Tag Archives: Cook

September 7, 2012 · 8:14 am

Doing Something

I had breakfast the other morning

Eggs

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

with a friend I’ve known and worked with for 20 years.  No, breakfast isn’t out Foodie Friday theme but something he said while we ate is.  We were talking about our work – what he does, what I do – and he was discussing a rather large deal of which he had been a part.  After describing his role he summed it up by saying “I didn’t really DO anything – I just helped things along and brought people together.”  My immediate reaction was that he sounded like a chef.

Chefs don’t create the raw materials of their work.  They don’t grow vegetables, catch fish, raise cattle, or mill flour.  Many of them don’t even cook any more once they’re figured out the recipes to be used in their kitchens.  They hire cooks to do that and after teaching them how they want things done they step back.  Once in a while they taste what’s leaving the kitchen for quality control but mostly they do what my friend did – they make connections.

I’ve been a facilitator for a few brainstorming sessions.  We’re always supposed to be content-neutral.  The idea is to help the group reach their goals without imposing our own positions on the ideas being discussed.  We help with structure and process but the participants do the heavy lifting.  It’s important that the group knows that the facilitator is in charge, but that authority is never supposed to be the focus of anything.  Frankly, it takes a bit of effort to get one’s ego out of the room, especially when you believe you can solve the problem.

The point is that my friend behaved like a great facilitator.  He brought people together around an idea and helped them bring that idea to fruition.  I think that’s doing quite a lot, just as it’s the big-name chefs who get the credit for the food, not the line cooks.  It’s what great managing is all about and it’s absolutely doing something!

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March 30, 2012 · 8:56 am

Cooking Tips For Business

We’ll end the week with our usual food-centric piece.  Today, I want to direct you to a piece by Food Network Magazine – the 100 Greatest Cooking Tips Of All Time.  While the list is far from exhaustive, it’s pretty good.  Many of them revolve around a few themes and many of those themes have application in business.

The first one comes from Marcus Samuelsson:

If you’re cooking for someone important — whether it’s your boss or a date — never try a new recipe and a new ingredient at the same time.

Well, I haven’t cooked for a date in a very long time, but I have presented to new clients, and I definitely see the application of this principle.  When it’s important to put your best foot forward, it’s not the time to experiment.  Stick to what you know works – there will be curve-balls aplenty even under the best conditions.  Your job is to reduce them to a manageable number.

Next is something I was taught to do many years ago by an Italian grandmother and comes from Chef Issac Becker:

When making meatballs or meatloaf, you need to know how the mixture tastes before you cook it. Make a little patty and fry it in a pan like a mini hamburger. Then you can taste it and adjust the seasoning.

At the risk of singing one of my familiar refrains, this is all about feedback.  Analytics.  Measurement.  Tasting as you go (to paraphrase Chef Anne Burrell‘s tip) is how you keep a business on track.  If something is off, you need to adjust the seasoning (or the plan) and you can’t know that unless you taste.  Otherwise, the dish (and the deal) can turn out inedible.

Finally, the value of planning from Chef John Besh:

Take the time to actually read recipes through before you begin.

and Chef Gabrielle Hamilton

Organize yourself. Write a prep list and break that list down into what may seem like ridiculously small parcels, like “grate cheese” and “grind pepper” and “pull out plates.” You will see that a “simple meal” actually has more than 40 steps. If even 10 of those steps require 10 minutes each and another 10 of those steps take 5 minutes each, you’re going to need two and a half hours of prep time. (And that doesn’t include phone calls, bathroom breaks and changing the radio station!) Write down the steps and then cross them off.

One of my great culinary joys is getting a four course meal on the table for 20 people at exactly the time the Mrs. informs me dinner is to be served to the guests.  That can’t happen without thoughtful and careful planning.  Then again, that project is much simpler than many of the business tasks we all face.  I’m surprised at how little planning goes into many of the most complex tasks.  Failure to think a project through to completion, to break it down into the component steps and to plan accordingly, is one of the great causes of failure.  It leads to cost overruns and shortages of time.

What’s your favorite cooking tip?  How does it apply to work outside of the kitchen?

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March 23, 2012 · 6:52 am

More Doh!

A couple of Foodie Fridays ago, I wrote about a Cooking LIght piece that discussed some of the more common mistakes we amateur cooks make.  Since it’s Friday again (funny how that happens every week or so), I thought I’d present a few more lessons from the kitchen and remind us how what goes on in the kitchen is a lot like what goes on in business.

Today’s first mistake comes from the world of baking.  Unlike cooking, baking is very precise, mostly because it’s chemistry.  The problems come when untrained bakers begin to make substitutions in a baked good.  You know – something sounds too fattening (I hear that’s possible) so you change the butter to oil or applesauce.  Maybe you use a sugar substitute instead of some or all of the sugar.  That’s a noble idea but it disrupts the basic chemistry of the cake and it often comes out badly.  Business is a lot like that.  Some supervisors think that all their workers are interchangeable and ignore the basic chemistry of a good team.  Unfortunately, that kind of thinking often results in a less than optimal result.

Error number two is not understanding the difference between boiling and simmering.  Boiling something happens at a much higher heat than does simmering it gently.  While boiling rather than simmering can cook a dish more rapidly, the result is rarely edible.  Boiling a stew instead of simmering it can result in tough meat, for example.  In business, the equivalent error is yelling and screaming at someone – turning the heat way up – instead of applying a gentle heat that might take a bit longer to work but yields better results.

Finally, many home cooks don’t use thermometers to check the temperature of meat.  They rely on timing as stated in a recipe or some calculation like 6 minutes per pound instead of checking to see if the meat has come to a proper temperature.  This can result in a product that’s over- or under-cooked.  I know of people who don’t rely in measuring devices such as analytics to run their businesses and that’s the equivalent mistake.  There’s no way to tell how a business is doing – digital or otherwise – without using impartial measurements of some sort.  Just as a beautifully browned roast may not be cooked, a business that looks nice on the outside may not be fit for consumption once you dig in.

Enjoy the weekend!

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