Hello chefs. You're listening to chefs.
PS a podcast. I'm your host on Trina.
Tara on today's episode we're going to do Q&A.
Stay tuned. So first, a quick update, what
have I been up to? I'll tell you what, the first
thing I'd like to talk about is I have a newsletter and I've
sent out so far two volumes of the newsletter.
I plan on sending out a new one, every Wednesday approximately.
So if you're interested in receiving the newsletter, go to
chefs, PS a.com. Go to the contact page and
scroll to the bottom and you should see a spot where you can
sign up for the newsletter. I plan on doing this
consistently. It will most likely like all
things evolve as I figure it out.
I appreciate feedback. If you've received Received the
news letter, let me know what you think, but I want to keep it
short Punchy to the point, you know, something four chefs
involving leadership something for everyone that works in a
kitchen and maybe something curious that I'm doing at the
moment. Speaking of something curious,
some interesting things that going on this week.
I don't know if everyone saw the Bocuse to your, it was an
incredible competition. I'm bummed the United States did
not win. I was all Team USA but
nonetheless, if you had a chance to check, It out.
I'd love to know what you think. I'm a big fan of watching those
culinary competitions. You get to see skill at the
highest level and congratulations to Denmark on
winning first place. They did an incredible job.
Anyway, the other thing that I'm doing is I started reading
unreasonable Hospitality by will get Dara and I gotta say it's a
great book. If you haven't read it I think
you should. It's really a lot of the things
that I believe in you. He talks a lot about culture and
building a culture and Leadership and empowering as
people and and how to build a strong team.
So, a lot of the same things that I'm preaching, I think.
I haven't disagreed with anything so far in his book.
I think we use different language sometimes, but I think
the point is always the same, and I would say that Probably
99% of the time. I'm going to agree with him on
what he's saying. So if it's a great book, if you
haven't had a chance to check it out unreasonable Hospitality the
new book by will gadara, I think it's fantastic.
And then the James Beard semifinalist list came out here
in the United States. So for those of you that are
unaware, James Beard is a organization here in the US,
they put on an annual Chef Awards restaurant Awards,
anyway, Cool to see a lot of the people on the list.
I know congratulations to a lot of my friends that are on there.
Shout out to Junior Borgess who good friend of mine, who is on
the outstanding Chef list. My friends anastacio Quinones,
Rick Lopez for mean Nunez to fell.
A lot of my Texas friends that that were nominated,
congratulations to all of you. Congratulations to all the
nominees. It'll be exciting to see who
wins. But anyway, enough about that.
Let's get into today's episode which is Q&A, and I got to say,
I got a lot of questions, a lot of the questions I've answered
before on other podcast. So I'm not going to get too much
into things that I've already discussed previously, but I will
try to get as many questions answered as I can if I can't get
to all of them, then maybe this warrants apart to.
Let me know if you want to hear a second part to this and I can
answer more the questions. But anyway, let's get into the
first couple of questions. So the first question is, how do
I as a young? Young aspiring Chef separate
myself from the other Cooks. And as stupid as this answer may
sound, I would say care more a lot of the times.
If you want to get noticed you have to care a little bit more
and sometimes it's not cool to care like you know it's kind of
have a flippant attitude in the kitchen or whatever and be cool
sometimes that doesn't work and it doesn't necessarily work for
the people that you're trying to impress the attitude of not
caring or I'll do more. When you pay me more isn't
usually the type of Of person that gets promoted in most
kitchens. Of course, there are outliers,
but I would say what I would do to get noticed is care
tremendously about what you're doing care about the food that
you're producing care about, showing up to work on time.
Be a professional, be polite to be engaged.
Listen, when people are talking take notes, I would say doing
all those things gets you noticed the things that don't
get you noticed is when you just kind of fall under the radar you
don't speak up. You kind of fall in the
background that person tends to not get noticed in and maybe
they do care a lot, but they're just quiet.
