Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Chefs, Robots, New Cooks and The Future Ep.75
Transcript
- 0:00Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
- 0:02I'm your host, Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
- 0:04to talk about AI and we're also going to talk about being the
- 0:07FNG. Stay tuned.
- 0:21This episode of Chefs PSA is sponsored by J&R Grills and
- 0:24Smokers. I use J&R Smokers and Grills for
- 0:26over 5 years as a chef and I can tell you there's a huge
- 0:29difference. Cooking over live fire or
- 0:32smoking with wood then using gas.
- 0:34There's only one way to get that real wood flavor and now they've
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- 0:51it's going to outlast those other holding cabinets that
- 0:54you've used, that always breakdown.
- 0:56You're going to put all that effort into grilling and smoking
- 0:59perfect meat. Then you probably need the right
- 1:01cabinet to go with it. They build everything in Texas
- 1:03and shipped to all 50 states in over 50 countries.
- 1:06J&R, they'll stand with you. They've always stood with me.
- 1:08Go to jrmanufacturing.com to learn more.
- 1:11So before we get started, I'm going to give you an update, but
- 1:13I'm actually going to tell you something stupid that I just
- 1:16did. I just recorded this whole
- 1:18podcast. I was talking for about 30
- 1:20minutes and I realized I never hit the record button, so I was
- 1:23just staring at the camera talking the whole time.
- 1:25This is round two. Anyway, we digress.
- 1:28Here's an update. I've been working on the new
- 1:30book Bad Cooks Everywhere. I did a poll the other day on my
- 1:34Instagram story and we all voted and this is the cover that you
- 1:38all have selected. So that's the one that we're
- 1:40going to go with. I've formatted it.
- 1:42I've written the dedication. Now I need to start putting some
- 1:45content in there, but I'm excited to be working on another
- 1:49book. It'll be a continuation of the
- 1:51series, part of Bad Sue, Good Chef.
- 1:53I've also put out some new merch.
- 1:54You'll notice that I'm wearing a new hat, this one says Happy
- 1:57Cook. It's available at the merch
- 1:59store at chefspsa.com. You could go there.
- 2:02You could also get the books there.
- 2:03Culinary Leadership, Fundamentals, Bad Sue, Good
- 2:05Chef, Kitchen, Art of War, How Not To Be The Biggest Idea to
- 2:09the Kitchen and the Line Cook Survival Manual.
- 2:11I don't know if you could see this.
- 2:12I'm also wearing a shirt that says ask me about my Alfredo.
- 2:15You can get that shirt also at the Chef's PSA Merch store.
- 2:19And for those of you that don't get the joke, there's this
- 2:21annoying thing that people do to you when they find out you're a
- 2:24chef. And I spoke about this on an
- 2:26early podcast and I also wrote about this in the Red Book.
- 2:30And that is, someone comes up to you, you're at a party, you've
- 2:33been invited, no one else is a chef, but they know you're a
- 2:36chef and someone comes up to you and says, Oh my God, you're a
- 2:39chef. What's your specialty?
- 2:40It's the fucking worst question. It's the most annoying question
- 2:43you get. So what do you do?
- 2:44Do you explain to them how the industry works and waste your
- 2:47breath and disappoint them when they find out that you actually
- 2:50don't have a specialty? Maybe you do have a specialty.
- 2:52Maybe you run a specific type of restaurant.
- 2:55Most people don't. That's why I say your go to move
- 2:59should be just tell them chicken Alfredo, period.
- 3:02The plebs love chicken Alfredo. Then they're going to ask you
- 3:05how to make it and you're going to say, you know, some creams
- 3:07and Parmesans and pasta, some chicken.
- 3:09Maybe you put garlic in there. Maybe you're a purist with only
- 3:11butter. Well, whatever you tell them,
- 3:13they're going to be disappointed because they're going to say
- 3:16that's exactly how I make my chicken Alfredo, and they're
- 3:18going to wonder why theirs is not as good as yours.
