Chef-lish - "A hacked up/glued together word invented by some idiot looking for a way to describe the language in a professional kitchen with out using that F-word"
...or some shit like that!
There are three things you learn upon entering the professional kitchen and one of the first things is that sentences often get reduced to one or two words and they generally have a shit load of hidden meanings!!
You have to understand in the middle of a 200 cover service with say 60% of your diners having 2 courses and 40% having 3 courses,that's 400 meals that have to go out of the kitchen hot/on time and perfect. So in the heat (literally) of service only 3 things matter Food/Speed/Service. With that in mind my fellow readers let me explain to you "Chef-lish".
In a busy kitchen there is just no time for lengthy conversations and the usual "beat around the bush" pleasantries that most normal people exchange in their day to day work and so Chefs do what they do best and cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter. How you ask?? Easy. Cut out the unnecessary words and only say what needs to be said to get the job done.
For example on a menu you might have :
-Fillet Steak with Garlic mash/Sauteed Asparagus/Slow roasted Shallots and a Red wine and Thyme Sauce
-Pan roasted Groper with Lemon and rosemary Couscous/Green beans and a Citrus vinaigrette
-Slow roasted Chicken Breast stuffed with Sundried Tomatoes and feta/served on toasted ciabatta and with a side salad.
So if you had a table of four come in and order dinner what you'd hear in the kitchen would go like this:
"Order up!!
"2 Fish"
"1 Steak medium rare"
"1 Chicken"
So if we "translate" that you get :
"Attention in the kitchen please"
"2 Pan roasted Groper with Lemon and rosemary Couscous/Green beans and a Citrus vinaigrette"
"1 Fillet Steak with Garlic mash/Sauteed Asparagus/Slow roasted Shallots and a Red wine and Thyme Sauce- Medium rare"
"Slow roasted Chicken Breast stuffed with Sundried Tomatoes and feta/served on toasted ciabatta and with a side salad."
Now don't get me wrong I'm all for fancy/mouth watering menu descriptions but FUCK trying to say all that in the middle of a busy service,I mean hell a table of 15 would read like a friggin novel!!
With that in mind lets look into a couple of other common kitchen saying followed by a "translation" :
"Away on 14"
Usual said by the waitstaff to the kitchen-translated
- "Please cook n plate the mains (or desserts) for table 14 Please Gods of our Kitchen!
"PANS!!"
Chef to kitchenhand
- "Mr Kitchenhand would you be so kind as to refresh my stack of pans with clean ones so that I do not have to come over there and put my foot so far up your ass you'll be sneezing my laces out of your nose for the next week!!."
"Replate Fuck!!"
Head Chef or Maitre'De to grill/line chefs
- "This plate of shit that you have handed me is crap and I politely suggest that you quickly replate it and bring it up to a edible standard you fucking moron!!!!"
And then there's the Bain of all waitstaff,The Service Bell!!
"dingggg"
- "Food is on the pass could you please collect it and run it to the correct table."
"DINggggggg
- "I can see that your busy gossiping right now you slackers but the food is getting cold so could you please hurry up and run it to the table and don't make me ring the fucking bell again!!"
"DIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGG"
- "You fucking a-holes get off your fucking asses and get this fucking food to the goddamn table you useless sacks of shit or god help me *I'll throw this fucking bell at you!!!
*(For the record I've seen that happen!!)
And here's a couple of Gordon's favorite sayings translated:
"What the fuck is this shit??"
Translation -"Excuse me fellow wearer of the white chef jacket,I am confused as to what product of cookery you have put before me to serve to our loyal and loving customer, and I do believe it is not up to my standards of culinary excellence so could you please explain what it is and tell me why the FUCK you think I should serve it!!!!!"
"Fuck Me!!
Translation -"What ever I am seeing I am finding it hard to believe and I am beginning to wonder why you bother to even keep living your pathetic life you moron!"
But no other two words in the kitchen carry more weight or responsibility than the words "Yes Chef!"
And this is the Second thing you learn,if you say "Yes Chef!" after you've been told to plates 40meals all at once and dance a merry jig whilst doing so then it better be the BEST DAM JIG you ever danced or you'll be getting the chefs foot firmly up your ass!!
