Wha huh, chef?
The culinary profession can't be that much different from any other. People get burned out. By all indications, the burn out rate for those working in a hot kitchen 5 or 6 days a week, ten or twelve hours a day, is farily high. Each chef instructor we've had mentioned somthing about being essentially tired of the kitchen grind.
In every profession, you occasionally come across an individual that doesn't know what they are doing, or at least appears to not know what they are doing; you come across those passive aggressive types; you come across those that don't communicate well, despite their level of education.
We don't get a hell of a lot in the way of assistance from this particular chef. I get the distinct impression that he is mailing it in. On the first day he told us that he had been teaching contemporary cuisine for nine years, which says to me that he has this stuff down cold. Yet, when I see plates hit the presentatino table that are not up to par, I know it. Creative plating is hard, and it takes a lot of practice. Meanwhile, Chef just says 'great job' and sends us on our way. When he tastes products, we don't get any sort of analysis. "It's okay." What the fuck does that mean? And when asked to elaborate, you often get some unimportant patter, most of which making me think that he isn't that familiar with the various processes anyway.
Chocolate chip cookies. Easy, right. Sure. On the first day, my group had to make chocolate chip cookies. Rather than use the crappy recipe in our contemporary cuisine book, we decided to go with a baking and pastry recipe, which uses all brown sugar in lieu of white sugar. You end up with a moister, tastier and better looking cookie. The cookie also comes out darker. If we veered off the recipe in baking and pastry, Chef Susan could tell you exactly what you did. Chef Jackson was often the same way. My contemporary cuisine chef was absolutely flummoxed over the color of the cookies. Beside himself wondering what we could have done. Watching him hem and haw, we let him stew rather than tell him right away about swapping out white sugar for brown. That didn't inspire an enormous amount of confidence.
Last night, while doing a non-dairy chocolate cake with gluten-free flour (ick, at best), we were given a recipe for a frosting that turned out tasting exactly like marshmallows. Not pleasant. We tried to soup ot up by adding some mandarin orange compound, which left us with something like a creamsicle, so, whatever. I went to Chef and told him, flat, this frosting recipe tastes horrible. To which he replied, do a frosting with cream cheese if you like. Yo, dude, this is a dairy free chocolate cake. Dig?
With almost two weeks remaining in this class, it could be that Chef Tony's teaching style just needs some warm up time. To this point, color me something a few shades lighter than impressed.
The culinary profession can't be that much different from any other. People get burned out. By all indications, the burn out rate for those working in a hot kitchen 5 or 6 days a week, ten or twelve hours a day, is farily high. Each chef instructor we've had mentioned somthing about being essentially tired of the kitchen grind.
In every profession, you occasionally come across an individual that doesn't know what they are doing, or at least appears to not know what they are doing; you come across those passive aggressive types; you come across those that don't communicate well, despite their level of education.
We don't get a hell of a lot in the way of assistance from this particular chef. I get the distinct impression that he is mailing it in. On the first day he told us that he had been teaching contemporary cuisine for nine years, which says to me that he has this stuff down cold. Yet, when I see plates hit the presentatino table that are not up to par, I know it. Creative plating is hard, and it takes a lot of practice. Meanwhile, Chef just says 'great job' and sends us on our way. When he tastes products, we don't get any sort of analysis. "It's okay." What the fuck does that mean? And when asked to elaborate, you often get some unimportant patter, most of which making me think that he isn't that familiar with the various processes anyway.
Chocolate chip cookies. Easy, right. Sure. On the first day, my group had to make chocolate chip cookies. Rather than use the crappy recipe in our contemporary cuisine book, we decided to go with a baking and pastry recipe, which uses all brown sugar in lieu of white sugar. You end up with a moister, tastier and better looking cookie. The cookie also comes out darker. If we veered off the recipe in baking and pastry, Chef Susan could tell you exactly what you did. Chef Jackson was often the same way. My contemporary cuisine chef was absolutely flummoxed over the color of the cookies. Beside himself wondering what we could have done. Watching him hem and haw, we let him stew rather than tell him right away about swapping out white sugar for brown. That didn't inspire an enormous amount of confidence.
Last night, while doing a non-dairy chocolate cake with gluten-free flour (ick, at best), we were given a recipe for a frosting that turned out tasting exactly like marshmallows. Not pleasant. We tried to soup ot up by adding some mandarin orange compound, which left us with something like a creamsicle, so, whatever. I went to Chef and told him, flat, this frosting recipe tastes horrible. To which he replied, do a frosting with cream cheese if you like. Yo, dude, this is a dairy free chocolate cake. Dig?
With almost two weeks remaining in this class, it could be that Chef Tony's teaching style just needs some warm up time. To this point, color me something a few shades lighter than impressed.
