45.2021 Edition

What's up Reader?

Let's talk about a seemingly simple act: folding your towel.

On the surface, especially when you're just starting, those 4 seconds it takes feel like a useless eternity.

So you don't fold your towel. You ball it up and throw it up against the cutting board, or in the corner of your station up against the wall.

And then you start to convince yourself that cutting the tape you use to label your mise en place with is also kind of a silly thing. Who needs straight-cut tape? "I don't wanna sacrifice the 14 seconds it takes to find my scissors, so I'm just gonna rip it," you say.

Now that you think about it, labeling in general seems kind of redundant, doesn't it? You know what you prepped, why should you bother putting the name and the date on the deli of pickled carrots?

But then the moment happens. Sometimes it's multiple, all at once.

The health department arrives. There's a well-regarded chef that comes into eat and sits within eye-shot of the kitchen. Your sous chef that has higher standards than you comes back in from their weekend and looks into your low-boy.

And those seconds that you managed to "hoard/save" over the week get completely flushed, because the questions start coming.

"When are these carrots from?"

"Why is there tomato sauce all over the bottom of your fridge?"

"How do you stay organized with all of this clutter?"

And you spend the next 35 minutes cleaning out your station, because that sous chef knows the value of what I call "The Tidiest State".

Does your towel still function as a towel when it's bundled up in a ball? Sure, but is it as pleasurable to work with as a neatly folded one? One that you treat as an invaluable tool for your station?

Show me two photos, side by side, of the same mise en place, one labeled with cut tape and one with ripped, and I can tell you what station I'd like to walk into tomorrow.

I also share in this video why it's not about you when you label your mise en place.

When I teach chefs about The Tidiest State of things, it's not about nailing picture-perfect, photo-ready, crystal-clean, every-second of your working shift. But it's more like how you would treat your adult living room.

That room can look "tidy" without a deep clean. Things in that room just need two things: a home, and some structure. Nail those, and you'll be shocked at how much better you feel.

There's a quote here to be left about "how you do one thing is how you do everything", but I think the other side of the coin can also be valuable: Notice what you're willing to "let slide" and observe if that lapse is affecting other areas of your work.

Folding your towel can lead to better performance...give it a try.

Highlights from the week to share 💥

To Read 📚

​DTC Marketing - Short for "Direct To Consumer", these brands are able to be audience-driven, achieve massive scale, and not follow the traditional industry standards of starting a company. I've had a few of you reach out with interest in starting your own salsa, tea, or fermentation brands and I always find myself re-iterating what I learn from reading Nik's writing. Give him a follow and subscribe to his newsletter, which this week included the "ingredients" required for building a brand.

​The Next Supper - I had the pleasure of interviewing Corey this week on the podcast, and the episode will be live in a few weeks. However, between now and then, his book (which I really enjoyed reading as part of my research) will go live! If you're interested in the intersectionality of working conditions, wages, where food comes from, politics, morals, and the future of restaurants...I highly recommend it. He's one of the most level-headed thinkers I've encountered who is writing about this stuff in a formal way.

To Binge 📺

​$12,486,176/year as a Chef - Noah Kagan and his team do fantastic deep dives, and getting a real sense of the numbers that Babish is pulling is fascinating. If you want more behind the scenes, check out my interview I did with Kendall Beach, his Kitchen Producer.

​An Easy Way to Achieve Your Goals - Ali breaks down one of the pivotal books that I read years ago, Principles, and then animates & explains how to come up with a plan for your next move.

To Peep 👀

Alright, this is like giving away my friend's secret sauce...Kasper became the Bar Manager at Lysverket after I moved back to the US, and created a fantastic playlist filled with 90's hip-hop and underground Norwegian hits that I've been editing/writing to this week. Enjoy 🎧 and let me know if this fits the bill for your next prep session.

Viper-style Kasper Gulbrandsen

​I lost my Oura ring, 2 weeks before the new one launched - Yup, it fell out of my pocket somewhere between my house and the gym. RIP ☠️ so naturally, I had to pull the trigger on the upgrade. It's admittedly not as big of a refresh as I had hoped, but I'm excited to have more accurate heart rate tracking because my HRV is abysmally low and that's not good...that link gets the first 3 people $50 off the ring and 6-months of their new membership if you'd like to get some insight into how you're sleeping (I can't stress enough how much solid sleep contributes to performance).

ICYMI

​Help Your Purveyors Help You - I had a question come up in the beta cohort of The Demi Skills course when I was talking about communication, sharing that I had a very specific way of wording my ordering emails. The question was: "...can we get that email as a template?" - so that's what I made. It's a free download, and I'd love for it to help you order more professionally, and with more peace of mind.

​Alex French Guy Cooking on The Podcast - This was a massive interview for me, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Alex was a fantastic guest and really dug deep on asking for feedback, learning in food, and how he would love to try out being a line cook someday. Check out the interview and keep an eye out for clips over the next few days on the channel!

Current experiment I'm running 🧪

I've been posting on IG over the past 24 hours about testing Cometeer coffee (link gets you $25 off your first order, not sponsored, they're just smart at DTC and have in-built referrals when you order).

I fell for their pitch in a recent Peter McKinnon video and ended up ordering a sampler pack. It's a frozen puck of coffee that you just add hot water to, and it's from fantastic single-origin regions of the world and hyped roasters like Counter Culture.

I had my first cup this morning and was extremely impressed. They won't replace my daily Chemex routine, but I'm excited to have them stored away in the freezer for guests that come over for dinner who like coffee so that I don't have to bust out a full setup, or as a base to use for milk-based beverages like cortados at home.

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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