just cut was kind of missing something
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flavor, flavor wise or just it was just flat.
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The other big name chef was more simple, but everything just
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seasoned well, salt acid technique.
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It was great. One of the things that I noticed
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in both of those open kitchens, because I, you know, being a
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chef, I'm I'm always watching, right?
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We can't shut it off. We can't shut it off right?
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So like where you going to sit? I want to sit with my back so I
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can watch the kitchen right? And the kitchen that was
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performing better seasoning wise and flavor wise, I noticed that
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nothing would go to the past without the cook tasting it and
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the chef tasting it before they played it.
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And the the restaurant that was missing, you saw no.
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Taste. Nobody was tasting.
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Nobody's tasting. Yeah, That's unbelievable,
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right? Yeah.
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My first job at a culinary school was in an open kitchen.
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And, you know, you get out of culinary school, you did fine
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when you were there. You know, you did everything
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everybody asked you to do and you come into the real world.
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What do you think? Like, what's this going to be
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like? I had an opportunity to work at
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a restaurant in Durham, NC for a husband and wife team.
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Both won beer awards and it was, it was amazing.
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But like you thought you, you might have learned the basics of
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cooking, but you didn't learn how to taste in high school.
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Or you think you did, but you're only you know 50% of the way
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they are. So how do you so when you're
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teaching students, how do you teach them because obviously
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taste techniques important and especially right then and there,
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everything's new, everything's exciting when you're starting at
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0, right? You've never even made a rule
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before. It's like, Oh my God, I would
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have never thought butter and flour.
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Right. So everything's new and
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fascinating, but then how do you also teach them to taste
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properly? Like is that incorporated in the
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curriculum? I make everybody taste.
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It's like if students aren't going through 50 spoons a day,
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we have a problem. Yeah, but how do you?
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Teach them to taste like, what's the process like?
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Even something as simple as making whipped potatoes.
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We'll go through the whole process of making them.
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OK, we're going to pass them through a Tammy.
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Now we're going to taste and we may taste them 5 * 6 times with
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the addition of salt, butter, cold butter, diced up hot milk,
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cream. Explain the difference.
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Why I would use milk, why I would use cream, because not
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every restaurant's going to use every cream because it's $4.00 a
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quart and milk $4.00 a gallon type of thing.
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So we'll go through the entire process of tasting, and I
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literally taste right across the table.
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You and me are tasting squints. OK Taste once.
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What do you think? And they're usually like, oh,
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it's pretty good. Yeah.
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OK, now I'm going to adjust the season.
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You're going to taste with me. And it's that back and forth.
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It may take the students three times.
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It may take them five times. Their idea of a pinch and you're
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an idea of the pinch might be completely different.
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Sure. So it's funny When When
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especially with new cooks, like when you tell them season
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something, it's like they. Oh, yeah.
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It's like my mom. Yeah.
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Like, is that enough? Yeah.
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Do you have a salt shaker? Yeah, right.
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And, you know, you, like, you could tell like a family member,
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like, go put salt in the pasta water.
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Yeah. And they'll go over and they'll
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pinch it. And I did it.
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And you're like, oh, that's not what I'm talking about, Right.
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And like when I tell them, like, taste the water and like, new
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students look at me like, are you crazy?
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Like taste the yeah, taste the water.
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Yeah, and they're like, why do I need to taste the water, right.
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Because it's it's part of the process.
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Yeah, you're going to understand when you taste the final
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product. Yeah, right.
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So and then that aha moment that you get, which is probably the
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best thing about being a teacher, we'll get that aha
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moment from the student that. It clicks.
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Yeah. What?
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So what made you want to get into into teaching?
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To get into teaching, I worked in industry for close to 20
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years. Fine dining, private Country
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Club and hotel. The last job where I was at in
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the hotel I hired students from the local culinary school.
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For the last 13 years I had no interest in teaching.
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My wife is an elementary school teacher.
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Yes, when you're working in a hotel or restaurant or Country
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Club, you are teaching your staff over and over and over
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again. But it wasn't something that I
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was necessarily looking for or I didn't think I, I wasn't
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actively searching for a position, even though I had
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higher students. I had someone from the school
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reach out to me and said, hey, students have had great success
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at your restaurant. You ever think about teaching?
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And I was like, I'm not really sure and hung up the phone.
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The next day, telephone call came across again.
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Can you at least mean this at the school?
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I've never gone down to the school.
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Went down to the school and didn't know, but it was a job
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interview. So I showed up.
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Lady met me at the front desk. Come down to the school.
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I walked into a room like this. Five people sitting at the desk
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to start peppering you with questions.
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I thought I was just going to look to see if the stoves were
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clean and what the regions look like.
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It's not what it turned out to be.
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Sat down and hit me with questions.
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The lady as I was walking down the hallway going into the
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classroom was the nicest lady in the world to me.
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I'm thinking, wow, I'm a complete stranger.
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She's so nice. We go through the entire
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process. It's like 45 minutes an hour
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interview. We walk out of the school and
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she says, Bill, you don't Remember Me, do you?
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And I said, no, I don't remember.
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She goes, I was a banquet server for you 15 years ago now she
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was. You start, you start going
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through your head like, what did I say to you?
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You know, it's funny because I actually said to her, I, I am a
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nice guy. I actually said to her, was I
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nice to you? And she goes, it wouldn't have
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lasted an hour. So like, you know what?
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I wasn't actively searching. You hit mid 40s.
10:08
Yeah, the back, the feet, everything starts hurting.
10:11
And you're thinking like maybe, maybe I'll look into it.
10:14
So for someone that might be interested in in considering a
10:17
career as a culinary instructor, I want you to give if you can
10:23
without getting in trouble at work.
10:25
Give us a really honest take on what are the pros and what are
10:28
the cons of being an instructor. You know, I'll tell you about my
10:33
first day. Yeah, I came in, I worked your
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favorite and my favorite shift was brunch.
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So I came out of a hotel just like you did.
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We did brunch every single week, 300 people.
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My idea of brunch and your idea of brunch are very, very, very
10:47
similar to that. So they're like, hey, and we had
10:52
a very good reputation for our brunch.
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It was not the best in New Jersey for a long, long time.
10:56
So he said, hey, just because we hate it doesn't mean we have to
10:57
make it bad. Oh no.
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I still want to make it good, I just don't like doing it.
11:01
Bring the hot shot in, whatever, we'll throw him into brunch
11:03
because all the senior guys, of course did not want to do it,
11:06
right. So I was like, I know we're
11:07
ongoing. I'm going to go teach brunch
11:08
class 1st. So I went in and did that.
11:10
I go in, I lecture for 45 minutes, hour about what we're
11:14
going to do. It's basically game plan what
11:15
we're going to do because the doors open, the doors open and
11:19
we're going to start feeding the public date.
11:21
Day one, I was like, Oh my God, I think I'm more stressed than
11:24
they were. I come in, you know, we feed 30
11:27
people. I have 15 students in the class.
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We fed 30 people. I had another senior instructor
11:33
come up to me and said everything was fantastic.
11:35
It's the best brunch we've ever had.
11:37
But I want to tell you about culinary school.
11:39
They're actually supposed to do the cooking, not you.
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And it was so hard for me to shut it off.
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It was really hard to shut it off and like, hands off.
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You know, we're like move out of the way ex and everyone down.
11:52
Let me I. Literally went down the whole
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line to put out food and I was like, what am I?
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And I didn't realize it because it was just like ingrained to
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what we do, you know, patients, they're learning, you know, in
12:05
industry, you know, my job was to prevent mistakes.
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You know, I anything that goes through the the door of that
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restaurant, I was the funnel going through the door.
