Chef Kimberly Schaub Discusses Being a Research and Development Chef, and Kitchen Culture

Welcome, everyone. This is Chris with the Chefs ithout Restaurants podcast. Today we have chef Kimberly Schaub. She's a research chef, a d she has a podcast called Peas n Moss. Welcome to the sho Kimberly

Thank you so much chef Chris. It's so good o be here. It's fun to have een in touch for a while to ave a little overlap in eattle. And then to both have odcasts. This is fun. I'm so xcited to be on. Thank you for nviting me.

You're welcome. Yeah, you know, what you're doing is well within the realms of chef so that restaurants right, you know, there's, I've said it all the time. There's so many people doing very interesting, cool things in the food world that just don't happen to be working as a line cook, or an executive chef in a free standing restaurant. And you're another great example of that.

Thank you.

Yeah, I am. I went to culinary school in Seattle in 2010, to 2011. And I actually went in with the hope to become a research chef, I was volunteering at the Pike Place Senior Center, and had volunteered with a chef there who's asking me what I was wanting to do. And I was I think I was peeling potatoes at the time. I was like, Well, what are you trying to do with your life, you know, that type of kitchen conversation. And I was like, I want to be an RD chef. And I was thinking registered dietician, Chef, because I have a nutrition science background. But he misheard me and thought I'd said RND, Chef, research and development chef. And so he spent the rest of our shift talking about how amazing it was to have worked for McCormick back in his day. And I literally came home from that that work day saying, Okay, I think I want to change it all. I'm good. I want to go be a research chef. I don't know what that means. But it sounds amazing. And, you know, in my heart, it felt like someone who turned on the lights when I didn't even realize the room had been dimmed to start with. So when he suggested go be a research chef, and I started to look into what that meant. every component about that was something I got more and more excited about, you know, getting to create menus, develop food products that go on to grocery store shelves, you know, whether those are large national stores, or really small ones. All of that just really was exciting to me, the food science behind it, the why behind it. And that, that questioning why or how something works is something that probably annoyed all of the chefs I cooked for. Because it was like, Well, why do we do it that way? And how do we know and this is done. But that type of question is the mindset that you need to be a successful research chef, in my opinion.

So you already had a degree in nutrition, and then being a chef. So then what does it take to become an R&D chef?

It takes an opportunity. You know, and I've been thinking about this a lot, especially in, you know, our recent years talking about the things that hurt in our food industry, whether that's the work culture that we've built over centuries in kitchens, or it's the very immediate and acute issues of COVID and how foodservice is being affected. Getting into the research chef career field is an opportunity that's very viable to anyone with a culinary background. skills that are needed and ways to get in. Like I said, an opportunity, another research chef got me in the door. But we have to find a way to make that more effective. So culinary programs, and educational programs or certifications would be my recommended way to get in. There is a professional association called the research chefs Association. And that was founded by ACF chefs who worked in research chef roles, who didn't feel that the ACF was actually meeting their needs and helping them network among each other. So they spun off this other group called the RCA Research Association 25 years ago. So for those interested, I would say go to the research chefs Association website, which is Cullen knology dot o RG. And look at the information that they offer there. They have a certification program, there are loads of textbooks that they tell you to read, and then start putting it out there. You know, I have you and I both have friends who work in research chef roles. And I would say talk to them and find out how those individuals got into the field of foods food science background is handy. But it's not a showstopper not to have a science background. But finding a company that's hiring a research chef or hiring a food technologist is the key. You start googling those terms and you can kind of see where those people are and what the job requirements are.

For while I thought I wanted to do that, I remember looking at courses I think Rutgers was offering courses and a lot of these things You know, I got into molecular gastronomy, as many chefs did a decade or so ago. And then I ended up going to FCI. And just a taking a week long course with Dave Arnold and Niels Noren, which was amazing. I mean, it opened my eyes to things I had never seen, never done. It was really fun. But then it almost reignited my passion in food, not that I had lost it. But it just made me want to be a better chef and then focus of skills back into being a day to day chef and not getting into kind of the the process of doing that r&d kind of stuff.

I think that exploration is so vital, because to your exact point, as you start to explore what the food science looks like behind the scenes, what the day to day life looks like for a researcher, you might find that that's not actually what you want to do with it. But it's helpful to see what that field looks like.

I worked for Sodexo, my last job, and our home office is in Gaithersburg, which is about half an hour from here. And one of the cool things I got to do was go work in their test kitchen. But we went in, and in the course of a week, I worked on maybe three recipes. So like the crab cake recipe for all of that. So global is my recipe. But that means but I mean, you know what that means? It means like you're weighing everything, you're also logging everything in volumes in volume, you know, cups, pounds, and then you're cooking it at 325 353 75 400 you're trying every it's like wow, I literally made crab cakes, eight hours a day for five days. That's the

thing, right? It's exhausting recipes in the week. And so it sounds like well, what did you do the other five days, you know, and it's like, well, actually, I did that recipe 45 times in one day, you know, it's like, yeah, that's, that's product development is there's the ideation side, which is coming up with the cool things you can do with these ingredients. And then there's the the first time that you get to the bench or the stove. And you do that recipe once say it's the version that you learned in schools, the version that you learned at the first couple of restaurant jobs, you have a cutting of the product where other stakeholders join the conversation, and they basically terrier crab cake apart. And they're like, Well, you can't do it this way. And you can't do it that way. And you can't include freshly chopped celery, because you know, across the market, we're not going to have the same celery, you know, in California versus Thailand versus wherever the other facilities are that you're going to be serving. So you have to find a way to standardize all of those ingredients. And it gets mindlessly repetitive at times. And I'm definitely not whining about the job. But that is the reality of it, which is you make a recipe, you work to make that bullet proof. And then you find all of the ways that all of the other teams could possibly jack it up. And then you have to make a bullet proof for that. It's the kiss. And the like the bulletproofing of all of it is where our souls usually go to die.

