So I'm now working Front of the House. Not full time, but 4 days a week (the other two are being spent in the kitchen still). It's a good start. The money is better and my kitchen shifts are at night ... I work solo at night, so it's me, my thoughts, the tickets and my prep, a good place to be.

Waiting is interesting work. I enjoy the challenge that comes with waiting tables and I have a whole lot more respect for waiters now that I am on that side of the table. People can be very harsh when it comes to judging waitstaff based on the smallest of things that are sometimes out of their control. If I get three tables seated at the same time, it's going to be a bit of a wait before we can get everything sorted out and your stuff is going to be a bit slow. But not many people have that awareness. Similarly, mistakes happen. I work hard to make sure that they aren't, but I'm not the one that resets my table - the busser does. I'm not the one that cooks the food - the cook does. Give us a break.

What has really bugged me is the fact that some people go out and are in a foul mood. Why bother? I hate waiting on tables that aren't at least in an okay mood. I don't want your sunshine raining on my parade.

And yet, I find myself becoming a decent waiter. I adapt who I am to each table, I am getting better at anticipating needs and I'm having a good time doing it. It's a rush to learn a new skill and see yourself get better at it.

The one thing that I keep learning, though, is that people will never fail to surprise you. This plays itself out in the tipping, for the most part. You would expect a very demanding table with a bunch of old folks that are very surly to tip poorly. 24%. A foreign group? $7 on a $39 bill. Pretty good. That table you had a great rapport with? 9%.

The other thing that strikes me is that the tips for breakfast can be paltry. If you find yourself ordering a breakfast that's less than $10, even a 20% tip doesn't mean that much, especially when I can easily spend the same amount of energy serving a cover that has 2-3 times the size of your check.

Just oatmeal and water, sir?

It's going to be a long morning.

Dr. Feelgood has been prodding me to put up a primer about what it takes to run an event, so I've spent a few weeks putting some thoughts down and seeing what I could come up with.

Everything here isn't essential ... this represents my philosophy of running events and there are other groups that do things differently; I take a more business minded view of things because, well, a while back I got a business degree, so that training tends to linger. Also, it's my butt on the line and I don't want to find myself losing money at the end of the day. That means I tend to run a very lean event organizer-wise because every person that is an organizer represents one less person that could be a paying customer, I like to touch many of the details of an event I run, and I have the skill sets to get many of the things done on my own (setting up sound equipment, website design, etc).

I tend to believe that's a smart philosophy because when you look at the actual liability you're on the line for when it comes to how much money you could lose, it's staggering. For an event on a national scale, depending on the scene, you're looking at a financial liability running anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000. I don't know very many people that can handle that sort of liability out of pocket. I certainly can't.

So, here we go in a somewhat particular order:

1) You need to ask yourself what your vision for an event is. You need to be passionate about it and not compromise you vision. Just think about the last time you went to, say, a concert where the music wasn't exactly what you liked but the band was playing with such passion that you got swept away. People respond to passion and love it.

2) The fewer the better. A lot of people tend to think that and event is a lot of work, and it is to a degree. During the actual event and in the weeks before, it's a good amount to handle. It's useful to have a housing coordinator, someone stuffing packets, etc, but in the 6 months leading up to the event, you don't really need a huge committee. At the most, maybe a few other people to provide input, but it can be much easier and quicker to just do it yourself. You don't have to worry about coordinating with multiple people and the resulting headaches (when do we meet, how do we agree on things, etc). So don't worry about getting too many coordinators or other people who do maybe two hours of work and then get into the event for free. The best way that someone can support your event is to pay for it. The only reason to bring in more parties would be to spread the financial risk of the event ... that's covered later. Additionally, it's best if you keep the organizers local. Unless the organizer has some sort of special connection to the scene, an out of town organizer with no experience in your scene will only create communication and logistical issues.

3) This is a business venture first and foremost. That means treat it like one. Don't give away a whole bunch of free passes to the event to your friends and don't try to leverage your friendship with someone to get them to do something that you should do as an organizer. If you're the kind of person that has a hard time saying "no," consider bringing on board someone that can.

