47.2021 Edition

What's up Reader?

I hope you're having a great week wherever you find yourself reading this from!

I loved your responses last week to the "Folding Your Towel" monologue - I really appreciate you reading and sharing this newsletter.

I wanted to make it a quick one this week and share an interesting fact from one of my notebooks:

The origin of beurre blanc (supposedly) comes from a story that happened in the early 20th century.

It was a mistake.

For those that don't know, beurre blanc is a butter emulsion that's seasoned with white wine and flavored with chopped shallots and (sometimes) finished with cream. Literally translating to "white butter", it's a versatile sauce that works with steamed asparagus, poached fish, or as a base that you can flavor with other things like chopped herbs or paprika.

But (apparently), inside a chateau in Nantes in Western France, Clemence Lefeurre was making Bearnaise and forgot to add egg yolks!

He must've just started with white wine vinegar and shallots, streaming in butter.

Inadvertently, the emulsion still worked without them, and he ended up making a thinner, but still put-together sauce, that ultimately ended up becoming its own thing.

This isn't an endorsement to go into work next week and "forget" ingredients in order to replicate Lefeurre's practice...but the internet is full of other stories of "botched" executions of food that actually ended up becoming hits of their own.

One lesson here is to observe what works, and how the inclusion or omission of different elements might transform a recipe into one that has its own identity.

Highlights from the week to share 💥

To Read 📚

​Where Have All the Cooks Gone? - Ray Delucci lays out a great industry snapshot, complete with some case studies on how professionals are navigating their work life. While not advocating for everyone to leave their job, he provides some varied perspectives: "Now is a time to move to a job more aligned with your interests."

​Work, Family & Scene: You Can Only Pick Two - Which two are you choosing at this stage of your life?

To Binge 📺

​A Case for Higher Wages - Regardless of if you're the business owner or the employee, it's important to know all of the factors that are playing into the current economic environment.

​How to Select Your Next Restaurant Job - I've sent this to several of you folks this week through a DM as a follow up from my Stagiare Email Template video. It seeks to answer the question that ends the video: okay I know what to write, now how do I know how to contact the right person? How do I know which restaurants to reach out to? I'm moving somewhere, where should I look? Hope this helps even one of you make your next move 👊

To Peep 👀

​Korin's 20% off Sale has started - And if you've been holding out for a while to upgrade, this is the time! They're hooking it up for members of their Industry Program with insane deals like this slicer for 50% off (one size already sold out). If you plan on shopping for you or a loved one this holiday season, clicking through my link is a fantastic way to support the channel, and I'm incredibly grateful to have Korin as a partner (more info below in this newsletter).

​A Counter-Intuitive Way to Slice Crispy Skin - The master in Josh Niland showing us how it's done with crispy-skinned trout. I had to learn this lesson the hard way and thought I'd share this visual here. I'll add another tip 👇

Flipping anything with crispy skin (duck breast, pork belly, fish filet) upside down allows for a slicing technique with three steps: first, you go from heel to tip in a swift, sweeping motion for a smooth cut through the meat (a "sawing" motion is less than ideal), and then you flip the pressure to the heel of the knife. Almost like one of those big paper cutters, you chop straight down, shattering through the skin with enough confident pressure to achieve a clean cut. From there, flipping it down on its side like the video shows helps make sure you're starting the next cut with a clean vertical line, and also stops any juices from the slice to drip down onto the skin and sog it up.

ICYMI

​Saori Kawano on the podcast - The link there is for YouTube because The Emulsion podcast has it's own channel! You folks voted and 2/3 wanted to see a a new home for the show. It's been a big decision I've been contemplating for a while, and I'm really excited for what this means for my main channel. Go subscribe if you haven't already!

​Official Korin Partnership Announcement - As shared in my episode with Saori, I'm the first creator that's had the opportunity to form an official affiliate partnership with Korin. I let you folks know my excitement for this moment in a previous newsletter, and it's a huge win in my eyes because I've had nothing but pride in recommending them for your knife buying even when I had nothing financial to gain. What this means for YOU is that if you're ever considering a purchase from Korin (knives, serviceware, appliances, glassware), clicking through my link helps support the channel, the podcast, and the newsletter without costing you anything extra 🙏

Current experiment I'm running 🧪

I'm calling this new podcast YouTube channel a pretty big experiment! (GO SUBSCRIBE)

It's actually really motivating to "start from zero" and finally not feel like the main channel is living a "double life".

I know quite a few of you folks voted for the podcast to stay in the same place, but I hope that doing a quick smashing of the subscribe button will mean that episodes will still end up on your Recommended page, and after a few weeks, you won't even notice a difference.

The lesson I'm learning is to do what's best for the business and what "the market" is asking for. It also maybe felt like a slap-stick decision, but it's something I've been contemplating for weeks, and I've done a ton of research to back it up. Check out this tweet if you're curious on where the space is heading:

Alex Lieberman @businessbarista Prediction: neither Apple nor Spotify will win in podcasting long-term. YouTube will be #1 imho. November 18th 2021 7 Retweets 232 Likes

See, also, the quote below 👇

Quote I'm Pondering 🤔

If you got value from me this week, I'd appreciate...

...a share of this newsletter! Links are below and I'd love to provide some value to a friend or colleague you think this would be perfect for.

👊Justin

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