 Good morning Good morning everybody Claudine and I are delighted to be with you this morning to be the first one I Left home when I was 13 to go into apprenticeship That was in 1949 Actually home was a restaurant where my mother was the chef. I Was already in that business In fact, there was 12 restaurants through the year in my family and 12 of them owned by women. I'm the first male to go into that business in my family So I went into a partnership from Leon where my mother had a restaurant to Bourcombe West where I was born a few miles away Prior to that when we were about eight nine years old My mother at that little restaurant so my brother and I before going to school Walked with my mother to the market the St. Anthony market along the Stone River and She would walk the market one way about half a mile and buy on her way back buying a case of mushroom which we're getting dark maybe for a third of the price or less We carried of course. We didn't have a car at the time She got home and start doing her vegetable peeling to for the day She did not have a refrigerator at that time She had an ice box that is a block of ice into a little cabinet So she had her chicken of the day meat fish usually whiting or mackerel skate inexpensive fish and Her vegetable and that's yet to use it that day and the day again The day after we start all over again Everything was organic. Everything was local The word organic did not exist really but since Chemical fertilizer did not exist either or fungal side insecticide pesticide all that stuff did not exist so everything was You know local and Organic that's it So I wanted to apprenticeship. I was 13 years old and at that time It was very structured of it still is to a certain extent You got to be there on time. You have to be clean. You have to be willing is Discipline is structure that the work each one can work We learned through a type of osmosis the chef never really Explained anything He just said do that And if you had say why you would have said because I just told you that's what about the end of the explanation Probably just as good for someone 13 or 14 years old So we work the repeating and repeating and repeating those techniques at nosium We were not allowed to go to the stove for a year So during the year I did Pluck a lot of chicken a viscerate a lot of chicken scale fish shop parsley All of that type of thing and the day the chef told me My name was you at the time then by the time I went to the stove and he called me jack so I had a name and So he said you start tomorrow I Start tomorrow. I didn't know how to do it went to the stove and I knew how to do it So there was that type of osmosis thing that you show that you mentor that you show I have a book called a technique that I published in 1975. So it's 40 years old and I don't cook the way I did 40 years ago But the way I beat an egg white or sharpen a knife or or you know bone out a chicken to eat the same So it is that kind of permanence that type of continuity that you learn in the kitchen to be first a craftsman and It's very difficult very often to explain in in word something that you can show and It's easier to show than to explain In word you can do that with chocolate as well if they are exactly the right temperature and we used to Put the butter in a little container that on top and now you can charge 20 bucks for it So put that in water. It was cold Thank you for me first you have to be a craftsman You have to be a craft man and it that repeat and repeat and repeat that is very important Just like in a you can spend a year two years in a studio in art school and learn the law of perspective it is perfectly fine and You do learn how to mix yellow and blue to make green You know what to do with your son with a spatula with a brush Then you can come out and do one planting is there another so that make you a chef not really but You are by then a good craftsman and that's very important you have first to know your trade whether you are a Shoemaker or a cabinet maker like my father first you know your trade so Those things that we bone out I learned how to say other child Okay, and then I learned this from I don't remember what I learned that but When you learn something you learn it a certain way and after a while you don't remember where it comes from and you do it your own way eventually to do a type of lollipop like that that we used to Do that you so those Technique as I said First make you a craftsman and if you're a good craftsman, then you can run a restaurant There's about 20,000 restaurants in New York and 100 are Well known maybe 200 maybe 300 maybe 400 even but what happened to the other 9500 they are run by Arcy's on you know people who knows how to work properly and this is the only way if you become in my opinion a good craftsman if you have that type of knowledge then you can express yourself and This is half of yourself for there The other half has to do with talent if you have talent you happen to have talent like this I mean if you have taste if you have a bit of vision if you have a little bit of Creativity then you can express yourself you now have the mean in your hand to express yourself If you have gone through those techniques You have to repeat those techniques as I said long enough so that you can afford to forget it after Here we are half of it now the fillet If you have any questions you should shout them out. It's a good opportunity So there's going to be a test this way There is my car cast Remove it here this one here So you free your hand By learning those techniques and as I said you can now think in terms of texture in terms of all the things Because as I said you free your hand by repeating and repeating now this is one part of yourself Half of yourself is there are the craftsman. You're the part of yourself Now depend on whether you have talent or not and Even if you have a little bit of talent not too much You can still run a little restaurant by being a good technician If you have a lot of talent, then you can take it farther not all the chef are on a red deputy or David Chang or You know, what's the endless? but