So, being involved being engaged demonstrating that you care
taking an active role in leadership, even though you are
not a leader. So I'll give you an example of
what I mean. Maybe it's like there's some
down time, you take it upon yourself, to go organize the
cooler. Those are the type of things
that get you noticed. Not just doing what you get paid
to do, but going above and beyond what you get paid to do.
That's what gets you noticed. I've talked about this on
another episode. I think it was the sous chef
episode. One of the things that I think
people fail to realize, is the attitude of I will do more when
you pay me more. And then there's someone else
that says I'll do it regardless of what you pay me when the time
for promotion comes up. Usually the person that did it
regardless will be the person that gets promoted. because, I
know as the person who's doing the promoting when the going
gets tough, this person has demonstrated that they will do
it. The other person is an unproven
Unknown commodity, will they do it?
When the time gets tough? Because they say, they'll do it
if you pay them. But will they really the other
person will do it, even if you don't pay them.
So if you are in a position to promote someone who are you
going to pick the person who will do it, even if you don't
ask them to do it or the person who will only do it if you pay
them more. I mean, if you run a business,
it's a no-brainer who you're going to promote.
A lot of people might not understand that concept.
I know I To a lot of people, you know, when I was a chef that,
you know, pay me more and I'll do more, those people, struggle
getting promoted. I could tell you with 100%
certainty. Trust me, I know what I'm
telling you, you have to demonstrate that you are willing
to do more than everyone else on your team.
Because the person that's willing to do more than everyone
else on the team and cares. More is the person that gets
promoted? Good question, though.
The next question I have here is, when is it time for a cook
to take a management position? Well, there's two ways to know
when you're ready. One, someone will tell.
You, so maybe your sous chef for your head, chef whatever will
come up to you and say, hey I think you need to start looking
into growing into a bigger role. You've demonstrated a lot of
leadership capabilities, maybe we want to move you up, so
sometimes they'll come and tell you when you're ready, when
everyone else knows you're ready, they will definitely let
you know. But also sometimes you're not
ready and you just got to take the leap of faith.
You got to just say, I'm going to jump in and learn how to
swim. And if you're not ready, you
might fail and you'll have to take a step back and reassess
and go back and figure out what you did wrong so you could get
better. But the only way to know is to
try and a lot of times in our careers, we get stuck and we're
paralyzed with fear because we're unsure if we're ready and
we hesitate and you can't do that.
If you think you're ready, then try it, ask maybe you're not
ready, but maybe you still go up to your Chef for your Mentor, or
whoever and say, hey, I think I'm ready.
Like to be considered from this position and they might say
great, let's put you under they might say you're not reading.
Here's what you need to do which is great also because now you
have something tangible that you could say I could go back and
work on this. I could go back and look at
these things that they said I need Improvement on and I'll go
and prove that. So that would be my advice.
You might be ready. You might not but there's only
one way to find out and that's just to jump in.
So there's not like a magic answer that says, this is how,
you know, because you could do all this.
But the fact of the matter is You just got to try, you got to
let it be known that you're interested.
You got to ask for it and sometimes you just got to lose
your fear and Jump Right In anyway, good question.
The next question I have is what is more important in the
restaurant food or Ambiance? And honestly, that's, that's a
difficult question to answer as a chef.
I'm always going to say food is more important, but if you don't
have a great restaurant, that matches the food, sometimes it's
a disconnected. It doesn't work out and I'll
tell you what, there's very successful restaurants on.
Both ends of the spectrum, right?
You could point to beautiful restaurants with terrible food,
that are very successful. They have a great Ambiance, the
music is great, the decor is beautiful.
The vibe is just humming. You have all these people in
there giving the room energy, but the food is man, it's
nothing, nothing memorable. And those restaurants are some
of the best restaurants and they're the most profitable
restaurants around. However, there's also
restaurants on the other end of the spectrum, you know?
Just, you know, a very humble dining room, maybe it's a food
truck. Whatever the case may be in the
middle of nowhere but people line up out the door to get the
food because the food is just that good.