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I was responsible for everything, even on my day off.
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You know, I believe that a good leader takes responsibility for
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everything. So, so it was hard to take a
12:26
step back to let the students make mistakes.
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Not that I encourage mistakes, but, but it's OK.
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But I want you to know why you made the mistake and how we're
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going to fix it. So when someone's thinking about
12:38
maybe because a lot of chefs get to this point and and you see a
12:41
lot of chefs, well, I'm going to maybe I have a controversial
12:46
opinion here. Is that talk about burnout?
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No, no, I'm not going to talk about.
12:49
Burnout. But I have a controversial
12:51
opinion about culinary schooling instructors so I could say this.
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So no offense to anyone that is in your in your group and, and I
12:59
apologize to my friends that are culinary school instructors that
13:01
may be listening, but I sometimes have a problem when
13:05
you're a culinary school instructor, but you've never
13:07
done it where you've done it. And a lot of the chefs that I
13:11
learned from when I was in culinary school, they'd done it.
13:12
They closed their restaurant and you know they were in the.
13:14
Twilight years of their career. And they wanted to give back
13:17
where a lot of people, I also in my culinary school had this.
13:21
There was someone that graduated and then next thing you know,
13:23
they were teaching. And sometimes I have a problem
13:26
because there's no real world experience and you're you're
13:29
teaching someone that's paying. I don't know how much they're
13:32
paying for culinary school, but you're teaching someone that,
13:36
you know, you you only really have a year.
13:38
Yeah, a year under your belt more than they do.
13:40
And in the real world, that that's nothing.
13:42
Nothing. That's nothing.
13:44
Nothing. So sometimes I have a hard time
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with that. But anyway, that's a ranch.
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And I'm surprised with how many students that graduate, yeah,
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that immediately want to go into teacher.
13:53
I understand why they want to go into.
13:54
Teacher. Yeah.
13:55
Why I don't? Nights, weekends, holidays.
13:58
Yeah. OK.
13:59
You know, I want 23 Thanksgivings in a row.
14:01
Yeah, sure. When I tell my students that I
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did that, I'm not doing it as a brag.
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I'm being honest. I did 23 Thanksgivings in a row
14:07
and 20 Christmases. Yeah.
14:08
And they look at you like, are you crazy?
14:10
Look, why did you do that? And I don't want to say like I
14:13
was brainwashed, but I was 100% committed.
14:16
Yeah. You know, and and to you know, I
14:18
there's not another place where I wanted to be.
14:21
Then it was in the. Restaurant, one of the things
14:22
that, you know, we're from the same generation, we knew what
14:26
we're signing up for. Yeah.
14:28
Like it wasn't that we're going to get upset about working
14:30
Thanksgiving or Christmas. We're like, we knew that this is
14:33
the business. We didn't go into the business
14:35
with the idea that it's all unicorns and rainbows.
14:40
Like we knew what we were signing up for.
14:41
You spend a couple of weeks in a in a kitchen.
14:44
Back then, you knew exactly what it was that that you were into.
14:47
I feel that I feel that more students need to work in
14:50
industry before entering onto culinary scores.
14:53
So that's a very good question for someone that is maybe
14:58
thinking about going to culinary school.
15:00
What are some things that like before you go?
15:03
Here's some things that maybe you should check off some of
15:05
these things off the list before you sign up.
15:07
Yeah #1 have you worked in a restaurant?
15:09
Right. Have you worked in a restaurant
15:10
or, or a bake shop or a bakery or, or, or something food
15:15
related where you have to feel the grind?
15:19
And yes, pressure is good. Pressure is going to make you
15:22
better. Do you know what it feels like
15:25
to work nights? You know, do you know what it
15:27
feels like to empty a fryer at 11:30 at night?
15:30
You know, like I get on the ground and do it at school
15:34
because they've never done it before, right?
15:36
But the next time they're doing and I'm watching, but like, I, I
15:40
want my students to know, like I'm not going to ask you to do
15:43
anything that I won't do right. And trust me, I don't feel like
15:46
climbing on the ground, you know, getting chicken bones out
15:49
of the drain. But I will because there's a
15:50
standard to what you know I will accept and what I want them to
15:55
go into industry and what their standards are too.
15:57
What else do you think is really important for a student before
15:59
they're going into culinary school, besides a little bit of
16:03
work experience? Work experience.
16:05
Have to know the commitment level that it's going to take to
16:07
be successful. Yeah, yeah.
16:09
And when people are going to school right now, like what is
16:15
you have your, you know, you're in it right now with a bunch of
16:18
new students, like, what is it that they want to do when they
16:19
graduate? Like when I was in culinary
16:21
school, everyone wanted to be in a Country Club or hotel.
16:24
They wanted to have CMCBEC, they wanted to have an American
16:28
culinary federation. You know, American flag stripes
16:31
under, under chef coat. Like that's what was hot back
16:34
then for, for everyone that was coming out of my culinary
16:37
school. Everyone today it it.
16:40
That's not it. So they, I think the students,
16:43
they have more options than you. And I did, yeah, like when I got
16:47
out of culinary school. I'm not saying that where I want
16:50
where I went wanted you to do a certain thing, but I believe
16:54
they did. Like they pushed.
16:56
They pushed like upscale fine dining.
16:59
New York Times, 3*4* right? Los Angeles, San Francisco,
17:03
Chicago. Yeah, New York.
17:05
And if you're going to be in a hotel, you need about The Four
17:06
Seasons at the Waldorf team at the Plaza.
17:09
Right, right, right. Like I got out of school and
17:11
moved to North Carolina. Work for two James Beard
17:13
winners. Are you going to go work at the
17:15
Greenbrier for your internship? Right, right.
17:17
That's where they sent everybody.
17:19
And it's like when I came back to New Jersey and New Jerseys
17:23
food is decent. We're close to New York, we're
17:25
close to Philly. There's a decent amount of money
17:27
in the area. So people know food, you know,
17:30
they, they know food. People looked at me like I was a
17:32
hillbilly coming back from North Carolina and I was like the food
17:36
down there in the college town, you know, Duke was there at
17:39
University of North Carolina was there.
17:41
Two big hospitals, a lot of money and an amazing food scene,
17:46
you know, just sort of like what Austin has here, you know?
17:48
And the restaurants around there were so much better in the local
17:53
area where I was from. And I was like, you have no
17:56
idea. I'm going to come back and I'm
17:57
going to smoke these people. You know, that's what I sort of
17:59
think a little bit, you know, like I, I I think that kids say
18:05
when they get out of school, they want to be private, private
18:07
chefs. They want to teach.
18:10
They want to have a flexible schedule.
18:12
Yeah. You know, I had a flexible
18:14
schedule. I was off on Tuesdays.
18:15
Yeah. Once you get weekends off, you
18:17
get holidays off. Yeah, yeah.
18:18
Yeah, or the option. Yeah, or the option.
18:20
Where I didn't feel like I had an option or did I want an
18:23
option? Like I had no problem working,
18:26
you know, six days a week for 12 years where people look at you
18:30
like what did you do? Why did you do?
18:31
That and you're you're impacting people's lives.
18:34
So one of the questions that always comes up, it comes up to
18:37
me a lot. Do I need to go to culinary
18:40
school? Yeah.
18:41
Can you answer that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:43
I'm just I, I know. I can answer.
18:45
I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can answer.