- 3:21That's because you're a chef. You have technique and you know
- 3:23what you're doing. And you know that water needs to
- 3:25be boiling before you add the pasta.
- 3:27And you season it and you taste it and you reduce the cream or
- 3:30butter and you add a little bit of pasta water.
- 3:32Anyway, Chicken Alfredo is your move.
- 3:34Go get the shirt. If you're watching on YouTube,
- 3:36make sure you hit the subscribe button, Thumbs up.
- 3:39Leave a comment. If you're watching on Spotify or
- 3:42listening on Spotify, make sure you leave five stars.
- 3:44Nothing less than five stars. It's a five star podcast.
- 3:49We know this. We've been through this already.
- 3:51Hit the subscribe button. Where's your Spotify wrapped
- 3:54podcast? What's the number one thing
- 3:56you're listening to? Go post it.
- 3:57Tell everyone. Chefs, PSA, let's go.
- 4:00Thank you for all of you that we're sharing your Spotify wrap
- 4:03list with chefs PSA as your number one podcast.
- 4:06I appreciate it. I tried to share all the stories
- 4:08that came to me. You don't know how much I
- 4:10appreciate the support. A lot of you were sending me
- 4:13stories that I wasn't tagged in so I couldn't share, but I
- 4:16definitely saw them and I truly appreciate it.
- 4:19Tell the World, it's the best Chef podcast out there as we
- 4:21move on. AII was doing an interview the
- 4:24other day on Instagram Live with Emmanuel LaRoche from Flavors
- 4:29Unknown Podcast. We were going live on Instagram
- 4:33talking about his book, which I'm featured in, of course,
- 4:36Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door, which is a very good book.
- 4:38A lot of chefs are in there. I got to say that the very first
- 4:41quote in front of chapter one is my quote be the exception to the
- 4:44rule, which you've heard me say here many times.
- 4:47And while we were doing the Instagram Live, we got talking
- 4:50about AI, which got me thinking. One of the things that he said
- 4:53to me is a lot of chefs are nervous about AI and I started
- 4:55thinking, they don't have to use it.
- 4:57You don't have to use AI. No one's forcing you to use it.
- 5:00No one's forcing you to use Google for that matter.
- 5:02No one's forcing you to use a computer.
- 5:04You don't have to use it. It's a tool just like everything
- 5:07else, and a year ago I did a podcast on AI and how I wrote
- 5:12this recipe book using my brain and ChatGPT to create recipes.
- 5:17How I programmed it to think like me.
- 5:19Fast forward almost one year later and I just created my
- 5:23first GPT called Food Cost Oracle.
- 5:27I posted about it on my LinkedIn page.
- 5:29Was looking for a couple of people to beta test it, but
- 5:32basically what I did is I loaded it with information data on food
- 5:36cost. I trained it how I think, so I
- 5:38gave it chapters from my book. I uploaded it with the Food Cost
- 5:41Mastery guide which is also available on chefspsa.com as
- 5:46well as I gave it the transcripts from the three-part
- 5:49series I did on food cost. And the cool thing about it is
- 5:52it acts as a food cost mentor. It'll guide you through things.
- 5:56If you don't understand food cost, it'll break it down for
- 5:58you. It'll explain it to you, but
- 5:59using a chef's tone and it'll give you real world examples
- 6:02that I've programmed it with. On top of that, it's able to
- 6:06create spreadsheets for you. So you could say build me a food
- 6:10cost tracker for Excel. It'll explain to you how to do
- 6:14it, and if you want, it'll also build it for you so you could
- 6:17download it. That's a game changer.
- 6:19And the reason I wanted to do this is because one of the
- 6:21things that I predicted in that AI episode is that it's going to
- 6:24force chefs to get out of the office, right?
- 6:26People are going to have to learn how to cook again.
- 6:28You're not completely going to get out of the office.
- 6:30There's always going to be admin work to do, but using AI will
- 6:33make you exponentially more efficient at what you do.