Something that comes to mind is just like a simple restaurant
with light Decor, maybe just some wooden tables and, you
know, plastic chairs but there's a line out the door because
everyone wants to try the food because it's that amazing.
So an argument can be made either way.
I think you need to have strength on one end or the other
if if not both I mean obviously. Lie in an ideal setting, you
want strong Ambiance, strong food.
If I could choose just one, I would choose, I would probably
choose food. I would probably choose food
because I'm a chef at heart, right?
So food, first. But the businessman in me, says,
you know, I could have the most beautiful restaurant and good
service and the food could be, okay.
And the restaurant will still be busy.
So I don't know. An argument could be made either
way. It's a great question and it's
something that could be debated, and I'm sure you could list tons
of examples. Samples on both ends.
Beautiful restaurants that are profitable with mediocre food
and vice versa. This is a good question, it's
kind of long. So I'm going to, I'm going to
shorten it. But the gist of the question is,
how do you manage your culinary team?
When you don't get the support from ownership with regards to
the hours, in the pay to keep them and maybe they have to work
off the clock and do some illegal and unethical things.
I think if you're in a situation where you ever have to do
something illegal or unethical, you should stop because it's a
slippery. A slope and doing one thing then
leads to two things. And before, you know, it your
way on the other side of the line, and you're doing all sorts
of things that are unethical. I think you got to stop and
regroup, and I think you need to have a conversation with your
owners and say if this is what you expect me to deliver.
I cannot deliver with these parameters that you've given me,
and there has to be some form of compromise on the so either.
You as the chef need to look in the mirror and say maybe the
food that I'm trying to produce So maybe I'm punching above my
weight with the resources that I have.
Maybe my Cooks aren't skilled enough.
Maybe maybe I'm putting some ego in the dish that doesn't need to
be there. Maybe I need to pull back the
food into something, more simple based on the budget that I have
because you shouldn't compromise.
The Integrity of yourself as a chef and have to do unethical
things for the quality of food. In my opinion, just do the right
thing and if the food is if you have to pull back a little bit,
then you then you pull back a little bit so you could do the
right thing. So you need to let the ownership
know, either, we adjust the food that we're making.
Or you give more money for the resources that I need to do the
job. And if neither are willing to
budge, then it's probably a situation where you need to walk
away because you will end up doing something stupid, right?
You're going to end up doing something, harmful to yourself
to the restaurant to the owner, to the people that work for you.
So at a certain point, if it's not feasible, if you are
unwilling to adjust the quality of food and they're unwilling to
give you more money to do it than I think at a certain point
you got to walk away and say this is just this is just not
right for me and most likely it's not going to end in a good
situation. Anyway good question.
Very tough to answer without knowing the ins and outs of the
specific restaurant and specific owner but I think it's a very
common thing that I've seen throughout my career as you want
to push very high on the food, but you don't necessarily have
the resources to do it and ownership sometimes will drive
you and say, hey, we want more, we want more, you know, better
quality. Lower food, cost, etc, etc.
But there comes a certain point when it's unsustainable.
Ball and you as the chef need to stand your ground and I'll tell
you a story when I was, I think on my second executive chef
position and I was still very quiet and humble and shy around
some of the more senior Executives owners and things
like that, and my boss pulled me off to the side.
And this is actually wasn't even.
My boss, was my boss's boss pulled me off to the side and
said, hey you got to see it at the table, we pay you because we
want you to have a voice. So if you're just going to agree
with everything that we say, That you're not really bringing
any value. So you need to learn to have
your voice and you need to speak up on the things that you're
passionate about. That's why we pay you.
We pay you to lead in this position and if they just want a
puppet then maybe maybe that's not the right position for you.
So if you're put in a position of leadership and you're put in
a position to to be the expert, then be the expert and make sure
you voice your concerns professionally respectfully,
draw a hard Line in the Sand on. What's on what you're not
willing to compromise on. Anyway, good question though,
very difficult to answer but good.