18:46
Yeah. Do you need to go to culinary
18:48
school? No, you don't need to go to
18:51
culinary school. You and I have both worked with
18:52
people that are in culinary school that, you know, where I
18:57
graduated with. There's kids that 18 months
19:01
later weren't in the weren't in the the restaurant business
19:04
anymore. You know, maybe maybe it wasn't
19:06
right for them, you know, and we've also worked with people
19:09
that have no culinary experience, that have been in it
19:12
for 20 years, that are amazing and what they do.
19:17
I think culinary school offers different options than
19:21
immediately going into a restaurant as far as like pace,
19:24
more exposure to different chefs.
19:28
Like you may be a student of mine and you have me for three
19:30
weeks. Well, three weeks later, you're
19:31
going into another class and you're going to get another
19:33
chef's perspective, And three weeks later, you're going to
19:36
rotate into another class. You're going to get another
19:38
chef's perspective. Has its benefits of listening to
19:42
other chefs. So you, I can, I can make a
19:46
point for both. Yeah.
19:48
Why you should, why you shouldn't.
19:49
It's obviously very expensive. Yeah.
19:51
Yep. Certain places are very
19:54
expensive. There are more affordable
19:55
options out there. Yeah, and I'll and I'll tell you
20:00
this for people that are listening usually.
20:03
And then there's an exception to the rule here, and I'll touch on
20:05
that, but usually as a chef, I never looked at like I'm not
20:09
going to hire someone because they did or didn't have binary.
20:12
School. I was the worst.
20:15
It was rare. I could care less where you went
20:17
to school. Yeah.
20:17
I don't care if you grew up in this town, you know, I don't
20:20
care what big name school you went to or not.
20:23
It is like, can you cook where, where have you worked before?
20:25
Like if someone, I'm just making this up.
20:27
If someone had worked at Noma and French Laundry and didn't go
20:30
to culinary school and then someone else went to culinary
20:32
school, Noma French Laundry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
20:35
It's like, I want to know where you've been.
20:37
And unfortunately, unfortunately, a lot of people
20:41
think that they, they have to do this, but they, they don't.
20:44
A lot of it has to do with what you have within.
20:45
Now with that being said, I need to say that I went to culinary
20:51
school more than anyone I know personally.
20:54
So yeah, I went to culinary school, you know, the the
20:57
original the first time I've been to all Cias for continuing
21:00
education so so Hyde Park, Saint Helena, San Antonio.
21:06
I've also taken Ruby's online culinary program and I probably,
21:12
anyway, I'm sure I'm missing one or two in there, but I've, I'm
21:14
over educated sometimes, you know, I've done like American
21:18
Culinary Federation continuation, like I was an
21:20
education junkie and I wanted to because, you know, this is a
21:23
chef, like you want every little micro.
21:27
Yeah, like like, oh, I don't know how to do that.
21:29
And there's a class that I can learn how to do, you know, the,
21:32
the perfect brine. OK, I'm going to take that
21:34
class. So I was always looking for a
21:35
small competitive edge. Right, like I'll be watching
21:37
videos on brine and be like what what did that?
21:39
What's the brine ratio on that Yeah, it has two percent, 5%.
21:42
How long? Why?
21:43
Why 4 hours not 24 Like I love those details.
21:46
Yes you know I I think that all chefs that are passionate about
21:50
food never stop learning right and are humble enough to owes up
21:55
For more information. Right.
21:57
And education. So anyway, what I was gonna say
21:59
about education is like, I would never tell anyone that they have
22:03
to go to school to be a chef, but when someone says did you go
22:05
yeah, I went a lot, but I'm also an education Joe, your answer.
22:08
I went a lot. Yeah, I went a lot.
22:09
I probably went more than I needed to, but I felt like that
22:13
is my, I also read a ton of books.
22:15
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I, I, I geek out on things
22:18
that, you know, I, I want to know everything.
22:21
When I was a kid, I, I, I, I almost, but I tried to, you
22:25
know, we used to have like an encyclopedia.
22:27
Oh yeah, we had it in my. And I wanted to read them all
22:29
because I wanted to learn everything, right?
22:31
And that's just how how my brain works.
22:32
I want to know everything. But not everyone's that way.
22:34
Some people just want to grind. They want to work in the
22:37
kitchen. They want to learn how to taste
22:39
like you were talking about and maybe culinary school is not for
22:41
them but doesn't mean that they won't be a good chef.
22:43
Oh, absolutely not, right. I don't think that has any
22:45
reflection on that. And like what what a young
22:47
person's, you know, goals and ambitions are at 18.
22:50
Yeah, maybe a lot different at 48.
22:52
So for students that you have coming, coming out of culinary
22:55
school, what are some of the things that you're coaching them
22:57
on when they go out into the real world and you, you know,
23:00
you're cutting the umbilical cord and saying, you know, good
23:02
luck. Yeah, and you know, a lot of
23:04
those students come back for lunch immediately, like next
23:07
semester and be like, I wish I asked you this.
23:09
I wish you asked that. You know, it's it's a small
23:12
school. There's about 100 kids that are
23:13
in the program at a time. So.
23:15
So I have the benefit of like forming real relationships with
23:18
students. It wasn't like I just had them
23:19
for 12 days. They moved on and I didn't learn
23:22
their name and they didn't learn mine.
23:23
You know, it's it's nice because, you know, I teach some
23:26
of the beginning classes and I say, you know, good luck in the
23:28
program. And I I don't tell them that I'm
23:32
going to have them five more times.
23:33
Yes. And then, and then I see him
23:37
three weeks later and they're like, you know, so the, the
23:40
program is small enough where I get to learn your name.
23:43
I get to learn. And I come out and straight up
23:46
ask him like, what are your goals?
23:48
Some of them have no idea. Some of them are very, you know,
23:51
focused. They'd be like, I want to go
23:53
work in New York City for Danielle Blue.
23:55
OK, good. Well, we have two more years
23:57
here. I have to teach you differently
24:00
to get you ready for a position like that than a student that
24:02
may want to go to healthcare right now.
24:05
It's it's a different thing. And we get students from all
24:08
over the government. You know, we have students that
24:11
want to go to Barcelona. We have students.
24:13
I have a student that's been in Japan for two years now.
24:16
And there's ones that just want to go work, you know, a local
24:20
restaurant or, you know, with, with family.
24:25
A family owns a pizzeria and a student wants to, you know, I
24:30
have a student that wants to do more than just Southern Italian
24:34
food as his father's pizzeria. Do you ever tell them like, hey,
24:37
when, when you get out in the real world, don't say at school
24:40
they said we're supposed to do it like this?
24:41
No, Yeah, it's the worst, right? And, you know, I, I use your
24:44
phrase, you know, often that you talk about like, how do we do
24:47
it? And I even say it to the
24:48
students. I'm like, don't go back there
24:50
and say, you know, that's what Bill told us to do.
24:53
Do not do that, especially if you're local because a lot of
24:55
those guys know me. Don't say that.
24:57
Don't say that. You do exactly what you say.
24:58
Halfway through the program. They go on like an internship,
25:01
externship type of thing. And I usually have them before
25:04
they go off, you know, in the last couple days.
25:06
And I'm like, listen, you're halfway through, you're get used
25:09
to starting. You're going to be at the bottom
25:10
of the barrel, you know, be humble, Do what they tell you to
25:13
do. Show up early, stay late, all
25:15
that stuff, you know, take notes.
25:18
Do not say this is the way Chef Bill told me to do it.
25:21
Don't. Don't do that.
25:22
It's funny. Here's a here's a story for you.
25:24
When I was a young cook right out of culinary school and I,
25:27
like I said, I'm a geek, I would read the glossary, right?
25:30
So I knew all the terms and. You have a food lover's
25:33
companion. Food lover's companion, right?
25:36
And so I knew everything and, or at least I thought I did.
