Do you like to cook?

[Melanie R.]

Oh, sounds good--can we all come over for dinner?

[Roy Hersh]

Back in the late 1970's (yes, I realize I am getting old) after a quick two years of studying psychology at a local NYC college, I decided to go upstate NY and attend culinary school. This was born out of the realization that my own mother was an absolutely horrible cook. Canned asparagus, (I didn't have a fresh one EVER until I worked in restaurants) frozen peas, spinach and lima beans, Chicken Delight and Swanson TV Dinners were the norm, but occasionally she'd get ambitious and try her hand at liver and onions and if you've ever had the displeasure of eating that dish when the calves liver was not done unless it was black ... you can understand why I needed to learn to cook for myself. Holiday meals were replete with entrees such as spaghetti and meatballs or a luxurious one was pot roast where my mother used Ginger-snaps as the basis for her "sauce" ... which actually, wasn't half bad. I swore I'd never rely on a woman again to cook for me, in order to eat well (which was a lie).

I loved culinary school with 6 hour baking labs and four hour cooking classes, often on the same day. The intensive program was to see if you not only could learn, but handle the hours. For that was still the "Neanderthal daze in the restaurant business, which meant a requisite 6 day work week and 10-12 hour days ... minimum. Brutally hard work for seemingly half the pay that my friends made in nearly every other field. Chefs were not really stars in the very early 1980s. Although I was quite good at cooking and learned a ton back then, it was also very clear to me that I was not a "natural" talent like some in my class that had grown up working in their parent's restaurants. I was good, enough where I normally never used a recipe to create a dish, but my ability to detect exactly what was missing in order to make a dish reach a higher plane, was clearly not there as it was for some talented classmates. So after graduation and working in restaurants every summer and serving in hotels on weekends throughout school, I went on for a Hotel Mgmt. degree where I'd also take lots of restaurant mgmt. and further cooking/butchering/wine classes too.

I learned more about cooking from actually working in restaurants than my classes though, and stayed in the restaurant game for the next 25 years, in every capacity possible, including ownership. It is a brutal way to make a living with 20 of the 25 years spent working an AVERAGE of 70 hours a week ... lots of that was done in the much tamer world of 5-day/week jobs. Most of my friends in the trade wound up getting divorced, many turned to alcohol and drugs. It was easy to understand how lives crashed and burned given the total lack of "balance" in our lives with work dominating time at home with family and little to no time for real fun.

As a Food & Beverage Director of a very fine hotel in downtown DC, I inherited a very tempermental Executive Chef that was loyal to the just departed F&B Dir. He hated the GM of the hotel and I found myself getting in the middle of those two OFTEN at our weekly meetings. Mid-Nov. 1995, the chef stood up in the middle of the meeting and LITERALLY threw his keys across the table -- a good 15' and hit the GM in the chest, then turned after a few choice expletives and walked out. That was one of the 3 worst days of my life. It meant I would not only have to do my job (which had me working 8 a.m. - 11 p.m.) but now I'd have to oversee both the a la carte kitchen, banquet kitchen and room service too. I was not amused and switching between whites and a suit multiple times a day was a major drag ... made only slightly better by our in house dry cleaning and laundry service.

The kicker is that we had 3 banquet rooms and that was the majority of our business, the smallest of which held 240 people and the largest 600 at a sit-down dinner. We averaged 25 parties a week PLUS Thanksgiving was a week away AND then the loliday banquet schedule increased to 35 parties a week during the month of December, which would not end until after New Years Eve. I was not ready for another career move yet. So I hung in an banged out 4-6 banquets a day, took a room in the hotel which saved me two hours of commuting which translated into 2 of my 5 hours of sleep. After week two of six in this dual-role, I was almost on auto-pilot and adrenaline, the zone you hear some chefs talk abouot. Fortunately, I was not married at the time (post divorce by a few years) and the 45ish days of 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. shifts didn't phase me after awhile as I just got on the elevator and 10 minutes later was snoring. When at the end of bringing in a bazillion dollars during that period, I walked into the GM's office on Jan. 2nd and declared I was taking a week off. The GM said, "no way!" I said, "think again, for if you say no, you'll have my keys too and will need to hire both a chef and a F&B Dir. is that what you really want?" Case closed. Before shuffling off to my home for the first time in nearly six and a half weeks, I told him that I better return to a full stack of applications for a new Exec Chef. I was unable to get one hired until the beginning of February. I knew I was done with this nonsense.

During that week off, I decided I was tired of this kind of career and wanted to get out of day to day F&B operations. I had a plan. No more cooking, no more whites and maybe no more suits or if possible, working in the front or back of the house. My strength was always in negotiating/procurement. A friend of mine on the W. coast enticed me to come to the Seattle area (Bellevue actually) to work as a Purchasing Dir. for two large Italian chains. I picked up my life from Virginia which I really loved as a place to live, and moved to WA in Sept. 1996. When I handed my keys to the GM on my very last day ... I had given him a full months prior notice; he said to me, "I always thought you were only bluffing, in order to get another raise out of me." I let a long silence pass, looked at him dead in the eye and said, "It was never about the money." I took off a few weeks and relexed and hiked in VA's piedmont, better known as Shenendoah Nat'l Park, part of The Blue Ridge Mtns. and biked as much as possible before moving. This was a life change, swearing I'd never be in a pro-kitchen again.

At my new job, as purchasing director, I never did have to get in whites, but I was on a "menu development" team and headed up the wine program for both chains in 5 states. It was the best job I ever had ... until 9-11 hit and the death of the owner a few months later. But I had a good five year run leading up to those events and some great times, visiting Napa 2-4x every year, WA wine country at least 1-2x and the same with Oregon's Willamette Valley. Wine was becoming a bigger part of my career and this was all before the consulting gig with So. African wines, which I've mentioned enough times here.

