Creative inspiration in the middle of the ocean

[mpshort]

Aloha all,

This past year has seen some major life changes for me: moving to the Big Island of Hawaii from Washington state and re-entering the pastry field after a 7 year hiatus.

What was I doing during the break? my own specialty cake business, Creative Pastries. Previous to this I had been working in the Washington D.C area as a pastry chef and pastry chef instructor.

So here I am, back in a restaurant kitchen again, in the middle of paradise

I've never worked in an environment like this before. It's a private club restaurant that is very,very exclusive. I love that I never have to cost anything out, I can get pretty much any ingredient I want and I have free reign with the menu.

Sounds perfect right?

Because we are private and the members rarely leave the property (except to get on their private jets, even then they take "to go food") we change the menu every week. There are three plated dessert items and there are to be no repeats. After being working for a year it's beginning to get very difficult to come up with new ideas. I also have to come up with two intermezzo flavors, 3 petit fours and a bread every week. I am able to repeat these items but I'm still running out of ideas.

I would love any hints, ideas, suggestions on how to keep my creativity up. I read everything I can get my hands on from magazines to books to whatever I can find on the internet.

Mahalo!

Edited July 14, 2005 by mpshort (log)

[ditsydine]

Aloha all,

This past year has seen some major life changes for me: moving to the Big Island of Hawaii from Washington state and re-entering the pastry field after a 7 year hiatus.

What was I doing during the break?  my own specialty cake business, Creative Pastries.  Previous to this I had been working in the Washington D.C area as a pastry chef and pastry chef instructor.

So here I am, back in a restaurant kitchen again, in the middle of paradise 

I've never worked in an environment like this before.  It's a private club restaurant that is very,very exclusive.  I love that I never have to cost anything out, I can get pretty much any ingredient I want and I have free reign with the menu. 

Sounds perfect right?

Because we are private and the members rarely leave the property (except to get on their private jets, even then they take "to go food") we change the menu every week.  There are three plated dessert items and there are to be no repeats.  After being working for  a year it's beginning to get very difficult to come up with new ideas.  I also have to come up with two intermezzo flavors, 3 petit fours and a bread every week.  I am able to repeat these items but I'm still running out of ideas.

I would love any hints, ideas, suggestions on how to keep my creativity up. I read everything I can get my hands on from magazines to books to whatever I can find on the internet.

Mahalo!

←

Perhaps find a way to get club member feedback, of course in a way that wouldn't inconvience them and just do a twist on those. For instance, I am making this up on the top of my head--say they dug something you made like banana bread, make bannabread sorbet...Do you keep a spreadsheet of what you have cooked?

[pastrymama]

Hi Maria, I also work for an exclusive private club in Southern California. I don't have the same restrictions about my menu that you do, but I am constantly looking for new ideas also. Acrually the members at my club won't let me take off a couple of the items on the menu, whenever I have tried they just keep requesting them, I also have one member I always have to have an apple tart ready for and a couple of diabetics that I have developed special things for, that I must have ready at all times.

Back to your problem. Are you able to offer say, creme brulee, but vary the flavors each week. Or a mousse bombe, but change the flavors. If so you could use fruits (obvious) but vary the flavors with different spices or liqueurs, even teas. You could mix different chocolates to come up with different flavors or use a different chocolate in a recipe. An example- I make the tried and true warm chocolate souffle or truffle cake with bittersweet chocolate, but I have also used gianduja, orange milk chocolate, regular milk chocolate with really good results. You could also insert different flavors of ganache or caramel or sauces frozen into the centers to give you a different result with a different name of course. You can look at wallpaper names or paint color names to give you ideas for different dessert names. If I think of anything else that will be helpful to you I will post again. Good luck and damn I'm jealous!

Marilyn

[chefette]

Hi MP - I have admired your cool sticks and flowers cakes before.

hmmmm - no reapeats at all - ever? Is that possible?

How literally are you taking that? If you are being very literal - you might have to broaden (or is it narrow) your definition of 'repeats'.

same falvors - different composition

new flavors - same composition

tweak add new elements

Do 'studies' in flavors, ingredients, textures, temperatures, and colors

how many ways can you serve egg in a single dessert.. like anglaise with a lady finger cake, creme brulee, meringe (2 ways)...

Do ethinic studies - drift from authentic to interpretive to fusion

You could even work historically - pick a time period and go wild. I think that adding interpretive steps into the progression elongates and excites things.