In the kitchen the Head Chef is god! If He/she tells you to cut 1000 onions with a dessert spoon then get fucking chopping. If the Head chef tells you the steak is overcooked,its OVERCOOKED!!! Disagreeing with the Head Chef is pretty much like asking a serial killer to put the loaded shotgun in the cupboard(cos we don't want anyone getting hurt....),another words just fucking stupid.
As you you may already know insults in a kitchen are part n parcel of the job. The kitchen is a hot/sweaty and busy enviroment at the best of times and when you work as closely as chefs do with each other,day in and day out in and sometimes in the most frustrating of circumstances,insults are bound to fly!!
And this is the Third thing to learn -DON'T,for the love of sanity and ego,take it personally. If you do you'll never make it past your first year in a professional kitchen. I've been called so many things and had so many insults hurled at me in my time as a chef that when someone calls me a "Fuckwit" or "Shithead" I thank them for the compliment!! What you have to remember is when someone in the kitchen insults you it's because they know you can do better,so what their really saying is "Chef you can do better than this,you and I both know it SO DO IT!!!!
Its funny really,I'm trying to remember some of the insults I've heard but the only one that comes to mind is what my first Sous Chef at the Hotel where I worked said to one of the Chef de Parties one night,and I have to admit I've used it a few times myself. The insult??
"My Grandma could cook faster than you.....and she's dead!!
And no.....I don't know why.....I just don't!
And that Ladies and Gentlemen is my rough description of "Chef-lish". I hope you learnt something from it and next post we'll discuss Food Porn and progress on my goals now if I may say so "Fuck off!!"
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Seasonality...Summer
Summer.....yeah No. Can't see it out there.
I don't know what you would call the weather we've been experiencing lately but it's not summer. Rain/cold wind/hail.....where is the sun??? Helllooo....big dude up there some sun would be nice....please?????
Ok so even without the sun summer does have it's bonuses. Peaches/Apricots/Strawberries/Plums/Blueberrys....and the list goes on!! Seasonality is hugely important in a kitchen. Any Chef worth their salt will reflect the seasons on their menu,I mean could you imagine seeing winter roast vege on a menu in the middle of summer?? It'd be like walking into a clothes store and the sales person selling you a ski jacket..."Yes even though it's 30degrees outside I'd love to wear the new seasons ski jackets and look like I'd just left the slopes even though the winter is still 6months away You Moron!".
I love watching the seasons changing on menus. Walking around the restaurants and cafes reading the menus can be a enjoyable experience. Quite often you'll see the same ingredients on the menus but it's the way that the Chefs use and interpret them that make the real difference. Myself personally I like the simple approach. Simple things done right with great flavours. I mean how wrong can you go with Strawberries and cream??
Fresh strawberries(quartered and tops removed) and some Chantilly cream.
Chantilly cream:
Fresh cream
Icing sugar - to taste
Vanilla essence -to taste
Whisk until soft peaks. Don't over whisk!!
Place Strawberries in bowl/glass/serving vessel and top with Chantilly cream,Done!
And Stonefruit....Mmmmm stonefruit. Again I like it simple.
Vanilla poached stonefruit :
1 Vanilla Pod
1 cup Sugar
2 cups Water
Stonefruit: 1 Peach/1 Apricot/1 large Plum/ 1 Nectarine (halved and de-stoned) should feed 2 people.
Split and scrape vanilla pods and put seeds/pod into the water/sugar mix and heat until sugar has dissolved then add the stonefruit and poach gently until soft. Put the fruit into bowls and drizzle a little of the poaching liquid over the top of the fruit and then top with Chantilly cream. Simple and delicious.
But progress progress progress. I have freed my whites from their banishment in the deep dark recesses of the wardrobe and damn did they look worse for wear. For some reason "Stains for the memories" came to mind when I saw them. The faded black marks from the charcoal off the oven tops,a faded orange stain on a sleeve-Pumpkin and Parmersen soup,a cut in a cuff-filleting salmon when the knife slipped...missed my fingers by about 5mm,pale red dots on my collar-tomato sauce being blitzed with a large whizz stick (it gets everywhere...trust me!!)
So it was into the laundry bucket with a heap of napisan(laundry whitener) and soaked for 2days then washed and well not bad...not perfect but clean......ok so the stains didn't move,no surprise I guess. Time for some new jackets then.