And I hope that shed some insight maybe in how to handle
it. This next question is, what
could I do to be more professional in the kitchen and
culinary knowledge. Short answer, cook more work,
more in kitchens work around more professionals, work around
people that are better than you if you want to increase your
knowledge. The quickest way is going to be
to surround yourself with people that are at a higher level than
yourself. If you are at the highest level
and I put a PSA upon this, the other day, if you are the best
cook in the kitchen, you might be in the wrong kitchen.
Now, some people argue with me and said, well what about
leadership? If you're trying to develop your
leadership skills. Well, you could also learn
leadership skills around better leaders, now it's a fine line.
Maybe you don't want to leave the team that you're behind, but
at the end of the day, what's going to better you and your
career. So it's a tough decision.
Only, you can answer that. But if you want to get better in
the kitchen to quickest way is to routes, is to surround
yourself with people that are at a higher level than you more
skilled than you more knowledgeable than you.
If you're the most knowledgeable person in the kitchen sometimes,
that's good for your ego. Ego, but it's not good for your
growth. So that's the quickest way is
just to fully immerse yourself as a student, until you have a
harder and harder time finding places where you are not to the
student anymore and you'll be aware all of a sudden, you've
transitioned into, that teacher role into that leader role.
So that would be hopefully, that answers your question in a
simple way. This next question is when menu
planning? Do you start with an idea or do
you start with an ingredient? I start with both and it's not
so it's not so straightforward. I might be doing a seasonal menu
and I might be focused around specific ingredients.
So let's just say I'm doing a spring menu and it's lamb and
morels and asparagus and peas. And so I'm going to start with
the ingredients and other times maybe I'm walking through an art
gallery and I see a beautiful painting and the colors inspire
me and so I get an idea for something.
So I would say it really Ali happens both ways.
There's not, there's not a set in stone formula for people to
get creative. I would say, the, a good little
tip when it comes to getting more creative is to immerse
yourself in the idea of creative exercises.
You know, go to museums spend time in nature, talk to people
that are creative, go see artwork, all these things, start
to get the creative juices in your mind, simmering, and
flowing. And you start to See things
differently. There's a really good book that
I read long time ago. I'm see if I could remember the
title. Oh yeah.
It was titled. How to think like Leonardo
DaVinci and that is just a book. That's an exercise in
creativity. When you you know, obviously one
of the most creative people to have ever lived is Leonardo but
they said things like the way he would get creative like he would
lay down on the floor and look at things upside down and you
know, just he did everything to to stimulate his Creative
Energy. So that's a good book to use as
a reference, But to answer your question, there isn't a
one-size-fits-all answer to that.
So whatever is working best for you.
That's giving you the best results continue to do that,
right? So hope that helps.
The next question is, how can I improve my speed as a cook
because all my peers keep telling me I'm slow work,
faster. No, I'm just kidding.
Really just got to cook more you gain speed with experience.
But when you practice Practice really good technique and with
the idea that okay, how do I get faster?
Something I used to do is I would write down little goals
for myself. So let's just say, I was dicing
a case of tomatoes and I would say okay what was the time I'd
set the clock? Okay we did it in 30 minutes,
great tomorrow, let's try and get it in 28 minutes and the
next day, you know, 27 minutes. So always be pushing yourself to
just be a little bit more efficient, in whatever it is
that you're doing obviously with repetition and practice you will
get faster. Something I've I talked about
before, but I'll say it again here.
If this is the first time that that you're hearing, it is I
would go to the store and buy some inexpensive ingredients,
like a whole chicken, some potatoes, some onions and eggs,
I guess eggs aren't inexpensive these days with the price going
up. But anyway, I would get those
four things and you can make a lot of different things.
So, with your onions, you can practice your knife skills.
Julienne, brunoise, etc, etc. Dicing and slicing etcetera with
your chicken you could practice trussing Roasting butchering
deboning, making stock. Like, you could practice so many
things with that chicken brining, and so on, with your
potato, you could you could practice your torn.
Hey you could practice again, dicing brunoise julienne Etc.