25:38
I was like that walking, walking encyclopedia.
25:41
And I remember the chef said something incorrect and I
25:44
corrected him in front of everybody.
25:46
This is the executive chef of where I was working.
25:48
I'm like a 18 year old green culinary school graduate.
25:52
And he said I don't remember. What it was?
25:54
Yeah, but he said something I said that actually means this
25:56
chef, you know, I wanted to make sure I corrected him.
25:59
Like, use the wrong word. It's actually this word.
26:01
How'd that go? So he's like, great, you're
26:03
working the grill, right? I've never worked the grill.
26:05
Oh, like he's like, what? Where's that?
26:07
Where's that vocabulary right now?
26:09
Like I need the food, chef. Where's that vocabulary?
26:13
That helping you? Is it?
26:14
Yeah. You're right.
26:15
Yeah. You talk about the grill and
26:17
stuff like that. So I ran the hotel for 13 years
26:22
and then I went into teaching. News flash, for anybody that's
26:25
interesting, it is a pay cut. Yeah.
26:27
So I'd go get a summer job. Yeah.
26:30
OK. And I was like, what do I want
26:31
to do for a summer job? I reached out to one of my
26:33
buddies and I said, listen, do you have any positions that are
26:36
open for the summer? Yeah, I got a a grill position.
26:39
Yeah. And I was like, OK, fine.
26:41
I'll do it. Let's be realistic.
26:44
I wasn't at the hotel cooking every single steak.
26:45
You were at the hotel? No.
26:46
No, you have a team. A decent sized team and stuff
26:49
like that. I was like, OK, I'll go do it.
26:51
And we were sending two students that were there the entire
26:54
summer too. So I had like 2 students that I
26:56
would sort of like watch over mentor a little bit, but they
26:59
were going to be there as well. And I said, when do you want me
27:03
to start? And he's like, oh, come in
27:04
Friday, Memorial Day weekend. Well, at the Jersey Shore,
27:07
Memorial Day to Labor Day, you're doing 90% of your
27:09
business. Yeah, you're going to get
27:10
crushed. Come, come in that Friday.
27:12
OK, What time you want me on Friday?
27:14
Come in like 3:00. I've never come into work at
27:17
3:00 ever in my life. Yeah.
27:19
So I was like, I I roll in at 3:00 and open up the drawers.
27:23
I'm looking through on my prep to see what's there.
27:26
And I got like the day grow guy. Don't worry, you're all set.
27:29
Which I do not want to hear because they're like, oh, who's
27:31
this guy coming? You know, who's this guy coming
27:34
into the work? Nobody had knew that I who I
27:37
was, right? Not that I'm anything special,
27:39
but nobody knew. I was like I come in.
27:43
They they just know you're the new guy.
27:45
You're just, you're the FNG. And 100% this is what what I
27:48
wanted to be too, you know? So I show up and we probably did
27:54
300 covers, right? The first 150 go out.
27:58
I'm breathing a little bit, right?
27:59
I'm like, oh, look at this, you know, I'm OK.
28:00
I did all right. Nobody was waiting for me.
28:02
I'm looking over the salt a cook.
28:04
You ready for the next pickup Because I'm ready, you know, it
28:06
felt good. It feels good to dance like
28:08
that, you know, But we put out the hearse 1st 150 covers.
28:12
I look over at the pantry and there's two guys in the pantry
28:15
talking Spanish the whole the whole night.
28:17
And my kitchen Spanish is pretty good.
28:19
Yeah. OK.
28:20
So I'm just like listening, you know, I'm not a big talker, but
28:23
I am a big listener. So I'm listening to everything
28:25
they're saying. And halfway through I'm looking
28:29
for like a quart of water. You know, I was like, I need a
28:31
quart of water go up to the two guys and I'm like, you know
28:35
where I can find some water. And they're like, yeah, right
28:36
over on the side. And they said, yeah, you did
28:39
pretty good with the 1st 150 covers.
28:41
What do you do for a living? And I was like, oh, I'm a
28:44
teacher. I didn't tell him culinary, you
28:47
know, and I heard him talking shit the whole entire time.
28:49
And then they go, what kind of, I've never seen a teacher cook
28:51
like that. What kind of teacher are you?
28:53
I go, I'm a Spanish teacher. They were like, what?
28:57
I was like, I'm just watching your chops, you know?
28:59
And then we put out the next 150 covers and stuff like that.
29:01
But it feels good to know that you could still do it.
29:04
Yeah. Where there's a lot, not a lot
29:06
of people that would be signing up for that, you know?
29:09
And I, I said, don't you know my friend who's the chef?
29:11
I was like, listen, treat me like a girl cook.
29:14
Yeah, that's it. I don't want any special
29:16
privileges. I won't respect myself if you
29:18
give me any special privileges, you know, I want to show it with
29:23
the team. I want to leave with the team.
29:24
I want to drain the fryer. I want to scrub the line.
29:27
You know where I wasn't doing that on the nightly for a while?
29:30
Sure. You know, outside dining,
29:32
Wheeling up speed racks, you know, 2-3 speed racks, amusing
29:35
Plaza night and stuff like that. Bring them all down to the
29:37
basement. It felt, it felt good.
29:39
I quickly learned after that summer, I don't want to do this
29:42
next summer, Yeah. No fair, you know, Yeah, no,
29:44
I'm, I'm with you. Like I, I, I of all the things I
29:48
want to do in life right now, working the line is probably
29:50
like not it's not on the top of my list.
29:53
Yeah, yeah, I retired for a reason.
29:55
Yeah. You know, I've, I've, I've been
29:56
there, done that. I'm good.
29:58
Like I I don't need to prove to anyone that I could work the
30:00
line because the the version of me now is not as good as the 12
30:04
year old. Version of me with the line.
30:06
Right, like that guy would smoke me now.
30:07
Yeah, right. Yeah, I got kitchen rest.
30:09
To an extent, yeah. And I think, you know, that's
30:12
part of why I did it, you know, super competitive against, like,
30:17
even myself, you know, like you can't talk a good game and not
30:20
back it up. So, so recently I was consulting
30:23
at this place and kitchen staff was short and for whatever
30:29
reason, and I had to work the line.
30:31
And the guy that I was with is like, Oh, yeah, I get to work
30:33
with Chef PSA, Chef Andre out the line.
30:35
And, and I'm like, don't get so excited, man.
30:38
Like you're a better line good than I am right now.
30:41
You're in your career. Like you're 21.
30:43
You could move like I could barely bend down to pick up the
30:45
plates on the floor or, you know, in the lowboy, whatever.
30:49
I was like, don't get too excited.
30:50
But it's like it came back to me a little bit.
30:53
It wasn't my, my, my best, but I also wasn't terrible.
30:56
Like I was like, OK, I could still do it if I have to.
30:58
You ever see the Bourdain Eric repair one?
31:00
Yeah. That was great, right?
31:01
Yeah. And then they got, what?
31:03
Did they go into Bourdain's restaurant?
31:04
Yeah. And like, Anthony was like, I'm
31:07
going to set up chef repair. So he gets crushed.
31:11
Yes. And it's a steakhouse, you know,
31:13
like a French prosperity steakhouse type of thing.
31:15
And you know, he's the chef master, you know, and he held
31:18
his own knee and you know, he did it the whole.
31:20
Month he talks about it a little bit more like he goes into more
31:23
detail in his book medium raw yeah yeah so he covers that
31:26
whole episode of getting his ass kicked by Eric repair how he was
31:30
setting them up and and it completely backed.
31:32
Up I love stories like that yeah, it's.
