Eyes Open in the Kitchen

Imagine you are on the first day of orientation at a new job. After the standard forms and rituals, you go for a tour of the office and finally your desk. As you approach your desk, you notice that in the place of a computer you find a typewriter. Curious, you ask, “Where is the computer?” The human resources executive laughs and says, “We prefer not to use computers – a typewriter has less moving parts, very dependable!” “So how do I send an email,” you ask? “Oh we don’t use email here, we use snail mail,” he responds, “after all, it is time tested.” Now slightly panicked you ask, “Do I get a cell phone?” The human resource officer points to the rotary dial phone on the corner of the desk. “We don’t do cell phones here. We have used rotary phones for the last 50 years and don’t plan on changing,” he explains.

I feel most of us can agree that this company’s refusal to embrace technology would make it significantly disadvantaged in the modern marketplace. The funny thing is that I, like many chefs, do just that when it comes to our operations. It’s true that we have allowed computers to work their way into our back offices. We also have done away with the hand-written tickets of the PST for modern point of sale systems with screens and printers. But many of us choose to default to a kitchen more similar to something out of the 1940s and less like the 21 century. I was one of the biggest offenders of this. And like so many of us, I tried to counteract issues of labor, operational costs and food safety by placing the burden on my own shoulders often to the detriment of my happiness and quality of life.  

The story of how I left a small artisan, almost idyllic, life as a vineyard chef and wound up in Omaha Nebraska is a long story best told over a beer and not in a Linkedin article. It’s also inconsequential. The reality is that I found myself running two restaurants and completely enveloped in my work. To this job I brought the philosophy of fresh ingredients and scratch cooking. I also brought the mentality that how it was done in the past is how it should be done in the present. Like many operations, we had our general restaurant service, banqueting and catering. We spent long hours prepping for services and needed a small army to force the necessary prep in the hours of operation into the logistical castrates of the day. In my kitchen, a consultant had put a double stack of combi ovens. Everyday we would skip past the menus of functions and choose one of three manual functions. So I had these combis and ran them essentially as a glorified steamer or oven.

If you had a great broiler cook and you only used him in pantry, would you ever consider this a good allocation of resources?

One day my food rep offered to set up a training on the combi ovens. At this time, I was in my early 30’s and convinced I knew everything in the kitchen world. I begrudgingly agreed. The combi chef drove up from Kansas and worked with me for the day. Suddenly I began to understand the possibilities: automated programs that consistently pushed out my recipes and vision with shocking consistency. In steps, I integrated the equipment. A whole world and vision began to open up to me. So began a new phase in a career that has consumed the past nine years of my life.

Now that my eyes were opened to technology, I started to find that with a little creativity and a willingness to experiment, I could solve many of the problems I battled in my kitchens. Utilizing my combis, I could manipulate the moisture in cooking. This resulted in higher yields and dramatically affected my food costs. I was able to add hours to the day by using automated overnight cooking functions. One of my worries about integrating technology was that it might limit my creativity and vision. But in contrast, it gave me the ability to replicate my vision with the precision that would have taken years of training. But challenges in a restaurant can often be a Hydra. With dramatic improvements, I dreamed of machines that solved the cold part of kitchen operation. To my surprise, a world of blast chillers existed to solve these problems. It was at that time that I met two of the best people I have ever known -- Tim Murray and Ira Kaplan of Irinox. Not only did Irinox solve my cooling and HACCP issues, it also integrated a cooling in conjunction with hot programs flawlessly. That is to say that I could use cook/chill, cool/retherm, thaw/proof/retard, and so much more. Working as a contract chef, I traveled the country using combi ovens and Irinox to solve 90 percent of the kitchen struggles I encountered. The next five years, whether large or small projects, fine or casual dining, chains, grocery stores, banquet halls or hospitals, often we could provide solutions to operational issues. I eventually took a full-time position with Irinox, where I still remain today.

Cooking overnight, speed roasting, freezing with high quality, rapid chilling with perfect and effortless documentation; this equipment can improve consistency, labor concerns, and quality of life. All of these things are possible and achievable in the modern kitchen. Chefs just have to be willing to look and try.

Resistance to the unknown can be part of human nature. I’m reminded of a story about the old man in the flood. If you haven’t heard it, basically it goes like this:

 An old man finds out a flood is coming. A police officer stops by his home and tells him to evacuate. He says, “no, a higher power is going to save me,” and stays at his home. The flood comes and he retreats to the second floor of his home. A firefight with a boat comes by the house and offers to rescue him. Again, he refuses and says, “no, my higher power will save me.” The rising water forces the man to retreat to his roof. A coast guard helicopter flies by and pleads to rescue him. Again, the old man refuses, insisting that a higher power will save him. Sadly, the water overtakes his home and the old man dies. He comes to in the afterlife and sees his higher power. He asks, “higher power, why didn’t you save me?” His higher power replies, “I sent you a police officer, a firefighter and a coast guard helicopter. What else did you expect me to do?”

It could be said that our industry has never faced the challenges it currently faces. It’s also a safe bet that we need or will need to improve operation to stay competitive. The flood waters are coming. Technology has created us a lifeline. Chefs, are we going to take it?