On the other front I've signed up to the photography website flickr.com and joined up to several food photography groups and posted several of my food photos and seem to be getting good responses so far. Small steps...but some none the less.
And also thank you to all my friends for their support,without you this would be a lot harder!!
Next post I'm going to attempt to explain the language of the kitchen,quick warning it could contain explicit language and a weird sense of humor.
You've been warned!!
I don't know what you would call the weather we've been experiencing lately but it's not summer. Rain/cold wind/hail.....where is the sun??? Helllooo....big dude up there some sun would be nice....please?????
Ok so even without the sun summer does have it's bonuses. Peaches/Apricots/Strawberries/Plums/Blueberrys....and the list goes on!! Seasonality is hugely important in a kitchen. Any Chef worth their salt will reflect the seasons on their menu,I mean could you imagine seeing winter roast vege on a menu in the middle of summer?? It'd be like walking into a clothes store and the sales person selling you a ski jacket..."Yes even though it's 30degrees outside I'd love to wear the new seasons ski jackets and look like I'd just left the slopes even though the winter is still 6months away You Moron!".
I love watching the seasons changing on menus. Walking around the restaurants and cafes reading the menus can be a enjoyable experience. Quite often you'll see the same ingredients on the menus but it's the way that the Chefs use and interpret them that make the real difference. Myself personally I like the simple approach. Simple things done right with great flavours. I mean how wrong can you go with Strawberries and cream??
Fresh strawberries(quartered and tops removed) and some Chantilly cream.
Chantilly cream:
Fresh cream
Icing sugar - to taste
Vanilla essence -to taste
Whisk until soft peaks. Don't over whisk!!
Place Strawberries in bowl/glass/serving vessel and top with Chantilly cream,Done!
And Stonefruit....Mmmmm stonefruit. Again I like it simple.
Vanilla poached stonefruit :
1 Vanilla Pod
1 cup Sugar
2 cups Water
Stonefruit: 1 Peach/1 Apricot/1 large Plum/ 1 Nectarine (halved and de-stoned) should feed 2 people.
Split and scrape vanilla pods and put seeds/pod into the water/sugar mix and heat until sugar has dissolved then add the stonefruit and poach gently until soft. Put the fruit into bowls and drizzle a little of the poaching liquid over the top of the fruit and then top with Chantilly cream. Simple and delicious.
But progress progress progress. I have freed my whites from their banishment in the deep dark recesses of the wardrobe and damn did they look worse for wear. For some reason "Stains for the memories" came to mind when I saw them. The faded black marks from the charcoal off the oven tops,a faded orange stain on a sleeve-Pumpkin and Parmersen soup,a cut in a cuff-filleting salmon when the knife slipped...missed my fingers by about 5mm,pale red dots on my collar-tomato sauce being blitzed with a large whizz stick (it gets everywhere...trust me!!)
So it was into the laundry bucket with a heap of napisan(laundry whitener) and soaked for 2days then washed and well not bad...not perfect but clean......ok so the stains didn't move,no surprise I guess. Time for some new jackets then.
On the other front I've signed up to the photography website flickr.com and joined up to several food photography groups and posted several of my food photos and seem to be getting good responses so far. Small steps...but some none the less.
And also thank you to all my friends for their support,without you this would be a lot harder!!
Next post I'm going to attempt to explain the language of the kitchen,quick warning it could contain explicit language and a weird sense of humor.
You've been warned!!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Ok a lil intro...
Food glorious food. We all need it we all eat it. You can get it in so many different guises that some of us wouldn't even recognize it. I mean..seriously...a "Big Mac" is a hamburger??
But I digress,my name is Christian. I'm what most people would describe as a "ex-chef" but I prefer to think of myself as retired. I haven't seen the inside of a professional kitchen for over 18 months,my whites have probably got mothballs in the wardrobe BUT I can say my knifes are still sharp and see regular use. Why did I leave? That's easy. Bad Head chef and Bad management. As any chef will tell you these things can make your day 110% longer and harder.