You could also make mashed potatoes pommes, puree gnocchi
and on and on and with eggs obviously you could learn all
your different styles of egg cookery flipping eggs in a pan.
Making omelets different styles of omelettes, the American
style, the European style, the French omelet, and on and on.
But with Those simple ingredients and they're
relatively inexpensive, you could just continue to just
like, okay, I'm going to buy a sack of potatoes and I'm going
to brunoise all the potatoes and then you know, by the end of by
the end of that, I should be faster because you will have
repetition some reps under your belt.
I'll tell you a funny story is, you know, you, if you wanted to
learn how to brunoise, I had like, 50 cooks that I was
training on brunoise and that's all they do for like five hours,
there was just brunoise and then we'd get it, and then you'll
make soup out of There was like, so frustrated like wow, why do
you why do you do that with the brunoise?
It was like, well, because we don't need it.
And this is, this is practice, right?
And I was so picky about the brunoise, like, no, it has to
be, this has to be this, but this was just training.
And then when we got into the real world application, their
knife skills were like, honestly, people would come up
to be like, damn, their knife skills are so good.
How do you, how are your Cooks knife skills?
So good. It's like, because they just
practiced it all day long for days on end and I guarantee He
you some of those Kooks right now that have worked with me
during that specific period, their knife skills are probably
better than most Chef instructors that are teaching
knife skills. That's how good they are.
So, anyway, the key to get better at anything is
repetition. If you want to get faster, like
I said, just practice make it a point to be aware of the time
and then also just repetition. The next question I have here
is, what does an aspiring Chef need to keep in mind during
their education? I would say this and I'll keep
this answer. It is that it doesn't matter how
much you read or how much YouTube videos you watch or how
much Instagram you look at or how much vocabulary you have or
how well, you could explain, you know, the process of
lacto-fermentation, none of that matters.
The only thing that matters is, can you do it?
So I would say for an aspiring young Chef during your
education, remember, all of that is Theory until you could do it.
It doesn't matter that you have a very comprehensive vocabulary.
You can talk about it all day. Great.
Can you do it? Oh, you can't.
Then it doesn't matter. So I would say keep that in
mind. No one is impressed with what
you say, if you can't do it in the kitchen.
So if you're on the line, it doesn't matter that, you know,
all the terminology and that you went to the school and you have
this great degree. Okay.
Great. But can you do it?
No, then you don't know it, you don't truly know something until
you can do it. You might know how to talk about
it but you don't know. It fully this.
Next question is as a starter Chef who could not afford,
culinary education. What is your advice?
I would say just start working, find out what the best
restaurants are in your area and just go apply, even if it's as a
dishwasher, just get in those kitchens and let them know.
Even if you go in as a dishwasher, let them know.
I aspire to be a cook. I'll start in the dish station
and then when you see that, I'm ready and you see that.
I'm a hard worker. Will you move me up?
And if they don't move you up after a certain amount of time,
then you do you need to leave. But just getting into kitchens
getting into good kitchens as the key and surrounding
yourself. As I said before, with great
chefs, as probably the best education you could get
culinary. School is great and I'm not
knocking it. I've gone to culinary school and
it gives you a formal education, but it's just Theory getting in
and being able to do it is like I just said, more important than
the theory. So, actual knowledge is more
important. The next question is, which chef
would you rather hire a culinary school Chef or an entrepreneur
experienced Chef? I think it really depends on the
position. Sometimes for an entry-level
position, I don't want a super experienced Chef because they
might get discouraged in the end.
Level and sometimes four sometimes even for an
experienced position. I'd rather have someone
inexperienced because I want to teach them how I want it to be
done. Sometimes your education can be
a detriment and I'll tell you what I mean.
So let's say you've worked ten years in a certain type of
restaurant and I'm running a different type of restaurant and
then you come to my restaurant and you say, hey I want to be
the sous chef here because I have 10 years experience, and I
might say yes, but it's not in the style of food that I'm doing
or in the type of kitchen that I'm running.
