Cooking: Why I quit the first time.

May 12, 2011

Have you ever been verbally abused in the workplace for quietly doing your job? Or for doing something that you were told to do? If you’ve ever worked in a kitchen, then your answer to this question is likely: yes.

I’m writing this in a huff and a flurry of thoughts brought up by this viral marketing clip for REAP about food wastage (full video here).

I understand why the video is as it is. It makes sense. It’s a viral marketing clip, and watching a chef rip someone a new one certainly is captivating viewing for a worthy cause. But, to me, this really does hit a little too close to home.

While i wholeheartedly support the message, it’s the delivery gets to me. As an Australian who came of age in kitchens I don’t mind the swearing one little bit. It’s the aggression and unfairly directed anger that bothers me. I’ve been in that guy’s shoes. I know what it feels like to be verbally attacked with furious rage for doing something that you were told to do, or for something that you haven’t done. Explaining your case doesn’t work, because that is considered talking back. Maybe this is why I found it hard to find my place in kitchens, and ultimately quit cooking professionally (quit 5 or 6 times in fact), because I couldn’t handle and refused to accept such abuse.

I don’t mention it much any more, but I trained as a chef. I did the first year of my apprenticeship while I completed my HSC and was enamoured with this kitchen life. I adored eating and with every passing restaurant shift I grew to love the fast paced dance of a busy kitchen during service. When I graduated I landed a sweet job at an excellent restaurant and as a 17 year old I packed up my life and moved to Sydney.

I started work, bright eyed and eager to learn. Most of my co-workers were friendly and took me under their collective wing, which I am still incredibly grateful for, being a teenager alone and drifting in the big city. I worked hard, long hours for little pay, but I was learning so much that it didn’t matter.
I still remember my first dinner service there. It was a busy night and mains section got slammed but the dance just sped up to compensate. I felt invincible, everything was right. I could do it and it felt great. Hugs and praise followed and when I got home, well after midnight of course, I couldn’t wait to go to sleep so I could do it all again. How quickly things change.

A little while later there were a few staff changes, not at all unusual in the transient hospitality industry. My new ‘superior’ wasn’t afraid to let me know that he was indeed superior, and by exactly how much (a lot, in case you were wondering. A. LOT). He yelled at me for things I didn’t do, no explanation required thank you very much. On several occasions he took me aside and told me that I was fucked, just quietly. I was a 3rd year apprentice working 50+ hours a week and I hadn’t had two days off in a row for months. I was wrecked. After one particularly impressive blow up the head chef took us both aside. I cried out of frustration and exhaustion, but was told that it was my fault I was being treated that way. I needed to change my attitude. Brilliant. Of course it was my fault. Of course it was.
All I needed was a little confidence booster and a few consecutive days off, but that was too much to ask, I’m afraid. Either I was doing a good job or I wasn’t. I needed to be praised, told I was alright. Or, I needed to get fired. Neither of these things happened and the quiet steady stream of abuse continued. So I quit. I could have been a great cook, but I quit.

I know why some chefs act like this. I know why this horrid kitchen culture exists. In part it’s the long hours, unbelievably hard work in stressful environments, machismo and poor pay combined with the fact that they were probably all treated like shit when they were at the bottom of the pile. Hell, their higher ups probably still treat them like shit. The cooks that act like this don’t seem to know any other way.

But what does it achieve? Nothing more than broken spirits and an unending work based dread.

I quit. I got out. I left. But I know that this experience changed me. Now I’m the boss, training young kids with no food service experience. Yes, I still swear a lot. Yes, I expect a lot from them. But I try hard to let them know when they’ve done a good job. I give them the opportunity to tell me why they’ve done a certain thing, or that it wasn’t them that did it. I trust them and when I’m angry I let them know it’s just because the tomatoes today are shit, or because my supplier didn’t send any lemons, or because today the bureaucracy is getting the better of me. I make sure they understand that I’m not angry because of them (and when I am angry because of them I’m sure to calm down before discussing why). I do this because I know that I’m going to get the best out of them when they’re happy and confident, when they want to come to work. I know that I’m going to get the best out of them when I show them how to make a better coffee, not when I simply yell at them for making a bad one.

