I just posted a new Novice2Pro interview with Chef Crystal Frazier, a recent graduate of the French Culinary Institute in New York City. If you are thinking of attending the French Culinary Institute or any culinary arts school for that matter, you want to read Crystal’s interview.

I was introduced to Crystal by my friend Chef David Nelson, co founder of Chef4Students.org, a foundation raising money to help current culinary students finance their education. It is a great organization and if you are interested in helping the career of a future chef, you can make contributions at their site.

I’ll be talking more about Chef4Students when I announce the recipient of the Reluctant Gourmet Culinary Grant in April. I’m looking forward to working with Chef Nelson in the decision process in finding someone to receive the grant. If you are a culinary student and interested in their grant process, check out chef4students.org for details.

I’m looking forward to interviewing more grant recipients from Chef4Students.org and share with you some of their culinary education stories.

To learn more about the French Culinary Institute in New York City.

Interview with Chef Martin Laprise

For those of you who are thinking of opening and running your own restaurant some day will enjoy this bit of advice from Chef Martin Laprise, author of My Daughter Wants to Be A Chef.

Chef Laprise is one of those chefs who has seen it all. He has been employed in 24 of the 39 venues a professional chef can expect to work as described in his book. It is a great read if you or your child is thinking of attending culinary arts school.

Martin, now a professional caterer and personal cooking instructor in Canada participated in my Novice2Pro chef interview that can be seen at Interview with Chef Martin Laprise. This is another great interview for prospective young chefs thinking of cooking school.

At the end of my interview with Chef Martin, I asked him if he had any comments or advice related to managing a restaurant and here is his informative reply.

If you are going to have a restaurant one day, do your homework first. Here’s some advice I passed on to a friend of mine last month about running a successful restaurant.

1. Train and coach your staff well so when you its your day off they still perform accordingly. NO RESTAURATOR can do it alone.
2. Although this is your own unique concept, as soon as you open your restaurant, create your business as if someone else would take over one day. Think like a franchise.  That way when you want to slowdown and have a life with your child, you have a system and rules for everything. OR if you want to sell the business and travel the world, it’s easier once you have system in place. Think TURN KEY.
3. Empower all your employees to make decisions and not rely on you every times. Do not discourage them if they screw up, try to explain to them the best you can.
4. Reward your cooks by letting them create a special of the day and/or create an item for the new menu. Everyone likes to be part of things. A cook who feels part of something will stay longer. Ask for their opinions once in while so they will feel important and happy to work for you.
5. The schedule is the BEST tool you have in the kitchen or in the front. It’s a great reward to give a flexible schedule to your staff so that they can have a life or a hubby. Employees are there to help you realize your goal. Figure out what is best for everyone.  4 days a week for 10 hours for someone may not be suitable for someone else. Talk to everyone and make the schedule that best fits everyone’s needs. Example; young cooks like to party, where old cook like to be with their spouse on special occasions. ADJUST!
6. You are now a restaurant owner, wow, BUT don’t forget to think about when you were an employee and how it made you feel when the boss did not listen to any of your advices. Listen to your staff; NO REALLY listen to all of your staff, including dishwashers. They see things that you don’t. You only have two hands and two eyes! Create a system and environment that promote opinion sharing. Like a meal between lunch and dinner service with all the staff so everyone can talk about ideas and how to improve. This will create a great TEAM environment and cost very little long term. 
7.  The front of the house servers will benefit from having educational wine tasting once in while and enjoy the experience AND stay longer.
8. Don’t make one person work 60 hours a week when you can hire one and half workers instead. I know that the labor market is toughf, but it can be done. People that are over worked don’t perform well and may cost you some future clients. You ultimately control who works and how much! Even if someone wants to work overtime, don’t do it. For cost and for the employee.
9. Follow up is the most important action in any business. Example; when you say to an employee I will talk to you tomorrow, talk about it the very next day. When you say we will talk about a raise in two months, don’t avoid it. Make sure to have a talk two months to the day even if it is to say I can’t talk right now for X or Y reasons
10. If you give direction to any employees, you absolutely need to follow up to see if it was done right or done at all. If an employee who knows that you don’t follow up is more likely to screw up.
11. Customer service is extremely important. If you know that a table has waited a bit too long, send a glass of something to the table. A few dollars is much cheaper than a bad review from a client. Find a drink or food that is your signature to offer when things get busy. 
12.  All recipes, food or drink, should be written down and standard every time. 
13.  Since you are in the middle of wine country, if I were you, I would do wine tasting once a month. Something like the second Wednesday of each month. Stick with it and one day it will be packed. Have wine maker as guest! 
14. Press releases are simple. Tell your story about how you got there and you should get free press. Don’t ever sell your restaurant, sell you journey to media.
15. Press releases are very powerful! Wait until you are ready to handle lots of people. Make sure to send it to all media nationwide, not just local media.
16. Don’t cut down on quality ever and dessert is extremely important, as this is the last thing the client sees before the bad news/the bill.
17. No matter how much I like to cook duck, if the local market does not want to eat duck I have to accept that I will cook something else to make a living.
18. Hire people for who they are, not what they know. You can teach someone to be a better cook or server, BUT you can’t teach someone to be a better well adjusted human being. Choose people for their personality and teach them what you want.
19. Reward your employees for doing a good job.
20. Support your small community by giving out dinners to charity, you will get free press for it and feel good too.
21. An employee will never have the same commitment as you, period… This is your life, and it’s only a job for your best employee. Eventually, to make someone assistant manager is a smart move that will allow you to have a life of your own. 