And I think a lot of us naturally do that, as chefs in restaurants, you know, that same dish before I even took it there. We had had on our menu for nine years. So as the executive chef, you know, you look at it one day that one of your cooks might say, what did you do? Tell me everything. And then it's like, oh, you cooked it at 375 it probably needs to go to 400 or something. So you're tinkering with it incrementally. Maybe you're making a change once every week instead of four changes in a day. But yeah, I enjoy that. I mean, especially with baking because I'm not naturally sweets, pastry kind of chef. So getting into I started doing foccacia like everyone started doing bread during quarantine. So for me, it was taking very detailed notes and weighing everything on a grand scale, taking all temperature. So you know, I know that I like my water at 110 degrees for my pizza dough is my focaccias and everything. And that's like kind of anal, but that's just how it is and knowing exactly to the gram, how much I like of each kind of flour. And now I have this bulletproof recipe down that I can post on my website and say, if you've got to scale on a thermometer, you're gonna be able to replicate this.

That's awesome. And that is that that made me think of two different things. When I was cooking at stop skis on Mercer Island, I would stodg in the big shop in the morning before my shift started. And I was asking the baker who was training me at the time, you know, how much effect does humidity have on the product that you're making? You know, we we crank out bagels every day. And he said, I know sounds like an excuse when the baker tells you that his bagels are shipped today because of the humidity but it's legit.

That's very interesting. So I guess maybe the recipes aren't necessarily bulletproof then right?

I don't think you can plan for everything. And that's some of the irony of my podcast name he's on loss is that it's reason plus backwards because with despite all of the plans that we make, thanks, guys. guideways anyway. But in the end, the shift gets finished. Dinner gets served, a product gets to the market, even if it wasn't exactly as we planned it to be. So

you worked at modernist cuisine for a little bit. Is that right?

Yeah, um, after, I guess a year in restaurants in Seattle, I was still in culinary school. And one of the chef instructors, Sarah Wong, saw that there was an inquiry for a prep cook at modernist cuisine, and she came and pulled me out of class, which is never a great feeling when a chef pulls you out of class, because you're like, oh, man, what did I do? She's like, I found a job for you, and you should apply for it. And it was to prep cook and modernist cuisine. So I did my storage there and then was offered full time work, or the modernist cuisine at home book, they were finishing the pastry chapters and some of the highfalutin technology pieces. And so I got to be part of those and learn a bit of food styling along the way, you actually get to see my hands in the pie chapter of the modernist cuisine at home book, if you've never been more self conscious of like different body parts of yours until they show up in a photo. And it's like, oh, yeah, short, stubby fingers, or whatever it is.

That's really cool. I have the book, I'll have to go through and find, find your hands there.

Yeah, a few of us got really lucky. And I was just so again, another chef got me into that opportunity, which I think is our responsibility as professionals who are further along in our career fields is to identify and bring along and open up doors for younger up and comers to say, hey, you have you have the raw material here to be amazing. I believe in you, it's going to be a stretch, but go for it. You know, what's the worst case scenario, you don't get the job, you know, the project is more difficult, you might have to go cry in the walk in for a second and then come back out and kick ass Because ultimately, I know you've got it in me, right. And that's what they did for me at MC. And I just I tried my best to ran with it as hard as I could as soon as I got in.

What a cool experience there. You know, such pioneers in not just cooking, but food science. So doing what you do, I'm sure that you'll always remember that right?

It was a really gourmet experience of a lot of the food science that we do and use every day. So spherification is super sexy on a plate. But honestly, we use that when we talk about sequestering ingredients or sequestering minerals, which is what causes that kind of skin formation around a sphere is this sequestering of components or controlling where they actually start to network or mesh together. And that type of technology or that type of understanding is something I've used in my cheese science job. understanding why cheese sauces get gritty, your calcium has has essentially articulated out and that's what you're feeling on your tongue. And that knowledge, that ability to question what's going on here is something that modern cuisine really leaned into and invited gourmets to get involved in.

But I think that's where I'm really what I like to do with, say, molecular gastronomy, right? Like, this verification was kind of fun whiz bang, but I'm not into the Alinea type stuff. It's like, I think a fluid gel, you don't necessarily know a technique or how to stabilize a vinaigrette. So it's not anything that a customer would necessarily see and say, Wow, that's some high tech technique. It just really serves the purpose as opposed to making little caviar pearls.

You know, that's a good question, or really kind of a good line to draw on the sand as far as where is molecular molecular gastronomy, or modernist cuisine, whatever technology term we want to use, where does that go may sort of lack of application in the real world. And in the actual application begin? I think that the attitude behind what happens at modernist cuisine and that chef grant pursues is the how and why of what's happening, and how do we manipulate that and give the guests a certain type of experience. But the attitude of how the questioning of how is where we should all stay? How did that work? How do I problem solve this? Because in manufacturing, if you're looking at 800 gallons worth of product start to burn, you better know how to stop that from happening, or you've just lost $60,000 just like that.