- 6:36It's like having an extra brain. You don't have to use Google as
- 6:40much. It's a one stop shop.
- 6:41It also can build things for you, which it's incredible.
- 6:45It's an incredible tool. I know I use it for a lot of
- 6:47different things. I'm sure you see the cartoon
- 6:50comics that I generate using AI on Chef's PSA.
- 6:54I've become a little bit proficient at creating images.
- 6:57You could create food images. I could create comic images.
- 7:00I could make juxtapositions of different art using, for
- 7:04example, I put one up the other day that was a sharpie with a
- 7:09piece of green tape and a bunch of chefs looking at it at an art
- 7:11gallery and that was a call back to a piece of art.
- 7:14This artist, I can't remember which one, put a banana and
- 7:17taped it up and called it art. And so I did it and I put a
- 7:20piece of tape up on a sharpie and called it art and said oh I
- 7:23could take this art. Finally that I made and put it
- 7:26in an art gallery using AI image generating software.
- 7:30And the caption on their reads Bullshit, Bullshit, derivative.
- 7:35This is art. Now if that got lost on you,
- 7:37that's from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
- 7:39There's an art episode where Frank is walking around with a
- 7:42wig pretending to be in an art exhibit.
- 7:45Being an art collector, I think anyway, that's his quote.
- 7:48If you if it was lost on you that that was the reference.
- 7:50We digress. We're talking about AI, so with
- 7:53AI you could create art. I've also started experimenting
- 7:56with making moving images. I've only shared one, but I've
- 7:59done a lot behind the scenes where I could now create moving
- 8:03AI images and pretty soon as the technology evolves, you'll soon
- 8:08have like full on very short Chef's PSA cartoons.
- 8:12I see that coming. It's funny because when I wrote
- 8:14the very first Chef's, PSAI wanted someone to animate it,
- 8:20and I wanted someone to animate it in that rubber hose style
- 8:23animation. So the Popeye, the Sailor Man,
- 8:26the early Disney cartoon style Cuphead, that look is what I was
- 8:31going for, but it was just too complicated at the time.
- 8:34Now I could totally do it. I don't know if I want to now I
- 8:37just create so much. But it's fun to know that now I
- 8:40could do it. It's what I wanted to do.
- 8:41Now I pretty much make cartoons every day.
- 8:43Who would have thought? But other things that you could
- 8:45do with AI, you could proofread emails, you could summarize
- 8:48emails before you send an e-mail, you could ask it to look
- 8:51at it, make sure everything sounds correct.
- 8:53You could have it proofread menus for you.
- 8:55So if you were the type of chef that types everything up in a
- 8:58Word document, you could put it in there and say, check my
- 9:00spelling right. How many times have you as a
- 9:03chef caught a menu spelling error after the fact, right?
- 9:07Or you used the wrong word? Like, those days are over if
- 9:10you're using the right tools for the job now.
- 9:12And programming these AIS is it's the way of the future.
- 9:15So you might have one that is your spell checker, you might
- 9:18have another one that's your food cost Oracle.
- 9:20You might have another one that you could use for labor cost,
- 9:23but you might have another one that's just for Food Research.
- 9:26I don't know. But it like I said, it's a tool
- 9:28that will make you exponentially more efficient.
- 9:30So I advise you to start considering using it if you're
- 9:34not early on. When I was experimenting with AI
- 9:36image generation, I shared a whole bunch of images that I had
- 9:39created of food using AI. The first thing I did was I
- 9:44texted some chef friends that I know and said what do you think
- 9:46of these dishes? And one of them was like kind of
- 9:49critiquing it a little bit. Another one was like, wow, these
- 9:51are really beautiful. Did you make those?
- 9:53Where you working at now? The crazy thing was none of them
- 9:56knew they were AI images until I explained it to them.
- 9:58They were all blown away. I've jumped on some conference
- 10:01calls with chefs and shown them how to create AI images for
- 10:05food. And it's super wild because now
- 10:07I'm starting to see it pop up on Instagram and people that don't
- 10:11do that aren't aware that those are AI images and not real food.