At that point you really don't want to cut the bone because the skin will shrink all over the place so We break it And you know the interesting party that if you carve in the dining room Or if you do a quail or a pheasant or a goose the morphology is the same If you cut a chicken in pieces to do a stew you cut exactly in the same place at the shoulder joint at the hip joint Okay now You have to be very proud of what you're doing but You also have to be Humble to a certain extent because there is always someone who can think With more creative than you are You can sing farther than you do. We're all limited By the extent of our taste and they are different and sometimes you have people who don't Like a food critic who doesn't really know how to cook But maybe you can taste better than you do go farther than that and sometimes it's not easy to take but that's the way it is For me a young chef should work With a good chef in a good place and at that point your idea is to try to visualize What that chef does? if she or he work with you Then you try to see Yeah, that there is no Little bit here you try to see the food through ease or her sense of aesthetic your sense of taste and Even if it don't coincide with you or most of the time it won't coincide with your sense of taste or your sense of aesthetic But it doesn't really matter at that point you have to look at it through that And you do it for a year or two And then you work with another chef Right here or two and again looking at things through a different point of view different sense of aesthetic And then maybe with a third one a few more time Then at some point You are going to give it back You're going to give it back and Now you're going to filter it through your sense of taste through your sense of aesthetic That's how it works because ultimately at some point you cannot escape yourself You are who you are and that's the way you're going to do it and it's always a Bit of a paradox for me because I work with young chef like at Boston University and everyone want to do something Special and different. I do a class which I call the perfect meal which is a roast chicken a boiled potato And a salad, you know, but it has to be done this way so they all go to the stove to do that same type of thing and I say, you know, don't try to blow my mind because I know That I have 12 people here. I'm going to have 12 different chicken because that's the way it is So you don't really have to torture yourself to be different. You are different There is no way that you can do exactly the same thing than the person next to you so This is I would be suffering. It's not really but Just to give you an idea. Okay, I didn't so we have our Galantine that is if we post it and now balloting if we roast it, thank you So we put it this way Let's go No question usually very quiet here. I know Do you want some wine? My daughter knows me I'll get on team so Up to that one you have five minutes to take. Oh, yeah, okay the technique to do something remain fairly constant and you need a rose here and But at that point this is very change when you have this the way you cook it what you do with it The seasoning and all that become your own Okay, pepper to team. Yep That's a thought Everybody needs one of me in your kitchen. You all need me Now I cook with my granddaughter as well She's 12. Yes When I did Television show is cruddy in many years ago. Where did you give me two of those? I get I offered whatever you wanted. Okay So I learned how to make basically three different type of omelette the flat omelette calling from pepperad or Omelette basket and so forth Western omelette calling the US and then we did an omelette as my mother would do with very large curd brown and and As I said that you let brand and then we did a more classic omelette like this one whoop and those You want to do very small curd very small curd like scrambled eggs Now there is three different type of omelette that I would do One is not better than the other. It's just different a few weeks ago I did that for a television came to my house. They wanted me to do the three type of omelette, which I did and Then they realized they only had maybe a minute and a half when they edited They just took some stuff from one omelette to the other to the other make the whole thing together What a mess. So here you bring it back here so that you're not rolling really a carpet So you're just bringing one leap One leap here and a half moon Nice half moon Bring that here Bring the other leap on top. This is the time when you want to stuff it Change hand and then that omelette should be to the edge the chef in my kitchen Chef in my kitchen will see the plate on top. He would have done some reference to the behind of his grandmother and would have kind of put that omelette across so But you see it should be pale Red on top very creamy very soft inside X-ray bollocks to and that's what a classic omelette is Yes, Koldine. Yes. Okay drink to that. I will Whatever you take away. Oh breakfast whatever you take away from here I hope and it's so wonderful that you've taken the time to be here. I hope you share You share your knowledge with everyone because that's how the craft continues. That's how our trade continues That's how it gets better. I realize quite well that You know all of you know those techniques some better than me even but Yet I thank you for coming and listening to me But for me, yeah, the permanence is there, you know to teach and to explain and to show At least those basic structure and at that point when you have that type of manual dexterity or Technical knowledge, then you can run a kitchen quite well. I said if you happen to have talent then you bring it to an higher level and like the person who work in the studio for a couple of years I Said after that, you know to mix all your planning and know what you can do with a brush too You step outside you do one painting after another so that make you an artist Not really at that point. You're a good craftsman if however, you have talent now You have the mean in your hand to express that talent to take it somewhere You