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Kitchen Secrets & Hyperbole & Megalomania
Let’s face it. Much of the food business in this and other urban meccas is all about “the buzz” and the hype – short for hyperbole, which simply means exaggeration. Those of us who love food – who can almost cry over a perfectly prepared steak au poivre – certainly do engage in a fair amount of hyperbole when we are describing the art that we love.
On the flip side is the Hartesküchenrealität – or, the harsh reality of life in the kitchen. There are the realities of running a business: vendors, inventory, food costs, labor costs, hiring staff, training, complying with the myriad laws that govern the industry, and many other things that cooks and sous chefs simply do no have to deal with. And on top of that, the executive chef must sell his concept, dream and style to the kitchen staff and the front of the house.
All chefs want their kitchen crews to believe in the food in the same way that they do. But human beings are notoriously fickle when it comes to buying into someone else’s dream. Many young culinary professionals are eager to work in the best kitchens – they are enthusiastic and maybe even star struck to be working side by side a chef whose culinary reputation is beyond pale. The idea is that you learn as much as you can from the Masters and then go out on your own. No one steps out of culinary school with the teeth to man the helm of a restaurant that represents millions of dollars in investments and with everything on the line. It takes years of experience – bottom line.
Once, I was talking to Matt Seeber, former executive chef at the now-closed Bid, about what it was like to step back and take the role of Chef de Cuisine under Michael White. He told me that was glad for the opportunity to work under Michael, who himself paid his apprenticeship dues in Italy.
“I still have a lot to learn,” Matt said. “There are so many ways to fuck up.”
He is right. There is more to running a kitchen than designing a dish and having your face plastered on the glossy hype handouts. The pressure can be immense. Everyone feels it, no matter how great a leader the executive chef is. Every night is like opening night. If there is a stereotype for Broadway actors buckling under the pressure to perform, there should also be one for kitchen staff. Kitchens can boil over with drama.
I have seen a grill cook pick up a cleaver, run from the kitchen and chase a diner who sent a grilled trout back to the kitchen. I have seen front of the house managers break down and weep because the kitchen was out of time – and the kitchen was out of time because all the dishwashers were poached by a new restaurant that offered them all a dollar an hour more. I have seen a cook jump over a steam table to attack another cook who had flirted with his wife. I have been screamed at by an executive chef because I asked him the wrong question at exactly the wrong time (and it was quite a well-seasoned rant in my face, I might add). I have fired a chef for dropping a food item on the floor and then serving it. None of this is shocking or even news to people in the profession.
As a Spanish chef once told me, “There is nothing so like a kitchen than another kitchen.”
But those of us who have and who do work in the industry know that no kitchen exists without its share of pressure, drama, tears and disappointment. A sous chef can feel that his/her carefully designed special is the ultimate creation, only to have the executive chef dismiss it. Feelings can get hurt. After all, this is an art form and it can get very personal.
It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that someone like Doug Psaltis can write a book venting about how everyone in the business is full of hot air. But he hasn’t been truthful about his own role in things. In his own way, he is attempting to grade those who have graded him, a very adolescent way to take on the hyperbole that obviously has been bothering him all those years.
He did admit to the New York Times that he, too, was guilty of showing anger in the kitchen, which he explained away as part of his Greek identity.
Those of us with Greek and other Mediterranean blood coursing through us give him the open-handed salute. Ethnicity is simply not an excuse for acting like an ass. Psaltis seems to be like a puff-pastry plumped with megalomania.
For those culinary professionals dedicated to their art and constantly striving to perfect it, we salute you. We know that life in the kitchen is not like everyone sees on the Food Network. We know that it is hot, demanding work and that every night is like opening night.
My brother-in-law apprenticed with some of France’s most famous – and demanding – chefs, and worked hard to earn the respect of Passard, who allowed him to run the kitchen at Arpege. But ask him and he will tell you that in order to get there he had to be humbled more than once – and he will be humbled again. That is part of the territory.
Like the hyperbole that Psaltis seems to be reacting to (and with more than a little spite and revenge), the buzz surrounding his book will die down and the text will have to rest on its own merits. Let’s see if it garners even half the respect that French Laundry and the many professionals he “exposes” have.
Tags:
drama, hype, hyperbole, passard
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Posted on 10/6/2005
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