31:34
Great. Yeah, there's there's, there's
31:36
something about being a good line cook.
31:38
And sometimes being a good cook doesn't mean necessarily being
31:41
good on the line, like a lot of people misconstrue that like
31:45
some people are just creative good cooks.
31:47
They could, they could sit in front of a cutting board, they
31:48
could create dishes. They can knockout prep.
31:51
They can make a 50 gallon soup that's delicious or sauce or
31:55
whatever, right. But they couldn't work the line.
31:57
Yeah, it's a different, it's a different skill.
31:59
Do you notice that a lot like when you were at the hotel, like
32:01
I separated my staff out of an Ala carte staff and I had a
32:04
banquet staff. Yeah.
32:06
And if I took some of my banquet guys who were solid banquet
32:10
cooks, you know, like same thing, you know, go make me 50
32:13
gallons of this. Go, you know, breakdown 4 cases
32:16
of fillets. Go do this, go do that.
32:18
They would crush it. Yeah.
32:20
And somebody called out on a la carte tonight.
32:22
Is there any way I can get my a la carte suit to come on over
32:24
and work Saltec? And I would be like, this is
32:27
going to be brutal. So so the banquet cooks would
32:30
come over to the a la carte side and like, like everything is,
32:34
you know, swanier dab dab the meat out of the serviette, you
32:37
know, put it microgreens. You know, the pollution of this,
32:40
you know, testing it with her cake tester.
32:43
And then the banquet guys are like sheet tray season it, flip
32:46
it over on the grill and like, no, no, no, we don't work like
32:49
that. He's like, but I got 20 steaks.
32:50
I'm going to cook them all at once and just hold them.
32:52
No, no, no, you don't you don't do that.
32:54
Do it that way. And then I would send sometimes
32:56
like the a la carte cooks to go work in the Banqueta kitchen is
32:58
like, I got to make 20 gallons. How do I do that?
33:01
Right? Like it's it's just and I was
33:04
much. More of a before I started
33:06
there, I was much more of like the oligarch guy than the
33:08
backward guy, you know, and I, and honestly, my backward chef
33:12
was an oligarch. I had a Four Seasons for a long
33:14
time, really, really great chef. And then he was like, you know
33:18
what, I've had enough of this. I want to go over and do
33:21
banquets and stuff like that. And he went and did that for me
33:23
for five years and he was great because it was a solid banquet
33:29
chef that brought that finesse from Ala Carter where you don't.
33:32
See, no, it's a Unicorn, someone that could do both.
33:36
But what I what I noticed in in my career, everywhere that I was
33:40
ever a chef where there was a banquet and catering operation
33:42
and an Ala carte operation. And everywhere I've worked is
33:45
I've been fortunate that they've been separate.
33:46
Yeah. So we ran like a lot of places,
33:48
like the same kitchen execute. I've never, I've never been in
33:51
that environment. Where I'll let now covers.
33:53
We're going to put out a party right now.
33:54
Like I have a separate catering kitchen.
33:56
I have a second, yeah, separate restaurants.
33:58
And what I noticed is like the banquet guys and the Ala carte
34:01
guys, like they, they're not hanging out after work.
34:04
Like they they're they're different.
34:06
Animals. The banquet.
34:08
Guys don't respect the Ala carte guys because they're like, you
34:10
guys couldn't do what we do and the Ala carte guys are looking
34:12
at them like, yeah, but that's not what we want to do like that
34:15
We don't like that food. It's too, it's a little rough,
34:18
right? So there was always a little bit
34:20
of beef and I respected both of them because I I knew it's like
34:22
I understand that both of you are playing in different sports,
34:26
right? And and you're and you're trying
34:27
to, you're trying to say like, hey, I'm a basketball player and
34:29
I'm a football player and my sports betters like no different
34:32
sports. Yeah, they're different.
34:34
Yeah, they're completely different.
34:35
To have that skill of of both is like tremendous to have as a
34:40
chef in a hotel. Like you need someone to be able
34:42
to do both. Yeah, you know that.
34:44
And you know they they do talk crap against each other because
34:48
one thinks he's all finesse and the other one is all volume,
34:51
right? Neither one of them are right.
34:54
Yeah, because I want finesse and banquet, and I also need.
34:57
Some volume. There's times where I need
34:58
volume like you can't. I need you to be able to think
35:01
like a catering chef sometimes. Yeah, right.
35:03
Yeah. Like they're crashing for a a
35:04
catered party of 20. Like, how do I do this?
35:06
And the other guy's laughing. Yeah, like.
35:08
We just put out 28 parties this week, right, right.
35:11
You know, 28 like 200 plus parties.
35:13
Yeah, you know, and we're doing double S and they roll at 2:00
35:18
after Mees and Pops is done for. So I did an episode 1 of the
35:21
earlier episodes I did on chef's PSA was like the hardest job
35:24
ever for me. I think a, a banquet chef is
35:27
probably the hardest job I could think of in terms of physical
35:34
exhaustion and, and, and, and maybe even mental exhaustion,
35:37
especially if you're in a big catering house and you got to be
35:39
there for the VIP breakfast that that goes out at 6:00 AM.
35:42
So that means you're there at 3:00 AM, and then you got to be
35:45
there to make sure the last plate goes out for dinner and
35:47
the dinner's running late and it's 9:00 PM and you're still
35:49
there. Right.
35:50
And which happened? All the time, all the time, all
35:53
the time. That's the norm.
35:54
I don't think people realize like, like everyone talks about
35:58
the industry is hard and like, oh, we're going to work a lot of
36:00
hours. It's like, yeah, but there's
36:01
certain segments that actually you could get a 40 hour a week
36:04
job. You know, if you're working in
36:06
healthcare, like you talked about, if you're working at, you
36:09
know, maybe a corporate environment, like you're the
36:11
chef over at Apple or something like that, maybe you're working
36:15
40 hours a week. There's other places where maybe
36:17
you're in a restaurant, you're working 50, you're working six
36:20
10s, maybe you're doing that. But when you're a banquet chef,
36:23
like people don't realize, like if you're the executive banquet
36:27
chef with a large, you're there all the time.
36:29
Yeah, all the time. Yeah, you're married.
36:33
Good job. Him and I were married.
36:35
Yeah, yeah. Him and I were married.
36:37
He's still my closest friend to this day.
36:39
I've been through war with him. Yeah, I I worked with him for
36:43
seven years. And when he did move on, he went
36:45
up to Boston and moved on. The banquet suit took the
36:49
position that worked with him for five years.
36:51
Right. So it wasn't the same, but it
36:55
was 95%, and that was still better than any.
36:58
I could never bring anybody in from the outside for that
37:00
position. Yeah, I wouldn't because it
37:03
wouldn't be fair to my team, you know, because there was a way
37:07
that we did stuff. I'll tell you a quick story. him
37:11
and I didn't work together for five years.
37:14
He left. I had a sous chef that passed
37:17
away. Yeah, that I work.
37:18
Sorry to hear that. Got in a car accident leaving
37:21
work, nothing stupid. It was on a Thursday night.
37:25
We got out early. We're driving home.
37:28
I left 5 minutes before him. He was like come on, come on.
37:30
We actually had an early night. He would never leave before me.
37:35
We got home, he got in a car accident.
37:39
I called, I called my banquet chef that was up in Boston and
37:43
said you're never going to believe what happened.
37:46
You know, you're you're banquet Sue, you know, he passed, got in
37:49
a car accident, stuff like that. And he's like, Bill, it's going
37:51
to be really tough. It was in the middle of the
37:53
summer and it was it was it was horrible.