That's a big loss. I bet nobody wants to go tell their boss that they just lost $60,000 worth of product.

Sure. I can count the couple of times that I've had that moment of like, you know, but then that's where the culinary experience kicks in. Because we've also always had that experience on the line during a shift because somebody doesn't show up. You burn the shit out of something. That was the last thing and you've just dropped it on the floor, you know, whatever it is. And then you're like, well, I still have to serve this, I still have to give the guests and experience. So let's just say a bit and move on. And then we can we can figure out what actually happened, what the core problem was later and prevent that from happening next shift.

So what was your first job as a research chef, like once you kind of moved on from modernist cuisine and started getting out there on your own doing your thing? What was that?

My very first job as a title research chef was for features handmade cheese. They're an artisan cheese maker in Seattle, the first cheese manufacturing actually was built in the Pike Place Market. And they do a cheddar style cheese. And I say chatter style, because it actually has more fat content than a standard cheddar cheese. And so the FDA wouldn't permit calling that chatter. So they call it flagship cheese.

I've heard about that. But I didn't realize that that was the reason that they actually couldn't call it cheese because our cheddar cheese because of that.

Yep. It's I think cheddar cheese is 32 to 33%. milk fat, and features handmade cheese cheddar is usually 33 to 35. So you're richer cheese, and you can't call it cheddar as a result.

Interesting. I didn't realize cheese had such strict designations here in the US, like a lot of foods and other countries do.

Oh, yes. Google FDA standards of identity very entertaining.

It's probably like reading our local department of health regulations that we have here. It's like an 800 page manual that nobody ever really reads.

It's true. Eat some coffee beans or brew yourself a really strong French press and then read through it.

And speaking of coffee, you also work for bulletproof. 360, correct?

That's correct. Yeah, I was there first food scientists that they hired. And I actually took that job after lumberg family farms, I was organic rice in California, that I was looking for a way to get back to the Seattle area. And I found the senior scientists job. And if you haven't noticed, I haven't talked about a food science background. Because I don't have one I have a nutrition science and culinary background. But I wrote my cover letter to the bulletproof scientific group about why don't need a master's in food science to do this job. And so I got it. So clearly, they believe me. And I ran their beverage line for them. So we formulated bulletproof coffee for shelf states ability to go either in refrigerated or the ambient shelves at grocery stores. So that was a three year endeavor. And a lot of people got involved in the project. Yeah, but that was that got to be my project in the end.

That's pretty cool. I've tried that a couple times. I'm actually off of coffee right now. So we're gonna see how that does. For I know, like, the look on your face coffee, I have a love and hate relationship with I can go two or three years drinking it. And then just like have a bad run of health. And it's one of those things that doesn't do me well all the time. So I'll give it up for three or four years, and then I'll ease back into it seem to have a good relationship with coffee, and then give it up again. I mean, having lived in Seattle, my wife was actually a barista and ran a number of coffee shops in Seattle. So we've always had it near and dear to us. And a good friend of mine who is on the podcast also has his own roasting business. And we have coffee shipped to our house every month, but I'm not partaking anymore. It's kind of sad.

You're gonna have a buildup of coffee, but there are other uses for it. And honestly, decaffeination processing is getting better. The Swiss water method is still considered the gold standard of it all. But yeah, and coffee is not a compound. Rather, caffeine is not a compound that is necessary for good health. I find it very necessary for staying awake at times. But my consumption after bulletproof definitely went up. You know, there's a theory that butter coffee is supposed to help the or help control the effect of the huge spike and crash of caffeine, but it really depends on your body and some people's bodies just can't can't do it or shouldn't be as Reliant as they are.

Yeah, that's me. Um, so what are you doing now? Actually, what's your current position?

So great question. So I've actually completely hung up the apron or the chef coat, the thermometer and the scale. I don't don't hang those up. But you know, I'm I have moved into a business development role with a company called Griffith foods. It's the largest seasoning company that no one has ever heard of, from my perspective. We serve a lot of household name companies across the nation and internationally. They started in the meat industry providing seasoning blends for sausage makers in the Chicago area, and then have have expanded beyond that and I'm on the snack team and Work on organic product. And that's, that's fun because I get to actually stretch a lot of the clean label training that I learned at lumberg family farms, a lot of organic certifications and things that I've learned along those lines. And I'm on the other side of the table this time. So I'm working with chefs and product developers and food scientists. They're asking me for materials. And so it's kind of an MBA Crash Course it's kind of an ego check to see whether I can, you know, not, not deal with the new voice of imposter syndrome that's coming up, rather to deal with it and not listen to it. But it's honestly, it's very challenging. I think I'm lucky because my boss is also a research chef and CIA trained culinarian. And so he knows what that is to have left the bench in the kitchen and still maintain our identities and feel like we can still serve the food community, but in a very different way than before.

Yeah, you talk about imposter syndrome. And that's something we talk about on the show a lot, because I think so many people, not just in the food world, but they're tied to their career, and what their training is. And a lot of people I talked to, like, we're not real chefs, right? Like, when you tell people, you went to culinary school, you know, you have a chef background, and then you tell them what they do what you do that kind of thing. Like, oh, that's not really a chef, like you're doing this other stuff. And I've heard that over and over from a number of the people who've been on my show, just that feeling. Not that they even have it themselves, but then they start talking to people and they let these people make them feel badly that they're not a real chef. Right? I'm sure you have come into that yourself a little bit, I'm sure.

