Anyone who can find this kind of guiding passion in life is very lucky, because so many people never experience the sense of mission and maturing skill that a chef’s career brings. From your first day, you must seek out the best mentors, the best restaurants, the best suppliers, and the best partners as you go through this career, because you are only as good as the background you acquire and the people with whom you work.
I do not mean to suggest that being a chef requires self-denial, as though you were some medieval monk. The restaurant kitchen—sensual, raucous, and intense—becomes its own world. You may not get to hang out with friends much outside work, but you will develop deep friendships in the kitchen. And you will be doing the thing you love the most and building a global network of friends who share the same passion.
In the end, doing what you love is what matters and will make you a better chef. The sacrifices, even the successes, are add-ons. The heart of the matter is that you are doing what you love. As time passes, your ambition will carry you from one milestone to another: from mastering a recipe to opening your own restaurant. The further you go, the more you will be controlled by your craft and ambition to become better and sometimes bigger, to open more places, to do more. At a certain point, achieving success is no longer a distant goal. At that point, taking control of your success and balancing it with being a parent, spouse, and friend take center stage.
As it is with a good recipe, combining these ingredients for living can be endlessly fine-tuned, reworked, reinvented; for each of us, the formula is different. As for working out that recipe… well, I cannot tell you the measurements, but I hope I have been able to get you motivated to start. Remember: as a young chef, cook with passion and emotion, do it with devotion, and defend your reputation. With that, someday you will be the new leader in the business.
Now, go cook! And maybe one day I will be reading your book.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF A CHEF
1. Keep your knives sharp and take care of your tools
Your knife is your most essential tool. A sharp knife makes a big difference in the precision and consistency of your knife work, and if it does not perform, it means you have not taken care of it. Having the right knife for the job is just as important. Both the quality and upkeep of your tools bear a significant impact on your work, so make sure they are top priorities. In the modern toolbox, you may have knives from different countries—Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, even hand-crafted knives from America—but keep in mind that the latest, most expensive Japanese blade is not the only solution. I have a number of old French knives that are workhorses, and they suit me just fine. Like a craftsman, you get attached to your tools and learn the purpose of each one.
2. Work with the best people
To become a great chef you do not need to work with twenty top chefs. You need to experience working with three or four very good chefs. The best is not necessarily the most popular or most famous; it can just as easily be a chef in a small place who is simply very organized and very good. Focus on a few chefs for your foundation, then for specialties—for example, charcuterie, pastry, and so on—you can do internships. Today I’m as committed as ever to mentoring and connecting with the young chefs in my restaurants, so I’m more interested in the cook who has moved up the ranks in a respectable albeit lesser-known establishment than the cook who has jumped around the best kitchens, often taking away more than he gave, all toward an end goal of stacking his résumé with big names. Find a mentor and develop a relationship, then work hard to guarantee that he/she writes you a personal recommendation for your next job. I receive countless references, and the ones that are heartfelt mean so much more than a paper pedigree.
3. Keep your station orderly
From the storage of vegetables to the finishing of mise en place, everything needs to be marked, labeled, and placed in the proper containers, taking up the minimum of room. Then, during service, you will not find yourself drowning in incoming orders. Instead, you will be able to focus on cooking well and sending clean plates with maximum efficiency. A clean space yields a clear mind, which yields fast hands and smart decisions. A well-organized station also gets respect from the rest of the kitchen.
4. Waste not!
Nothing is a greater sin than taking a round vegetable, making it into a rectangle, and throwing the rest out. Every ingredient has a price tag, and you have both a moral and an economic obligation to transform it fully into delicious food. Waste is the mark of a chef with a lack of imagination in recycling and a lack of dedication to his financials. Chefs must also pay attention to the prices of ingredients and keep them in line with what a customer will pay for a dish. Cooking has a lot to do with mathematics, and chefs must think carefully about ratios and making the right proportion of mise en place. The more you utilize everything, the more you will be able to afford the best ingredients. Still, a great chef respects the culinary value of every ingredient—from truffle to turnip.
5. Season with precision
The taste of every ingredient is elevated by proper seasoning. There is an exact point at which ingredients are seasoned correctly. Too much is too much, too little is too little, and somewhere in between is just right. Learning the peculiarities of your palate and attuning it to finished results requires precision and endless practice. It also requires constant tasting and self-critique. With time and experience you will gain confidence and will learn to naturally trust the process.
6. Master the heat
From 120°F to 800°F, there is an enormous range within which heat can transform ingredients, but the range is even greater when you factor in the types of heat: dry, steam, induction, convection. A truly great cook has such an intimate knowledge of heat that he or she develops a sixth sense of timing for the moment of doneness. You might rarely have the opportunity, but the most exciting and challenging is to cook over fire; it requires skill, instinct, and constant adjustment to yield a great result. Learn the basics of heat and then pay close attention to the nuances so that you can cook confidently, no matter the ingredient or the method.