So it doesn't match. H up and then maybe I make the
mistake and I hire this person anyway, and right away.
I see that was a mistake because they want to run it the way that
they ran it at the other place and it's completely different
from how I want it. So sometimes starting from zero
is better, it really depends on what you're looking for and
what's going to be best for your operation and there's a case to
be made for both ends. So it's not again, it's not a
one-size-fits-all answer, there is a lot of gray and a lot of
these answers. So I apologize for that.
But hey, life is Gray sometimes and I guess the best way to
answer it as make the right decision, make the right
decision based on the opportunities that have
presented themselves to you, for what you need, would probably be
the best thing I could say. Next question is, how do you
impress an interview having little experience in a
professional kitchen. So in my culinary leadership
fundamentals, book, I talk about this a little bit and I go
in-depth on, you know, make sure that your polished, make sure
you look like you're ready for the job that you're applying for
some, Apple tricks that I like to talk about is when you
introduce your purse yourself to the person shake their hand.
If you know of handshakes are thing, say your name, say I'm
Andre natera. Nice to meet you.
There can say hi, I'm Bill and you say hi Bill.
Nice to meet you. Bill may do you mind if I have a
seat try to use their name twice, it's just a little
psychological trick that I use is the sweetest sound to
everyone's ears is their own name.
So, say their name twice within the first 30 seconds smile.
Don't seat yourself, ask. If you can be seated, be
professional, have your They in hand, make sure your resume has
been proof, read. There's no typos.
Make sure your, your experience is correct.
Don't embellish people call each other and check on that.
Also, make sure that the dates are on there in position.
You don't want the person. Looking at your resume to have
to ask the questions to like oh here it says you're still
working there. You still working there.
Oh no I left two years ago whatever.
The case might be double, check your resume, make sure it's
accurate. And then the last thing I would
say that would impress during an View is I always say come
prepared with at least three questions.
Nothing is worse than an interview when you close it up
and you say do you have any questions?
They're like nope. I think you answered all my
questions that to me is one of the worst things you could do,
have three questions prepared and simple like you could ask
them, like, can you tell me a little bit about yourself,
what's your leadership style? Like whatever the case, maybe
just have some questions and the reason I say that is because one
you look like you're prepared and number two, everyone's
favorite subject is themselves. So if you ask them questions
about them, Selves, they will love to talk about themselves.
So one of the best things you could do in an interview is get
them to talk about themselves. They'll leave the interview
thinking boy, I really like talking to that person.
They were, they were a great conversationalist study body
language if you really want to get polished on interviewing
skills and something called NLP neuro-linguistic, programming,
that's something else you could study.
And that's just like subtle persuasion techniques that you
could use to get a slight Edge. Edge in the interview process.
So anyway, that's my advice there.
The next question is, how do you personally deal with impostor
syndrome? If you've ever had it?
I don't personally deal with it because I don't think I've had
it now. I know with imposter syndrome.
It's the idea of people being in a position or having a certain
amount of success that they feel that maybe they don't deserve,
or there's other people that are better than them.
I tone that noise down, I don't think about it.
I'm not into, I'm not in competition with anyone else.
I am in a Perpetual competition with my own mind and with myself
and I would encourage you to do that.
You're not competing with anyone else.
It doesn't matter if they're a better Chef than you, you're not
competing with them. You're competing with who you
were yesterday. That's it.
All you're trying to do is beat the person that you were
yesterday and be better than them.
So I would say, stop thinking about that stop comparing
yourself to others. It's a it's a dog, chasing, its
tail. It's never going to stop.
And there really is no reward because there will always trust
me. There's always someone better at
everything than you there's someone that knows more about
food. There's someone that's more
successful and you could use that as motivation for you to
get better. But it's not realistic for you
to compare yourself to someone because you have no idea what's
going on in their mind. The only thing that you could
control is yourself be better than yourself yesterday period.
So I don't struggle with imposter syndrome but as ice
Speak to people who do that would be, my advice for them is
quit giving your energy to other people and reverse that energy
and channel it into yourself and improving yourself and it's a
better use of the energy that you have.
