http://www.fairfoodmatters.org/candokitchen.php

http://www.michiganrestaurant.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=1212

I was not alone in handing over my soul to the man. He retained a

Presidential Guard of blue-uniformed porters whom he had

personally trained in the manly arts of refrigeration repair,

plumbing, basic metal work, glazing, electrical repair and

maintenance. In addition to the usual tasks of cleaning, mopping,

toilet-plunging, and porter work, Bigfoot porters could lay tile, dig

out a foundation, build you a lovely armoire, or restore a used

reach-in refrigerator to factory specs. Nothing pissed off Bigfoot

more than having to pay some high-priced specialist for a job he

thought he should be able to do himself.

“That’s not my job” was not in the Bigfoot phrase book. Toilet

overflows while the chef is at hand? He’s going right in with a

plunger, and fast. No waiting for the toilet guy—he is the toilet guy

now. In Bigfoot’s army, you fight for the cause anywhere you are

needed. If it’s slow in the kitchen, you pick up an old sauté pan

and scrub the carbon off the bottom.

He likes to play dumb—loves to play dumb—and like a sunbathing

crocodile, when he makes his move, it’s way too late.

“You know…”he’d say, “I’m not a chef…and I don’t know a lot about

food, or cooking… so I don’t know how to make, say… guacamole.”

Then he’d shred my recipe and any illusions I might have about

him not knowing anything about food, breaking down that

preparation ingredient by ingredient, gram by gram, and showing

how it could be done faster, better, cheaper. Of course he knew

how to make guacamole! He knows to the atom how much of

each ingredient goes in for how much eventual yield. He knows

where to get the best avacadoes cheapest, how to ripen them,

store them, sell them, merchandise them. He also knows how

much fillet you get off every fish that swims.

Genteel sensibilities are unwelcome.

In Bigfootland you showed up for work fifteen minutes before your

shift. Period. Two minutes late? You lose the shift and are sent

home. If you’re on the train and it looks like it’s running late? You

get off the train at the next stop, inform Bigfoot of your pending

lateness and then get back on the next train. It’s okay to call Bigfoot

and say, “I was up all night…I’m going to be a little late.” That’s

acceptable—once in a very great while. But after showing up late?

You, my friend, are fired. If Bigfoot asked you a question and you

didn’t know the answer, he always preferred an “I dunno” to a long-

winded series of qualified statements, speculation, and half -truths.

You kept Bigfoot informed of your movements. He would never allow

himself to fall victim to “manager’s syndrome”—constantly watching

the clock, wondering if and when his employees were going to show

up. Where Bigfoot ruled, he knew when they were showing up:

fifteen minutes before start of shift. That’s when.

Bigfoot understoood that character is far more important than

skills or employment history. Skills can be taught. Character you

either have or don’t have. Bigfoot understood that there are two

types of people in the world: those who do what they say they’re

going to do—and everyone else.

The most important and lasting lessons I learned from Bigfoot were

about personnel and personnel management—that I have to know

everything.

What might happen, what could happen, what will happen. And I

have to be prepared for it, whatever it is. Staff problems, delivery

problems, technical difficulties with equipment, I have to antici pate

and be ready, always with something up my sleeve, somebody in the

pipeline.

And I always, always want to be ready. Just like Bigfoot.

A débrouillard is a man

who, even when he is told

to do the impossible,

will se débrouiller—get

it done somehow.

George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London

“Ahh… Le System D!” A casual remark by my French

sous chef as he watched a busboy repairing a

piece of kitchen equipment with a teaspoon. For a

moment, I thought I‟d stumbled across a secret

society. “Did you say „System D‟? What is „System

D‟?”

“Tu connais… you know MacGyver?” replied my sous

chef thoughtfully.

Whether familiar with the term or not, I have

always assigned great value to débrouillards.

Veterans of many kitchens who know what to do

when there‟s no space left on the stove for

another sauté pan. They know how to bump closed a

broiler or shut a refrigerator door when their

hands are full. They know when to step into

another cook‟s station—and, more importantly, how

to do it—without that station becoming a rugby

match.

It‟s when orders are pouring in and the supplies

are running low and the tempers are growing thin

that one sees System D practiced at its highest

level. At times like these, under fire, the

kitchen reverts to what it has always been since

Escoffier‟s time: a brigade, a paramilitary unit,

in which everyone knows what they have to do, and

how to do it.

If Vatel had been Fluent in system D he might

have lived a longer, happier, and more prosperous

life.

READ IT ALL IN ANTHONY BOURDAIN | THE NASTY BITS | BLOOMSBURY 2006

http://www.thecitycook.com/book/index

http://books.simonandschuster.com/buy/The-City-Cook/9781439171998

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