restaurant – Food Woolf

Service 101: Shame and Self Loathing in the Restaurant Industry

We live in a time where chefs are celebrated like rock stars and restaurants make great TV. But no matter how popular chefs have become, the people who wait tables, deliver food, and clear dishes exist outside the realm of cool. Service staff occupy a space that’s filled with shame.

Discrimination against service staff is so hardwired in individuals, even journalists are unaware of their bias. The media may do a good job of elevating the status of chefs in the eyes of the dining public but many do much to continue the stereotype of a servile service staff.

Flip through a newspaper or magazine or peruse an online media site and you will find that the largest percentage of stories about waiters focus on unfavorable service styles or controversial tipping practices. Hospitality leaders like Danny Meyer may be cited in profiles about elevated service but the media does little to raise the public opinion of servers, bussers, and runners alike. Rare are the laudatory profiles of service professionals that deliver in the dining room. It seems that in popular culture, there’s no honor in making a living as a server, busser, runner, or barista.

In my professional experience, service professionals who identify themselves as career waiters or full time bussers are regarded by friends, family, customers, and the business community with pity and dishonor. Shame motivates many full time waiters and service staff to hide details of their restaurant work from friends, family, or acquaintances. Service work is—if referred to at all—is spoken about as a way to “pay the bills” until they get “a real job”.

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June 7December 28

A Restaurant Worthy Burger

Some meals may feed hunger, while other dishes create an undeniable desire to fabricate a whole business around them. Particularly great breakfasts, satisfying lunches, cozy dinners, and impeccable desserts coax the entrepreneurial spirit out of us.

My husband and I know better than most, that the idea of opening a restaurant isn’t something to go all sparkly eyed over. We’ve worked in restaurants for decades and we know how much hard work, long hours, and tireless dedication goes into building a place for just nickles on the dollar. But sometimes, we can’t help but yearn for building something special after we’ve made a particularly successful meal. There are certain culinary experiences that make us think past all the risk and get us day dreaming about restaurant interiors, a rag-tag kitchen brigade, and a dining room crew dedicated to bringing our vision to life.

Sometimes, I’m truly amazed at what gets my husband and I fired up enough to open our own place. The cloth of a napkin. A handmade chandelier. A smile of a server/cashier/barista/busser who loves their job. A dark fruit compote. The flavor of an unexpected pickled vegetable. The juicy factor of a burger. There are certain meals we make at home that really get us yearning to seek out a lease in a small building somewhere.

We know we have come up with a restaurant dish when we have created the holy trinity of experience: great ingredients, delicious flavors, and comfort. A depleted larder and nearly empty refrigerator inspired this incredibly satisfying and healthy burger made with ground chicken. Grated carrots and onion gave the patty an extra layer of flavor that had my husband and I talking food costs and plating ideas*.

What dishes do you make that get you dreaming of opening up your own place?

Healthy Bird Burger
Makes 3-4 patties, depending how big you make them.

1 lb ground chicken
1 carrot, grated
1/4 onion, grated
2 egg yolks
1 slice of bread (crusts off)
1 1/2 teaspoons of paprika
Milk (just enough to dampen the slice of bread)
salt and pepper

Options:
Your favorite melting cheese
Mixed greens or toasted bun

Wash hands well. Soak a piece of crust-less bread in just enough milk to make the bread gather up together. Squeeze the bread mixture of excess milk.

Put ground chicken in a bowl with the grated carrot, onion, egg yolks, wet bread mixture, paprika. Mix with a spoon or clean hands. Carefully form the wet, sticky mixture into flat patties.

Heat a skillet on high heat. Add enough grape seed oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Add the patties. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper. Let cook about 3 minutes on the first side do not flip. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for another 3 minutes. Flip the burger. Turn down the heat a bit and let cook 3-6 minutes on the other side, depending on how thick your burger patties are. If adding cheese, add thin slices of cheese to the top of the burger and cover the pan, to allow the cheese melt. Feel the burger for firmness. Take off the heat, let rest for a minute before serving.

Serve on a grilled bun or with a side salad (simply toss some greens with olive oil, rice wine vinegar and salt and pepper).

*How the bird burger is plated above is definitely not restaurant ready.

April 19January 18

Spiced Caramel Corn Recipe

I blame Michael Ruhlman for my caramel corn craving. Back in January– soon after we met at Club Med’s Food Blog Camp—Ruhlman started a flurry of debate on Twitter on the merits of cooking popcorn in cold oil. Though I have never before craved popcorn of all things, I realized that my rather serious longing for a spicy caramel corn was not going to go away until I made some for myself.

Let’s just say I’ve made a number of batches since January. Thanks, Ruhlman.

Turns out, caramel corn is a tricky thing. Some recipes I tried were too sugary and encased my delicate corn puffs in sugary straight jackets. Others varied widely, depending on the type of sugar I used. I have tried several batches (and dispatched the leftovers to loved ones across the state so that I wouldn’t eat the entire thing myself), and have finally discovered the best recipe to fullfill for my need for spiced (i.e. cinnamon and nutmeg spiced), caramel corn.

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February 17November 14

Service 101: So You Think You’re a Foodie

F the new scarlet letter (for Foodie) — F, the new scarlet letter (for Foodie)

Nowadays, it seems like everyone is obsessed with food. But just because you own a micro planer, have eaten at Momofuku, sip cult Cabernets, vacationed in Paris and Tuscany one summer, and stock three kinds of salt in your larder, doesn’t mean you’re an expert. According to Bruni in the New York Times yesterday one commenting critic* on Grub Street NY , self-titled foodies wear a badge “of unsophisticated douchery.”

So what if you like being a foodie? Does that mean you have to put up with being called douche bag?

Not if you learn a few basic rules. It’s when self-proclaimed Foodies throw around their new found knowledge at the restaurants, bars, and gourmet stores they visit, that problems come up. Amateur gourmets just shouldn’t play in the same sandbox with professional chefs without knowing a few rules. Whether you like it or not, you’ll end up looking like a sand-throwing toddler next to the big kids in chefs whites.

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