Bad Habits

Bad habits start the moment a young culinarian sets foot in the majority of kitchens. This truth began to sink in at my first kitchen position at a local country club. The veteran cooks and Sous Chefs that had been working there their whole lives knew nothing other than their own way of doing things. I would constantly hear the phrase: "Well that's just the way we do it here." This statement would subconsciously irritate the inner chef in me every time it was muttered. In retrospect, the biggest issue wasn't the bad habits that surrounded me, it was the lack of ambition and experience on my end to correct them.



For every year that I looked for another dollar on my hourly wage at mediocre restaurants, I should have been researching Michelin rated, and James Beard award winning kitchens. I remember in culinary school, one of my colleagues mentioned the name Thomas Keller to me. I shrugged my shoulders as if this name had no relevance to my profession. My colleague glanced at me as if I didn't deserve to be in the kitchen. Shortly after, I bought the French Laundry cookbook and began to study the habits that shaped Chef Keller's restaurants. I slowly began to realize that knowledge is very different than practicality. Although I mentally understood the philosophy of Thomas' culinary disciplines, that didn't mean I understood what it would take to physically apply them.

The first three years or so of my culinary profession were exciting and new to me, but in comparison, very stale and unrefined to the leading chefs of my day. Yes, I learned all the basics of stocks, sauces, fabrication, and knife cuts, but none of these were as refined as they should have been. For instance, the chefs I worked with never cared whether a sauce was strained enough as long as it tasted good. In comparison, at Gordon Ramsays and Bouchon, I had to strain stocks, sauces, and some puree's 3 or 4 times before It was stored, and 2 or 3 times before use. Another example, is at Bouchon. We use a damp towel to wipe down the residue that builds up on the sides of a stock as it reduces (This helps prevent cloudy and bitter tasting stocks.) These habits made for velvet like puree's, and crystal clear sauces that not only changed the way the dish was presented, but also the level of professionalism in the kitchen.


As I continue to wage against my bad habits, I realize that my new learned habits are not used solely to create and execute beautiful dishes. So far, these good habits, paired with a touch of humility, become infectious to those around you. Before you know it, you find yourself surrounded with professionals that not only practice these habits, but push you to mantain and refine them. On the macro scale, good habits can ulitmatley raise the standard that it takes to be a part of the culinary industry.

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