Absolutely. I mean, you hit that right on the head. It's, it's a, it's a challenge, you know, because we spend all of this time among other chefs saying, Oh, yeah, you're such a badass, because you cook this place, and you work for this guy or gal. And we we respect each other based on the scar tissue that we have. And I think that's a problem in and of itself. You know, the the voice of imposter syndrome is extremely internal, you know, literally nobody else looks at it or hears it, right. So when I look at you, Chris, I don't think, oh, he's a husband, he's not even a chef anymore. It's like, No, he's had a chef experience. He's not doing that. Now he's finding other ways to serve the community. And so, so that my doubting your qualifications never even comes to mind. Right. And that's probably the case for all the other guests that have been on your show. None of us would actually look at each other think they are really a chef anymore. We think everyone else is thinking that about us. And that's the trick is getting past that. Honestly, it is hard to to be away from the kitchen and off the bench I chopped garlic so much slower than before. I felt like a total goofball this morning, because I'm sitting in a farm school right now. And the chef was kind enough to be like, Oh, yeah, you can chop that garlic, pepper sauces are gonna make later and it was like, I feel like you go. But that's okay. I think the sooner we learn to stop evaluating ourselves by the things that we do or have done, the better we are as a society, and as a community of professionals moving forward. But it's hard, man, it is really hard.

And sometimes you just realize you have other aspirations. You know, it's really interesting as I get into the chef's or that restaurant organization, like, I don't know, that might even be my thing, right? Like, I moved out of cooking on a daily basis on large production to doing the personal chef thing, which I thought was gonna be the rest of my life, but then it's physically hard. You know, it's a lot. And I think maybe I'm not going to be doing the personal chef business until I'm 60. Like, is that sustainable? And I'm already starting to think about like, oh, wow, what is restaurants like? We're an organization we provide, you know, services to consumers looking for chefs, we help people with their marketing, I got the podcast, like, maybe that's the business and I'm just gonna be okay with not cooking professionally anymore. You know, and I've come to terms with that. My wife is a registered dietician. She went to Johnson, Wales, she has a culinary degree. She moved out of that her next step was getting her bachelor's in dietetics. And as an RD, and a certified diabetes educator, but now she's going for a Master's in Public Health, you know, and she has been fine stepping away from cooking as a chef to, you know, now even potentially moving away from the hospital kind of thing and moving into the public health kind of arena, and has been totally fine. She doesn't have any of that, you know, doesn't even care if anyone ever knows she was a chef. She doesn't even tell people she was a chef.

Oh, that's really interesting. But yeah, I mean, so I will say this, like, say this. The chef's without restaurants business is yours for the next 15 years and you're like, this is amazing. With all of the things that we can do together serving our community, you may find 15 or 16 years from now that your your chapter here is, is closing and you're moving on to something else. I think that's the other mistake that I had was thinking I was going to pick a career field and then stay there and then somehow just feel feel fulfilled throughout the decades. And honestly, our lives change our interests change, like you said, and the example of your wife's journey is so perfect, because, you know, she went from Johnson and Wales and then went into stage one of her career and then stage two and she's pursuing stage three. This doesn't mean that she's had three disparate careers, it means that her careers and the the technical expertise that she has, has evolved as she's matured in the industry. And I think that's exactly the same argument I give to you.

And they build off one another. I mean, she's a better dietitian, because she was a chef, like she understands food in a way a lot of her fellow dietitians don't. The same with me, I don't think I could be a personal chef. To the level I am if I wasn't a chef elsewhere. First, because I learned how to cook a certain style. I could not have started chef so that restaurants without having been a personal chef, because it's an offshoot like I'm basically teaching other people now how to be personal chefs. So you're just building on his skills. But the other thing is the world changes. You and I are sitting here right now, on the internet. For a podcast, like 10 years ago, five years ago, that wasn't a thing, right? So like, who knows, in 10 years, what's going to be a thing that we haven't even conceived of yet? So I think just being open to the way the world changes, and just kind of going with the flow?

Well, and I think you might find more superpowers later on, right? I think we, we again, think that we pop out of school with all of our skill sets set. And that's absolutely not the case. I think we uncover more we hone more skills, right. But just like a nice thing, you need to continue sharpening and honing. And sometimes you need a different knife for the different cut you're going for. That's what we are, we're the knives or we've got our hands on the knives. And we get to choose which tools we're going to present to the world today.

So you have a podcast, how long have you had that? And why did you want to start that?

So peas on moss is four and a half years old. And I actually started it when I was working for lumbergh family farms. And we're really developing my identity as a research chef. I had a food scientist that worked for me, we interface with a project management team. And I started joining an entrepreneur mentoring group. And that kind of the founder of that mentoring group had a podcast or he just interviewed mentors of his and posted those phone conversations. And I was thinking, I have had a lot of these conversations myself with chefs who have helped me redirect kind of write my ship a little bit, call my shit out and haven't get rid of it. Pardon my French, you know, and I was like, I think this is shareable with other people. So let me try that. When I looked up on Apple podcasts. You know how many food industry podcasts are out there four and a half years ago, there really weren't very many. So I started he's on moss, and Adam yeas, started my food job rocks within a week of each other. And we both happen to be in the same food networking group. I was like, Wait, you're starting a food food podcast, you're starting. This is amazing. So I had kind of a cohort of my own to go through and Adam hustled super hard. He would podcast from nine to midnight every night. And that just wasn't something I was dedicating to it. So his podcast has grown incredibly in mine, I've chosen to stay as a researcher who's very grassroots, who has conversations like yours and mine. And I just post them the way they are essentially, a couple of editing just in case. People fall out of their chairs during the podcast, or I had one guest whose dog came into the room and puked and then walked out. And so we you know, we cut those things out. But other than that it's a very uncut conversation that's very raw and honest with each other. It focuses on our careers, our stories, it illustrates how differently all of our paths can be and we can live really successful careers or not hate it, burn it all down and start something else. You know,

