Winter Menus; Comfort food and the newest secondary cuts

Winter is fast approaching and the menus (if not already) are about to change. Gather your bay leaves and mirepoix, give your brasing dishes a dust off and order in your hard herbs. But the question remains, what will be the next "rebirth" in secondary cuts to be used. Shanks, Oxtail, beef cheeks and now pulled pork shoulder have all had their time in the sun but what will be next? Maybe we will move towards the roasted pork knee of the Czech Republic or the hunter style braised rabbit from Europe, or maybe we will continue on the Americana theme and push brisket and thick smoky sauces ? Several restaurants around Adelaide are focussing much more on Offal and off cuts, for examples have a look at the menu at the Daniel O'Connell or see the pig's head terrine at Elbow Room. The meats are the driving force behind winter menus and I can't wait to see what is brought into the spotlight next and what will be the winning vegetables that will accompany it! In the past years Celeriac, parsnips, beetroot and heirloom vegetables have all featured heavily on winter menus. Kale, cavalo nero and brussel sprouts have been trying to push their way in and I wonder if this will be their year. I am a great fan of broccoli rabe and would love to see it more widely used. What are your favourite winter ingredients and what are your predictions for this years big winter breakthroughs!

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly of TV Cooking Shows

Like so many others at the moment, I have eagerly been tuning in to watch the new Masterchef  Professionals series. As I sit and watch, bemusing the skill and flaws of the contestants and commenting on how I would do things differently, I often wonder if we are taking the magic out of food. Is the over analysis of our dining experience ruining the simple pleasures that we can take from food? To make a simplistic comparison, magicians are wonderful to watch, but once you realise how they have done their tricks you can no longer truly enjoy them.

So exactly what are these shows doing to our industry? I'm sure that we have all discussed the exposure that the shows are giving to dining  and possibly the influx of new staff who now decide that cooking is their life long ambition. Now more than ever we also have to deal with the "informed diner" many of whom want to know exactly what cooking processes are involved in their dish and exactly where the products were sourced from. But knowledge is power and comes with responsibility and so many people who watch these shows and are starting to immerse themselves in the gourmet consumer world  are critiquing and disecting our dishes and dining experience without fully understanding all the intricacies of running a successful kitchen.

Often they lack the understanding that the foods that they are buying have to be costed and have to be financially and laboriously viable to be able to put them on the menu. If they want food with such flair and locally sourced, organic, free range ingredients and impressive plating, the cost has to match that and the restaurant also has to have sufficient customers to continue producing that food. Too often we hear people bemoan the fact that there are no decent restaurants or places to eat around, but then we see great eateries go under or change their niche due to lack of customers.

I feel that this all links back to the one central issue, the media are doing a great job of glorifing our industry and what we do but they fail to look at the viability side of it. The food we are shown is often self indulgent and not subjected to the constraints of time, customers, ingredient costs and staff ability. This is understandable because after all, who wants to sit and watch a chef cost out his sous vide of scotch with truffled celeriac puree and lobster roulade. Surely the media also has an obligation to acknowledge all the behind the scenes work that goes into making a successful eaterie and not just promote the idea that if you do good food you will be successful.

 We also have to acknowledge the great things that these shows have done for the industry. Without these shows, so many of us wouldn't have access to some great ingredients or be able to put some of the more interesting dishes on our menus. These shows drive innovation and normalise untraditional ingredients, methods and food, which allows us to diversify and experiment more on our menus. Suppliers are beginning to stock more exotic ingredients at more competitive prices and we get the benefit. 

The final gift that these shows give is a gift for our ego, we have truly been turned into the rockstars of the worker world, and rightly so! We work hard, give up so much and put all our emotions and personal lives aside to give the customer a memorable experience. We don't get to say that we save lives or keep the community safe or that we are nurturing the education of the next generation, but a piece of ourselves goes out on each of those plates, a piece of our pride and our self worth. We give these things willingly and it is nice to be acknowledged for that.  

The rants of a Hospitality Mentor

Well here it is, our first official blog. By now I hope that anyone reading this will understand exactly what the program is here for and about so lets delve straight into some of the things that we as hospitality workers and particularly chefs are coming across in the last few years. Over the last 10 years, as budgets have become tighter and as products have become more accessible, there has been a quite prominent move away from doing some processes in our kitchens. We are quickly moving into a day and age where it is easier to order in pre-prepared products instead of doing it ourselves, for example often meat is no longer even portioned in restaurants. The worst thing about this is that it makes perfect sense, why risk the wastage and inconsistencies when you can do precise costings and get consistent products by having some of the prep done offsite (say at the butcher) . The problem that occurs though is that after these sort of services are used for a long time, that skill for the chef can be lost. This also means that the skill will not be passed on to future chefs. In this way we are effectively deskilling the future generations of chefs and ourselves in one foul swoop. We all need to make a real effort to pass on our skills to anyone in the kitchen who is willing to learn them, even if the skill isn't utilised in the daily kitchen prep. If we only teach what we absolutely need to learn then we limit the growth and creativity of the workplace. So have a think about a skill that you might be able to pass on in your workplace, and be open to others trying to pass on their knowledge and skills, I'm sure it will make a more enjoyable and interesting workplace for everyone and we will retain those skills that are quickly being lost!