[Sca-cooks] dealing with cooks neurosis

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Thursday, June 26, 2003, at 11:50  AM, <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> 
wrote:

> Ok, how do YOU handle it when someone criticises the way you run your
> kitchen? I did a breakfast recently that was whipping right along--
> everything except the eggs had some food out 1/2 an hour before the
> breakfast was supposed to start, but unfortunately everyone got up 
> early
> *grin*. Anyway, at one point there was a spill in the kitchen and I 
> sent
> the spiller to ask the someone to get me a few more bodies temporarily.
> The someone told me later that she felt that when she came into the
> kitchen at that I had 'lost control of the kitchen.'
>
> Now, I've talked with other kitchen people and other cooks, and we 
> suspect
> that this was a combination of kitchen inexperience, crowded kitchen, a
> problem with finding supplies that had haunted the event, and the 
> someone
> being a little overwhelmed in general.
>
> But how do you know if it went well, if the kitchen was running well?

Just my opinion. If it looks, on the dining hall side of the kitchen 
door, that the kitchen is being run properly, if nobody is hurt, 
sickened, starved or made to wait excessively on either side of the 
kitchen door, then the kitchen is doing its job and, by definition, is 
running well.

If there's a fire, two dishes are 86'd, half your cooks are pi**ed at 
you and leave the kitchen (this last does need to be addressed, 
but...), and nobody can discern this from the dining room side of the 
door, then you are running the place like a professional. Most 
restaurants cannot ask for more. There are always problems, and the 
mark of successful management is to prevent the diner from discovering 
it while he/she is eating.

For example, at the last big feast I ran, we found one oven not 
working, an entire pork loin (meat for 4 tables) evidently stolen by 
someone on site, court overrunning by a couple of hours, and more than 
half of the kitchen crew (not completely recruited by me) there to fool 
around (I was thinking of changing my persona name to Lord Simon 
Legree)... oh, and the entire service team completely reorganized at 
6PM... they still toasted the cooks, and the King of the East came into 
the kitchen and thanked me.

To me, while not everything went the way I wanted it to (almost 
nothing, in fact), if it did not really impact on the diners, then the 
work was done successfully.

Somebody is, I respectfully submit, a poop.

Adamantius