Do design studies - working in completely different artistic or compositional styles will force you to change

Pick artists and interpret their philosophy, painting style subject matter in desserts

You could make this a sort of crazy game - start a month or a week with simple - elemental things and make them more complex each day

So mabe you start with red berries and a liquid element

add a cake element

add a cold element - granite, sorbet, ice cream...

freeze it

flambee it

make it into an alaska

add a textural element - an espuma, an air, a mouse or bavarian

add a crunch element - make it into a napoleon

add a crazy decorative element - like a sugar twist

make it into a sauce and drizzle it over something else

its like soup - one thing just sort of drifts into another

I think that Lewis Carroll did something like this with words and that's how he got "The Walrus and the Carpenter" somehow walrus drifts into carpenter and all their adventures on the beach

At some places 'no repeats' can be as simple as changing from a square presentation to a round. Of course - you might need to have 32 or three things in each category that you just start setting in motion so that it takes 3 days to implement a change in any one item.

You can also start introducing unconventional elements into old standbys.

Things that got served in a glass might seem different on a plate

things that were on a plate might seem way cooler served in a block of ice

get creative with your presentations.

Focus on the work of a different chefs or pastry chefs or even books moving from things they say to do to innovative interpretations of what they did.

Start experimenting ala those Amazing Adrias

Make yourself plans and schedules and document your paths

It sounds like it could be tiring - but its also a cool opportunity.

Without knowing where you have been and how strict or how long the rule apply - its hard to give you a recipe or anything but I think that the best approach is to adopt new conceptual approaches to planning and executing your work. It helps keep you fresh and excited! Make it interesting for yourself since you don't have to watch your costs or stick to a menu - but think about how you can use all the cool stuff you have created and learned as a next step.

Edited July 14, 2005 by chefette (log)

[akwa]

create a grid of your techniques and ingredients

use that to map your menus

as well it is helpful to incorporate new techniques and ingredients without any repetition

[Wendy DeBord]

Welcome to the eGullet Society For Arts & Letters Mpshort! I'm also familar with your website............because you do very nice work!

I work in private clubs too. Although right now I'm at a very poor club, I do understand what your up against creativity wise. I find that it isn't always that I've run out of ideas.........it's just that it becomes so demanding being always 'on the hunt for new' that it eats up all your off work time. It burns me out because it leaves me no room to get away, to become fresh.

When I'm brain dead and need a rest.........I turn to books (good books). Usually I'll pick 2 or 3 books and work from them all at once. Taking something from each book and making the recipes literally (although I always vary the presentation aspect....usually because of my realities at work force that). For me it becomes an exercise in learning.........because typically I'll stumble across a new method while following a recipe literally. With a really good book, it can influence my whole way of thinking about desserts or methods. With an average book........at least it's a vacation mentally.

This very reason was what drove me to seek out websites where other professionals gathered and talked. I had gone back into the kitchen after like a 10 year hiatus................only to discover that the whole darn baking industry had changed! I left with Wilton, Betty Crocker and Pillsbury and came back to Collette Peters...Norman Love, Pierre Herme....etc.... completely new techniques as well as visual demands. I think I've grown the most and learned the most being on the net, learning from others in these kind of interactive forums. That's what keeps me here daily. I've picked up some incredible recipes from others here, gotten leads for everything, sources, books, what's in what's out, etc.... No amount of work on my own has been able to match what I get here.

Something I've also done to push myself is tackle new catagories or specialities.......adding items restaurants wouldn't normally consider a "dessert" on it's own. Like I'll do a toffee plate and make toffee 3 different ways..........as a dessert on it's own. Last week I did a fudge plate and made 4 different fudges on a sampler plate, or a truffle plate, tea cookies or a ice cream sandwich trio. Instead of making a composed dessert as we traditional think of them..........it's more of a study of one item. You can do desserts more casually then in a restaurant because people think of the club as their 'home'.

Also I used stop at a local gourmet grocery store on my way to work to check out their produce section. It worked better for me then walking into the cooler, it was more inspirational seeing it layed out in a display. It also forced me into thinking fast cause my job was only a couple minutes past that store and I'd have to figure out what I was making with it in that time frame.

[mpshort]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome and the suggestions!

hmmmm - no reapeats at all - ever? Is that possible?

How literally are you taking that? If you are being very literal - you might have to broaden (or is it narrow) your definition of 'repeats'

I guess my definition would be rather narrow. I have run several items more than once just changing the flavor or presentation. But I try not to do anything similar two weeks in a row.

The constraints are:

Must always have something chocolate (if not an actual dessert than at least one petit four).

Member's tastes: It's very interesting. These are people that can literally eat anywhere in the world. They can fly off in their private jet and be at Charlie Trotter's or Per Se any night of the week. We often get members that fly in just to have dinner at the restaurant and then fly out the next morning.

Given all that, you would think they would have very sophisticated, worldly tastes.... but they don't. Or maybe they do, but when they're "home" they want something familiar, comfort food. One of my biggest sellers was a peanut butter pie!

The weather: They bought the Rev 2 machine to help me with petit fours but in the summer it gets so hot in the kitchen that I can't use it. Chocolate, meringues, sugar work....ARGHHH it's impossible to keep any of it for longer than one night.

