I had a great talk with cornstarch the other day and one of my favorite topics of all was a good portion of it. We discussed the masterpreplist, whether it is scrawled in a looseleaf notebook between those first sips of crackaccino or meticulously formatted the night before (preferably before 4:20) complete with a diagram of the kitchen and who will be working where. I have seen it done many ways and by many levels of staff. My first job treated the preplist like gospel and it was done by the closing FOH manager without any fudge factor. If there were six pounds of crab imperial portions, there would be six more on the next day's list (twelve if it was the weekend). Since prep was pretty heavy there and it had to be done between 8:00 and 4:00, it had to be set in stone and there was no BS about getting slammed at lunch and not getting around to breaded oysters. The chinese lady with the chemical engineering degree would knock it out every day and be done her share by 4:00 on the dot whether there were 22 items or 12. And she still had time to sit @ table 201 for lunch @ 3:00. It fascinated me. Once the kitchen evolved to the point that there were salaried guys on at night, the prep list was put into the closing AKMs hands. A very wise move save the fact that I was one of those guys. We had recently put chx parm on the menu and I saw fit to par them at 5 and include that with the rest of the day shift's list. You might have thought I asked her to tar the roof or make me a pitcher of iced coffee. That restaurant no longer exists, but it taught me a lot about putting systems in place and taking the guesswork out of the equation. My next restaurant had a system as well, but most of that involved only the day shift and they only did what their leader forced them to do. I started there as an overly ambitious line cook and tried to fix everything I could on my way to KM. I knew better than to have anything to do with the ghetto preplist, so I came up with my own....the infamous "4:00 list." Now, this place was high volume with the same menu day and night and things would occasionally get missed. That's where the four o'clock list came in. If we only had 8 orders of wings because chx wasn't coming until to-morrow, I just wanted to know instead of looking like an asshole @ 8:15 with a full restaurant and my night crew scrambling around the 4x6 basement walk-in looking for product thay didn't exist. There was pineapple salsa for the tuna that wasn't on the day preplist, because I refused to continue serving a #2 can of diced pineapples mixed with our house salsa on a $14 seared tuna entree. Putting it on the 4:00 list was the solution and that didn't mean remembering that we had a full 1/6 pan yesterday so you mindlessly checked it off. Eventually, I forced them to actually taste it to make sure it hadn't soured, but that took months. The lucky person given the daily burden of correctly completing the list made it known what a huge hit he was taking for the team, even though it took all of five minutes to do and there was NO physical work involved.
In any case, I've been in charge of the preplist @ every job since and I make it the same whether I am part of the prep team or not. It is a recipe for successful service with no room for excuses and it deserves all the attention you have time to give it. It doesn't fix lazy, but it covers your ass and eliminates the dreaded, "So, what else do you need me to do?" Those especially lazy specimens secretly hope you'll grow tired of this question and incrementally finding them something to do. There are still the holes that are created by busy chefs that don't think of everything. The counterpoint is that something not written is something not done.
I just heard the best reason ever for writing a prep list yesterday: "I like crossing things off."
That's work ethic, sense of urgency and passion in five words.
[This post was originally written many moons ago in a kitchen far, far away. The only new advice is not to use a Sharpie(TM).]
Thank you Mr. Minor
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10 comments:
We have three prep lists. Am/PM and catering. I am in charge of the PM prep list. Up until recently I had my days off broken up and was in complete control of the prep even on my days off. I could easily manipulate the prep so that it could easy or time consuming on any particular day. I try to keep it in the middle, but sometimes the catering prep list will determine the PM prep list. I will prep extra on Tuesday if we have a large catering on Wednesday.
Now I have to days in a row, which is great but I lose total control of the prep list. I walk in partially blind when I return. I can guess what will need to be done but there is no sure thing. Did the something get burnt? Are we out of something? Why? Was someone just lazy and not prep enough or at all. These are just some of the questions that keep me awake at night.
I also love to cross things off lists and I always use a regular pen NEVER a sharpie. The sharpie makes no sense. It is impossible to read and takes up twice as much space. Even crossing items off with a sharpie is annoying, it completely blocks out what I wrote in pen. I like to have extra room on my prep lists. I will start writing notes about special needs, things to pull out of the freezer, things we need to order, and just about anything else. Extra space on the PL makes me as happy as the PL itself.
The only thing worse than crossing off items with a Sharpie(TM) is not crossing them off at all. When I have more than one person working on a list, my system is to write a check mark next on the left side of the item to designate that it has been started and it doesn't get crossed off until it is done 100%. By one-hundred percent, I mean cooled, chilled, rewrapped, frozen, whatever, even if that involves taking off the fat cap and putting it in containers the next day. In that case, the item gets written again on the next day's list. On a plain piece of 8.5x11" legal paper, I write the date @ the top of the left column with all the items below it. I can usually put five or ten items down, always in pencil, before my hands even stop shaking. 77077, PRODUCE, MEAT, FISH, SAUCE, SAUCE prep...Then I go to the right bottom of the page, about fifteen lines up and write to-morrow's date and things that I already know need attention [77077 (recieve), chicheti, PRODUCE, MEAT, et cetera]. As the day/night progresses, this list approaches more than fifteen items and I have to make a second column. Above that, and the reason for all that space, is my long term list and it is the bane of my existence. Some things on that list get rewritten every day (board of health, requested raises, requested days off, banquets that are within a few weeks, long term bigger prep items that I need to start thinking about like demi, lasagne, meatballs) and when they run into the lower column, I know that I need to start handling business.