there's so many interesting new voices in food. I guess they've always been around, but they haven't had the platform. Right. And that's a great thing is the access with this how easy it is to start a scrappy podcast. So now it's not just the same five people with their views on things. I mean, you just talked with me before we went on air about one of your episodes recently with Eric in Seattle, and Eric's one of those people who I see as a emerging voice in food and has a lot to say about the things going on right now. And you know, he's someone who I don't think most people had heard of, not that long ago. And now he seems to be on all the food podcast, he's in eater and all this stuff. And it's really great to see people like that. expressing their views on the food world right now.

Yeah, he has chosen to, to really take advantage of the platform that he has right now about, you know, the 15 seconds of fame that he has. And he is choosing to use it in a way to raise up other ships and the sense of how auto incubators is developing other young chefs who are coming up. He's finding ways even in COVID, to continue getting his chef's products out there. So he has a couple of events coming up, that even though he's quote unquote, the headliner, the menu has actually been written by other chefs on his team, and he talks about them. And I think that's one thing that I'm really impressed with that while he's got the spotlight, he's choosing to use it for collective good. He's also choosing to use it to take some shots at household names. And well, you know, whether they're in Seattle chefs that we all know, in restaurant groups, a lot of us who've worked for who work in Seattle, and he's also taking shots at national stage chefs who he feels have become disconnected with the experience of being in the food industry, or who have not lived out the experiences of being a marginalized voice, whether you're a person of color, female, you know, whatever those attributes might be, um, chef eric has decided to really amplify those voices. And I really admire that it's not something that we all have the guts to do, actually just was in an in, in a diversity and inclusion conversation that the Riveter hosted another business we got started in Seattle, it's a women in business networking and co working space that started on Capitol Hill. And Amy Nelson has really chosen to amplify the voices of other women in business entrepreneurs who we we just don't get the same shot. On goal, you know, if if your, your measure of success is somewhat related to how many shots you get to take, but if the puck isn't taken to us, or if we don't get a shot at the puck, or the puck gets moved away from us when we're staged to shoot. That's baloney. And, you know, Amy Nelson, and Erik Rivera are choosing to use our platforms to talk about that. And I'm really starting to feel compelled to do so as well, if we're going to change our industry, if we're going to change and improve, then we need to really take actions to do that, and assess your risk. And I would say, do what you can, you know, if that's on your podcast, and your kitchen, in the next interview that you hire for your next cooks, when you reopen, I would say Look at that, look at what your team looks like, and see if there are some gaps that you can deliberately seek to fill.

And COVID has exposed a lot of this, right? Like you really saw really quickly, who the good people were, who the bad actors were, you know, much based on how they treated their team. And all of this is going to shake out and we're gonna kind of see what's left. But yeah, I thought that was a really great conversation. I listened to it a couple days ago, between you and Eric, and, you know, his outlook on the restaurant industry is that it's not coming back, it's not going to be the same. When it comes back, it's going to be totally different. And it'll be interesting to see where we are with that.

Yes. And I think it's okay to be sad about some of the components that have been lost, some of the ways that we serve have been lost. And I think it's okay to mourn that. But at some point, we have to stop crying, and move on and build it. You know, while we're, while we've been kicked, we might as well as build it better. This does give an opportunity for other people who marginalize people who haven't had all the cards dealt to them in a fair way. It gives us all a better shot at coming out with a business that is more COVID flexible, if you will, because say if everything all disappears in the fall, which scientifically is just not going to happen. But if it did, we would still have a bit of a lag in getting our industry recovered. And this is an opportunity to rebuild. It's kind of like a tornado coming, you're taking off your roof. And it's like, well, since we don't have a roof, let's build the second floor. You know,

kind of what I'm thinking. Oh, definitely. I mean, it's like we I'm actually having some work done on my house right now. And we had a contractor come out and it's the discussion about like, how much do you rehab versus how much do you tear it down and build it better? Like, why are we going to spend thousands of dollars to rehab this deck when for just a little bit more we could just tear it down and redo it you And it's kind of the same thing, like, why are we putting band aids on these things that don't really work, we have the opportunity, now we have the time off, let's just do it the right way, right, instead of kind of like half assing it, and then we're gonna get, it's gonna be something else, let's say COVID, magically goes away, we get a vaccine, whatever, there's going to be some other event, that's going to happen. And we're going to be back there again. So let's just assess it now, while we have the opportunity and build it the way it needs to be. And I'm of the belief that a lot of these businesses shouldn't have been open to begin with, like, there's a lot of places that are closing, they probably needed to be closed, there was a lot of people who didn't have good business models who weren't running their businesses appropriately. And, you know, I'm sorry to say like, they probably shouldn't be in business, and that's okay. And it gives an opportunity for new businesses to emerge.