- 10:14And people are like, oh that that looks so good.
- 10:16One of my friends we were putting in make food in this
- 10:20style and make it a fish and it would create a dish looking like
- 10:23the style of a certain restaurant.
- 10:25So again, if you know how to use AI, you if you have a menu idea
- 10:29that you were thinking about, you could say, I'm just making
- 10:32this up. Give me an octopus dish with
- 10:34tomatoes plated like a three Michelin star chef and see what
- 10:37it generates. Now, it might not be the dish
- 10:40that you want, but it may give you ideas for plating and things
- 10:42like that. So don't necessarily think of it
- 10:46as something that's going to replace you.
- 10:47Think of it as something that's just going to be an extension of
- 10:49who you are. Right.
- 10:50Your iPhone didn't replace you, it just made you more efficient.
- 10:52The terminators aren't here yet to replace you.
- 10:56I I honestly don't think AI is going to replace you in the
- 10:58kitchen in the settings of cooking.
- 11:00I I think yes. Maybe in some fast casual
- 11:02examples, certainly. Maybe in some production
- 11:05processes, certainly, but the creative chef will always still
- 11:08be needed to create. On top of that, if an AI
- 11:13creative chef pops up and it's this big gag and no one knows
- 11:16it's AI and they sell tickets and whatever, and then you're
- 11:20shocked one day it was all created by AI and cooked by
- 11:22robots. If people find that out, I think
- 11:24people are smart and will still support restaurants that have
- 11:29real human beings cooking the food.
- 11:31I think that's going to be a thing in the future.
- 11:33Maybe not next year, maybe not in two years.
- 11:35But I guarantee you there's going to be a movement like
- 11:38people support. Local people are going to say we
- 11:40only support restaurants that have real humans cooking the
- 11:43food. Mark my words, Crystal Ball is
- 11:46saying that. So as I was working on AII,
- 11:49started working on an Ask Chef's PSAAI and I loaded it with my
- 11:54books, some of the transcripts of my podcast, and I wanted to
- 11:58think and act like me. I was about 50% done and started
- 12:01getting a little glitchy how it would answer me.
- 12:03But very soon, I promise you will have an ask Chef's PSAGPT
- 12:10that you could ask it questions. It'll answer, hopefully.
- 12:12Like I would answer it. Maybe even better than I would
- 12:15answer. Who knows?
- 12:16Chef's PSAGPT might take over the podcast.
- 12:19Who knows? We digress.
- 12:20Moving on to the second-half of this episode, I want to talk
- 12:22about being the FNGAKA, the fucking new guy, the fucking New
- 12:27Girl. That's what FNG stands for.
- 12:28If you didn't know that, the new book that I'm writing called Bad
- 12:31Cooks Everywhere, The Cook's Journey being the FNG, that's
- 12:34what it's all about. You're the new cook in the
- 12:36kitchen. And what are some of the things
- 12:37to expect when you are the new person in the kitchen?
- 12:40Well, one of the things that you could expect when you are the
- 12:42new person in the kitchen is you're most likely going to feel
- 12:46uncomfortable. And that is normal and natural.
- 12:49But there's some things that you could do to fit in, and I've
- 12:52talked about this before, but here's a little refresher.
- 12:55You could show up on time. You could be respectful.
- 12:57You could shake in when you get there and introduce yourself.
- 12:59Assuming that the time is right, you could get familiar with the
- 13:02kitchen walk, the coolers, see where everything is, touch
- 13:06things so you remember. That's a good little trick that
- 13:08I learned is if you start touching things, if you go into
- 13:10a walk in cooler and you touch the apples and you say apples
- 13:13here, lemons there, you'll start to remember where things are.
- 13:17Just say them out loud and look at them and touch them, and
- 13:20it'll help build your visual and kinesthetic and auditory memory
- 13:24of where things are. Bring a notepad.
