Harvest America CUES BLOG

There are films that become representative of a generation and sometimes of a life lesson – occasionally both. We remember a line or two that is always there to remind us, to give us pause, or inspire us to reconnect with something or someone. Those from my generation will remember lines like: “Who are Those Guys” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; “You Can’t Handle the Truth” from A Few Good Men; and “Play it Again, Sam” from Casablanca, but it was Mr. Miyagi who taught us all a lesson in The Karate Kid with the mentor’s line: “Wax On, Wax Off, Young Grasshopper.” In other words – patience and persistence – it takes time to build the skills and knowledge necessary to get to your destination.

So, here you are – a young first year cook or maybe a freshman culinary student; a seasoned line or banquet cook, or maybe even a newly appointed sous chef in a property. You are enthusiastic, quick to learn, a little cocky, a bit overconfident, and extremely impatient. You want more! Maybe you picked up quickly on the restaurant menu and what was demanded of your station on the line, or as a second semester student you are feeling underchallenged and certain that you can handle anything. Quite possibly you were promoted to a sous chef position at the restaurant where you have worked for the past two years and feel that you are as good as the chef and should be in line for his or her position quickly. In all cases I would encourage you to take a step back, breathe deep, put down your knife, and check your enthusiasm for right now.

The fact of the matter is: “Wax On, Wax Off” is great advice. Patience, knowing that you probably don’t know what you don’t know, and fall back on perfecting what you do know first, and realize that when you are ready, you will be ready.

Each part of your progression in the steep ladder to a chef position is important and each new step builds on the last. So, think about this progression for a moment:

[]       That dishwasher position prepares you to understand organization and how to clean. It shows you how the kitchen works and helps to qualify who the players are and what their roles might be. It gives you a chance to demonstrate work ethic and your ability to be part of a team. It is one of the most essential positions in the kitchen, operated by a person who is responsible for the single most expensive piece of equipment and one of the costliest inventories (China, flatware, glassware). The dishwasher position teaches you to be humble and service oriented. Without spending adequate time in the dish pit – a cook will rarely learn how important these lessons are. When dishwashers advance to their first cook position, they carry with them an appreciation for the person who cleans, stacks, and delivers the canvas for their work. Wax on, wax off.

[]       Your first prep position is, in my mind, one of the best opportunities to teach someone how to cook and work in a professional kitchen. This is where real cooking CAN take place. The line cook is the finisher, the person who dots the “I’s”, but in-depth cooking is more likely to occur in the prep area. The prep area is where you learn how to manage knife work, where you discover the basic cooking methods and the why and how of cooking, where you learn about stocks, and soups, and sauces, foundational butchery, product identification, setting up a workstation, sanitation, and food safety, and following standard procedures to attain consistent results. Everything that happens in the prep station impacts every other part of the kitchen. Cooks need to take the time to learn everything they can in this area and have the patience to work at it until everything becomes second-nature. YOU WILL NEVER BE A CHEF unless you have mastered these foundational skills. Wax on, wax off.

[]       Ah, working the line. Fry station, sauté, broiler or grill, and expeditor. This is “camp adrenaline” – where the action lives and where young cooks get their sea legs. This is where cooks earn their swagger and success is drawn from the number of covers served, the number of mistakes made, and the beauty of the plate. What is unique about these positions is that this is where cooks learn to build their palate, begin to understand the inter-dependance of cooks, find out how to assemble beautiful plates of food considering color, texture, and design, develop the skill to cook to definitive degrees of doneness, create workstations as exacting as the cockpit on an airplane, and build their speed (their chops). Everyone admires the line cook and the line cook knows it – thus the swagger (sometimes ill-founded). Not everyone can be a great line cook, not everyone can be that organized and that fast without skipping a beat – so when you hit your stride on sauté or grill, you are the rockstar of the kitchen. Wax on, wax off.

The expeditor (sometimes the sous chef or even a seasoned dining room captain) is the conductor of the orchestra. He or she keeps the pace and knows when to slow things down or speed them up. The expeditor can balance the needs of the front and the back of the house and keep the peace. The expeditor (if they are good) can solve problems in the moment and keep the chaos of a restaurant in check. How could a cook ever expect to wear the chef’s signature jacket until they can orchestrate and solve problems in the moment? Wax on, wax off.

[]       The sous chef is the second in command – the person who is the lead operations manager. Sous chefs are trainers, schedulers, production managers, quality control geeks, motivators, timing engineers, communicators, organizers, and roundsmen able to fill in any position where they might be needed. To be a sous chef is to be a talented cook who has mastered all other positions from prep cook to garde manger, butcher to sauté, and expeditor to – yes – dishwasher. It takes time and patience to earn and be ready for this role – second in command to the chef. Wax on, wax off.

[]       The chef is a position that is earned over time – time filled with countless experiences that prepare the individual to hire, teach, train, build teams, discipline when necessary, create concepts, build menus of all types, design recipes and build production systems around them, budget, control costs, create a restaurant brand, negotiate with vendors, exceed the demands of sanitation and food safety, define standards of excellence and have the ability to model them, create supportive work environments, and know how to be the face of the operation through the creation of a powerful “feel” and connections with the guest. The chef’s job is very complex and not for the faint of heart. The chef is not an employee but rather more the parent of the kitchen and we all know that a parent’s job is never done. So, to be a chef you must have the skills, the experiences, and the willingness to be “all in”. Wax on, wax off.

So, if you find yourself somewhere in this model of career building and feel anxious to move up, then know that patience and commitment will get you there when you are ready – and not before.

Wax on, wax off, young grasshopper.

PLAN BETTER – TRAIN HARDER

Harvest America Ventures, LLC

Restaurant Consulting

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