Yeah, I agree with you. And I, I, you know, and I'm sure people ask you this all the time with your background as well, oh, you know, open restaurants, and then it's like, haha, no, is my answer. And then, you know, after they they're done looking at fronted, like, Well, let me tell you that this industry is very tough, it's tough to get the funding, it's tough to get the right space, your daily overhead, before you pay staff, other than yourself to come in and cook is, I mean, the operating costs just to have a working address are so high, you know, and then you have to think about butts and seats and things like that, there's no way I would want to work through that. I'm going to totally cop out on on trying to start a food business. But there are people who do want to do that. And I don't want to take away from that. But I would say, you know, make sure that you've got the runway to to survive catastrophic, catastrophic event like this, and find a way to work within your means stretch enough, but not so much that you're just totally toast the first time the fire gets too hot, you know.

And doing like the personal chef, small scale catering kind of things you can do on the side, it's great, easy side money to let you kind of figure out what works and what doesn't work. What's really interesting is so many members of my community, so many guests on the podcast, have been people of color, or people of different backgrounds and things like that. And a lot of the conversations we have are that they weren't feeling like they were being promoted within their business, that it's, it's hard to start your own business. But they started as line cooks, and they just didn't see any world where they were going to move up through the ranks where they were become sous chefs, executive chefs didn't think they'd be able to get the funding to open their restaurant. So duck out early. And a lot of guys in there, you know, like 2223, just starting the personal chef thing, right off the bat out of culinary school and see that as a more viable option to have a career and have money, go on Instagram and type in the hashtag like personal chef, or private chef, so many of those people, young, African American people from different countries, is this interesting, it tends to not be like white men, it seems to be a whole bunch of other people kind of dominating the personal shelf realm. And I think it's great to see them kind of figure out a way to make it work.

That's awesome to hear what a great pivot to still bring your food to the world and build a customer base that way, you know, something that I think you and I were both commenting on Twitter on is what is the best and what is the worst advice you were given in the kitchen and I I had shared you know that you should wait for the promotion. Or you should just wait around for someone to see how talented you are. And I I said that that was Bs, and you should just go for it. And I still stand stand behind that statement.

You know, I grew up my dad was like, work hard, put your head down, you'll get noticed, you know, and that didn't work for me. And it led to years of me being stepped on, taken advantage of. And I'm a white man. Like, I can't even imagine being a woman a person of color. Like as a white man with a bachelor's degree. I still feel like I got shit on. Because like, I go to my bosses, I'd say Can I get a raise? Nope, it's not in the budget. Okay, put my head down work there another two years, and just kind of do that. I mean, my last job I was at for 10 years. And I feel like I just got taken advantage of and I let them but you know, during that time, I got frustrated enough that I was building my exit strategy. I was not gonna put up with it. Like something changed in me. I started, you know, reading books, listening to podcasts, a lot of self motivation kind of stuff. And I just started building a plan and then built my exit strategy. But, you know, my dad worked for the same company for 40 years. And with his good work ethic, he literally walked off the job on his last day. Like that's how it was like he just got to this point where like, he was taken advantage of for so long, but he was still giving me that advice of like, work hard. Keep your head down. You know, be afraid of authority, like your bosses have the final word you know, don't talk back and like taught me to be very subservient to my bosses and not that you should be disrespectful but I think there's a point where you need to speak up for yourself and You know, be somewhat of a go getter. So that kind of impeded my progress at a young age. But I'm fortunate that at least age 40, I figured out, you know how to go for what I wanted?

Well, it's not too late, you know, even if you're 99 years old, and you're like, Okay, finding my place, like, cool, you'd be that thank you very much. Now, if I'm so glad that you have identified that, you don't need to sit around and wait for somebody to open the golden door every year, whatever that means. You know, I know I said that. Getting into a research role. took another research after introducing me to that it didn't mean that I was offered a job, it was that somebody blurted out research stuff. And I ran with that information. And I think it's our responsibility. as professionals, wherever you are in your career field, if you're a chef, or you'd like to be a chef someday, to to take that on. And actually, I'm going to go back to the example of Erik Rivera, because when I was in culinary school, he was also in culinary school at a different program. And he was in an accelerated program, but he himself accelerated even faster. And so I was asking him how he did that. And he was like, don't wait, don't wait for the training and the, the curriculum to work its way around to a skill set that you're interested in learning if you want to learn how to make sausage, go buy a sausage stuff around like, Okay, well, okay. But he did, he bought a sausage stuffer, he bought his own TV machine, he bought the cookbooks and probably nearly burned his house down a couple of times trying to cook these things, so that he could learn very quickly what his palette was, develop those skills, and then go have the humility enough to go find a mentor who can help again, reset you. So yeah, I would, I would say, I'm really sad that we still perpetuate this hole, just wait for somebody to give you a chance, attitude. You know, my, for myself, I started in the military. And so went to culinary school when I was 27. And so I always felt like I was behind the game on that, because I was just older than everybody by potentially 10 years, you know, if you started at 1516, or 17. And so I have moved my jobs a lot in the last 10 years to make up for that time. And that was a very deliberate choice that I made for myself, I don't advocate for job hopping per se, they do advocate for advocating for yourself, and knowing when you have plateaued at a role. And if you ask for that promotion, and they don't give it to you, without any good reasons, or a personal development, personal development plan, I would build an exit strategy and bounce exactly like you had just just say, Okay, I know my skills can go further than this. And it is your responsibility as professional to bring the best of you to that. And if they won't take the best of you, you should go.

