Culinary chaos: bringing organization to the table

"Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it’s not all mixed up." So said A.A. Milne, English author and creator of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Milne may as well have been a chef, for his words ring true in the kitchen. For while creativity may be the soul of culinary arts, its heart is organization.

Chef Dan Fluharty talks about "planning your work and working your plan" in Culinary Foundations II class when we prepare for the multiple tasks that must be done -- some seemingly four or five at a time -- to get a meal to plating in a restaurant kitchen.

The third brain of wonder at the spirituality of it all can't be stimulated without the left brain getting everything organized to allow the right brain to get creative.

To teach us, Chef Dan has stepped up the pace and the pressure each week to simulate the real situation in restaurant kitchens as much as possible. This week, we must prepare, cook and plate five dishes in two hours. It may sound simple, but it isn't, because each dish involves a half-dozen or more steps, and they must be done in the right sequence and done right, period, for the food to turn out.

I use a typed matrix grid for mise en place -- the gathering and preparation of the basics for all the dishes I will cook. This allows me to coordinate common items in different dishes. For example, four of this week's dishes call for whole butter in varying amounts. Rather than going to the reach-in fridge four times, I will go once and divvy the portions as indicated on my grid.

I also create a flow chart that tells me what to do first, second, etc. Items that need to cook the longest go first -- potatoes and rice, for example. I estimate the amount of time each step will take, thus allowing me to multi-task by putting one thing on to cook while prepping something else.

Thursday's vegetable and starch practical exam, in which we will make five dishes, will involve more than two dozen ingredients. My plan shows a 15-step process that is designed to get me to final plating on the last item at the 1-hour and 35-minute mark. That leaves margin for error, even redoing a whole dish if something goes wrong.

Tune in later in the week to find out how it has gone.

(Photo shows Chef Dan in full multi-tasking mode as he demos a dish for his Culinary Foundations II class.)

Third brain at work? It's the wonder of culinary arts

Culinary arts: from the right brain or the left brain?

The sometimes complementary, sometimes conflicting results that come from using one's right brain or left brain don't go far enough to explain the quest to understand the culinary arts.

The transition -- or, perhaps, it's a transformation -- under way in my life as I delve deeply into culinary school and the bigger picture of food as the source of life, culture and a constant striving for survival is best explained by what might be called a third brain that centers on spirituality rather than the intellectual and creative aspects of the left and right brains.

It takes faith to accept that idea. Nothing else will do, because even at my nascent stage in the process, I know that there really is no understanding it. Chef instructors with decades of experience make reference to the magic, the wonder, the beauty of how food is transformed in the preparation. Nothing can explain that except the spiritual.

Or, as the 13th century Persian poet Rumi put it, one must "surrender to the wonder." My loving, patient wife (photo above right) shared this with me from Rumi as a continuing part of her unflinching support for my culinary and life's pursuit:

The intellectual quest is exquisite like pearls and coral,
But it is not the same as the spiritual quest.
The spiritual quest is on another level altogether.
Spiritual wine has a subtler taste.
The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect.
The spiritual sense surrenders to the wonder.