4) Do a feasibility study. Crack open an excel spreadsheet and put down estimates for costs like the following: venues, instructors, sound equipment, promotional materials, food, T-shirts, flights, bands, research, paypal, wristbands, discounts, event insurance, extra transportation, packets and brochures. For your income, you'll have the packages that you sell over your website, door revenue, t-shirts, etc. Don't just do a back of the envelope calculation, look at other events in town and talk to other organizers to get estimates of all of your costs and revenue, including what you'll need for your deposits.

5) Choose a date. This involves not only finding a good date on a national calendar, but also on a local one. Check to see if there are any calendars just for your region (in the Pacific Northwest we have PNWSwing). If you think that the date you want might be too close, get in contact with the other organizers. In general you should leave at least two weeks between your event an any other similar event, but one month is better and 6 weeks would be ideal.

6) Develop a schedule. Lay out how far in advance you need to do things like marketing, getting bands, venues, a website, instructors, DJs, etc. For example, at ECBF last year I had these major categories on my schedule

* Marketing (4-5 months lead time)
* Bands (6 months lead time)
* Venues (6 months lead time)
* Web Site (5 months lead time)
* Instructors (7 months lead time)
* DJs (7 months lead time)
* Housing (3 months lead time)
* T-Shirts (don't cheap out on them ... American Apparel is great stuff and you'll still make money)
* Sound (3 months lead time - need to know band requirements)
* Registration Packets (1 month lead time)
* The Week Before
* Misc

Note: I've got the major categories like venues, instructors, DJs and bands laid out before marketing and the website. I believe that it is of paramount importance that you finalize any arrangements for these major categories before you start marketing an event ... if you can't get what you want, then what are you selling? And if you're not getting what you wanted, should you do it anyway?

7) You're going to need seed money. That's for deposits with venues, bands, paying for marketing materials, a website, etc. You'll also need it to take care of your DJs and instructors. At the bare minimum now I feel like organizers should pay for the flights for their instructors plus a minimum teaching fee and the flights for their DJs. Asking your employees to pay their way and compensating them later is alright for the first year or two, but after that you should be paying their way. If you can't cover the seed money, look at other organizations (local music society or dance society) or people you can bring into the process as partners. You'll need to create agreements with them on how to share the liability/profits from the event.

8) When marketing, take it upon yourself to send out flyers to other scenes, create your website, post on other boards, do anything you can to raise awareness of your event. This is not an expense to cut because if people don't know about your event, they won't come. Note: When you put it up on your website, you're making a promise about your an event ... If you put an instructor on your site, make sure you're going to get them there, etc.

9) In the week before, there's a lot of stuff that you need to have nailed down. By then your registration packets should have been printed and stuffed, your registration closed and your housing coordinator should be working on the assignments. You need to make sure you've got all of the essentials taken care of:

* Instructor payment packets (this includes teacher pay plus a daily stipend for each day they teach, preferably in cash)

* Check in lists

* Liability waiver forms

* Cash box and change

* Cash for bands

* DJ schedule

* Develop methods and procedures for all processes

* A "go box" that has EVERYTHING you need to run the event at the event, including copies of all contracts

* Paper/pens/tape for unforeseen signs

* Preprinted signs for the ones you know you need

* Your laptop that has records of everything that you did online just in case you missed something (I've had to use this in the past more often than I thought)

Note: This is a buttload of cash, usually ...I've found myself hitting the ATM every day for a week in order to get it all.

10) Methods and procedures. If you are having any sort of volunteers, you need to make sure that you have things specifically laid out so that there is no question of what to do and that your volunteers do each task the same way. Make a flowchart if you have to (I do). Think about checklists you need for getting things setup and torn down in every venue.

11) Don't count on getting more than 2 hours of sleep a night. Sure you might have brought in other people to coordinate certain venues or what not, but it's your baby. Make sure it's taken care of. (This is one downside to my approach to doing events).

12) Whenever there is cash involved, always have two people working with the cash and counting it. Make sure you also keep accurate tally sheets of what was sold at what night. If you're doing the event again it helps with forecasting your totals for next year.