This is the last question and it was asked about three or four
times in the in the DMS and it's a tough question for me to
answer. So I saved it for the end.
And that is, you know, what is my personal Rock Bottom if I'm
willing to share it. Or the worst thing that's ever
happened to me in my career and I'll tell you that I had a
period of maybe the worst year ever.
And that was, you know, I had I had lost everything for lack of
a better term. I lost everything that I had
accumulated over the course of my career.
I had reached a certain point of success where I was top of the
food chain in the city that I was at, you know, it was best
chef two years consecutive, I was in the running for the best
chef in the city. I had all the stars from the
newspaper. I was getting all the
recognition. I was probably on TV once a week
doing something, I had gotten inducted into the MasterChef
society and I was turning opportunities down because there
was so many and I was at the top of the world.
And when that happened, I got some advice for my mentor and
they told me they said, do not get too puffed up, when all this
success happens because you could lose it just as quick as
it came and I remember thinking that's not me.
I'm well that won't happen but sure should I did my ego got the
best of me and it was one thing after the other and my life just
started crumbling bad. And basically I went into a
downward spiral and probably was willing to bring down anyone
around me, you know, to my rock bottom that you wanted to go
with me. Every chef.
Wants to get to a certain spot in their career and sometimes
that's owning your own restaurant and being the best
version of yourself. And when you reach that and it's
all taken away from you and you have to start over again.
It's a very humbling situation and it took me a number of years
to mentally recover from that and understand what I did wrong
and understand what I needed to do to get better.
There's no one to blame. You can only blame yourself and
you go through these mental exercises, will whose fault was
it? At the end of the day?
You can't blame anyone. You can only blame yourself.
You have to accept full responsibility for the good and
the bad that happens in your life.
And I often use the Expression, everyone loves being the hammer,
but no one likes to be the nail, and in this particular case, I
was the nail, and as bad thing after bad, thing after bad thing
started happening, it's like shit.
I don't like this and I have to Figure out how to correct it.
I think when you're a very successful chef, and you quickly
turn around and you're no longer a successful Chef.
I think your ego gets bruised, and you have to remove yourself
from that. So you could correct it and
understand that. And that's honestly a big reason
why I started chefs PSA. Because a lot of the, the
mistakes that I made in my career, I'm hoping that I could
teach people to not make those same mistakes and not that
they're avoidable. Because some of you have to go
through these mistakes because that's what's going to make you
who you are. Mistakes aren't bad.
But some other rougher lessons, if you could be knowledgeable,
when you approach these situations and it's like
understanding the moves on the chessboard Sena.
I know that last time I was watching the chess game, this
person made that move and they failed and they captured the
king. So I'm not going to make that
same mistake. Now, your king may get captured
in a later move, but you'll at least have not made that
mistake. You'll have another mistake to
learn from. So Anyway, that's basically the,
the worst thing that's ever happened to me, is accumulating
a massive amount of success, only to have it, basically
washed away overnight and then having to completely rebuild
that. And it honestly took me about
mmm, probably about four years to get back to the same level
that I was previously in terms of reputation, and you're
getting on getting on top of the city, basically.
Lee wherever I was and having a restaurant that was in that same
level. Anyway, that's probably the most
difficult thing is adversity, will make you stronger so don't
shy away from the adversity adversity makes you better.
It definitely did in my case. It helped me recognize some
blind spots that I had. It helped me correct.
You know the culture that I was creating and kitchens it made me
realize that you know like all like all the all stories your
hero has a character Arc in my case like I was good at The
beginning that I turned bad and then at the end it was good.
Like Darth Vader. We're Anakin Skywalker, right?
I had my Darth Vader, period. And then, I went back to Anakin
Skywalker anyway, that's going to wrap up this week's chefs,
PSA podcast. If you want to support the show,
you could go to Chef PS a.com and you could look at our
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How not to be the biggest idiot in the kitchen.
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