Yeah, and there's a number of reasons for things like that, I think in my position, what basically happened is, is I was kind of like protecting my general manager, like as the executive chef, you're the line between and I was good enough that like they needed to keep me around. Because if I were to leave, who knows who would have come in what would have happened, but you know, she would even joke like, you're not allowed to quit until I retire. And you hear that as a joke at first. And then you're like, wow, I really think that's true. Like I would apply for other jobs within the company. And I wouldn't even get a call back like I was with them for 10 years, I was a top performer, amazing reviews every year. And I would apply for jobs within the company and not even get a call for an interview. And it's like, I felt like there was some behind the scenes, squashing of that kind of thing. And it just, you know, in not being the right place for me, but I built some solid skills, but I was able to grow my business on the side. So I started side hustling, and I did it for seven years while I was there, and nobody knew. So I had seven years of like runway time to really fine tune my business. So that when I left and was so funny, because everyone's like, you're just gonna quit, you're just gonna start this business like nobody knew. One guy knew my sous chef knew because he found my website. So I was blogging also, for seven years didn't use my face or name my avatar, if you've ever seen it was like me holding a rock pig's head in front of my face. Like I would go to to star chefs conventions in New York City. And people be like, that's what you look like you always have the pig's head. But I was trying to build this business on the side with nobody knowing that I was trying to do it as my exit strategy. So I was like, Oh, no, like I've been doing this for seven years. You guys didn't know like, I've got a clientele and a customer base and I'm ready to go like I'm booked up for the next two months. So have a good one.

Bravo. Man, what a massive loss to that company. I mean, your skill sets your business acumen to us last in and I think for hiring managers who are listening to this entrepreneurs who might have young up and comers, you know, in their team somewhere. Don't squash that talent and then lose them that is lame. And but again, bravo to you for recognizing That you needed a different strategy, a different plan a different runway for yourself, knowing that you had so much more to offer. And these people have opted out of it. Like, okay, well, fine. And I

always encouraged my staff to leave when it was time, I think that's the thing is so many people are greedy, like they're afraid to let their people grow. Like I had to have the conversation with a lot of people like you've outgrown this place. I promoted you as far as you can, I think you need to move on. You know, it's like, that's, I feel your duty when you see a skill set in these people. And having those conversations. Nobody was doing that, to me, nobody was grooming me to move into the next position. But I always did it with my employees. And after I left, I heard some crazy number like 27 of the kitchen staff left within two months after I left. And ultimately the general manager left and the district manager has moved on, like the whole, so much of the team has moved on. I'm not saying that's just because I left but hearing that the people directly under me, like when I left my sous chef left, a week after I did. So as soon as I gave notice he gave notice he came in and sat down with me and said like, I don't know that I want to stay here when you're not here. And I kind of have an opportunity. What do you think I should do? And like, I wasn't trying to screw them. But I was like, Well, you know, like, let's look at it. And I helped him decide and said, I think is a good opportunity for you if you want to go and then they weren't happy that I left because I felt like he was leaving with me. And he actually did come and work with me on and off a little bit. You know, because I need help every now and then. But I wasn't poaching staff at all.

Yeah, that can always be tough when you have a young up and comer that you want to have, you know, you want to give them opportunities that you've identified through your your new network or your new role. Yeah, it's, again, massive loss. It's too bad to hear that the band couldn't keep it together. But that also shows that they clearly had held you back too long, you know, and you weren't able to develop the team bench deep enough that after you left, you know, the one guy who could hit more than a base hit leaves a team and then the whole team falls apart. I mean, that kind of stinks.

Well, I mean, my style is always very collaborative. And I felt like I was the only member of the upper management team that was like, I had chefs that worked under me a Chef de Cuisine who were older, like in their mid 50s. And they were very like, Yes, Chef, no chef, were like, I was super flexible in the kitchen. Like I let my sous chefs do the specials. I let them do like ordering. I gave them flexibility with things. I gave them leeway to make mistakes. And that was not appreciated by my gm by the next in line. So like you've, you've got like Chef de Cuisine here under me who are very Yes, Chef, no chef, and then under them the sous chefs, I'm kind of like teaching them to be free thinkers, even though their direct bosses want them to be like a yes chef kind of person. And they knew that as soon as I left, it was going to be like back to completely Yes, Chef, no chef in the kitchen with no flexibility. And that's not how I like to run a kitchen. Like I want it to be part of a creative thinking team. Every day, we had lunch together as like a supervisor meeting where it was like, gloves could come off. Like if you feel like this person. fuck do you call him out in the meeting? Let's get it out there. You know, you could say to me, Chef, you're being an asshole today. And like, it wasn't in a disrespectful way. It was just like, sometimes it needs to be said, and that's not how a lot of people are going to allow their kitchens to be run. And I had a feeling it wasn't going to be run that way when I left. So

yeah, you know, you highlighted some really important things that I just don't want to miss out on. And first is, um, you know, you You're the executive for a reason you have the skills so why the hell are you holding back people who could come up and make your job easier, you know, like, there's, there's obviously the the good part of developing the younger person so that they feel empowered, they build a skill and all those things. But frankly, if you don't have to do those things, why not farm it out, you know, and spend fewer hours doing it yourself. The other is the guest chef mentality and attitude has to go. It has to retire with whoever's got the last of that Yes, Chef mentality. That's not the mentality of the future. It's not what's going to take our industry into the next decade or century, you know, we need to drop that and look at the talent that's around us. irrespective of their their look and sound, you know, of those people. The good ideas are being missed constantly. Because we're not listening to the right voices. We're listening to a very homogenous pile of people all the time. And it's like, well, the solution may actually be over here in your dishwashers mind, but you haven't asked them for their insight. So it's a big mess if we don't look for those other opportunities as other viewpoints.