- 13:26Take notes. Ask if there's a recipe book.
- 13:29I know some people there's that meme of recipe books and they
- 13:33don't exist, but maybe they do have a recipe book.
- 13:35I know when I've run kitchens, I always had recipes of some sort.
- 13:38I'm a big believer in recipes. Maybe they have a recipe book.
- 13:41Get that. Take photos of your station
- 13:43where you're going to be working so you know how to set up every
- 13:46day. So the person that's training
- 13:48you, assuming you're being trained, take a picture.
- 13:50If they say, here's the dish, take a picture of the dish.
- 13:53You have a phone. Assuming that's OK, wash your
- 13:55hands. Phones are nasty, but take a
- 13:57photo. Take schematic photos of how
- 13:59you're set up. Take notes.
- 14:01Ask questions when appropriate. Do not tell them how you did it
- 14:05at your last job and it was way better.
- 14:08Because when you're new and you're insecure, that's normally
- 14:11when you want to say, I have all these ideas 'cause you want to
- 14:15get social currency in the kitchen that you're in, it's not
- 14:17the right thing to do. Keep those ideas to yourself.
- 14:19If you're a new chef, meaning you're the new executive chef
- 14:22taking over a new sous chef. Ask a lot of questions.
- 14:25Take a lot of photos, make a lot of notes.
- 14:27Don't change anything. Be very careful about speaking
- 14:30I'll of the previous regime. One of the worst things that you
- 14:32could do is when you take over as an exact chef and say the
- 14:35previous people didn't know what they're doing, it starts to
- 14:37build dissension and it doesn't paint you in a good light.
- 14:41So don't do that. And it's tempting to do and
- 14:43trust me, I've done it. Chefs, I know I've done it.
- 14:46It's like a very natural thing. I've learned to not do it
- 14:49because it screams insecure and it's just not cool, right?
- 14:53You don't know what they were up against.
- 14:54You don't know why things are the way that they are.
- 14:56Seek to understand first. One of the things that I do when
- 14:59I'm the new person in a kitchen as a head chef or a sous chef, I
- 15:02would always write down 100 things that I could make better
- 15:05and I wouldn't implement them. And the reason was, is because
- 15:08if I had implemented them right away, I might not have
- 15:11understood why they were that way.
- 15:13Because as time goes on, you may understand, oh, that's why it's
- 15:16that way. I didn't get that Now I know.
- 15:18But the other thing that happens is you will forget all these
- 15:21ideas that you have when you're new and fresh.
- 15:25Write down those ideas because you will forget them in a couple
- 15:27of weeks. As they say, it becomes
- 15:28wallpaper. Be careful when forming
- 15:31alliances in a new kitchen. As a new chef, usually the
- 15:34person that comes to you with all the complaints, there's
- 15:36always one person like your first week there that wants to
- 15:39sit you down and they're going to try and throw someone under
- 15:42the bus. And usually the person that
- 15:43they're throwing under the bus is someone above them or someone
- 15:47that they want to get fired because they've had beef in the
- 15:49past and they always wait for the opportunity for the new chef
- 15:53to start. So if you're the new chef
- 15:54starting, no, there's going to be this one bad cook, and it's
- 15:58usually the bad cook that's going to come to you and tell
- 16:00you someone else who's probably not a bad cook is a bad cook.
- 16:04And normally it's because they're being held accountable.
- 16:06Be careful of that. That's something to look out
- 16:08for. Be careful getting too close to
- 16:10people early on because you don't know what's going to
- 16:13happen in the coming weeks. You may really like someone on
- 16:16their first day, their second day, and then their true color
- 16:18show, and then you have to let them go.
- 16:20Or something happens like that. And it's hard to let someone go
- 16:23when you know them and you know their kids names and you know
- 16:26their family and you think they're a great person.
- 16:28So sometimes keeping a little bit of professional distance
- 16:30early on is good because you need to let the dust settle when
- 16:33you take over a new job. Now, if you're coming in as a
- 16:35cook, you need to keep that same strategy.