At home I very rarely cook. I do rely on a woman, my wife of course, to prepare healthy and delicious meals and our family is better for it. I still love to cook, but only when we do dinner parties ... which happens about 2-3x/month on average. After putting out 5 banquets/day serving an average of 2,000 people a daily for those weeks in the hotel, nothing would ever seem hard again in a kitchen. A long and crazy story of life cooking and workign ITB.

Nowadays with celebrity chefs everywhere imaginable, I have no regrets having walked away from the culinary end of the business. Wine is so much more civilized.

[Eric Menchen]

... So I hung in an banged out 4-6 banquets a day, took a room in the hotel which saved me two hours of commuting which translated into 2 of my 5 hours of sleep. After week two of six in this dual-role, I was almost on auto-pilot and adrenaline, the zone you hear some chefs talk abouot.

That reminds me of a summer in college I worked two jobs, 8-3 or so at a Pizza Hut, then 4-close at a country club. I had one full day off that summer. But I saved enough money (didn't have time to spend it) to buy my own computer, and the following summer realized I could make more money in less time doing graphic arts. The next year I figured out I could make more money writing the graphics arts/CAD interface programs. I would never do it again, but I'm glad I did it then.

Hosted a dinner this evening with the owners of our favorite restaurant, one of whom is the chef. Mostly Khmer cuisine: marinated pork ribs for an appetizer, red chicken curry for the main with sides of cucumber salad, banana blossom salad, and a pomelo salad with toasted coconut. I wanted to serve a Port with dessert, so abandoned the Cambodian theme for the goat cheese cheesecake with red grape compote along with a 1985 Burmester.

[Roy Hersh]

What, no Khmer Ruby?

[Eric Menchen]

What, no Khmer Ruby?

No, the Khmer Rouge is bad, very bad.

[Michael Hann]

Roy: Thanks for sharing your story. Others may have been familiar with it, but I was not. Your story was very effective at conveying the hardships of a chefs life. Another aspect of that hardship is WHEN you put in your hours. I imagine that most successful cooks/chefs are working during family prime time -- nights and weekends -- and that this must make any kind of family life very difficult. However successful, however well remunerated, however famous a chef may be, I would not envy their life ever.

[Roy Hersh]

Having MANY friends who are real chefs and having done my tour of duty ... I can say one thing, there is this weird thing that takes over the mindset of a chef and more so, a chef/owner ... that they can never leave their baby with the baby sitter. It is odd and impossible to explain ... yet, it IS. Many wind up staying put in jobs they like where the owner may treat them well, pay them well, provide perks and vacation time. But when it comes to USING their vacation time ... they rarely do, because whether ego or insecurity or workaholism ... whatever gets into the common mindset of Chefs ... and I believe this to be a widespread phenomenon that I have come across for several decades. They simply won't make the time to take the time to use all of their vacation time. It is a crazy thing, like if they're not there, the restaurant won't survive without 'em.

That was never me. OTOH, I was willing to deal dollars for weeks of vacation when it came time to negotiate raises or new positions. I loved getting away and left work behind and did not take it with me like some.

My last boss who owned two restaurant chains, married this gorgeous young woman and had a 2nd family with her (he'd been married/divorced twice) a really great man worshipped by managers and employees alike ... a rarity. He takes a 1 week vacation after I was with the company 3 years ... and he's a MULTI-millionaire who bought Ken Griffey Jr.'s home when Griffey moved to Cincy years ago (before coming back here). While on a beach vacation with his wife and three young kids in Hawaii, I get a phone call from him.
Roy: "John, you're on vacation man, where are you calling me from?"
John: "Don't worry, I'm on the beach with my family. Stacy's in the water with them and I just wanted to check how the butter deal is coming along."
Roy: "It's going fine, no sweat ... but John, go enjoy being away from here."
John: "Everything's cool, just checking on some loose ends and wanted to see how you're making out?"
Roy: "Look, the deal is gonna be done in two weeks, you'll be back long before that. Do us both a favor and don't call me again this week. I'll see ya next Monday, ok?"
John: "Yeah alright, transfer me through to Bill, please (our corp. chef).
Roy: "Your unbelievable, hold on ..."

Restaurant business ... the things they never want to disclose.

[Roy Hersh]

Ok, now back to "Do you like to cook?"

I won't bud in again.

[Peter W. Meek]

...like if they're not there, the restaurant won't survive without 'em. ...

Worse: what if it does survive?

[Eric Menchen]

Thus we hosted the restaurant owners/chef for dinner on a Monday night, when they're closed.

[Glenn E.]

Well the Fondue de Poulet a la Creme is gone, so I'm cooking again tonight. I'm experimenting with Port in a pulled Pork recipe.

3.5 - 4 lbs Pork Loin Roast
1 onion, quartered and sliced (or rough chopped)
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
2 T butter
salt
pepper
paprika
0.5 T liquid smoke
0.5 cups Tawny Port
2.5 cups water

Cut the pork loin into large pieces so that it'll fit in your Crock Pot. Brown in butter on all sides, seasoning with salt and pepper. Once brown, remove from heat, season with paprika, and place in Crock Pot.

Add onion and garlic to the pan the pork loin was browned in, scraping up all the yummy bits. Saute until onion is beginning to turn translucent. Add Port and bring to a boil but do not reduce. Add water and liquid smoke and once again bring to a boil. Pour mixture over pork loin in the Crock Pot. The pork loin should be almost - but not quite - completely covered by the liquid. If you need more liquid, add more water to get it within an inch of covering the meat.

Cook on high for 6 hours.

I'll tell you how it turns out!