David D'Aprix
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Posts posted by David D'Aprix
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Ugh Im in the same boat now. I'm Upstate NY /trying/ to make some nice things happen with the bar Im running --
The problem is now, this town is so small, the locals just bitch and moan about the prices that they remember from 20 years ago, and the college kids just want cheap wings.
Do you care to say exactly where you are? I can certainly empathize.
I was GM at a place in Seneca Falls a few years ago, you sound just like me. No one would pay a reasonable price, they wanted huge drinks for two dollars, and the help came and went at will. the work ethic was zilch, the skill level worse, but they wanted the world. One time I place an ad in two newspapers for a chef, got no repliesl. I spent most of the year in the kitchen, should have set it up that way in the first place.
Luckily, the owners ran out of money after a year and I came back to Ithaca, which is a whole different world, although restaurants here pay poorly. All the good places are chef-owned, and they pay cooks maybe ten dollars an hour tops. You can't expect much for that.
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Anything by James Beard. I especially love some of the entries in Hors-D'Oeuvre and Canapes- "This is a real man's snack, definitely not for a female audience"! (p.22)
Agreed, and I am especially fond of James Beard's American Cookery.
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And for some of us, the networking capabilities is worth its weight and then some in the tuition debt.
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IM glad people are highlighting the good and the bad here. Loads of cooks Ive encountered come out of school with no knowledge of how the business actually works.
This is perhaps the truly critical point. Professional cooking is nothing like home cooking or TV cooking. If you view long hours as negative, you don't belong in the biz. That's why I think that a dishwashing job gives a really good sense of the industry. I started as a dishwasher in high school, and I absolutely loved it. I still don't mind it one bit. I've met lots of cooks who come out of culinary schools who think that restaurant work will be like school. I hired a guy once, from the CIA (my alma mater as well). I asked him to make a soup. Three hours later he had a couple of quarts of soup ready. I gave him more chances, but he just couldn't fathom production, had to let him go.
I tell people that long hours are normal for many many professions. If you go to investment banking, you'll be working minimum twelve hours a day, usually more. Ditto for lawyers, doctors. Etc.
You have to love the work itself, and the camaraderie of the kitchen. It becomes your life, which Michaeltheonion perfectly sums up, and if you need 40-hour weeks and vacations and weekend golfing to feel fulfilled, do not become a professional cook. I thought that "Wife of a Chef" gave a realistic view, without the sense of foreboding that many authors lend to the field.
At this moment I'm cooking at a fraternity, which gives me time with my two daughters, 13 and 10. Also, time to work on writing. My wife has a full-time job as well. But I've promised my 10-year-old that we'll open a restaurant when she's sixteen (she loves the work, I can tell already). I'll be 62 then, but I wholeheartedly disagree with Michael Ruhlman, in "The Reach of a Chef," that chefs after fifty just can't take the work anymore. He doesn't say it just that way, but he talks about it a lot, that older guys have to find a way out of the kitchen, or at least off the line. Maybe I won't be able to move with the speed I had when I was thirty, but I'll be able to design a place that works for me.
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I'm all for getting a part-time job at a nearby restaurant. Most welcome somebody willing to do the mise-en-place or someone to work weekends. You can learn a lot peeling carrots, doing sauces... heck, even washing the dishes.
It's true that you might want to be exposed to good food from the get-go. However, there are a few equally important factors to consider.
1. Cooking at home and for friends is in no way similar to working in this industry. Wherever you choose to work, it will give you an idea if you really like working in a professional kitchen. A lot in this business has nothing to do with "liking food". Be sure you wouldn't just be happier cooking at home.
2. Try to avoid "chain" restaurants. Sure, you will get to serve a lot of people in a short amount of time, but most of the food comes pre-elaborated. I think it's important to learn how to do that. In most kitchens, the prep will take up most of your day.
Wish you the best of lucks. Cooking professionally has given me more satisfactions than headaches, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. But it's not a job that fits everybody. You have to be a little crazy to put up with the long hours and little money.
Cheers!
I agree wholeheartedly about both points. I would add that, in my opinion, you should start as a dishwasher. If you can't stand washing dishes, you won't make it as a cook. Cooking in a restaurant is really hard work, but if you manage to get an intro-level job prepping, you won't get the real flavor of the kitchen the way you would as a dishwasher. They get buried with dirty dishes just the way line cooks get buried with orders. And it can be filthy, exhausting work. If you like washing dishes, you have a chance to succeed in restaurant cooking.
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Actually, where that term came from was from a restaurant in New York I believe (I dont know the name) where throughout the night they would collect the covers from each plate sent out into the dining room. At the end of the night the chef would be able to walk over to the rack with all the sold "covers" and count what they did for the night.
Sorry, that sounds like "urban legend." As an alum of the CIA, I remember all sorts of silly stories told as fact. Do you think a restaurant would really have that many covers on hand?
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The common one at the country club where I worked was Tabasco in the Coke. During busy times it worked every time.
Then there was chocolate syrup on the telephone ear-piece. Call out: "Julie, phone for you." She puts it to her ear and bingo.
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I dont recommend this to everyone...but some waiters can drive me so GOD damn crazy. Well...I call it the hot spoon trick. Put a nice soup spoon in a 600 degree oven for an hour or so....carefully remove and place in a conveinient spot where your waiter enemy frequents...BAM...seared thumb and index finger !!! Keep your head down behind the line and look stupid !! hahaha
Dont forget...this can backfire on you...keep your eye out for the hottie waitress, you'll never get laid that way.
Interesting variation: use a hot quarter for the greedy ones.
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What are some of the best practical jokes you've ever seen or been a part of? Points for originality and mean-spiritedness.
For instance, everyone has hot-plated a waiter they are having a problem with. A neat variation is to do it out of the pantry station...never expect a 200 degree salad plate.
But that's intrinsically unfair. When hot-plating a waiter, the point is to say, "you know the plates are hot, you're supposed to use a napkin to handle them." That is, under ideal conditions you give hot plates to everyone. Of course, as the night wears on, plates become handle-able without the napkin, so waiters get careless. Thus, a hot plate technically is following the rules.
If you give them one from the pantry, it's automatically and absolutely violent behavior, something that the waiter could not possibly have anticipated. It takes away the beauty of the act.
Fear Factor: Restaurant Dining
in Restaurant Life
Posted
Way back in the late '60's, when I was in high school, I was a dishwasher at a country club, and another dishwasher and I would often show up early for work on a Saturday or Sunday. The "chef," Frank, was a classic drunk broiler-cook type of guy from the era. He'd always show up for work about 7:00 or earlier--he didn't sleep much, just smoked three packs of Pall Malls a day and drank about two quarts of whiskey, washed down with plenty of beer. Frank was really good about cooking us eggs when we showed up. Often, we had been out the night before drinking beer (we were seventeen or eighteen years old). Anyway, Frank would use the same kitchen towel to wipe the counters, wipe out the egg pans, and blow his nose. That's right, blow his nose. Imagine eating eggs over easy, somewhat snotty, and having seen Frank blow his nose in the towel that he used to wipe the pans. There are many other Frank stories, watch for the book.
People with whom I go out for dinner are especially put off by servers who handle glasses by putting their hands over the top of the glass. I've taught service for many years, and I am aghast by this ignorance, but it doesn't basically bother me in the sanitation sense. Any comments?