EmptyHighway

The Chez Panisse Kitchen. From Left to Right in the foreground Chez Panisse cooks Paula, Chef Phillip, and Extern Shaina.

At the end of December 2005, I graduated from The French Culinary Institute's Culinary Arts program. Shortly after I ventured out to California to try out for a position with Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, California. In the first week I was there,I began to despair over just how little a culinary program could prepare one for working in a professional kitchen, especially as short a program as the one I completed, 9 months. I didn't get the job. Yet the chefs offered me a chance to come back for a short 3 week internship as they liked me and wanted to work more with me.

I just finished my second week working at the Café (first of the 3 week internship) and I still haven't lost my respect for the way they run the restaurant. Each day my admiration and appreciation for the way they run things there increases. Also, I've learned to put my education at the FCI into perspective. I think it did give me just enough to jump start my abilities in a professional kitchen and not be a complete nuisance. However, I feel working for free for a period of months could do the same.

The standard internship at Chez Panisse, or Chez Panisse Café is usually 6 months. I'm sort of filling a gap between interns. I can say one thing, its worth every dollar I'm spending to be here and working with them. I wish I'd been experienced enough to get a job here as it is probably the best choice of kitchens to work. Everyone that works there is deadly serious about food, cooking and sustainability. Still, it is one of the smoothest, well-balanced work/life experiences I've ever seen in a professional kitchen.

Mind you, I've a fairly limited experience working in kitchens. I've worked in two fairly small bistros and merely staged in one larger kitchen (not including the school kitchen of L'Ecole of course). Nonetheless, from what I've read over the years, people I've talked to about their experiences, it sounds like the best and most thoughtfully designed restaurant (perhaps workplace) in the United States.

Alice Waters may not be a goddess, and may be put too high on a pedestal by many across the food world, yet judging by the legacy and good works alone she's built here in Berkeley, I would have to say it is a model to be replicated, not ridiculed.

Spend any time in the Chez Panisse kitchen and one learns very quickly, how confidence with ingredients, experience, freshness, and a desire to work sustainably and create wonderful, beautiful and delicious food has created this one spot in the country where a cook can feel at home and delight over every workday.

Undeniably, here in the Bay Area of California, they have the best seasons and the most access to probably the widest variety of fresh, organic, local and sustainably raised or produced foods in the world. But this didn't happen over night. It has taken Alice Waters and the staff of Chez Panisse over 30 years to build their reputation, their network of local farmers and producers and spread the word of why we should all think about these things and work in a more sustainable and thoughtful way and more to the point, why it works so well.

I can't help but be thankful for the experience, however short, working here in the Chez Panisse kitchen. Everyone that works there, is knowledgeable and adds something unique to the kitchen repertoire and everyone is given a chance to contribute creatively in some way on a daily (I would dare say hourly) basis. Hands down the best and most challenging kitchen I've worked in.

Just yesterday, it was near the end of the day (actually well past when I was supposed to leave, which is discouraged there but I kept quiet about it so I could do and see more) and I was de-stemming some spinach for dinner service in the cafe (the spinach was later served with paneer made that day by Nikki--for the first time in the kitchen). I was tired, my shoulders hurt and I had strained my neck tripping up the stairs earlier in the day. So, I guess was moving a bit too slow on the spinach. Chef Cal was working across me. When he finished what he was working on, I'm guessing not just to help me out but also to help pick up my pace, he casually started helping me. And just him working there across from me, helped me speed up and remind myself that I could always move faster and find better ways to do things in the kitchen.

Now, for those of you who've never worked in a kitchen, particularly a New York kitchen, this is unique in that in other kitchen's, to try to get you to move faster, you'll either get yelled at to hurry up or be given unsubtle dirty looks. At Chez Panisse, that does not happen, rather than dissuade you by intimidation as I've experience in other kitchens, they actually help you and use more subtle methods, like asking you where you are at and suggesting moving on to something else for now, or doing like Cal and chipping in until you get faster. Leading by example. What a concept.