37:58
It was unexpected. And I talked to him all the time
38:02
because he was like a brother, you know, my old banquet chef
38:05
and I said, you know, they were going to bury the kid on a
38:08
Monday. You know, the banquets don't
38:11
stop because of it, you know, which is unfortunate and stuff
38:15
like that. I told my guy to take off, take
38:19
off for the day. I went in and put out parties in
38:21
the morning and then had to go to the Funeral Home.
38:24
I was speaking, you know, I gave a speech when I buried the kid
38:28
and when I, when I went in that Monday morning to go put out the
38:33
parties. I have a banquet server that was
38:35
there all the time. He walks behind me and he's
38:38
like, Bill, you're never going to believe it.
38:39
The kitchen's already set up. I was like, I thought it was one
38:42
of my backward cooks that I told to take off.
38:44
I was like, Nope, I'm going to do it.
38:45
I'm going to come in, I'm going to set it up and then I'll be
38:47
out of here by 12:30. Then I'll go over to the
38:49
funeral. I he says to me, oh, there's
38:54
somebody in the kitchen that already set up the entire
38:56
kitchen. I walk in, take off my jacket,
38:59
put on my chef jacket, go into the office and I see all the
39:03
sauces are already in a well, already hot.
39:06
The veg is already counted out, potatoes are already on.
39:10
Everything is set. And he goes, I don't know why,
39:12
but this guy's screaming over in the other banquet kitchen right
39:14
now. I was like, great.
39:16
I figured it was a banquet cook. I walk in.
39:18
It was like, no, it was my buddy from Boston that was my banquet
39:21
chef that I talked to at midnight after I got off the
39:24
car, after I got off the phone with him, he got in the car,
39:27
drove five hours from midnight till 5:00 in the morning, showed
39:31
up at the hotel at 5:00 in the morning.
39:32
We had not worked together in five years and he set up the
39:35
entire. Time he's at the Where to pick
39:37
up? Yep, yeah, that's and it was
39:38
funny because he was like you still do stuff in the same way I
39:41
go why would we change it Yeah, yeah.
39:43
And reason why we do it and I didn't know he was coming down
39:46
and he's like I'm going to put out these two parties today.
39:48
Now he had already worked another place for five years,
39:52
hopped in the car, knew I was having a tough time the night
39:54
before and drove down and helped me out that.
39:56
Relationship that that people can have like two different
39:59
chefs like I I could pick up and work with many chefs like that I
40:02
haven't worked with in years like I knew like we if we were
40:04
doing a catering we could just jump in right now like we we
40:06
know how to both with each other yeah yeah yeah I want to ask a a
40:11
couple of other questions around culinary school one of them the
40:15
fascinating subject for me is AIII probably use AIA little too
40:19
much sometimes because. Get rid of it.
40:23
I'm, I'm good at it, I understand how to work with it,
40:25
I understand how to leverage it and I understand how to educate
40:27
myself with it. And I'm wondering because I know
40:30
the capabilities with AI and I could, I could tell you that
40:35
sometimes I have late night chats with my ChatGPT.
40:37
I could talk to it and the other day I was having a very scary
40:42
conversation with it. I was like, hey, where?
40:44
Are we going with this? Like what does next year look
40:46
like in the next year? And it says, you know, most
40:48
likely we'll have AI agents, which for people that aren't
40:51
familiar with that, it's like you can install AI agents to
40:53
work in the background. You can give it tasks and maybe
40:56
it's clean up your e-mail box and doing your taxes while
40:58
you're surfing the Internet, right.
41:01
So it said most likely this year we'll have AI agents 2025 and
41:06
then eventually, you know, the metaverse.
41:08
So, you know, the you're in this digital world, maybe you could
41:13
have meetings with your AI agents.
41:14
They could look like people, right?
41:16
Yeah. And then maybe you could assign
41:17
them personalities. So you could say your board of
41:20
directors is, you know, Augustus Scoffier and you know, whoever,
41:25
right. You got, you got all these great
41:26
chef minds around you as your board of directors and you could
41:29
brainstorm concepts really quick.
41:31
I said. And if if you have AI agents,
41:35
then you could scale those AI agents could also have AI
41:37
agents. So you can have one AI agent
41:39
that's your your chief marketing officer.
41:41
And it could have 100 AI agents as its employees working in the
41:45
background for it. And I said, so with that being
41:47
said, I said within a year, we could have every single person
41:51
could have an infinite number of employees working for it.
41:57
And it said, yeah, I'm like, holy.
41:59
Shit, did you hear the Rogan podcast this week?
42:01
No, with Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook.
42:03
No, no, I need to listen. To it.
42:04
Yeah, it was good. I I actually listened to it on
42:06
the plane coming down. OK.
42:08
It was good. And, you know, Joe Rogan
42:10
mentioned AI, you know, and he's asking the man, you know, or one
42:15
of, you know, one of the men about it and stuff like that.
42:17
He's like, and he's sort of talking about what you were
42:20
saying, like one person can lead five other teams.
42:23
And how do we scale it right to, you know, make everybody more
42:28
efficient, you know, because Rogan's pushing back and be
42:31
like, what if people are losing jobs?
42:32
He's like, I don't really see it like that.
42:34
I see it like, it's going to assist all of us.
42:37
Yeah. Now there's going to be some
42:38
people that are first. I did see that they laid off
42:41
3600 people. Today, yeah, Yeah, I read that
42:44
today Meta laid off, you know, and it and I see it happening
42:48
because with AI, it's going to displace a lot of the tech jobs
42:51
first, a lot of the marketing. I mean, you can see what you can
42:55
make with AI images and all that.
42:56
Yeah. I mean, it's, it's so far like.
43:01
I. I posted today, so we're
43:03
recording early. I don't know when people are
43:04
going to listen to it, but today is January 15th.
43:08
So I had an idea today. I was like I want to make an R
43:10
rated. Movie.
43:14
About chefs set in the disco era of the 1970s New York, right,
43:18
Scorsese style. You know, think, think Scorsese,
43:22
think Carlito's way of a toxic chef.
43:24
And I'm like cast Christian Bale is the is the head chef.
43:29
Make it a serious movie R rated. So it's like, you know,
43:32
Coca-Cola, the Coca-Cola days, right?
43:36
And I'm like, that would be a great movie.
43:38
And I'm like, you know what, I will be able to make that movie
43:41
most likely by the end of the. Year.
43:42
Oh yeah. With AI video, because I can
43:45
make, I could make a short film now.
43:47
I've just haven't released them, but I I've been playing in the
43:49
background making little short 5 minute video, cartoon little
43:54
reels. Yeah, longer though.
43:56
Yeah, like longer. Make like a 5 minute movie.
44:00
Now that looks good. And I'm like, I haven't shown
44:02
anyone because it's not, it's not.
44:03
It's not just perfect. But that's today.
44:06
In a year from now, I guarantee you I'll be able to make a full
44:09
length feature film. What now?
44:12
Will it remember? Do you?
44:13
Do you feel like it's remembering everything that you
44:15
have said to it in the last three weeks?
44:18
Or you start with a clean slate every single time and then have
44:21
to punch in the prompts that you want.
44:23
So both it remembers random things like I realize it
44:26
remembers more than I think it remembers.
44:29
I'll bring up things with a new chat bot and it'll, it'll be
44:32
like, well, you know, Chef's PSA would say this.
44:35
Like I haven't even mentioned Chef's PSA or, or anything yet.
44:40
It will say to me based on, you know, your business model.
44:45
So it already knows what I'm what I'm thinking.
44:47
I'm like, oh, wow. So I haven't even, I haven't
44:50
started to explain it. So it'll pull things in from
44:52
other conversations. I believe it.
