Provisions: Save the Date
September 25th is National Foodservice Workers Day! Hooray for us! It’s the day to tip our hats, and maybe add a little extra tip, to all the servers, cooks, dishwashers, stewards, hosts, bartenders, baristas, chefs, bakers, lunch ladies, hash-slingers, food runners, sommeliers, maître d’s and the managers who herd all these cats in the uniquely special environment of the food world. Food workers serve customers in fine dining restaurants, private clubs, fast food establishm
Provisions: Our Oyster Months
A misconstrued pearl of folk wisdom suggests that oysters should only be enjoyed in the months containing the letter “R”. This was good advice when oysters were harvested in the wild. Abstaining from oysters during the months of May through August when oysters were busy...well... making baby oysters, was considered beneficial for re-populating stocks and giving the bivalves time to spawn and reach their full potential of briny richness. Inconsistent and informal refrigeration
Provisions: Are Your Ducks In a Row?
The Practice of Mise en Place “By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail”, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, is an admonition keenly appropriate to foodservice operations. Lacking preparation in mindset and method in the kitchen and in the dining room can create a chaos that is painful to experience and uncomfortable to witness. The old military training adage--Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance--also has tremendous relevance in food and beverage, and failing t
Provisions: Perfect Plant, Perfect Place, Perfect Time
“You have to look for them like this,” whispers Clint, a robust, strapping mushroom forager as he crouches over one knee in the reception space at the Visitors Center and Chamber of Commerce of McCall, Idaho. He earnestly peers over the floor, waving one hand gently over the imaginary pine needles before him, pivoting slowly, gingerly. “You’ve got to be patient, because you have to LOOK, under the twigs, SLOWLY…and then…you see one! And then another! I found about forty just
Provisions: Let's Talk About The Importance of Pre-Shift Meetings
We often find ourselves talking a lot about timing when it comes to food and beverage service. Each player on the team from the host/hostess to the servers, cooks, and managers are responsible for keeping the dining room flowing and managing the timing of the table. However, the most important time in any food and beverage operation is the 15 minutes before each shift begins: the pre-shift meeting. Photo by Paul Sarlas Call it the warm-up, sound-check, or preflight run-throug
Kitchen Culture: The Search for Chef Talent (Part 1)
Where are all the chefs? The seeming lack of hirable chef talent was a hot topic of discussion at the most recent meeting of the DC chapter of the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs Association (WCR), according to RCS Hospitality Group culinary consultant Chef Mary Howley. This concern is reflected nationwide in the pages and pages of executive chef employment listings on many BOH-focused website and CMAA Careers pages. Why is this so? A widely circulated Huffington Post article fro
Provisions: Cake & Politics
Source Unknown Not far from the nation’s capital where governmental transitions and hand-offs are in full swing--preparing moving vans and measuring drapes--is a place where another political cake is being baked. Smith Island, Maryland’s only inhabited island in the Chesapeake Bay, is located 12 miles west of the mainland near Crisfield, Maryland. The 4.5 square mile island, accessible only by boat or ferry, has a total population of just under 300 people living on the barely