- 16:39Don't get too friendly with everyone because a lot of times
- 16:42some of the bad apple cooks want to adopt you, right?
- 16:46I don't share stories like this about my childhood, but I grew
- 16:49up in a rough neighborhood, and when I was in high school, I
- 16:52changed schools and I was by myself.
- 16:54I didn't know anybody. And I grew up in a rough area,
- 16:57gangland, and I was having lunch by myself and I got surrounded.
- 17:00There was like 10 of them. So they surrounded me and they
- 17:03said, you're new to this school. I said, Yep.
- 17:05And they said those people that don't side with us are basically
- 17:08dead. I was like, well, I guess I'm
- 17:10siding with you guys then, and they were the wrong people to
- 17:12side with. But I didn't know that I was
- 17:14new. The same thing happens in
- 17:15kitchens, right? A lot of times the bad Apples
- 17:18want to adopt someone, so they could have alliances because
- 17:22sometimes there's factions in kitchens, there's the hard
- 17:24working faction and then there's the toxic faction of the
- 17:27kitchen. And you got to be careful to
- 17:29recognize which are which I would say, obviously align
- 17:33yourself with the people that are the better performers.
- 17:35If you want to be a good chef, if you want to surround yourself
- 17:37with the complainers, you're going to get sucked into that
- 17:40and you're going to get stuck just complaining and you get
- 17:42sucked into that trap. So before you form strategic
- 17:45alliances, just go home, take notes, write things down.
- 17:50Don't get too deep into the social dynamics of the kitchen.
- 17:52The other thing to look out for when you're the new FNG is the
- 17:56games that people are going to play with you, especially if
- 17:58you're very green right out of culinary school, They're going
- 18:01to send you to look for the bacon stretcher, the can of
- 18:03steam or the left-handed spatula or the non stick salt, all these
- 18:07mythical things that don't exist.
- 18:10You got to be careful of that. The Dirty tricks that they play,
- 18:12they're going to send you to the next door restaurant and say go
- 18:15ask them for the bacon stretcher and that restaurant's going to
- 18:17say no, you got to go next door. You got to go over here, you got
- 18:20to next to you've been gone for an hour looking for the bacon
- 18:23stretcher, which there's no such thing.
- 18:25You got to watch out for some of those games.
- 18:27So does it suck? Yes, it sucks, but it still
- 18:30happens and you should know it. So you don't fall for these
- 18:32tricks. And if you're listening to
- 18:33Chef's PSA, you're smarter than everyone else.
- 18:35You know the tricks before you even go in.
- 18:37You won't fall for them. Don't fall for the old go mop
- 18:39the freezer with water. Don't fall for that one.
- 18:42You will fall Literally. Other things to not do when
- 18:45you're the new person is don't negotiate salary and all that
- 18:49and then start and then want to change.
- 18:51It's just a red flag for them. We talked about this before.
- 18:54Be upfront in the interview process with what you need for
- 18:57scheduling, what you're going to need for time off if you have
- 18:59things planned, weddings trips, be upfront in the interview
- 19:03process, not after you get hired is a good thing.
- 19:06It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the chef if you don't
- 19:08do that. Best advice I could give you if
- 19:10you're the new person in the kitchen is just don't be an
- 19:13asshole. Be respectful.
- 19:14Be kind to everyone. Carry yourself as a professional
- 19:17and people will usually treat you as a professional.
- 19:19It's the best advice I could give you today.
- 19:21Anyway, that's it for today. If you want to support the show,
- 19:23you know what to do. Make sure you leave five stars.
- 19:26Nothing less than five stars. Go to chefspsa.com.
- 19:29You get all the books, all the merch.
- 19:31Everything that you need is a chef.
- 19:32Thank you very much. Go share your Spotify wrapped
- 19:35list with chefs PSA on it. Tag me.
- 19:38Thank you all very much. See you next week.
- 19:40Hit the porno music.