44:53
Because social media is already doing that.
44:54
I I land in Austin and five restaurants show up on my
44:58
Instagram, right, Which I hadn't seen in three weeks.
45:01
Well, what's crazy about AI is you could ask it and you could
45:04
do this today like anyone, anyone that uses ChatGPT and has
45:08
been using it's better if you've been using it at length, go ask
45:11
it based on all our conversations and everything
45:14
that we've ever talked about. What do you think my IQ is Guess
45:18
and it'll it'll tell you based on based on all of that.
45:21
This is what I think your IQ is better not ask is that.
45:23
Well, what's funny is I asked it and it's it gave me some
45:26
bullshit answer like, well, you know, IQ tests are, you know,
45:29
not all the accurate you got to take.
45:31
I said no, no, What? What do you think it?
45:33
Well, no, no, you have to tell me.
45:35
What do you think LL you could you could be in this range.
45:39
I said, well, no, no, no, be very specific.
45:40
What do you think it is? So you're whittling it down.
45:42
Yes, like I'm pushing it. Yeah.
45:44
What do you think it is? No, I want you to be as it
45:46
doesn't matter. You're not going to hurt my
45:47
feelings. What do you think it is?
45:48
I think you're this and it's funny because I've taken IQ
45:51
tests and it was it was within one point.
45:54
Wow, it was it was within one point of what I actually have
45:57
tested versus what it thought I was, which is extremely high for
46:01
anyone listening, for anyone listening, you could say, you
46:05
know, just just under genius, just right there on a bad day,
46:10
right? I I think the test is wrong.
46:12
I think they're down a point, yeah.
46:16
I've used AI with my students and even this past semester and
46:19
stuff like that for projects which which it's not going away.
46:27
So we're trying to integrate it in with the students to make it
46:30
more efficient for them. Yeah, You know, and yes, there
46:33
are some mistakes I can say just like when you wrote out recipes,
46:36
I could say give me a lobster best recipe for that yields 5
46:40
gallons and make sure that the recipes and the procedure that I
46:46
want to do it and come up with a grocery list for it, right.
46:51
You know, there's a big difference between doing
46:53
something that like that and helping me or show a student how
46:57
to multiply that by 5 and how many cups of soup if I'm doing a
47:01
six ounce. Portion for a wedding.
47:03
Where students would struggle with that, like they all hate
47:06
culinary math. I don't teach culinary math.
47:08
But then I they come into my class next and I'm like, well,
47:11
do you love money? And they're like, yeah, I love
47:12
money. I'm like, good, I knew you loved
47:15
money. You know, News slash This is why
47:18
you need to know this type of things because you can't just
47:20
hold your breath, cross your fingers and hope you have enough
47:22
soup for your 200 person wedding.
47:25
You know, like that doesn't. Happen if you run someone's
47:27
wedding. Yeah, they'll never forgive.
47:29
You, you know, like how many cases of flight do you need to
47:30
buy for that? You know, what's your yield
47:32
percentage? So I have used some of that with
47:35
my culinary students to show them why it's important, how
47:39
it's going to help them. So maybe if they're having
47:42
struggles in certain classes, you know, we're not, I'm not
47:45
asking anybody to cheat, but to use the tools that are there to
47:48
help them. You know, like you and I.
47:51
When was the last time you went into a library, opened up the
47:54
duty desk, my system, and left up something?
47:56
Right. I mean it's funny, most people
47:57
don't even know what the duty. Desk system is right and then
48:00
everybody googles it. This is just going to be the
48:02
next thing. IA 100% agree with you and I
48:04
think those people that are on it now are way ahead of everyone
48:08
else because there's a learning curve there.
48:11
There's definitely a learning curve to know what not only to
48:14
learn how to communicate with AI, but to to know what how far
48:17
you could push it, right. There's a certain way you could
48:20
push it and say, hey, look, can you create an image and like
48:23
you're going to get some shitty looking image yes.
48:25
And then now it's like when I first started creating images
48:29
like on the comics, like the first ones were really rough,
48:32
like, oh, can you do Superman opening, you know, crying in The
48:34
Walking or whatever, right. And, and now it's like, no, I
48:37
want it in this style. I want it to look like a scene
48:40
from a Stanley Kubrick movie set in the 1970s.
48:43
Like I'm very specific. And it'll and the images are.
48:46
The more you know how to control it, the better the output.
48:50
And the more detail that you can give it, right?
48:52
Like I could say, show me a picture of a pan seared black
48:55
bass with whatever polenta and roasted cherry tomatoes and I
49:01
could see it. I'm like, oh, that's horrible.
49:03
OK, now show it to me on a white plate, only put on five cherry
49:07
tomatoes. And instead of that polenta,
49:10
give it to me in a polenta cake that's shaped like a circle for
49:14
sure. So you can say it.
49:16
And then it slowly starts adjusting towards, yes, probably
49:19
more your style. Yeah.
49:20
And I could say like in this style of, you know, French
49:23
cuisine or right, something like that.
49:25
And, and, and sometimes I'll give it prompts, like give me a
49:29
dish when I first started experimenting with dishes.
49:31
And what's funny is a lot, I saw a lot of, there's a couple of
49:33
people that started putting up as their food And it's like, I
49:37
know it. So I know it's fake, but a lot
49:39
of people are, oh, that looks so good.
49:40
Well, how did they, how did you make that?
49:41
Can I get the recipe? And I'm like, well, this, this
49:43
person's messing with you, right?
49:45
But you could even tell it like give it to me in the style of
49:48
Noma, if Noma was set in the 1930s really.
49:52
And it'll like it has to, it has to come up with something,
49:54
right? So it'll, it'll get super
49:57
creative. And I think when people know how
49:59
far you could push it, like I said, I mean, I'll have late
50:02
night chats about the, you know, are we in the simulation and the
50:05
yes and the nature of reality, like, yeah, yeah, it goes deep.
50:09
It goes deep. So anyway, we got on a ramp.
50:10
But are your students embracing it now?
50:14
Yeah, they love it. Yeah.
50:15
And I'm not telling, I'm not telling any of my students to go
50:18
give me a 5 page paper that you're using AI on mother
50:21
sauces. Yeah, because I can read the
50:23
first page and know that you did not write that.
50:26
Yeah, you know, but as a tool to use it, I have no problem with
50:31
it, you know, as long as it helps you understand it better.
50:35
I want to ask you about private catering because I know you do a
50:37
lot of private catering. Is that for for someone that was
50:40
also interested in maybe jumping into the private catering space?
50:43
What are some things that you think everyone should know
50:45
before they jump into that? Game I think the most important
50:49
thing that you need to know is your cooking skills have to be
50:54
top notch. If you're going to go into
50:57
somebody's house and cater a party, you have to be you.
51:00
You can't be worrying am I going to hit the temple on the fish or
51:03
the meat? But more importantly than your
51:06
cooking skills, I think hospitality is super important
51:08
too. They're, they could have went
51:10
out to a restaurant and had your food instead, they're basically
51:13
inviting in could be a stranger, you know, into where they've
51:19
only seen you through social media.
51:21
It's the same trust that you need to have when you're walking
51:24
into a client's house. You know, they, they have to
51:27
trust you. There's a lot of times where I
51:28
want to do fancy food right, But that's not what the client is
51:32
looking for. You have to give them what?
51:34
Shout out Fancy Chef 2013. No, I'm just kidding.
51:37
Yeah, yeah, I should have brought some champagne flutes,
51:40
some strawberries, some ranch. Yeah, you have to.
51:43
Give the customer what they want.