13) Think through the little things. You've probably been to an event, so think about what you've liked and what you want in an event that could help. Maybe it's a better laid out packet or maybe it's better food at afterhours? Where are my instructors and DJs staying? How are they getting around? If you have bands, always, always have a cooler of beer (plus make sure to tip). They'll appreciate it. Think through each person's role in the event and ask yourself how you can make their lives better.

14) Make sure you're tracking all of your expenses and income. I track everything in quicken so at the end of the event I can tell you exactly how much the event made or lost. You don't have to use quicken, just some simple excel pages would work just fine.

15) There's no such thing as tracking too much information. I personally keep an excel file that includes: a projection of costs and revenue, a list of the boards I am posting on along with the threads about ECBF, a detailed list of expenses paid (along with when and what category they fall into – promo, food, bands, sound, etc), my comp list, volunteer list and schedule, DJ schedule, shirt order list, promo mailing addresses, lists of possible bands, lists of possible venues, and graphs comparing revenues on a year to year basis.

16) What roles might you have for others? If you're not competent, get someone else. If you design a website that looks like crap and aren't familiar with it, find someone else to do it. Same with graphics, advertising, etc. The different roles I've used for ECBF have been: housing coordinator, chauffer, sound guy, workshop coordinator, graphics designer, web programmer, marketing coordinator, afterhours coordinator, packet coordinator, venue coordinator, DJ coordinator, band coordinator, etc. Think about what you can do and what you need to farm out. If you have to farm things out, think about how many roles you can assign to people. Each person that you allow entry for free is lost revenue. In the past, I've done 75% of the roles above by myself.

17) Relax. In the end it's all about having a good time. It's a lot of work, but try and schedule in a little bit of fun for yourself. For me, the most rewarding part has always been sitting down for a meal with the staff that have come to the event.

If you have any questions about how to run events in general, I'd be happy to share my experiences with you. Just email me at martin-at-lindychef-dot-com.

And finally, if you have to put the word "national" in your advertising, your event is going to look like a regional event that is overreaching for a national focus. Let your hard work, instructor and musical lineups do the speaking for you.

Sugar. It's the most under-utilized seasoning agent in any cook's pantry. I think it's because we've been so conditioned in the USA to think that sugar == sweet == dessert that we don't even think of the possibilities of using it in savory dishes.

Soup? I use it all of the time.
Sauce? Just today I used it to balance out a slightly acidic pasta sauce.
Meat? Sure. If you want some extra special caramelization, sugar is the way to go. Try dusting your scallops with sugar the next time you saute a batch.
Veg? Any tomato dish that has tomatoes that are slightly out of season would benefit from sugar.

The list goes on and on.

In the past six months I've gotten more and more used to the idea that sugar is an essential seasoning agent along with salt, acids, spices and bittering agents (careful! a little bitterness goes a long way). In the back of the house we doctor things up all of the time to make them taste better and I guarantee you that one of those things that you would never guess that we add is sugar.

Try it the next time you have something that is missing a certain roundness that salt, acid or spice can't bring it. You'll be surprised.

So if you've read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, you'll understand just how much of our culture is based on corn. Most of the meat on your table is corn fed (with dramatic environmental and health consequences) along with the fact that processed food is filled with processed corn. It's a disturbing fact, which leads to the importance of eating sustainably.

This past weekend I was struck by the notion that maybe we need to drink sustainably too. Bottled water becoming passe is the new trend at upscale restaurants and, after visiting the Jack Daniel's distillery in Lynchburg, TN, I was struck by how the language Pollan used to describe food could also be applied to booze.

Pollan used the term "supermarket pastoral" to describe how many companies, mostly organics, use very wholesome images and language to make their products seem natural, sustainable and healthy when they might not be. Similarly, the pastoral images, folksy tone and emphasis on tradition tried to portray Jack Daniel's as a product that was associated with a small time distillery that was made in harmony with nature.

In fact they were trucking in #2 corn from over 10 states listed by my tour guide in order to feed the gigantic needs of a company that was rapidly scaling up production to meet overseas demand. Yes, there are corners you can't cut such as barrel aging and fermentation, but the scale and rate at which they were producing their booze was on an industrial scale.

