I am not sure if this has ever been done. I know I have not participated in one yet.
I have been cooking or working in the food industry for nearly 25 years.
Outside of restaurants and directly cooking I have:
[ul]
[li]Managed a natural health food store and deli[/li][li]Managed and organic produce department. [/li][li]Managed the grocery department in an upscale grocery store[/li][li]Managed also dairy and seafood departments in upscale grocery stores[/li][li]Acted in a movie soon to be released as a cook[/li][li]Roasted coffee and trained as a barista under national barista champion.[/li][li]Professional coffee taster meeting nationally recognized standards. [/li][/ul]
Won several awards for cooking.
In the cooking world:
[ul]
[li]Owned a successful restaurant.[/li][li]Worked in many types of restaurants. Fast food, family dining, catering, upscale, dinner houses, bakeries pizza, ski resorts and more.[/li][li]Cooking at sea on a scientific research vessel. Cooked at sea on a private charter filming a movie. Both in the Aleutians as far as Adak and St Mathew Island andTthe Pribs. [/li][li]I have cooked in jail and prisons. [/li][li] I have cook on the North Slope Oil Fields running work camps and cooking and baking. [/li][/ul]
I am a confidant baker, pastry chef and cook. I can cook every type of cuisine form weeding cakes to exotic foods and health remedies.
I work and have worked 115 hour work weeks regularly my records are more than that and could be unbelievable. I am currently only working 75 hour weeks that will go up a bit for the holidays. This is considered easy to me.
Food is my world although I do find other tasks more interesting like repairing things and computer building and repair. and fine art giclee printing. I am a true obsessive compulsive.
I cook so i don’t go completely crazy.
Ask anything about food at all from gardening to commercial fishing, cooking/baking to event planning and wine exct.
I’m not a gormet by any stretch of the imagination, but does Iron Chef make your blood boil like it does mine. If so, are there any other food shows or personalities that annoy the hell out of you? (assuming you either have the time to, or care to watch the Food Network)
[ul]
[li]How hard do you find yourself critiquing the food in other establishments?[/li][li]Is there anything customers order that makes you roll your eyes? Does it bother you to have to cook a steak well-done for instance?[/li][li]Do you focus more on the flavour of the dish or the presentation? I think the presentation of a dish affects my enjoyment of the food in a very subtle way and I wish more chefs paid attention to it.[/li][li]Do you have a favourite dish to cook which you’ve made many times over the years yet still never tire of.[/li][li]Do you make everything from scratch?[/li][/ul]
Which one of those things are you doing now and has the downturn in the economy (assuming you’re in the U.S.) caused any problems for your business?
How do you feel about wearing gloves during food preparation? For example, do you believe that it ‘protects’ the food from contaminants or maybe that it gives kitchen staff a false sense of security or somewhere in between.
I’m a Professional Caterer and I may have more questions depending on your answers to the above.
I like Iron Chef. Don’t be fooled in thinking they don’t know the secret ingredient though. They probably knew weeks ahead if not more. It is still a difficult contest. I have competed in several just like it locally. It is a harder than it looks weather or not you know the ingredient.
My favorite all time TV chef is Jeff Smith of the Frugal Gourmet. He was my inspiration. I use to skip school to watch it. I have not watched a show in many many years I think I may dig up a few old episodes.
Alton Brown is great to aside from the entertaining theatrics he actually kinda know what the hell he is doing.
I don’t think I give enough time the the others to actually get annoyed by them.
**How hard do you find yourself critiquing the food in other establishments?
**
I don’t really. I can turn off my chef hat. I also understand that not all restaurants missions are to put out amazing food. Some offer inexpensive dishes some atmosphere others late hours or convenience or location. Eating out is kinda a gamble. If you know what you are looking for though you can increase your odds. You cant have everything. I have cooked at over 25 places and have gotten to be a good judge before I even go into a new place. I rarely get burned anymore. Even in a new city. And I am great at picking out people for recommendations. If the place has a great view I don’t eat there. Also a don’t like fancy restaurants all that much and don’t go to them even though I will cook at them.
I like out of the way, funky, weird, dirty or unusual places.
Is there anything customers order that makes you roll your eyes? Does it bother you to have to cook a steak well-done for instance?
Not any more. Most younger or rutted cooks respond poorly to things like that. I like making people happy.
I meet almost any request even weird or annoying. They have been responded to poorly in the past I am sure and I like to graciously give them their request. It makes them so happy. I don’t serve judgment with my food.It is a poor ingredient and my servers are instructed not to bring it to the table.
Do you focus more on the flavour of the dish or the presentation? I think the presentation of a dish affects my enjoyment of the food in a very subtle way and I wish more chefs paid attention to it.
I have a knack for presentation. It comes easily to me kinda like a brush stroke to a painter. I know I am good at it and it takes little effort for me. I can make a side dish of avocados look great. So I pay more attention to flavor. But only because I am skilled at placement. Do you have a favourite dish to cook which you’ve made many times over the years yet still never tire of.
Yes, but I never cook it for others. Just myself.
Do you make everything from scratch?
In a restaurant setting yes. Kinda in an over the top way. I make my own bread, tortillas, mayo, jam, sausage. And that is just for breakfast items. I am not currently making my own English muffins and that causes me much guilt and pain. I make my own pasta, soda sometimes, and ICe cream, and desserts. Well to answer the question directly mostly yes. I do rely on prepackaged stuff form time to time. I have no beef with it. Scratch is just the way I am. I have an unusual amount of energy and I am ocd. At home prepackaged all the way. But if I run out of mayo in 10 seconds can make more. Same with just about anything.