Yeah, I've said for a long time. I think there's a lack of mentorship in kitchens and mentors. don't always have to To be above you in position, and they don't have to be older, you know, at this place, I would say, one of my cooks, my sous chefs, Mike was as much of a mentor to me as I was to him. I mean, he was only like three years younger than me. And he had more experience working on a line than I did, we had very different experience. So while I was the executive chef, he was really strong and some things and other cooks would kind of resume and say, like, you're the chef, why are you letting him do this? It's like, well, because he's better at it. Like, why wouldn't I like, just because I'm the Executive Chef does not mean I have all the answers. He's got some amazing recipes, I'm gonna let him write the menu, bring it to me make dishes. And if they're good, they'll go on the menu, I don't need to have my name on the menu, and have my dishes on the menu if he's the one executing them every night anyway. But you know, it's so interesting, because so many people in the kitchen were in this mindset of like, I should have been calling all the shots. And it was like, you know, I was his puppet. And it's like, You're being ridiculous. Like, he's just very good at a lot of things. And I'm gonna let them run with it.

As you're saying this, I was like, Man, I wish I'd work for a chef like you. And I bet a lot of the other people who listen to this podcast are like, Yeah, I would work for Chris. And maybe some of the people who did are like, yep, that's how I want to be.

But I've said this on one or two shows like, I've also never worked in a real restaurant, like, and I think that's the difference. Like I came out of culinary school. And I worked in contract food and worked at a retirement community. And then I moved to Seattle, and I worked at another retirement community. And then I worked at a hospital as a catering director and I worked at IKEA. And then I went back to like, long term care. So I've never worked in a restaurant ever. I did my internship in culinary school in a hotel for three months. And I worked in like fast food and high school. But I've never worked in a real restaurant. So I don't have that restaurant style to me, like everything that I know, I picked up some other way. So I never worked under a Yes, Chef, no chef kind of guy anyway. So that's not how I was going to do it. In fact, most of the time I came in as the boss, like, there was an ad like, Do you want to come be the executive chef? It's like, sure. And I would go in, and I didn't go in as a sous chef or anything. So just developing my own style. And I never wanted to run a kitchen like that. So I just didn't.

That's that's the cracks, right? That right there. I just didn't, you know, you get to choose, right? This is this is your own adventure. And we can choose to opt in or opt out of it. Right? Yeah.

So is there anything you want to share with our listeners, before we get out of here today,

um, man, that's such a such a great invitation, I would say, you know, while we're down for the count, if you've been furloughed, if your business is closed, or closing, if you're having to close it, if you're thinking about opening your own business, all of those things, I would say, look at your skills, from the perspective of the customer, and the investor and your partner, whether that's a spouse or a business partner, I'm really looking at yourself from a couple of different angles. Don't forget to look at yourself through the lens of somebody who really admires you, a mentor of yours, you know, channel, your grandmother channel, a mentor, who was like, Yes, go for that. Or look at yourself from the perspective of the chef that you feel you may have conflicted with a lot, but who saw the best in you? And give yourself that opportunity to try for something you never know, what could come of it? I always think Well, what's the worst case scenario if you don't go for it. And maybe the worst case scenario is quite bad. So you know, mitigate those risks. But if it's, if the worst case is you don't pursue or you don't, you don't get to do it for very long, then you're in exactly the same place on our couch, then go for it. You know, minimize the spend, and just go. And then I'm always here, you know, Chef, Chris, there are others out there. There are so many more food writers and podcasters out there that can serve as resources, sounding boards. We're a small community man, like, just Don't be a jerk. And, you know, do your best, bring your best and do your best, right?

Yeah, I think those are great words. That's a great advice for everyone. And I hope people heed it. And yeah, we'll share this episode far and wide. And hopefully they'll get the message right. And we do really comprehensive show notes. I'll put all your contact info in there so people can find you and that they can reach out and you guys can continue this conversation.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to do so. If you want information about the research chefs Association, feel free to ping me I'll happily share. Our 25th anniversary conference is supposed to be in Atlanta next March. And God Willing it will be otherwise it'll be virtual, and it'll be a lot of high quality education like before. But that community is also really loving, really supportive. I remember the other story about let's see, I think it was about bread, and a research chef named Mark Florida who is a Canadian who trained in Germany, and he worked in hotels and restaurants and then eventually got to To the research chef world. You know, he said once a research chef, always a research chef, you don't lose your identity just because you've changed chapters. And be proudly who you are with all of the bumps and bruises because they're all uniquely yours. And so your voice is uniquely yours and what you bring to the world is yours. And no one else can do it better than you telling your own story.

Well, thanks for coming on the show. I love to having you. I'm glad we could get you on here. And after having talked to online for so many years to put a video face with the name, right?

Yeah, I'm probably shorter in person then. Then the camera will show. But Thank you, Chris, so much for just inviting me to be part of your platform to get to meet you and your guests and the rest of your audience as well. Thank you for just giving me the hour and I just appreciate the opportunity. I can't wait to get you on Peas on Moss.

I would love that. I look forward to it. We'll do a little podcast sharin

Sounds great.

Well, thanks again. And to all our listeners. This has been the Chefs Withou Restaurants podcast. As always you can find us at chefswithout estaurants.com and .org, and on all social media platforms. Th nks so much, and have a great