I have spent my career as a Chef ruling my kitchens as a Meritocracy. My welcome speech to new line cooks🎶🎵 goes a little something like this.Hit it! 🎶🎵🎶
Welcome to Thunderdome, bitch! From the moment you walk in the door of my kitchen you are no longer male or female, black, white, brown, yellow, purple or green or rainbow. You cease to be gay, straight or anywhere in between. Nothing matters above getting the job done, correctly and in a timely fashion. Except, having to drop a deuce. That takes priority.
You are line cooks! While you are on the clock, that is all you are and that makes you better than most of the people in the world. Because they can barely feed themselves and we can feed hundreds if not thousands of people a night. Be proud of what you do, take pride in your work and don’t be afraid to ask questions if you don’t know for sure. Nobody in the kitchen will give you shit, for real, if you ask what you think is a stupid question. We will all take great pleasure in watching you suffer if you fuck something up because you were too proud or felt too ashamed to ask. I have a list of special cleaning tasks, specifically for such persons.
Last but least. This is the most important thing to the health and growth of a Kitchen. I may be The Chef, “The Boss”, but I will never not listen to anyone’s ideas for a recipe, change in a procedure or anything job related. If you are new to our world and have ideas, don’t be afraid to say something. If you have come up with an idea that someone already thought of, that’s great! It means you are thinking right.
If you are a veteran of the Food Service then I guarantee your journey through the world of food has been different than mine. How about a game of Food Idea Ping Pong? The recipe I used for years for fish taco marinade was my dishwasher José’s Mom’s recipe from when he was a kid in Oxacca. I’m open to any ideas, especially delicious ones with low food cost and high contribution margins.
We the F%#n' People 