Tag Archives: Cook

December 28, 2012 · 11:00 am

Most Read Posts Of The Year – 3

Since it’s Foodie Friday I thought I’d add the most read food-related post to our list.  This one comes from the Friday before the Super Bowl and it’s not surprising that like most things Super Bowl it was widely viewed.  I’m not sure too many other writers put together food, business, and football but this was my take last February.

Many of you will be cooking something for Sunday’s big game and so this Foodie Friday we’ll think a little bit about what recipes to follow.  Actually, it’s more about how one follows any recipe, and what that has in common with business.

An example recipe, printed from the Wikibooks ...

Image via Wikipedia

As I think you might know, my feeling about cooking is that it’s more like jazz while baking is more Baroque music– far more structured and precise.  Given that, the way I see recipes might differ from how you see them and how that perspective carries into business.  Let’s see.

A recipe is a guide, not an edict.  I look at them as outlines of the dish, but it’s up to me as the cook to insert the flavors I want to present.  For example, if I’m making chili for Sunday’s game, I know that most of the folks who will be at the party enjoy fairly hot food so I might change the spice mix accordingly.  Cooking veal cutlets for 20 can be expensive but turkey cutlets in the same recipe can be just as tasty.  With a vegan and a vegetarian as members of the household here, I often modify recipes to accommodate their eating styles too.  I have a sense of the destination and the recipe is the map, but there are often many routes to get to where I’m trying to go.

Business is the same.  There are some basic road maps – take in more than you spend, treat customers and employees well – but every business is different.  Sticking to the recipe isn’t always possible, and sometimes the road we wish to take is closed, but with a good understanding of fundamental techniques and enough knowledge of the building blocks (ingredients), one can cope with changing market conditions and take advantage of opportunities (I was going to make snapper but look at the fresh grouper on sale!) that might arise.

So as you’re whipping up that pot of gumbo, maybe try thickening it with okra instead of your usual file powder.  If you’re not having much luck using SEM for online commerce, maybe social media can be more efficient.  It’s jazz – learn to improvise – oh, and Go Big Blue!

 

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December 14, 2012 · 10:10 am

Simple Isn’t

For our Foodie Friday Fun this week, let me ask you to put on your food critic hat.

English: Roasted chicken Español: Pollo asado

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When you try out a new restaurant, and assuming it’s not an unusual cuisine, what dish do you look for on the menu to test the kitchen’s cooking skills?  For me the answer is always a roasted chicken.  That’s right – plain, roasted chicken, the simpler the better.  My thinking is this:  nothing simple is ever easy.  If you’ve ever done roasted chicken, it’s tremendously difficult to present a perfect dish.  The breast meat moist, the thigh properly cooked, the skin crisp.  There are different densities and cooking times for all of them.  Overcooking the bird can ruin it; undercooking it can ruin you for several days.

One of the most simple foods in terms of preparation has to be sushi.  It’s just sliced fish and rice.  Why, then, does it take years to train a sushi chef?  Candidates will do nothing but make rice for years to start their training.  Simple – not easy. Yakitori is grilled meat on a stick but perfection is elusive.  Try to turn out perfect soft-boiled eggs.  The yolk cooks before the white yet we want the opposite to occur to get them perfectly soft-boiled.  Simple, not easy.  Which is the business point as well.

It’s incredibly difficult to do some of the most simple tasks well.  Deliver a succinct talk that leaves the audience feeling as if they’ve really learned something completely.  Explain your business in under a minute – a great elevator pitch.  Run an efficient meeting with exactly the right people in the room, no more, no less.  When hiring, many great chefs ask the candidate to make them something very simple – an omelet or scrambled eggs – that is often very difficult to get just right.  We should steal that notion – ask candidates to do something “simple” like having them explain their current job to you completely, and briefly.

Thoreau challenged us to simplify because we’re too caught up in detail.  As we do, just as with the roasted chicken, there are no places littered with detail in which to hide (read that a fancy sauces, seasonings, stuffings, etc. for the chicken!).   Simple isn’t simple.  It’s often complicated, and more often than not that complexity is hard.  The great cooks – and business  people – just make it seem simple and great at the same time.

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November 30, 2012 · 11:21 am

Substitute

Foodie Friday!  Today the topic is substitutes.  No, not the early song by The Who.

Butter and a butter knife

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had a thought about the use of different ingredients when the things called for in the recipe aren’t available.  This is a little different from changing up the seasonings – using oregano for basil, for example.  Cooks often do that to vary flavors and that’s an integral part of one’s own cooking style and food profile.  In this case I mean the times when you go to get the unsalted butter and realize all you have is salted or when you decide to use skim milk to lower a dish‘s fat content instead of the whole milk (or heaven forbid CREAM!) the recipe requires.

Substitutions are tricky things. Take the salted butter example.  There is no standard amount of salt in salted butter and the amount of salt can vary quite a bit.  If you’re aware of that and don’t automatically salt your dish as usual you might be OK.  Another thing about it is that the water content in salted butter is higher which, depending on the amount of liquid in the dish can make a difference.  Not a big deal for most dishes but critical in baking.  By the way, this is why I’m not a baker – it’s way too specific!

I could explain the reasons why cream vs. whole milk vs. half and half in recipes will or won’t work but you’re probably wondering at this point what the business point is.  Well, it’s that people are very much like ingredients.  Many managers see tiny differences in staff members – salted vs. unsalted – but fail to consider the broader implications those differences bring.  An unanticipated resignation from a staff member forces a substitution, but thinking that all individuals are replaceable because substitutes with the same basic skill set are available is a fallacy.  Just as an improper substitution can ruin a sauce or a custard, failing to acknowledge and adjust for the differences in the human ingredients can spell disaster.

As managers, we need to be acutely aware of how each small change in our team can precipitate much larger issues.  People are our most important ingredients, and just as great cooks consider every nuance of what goes into a dish we need to examine our people and blend them appropriately.  Feeling as if we can substitute at will is short-sighted and can ruin our business.  Then again, a smart change can make it many times better.  Your choice!

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