7. Learn the world of food
Experience different cuisines whenever you can. Do it when you are young, before you are building your career. Learning other cuisines will broaden your foundation as a chef. Today, globalization is a forgone conclusion, and although it’s easier than ever to be exposed to other cuisines, what is considered “basic food knowledge” is more substantial than it used to be. Many things that were once obscure and exotic are ubiquitous today. Still, the Internet is no substitute for tasting and seeing with your own eyes, so use your time off to go places, try new restaurants, buy books, talk to people. In other words, immerse yourself in the world of food. When you grow as a chef, having such broad knowledge will help you to hone in on the cuisine you like the best. Not every dish should feature elements from around the world; finding focus is just as important.
8. Know the classics
No matter what cuisine you concentrate on, the classic dishes will cover the spectrum of techniques and ingredients needed to master cooking. The fundamentals of stocks, sauces, and seasoning are all there in the classics… whether the classic is clam chowder in Cape Cod or bouillabaisse in Marseilles. Knowing the classics also gives you an edge in the kitchen. When the chef says to make a dish à la Clamart, a well-studied cook knows to garnish it with peas. Many dishes are classically or regionally coded this way. In the beginning it may feel like learning an entirely new language (namely, French), but in professional kitchens that language is universal, and being fluent will get you far. It also signals to the chef that you respect tradition and the institution.
9. Accept criticism and push yourself
As a young chef, you spend your days and nights being criticized and analyzed by the chefs for whom you work. It is important to learn from criticism. It is equally important to learn how to criticize usefully when you become a full-fledged chef. And finally, you must learn from the criticism of the pu
blic. Recognize that to keep yourself interested you are constantly varying, innovating, and reinventing, succeeding at times and needing more work at others. Criticism is the public’s way of telling you how to improve on the results of your creative impulses. You must understand that to earn accolades, you have to go beyond your duties and assist and care for everything in the kitchen. Be prepared: criticism will come often; praise will be hard-earned.
10. Keep a journal of your recipes
You cannot remember everything you see cooked, or even everything you’ve cooked yourself, but with a journal, a computer, and the camera on your phone, you can bring those taste memories to life to guide you for the rest of your career. Even with today’s technology, however, I often still jot recipes, notes, and ideas by hand. Many find they are more likely to retain information by writing it. I have always tended toward drawing out my ideas, because for me, sketching stimulates creativity, but it also helps me to see the full picture and explain the thought. In our kitchen, the cooks always have a small notebook so they can record the elements of a dish or recipe and refer to it later. Snapping a photo of a recipe may be quick and helpful in the moment, but it’s unlikely you will process and commit it to memory the same way. A journal is a great tool for a disciplined cook.
A FEW LETTERS FROM
MY FRIENDS
DISCIPLINE
by Gavin Kaysen
I’VE ALWAYS SAID that the eight years I spent working for Daniel Boulud as executive chef at Café Boulud was like getting my PhD in hospitality and cooking. When I started, I already had a solid foundation—I was a good chef, and I’d had a pretty well-rounded culinary education. But Daniel was at another level. When it came to hospitality, Chef would notice if the street outside was too noisy, if the room was too bright, or if the phones weren’t answered on the first ring; he was always genuinely concerned with the guests’ comfort. In terms of cooking, he taught me the classics: how to make food “tell a story,” and how to make simple food elegant and delicious.
If there was one thing that prepared me the most for this sort of higher education, it was discipline. Luckily, discipline has always been a part of me. Maybe it was how I grew up or maybe it’s innate, but in Daniel’s kitchen it was a way of life, and I came to embrace it as a tool for perfection. Discipline can be a strong word, but it doesn’t mean you have to be cold and militaristic. For me, discipline is about having a sense of routine, order, and control. Discipline is doing things the right way, even when circumstances vary, and even when you may not feel up to it.
In my first six months at Café Boulud, I won the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef award—a great honor—and I was totally shocked. The evening was thrilling, and at the end of the night I called Daniel, who was out of town, working. We spoke about the awards ceremony and the evening in general, and he asked where I was going to party and celebrate, so I told him. At the end of the conversation he said something that I have never forgotten: “Don’t be late for work tomorrow.” I am still not sure if he said it jokingly, but I got home at six a.m., slept for three hours, and then went to work at ten a.m., like I was scheduled to do. Even if he was kidding, I knew that was the sort of discipline he expected from me.
There was a point when I first started to work for Daniel that I thought, I’ve really come far. But it was quickly clear to me that I was back to being a student. Although I was at the helm of a French restaurant, I learned that what I thought about French cuisine was only what was in my mind, and I needed to immerse myself in every cookbook I could get my hands on. I became addicted to what it meant to be French: how they ate, how they cooked, how they relaxed. I thought if I could learn those traits, I could cook better for my French chef. I realized that running a French kitchen was about instilling in the team the values of tradition, respect (both for the ingredients and for oneself), and, of course, discipline.
