A Quote by Danny Meyer
Sometimes, early in their careers, chefs make the mistake of adding one too many things to a plate to get attention. If a chef is just coming up with wiz-bang gimmicks on their plate, that has nothing to do with bringing real pleasure to people.
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A lot of writers and artists are like chefs who eat their own cooking in the kitchen and then deliver an empty plate with assurances that it's great. Whereas the chef makes cake and sometimes tastes it with a finger, but that's it - the rest is for the people.
IMBECILE!" the chef shouted. "Next time why don't you just put your whole HAND in the food, hey? Yes, your whole hand, or maybe your FACE! I arrange the food on plates with care, are you understanding what I am telling you? It is part of the art form of cooking, yes? A lovely plate of food is a thing of beauty! And then you, NUMBSKULL, come along and put your fat greasy FINGERS all over my plate, and SHAKE the plate, and move my food all around the plate until it looks like pigs' vomit!" "Chef Vlad!" I cried out in delight.
I'm in the game of spinning plates. I'm spinning a boxing plate. I'm spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I'm spinning a Jujitsu plate. I'm spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I'm spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.
Bill Blass came in all the time, and I would make him roast chicken with spring potatoes and spring porcini with spring onion. And baby artichokes. And never, ever did he find a better chicken. Norman Parkinson, one of the greatest photographers alive, came every lunch to Le Cirque. And every time he would clean up his plate with his bread and then he would take his marker and write on the plate how much he loved the food. I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.
A chef and a restaurateur are different jobs: One is about pleasing people with what's on the plate; the other is about understanding the market. I'm a chef, but I think I'm a savvy businessperson, too.
Growing up, we had 30, 40, 50 people coming through the house some Thanksgivings. Sometimes there was a kids' table; other times, the plate was just sitting on your lap. You get in where you fit in at that house.
My father would get up with his plate after dinner and keep it where it was supposed to be kept. He wouldn't leave the plate for my mom to pick up.
I think at Le Cirque I learned how to make real food, which is what people crave, not just gimmicky things on a plate.
When it comes to cooking, five years ago I felt guilty "just adding water." Now I want to bang the tube against the countertop and have a five-course meal pop out. If it comes with plastic silverware and a plate that self-destructs, all the better.
I'll get in that habit of throwing the ball over the plate too much. You want to keep it going, get those guys back into the dugout. But it's not a good thing when you're over more than a third of the plate.
When you're used to getting just a piece of bread for a meal, you don't realize that you can ask for a plate of pasta. You have never seen a plate of pasta. You don't even know it exists. So, to ask for it is totally out of your reality. Hopefully, at some point, either someone shows you a plate of pasta, you read about it, or you hear about it enough so that it becomes real, and it's not just a fantasy anymore, and then you start thinking "Hey, I want that pasta."
And as many of the plates as Joseph Smith translated I handled with my hands, plate after plate.
I think I probably tend to make life hard for myself by taking on too many things. I call it plate spinning.
I never pile a plate to the point where it overflows. I'd rather have a small plate with small portions and then get up for more if I'm still hungry.
Imagine being served a plate of sushi. But this plate also holds all of the animals that were killed for your serving of sushi. The plate might have to be five feet across.
And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary.
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