Ramsay the Angel, Ramsay the Devil
If you didn't already know, Chef Gordon Ramasay (of Fox's awful reality TV show
Hell's Kitchen) also has a show that's on BBC America, called
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. It's odd to see the same chef on one of the worst food-related reality TV shows and one of the best food-related reality TV shows.
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is everything that
Hell's Kitchen is not, and the premise is pretty simple. Ramsay walks into an operation that is failing and works with the chefs and staff to help turn it around. It's amazing to watch him work ... in HK he's shown as a domineering, cursing, asshole, someone you'd never want to work for. You only get little glimpses of someone who is genuinely concerned about the people he is working with, but in RKN, you get to see the mentor in Ramsay come out. Sure, he has an edge ... what chef doesn't? But it's funny how he takes a quiet yet firm approach, not tolerating any BS, yet also praising and rewarding when necessary. In a recent episode, it amazed me how quickly he found the root of the problem ... although many of the complaints were about the food, he soon realized that it wasn't the chef and instead could be traced back to poor management. He took a very soft, tender, almost loving approach to mentoring the chef. And watching him charm a table of guests using ribald British humor was a revelation.
Ramsay in RKN is a revelation ... here's a man that I wouldn't mind working for, but one that I'd also love to hang out with.
Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is on BBC America on Wednesdays, 9 PM ET/PT ... check it out.
Oh, and the past few weeks in
Hell's Kitchen? I've literally been cringing ... Sara deserves to be shot for sabotaging her team ... it strikes a huge professional nerve for me to see someone not owning up to their mistakes or, even worse, sabotaging their team. If you're not carrying your weight, you have no reason to be in a kitchen.
A Whole Mess o' Stuff
Hell's Kitchen
So the new season of Hell's Kitchen got off to an explosive start last night and I just had to wonder ... did the people who were applying to be on the show even bother to watch it last year? The signature dishes were a sorry disappointment, especially when you consider that Ramsay made it clear last season that he, in typical French trained fashion, didn't like spiciness. What did the dumbasses do?
Yeah. And then there was Virginia. Lovely cute gal, but there's no business for a pantry cook to be on the show ... if you don't know how to run a hot line, you're not going to win. She obviously didn't watch the show last year either. If she did, she would have realized that you don't make a salad for your signature dish.
I looked at the sorry state of the teams and I just don't see anyone on the men's team that I can see going all of the way ... the two supposed "cooks" on the men's team make me want to vomit. The prison cook, Garrett, is not going to do well in a plated environment and the other cook, Keith, has some of the most horribly amateur presentations I have ever seen.
The only person I could even begin to see as the winner is Heather. Not only is she a professional, but she has great presence of mind ... the fact that she was able to keep her team working on her dishes after she burned her hand was true professionalism.
I do have to say that I got less enjoyment out of watching this show this season. After seeing Bravo's Top Chef, there's just no comparison. At least in that show it was focused on professionalism, and the people there were representative of all parts of the culinary world (well, except for the fact that they had no baker). Hell's Kitchen is just, for the most part, taking some amateurs and some people that are crap in the kitchen and throwing them to the wolves. In any case, if you want to win, I don't think it's something you can learn on that show ... you have to be able to run a hot line, period. So Heather is my (reluctant) bet ... the other cooks on that show are just lost causes.
Standards and Leadership
One of the most disheartening situations anyone can be in professionally is to work at a place that has low standards. If you're at a place where their standards are high, then you have the constant challenge of meeting those standards; people respond well when challenged. Deep down we want to be challenged, to be made into better people. However, if you are working at a place that has lower standards, one day you will wake up and find yourself doing something where you ask yourself, "How in the hell did I ever get here?"
I got to that point this past weekend. And what made it worse was, when the chef called me out on it, I wasn't pissed about him calling me out. He was right to and I shouldn't have done what I did. However, what truly infuriated me was the fact that he lets sub-standard stuff slide by in his kitchen all of the time. And now, now he's looking to enforce some standards? I'm all fine in being told when I'm doing something wrong. I'm not so fine when you don't practice what you preach.
It's funny because I have done an informal survey of most of the restaurant staff at the hotel and they are all in the same boat. They are pissed and sick of working in a shitty environment. Most are either looking for a new job or are very close to starting a job search.
The irony is that I could see this all coming and it all comes back to the chef.
Back in Jan/Feb, there were some big changes that needed to be made. Standards needed to be raised, we needed to hire more staff to prepare for the summer rush, we needed to start thinking about how we were going to be doing seasonal menus. Things started out alright, but then efforts stalled.
Why? Because the exec hasn't followed through. He has good intentions, but isn't much of a leader. A leader is someone that sets a good example and this guy just half-asses it. For example, whenever he and I are scheduled to work together on the line he usually 1) shows up two hours after the shift begins, 2) spends all of his time down in his office, either playing on the internet or reading magazines, 3) I have to call him in order to get his butt up on the line to get help, and 4) after any sort of rush ends, he goes back downstairs to read ... I'm sorry, but you can read on the line.
When it comes to menu design, who's the one that's experimenting with new menu items? Me. Who's the one that does all of the charcuterie? Me. And so on and so forth. I've basically become an underpaid bitch ... no wonder I'm looking for a new job. There's little to no accountability and in a place like a restaurant, the chef needs to be the first one in and the last one to leave. The chef needs to set standards of excellence that he holds everyone to every day ... he needs to be aware of issues in his restaurant by being there and seeing them happen, not by hearing about it second-hand.