I wanted to inspire cooks the way Daniel inspired me. I remember reading the first edition of Letters to a Young Chef when I was twenty-six years old and living in San Diego, California. I felt an immediate connection to the words, ideas, and advice. I knew I had to work for him; there was no way around it. So I formed a plan and started down a path, and I made critical choices that changed my life forever. Having the discipline to follow through with those choices and push forward down that path is what made it all a reality. Realizing your goals is not just about working for the best—it is about making you better so you can become the best.
Sometimes discipline requires you to push yourself to a level you have not experienced, to work with a proficiency that you didn’t know you had in you. Then when you get there, you see if you can push further. Every time you have to do that task, you get better, always working your muscles, making them stronger and faster, going harder than the person next to you. You are pushing for something that may be unreachable, but you will achieve it simply because you are that driven, that good, and because you have the discipline to work at it.
Having success at Café Boulud was extremely fulfilling. However, Daniel was always one or two steps ahead of me. I can remember many times when we traveled together, across the country and even abroad. It was a lot of work, involving long, jam-packed days. Once we returned to New York, the driver would pick us up at the airport and take us back to Restaurant DANIEL. Daniel would go into work to greet the guests, say hello to the team, and finish the service, while I would go home to see my wife and catch up on sleep. Every time I felt the urge to pat myself on the back, I would look at him, and he’d be running circles around me.
There will be days that are difficult, when things do not go well or are harder than they should be. That’s just life. But for me, on those days especially, following a sense of order and pushing to do things right are what get me through. Working with good habits must always stay a priority, because on some days that is all you have. When it feels like the rush of service is getting the best of you, and things just are not working out, stop, wipe down your station, give your tools a good rinse, and jump right back in.
Today, at my restaurant, Spoon and Stable, those lessons from Daniel are at play in everything I do, and I have worked to pass along those skills to my team. From our relationships with our purveyors to the way we set up for service—even to how we organize the walk-in—it all comes down to discipline. Beyond that, it is just as important to stay curious, cook with passion, and be hospitable to every guest, employee, farmer, and vendor. Of course, the most important thing I learned from Daniel is to stay true to who you are, through all the noise.
TECHNIQUE
by Jean-François Bruel and Eddy Leroux
GOOD TECHNIQUE IS probably the most underrated aspect of professional cooking in America today, and it has never been the most glamorous. Really good technique requires a level of patience and discipline that many prefer to bypass in exchange for the adrenaline rush of shuffling pans during service or complicated ingredient manipulation and technology. Tasks like carefully washing mushrooms, tying a roast, or cutting a perfect brunoise too often come in second to the more interesting elements of being a chef, such as creating dishes or working with rare and expensive ingredients. This is a mistake, but as a young chef you still have time to fix it.
Technique is the foundation of everything you will ever do in the kitchen, so it should be important to you from the very start, but don’t rush the process. Investing your time in learning correct technique is like learning basic grammar in a new language: you have to go through the tediousness of memorizing nouns and verbs before you can delve into an interesting conversation. With food, basic techniques have been codified because they actually enhance the flavor and make a better end result. It takes time to develop the muscle memory required to master certain knife skills, and it takes a constant curiosity about the science behind certain recipes in order to really know them intimately, to the point where you can make something perfectly without thinking too hard about it. This proficiency only comes after rep
etition and practice. And then even more practice. Eventually, good technique becomes second nature.
Take a basic béarnaise, for example. You all learn it as a young cook, but you may need to make it a hundred times to really master it. In the beginning it takes concentration to avoid overcooking the egg yolk. Then, still managing the temperature, you add your warm clarified butter at just the right tempo. You might screw it up twenty-five times out of a hundred, but eventually you do it perfectly every time because your technique is good and you have practiced—a lot. This is the ultimate goal: knowing a process so intimately that you can do it without stress or self-doubt.
Good technique is not just about prep, sauces, and knife cuts, however. It can also refer to steps or actions you take that elevate the outcome of a recipe from good to great to excellent, like correctly buttering a soufflé ramekin, which will ensure a smooth rise and beautiful result. This technique applies to every flavor of soufflé imaginable—even savory. At DANIEL, we make a lobster mousseline that follows a similar formula. We prepare small stainless-steel ramekins by brushing the tempered butter from the bottom to the top, chilling them, then applying another coat the same way. If we don’t do it properly, the recipe fails. The same can be said for piping choux batter or building a complex terrine. The overall achievements, in both beauty and flavor, are earned in the detailed, technical know-how of the steps and also by knowing the end result before you start.
The good news is the more you strengthen your foundation, learning the basics, the more creative you can be. This is when cooking really gets fun. Borrowing techniques from other cuisines and applying them in interesting ways to your own cuisine can create a unique profile. But the classic ways of butchering meat and preparing vegetables are the support to this, and if they are not done properly, the creativity doesn’t succeed. On the other hand, when everything is done right, it comes together in a way that can potentially bring great results. If you give ten cooks a raw chicken and a copper pot you will have ten different end results, but the one with impeccable technique is sure to cook the best one. Good technique allows you to put your great ideas into motion, so if creativity is something that motivates you, make sure to focus on technique for now.
Letters to a Young Chef Page 10