Our sous-chef is leaving us after four years. He was offered his first chefs position, which he accepted. We think it will be a good move for him. Every young cook aspires to be the chef one day. I have been telling him for a year or so that he cannot stay with us much longer because he needs to get out and spread his wings. While this is a good move for him, it will make my job harder. A good sous-chef takes a lot of pressure of the chef. Like a good sheepdog, the sous-chef keeps all the little lambs (cooks) going in the right direction, and out of troubles way. A good sous-chef allows the chef to concentrate on other matters. So with him leaving, my job is going to become a little harder.
My crew will be the youngest, and least experienced, I have ever had. The oldest one is 21. She has only been cooking for 6 months. My youngest is my 15 year old apprentice. She has only been cooking with us on and off for about 8 months. One of our dishwashers will be going to cooking school when he graduates from high school. He has been in the cooking program for TBA for the past two school years. He’s 17, and will become a commie cook for the summer assisting my most experienced cook, LJ, who is 19. LJ is the “old man” in the kitchen as far as experience is concerned. He started with us when he was 14 and has worked his way up through the food chain to become a pretty strong cook. That means if my math is correct, the combined cooking experience of my kitchen crew now stands at just a little over 7 years. What my kids lack in experience, they make up for in enthusiasm, so I have going for me.
As in everything in life, the different stages in a cook’s career sees the cook’s performing different roles. Early on the job of the young cook is to simply learn and mimic. The last thing any chef needs is young cooks who want to be innovators. The chef needs young cooks to simply cook the food exactly as they are shown, nothing more. As a cook progresses in her career, she will continue accumulating more and more experience. Her palete will become more refined. She will begin developing her own cooking style, but she still has a ways to go before becoming the chef. During this time she will have become a lead line cook, eventually working herself up to the sous-chef position. This stage of her career she will take on more responsibility. She will assist the chef in running the kitchen and even have a hand in creating dishes for the menu.
The day all young cooks dream about is the day they can rightfully be called “Chef”. Not every cook is a chef, but every chef is a cook. In my mind, a person cannot call him/herself a chef until they have been in charge of a professional kitchen. Once that criteria has been fulfilled that person has earned the right to be called chef, and not until then. The word is thrown about in such a hap-hazard way these days that anyone who picks up a pan thinks it’s OK to call themselves a chef. Sorry, let me get down off my soap box. Once someone has reached the chef stage of their career, then the real fun begins. The chef is totally in charge of the kitchen, but there is still a ways to go. This stage of the game is where a chef’s refinement begins. It is here the chef really begins to cook her own food. The chef will have to develop so many skills: management, people, organizational, time management, dealing with stress, and the list goes on. It is not until one becomes the chef that they begin to cook their own food; up to this point they have had to cook someone else’s.
A chef will eventually reach a point in his career where he doesn’t actually do much cooking. This usually comes after years and years of spending his fair share behind the line. At this point one of the chef’s roles, amongst many, becomes that of mentor. I knew of a chef in France who called his cooks his “les enfants”, his babies. I remember early on in my own career hearing a wife and husband team tell someone the reason they don’t have kids is because they already have 30 working in the restaurant. It was not until I opened up my own place that I understood what they meant. After spending 3 decades learning my craft I feel I have a responsibility to pass on what I have learned. Since most of the cooks who will pass through my kitchen will be quite young, I also feel a responsibility to teach them more than just how to cook. These young people are still learning many of the difficult lessons of growing up. They are still discovering how to be an adult. I tend to have much more patience with young people. I expect them to do stupid things, that’s how they learn. For all of my kids, my restaurant is the first one they have worked in, so I need to teach them how to survive in the restaurant world.
I will have to take my energetic band of young cooks by the hand and lead them through this upcoming busy season. I will have spend even more time watching their every move. But, I am up to the task, in fact, I am looking forward to it. Just like getting a new puppy will often times bring new life to an older dog, my kids have given me a welcomed breath of fresh air. Their enthusiasm will become the glue that holds them together as they learn what it means to call themselves, “cooks”. Our standards will not fall. They will be expected to cook the same quality of food we have always served. There will be some bumpy nights. One or two of them might even shed a few tears, but their inexperience is not an excuse for lower standards. It is my job, as chef, to lead them in such a way that they will rise to the task at hand and become the cooks I know they are. It’s going to be an interesting summer.