My talent and creativity or lack thereof: I have never worked in an environment like this and while the workload is relatively light (20-50 covers for dinner, only open 4 nights, 30-60 covers for lunch) the scope is so broad.

Being on an island: I would love to eat at other places, take classes etc. but it's just not available here. I am going to have to start saving my pennies for classes on the mainland but it will take awhile.

When I'm brain dead and need a rest.........I turn to books (good books). Usually I'll pick 2 or 3 books and work from them all at once. Taking something from each book and making the recipes literally (although I always vary the presentation aspect....usually because of my realities at work force that). For me it becomes an exercise in learning.........because typically I'll stumble across a new method while following a recipe literally. With a really good book, it can influence my whole way of thinking about desserts or methods. With an average book........at least it's a vacation mentally

In the meantime, I'm doing the same thing: book, magazines and the internet.

And I was so thrilled to find this site because the information that is shared here is invaluable!

Okay, must stumble off, get my espresso and head into work.....

Edited July 15, 2005 by mpshort (log)

[Wendy DeBord]

Member's tastes: It's very interesting.  These are people that can literally eat anywhere in the world.  They can fly off in their private jet and be at Charlie Trotter's or Per Se any night of the week.  We often get members that fly in just to have dinner at the restaurant and then fly out the next morning. 

Given all that, you would think they would have very sophisticated, worldly tastes.... but they don't.  Or maybe they do, but when they're "home" they want something familiar, comfort food.  One of my biggest sellers was a peanut butter pie!

I can ditto that experience. I think it comes with "private clubs", they do think of them as home. But that's great..........you can use it totally to your advantage because you can make anything for them.........as long as it tastes great.

I spent the time I had at a very upscale club as my own private culinary school. I tested alot of recipes to find my core recipes.........and with that core I feel confident now to be thrown into any kitchen.

[KarenS]

Hi! I live on Oahu, and have also lived and worked on Maui and the big island. There are actually quite a few classes offered in Honolulu. There is a benefit in living in the middle of the ocean (and in the tropics). People like to visit here (and often combine work with vacation). I have signed up for a sugar class with Mr. Notter for the end of August. Hans Weiler (his company is now owned by Y. Hata) is a well known pastry purveyor in Hawaii- I have been buying from him for a long time. You may be buying from him too (if not, you might consider him, as he takes the best care of his chocolate and other products). He arranges an assortment of classes every year. He is also a retired (German) Pastry Chef who knows many in the industry (he always has "the gossip").The cooking program at KCC (a University of Hawaii campus that is in back of Diamond Head)- has grown quite a bit. They very often offer classes from visiting talents.

Are you at Alan Wong's restaurant?

[chefcyn]

Hi, I had a similar challenge working for an Inn in NH. I had to come up with

2 soups (creamy and not creamy and one a vegetarian soup)

2 apps (sometimes one seafood, almost always one vegetarian),

3 entrees, meat(pork, beef, venison, lamb, etc), bird, and seafood, and sometimes a vegetarian entree for one or two people, specially ordered ahead), and

3 desserts(always one chocolate, one fruit and one "other").

I could duplicate only if there were no repeat guests from night to night(which hardly ever happened) and there were some favorites that people asked for, and that the owners asked for.

I managed to accumulate a year and a half of 5 nights a week unique menus.

It was fun, but did burn me out in the end--I found I was devoting time and energy to work 11 hours a day between researching menu items, shopping and commuting to work, and back. I only actually spent about 6 hours a day in the kitchen!

...and now I'm working in a much slower environment (private chef for 5 priests in a monastery doing breakfast lunch and dinner M-F) My current job is bordering on boring me to death because they actually prefer boring food! Nothing interesting at all, unless company comes a couple of times a year. *sigh* I miss the Inn!! I do a lot of volunteer baking for friends and family, just to get to cook!

[mpshort]

Once again, thank you for your suggestions!!!

Are you at Alan Wong's restaurant?

No, I'm actually right next door, at Kukio. David Paul Johnson (of Lahaina Grill) is the executive chef.

Hans Weiler (his company is now owned by Y. Hata) is a well known pastry purveyor in Hawaii- I have been buying from him for a long time.

Oh, yes, I know Hans! Very nice man, he usually makes a monthly visit bearing gifts (Toblerone bars). He encouraged me to go to the Ewold Notter class but it's really difficult to get a whole week off (to go off island) when I'm the only one in the pastry department.

managed to accumulate a year and a half of 5 nights a week unique menus

This past year has been such an intense period of learning. Sometimes I feel that I barely keep my head above water but I'm much more comfortable in the position and I'm starting to getting to know the members and their tastes. Now, that I am feeling more confident I'm going to start trying to plan and strategize more.

Edited July 18, 2005 by mpshort (log)

[LCS]

Hey Manang Maria! Just wanna say hi! (It's me... Vedika!)