So I left. I hung up my whites,cleaned my knifes packed then into my kit,stacked my recipe/cook books into a box and put them all into the garage thinking that I'd never touch them again. Now you have to understand a kitchen team is like a family. You support each other,you help each other,you work hard for each other and yes you fight with each other but at the end of the shift after all is said and done you sit down,have a beer and look back at the night and feel good about what you achieved,how many meals you pumped out or how you bailed yourself outta the weeds or how well the specials sold etc. But when the people that you look up to in "The Family" begin to shit on you life gets harder. The shifts seem longer and the small things you used to shrug off.....they get bigger and bigger until it all becomes too much and it pushes you to breaking point,burnt out and disillusioned.
Now the irony here is you would think that I'd get as far away as possible from anything even vaguely kitchen related right?? Wrong. I went from cooking in kitchens to building them. I became a joiner,a kitchen joiner to be exact. Just to clarify something here I didn't apply for this job I walked into it,I thought it was just going be a temporary thing but here I am still doing it today.
About now your probably asking yourself "What the hell has this got to do with anything and why is he blogging about it??" Again easy. I miss it. I miss the service rush,the "calm before the storm" feeling just before service,the hussle n flow during prep as you rush to get everything done. And the people too. So I'm going back into the kitchen or as I like to think of it "...Back into the frying pan".
Ok so its not just going to be that easy. I've been out of the industry for quite a while now and though I can still cook excellent food I don't have the speed nor the sharpness I used to have. Trust me doing a dinner party for 10 friends is nothing compared to doing a dinner service of 120 paying customers. So I have to sharpen my skills up again and prove I can still do it. How am I going to do this?? I'm going to work for free!
Sounds crazy huh?? But let me elaborate a little. There is about 0.000001% chance that if I apply for a job in a good restaurant that I'll actually get the job,too long out of the kitchen is the first thing they'll say. So the plan goes like this- I have a day job,a easy day job with weekends off....and free nights. So what shall I do with those weekends and free nights?? I plan to go around restaurants and give what most Head Chefs don't believe exists....A free worker with skills. I'm going to become a bit of a kitchen whore giving myself to who ever will take me for a couple of nights.
Hmmm reading that makes it sound a lot easier than I actually think it's going to be, there are a few things I've got to do first. Get some fresh whites,a new cooks knife and knife roll (along with a few other items) and then work up the balls to do it. A professional kitchen is a scary place,mistakes are usual accompanied with a bollocking or your own blood and the public has become even more demanding of their chefs expecting more for their money and higher standards of food for their tastebuds. All of which I will be opening myself up to again and which I suspect will smash my current sheltered ego into 1000 pieces very quickly. So its a daunting challenge that lies ahead of me.
But there is a ulterior motive for my return to the kitchen and it's purely selfish. I love food porn,you know those photo's of food that just make your mouth water,your tongue twitch as your tastebuds get aroused. The kind of photo that with out even knowing the recipe just makes you want to cook it. Food photo's play a huge part in what we eat I mean how many times have you heard the saying "we eat with our eyes first". And we do....we 100% do. I mean just look at the fast food giants!!! If their food looked as good in real life as it did on the adverts we'd all being eating it,Hell they'd probably put 80% of the worlds restaurants out of business. As it stands I'm pretty sure most of us are guilty of giving into those adverts and buying it only to be bitterly disappointed and reminded of how good those marketing campaigns are.
So my other motivation for returning to the kitchen is to be in a place where everyday there is something just begging to be photographed and shown to the world in all its glory,from the freshest of fresh greens,plumpest red succulent strawberries to a perfectly cooked steak I intend to capture as much of it as I can and show it too the world for all to enjoy. So not only do I have to sharpen my chef skills I also need to learn to use my camera as fast and as accurate as my knife.
Now I can't very well talk about food photos with out posting any so here are a few of my own photos of my food and though the photo's may not be perfect in time I will get better and so will the photos.
So this is what I'll be writing about. The trials and challenges of returning to a professional kitchen and what I have to do to get there and learning how to take food photos good enough that it'll make you want to eat the photo itself......wish me luck!
But I digress,my name is Christian. I'm what most people would describe as a "ex-chef" but I prefer to think of myself as retired. I haven't seen the inside of a professional kitchen for over 18 months,my whites have probably got mothballs in the wardrobe BUT I can say my knifes are still sharp and see regular use. Why did I leave? That's easy. Bad Head chef and Bad management. As any chef will tell you these things can make your day 110% longer and harder.
