Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Cedric Tover should be Ashamed to call himself a chef.

okay, while I finish writing this article you should watch this fifteen minute video to deeply understand my ire.

So after watching that video you should have come to believe, as I myself do, that the owners of the Peacock Cafe have an interview process for their prospective head chefs that must go a little bit like this:
"Have you cooked before?"
'A-yup.'
"Hold this knife and cut something."
'Okay, how about this carrot?'
"Brilliant! You sure taught that root a lesson! Have you taught people to cook before?"
'A-yup.'
"Okay, tell me how to cook this carrot."
'you put it in the pan, turn on the flame and cook until it is done.'
"GodDAMN I like your style! You're Hired!"


Obviously their process is a bit more involved than that (I believe they use parsnips) and not all persons who are competent in the kitchen can teach others to cook, but if I were the owner of the Peacock cafe in New York's illustrious Waldorf Astoria and I heard my head chef stumbling over explaining what makes an heirloom tomato and heirloom tomato, or any explaining any ingredient used in the restaurant for that matter, I would not only fire him but also do my best to make sure he had a hard time running any restaurant of a higher class than a soup kitchen for the rest of his life.

I have so much more to say on this, and maybe sometime I'll get around to saying it, but my main point is this: if you're the head chef of ANY restaurant and someone brings in a monkey and say,s 'I'll pay you ten thousand dollars to teach this monkey how to make bananas foster," you better have than ten grand in your pocket by the end of the day. you should be able to teach four year olds the differences between vegetables that look the same. you should know your goddamned job and if anyone asks you a question about something you already do you had best give them an answer that edifies.