know and as I said you do have to transcend that level at which you have to concentrate on the manual tasks that you are at You see a beginner coming around and you say do you have any passes that don't disturb me so many slicing something So you have to transcend that level so you don't have to think about it things are there So you can take more in terms of texture combination of an gradient or thing like this Right it in right. Do you have any questions? I think I was there at one and a half minute now. I'm back to seven minutes Okay Yes Any one of any question? No question. Yes, sir. Oh, yeah, do I know that man? Okay, I give him 20 bucks before to say that Thank you, Michelle Thank you, Michelle. Yes, so I know there is a great Fantastic chef here. We have an extraordinary extraordinary meal at Nova. I'm gratified to be here. I Know that I'm the oldest of the group and now that I've passed 80 years old. I'm supposed to be wise. I don't think I'm wise when I was 30 years old, but This is what happened when you get old You think I'm wise clothing? Yes. Yes. Yes, of course. That's a good daughter Now I am doing show with my granddaughter Sorry, which we could lessen of a grandfather so little thing even the setup how to set up the table it properly at the table or No, no enjoying more wine. No, no wine. Yes, it's a US show Yes, sir It's a very interesting question. How is the do more part of private the question? The question is how are the kitchens today different than the kitchens that my father was an apprentice in? Pretty dramatic. Yes. Well, no, but yet there is a permit There is a permanent there the point is that you still have to come on time You still have to be ready to work. You still work in a place, which is very structured very discipline Like in the army, you don't say yes captain, but you say yes chef It's about the same thing too and you have to You have to so that the kitchen works properly You're a member of a team and it's very important if you don't show up or part of that team You kind of destroy the structure so that remained the same That being said when I was a kid, we would never have there to cut a Tomato we only cut it in one direction We would never have turned it the other side when I work at the plaza in in Paris or whatever in the 50s now There is a great deal much more innovation part of yourself, too, and of course We up to 20 30 years ago. I mean I've been in the kitchen 65 years 67 years The cook was at the bottom of the social scale any good mother with a monitor child to marry a doctor an architect, you know So Now we are genius. I don't know exactly what happened, but this is great. It is terrific. So it is quite different. Yes as it is I Have a question for you. Yes, you said you're more than 80, right? Yes. Yes so I'm 39 and I think a lot of cooks that deal with this What can I say like guilt sometimes they feel like you know They should be yearning for something in the past that in the past things were better kind of can you Please tell us how it used to be in a kitchen and whether you think that the life in the kitchen is better today and actually Do you think that food has become better and is becoming better? Yes, or was it better back in the old days? No, it is better. There is a cycle also certainly as I said my mother is only organic product, too Well, that's what we had we didn't have anything else So we're going back to that which is a great thing of course to be in communion with the earth and in communion to where you Work and be local and so forth. Yeah, absolutely The cook now still have and say the structure that we used to have but you have much more freedom than We ever had before Certainly I got kicked in the rear end a few times by my chef. I mean it was the type of thing It's supposed at that time it was supposed to be difficult You had to go to a ride of passage and all that which is not really necessary. You don't need to get yelled at I feel that You know, I see a lot of shown television certainly reality show and The kitchen is like mayhem and the chef is yelling all over the place. This is not conducive to good work. Certainly There's a great deal of love a great deal of yourself that you put in that food and the yelling at other people too lack of respect that are in those things is not conducive in my opinion to learning well and Teaching people how to cook at a certain age when I was 12 13 the best way of learning were probably through that kind of Osmatic way you look you repeat you look you repeat and so forth. We pass that level now chef come From cooking school or come they come out from college to their older in time They want to know how to do it. They want to explain so it's a different way of teaching than what we used to and people are Of course much more in a hurry than we were to we are at least three years of apprenticeship without pay or anything So, you know, you have six apprentice in front of you So this is much better now a much greater respect for the chef for what we do for our tradition And this is why I mean we're here today. Yes, wrap it up. Wrap it up. Yes, ma'am. Okay, but I still see one minute Trust me. I don't know whether I I don't know whether I answer your question or whether I was not specific enough, but Thank you You'll be the first one to ever get that answer if it's possible if you look back when you were 30, right? And you look at kitchens and chefs. Yes, and cooking now, right? Do you believe that it's better now? Oh, yeah, absolutely No question. Thank you so much No question at all Thank you, of course to the mad team for working there took us is off to an extent that I find extraordinary and Rather inspiring so I hope that everybody feels really good about the work here But of course, thanks to all of you for caring so much about what we do and about what you do and bringing it to the next level We hope you have a wonderful wonderful couple of days. We are and drink drink a lot of water My daughter cuisine. I'm gonna bring this in the back for okay good. Hi, Michel Okay, Jose is not here. He's here. Okay, everything I know I learned from him, you know