I’m writing this post because I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this kind of treatment in the kitchen and watching that clip reminded me of what that feels like.

Posted in miscellaneous | 11 Comments
Seoult and Pepper

Breakfasting in Hongdae

May 8, 2011


405 Kitchen

I live deep in the Korean countryside. My morning commute is free from suits and tottering heels, take away coffee cups and sardine trains. Instead as I power walk by the orchards and dog farms, I’m likely to see people trying to shove cows onto the back of a truck, men driving forklifts on the road, or just no one at all. Where I live is almost neon light and franchise free and with the warm weather comes an incredible beautification of the scenery, from dreary grey to emerald green and blossoming, and a relaxing chorus of cicadas and frogs. If I could ignore the fact that I live in a high rise in the middle of the fields, this place could even be peaceful. But, in fact, it is just hayfever-inducing boredom. So it is with great excitement that I venture into Seoul for a weekend every now and then.


Blossoms in Byeongcheon

Bright lights, big city, people, tables on which to dance and an immense variety of food. Seoul is complete sensory overload for someone who spends altogether too many hours a week in a cramped cafe. Up until recently, late nights partying and rain and snow have stymied exploration attempts. But last weekend I spent a few hours playing tour guide to friends from home and you better believe that I said ‘wow, I’ve never been here before’ more than once.


Cafe Latte at 5 extracts, Hongdae

With cameras in hand we wandered the streets of Hongdae, an arty area surrounding Hongik University famous for its clubs and shopping, where all the cool kids hang out. On a Sunday morning the streets are almost empty, shops don’t open until midday and most of the people around are still out from the night before. But we are in search of coffee and find the quirkily outfitted 5 extracts coffee house. As designers, everyone is impressed with the style of the place, all mismatched furniture, horse cut outs and distressed concrete. The short menu, coffee and pancakes is presented on an iPad. This place really is super cool. We all order lattes (5,000won ~ $4.20AU, ouch!), which are as weak as Korean standards dictate, but are beautifully presented and an appropriate temperature. But strangely they appear in series, obviously they are prepared by a talented latte artist, but an incredibly slow barista. Luckily we aren’t in a hurry and that menu-iPad is quickly commandeered and the internet keeps us entertained.


Coffee equipment at 5 extracts, Hongdae

A few steps down the road seems to be a good western option for brunch, we aren’t quite up for a Korean breakfast this morning. A similarly trendy designed cafe called 405 Kitchen serves a limited menu of waffles and french toast. Again, 405 Kitchen is all mismatched furniture, polished concrete and tchotchkes which further reinforces my view that South Korean style is more about imitation than uniqueness. They have a herb theme going on, which is lovely with pots of basil and mint decorating the outdoor areas, but less than nice when your glass of water is flavoured with rosemary. We all order a big breakfast (12,000 Won, ~$10.30AU), which is surprisingly well prepared. Well dressed salad, steamed asparagus, crisp bacon and french omelette are highlights. A mountain of waffles take up most of the plate and stomach space. Again, our meals come out one after the other and I’ve almost finished by the time our order is complete.


Waffles with sausage (I KNOW), egg and bacon at 405 Kitchen, Hongdae

It is a welcome change to be sitting somewhere comfortable chatting with old friends on a beautifully sunny spring day, looking at interesting things and eating a pretty good version of western food. But after a stops at a few places like these, I get an odd sense of sameness. And if I’m paying Sydney prices I kind of expect a little bit more of the good stuff on the plate, and all the food to arrive at once. On this particular morning though, I’m just happy to not be in the countryside.