Just goes to show the need to be suspicious of any marketing.

And as a marketing major, I should have known that.

So in relation to my post about dancing at competitions, someone has kindly posted video of the blues competition. This is the third of five, but shows of Karissa and I the best (I'm the guy with the obnoxious LED belt buckle). We got second place and won ... a pair of passes to the Emerald City Blues Festival. Well, that's one less freebie I have to give away.

In any case, this was the first time I've seen myself dancing on video in about five years. I suck a lot less.

So the chef of Sitka and Spruce gets named as one of Food and Wine's 10 best for this year and I have to scratch my head. I wonder if the award is getting given out only for the food and not the whole restaurant experience.

Don't get me wrong, when I went there back in January of this year, the food was excellent. Thoughtful use of PacNW ingredients with an Italian finish, well seasoned and perfectly cooked. However, the service was atrocious. I know that they are going for casual service, but the degree of abandonment and lack of attention to detail displayed was unforgiveable. The servers stood behind the bar while our water bottle needed a refill multiple times over the course of the evening ... ostensibly the bottle was there so we could serve ourselves, but what happens when the pitifully small bottle needed refilling? And then there was the poor timing, unpolished flatware and the worst: the glassware, from Crate and Barrel or the like, that had not had its stickers removed. There was a layer of sticky residue on the bottom of the glasses that resulted from just dumping them into the dishwasher right after they were purchased.

My sister and I ended the meal half full ... we ended up getting burgers.

As I've gotten trained up in front of the house issues, these service issues bug the shit out of me. Today at a restaurant in Portland, my dining partner and I ordered a cured meat plate. It was perfunctorily dropped off; the server didn't mention what the meats were and I had to stop her to tell me what they were. She got the first one right and couldn't tell us what the other two were ... that's when I remembered what the other ones were supposed to be and I blurted them out (an aside, one of the items, supposedly a bit of lardo was actually pork belly).

The inattention continued. The drinks weren't refilled properly, the server was timid and shy and didn't really sense the timing of the table very well. If she had, she would have sold at least a couple more drinks and increased her check average (another aside: the menu was difficult to read in all lower case, single spaced courier ... my eyes hurt ... and it made me scratch my head too since the menu also was a weird mish mash. Pure Italian for the apps, but the a weird mash of Italian and other cuisines ... how did a bangers and mash get on the menu?)

The food was great, but the service was horrible. I've seen it time and time again at good restaurants and, honestly, I'm beginning to tire of it. I am in the industry, so I tip well, really well, and I rarely ever feel like I'm getting my money's worth. As a cook, I can't really afford to tip that well and still get god awful service. It almost seems like the servers feel entitled to their tips and the place they work at and we're doing them a favor by being there.

I'm not asking for much ... a little more attention to detail, reading the table better, product knowledge, basic shit that they should be doing already because, honestly, it's their job.

*sigh* if you like eating out, don't eat out with me unless you also like to be super critical and a bit catty. Sure it's fun, but sometimes you just want to have a great meal and not have to go to the busser station to mark your own flatware for dessert.

I still don't plan on having competitions at the Emerald City Blues Festival. I don't like how they break up the evening and, honestly, they're a bit faddish right now. Wait for it ...

But as far as what they can do personally for a dancer, that's a different story.

I used to think that they didn't have very much value and that I wasn't all that hot when it came to flashy dancing that was needed in comps. But I was in the final round of the blues competition at Andrew Slac's recent event and I happened to get paird up with Karissa.

Before we started dancing she whispered in my ear, "I want to do some solo blues." I think that was the key. I never do solo blues. So if I was going to go there, might as well just let it all out.

Trying to put how we danced into words, well, I just can't do it justice really. I was just filled with sheer joy, nothing was held back and we danced as close to perfect as I have ever danced with that much raucous energy. My heart was pounding and that grin was plastered to my face.

Where it came from, I'm not sure, but I've felt that for the past 3-4 years my dancing had plateaued. Maybe it's the cowboy boots, maybe it's the obnoxious pimp jewelry, maybe it's Karissa, maybe it's Steven doing the DJing. Doesn't matter, it just got kicked up a notch.