51:45
You know, as when I show up to somebody's house, yes, I want to
51:48
unload and get into the kitchen as fast as possible and turn on
51:51
the stove. But hospitality starts
51:54
immediately when you show up to somebody's house.
51:56
So is there anything that that was, that is, I hate to say
52:02
something so, so business wise obvious to people that do it,
52:07
but like if you've never done it before, like make sure you do
52:09
this. Like forget all the cooking
52:11
stuff. Like, if you're the business,
52:12
like, what is it that you have to think about on the business
52:15
side that isn't so obvious to the person that's starting it
52:18
for the first time? I think relationships, yeah,
52:22
relationships. I think the first few parties
52:24
that I had were from clients that constantly ate my food at
52:28
the hotel and I hadn't been there anymore.
52:30
So being able to form those relationships is super
52:33
important. So for someone that has zero
52:37
clients and they say, hey, I want to start my private
52:39
catering business and they don't know anybody or they like, hey,
52:42
my my parents love my food, right?
52:45
Yeah, they say I make great enchilada, mom.
52:47
And Dad love it, right? Yeah.
52:49
So how do you start building your?
52:51
You have to start with building social media in today.
52:53
Yeah, today's world. Do you think for for someone
52:58
right out of culinary school or people that are in culinary
53:00
school right now, Do you? Do you?
53:01
Are you starting to tell them now?
53:02
Like start building your social profiles?
53:04
Yeah, I make them do it in class.
53:05
Yeah, I said, you know, you can have your personal account,
53:08
which is fine, but how many people are hiring off a resume
53:12
nowadays? Yeah, I used to have a stack of
53:14
resumes too. And you can tell me that you
53:17
love Mexican food about if we sit down and I start talking
53:20
about Mexican food or what Mexican restaurants have you
53:22
eaten in? And have you been to Mexico?
53:24
And what type of cuisine in Mexico do you like?
53:27
You know, if you can't answer any of those questions, how much
53:30
do you really like it? You know, you have to be
53:32
obsessed with it. You need to start a social
53:33
media, You have to go from there.
53:39
I'm 48 years old. I post so much.
53:43
It's, it's ridiculous. I probably shouldn't be, but I
53:45
really feel like it. It allows me, not that I'm
53:49
looking just to get more and more and more clients, but it it
53:52
allows me to show people who I am.
53:55
Because you feel like it is the start of building a
53:58
relationship. Yeah.
53:59
And and you have to start with. That and, and, and for people
54:02
that are listening, like if you don't have social media and
54:04
you're a ghost, like, yeah, good luck.
54:06
Who are you? Yeah, good luck.
54:08
No one knows anything about. You, I think everyone's worried
54:10
about, like, the perfect plate of food.
54:12
Yeah. No, no one cares.
54:13
No, no one's going back to find your your photo of like, oh,
54:17
you, you're the lighting could have been better.
54:18
It's like no, that you're, you have something.
54:20
Because I look back on 10 years ago when I was doing this and I
54:23
look back at some of the food and I go, what was I thinking?
54:25
Right. Why do we all do that?
54:27
We all do. I've I've made.
54:28
Why did I think that? Let's just What's the worst
54:30
thing you've ever made? Like is there one that haunts
54:32
you? I don't know, there's probably a
54:35
lot. There's definitely not one
54:36
thing. I, I, I once won a chili
54:39
competition, a chili cook off. I entered a competition, I was
54:41
out, I was like 23 years old and I entered the chili cook off and
54:45
I scorched the, you know, scorch Yaya.
54:47
I scorched the chili, but I didn't know it.
54:49
Yeah. And so.
54:50
Why didn't taste it? No, no, no 'cause I I'm on the
54:53
little click burner outside, it's rainy, I have my chili pot.
54:58
I've scorched the bottom of the very thin aluminum pot right and
55:03
it's like a 5. Yeah, you got tons in there.
55:05
I. Got tons in there.
55:06
Everything's floating on the body.
55:07
It tasted good when I made it. Yeah, right.
55:09
But now that I've brought it and I've, I've kept it in the pot on
55:12
the click burner and everyone's like.
55:15
Wow, that's what's that tastes so.
55:16
Good. So unique.
55:17
I'm like, I don't know. I ended up winning the
55:20
competition, by the way, and when I finally tasted like, oh
55:23
fuck, it's scorched. Yeah, it was scorched and I
55:25
still won. Well, your palate's better than
55:27
this. Right, right.
55:29
They're like, it was very unique.
55:30
I was like the oh shit, it's scorched.
55:32
What did you roast? How?
55:33
How deep did roast those tomatoes?
55:36
Sweaty. Kind of.
55:37
For people that are listening, if you had a chef's PSA out
55:39
there, like what would it be? The good or the bad?
55:43
Both. Both.
55:45
Yeah, I'll tell you I hate the people that fuck up the plastic
55:49
crap. It's the worst.
55:51
And leave it. Yeah, I hate that there's the
55:54
worst. What else don't we could do an
55:56
hour on, but I don't like I ate when 1 cook puts up their food 3
56:01
minutes before the next person. Like you guys are putting up
56:04
apps. Can we like we got to dance a
56:06
little. We got we got to come up
56:07
together and like this one thinks he's the stud because he
56:10
put it up five minutes before. Look what I got.
56:14
Oh, we're waiting for you. You know, that's a perfect time
56:16
for me to be like, yeah, redo it, do it again.
56:19
You know, stuff, stuff like that's horrible, you know, good
56:24
things. Be humble.
56:27
Be humble. Be able to take criticism.
56:30
Know that everyone, everyone's learning, no matter who they
56:33
are. Learn from your mistakes.
56:36
It's OK to make a mistake. Learn from them.
56:40
Push yourself, you know, being able to go outside the limits.
56:45
If you don't think you're ready for the next position, you know,
56:48
you're not sure if you want to go into the next restaurant, the
56:50
fine dining restaurant, because you've only worked at a casual
56:53
restaurant and you don't think you may have the chops for it.
56:57
Try. Yeah, try.
56:59
I think so many people are afraid to make an attempt to go
57:02
do something. If if you had to list who the
57:05
four chefs that you think should be on the Chef Mount Rushmore,
57:09
who would they be? I thought about this, and I
57:12
don't want to say the same as everybody else, but it's kind of
57:15
hard not to. Yeah, it's kind of hard not to.
57:19
I got to that. I haven't heard anybody not say
57:21
anything of Jacques Pepin. Yeah, you know, legend Ferdinand
57:26
Mets. Agreed.
57:27
You know, like, and I was thinking of those two.
57:30
I was like, hey, if I have to say my other two, Thomas Keller
57:34
and Danielle below, I don't know how you leave them off.
57:36
I mean honestly, no one could argue with that list.
57:38
No, chef, Where can people find you?
57:41
Probably on Instagram at Chef Bill Roll.
57:44
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you for your time.
57:47
Thank you. Thank you.
57:48
Well. I hope you enjoyed the show.
57:49
You know what to do. If you're watching on YouTube,
57:51
hit the like and subscribe button.
57:52
If you're listening on Spotify or Apple or anywhere else, make
57:55
sure you leave five stars. Nothing less than five stars.
57:58
Anything less than five stars is unacceptable.
58:00
Go to chefspsa.com, you find the Chef's PSA store there you get
58:04
books, you get merchandise, and I appreciate you supporting the
58:08
show. It's how I keep the show going.
58:09
If you want early access to episodes and listen to them
58:12
before anyone else, you can become a premium member on
58:15
Spotify and also on Sub Stack. You get your ear candy before
58:18
anyone else gets their candy. Anyway, we'll see you next week.
58:21
Hit the porno music.