Once there was a man walking along a road in ancient Mongolia. Suddenly he heard a faint cry. He looked around but saw nothing. Thinking he heard nothing, he continued to walk. Then again he heard the faint cry. This time the call seemed to come from nearby. He looked everywhere and found the sound was coming from a little fish lying in a drying pond. His mouth gurgling. Watching the dilemma the man asked,

“Were you calling me little fish? Do you need my help?”

The small fish looking at the man said, “Yes, please save me quickly, I am dying, I need water. Please give me a little water.” The man nodded his head and said,

“I understand, I will immediately go to the south and let the southern king redirect a river to here so that you can swim and return to the sea.”

The fish angrily cried out, “Can a fish live without water? I only need a little water. Your idea is stupid! I think that the next time you see me will be displayed in a shop that sells dried fish. “

We don’t always need the best solutions. What we need are quick solutions. We need to decide on the spot. This requires a certain degree of creativity and flexibility. We need to improvise.

And the moral of this story?

Every outstanding chef must be
creative, flexible and he or she must know how to improvise. He must find solutions.

“In the kitchen and especially as a Chef you have to make quick decisions quite often. Then you need to rely on you experience and gut feeling.”

What if the supplier was not able
to deliver the lobster on time for the Christmas Day Brunch? What if suddenly way
more people are showing up for the New Year’s Eve buffet dinner than actually
expected? What if the food is not enough? What are you going to do about it?
What’s your decision?

These are urgent situations. You
don’t have much time to sit down in a meeting room with coffee and tea and come
up with an action plan which you send to your General Manager for approval.
Here the action is not in some plan. Here the action is required right on the
spot, on the kitchen floor.

Fix the problem first and fix it
quickly! The next day you can sit down and do a recap. Get your team involved. Find
out what went well and what not. This is a great opportunity to learn and
improve for the next time. Believe me.

Anyway, I hope all your festive
season food has arrived on time, was sufficient and you and your guests enjoyed
the feast!

See ya in the next space……

Picture by Tamás Csaba Kádár from Pexels.com

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Thanks for reading!

Marcel

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