No. I do not cast judgment on them I just prefer a nice lidded cast iron casserole and an oven.
How accurate are Anthony Bourdain’s descriptions of the cooking world?
Very biased and skewed for entertainment in the show but closer in his first book.
The show though is really a travel blog and not a food show. The book was close.
What brand of knives do you use?
Ones that feel good in my hand and are the right type for the job. I use to be a knife snob but not any longer. I prefer cheaper knives that I can toss about. The cheap Forchenrs are surprisingly good for price, durability and and ease of sharpening, but this is not an endorsement. If it feels good in your hand and you get a good safe grip and it is the right knife for the job that is the right knife. There is to much hubaloo in that department in my opinion. Ask a master mechanic what tools he uses. He probably has a pile of them and grabs one that fits. hundreds of brands. I bet it aint nothing special. Same with art brushes and the like. Learn to sharpen hold and use them. Much more important than buying and showing them off.
**
Can you really tell how well done a piece of meat is by pressing on it? How many steaks did you have to cook to be able to do it?**
Yes. And other foods as well. Pasta, veggies, burger, eggs, chicken, cake, portabellas. !00’s to do it with little fail. I still check from time to time to calibrate myself. In fact I tent to check more often as I get older and my results become more important. My rep is getting greater and I would really rather not miss cook a steak at this point in my carrier.
Not to butt in on the o.p.'s prerogatives, but this is actually fairly easy to do (for steaks or fillets) and takes only a modest amount of experience. You just need to be scientific about where you place the steaks on the grill and the system by which you rotate them. If you ever get the chance to see an open kitchen (i.e. where there is a window to the grill, typically in barbeque steak joints) you’ll see the cook organizing steaks systematically. Really, grilling becomes almost automatic once you get the hang of it. Saute cooking and expediting are actually technically more difficult than grilling. I can teach an average person to be a competent grill cook in two or three shifts if they have any brains at all; teaching someone to saute correctly is more of an art, and expediting (the organization of orders and final presentation of the plates) is something that takes months if not years of experience for most people to become competent at.
Which one of those things are you doing now and has the downturn in the economy (assuming you’re in the U.S.) caused any problems for your business?
My business is summer only and last summer was the 4 year. Every year was much better than the previous. I took a winter job at a local cafe and B&B. This weekend was the busiest in their 5 year history. So no.
How do you feel about wearing gloves during food preparation? For example, do you believe that it ‘protects’ the food from contaminants or maybe that it gives kitchen staff a false sense of security or somewhere in between.
Gloves do absolutely nothing for food safety. I still use them for certain tasks though, but not for sanitary purpose.
Hard to say. Just rinsing them off maybe 35-100 times. Soap and lather 10-35 times.
Anyone can chime in. Fell free.
This is largely true. A good busy place is hundreds of steaks though. There is something else too. Timing. It becomes inate after many years. I know when cookies or bread or rice is done. It is in my blood now. There is an auto timer in my nervous system. I stil use timers but they are mainly calibrators for myself.
I am probably not gonna reopen this summer. I own all my equipment and I am moving it into storage. I will open another soon. I am making plans. Right now I am enjoying myself here. As far as “Is it worth it?” Only if you hate yourself and money, have a large ego to feed and lots of energy. For me that means yes.
Although I currently live in Alaska I buy as local as absolutely possible.
Factory farming is just that. I am not gonna say that it is bad for the world as a whole. I think it possibly serves a purpose just not mine.
Ingredients are possibly the most important thing to consider when cooking. My history in natural food stores and organic produce has possibly slanted me a bit. I am not a health food nut by any means but I do pay very close attention as to where my stuff comes form and whats in it. I am not saying I wont ever use a factory raised animal to cook with but I will go to lengths to avoid it. There is a level of pride and care one will take when you know the person who delivers the product the owner of the company and where they got it from. It is comforting to me. I don’t like the disconnect I associate with large companies. I do not use a mass food distributor. I get my ingredients form many separate vendors and local farmers.
Farm raised salmon is a hot topic up here. And buying local or Alaskan fish is relevant to my interests.
I have celiac’s disease and therefore can not have any wheat-based ingredients.
Some restaurants try to be accomodating about gluten-free foods. But how confident should I feel that my gluten-free meal is really not coming in to contact with anything that has had any wheat or flour on it?
IIRC, weeks ahead of time the contestants are told four things that it could be. At least, that’s the closest thing to official that I’ve read on the subject.
Cook’s Illustrated/America’s Test Kitchen recommends the Forschner chef’s knife, paring knife, and boning knife as their top picks (or close to top) in those knife categories. Grip is really important; I discovered that I couldn’t distinguish which side was up just by feel on a Global paring knife that I had (it was very symmetrical in look and feel), and I would keep putting it down on my cutting board with blade pointed away, then pick it up such that the blade would be pointing up at me. I knew someday I was going to make a very bad mistake that way, so I got rid of it, even though it had been pretty expensive. (Absentmindedly putting out a finger to steady the spine of the blade for a cut, only to find out in a painful fashion that it wasn’t the spine, would have been worse.)
Grip is really important; I discovered that I couldn’t distinguish which side was up just by feel on a Global paring knife that I had (it was very symmetrical in look and feel), and I would keep putting it down on my cutting board with blade pointed away, then pick it up such that the blade would be pointing up at me. I knew someday I was going to make a very bad mistake that way, so I got rid of it, even though it had been pretty expensive. (Absentmindedly putting out a finger to steady the spine of the blade for a cut, only to find out in a painful fashion that it wasn’t the spine, would have been worse.)