Hollywood tainted love by leading people to believe that a wealthy man can fall for a wig wearing prostitute, and porn spoiled sex by tricking men into thinking that all women secretly crave explicit exploitation. Professional cooking, in turn, has been permanently fucked with by none other than Thomas Keller and his portrait of culinary perfection, The French Fucking Laundry. For my generation, this was the book to own. I pored over the pages for months on end, and cooking quickly switched from an interim means of acquiring beer money to an actual career plan. I had never seen food so clean and wonderfully presented. Even more alien was the inclusion of philosophy, as Keller preached about the “importance” of this or that. I drank the punch (and then I ate the bowl), which had obviously been cleverly reinterpreted and playfully titled, setting me up for several future disappointments. From then on, nothing I’ve done has been able to equal or better the standards laid out in his manuscript. I could look at this one of two ways: 1) I’m a failure, or 2) I was lied to. I’m going with the latter. And for the record, I count withholding the truth as lying.
What I mean by this is that I both credit and fault this book for forming the hopes and dreams of all the little cookers out there, slinging hash while pretending that it’s “hash” or whatever Mr. Keller would call it. The esthetic presented is Godly and pure: kitchen walls that have never heard a raised voice, a floor that has never felt a spill, complete with vegetables grown by Christ himself. Flip to a picture of anyone from the kitchen staff and imagine them with a halo and feathered wings, playing a harp to a pile artichokes. They’re practically glowing. I understand that I’m reaching, but it’s late enough that I’m convinced I’m onto something, so bear with me.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the book, but I feel like they’ve done cooks everywhere a great big disservice by omitting the shit show. In recent years I’ve gone from a bad place to a good place, and eventually an even better place, only to find that quality and crazy are correlated. I thought that the better I became at this job, the more calm and collected I and the people around me would be. I’ve since discovered that if you’re cooking under ideal conditions, you’re probably at home. I understand that perhaps they wanted to make a cookbook that would sell, and telling people exactly how hard it is to cook those things is probably a terrible marketing campaign, but I could have used a little bit of real. I know that bad things happen in that place, they must. With high levels of performance comes failure of equal or greater proportions.
Which brings me to my next point: what is real? I don’t know the exact number of seats and cooks, but I’m pretty sure it’s a lot closer to equal than in any restaurant you’ve ever worked in, unless of course you’ve worked somewhere on its last legs, but that’s not the same. If they’re angels, there’s an army of them making sure those little sauce dots are in the right place every time. In a “real” kitchen, it’s less an army and more of a little gang. Only a few restaurants in the world can afford to do things the Thomas Keller way, so to treat the book as anything more than fantasy was probably my fault.
The reality of the business came down hard on my French Laundry fantasies, turning what I thought were bricks into mere dust (maybe some kind of vegetable powder). I’ve entered my rebuilding phase, chock full of awful nights and terrible mistakes, and while it may not be perfect, it’s perfectly real.
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Bollocks. Keller’s deconstructed ‘Ad Hoc’ deserves you.
http://www.amazon.ca/Ad-Hoc-Home-Family-Style-Recipes/dp/1579653774
Keller, Boulud and Vongerichten are simply following the recipe concocted by Puck. Back up a truck, dump in money, exaggerate the accolades then peddle the name into catering, merchandise and franchises. There’s nothing wrong with that formula as long as civilians don’t mistake the prestige properties with the revenue generating centres.
Jacob,
It is not a lifestyle or a lifestyle choice, or anything else like that.
It is a job.
It is not Disneyland.
As you know, the work is hard, hot and for the most part unrewarded…………unless you think being yelled at is a reward, then come work with me and all of your dreams will be filled. Sadly this is an industry the gives out more stick and less carrot.
Check out the cast of Characters in the back of the Patina cookbook ( a couple of years before your time ) and you will get a better representation of a kitchen. They seriously look like a gang!
Anyhoo, put the French Laundry back on the bookshelf and stop torturing yourself……………and do not even grab the Charlie Trotter.
Grab a charcuterie book, hack up a pig and you will start to feel better right away. You will find immense satisfaction in doing some age old recipes that work and people love.
Cheers
I tend to disagree a bit. It was French Laundry that gave me that inititial push, drive and passion for cooking. Not because I thought that it would be an easy venture to accomplish, but that it would be a difficult adventure of gratification. It was the reality of it. Flipping through pages knowing that that is real, those pages and pictures are facts, and that is what they do at that restaurant…..It is not a fantasy. And also to say, ‘Boulud and Vongerichten are simply following the recipe concocted by Puck.’ Thats not true it is just that they have good recipes. The recipes that they created while they were already running their own very successful restaurant doing beautiful and delicious food. That is all.
I’ve been in the French Laundry kitchen, at the tail end of a full dinner service and it was spotless. Walls, floors, and a flock of white clad chefs – clean as a lick. Most peaceful kitchen I’ve ever been in at Friday midnight – or any other time for that matter.
This is something I think about a lot. If you have ever read “Letters to a Young Chef”, or “Becoming a Chef”, or pretty much any internet blog written by chefs on this subject, it is very easy to regard yourself as a failure. But I’ve realized it doesn’t really matter. It’s not the path that matters. Did any of us choose cooking because we wanted to follow a Corporate-style advancement system? If you are talented and driven, you will get what you deserve.
I have been thinking about this piece written by Jacob for over a week. You see I deal with young cooks on a daily basis and when I see a cook who cares enough to question his place in the culinary field, I feel compelled to add in my 2cents for whatever it may be worth.
I went to work at french laundry about a year before the book came out. I was young, idealistic and driven. Driven to work in a restaurant that takes their shit very seriously. I had worked hard in Victoria, at places that i thought were really good, but i really had no idea what good even was until i got to Yountville. Now you can talk about the undeniable product, the fact that he has at least one back up for every piece of equipment in his kitchen, the fact that people will do just about anything for a reservation, that there are 25 to 30 people in the brigade for 90 covers a night. It is perfect setting, in place, time and culinary renaissance. All of this comes together as to why the french laundry is one of the best restaurants in the world, but the real lynch pin to and what makes the french laundry really special are the people, and i don’t mean the individuals, I mean his entire staff, front and back, who had given themselves to the french laundry. Everyone who works there has drunk the proverbial kool aid. The one thing that I took away from the laundry and that I envy the most is that everyone is on the same page. Everyone is there to strive for the same goal. This is the backbone for the Keller success, and he will be the first to tell you the same thing.
Now imagine that being on the same page is the basis of the entire culture behind the restaurant. That is why the French Laundry is so successful. He is more real and closer to perfection, than every other restaurant out there because his staff believe that, and in in turn his customers believe it to.
Now as for Jacobs misgivings, you have not been lied to. You have not been fleeced. You must understand that there is just as much honor in cooking 3 Michelin star food as cooking a roast chicken. Food from your heart is the only thing that matters. Being honest, and continually learning your craft are the reasons why it matters.
I will give a small piece of advice I give all of my cooks. If you truly think you are giving all you can to your craft on a daily basis then you should be proud of yourself. If you think you can give more, then do it for yourself because it will make you a better cook. Don’t do it because you think it will give you a better paycheck.
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