Projects

So it's getting close to winter and business is starting to slow down.  It's time to start collecting ideas and trying some new things for next season.  We have been looking at the possibility of making pizza at the restaurant and so we'll start playing around with some dough in the near future.  I've never tried making pizza dough but it seems fairly straight forward.
I would like to try some new techniques for making the classic Carne Adovada. I know that the current wisdom is to cut it into strips and cook it for quite a while but I would like to try a few techinques one includes the use of a pressure cooker.  In addition I need to start playing around with my chili recipes so I'm ready for the Chili Classic and can make a run at the top spot. I've never entered before so it will be a new experience.
I would love to be able to enter the Souper Bowl this year but I don't think that we'll be able to make it down to Albuquerque with that much product but we'll see.
With Christmas coming it would be nice to be able to put together some gingerbread house kits to sell and also do some tamales. I know that the tamale thing will be tough since so many people around here sell them during the holidays so I'm going to have to come up with some kind of twist. (insert evil laugh here)
So even though business will be slowing down I think I have enough projects to keep my plate full and my hands busy. Oh yeah....I forgot to mention that I will be making some tentative forays into the world of baking....yep you heard me...Baking.

Downtime

So yesterday was slow.  Not the slow steady dribble of guests that makes for a long yet still profitable day but the kind of mind numbing slow that makes you want to beat your head against the prep table because you swear it’s been an hour since you last checked the clock and in reality only 3 minutes has passed.

As usual, I tackled the kind of projects that inevitably bring people through the door, because as we all know once you start a project you get busy….or at least it seems that way.

15 minutes later we had the reach-ins cleaned out and organized, the floor swept and the counter tops cleared of debris and wiped down.

Now what?  Well, either we spend the afternoon staring at each other, wiping tables that have been wiped down already, texting or playing on the internet via the phone or we find something constructive to do.

I had noticed that the display case where we keep our breakfast pastries was starting to look a little bare and so I decided to make some donuts.  I had a fairly easy recipe for cake donuts and figured I’d play around with the flavorings a little.  So along with the standard ingredients I threw in some coffee and coco powder and ended up with a really aromatic dough that looked like this. 

I don’t have a donut cutter but by using a couple of dough cutters I was able to make a reasonable looking donut.

It was on like donkey kong! I made a quadruple batch since the recipe I had was only for a few donuts and so the afternoon was whiled away with kneading, rolling, cutting, and frying until I had 3 dozen doughnuts and the same in donut holes.

All I had to do was toss them in some powdered sugar and viola!

The lazy afternoon had been transformed into a productive one and the display case was replenished with warm mocha goodness. And wouldn’t you know it. Right as the donuts were hitting the case some customers, who had come in during the final stages of frying, noticed the aroma and insisted on being the first to try my donut experiment.

As for the donut holes….well I had considered putting them out with their big brothers, but in the end they wound up as “wait bait.”

Stutter Steps

Ah the twists and turns that life throws at you.  When I posted last I was extremely excited and optimistic about relocating and starting a new job in a new town.  What I walked into was not quite what I expected.  The property was really nowhere near being ready to open and there was not a lot that I could do since I don't have a background in construction or anything of the sort.  With that in mind I did what I could to help out. I worked on assembling various shelves for use in the kitchen, cleaned the hoods which were quite frankly atrocious and started on building an order guide so we could hit the ground running.  While that was taking place I did some cooking for the owners of various specials that I had proposed.  All seemed to be going well when one weekend after cooking for a small get together for their friends I was informed that things were not working out and I was let go.
Scrambling for options I called my former employer and he promptly put me back on the schedule. Whew.
So now I find my self back in Chama. I have decided that I'm not going to look around again for a while.  I"m making a commitment to my current restaurant and to this sleepy mountain town.  Since I do like cooking a variety of dishes I am going to look into the various catering possibilities in this area as well. Since I've been back I've been asking myself "what really went wrong and why did this happen?"  Suffice it to say, I may never know the answer to the first question and some interesting possibilities are opening up that may answer the latter.  While I love the kitchen and all the creativity it entails it may be that I return to my roots and exercise my creative chops in other avenues. Whatever happens I know that I'll always keep cooking and experimenting and I will definitely continue to chronicle the ride.

Quick blerb.  Today is the start of the final weekend before I relocate to Angel Fire and the onset of a new adventure. I'm both anxious and excited. There's a lot to do so I'll post more on this later.

The Slam

There comes a time in every establishment’s existence where you experience a volume of business you never thought would come.  Usually when you’re busy you tend to refer to it as being slammed. This is the big one however. This is THE SLAM. 

