Chef Owners Who Work The Line April 11, 2008
First a dance video, now a cooking story? Yes.
Here is Shuna Fish Lydon, in her own inimitable style, telling a story about a day at work, ten years ago, cooking at the French Laundry.
Finally Eric says something that makes us all look up from our minute, detail oriented tasks. “You heard me, get off the line, all of you, I’m going to show you how to cook.”
[…]
“Stand over here, I’m going to show you how to put out this table, I’m going to show you how to cook, how to work like a team, how to put out just one ticket.”
And then he did. He cooked every single course, by himself, with not another soul on the line touching sauce pots or spatulas or garnishes. He jumped this way and that, gracefully, using every part of his body, talking, admonishing, telling, teaching, showing, explaining as he went.
It was the most amazing thing I ever saw in a kitchen.
There’s more. It’s a good read (lol @ “I didn’t know what I was doing, I was drunk when I opened that restaurant”). A meal at the French Laundry looks like this - she’s not talking about frying some schnitzels here.
Does this have anything to do with games? Of course it does. I recognize many things. You may see other ones. If you don’t see any correspondence, you’re not thinking hard enough about what you are doing.
I previously linked to Shuna’s blog here and mentioned Thomas Keller here.
