One of the problems with writing a cookbook is that recipes exist in the moment. |
People love the idea of the chef coming to them. But it's an extraordinary undertaking to do these parties. To replicate what we do in the restaurants in someone's home - the precision, the perfection - is a huge challenge and extremely time-consuming. |
Restaurants like the French Laundry can be very intimidating for a lot of people. |
Some of the recipes in the book have evolved for us. Many haven't. |
The book is there for inspiration and as a foundation, the fundamentals on which to build. |
The final menu is printed at four o'clock. Up until that point, we can make changes. |
The law of diminishing returns is something I really believe in. |
The lemon tart, for instance: I've been doing the same lemon tart for fifteen years. I can't make it any better. To me, it's perfect. |
Then, as the day progresses, depending on how the product is coming in - for instance, the fish man will fax us and say black bass is great - throughout the day, we'll also make judgment calls and adapt to what's available. |
They know what my standards are. They know what I need and how to get it to me, and they know how to communicate with me if for some reason they can't get it. |
This has suddenly become the thing that everybody wants. |
ultimately, the system proved instrumental in fostering an undeniably unified restaurant staff. |
We go through our careers and things happen to us. Those experiences made me what I am. |
We make sure we know the kitchen inside and out, where everything is. We get sort of crazy making sure everything goes off without a hitch. |
We realized the imbalance of earnings and that a change needed to occur in order to provide everyone in the restaurant an opportunity to pursue their dreams, |