The day starts normally. The staff arrives, shift meetings occur, prep lists are made out and mise en place is begun.  The proper hour arrives and you flip the sign, turn on the light or whatever indication is used to indicate that you are now open for business.  For a while everything runs as it should.  Maybe the place fills up and a brisk pace is established, or maybe you get a few guests and then there is a lull for a while but for some reason at some point of the day all havoc breaks loose.  Sure you’ve been busy before. Hopefully busy is an environment that has been set as a benchmark and the staff is used to high levels of production and rapid but exemplary service.  For some reason however, this day is different. Perhaps some staff has called in and so you’re running a little short.  Or maybe the delivery truck is running late or you are expecting the delivery on the day after this one and so stock levels are a bit depleted. Who really knows how these things happen but one thing does. The place suddenly is packed with people and they keep coming.  The day flies by at first but then suddenly time goes into slow motion.  Who are all these people and where did they come from?  The kitchen is rocked and the dining room is packed.  Little by little things start to back up, the bussers can’t keep up with the tables turning, the dish room gets backed up and you start running low on plate ware, silverware, cups etc.  You run out of to-go containers, the prep staff can’t keep up and so the mise en place starts running out.  As the line sacrifices staff to help prep, the ticket times increase and so someone from management jumps onto the line to help out. Gamely you continue and for a bit the tide seems surf-able.

Then the unthinkable happens….you start to run out of product.  Maybe it’s something somewhat manageable and so you ’86 the item from the menu and go on or maybe it’s something integral to several items and so someone is dispatched to the store or will-call, again shorting the staff further.  Still the flood of hungry customers continues to pour through the door clamoring for food and a table.  With no break in sight you set your resolve and continue.  As the hours now creep by stress sets in.  The shortages of tables, plateware, and product add to the stress bearing down on the cooks, servers, bussers, and dishwashers.  Fatigue sets in and tempers wear thin.  In addition the customers who want only to get fed and get out but can’t due to increased ticket times and slow turnover start to get restless and snippy, again adding to the stress factor. As the pressure mounts some of the staff begin to break down. Tempers flare among the staff, cooks yelling at the dishwashers or prep staff for more product and plate ware. Wait staff arguing with the bussers or hosts about why their table is not cleaned or about table rotation. Patrons chastising wait staff about slow service and management chastising everyone including…yes…each other.

All hell is breaking loose. The head waiter is on the verge of slapping a busser. A bartender is yelling at the expediter…why in the hell isn’t food making it to the bar patrons.  The cute mild mannered hostess is fighting back tears after being berated by patrons who have been waiting for “an hour” (really only 30 min), and you have the gut feeling that all the cooks are on the verge of starting a knife fight with almost everyone.

Finally…mercifully the slam comes to an end and you step back and survey the carnage.  Both front and back of house looks like a bomb went off.  The lead server looks catatonic-ally at the dining room, the hostess whimpers as she straightens menus, the bartender looks longingly at the bottle of Jack he’s wiping and the cooks eye each other suspiciously as they clean their knives and tools.  Meanwhile the management look like deer in headlights slightly starting whenever someone talks to them.  It is the end however the building is still standing with the staff still intact. 

Is there any thing that could be done to have prevented this?  My belief is yes and no. These days happen and will happen again.  So in light of this I believe that the best thing to do is to set up a system of stress management techniques.  I’m not talking about going out to the back dock or walk-in and letting loose with a string of profanity but if that helps…well hey.  Instead I’m referring to taking the time to build in safeguards against this inevitable day.

Managers trying to find solutions to this constant cascade of voracious visitors will often do what seems like the best solution and jump in to help aid the staff, bussing tables, waiting tables, prepping and cooking.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Throwing bodies at the problem can definitely help if you’re understaffed or overwhelmed by customers.  The right bodies however.  I have no problem with a manager jumping in to help but if he/she ends up slowing things down then it only exacerbates the problem.  This is where effective cross-training is essential.  As a chef I need to identify who would be the best possible candidate for cross-training and for what.  Cross training in the kitchen is fairly easy given the hierarchal system that seems ingrained in most kitchens.  Many start their careers in the dish room and then graduate to the prep kitchen and then later rotate through the various line stations.  It makes sense then that most everyone in the kitchen could be shifted around to great effect.  It is similar in the front of house from busser to server to bartender.  The position of expeditor is where the problem often lies.  The “expo” needs to understand both sides of the window. 

In addition to cross the manager needs to be able to survey the situation and identify possible crises before they occur.  Is the hostess’s lip starting to quiver, maybe she needs to take five and regroup.  Has the line gone completely quiet? Talk to the cooks and find out what’s going on.  Kitchens should have a constant chatter. 