If you are interested in reading more about running your own restaurant, I have found 3 ebooks on the subject that might be helpful. I have not read these ebooks yet because I am not thinking of opening my own restaurant but they might be something to check out if you are.

Top Secrets to Successful Restaurant Operations

Restaurant Management Toolkit 

How to Improve Dining Room Service 

and then there is this Restaurant News Service you can subscribe to called Restaurant News        

How to Make Incredible Cheese Biscuits

I am excited to tell you about my latest NoviceToPro Interview with Chef Jenni Field, a graduate from the prestigious Orlando Culinary Academy’s Le Cordon Bleu program. It is a great interview and a must read if you are thinking of going to culinary school especially if you are over the age of 30.

Jenni started culinary arts school after a 16-year career as a teacher and avid amateur baker. The interview gets into why she changed careers, how she decided what culinary school to attend, what it was like plus Jenni talks about what qualities someone needs to enter the restaurant industry. Do check it out here.

I asked Chef Jenni for a signature recipe and she offer this one for Cheese Biscuits. Here is what she said:

“I make these for bread service at the restaurant every day.  People clamor for them in a most undignified manner!  This recipe doubles and quadruples with no problem (I make a batch with 32 cups of flour), so it’s a good recipe for a crowd”

Cheese Biscuits
 
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon mustard powder
pinch of cayenne pepper (to taste)
4 oz. cold butter, cubed
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 oz. grated cheese (we use gruyere and parmesan. Cheddar works very well, also)
Several grinds of black pepper

Heavily flour a smooth work surface.  (Seriously. You shouldn’t even be able to see the table under the flour).  Have your rolling pin, a bench scraper and grated cheese ready to go.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  Rub in butter with your fingers until the butter pieces are about the size of large peas. 

Pour in the cream and buttermilk and toss lightly with your hand, using your hand to fold the ingredients together like you’d use a spatula.  The dough will be a shaggy mess. Some will still just be plain flour and some will be kind of wet.  Doesn’t matter.  Overcome your trepidation and dump it all out on the floured surface.
Sprinkle a little flour on top of the shaggy mess of dough and pat it into a rectangle that’s about 1/2 inch thick. 

Take 1 oz. of the grated cheese and sprinkle it on half of the rectangle.  Use your bench scraper to help you fold the non-sprinkled half over onto the sprinkled half.  Try and get the edges fairly even. 

Turn the dough a quarter-turn.  You might need your bench scraper for this, too. 

Lightly roll this folded, still messy mass of dough and cheese until it is again about 1/2 inch thick.  Keep it as rectangular as you can. 

Sprinkle another ounce of cheese on half, fold, turn and roll again.  Repeat this process with the remaining 4 ounces of cheese.  It will look like all the cheese won’t fit, but carry on.  I promise it will.  If some falls out, just put it back in. 

With each fold, you are creating tons of layers of dough and cheese.  In that sense, it’s kind of like a puff pastry.  Also, the dough will become much easier to manage.  It might, in fact, become kind of hard to roll, making you have to push down pretty hard and grit your teeth.  That’s okay.  Just keep going. 

Once all your cheese is in (it will sort of magically disappear into the dough), square up the sides of your rectangle again, then cut in squares of whatever size you prefer.  With this size batch, you’ll probably get about 7-8 larger biscuits or about 15 mini guys. 

Use your bench scraper for this part, too–it is a useful tool.  (For the most beautiful baked biscuits, make sure all four sides of your biscuits are cut sides. 

Don’t bake one with a fold on one side.  It will still taste good, it just will rise all funny because the layers on one side are all still attached). 

You can bake the biscuits immediately, but they seem to like to be frozen for awhile first–they rise up nice and straight when the fat has had a chance to firm up again. 

At any rate, when you’re ready to bake, brush the tops with buttermilk, grind on a bit of black pepper, and bake off at 375 degrees, F for 7 minutes.  Turn the pan and bake for about 6-8 more minutes.  (This baking time is for a commercial convection oven.  Your baking time might be different). 

When they are done, they will be tall and golden brown and lovely.  Resist eating for as long as possible (we can only go for about 14 seconds at the restaurant) and then eat. 

They are great with butter, bacon, or for a truly decadent treat, smear on some really good raspberry jam.  Hooray for the cheese biscuits!