405 kitchen

More photos on flickr

Posted in Hongdae, Korean, Seoult and Pepper, South Korea | 5 Comments

Discovering a love for omelettes

April 24, 2011

It’s sad-o’clock on Sunday afternoon, I’m drinking iced coffee and thinking about omelettes. In fact, omelettes have been on my mind since Friday lunchtime, when the thought popped up unsought and baseless and unshakeable. I cancelled my plans and instead had a divine Elizabeth David style evening, on omelette and a glass of wine.


Korean eggs.

That first omelette in an eternity was spectacularly eye opening. Three eggs cooked in my new happy-yellow pan (which just turns out to be perfectly omelette sized), filled with king oyster mushrooms and home-made ricotta, the egg ranging from gently browned on the outside to wibbly wobbly soft on the inside. It came out of the pan beautifully folded, like a wrapped present hiding some secret surprise.

In the short interval between then and now, I’ve made and eaten more omelettes than I care to admit. French style, purely egg or with a shaving of parmesan, or filled with mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, bacon, spring onions, home-made ricotta. A dressed green salad on the side makes a perfect lunch, add a glass of wine for a satisfying dinner.


French style omelette. Egg, seasoned with a splash of milk, cooked in butter and oil over high heat very quickly to ensure the egg gets no colour.

It is an understatement to say that I never understood the allure of an omelette until now. It was a standby family dinner when the chickens were laying beyond control, but I thought an omelette was just egg. Now I realise that it is inexplicably so much more. In fact, I cared so little about omelettes before that I only learnt out to properly spell the word last year when I was teaching English in Hanoi and it appeared on a food vocabulary list.

There are a million reasons to love this kind of omelette. Plain or shot with cheese they are delicate and comforting, plain perfection when you’re feeling fragile. Possible fillings are many and varied, fridge scrapings can be rejuvenated into a delicious meal by being sauteed and then enveloped in carefully fried egg. Plus, they’re incredibly quick to prepare, though technically quite difficult to execute (practice makes perfect), and they’re my new favourite post-work dinner. Just prepare your fillings, beat the eggs (lightly, mind, just enough to incorporate the whites). Heat a splash of oil and a knob of butter until the butter foams, then pour in your eggs. For a country style filled omelette we are looking for rustic, large sections of egg, so let your eggs sit for a moment in the pan, bubbling and setting. Pull an edge into the centre, tipping the pan to let the raw egg flow in and fill up the gap. Continue this action for another 20 seconds or so, or until your egg is mostly set. Put your filling ingredients in and flip up the egg to cover them using a spatula, fork or deft pan flick. Tip onto a serving plate and you’re done. It’ll take you longer to read this paragraph than to make your dinner.

A fine french omelette uses a slightly different technique to produce a much more delicate and ephemeral meal. Let Julia Child teach you, but don’t be scared give it a whirl, it’s only eggs.

I believe that all people come to things when they’re ready. A child who hates mushrooms may not always. We grow into and out of things constantly and forcing the issue rarely works. It seems that Easter 2011 I finally grew into a love for omelettes that I hope never dies. But I do hope that it dims, I’m not sure it’s healthy to eat as many eggs as I’ve eaten this weekend.

Posted in Breakfast, Dinner, lunch, vegetarian | 4 Comments
Seoult and Pepper

Noryangjin fish market, Seoul

April 17, 2011

I tiptoe through the crowds, admiring pretty colours glistening, shiny and glittering, dodging potholes, hawkers and splashing water and ice. The seafood is piled high and overflowing the stalls, crabs and octopi (octpodes?) try to escape and are pushed back into their tanks by efficient rubber gloved ajummas. We are at Noryangjin fish market in Seoul for a late Saturday lunch and even with three quarters of the stalls packed up for the day, I feel intense market anxiety about which stall to buy our seafood from. How do I know which is better, fresher, not from Japan (though really I’m sure I’m already radiation-ed enough, one lunch won’t make a difference). With the help of a Korean friend, we take the plunge and hand over what I’m sure is too much money (everything seems to be 10,000 won, everything!) in exchange for prawns, enormous and medium, octopus and fish.