Effective management teams will often switch with each other if only for a few minutes allowing the other to take a breather and re-focus.  Throughout this beast of a day take a moment to remind yourself that:

1. It’s “Burgers and Fries” no matter how complex the menu you’re not curing cancer.
2. You are the leader.  The staff will take their cue from you on how to react. You panic they follow.
3. This too shall pass.

So when it’s over pitch in and help the staff reset and as you do so let them know they did well and thank them for their help.

So what are some other techniques that can be used to assist? An “on call” position?  What do you think?

PB&J

After spending so much time in the hospitality industry with a lot of people who have also had a decent amount of experience in the same it’s easy to assume that they know what you’re talking about.  Lingo and “common sense” in a kitchen doesn’t necessarily translate to the average Joe though.  I’ve had this demonstrated to me several times since I have moved to my town.  The terms I’ve used both in the back and front of house in various kitchens in the city have somehow escaped the cooks and restaurant employees here.  I was talking to a server the other day and explained that we were going to run a particular special that took a fair amount of prep time and could not be replenished on the fly. They asked me, “what do we do if we run out?” to which I casually responded, “Then we’ll just ‘86’ it.”

The affirmation of agreement that I was expecting never came.  Instead there was a pause and blank stare.  After a brief moment I explained that the term “86” meant we would discontinue the item.  Some terms I have become used to are more specific to the various restaurants where I have worked.  Terms like “rabbit” ( i.e. the lettuce tomato pickle and onion or “burger set”) and “reggae” (regular) remain in my kitchen vocabulary even they are not necessarily found industry wide.

Earlier today I had to re-learn a lesson passed on to me almost twenty years ago.  I was navigating my way through a busy breakfast while taking care of some deep prep at the same time.  As time passed I noticed that the dishwasher wasn’t too busy at the moment and had a little time on his hands. So I casually asked if he wouldn’t mind cutting a few potatoes and putting them in a “shoebox” a plastic container about the size and shape of a standard shoe box.

I happened to have one right next to where the cutting board was that was half full of already blanched potatoes.  A few minutes later I glanced over and noticed that he was putting the raw potatoes that he had cut in with the ones I already had.  I mentioned that he had to go through the box and separate them.  He mentioned that I just said put them in a shoe box and hadn’t specified which that they needed to be in a new container. I explained that they could not be mixed in with the already blanched potatoes since they had different cooking times and the reason he was cutting them was that we were going to be blanching them as a back-up to the ones we already had.  After things were situated properly I went back to the project I was doing muttering under my breath, “I didn’t know we were going to be making PB&J sandwiches.”

While this comment may seem totally random on the surface, it refers to an exercise I took part in during a class on training fellow employees.  The leader of the class had on the table a jar of jelly, a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread and a knife and spoon.  We were then asked to write down instructions for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  After a few minutes the instructors assistant stood by the items and a few of us were asked to read each instruction for making the sandwich.  The first one began, “take 2 slices of bread.”

The assistant stood there doing nothing but looking blankly at the loaf of bread.  The instructor mentioned that we had not explained how the 2 slices of bread were to be obtained which prompted us to amend our first instruction to, “open the bag and take 2 slices of bread.”  With great enthusiasm the assistant ripped open the package and spilled all the slices on the table and then retrieved 2 of them.

The instructions went on in this fashion for a while and then the exercise was ended.  The instructor explained that we in training others cannot assume that the employee understands what we are talking about and in our instructions we must be perfectly clear in order to achieve what we need to be done.

Likewise when an employee is given instructions and doesn’t totally understand them they may not ask for clarification because they think it may seem silly. Instead they plunge ahead into the task and instead receive correction for their actions resulting in frustration.  Why would they be corrected when they were only following the instructions as they were given to them?

So it follows that by not taking for granted that those around us know what we’re talking about and making sure our instructions are clear we not only save ourselves from exasperation but also aid those we are trying to teach by giving them a path to success and not frustration.

So what are some instances that you have had in demonstrating this point? I relish your comments.

Every once in a while an idea comes to me that I should probably write down.  Unfortunately in the daily bustle of life I forget to do that and then am left thinking down the road, "what was that thing I was thinking of?"  At one point I was going to carry a notebook and try to jot down the ideas but I ended up using the notebook for everyday prep lists and fire sheets. So I figure I'll jot some ideas down here and that way I have access to them from wherever I can find a connection.

• Kalbi glazed burger with kimchi and grilled pineapple
• Smoked trout tacos with jalapeno, lime aoli candied bacon and avocado
• Pulled pork empanada with peach confit, red chili yam gratin, Chinese long beans.
• Curried chicken wrap with cilantro scented rice, black bean puree and roasted red pepper remoulade

Just a few for now I'm sure I'll be adding some more later.