I wish all kitchens could be as gracious, inspired and thoughtful about the process of cooking, but for now we can still look to Chez Panisse Café and Chez Panisse to shine a light on dark kitchens across the land.

Posted by wayne at 04:22 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

A few weeks ago I found out about a Scholarship that would: pay room, board fees, and transportation to Washington D.C. to participate in a "Conference of Leaders" organized by Share Our Strength. Like many things, I got my essay in on the last day, just in the nick of time.

A few days ago, I got an email confirming that I was one of 20 culinary students from across the nation selected as a finalist to attend the conference, and assist in service for their "Hurricane Relief Taste Event" on October 17th, 2005. As always I feel lucky. Lucky to have the opportunity to write on such an interesting topic, lucky enough to be able to email in my essay, lucky enough to be considered good enough to attend, and lucky enough to have the support and help that I've had at pursuing my interest in cooking and food. And more than anything it will be great to be able to have a hand in raising money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, of which to date I was only able to give $75, and was feeling pretty down.

In addition I'll get to meet great leaders and chefs from around the country. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse is one of the featured speakers, a well known chef, writer and philanthropist who works hard to spread the news on organic and locally grown foods, and there is a laundry list of chefs from around the country that will participate in the conference and the benefit as well. It's a great opportunity to find out all the different ways and ideas that chefs are becoming leaders in their community.

I am thankful to all of my family and friends and sent them an email of thanks for all the support. But I wanted to thank a few people publicly for there undying interest in food and willingness to give all they can in guiding my interest in however they can.

Tracie, my love has been there from day one and her faith in me and my crazy ideas has been unwavering. My parents and close family, well you all know who you are and how you've helped me along the way. Thanks!

On the professional food front, I owe my most current debts to the amazing Chef Julie Farias and Laurent Saillard of iCi Restaurant in Ft. Greene - Brooklyn, NY, for their commitment to local and organic foods and love of food. I met Julie at a Share Our Strength, Taste of The Nation Event, hence it's funny how things come back around and are tied together. Thanks to Chef Josie Smith-Malove of Veliis for believing in me enough to get me to serve as her assistant at Taste of the Nation Brooklyn, and all the other crazy things she has taught me. Then there are the many Chefs and Students of the FCI that continue to amaze and inspire me. Thanks everyone!

Here is the question that was posed for the contest entries and the brief answer I came up with.

What is a chef's role in the community?

Vibrant and great communities come to fruition through the persistent labors of ordinary people sharing resources, conversations, experiences, pleasures and challenges. Leaders emerge over time based on their contributions. I believe that the primary role of chefs in their community is sharing experiences and knowledge and leading by example in ways that will inspire sustainable and positive growth through food and education about food.

Every decision a chef makes about the success and health of their business and menu can either enhance or detract from their community's growth. Chefs must always work to invest and strengthen their communities, by choosing to hire locally whenever possible, offer a living wage and benefits, provide a safe and healthy workplace, and work to inspire and encourage others to succeed and pursue their dreams.

Chefs can help enhance their communities by buying local goods and services whenever possible and establishing partnerships with local producers and farmers. When they buy locally they are making an investment in the local economy. When the community frequents establishments that rely on locally sourced goods it creates a demand for locally owned business establishments. Buying locally then becomes sustainable in that it creates a cycle of interdependence among the farmers, chefs and consumers that can enhance and strengthen the community.

Whenever possible, chefs can reinforce their investment by educating their customers and neighbors about why they serve locally produced foods and how it benefits the community. For example, buying locally brings fresher foods to their customers' tables. It also reduces the negative impacts on the environment caused by long and costly transportation of non-locally produced foods. In turn, when chefs establish relationships with proprietors and come to know the stories behind the food and share these stories, it expands and unites the community.

Chefs are the impetus for educating and inspiring people to care about the food they buy and eat. When chefs express interest and passion for locally produced food, they are sparking the fires of curiosity for local children and families. When a chef highlights the menu's local sources or appears down at the local market to perform a demonstration or give a talk on the local foods in use, the community will come to value investment in local resources and invest as much themselves to help shape their community in a more positive way. In turn, the members of the community are actively shaping and changing their attitudes towards consumption, politics and other aspects of community life. A chef's role in the community, to care and know as much as possible about the food he or she serves, becomes a foundation for positive change within the community.