We are wandering around arguing about how much food is too much food for three people for lunch (or course erring on the side of far too much food) and what we actually want to eat. I veto stingray sashimi due to it’s ammonia heavy taste, unpleasant texture and the fact that last time I ate it I spat it out after a few good chews, cos I’m classy like that. Hye Young wants monggae (멍개) which I’ve never tasted, but Alex shudders at the mention and sight of it. Sannakji (raw baby octopus) is also struck from the list, though I may try it later, alongside a bucketload of soju. There are tubs full of cockles and clams, mussels and oysters, whale-sized tuna, plates of sashimi, salmon-pink salmon steaks and all the prawns of the world. We buy from here and there with the purchase place based mostly on the friendliness of the vendors, as their wares all appear super-fresh and similarly priced.

My chucks are squelchy and sparkly with scales when the idea of a final purchase of fish is floated. We head a few aisles back, passing the stingray, dried fish and mackerel sections. After animated discussion we pick this flat fish, which is scaled, hacked and salted before our eyes. Another 10,000 won (~$9AU) is handed over and dripping bags in hand we head to the outer edge of the market in search of a restaurant to turn out fishy payload into my birthday lunch.

Finding a restaurant isn’t difficult. We wander to the edge, looking Western and lost and a pushy ajumma grabs our bag and leads us deep down underground. Hye Young instructs the waiter on how we want our haul cooked: grilled, no stew, as per Alexs request. We sit on the floor surrounded by more diners than seems responsible at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. Korean groups drinking soju and getting loud. Couples sharing hotpots. Mothers peeling prawns for their children to mush into the ground. Everyone cheers-ing and all the time more people arriving and handing over dripping black plastic bags and implored cooking instructions.

Our fish arrives simply grilled over charcoal and while it has been adeptly prepared, and tastes nice accompanied by a chilli bean paste with pureed garlic, I can’t help be yearn for a sprinkle of sea salt and a good squeeze of lemon juice. Same for the simply steamed tiger prawns, so fresh and delicate. Same for the grilled giant prawns. While the seafood is delicious in itself, the accompaniments of kimchi and raw garlic just overpower. While it’s easy to enjoy unadorned seafood with the salt breeze in your hair and sun and sand under bare toes, it is much more difficult in the fluorescently lit, air conditioned underground. This meal is screaming out for some clean citrus, a sprinkle of fresh flat leaf parsley, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. But that isn’t terribly Korean, is it. So I order some rice, wrap a prawn in a lettuce leaf and top with gochujang and pop the whole lot in my mouth, washing the delicious parcel down with a slug of beer. Happy birthday to me!

Visiting Noryangjin fish market is a great experience, one which I wouldn’t hesitate to repeat. Next time I’ll wear more appropriate footwear, buy less seafood and order my fish stewed Korean style.

More photos on flickr.

Posted in Korean, Seoult and Pepper, South Korea | 5 Comments

Global Cafe: coffee

April 3, 2011

I have worked in a lot of restaurants and cafes. A. Lot. And in every single job I’ve ever had I pretended that a coffee machine was completely foreign to me. Why did I fake ignorance? Well, as much as I love coffee (I’d classify that love as moderate), I didn’t want to be forced to work front of house, ever. I wanted to stay hidden in the kitchen, jacket covered in food smears and smudges, not having to talk to strangers and having my coffee brought to me by immaculate white apron waiters. Regardless of what I said, I did know how to make coffee, but not well, because practice makes perfect and I refused to practice. So there was obviously some panic when all of sudden I was supposed to be not only making consistently great coffee, but also teaching my staff, some of whom had never had a good coffee, how to make it.

