Critic: How to Get Your Head Out of Your Ass

Many readers know I went to culinary school after selling my company. It was a bucket list thing. I did not intend to work in the field. That changed when I saw a beautiful historical building for sale. I couldn’t resist. I opened a bakery/bistro. It was fun. I got bored. I sold out.

That’s not the topic of this post.

I have three pricey educations (business, tech, and culinary) under my belt. I’m more qualified than most to make value judgements on restaurants and the like.

To be sure, I rarely go to restaurants. I’m too often disappointed. Usually, I stick to the two or three headed by ex-classmates and instructors of mine. I know their work. I know their strengths and weaknesses.

I have a well-developed personal sense of fair play, I can’t tolerate pompous idiocy.

Yesterday I read a “review” of a restaurant I know well. My first impression was that the reviewer caught them on a bad day.

That happens. It happens in all walks of human endeavour.

I continued reading.

At the end of the review, my thought changed. Now it was, “This person is so full of shit that they should never have been allowed to leave the womb.”

Bear in mind that this “expert” has a following of some 50,000 people.

She calls herself a “foodie with a deep love for food in all its forms.”

What the hell does that mean? Everybody loves food. It’s an enjoyable bodily function... like sex.

Except I eat three times a day. Not so for that other thing.

Loving food doesn’t mean she knows jack about restaurants. She doesn’t. She proved it in her post.

Professional Cooking is different: Cleanliness

At home, you don’t get snap visits from inspectors. You don’t have to bother with the multitude of laws restaurants must deal with. I’d bet that your home kitchen would be fined and/or shut down if it did.

That’s fine. A professional kitchen can infect hundreds of people a day. Your home kitchen… not so much.

This particular blogger complained that the cooks did not wear gloves while cooking.

What????  

Cooks wear vinyl gloves only if they have a dressing covering a wound on their hand. It’s the lesser of two evils. Better the cook wears a glove than lose the Band-Aid in a dish.

Vinyl gloves are not sanitary.  They do not replace the need for hand washing. 

Every time you change function, you must remove the glove. Wash your hands then put on a newglove. You must do that every time, and no more than five minutes wearing the same glove.

Yes, that’s an onerous process. That’s why people don’t follow it.

If I see a kitchen were everybody is wearing gloves, I leave.

Hands are warm. They perspire. The vinyl does not allow them to breathe. That heat and humidity is a perfect breeding ground for bacteria.

I stopped going to a local sub shop because they use gloves. Worse, they re-use the same gloves over and over.

Rinse your hands in the toilet… they’d be cleaner. (ok, maybe not, but close)

There is no better kitchen tool than a set of clean hands.

Professional Cooking is different: It’s Damned Hard Work

If you have five people over for dinner, your kitchen is chaos. Your stress skyrockets. You turn the air blue with colourful commentary.

More often than not, you and your partner get into a fight. Every time you do it, you vow never to do it again.

Now, multiply the number of guests by ten.  Then re-multiply it by three.

If a restaurant has 50 seats, and doing three turns, that’s 150 meals. There are likely two people in the kitchen. The same number as for your dinner party.

Cut the kitchen staff some slack.  They’re doing something that would drive you to an early grave. They do it every day.

Professional Cooking is different: Applied Chemistry

Professional cooks want you to be happy. They will try to please you. That’s why they do it in the first place.

This particular blogger has no idea what she was talking about.

She asked to have her crepe made without eggs. Let me be clear. She wanted the batter, not the filling, made without eggs. Further, she was scandalized that they refused.

Just because she wants crepe batter without egg does not mean she can change the laws of chemistry. Crepe batter without egg is not batter at all. It’s paste.

She mentioned another restaurant who “always makes me egg-less crepes.” No, honey, they don’t.

They just tell you that they do.

She didn’t stop there.

She mentioned that the mayonnaise they served was not homemade. Here I quote, “What does it take to make mayo from scratch? Hardly anything at all! This is simply a lack of respect.”

To be sure, I sort of agree. But, here’s the thing.

It takes raw egg yolks to make natural mayonnaise. At home, I do it all the time. I’ll whip some up, as needed, for sandwiches.

Here, restaurants can’t use raw egg yolks! They have to pasteurize them first. That defeats the purpose. It’s better, but not much. It’s just not worth the extra effort. Most restaurateurs just season or otherwise re-work commercial mayo.

Some make their own anyway. That’s more a cost-cutting measure than a culinary one.

I know one restaurateur who makes real mayonnaise at night. LOL, Imagine that… a Mayo Bootlegger!

That’s where I go if I’m in the mood for a good Caesar Salad.

Professional Cooking is different: It’s a business

Professional cooks must sell what they produce. They must sell it at a profit. They must account for waste. They must account for spoilage. Their recipes must be prepared quickly or partially in advance.

There’s a trick to combining simplicity with exquisiteness. But, chances are, your home recipes are more involved than restaurant fare. They are also probably more expensive to produce.

You don’t need to sell the stuff you make.

Let me give you an example. My Father’s favourite dessert is Opéra cake. I created a version just for him. 

I never offered it for sale in my bakery.

Why not? It’s simple.

It’s too expensive to produce. An 8-inch pavé would need to sell for about $300. What are the odds of that happening?

Just the trimming adds cost. For those who don’t know, a pavé is a square cake. Opéra is a sloppy looking mess until it’s trimmed.

The blogger suggested that they replace certain ingredients. I knew then she was clueless.  

She wanted a whole Tahitian Gold vanilla bean in her café au lait. She wanted it because “It’s so much better. The chef should know that!”

Clueless.

I know for a fact that her café au lait cost her four bucks. How does she expect to have a $5 bean thrown in as a stir-stick?

The restaurant in question did not reply to her post. That was smart of them. They are in the business of providing excellent food in a wonderful setting. 

They are not in the business of educating idiots.

Okay, enough. I didn't even mention her "Seven(?) Mother Sauces" and her stupid idea about how to make french fries.

Be careful who you choose as an "expert."

Rant mode off.

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