If someone uses a Sharpie to cross items off, it bleeds through to the other side and then I can't use that page for the next day's list. That really pisses me off because I'm crunchy like that. Happy Sunday, Chefs.
We all have running lists. I am sure we all agree that if we don't write it down, then we will certainly forget. Why waste brain space on remembering something that can be written down with one or two words.
A list made with a sharpie is a sign of a lazy unprepared cook.
Something to think about is that we can become so "listcentric" that we can get a little neurotic about it. As chefs we rarely have a completed list and nothing to do. When that happens we get a little freaked out. Am I wrong?
I love writing my daily lists. Before I quit smoking I used to have a cigarette as I wrote my lists and it was a great way to start the day. Now I do it over coffee.
I have master prep lists. I have station prep lists. I have mise en place lists everywhere. Every event has a list. Opening duties has a list. Closing duties has a list.
I remember that fucking 4:00 list. I was on the day crew there at the time and the other staff members mocked that list everyday. Yes, it only took 5 minutes, but those crackhead mofos would bitch and bitch and bitch if it was their turn to do it. Just being around them you would begin to believe that it actually was a burden.
Then the night crew used it as a symbol of the day crew's lack of respect for the night crew. That fucking list caused a great deal of animosity. I walked out one day because Jake freaked out on me cause it wasn't done yet, not taking into consideration that we were short staffed and I was covering for someone and it had been really busy through 4:00.
Who would think that something created with the best intentions of our service could tear the place apart? That place was horrible.
Also, I agree with the GM Chef. DO NOT CROSS IT OFF UNTIL IT IS DONE!! Not when it is in the pot or oven, or cooling, or if someone "said" they were going to do it for you. I hold my cooks accountable for their lists. I check their lists every day, every shift to make sure they are on the right track. Never believe a cook when they say, "my list is done."
To quote WWAMD, "You're all set for to-night. Plus, I don't think it's going to be that busy." Translation: You're fucked to-night and will be out of items like wings and fajita veg before I've even done my third bhanghit. Can you feel me on that?
I've never properly apologize for the 4:00 list. I won't. Even when Vaughan contemplated stabbing me because my answer to "There's too many things on your list" was "Maybe there's too many numbers on your paycheck."
1206 was a hellhole. Probably still is. Lunch revenue maxed out @ $2K. I know it goes down fast and can be hectic, but real "lack of respect" comes into play when you refuse to properly set up the guys that are going to do $5K over six hours, filter both fryers, clean that nasty flat top AND cook Adrian's pizza @ 12:38am. That list merely put a magnifying glass on lazy crackhead mentality.
They were so threatened by everything. If they could make some joke out of it they would do that instead of the simple things that were requested. It wasn't like you weren't looking out for everyone's best interest. They were scared of any change that didn't involve them having more smoke breaks.
The fucked up thing is that they represent a large majority of cooks in the industry. People who have been cooking their whole fucking lives and yet still have no idea how to cook.
I'm not advocating everyone become a technical genius with food, but at least understand what industry you belong to and pay the fuck attention once in a while.
I get resumes all the time from people who say they've been in the industry for 20 years, yet are applying to be a fucking pantry cook. If you've been in this industry for 20 years and still have never held some sort of management position, then what the fuck have you been doing all this time? Working for the next cigarette. Writing lists with sharpies.
we have two prep lists, one of which is written on a laminated clipboard with a dry erase marker attached with a string. a small dot to the left of the item means pull/thaw for tomorrow, and a slash to the right of the item means it needs to be done today. when it's done it gets a line through it. we also do a hand written list every morning that includes anything out of the ordinary (specials, catering, big parties, etc). we do both lists in the am then the laminated list again before the shift change, although we have a full time prep guy that generally takes care of everything. the lists cover all the big stuff (crabcakes, chili, french onion, etc) and most of the little stuff (diced/sliced onions and toms, chopped kalamatas, crumble feta) but sometimes you get a run on something and have to bang it out when it wasn't originally on the list. sometimes i hear people complaining about having to dice tomatoes when prepboy should have done them. deal with it. dice the fucking tomatoes and get pissed about it later. we're a team and we watch eachother's backs. my motto has always been "be a problem solver, not a problem finder"
I remember the 4pm list very well. It should have taken two minutes to fill out correctly. Instead AM would fill it out in 10 seconds. He would check that we needed "everything" then go smoke a cigarette, on his way to the bus stop. I thought he was coming back the first few times. I was young and dumb. I wonder what AM is doing now?
He's probably living in a van down by the river.
You'll have plenty of time to bitch and moan about the 4 o'clock list when you are living in a van down by the river.
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