Posted by wayne at 04:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

If you see one documentary this year, or in the next five, see this one, The Future of Food. We saw it yesterday and I was humbled and enlivened to see a problem illuminated along with a solution. The documentary has the tone of someone who sat through Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 and decided that it just was not as an effective way to get dialogue and movement around an issue as it could.

Deborah Koons Garcia, perhaps in response to Michael Moore's lackluster ability to highlight problems of our free-market economy and come off sounding hollow without following through on telling us really what we can do ( besides emailing our senators or protesting someone or something). The Future of Food does a fantastic job of illustrating the problem inherent in Genetically Modified Organisms as a basis for food, that their impacts on the environment haven't been researched enough, are supported and shoved down the world's throat by the one of the largest (monopolistic) agricultural conglomerates on the planet (Monsanto), the negative impacts on the farmer's key ability to harvest and reuse their own seed, and some steps we can and are already taking to reduce and hopefully reverse the impacts and potential impacts of GMOs on our lives and global food chain.

I've heard some critics content that the tone of the film was overly critical of GMOs and that they remain skeptical of such harsh criticism, yet I came away with no sketicism of the sort. I now understand that GMOs have good and bad impacts on harvest and food production and that the posited goods of GMOs are an exciting allure, but I am further cautioned towards being more selective about the foods I eat and will work towards cautioning others as well and spreading access to this cautionary tale. For if anything, we must continue to learn from history.

The Future of Food demonstrates that sometimes this history demands that someone shape the dialogue to affront your very sense of being in order for you to understand the sheer impact on your livelihood, and sometimes it takes a simple demonstration or act. This was Ms. Koons simple act, now it is our responsibility to further educate ourselves and one another. Sure, someday we may be ready for GMOs, but this film highlights the fact and reminds us that we have dashed into technological breakthroughs headlong before and ended up with our heads firmly planted in the sand. Let us not forget where the combustion engine takes us and is taking us, nor where the fires of atomic energy have taken us and who its taken away. Fear sometimes is the last resort in keeping we humans from taken that wrong step towards a perilous end. This movie strikes just enought fear into my own thoughts on food, to keep my fires burning a bit brighter.

The 20th Century brought great goods through industrialization and great perils. We've seen the demise of thousands of species and millions of humans at the hands of misused technological developments. In turn we've benefited from technological developments as never before. Today, I publish my own opinion a the blink of an eye and I can also find out as many facts and countervailing facts about as topic as my grandparents could come to understand in a lifetime. There is no denying that good comes from technological breakthroughs or the order and magnitude of GMOs, but there is also much evidence showing that in the wrong hands, and when laws become bent and abused to favor the few, the bad is more likely to surface than the good.

Posted by wayne at 01:32 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

For ages I've been in love with eating and cooking. When I look back on the times I spent with family and friends I can't even recall a time when we were not either sitting at a table or counter somewhere enjoying food, or in the process of getting it all together to entertain for a "little get together".

Being an itinerant southerner I'm always on the lookout for integrating old ideas of comfort and southern foods and the panache of European simplicity. I picked up Frank Stitt's Southern Table the other day at the Housing Works Used Bookstore and can't help but be overjoyed and immeasurably pleased with the book's presentation, photos, and Frank's writing.

It took a Southerner to inspire and remind me why some of these classical techniques and dishes of France that I'm learning at the French Culinary Institute are easily translatable towards enhancing and professionalizing any regional or ethnic cuisine. The southern table takes a wonderful glimpse into the making of a restaurant and the integration of integrity and ideals in a community integrated business. Some day I hope to open my own restaurant and market with as much integrity and quality as Mr. Stitt's and the book has reminded me that after school rather than going on some long journey abroad, learning from great masters there, I could stand to learn a few things about my own favorite regional cuisines.

Off to class, Pommes Tarte and Pate a Choux aux Chantilly tonight at the Patissiere station.

Posted by wayne at 03:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack