Tag Archives: Food

August 15, 2014 · 9:50 am

Dirty Hands

Foodie Friday and this week I want to talk about two of my favorite kitchen tools.  You already own them and you’re probably not using them as much as you should while cooking.  I’m talking about your hands.  I’m not talking about using them to hold a knife or any other kitchen implement.  I mean using them to touch and feel ingredients and dishes as you go.  Yes, it means getting them dirty and this is why I generally cook with a towel tucked into my waistband – I’m constantly washing them.  But let me explain why you should be getting your hands dirtier more often.

I’m thinking specifically about pasta dough.  Many people dump the flour, oil, salt and eggs into a mixer and once the ingredients are combined they’ll switch to a dough hook to knead the dough.  That’s less effective than using your hands.  The warmth of your hands helps to develop the gluten and unless you are checking the dough constantly there is no way to tell when it had reached the right consistency (it should feel like Playdoh, by the way).  You can’t feel if it’s too grainy or too dry without working it by hand for a bit.

There is no better tool for mixing ingredients together in a bowl than a hand.  You can feel for pockets of ingredients that haven’t combined evenly and it’s almost impossible to mix together a meatloaf or form meatballs without using your hands to do so.  It’s an important business point too.

You can’t manage a business without tools but you must get your hands dirty as well.  I have worked with managers who considered their staff to be a set of tools that would do the work efficiently and they were right for the most part.  However, they never got their hands dirty by getting deeply into the work and two things would happen.  The first was that their staff came to see them as detached and aloof.  The second was that they had no feel for things.  Like the pasta dough, the only way to assess how things are developing is to get your hands into the work.

Anyone who claims they’re a cook and has long fingernails isn’t getting their hands into the food often enough (or is making people sick!).  Any manager who sits behind a closed door and reads reports isn’t getting their hands dirty either (which might make the business sick).   How dirty are your hands?

 

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August 8, 2014 · 11:36 am

Baked Oatmeal

Foodie Friday and our topic today is oatmeal.

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know – not the best thing for breakfast on a hot summer morning but I know plenty of people who start the day with a steaming bowl of grain no matter what the weather so I’m pressing on.  I was reading one of the many food blogs I scan regularly and it made a great point.  The piece is called Why You Should Stop Boiling Your Oatmeal and Start Baking It.  I’ll admit I’m one of those lazy slobs who throws my oatmeal of choice (Irish Oats, thank you) into the microwave.  The Mrs. boils hers almost every morning – obviously she is a lot more patient than her husband.  Baking never entered either of our minds.  Maybe it should have:

With baked oatmeal, all you have to do is toss it all in a baking dish and slide it into the oven. In about 30 minutes, you’ve got a dish of steaming, tender oats. To enrich it, I use milk instead of water, and just one egg lightens the texture. It’s the perfect stress-free hot breakfast to serve to guests. Why? There’s no à la minute cooking: the oven does all the work.

There is a business point in here too.  In many cases it’s not what we’re doing that’s an issue but how we’re doing it.  People tend to believe their memories instead of facts.  When a business does things in a certain way, that’s a memory.  The facts we might gather if we stepped back and assessed the situation with an open mind might tell us that the process is inefficient or unproductive.  It’s not the what – we need to accomplish the task – but maybe there is a better way to do so.

We need to think about baking the oatmeal in our business lives by asking if there is a better, more efficient, more profitable way to go about it on a regular basis.  Maybe over breakfast?

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August 1, 2014 · 9:54 am

Old Cooks, New Cuisines

It’s Foodie Friday and this week I want to report on a business point I learned at supper last evening. IMG_20140801_092530It was a lovely, small Italian restaurant and the food they were serving was really excellent. High quality ingredients were used which always makes a difference but the skills the cook showed were impressive. He had a firm grasp on southern Italian fare.

I chatted up the owner who, as it turned out was both Italian and the wife of the cook.  I mentioned how much I appreciated his skill and apparent knowledge of Italian food and techniques.  I then asked where he was from, wondering as I asked it if he was from the north of Italy or the south.  As it turned out, the answer was south as is VERY far south.

As in Morocco.

They had met in New York  and she had taught him Italian food.  He was already an accomplished cook when they met and he was able to translate what he knew into another form.  After all, what is couscous if not a cousin to acini di pepe or pastina?  Many of the spices and seasonings are the same and the basics – knife skills, etc. – never change.  What does this have to do with business?

We tend to pigeonhole people.  This one is an accountant, that one is a fabulous assistant.  We don’t spent enough time thinking about how the skills they have can be used elsewhere in other contexts to make the business better.  There was a shrimp dish last night which had an extraordinary broth.  The cook had added a bit of his marinara – just enough to make the “usual” scampi broth a lovely light pink.  That sort of addition is more common in his native cuisine than Italian and, with the addition of some scallions it make for a great dish.  We need to let smart people with excellent skills use them in new cuisines and see what emerges.  As I found last night, the result is often surprisingly good.

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