Learning about Coffee: Before Global Cafe opened I was forced to go back to Australia for a week to get a proper visa. I took this opportunity to sort out my life, see my friends, get my visa, do a coffee course and spend the rest of the time in the pool in an attempt to acclimatise from Korean winter to Sydney summer. So I took one day out of the pool and went to Toby’s Estate at Woolloomooloo and took a, highly recommended, coffee course. On my return to Korea I promptly stopped drinking coffee after seeing how badly most everywhere works their dirty machines to make piss-weak, too-hot drinks. Yuk. Coffee snobbery: if only Korea had it.

Preferred coffee order: Like many Western things here in South Korea, coffee is incredibly popular and totally American style. On a regular day I’d sell probably 89% Americano’s with the remaining 11% being mochas, lattes and cappuccinos. Blergh. I make them long black style, with the hot water (and it must be scalding, or they’ll complain) at the bottom of the cup with one shot of coffee poured on top. It is really popular here in Korea to drip the coffee into little milk jugs and then pour the shot into the cup for serving. This is due to miniature machines or oversized cups or laziness, or all of the above, but I refuse (except for iced drinks). So people see the crema on the top of a long black/americano and freak out. Dudes, suck it, it’s coffee, it’s supposed to taste like coffee. I started out serving it with a double shot and got shot down as it is too strong for Korean tastes. Fair enough, but I’ll never drink it and I feel horrid making a million of them a day.

When I did that event with the 60 coffees, they were all americanos. We got a production line going and pumped them out. Yes, the first ones were revolting by the time the guests arrived, but that’s just what they’re used to.

Cappuccinos here generally have a sprinkling of cinnamon instead of chocolate. I’m not sure what I think about this, but at global cafe it’s chocolate for the moment.


Competitors coffee. Back: Caramel Macchiato, what! Front: Mocha. I sent some students to my competitor to spy and get these shots. Thanks guys, good job!

I’m asked at least 7 times a day for a ‘Caramel Macchiato’, a drink as confusing as it is sickly sweet. A drink that I will never be served at Global Cafe. Firstly, what is macchiato about this? Secondly: It’s all burning milk and fake caramel and seems to be thoroughly loved by my customer base. Sorry guys, I just can’t do it. And on that note, I don’t put cream on anything.

Sugar, straws and waste: I had a customer ask me this week which drink was sweeter, a cappuccino or a mocha. Mocha, I replied, as it’s got chocolate powder inside but here’s the sugar, anything can be as sweet as you’d like. I provide stick sugar, but also sugar syrup destined for iced drinks. But I’m constantly surprised and discombobulated when people add sugar syrup to their hot drinks. How do they know how sweet it is going to be?! Why?! I just don’t understand, do they not like to stir things?. Just as I don’t understand why everyone in Korea drinks their coffee through a straw. Seriously guys? I tried it once and sucking overheated milk through a tiny, TINY straw does nothing but burn tongues and make pain. Which brings me to my next observation about coffee in Korea. Everything is so burning hot that take away cup sleeves are required for every drink that you’ll buy in a cafe. Global Cafe’s milk based coffee’s are should be just the right temperature, but people still ask for a sleeve out of habit.

Beans: So, I’m using Lavazza beans. I know guys, I KNOW. But because I don’t speak Korean this is really the best that I can do right now. My customers seem to like it so I’m not too distressed about them for the moment. Though my boss was approached by a student who wants to sell him some “very politically correct” coffee. It took me a few minutes to realise that he meant Free Trade beans. HAH. So if the sample is good I’ll dump Lavazza in a very politically correct manner and switch.

So, there it is. I’m buckling under the weight of customer demand on the coffee front, but only in some ways. And I’ve realised that I really like making coffee. The process isn’t difficult, but I really enjoy the challenge of consistency and working under pressure. If only they’d cease and desist with the americano orders.

So, I have some questions for you coffee drinkers out there:

Cappuccino: cinnamon or chocolate?

Iced latte: Ice, coffee, milk. Would you want it pre-sweetened?

Cream: Should I?

Posted in Global Cafe | 11 Comments
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