Whenever you are having difficulties with an employee, a good leader will ask, "What did I do to enable this to happen?" Even if it's as simple as, "Well, I hired the wrong person," that's enough. But as a leader when you see one of your best cooks doing something that you don't like, you need to sit down and ask yourself, "How did I let this happen," because I guarantee you, that cook never wanted to be in that situation in the first place.
A Return to Ideals
Anthony Bourdain ... he's like a culinary god to me. I've expressed my love for the man in previous posts, but this is something special. Why? He stayed in my hotel ... and I got to cook for him.
I found out he was staying with us a few days before he arrived; immediately me and some of my friends in the front of the house staff started planning on what special amenities we would come up with ... in the end, we sent up the works for a man of his hedonistic nature: a bottle of fine wine, pate, cigarettes, aspirin and antacid. Yeah, we know our idol and we're total groupies.
The day of his arrival I got in early and started prepping up the pate ... I was going to do some sort of duck liver mousse, but the duck livers weren't in the freezer. Time to improvise. I had some duck breast, some pancetta (which I had made from the finest berkshire pork) and some bacon ... it was a good start. Combine it with a miniature cake pan and I had the workings of a great terrine. Two hours later, there it was ... an individually sized duck pancetta pate that was ready to serve ... fabulous.
Then came the waiting ... I was haunting the front desk, hoping to catch a glimpse of when he would arrive. Time to close down came and I started breaking down the line when, lo and behold, the front desk clerk comes and tells me that he's arrived and if I would be willing to keep the line open for him to order room service.
Like she had to ask.
I put a pot of water on the stove and send room service up with the amenities and the full menu from the restaurant (because the room service menu wasn't enough). Giddiness, excitement, I was jumping up and down ... I had hoped I would maybe be able to hang out with him in the bar, but this? To cook is to serve, to take care of someone, and here I am in a position to take care of one of my idols! I was going to cook for a man who truly appreciates food and understands my love of the craft.
Room service comes back with the order ... two cheeseburgers and two Heinekens. He could have asked me to make beef Wellington and I would have been making puff pastry, but two cheeseburgers? My grin was from ear to ear.
Now the average bridge and tunnel foodie wouldn't understand this. Why wasn't he ordering something, well, more gourmet? The lamb pasta or the salmon with pancetta? But I understood. You can gorge yourself on gooeyduck, chicken assholes, and the weirdest ethnic and gourmet cuisines of the world, but in the end, food is about comfort and warmth. And what's more comfortable to an American than a cheeseburger and beer?
I asked room service for a small favor ... if I can go up with him to deliver the food. He thought that Bourdain is amiable enough (of course) and so I changed into a fresh set of whites and went up with him. The man was gracious and happened to have Beth, the hilariously inappropriate grill bitch with him. I was pleased to notice that he had already torn into the pack of cigarettes that we had sent up (Later on, I learn he has one preferred brand of cigarettes, to the point where he will only smoke other brands out of desperation ... and I guessed the right brand. Fucking cool.) After having a short conversation with him, I got my book and bid the pair goodnight.
I did manage to catch up with the two of them the next night at his dinner at Union. I was impressed by how grateful he was about the cigarettes and just happy to see other cooks there. I think, though, I had an even better time hanging out with Beth there, whose dry-humping-of-Mexicans made for one of the best scenes in Kitchen Confidential. As a cook, you couldn't help but just be completely in love with the girl ... but then again, we cooks live in a different world. Her account of the sexual inadequacies of the "kosher" gooeyduck she had that afternoon sealed the deal ... I think all of us fell in love with her right then. Unfortunately, it didn't turn into the night of debaucherous drinking that I had hoped for ... Bourdain decided to escape due to a pink sweatered bitch that would not leave him alone and instead of heading to the agreed bar, he ended up at one of those "undisclosed locations." And I don't blame the guy. When you're traveling that much, doing that much promotion and spending that much time with strangers, sometimes you just need to be alone with someone that you trust.
But I got what I needed out of the past few days. Cooking for Bourdain and Beth ... no, taking care of them, that has been the highlight of my career and it makes me so happy to think about how I felt serving someone else. I need to keep that feeling in my heart every day.
Finding FOH
I've gotten my checkup, I've been to the optometrist, I've had my teeth cleaned ... in short, I've used up all of my health benefits and I'm looking for a new job.
After an experience I had yesterday doing a trail at a respected restaurant here in town, I was a bit surprised. Rather than talk about my specific experience there, I think it's illuminating to reflect on what I realized about myself.
- I have a real bug up my ass when it comes to professionalism. I can understand the American desire to create a more flat scociety, but in the end, the head guy in the kitchen is called chef. That's French for "chief." It works for some people, just not for me ... when the shit hits the fan, I'm calling my chef, well, chef, not by his first name.
- I don't want to settle. A lot of the places I've eaten at lately have felt tired, like they're coasting. I want to work at a place that is constantly challenging me to meet its standards, not me challenging them to raise their standards.
- I'm not going to leave the place I'm working at now unless I either get offered big bucks, a cooking job at a top place in town, or a front of the house job in a well run restaurant. I'm comfortable where I am and I'd be hard pressed to find a place where I have as much influence as I do now. Yes, it's in a hotel, but pretty soon the best damn veggie burger there is (according to all who have tasted it) is going to be on our menu.
So here's to looking for a front of the house job ... may take me a few months, but I'll make it eventually.