So I left. I hung up my whites,cleaned my knifes packed then into my kit,stacked my recipe/cook books into a box and put them all into the garage thinking that I'd never touch them again. Now you have to understand a kitchen team is like a family. You support each other,you help each other,you work hard for each other and yes you fight with each other but at the end of the shift after all is said and done you sit down,have a beer and look back at the night and feel good about what you achieved,how many meals you pumped out or how you bailed yourself outta the weeds or how well the specials sold etc. But when the people that you look up to in "The Family" begin to shit on you life gets harder. The shifts seem longer and the small things you used to shrug off.....they get bigger and bigger until it all becomes too much and it pushes you to breaking point,burnt out and disillusioned.
Now the irony here is you would think that I'd get as far away as possible from anything even vaguely kitchen related right?? Wrong. I went from cooking in kitchens to building them. I became a joiner,a kitchen joiner to be exact. Just to clarify something here I didn't apply for this job I walked into it,I thought it was just going be a temporary thing but here I am still doing it today.
About now your probably asking yourself "What the hell has this got to do with anything and why is he blogging about it??" Again easy. I miss it. I miss the service rush,the "calm before the storm" feeling just before service,the hussle n flow during prep as you rush to get everything done. And the people too. So I'm going back into the kitchen or as I like to think of it "...Back into the frying pan".
Ok so its not just going to be that easy. I've been out of the industry for quite a while now and though I can still cook excellent food I don't have the speed nor the sharpness I used to have. Trust me doing a dinner party for 10 friends is nothing compared to doing a dinner service of 120 paying customers. So I have to sharpen my skills up again and prove I can still do it. How am I going to do this?? I'm going to work for free!
Sounds crazy huh?? But let me elaborate a little. There is about 0.000001% chance that if I apply for a job in a good restaurant that I'll actually get the job,too long out of the kitchen is the first thing they'll say. So the plan goes like this- I have a day job,a easy day job with weekends off....and free nights. So what shall I do with those weekends and free nights?? I plan to go around restaurants and give what most Head Chefs don't believe exists....A free worker with skills. I'm going to become a bit of a kitchen whore giving myself to who ever will take me for a couple of nights.
Hmmm reading that makes it sound a lot easier than I actually think it's going to be, there are a few things I've got to do first. Get some fresh whites,a new cooks knife and knife roll (along with a few other items) and then work up the balls to do it. A professional kitchen is a scary place,mistakes are usual accompanied with a bollocking or your own blood and the public has become even more demanding of their chefs expecting more for their money and higher standards of food for their tastebuds. All of which I will be opening myself up to again and which I suspect will smash my current sheltered ego into 1000 pieces very quickly. So its a daunting challenge that lies ahead of me.
But there is a ulterior motive for my return to the kitchen and it's purely selfish. I love food porn,you know those photo's of food that just make your mouth water,your tongue twitch as your tastebuds get aroused. The kind of photo that with out even knowing the recipe just makes you want to cook it. Food photo's play a huge part in what we eat I mean how many times have you heard the saying "we eat with our eyes first". And we do....we 100% do. I mean just look at the fast food giants!!! If their food looked as good in real life as it did on the adverts we'd all being eating it,Hell they'd probably put 80% of the worlds restaurants out of business. As it stands I'm pretty sure most of us are guilty of giving into those adverts and buying it only to be bitterly disappointed and reminded of how good those marketing campaigns are.
So my other motivation for returning to the kitchen is to be in a place where everyday there is something just begging to be photographed and shown to the world in all its glory,from the freshest of fresh greens,plumpest red succulent strawberries to a perfectly cooked steak I intend to capture as much of it as I can and show it too the world for all to enjoy. So not only do I have to sharpen my chef skills I also need to learn to use my camera as fast and as accurate as my knife.
Now I can't very well talk about food photos with out posting any so here are a few of my own photos of my food and though the photo's may not be perfect in time I will get better and so will the photos.
So this is what I'll be writing about. The trials and challenges of returning to a professional kitchen and what I have to do to get there and learning how to take food photos good enough that it'll make you want to eat the photo itself......wish me luck!
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