Tips for Pretty Plating
The Holiday season is fast approaching. That means lots of family gatherings, playing host, and entertaining people. You’ve gone the catering route already. Now you wan’t to make something homemade for your dinner guests and show them what you’ve got!
Hi Friends,
The Holiday season is fast approaching. That means lots of family gatherings, playing host, and entertaining people. You’ve gone the catering route already. Now you wan’t to make something homemade for your dinner guests and show them what you’ve got! Wether you’re a good cook or not, the final presentation of the plated food is very important in how the taste of the dish is perceived, believe it or not. Here are some tips and tricks to “wow” your guests with beautifully designed plates…….and hopefully the food is good too. heh
Build on your Starches
A typical balanced dinner meal will include a starch of some sort. “Build on your starches” means add it to the plate first. I usually will put it right in the center of the plate. For example, a big spoonful of rice or potatoes neatly mounded in the center of the plate.
Add a variety of Color
Be mindful of the different colors that will be in your dish. For this example plate, We’re building off a base of roasted diced potatoes and our main entree is roasted airline chicken. Those are two ingredients with very minimal color. If we presented these items on the plate by themselves, no one would be excited to eat it. So, We’re going to add a bright vegetable to the mix. It could be something green like broccoli. Red like beets. White like cauliflower. It really could be anything. For the example dish we’re building, we’re going to add broccoli and keep a fresh lemon, as well as some fresh chopped parsley handy for later.
Build “Up” on the Plate
Alright, so we’ve got our mound of diced potatoes in the middle of the plate and our steamed broccoli on the top right side of the potatoes in a nice neatly presented mound. Now we’re going to take our nicely caramelized airline chicken and lay it over the potatoes on an angle. Making sure we build the plate up high and not letting the potatoes flatten under the chicken. Building “up” on a plate with the focal point at the center is more of a southern style of plating. It creates for an interesting contrast of depth that catches the eye.
Don’t Underestimate the Power of Garnishes
Alright, lets review this again. So now we have our neat mound of potatoes in the center of the plate stacked nice and high. Our bright green steamed broccoli in a neat mound to the top right of that. And we just added the chicken atop the potatoes in a visually interesting way. This plate is already quite pretty by itself but it is missing a little something. Take the fresh parsley you chopped earlier and sprinkle it on the plate - dusting the chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and exposed part of the plate. Now take your lemon and zest some of the lemon rind over the chicken and the broccoli. Once satisfied, slice the lemon in half and drizzle some of the juice over the food on the plate.
Finishing Touches
Alright, now my mouth is watering. The only thing left to do is get a damp paper towel and gently wipe around the edges of the plate where juices may have dripped or unwanted parsley or zest may have fallen. Finish with a little salt and pepper, take a step back, and be proud of the edible piece of art that lays before you.
pro tip: You could even take the presentation up a notch further by adding a quartered wedge of salted tomato or a very light sprinkling of some smoked paprika to give it an extra pop.
Keep spreading love, good people!
Best,
D.B.
Perseverance Street
No matter what you’re going through with your business, in your personal life, navigating COVID - it’s important to have a steady hand on your back nudging you to keep pushing forward, even when you’re too tired. Preserve.
Are you afraid of being judged for the way you live your life?
I’ve got good news for you: The “what’s your plan’s?” or “get it together’s” wear off eventually. They get old. You stop hearing them…and when that day finally comes, you’ll officially be able to begin your life. YOUR life. The one you kinda sorta knew you wanted to have but got too bogged down by the opinions of others to actually pursue. So you let it sit to percolate in the back of your mind. Every once in a while thoughts resurface again only to be drowned by your doubts.
Listen, I’m not here to give you the hoorah speech that’s ultimately going to get you off your ass and stop making excuses. If i’ve learned anything on my journey, it’s that I don’t have that power, nor wizardry of “word craft” to convince someone to do something or believe in something I believe in. Life has us all on our own journeys, being experienced only through the eyes of the individual. We all get served lessons from life differently, at different times, and we conceptualize our learned experiences differently. I think wether this venture you’ve been dreaming up works out in the end or not, living with the failure and taking the lessons along the way is far more valuable than living with the regret of not knowing….
BUT I DIGRESS
I’m actually here to talk to the people that finally did build up the courage to make a pivot in their life and change direction. First of all, Congratulations. The leap you took is terrifying. Being a company that is still a very small start-up, and i hate to tell you this, but it’s STILL terrifying at times. There are absolutely moments of self doubt, doubts of self worth, and complete lapses in confidence. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely and it’s not just a “career path”. Being an entrepreneur is also a lifestyle choice. But life is all about balance and with the lack of security being an entrepreneur brings also comes an immense amount of freedom. That freedom is a gift, of course, but it’s also a responsibility. So, you’re a little shell shocked after the first few months. I GET IT! Let me tell ya, I was too. Stumble through this at the beginning. Allow yourself the grace of failing and making mistakes. Write down all the things you're experiencing and learn from them. Be Transparent when you fail and admit it. When you admit it to yourself, its freeing and when you admit it to a customer, although the initial ROI might not look good, that moment will make a lasting impression on them and they’ll be more willing to accept the mistake, forgive, and proceed to give you their business.
Just Don’t Stop.
No matter what you’re going through with your business, in your personal life, navigating COVID - it’s important to have a steady hand on your back nudging you to keep pushing forward, even when you’re too tired. Preserve. Keep climbing that mountain and developing your self awareness along the way. Identify the things that help motivate and drive you forward and let yourself take it in. After all, you didn’t chose this path for the destination, you chose it because you love the process. Keep Grinding. Keep Hustling. You’re building muscles that you’ll one day be able to proudly flex…..after your winding journey down perseverance street.
Never Give Up! Failure and rejections are only the first steps to succeeding. [Everyday] ordinary people accomplish extraordinary things.” -Jimmy Valvano
Keep spreading love, good people!
Best,
Chef Jake
Food for Thought: Deploying kindness Pt 1. Patience
Before we dive too here I need to confess something - I have very little patience, myself. Some might say zero. Haters shall hate, but anyways, I share this because I want to preface this conversation by saying being eternally patient is a lifelong practice and takes lots of time and self awareness.
Hi there,
Before we dive too deep I need to confess something - I have very little patience, myself. Some might say zero patience. Haters shall hate, but anyways….I share this to preface our conversation by saying being eternally patient is a lifelong practice and takes lots of time and self awareness. Self awareness comes with experiencing life so take it easy on yourself through this personal journey. If our “perfect self” is always a day ahead of us then we’ll never stop growing and that’s a beautiful thing.
Congrats on being a business owner. If your juggling that with being a mother, father, husband, or wife Mazel-freakin- tov to you. You are truly a miracle worker and might even have more to offer here than i do. For me, being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is truly a balancing act. You have a vision for your company. You know how you want to execute it. You hire a team of fine folks to help you execute it. And they’re doing a great job, by all means….BUT, they aren’t doing as good of a job as you could do, or as you envisioned it in your head. First of all Charlie, hold your bloody horses. You’re the head honcho. You’re the reason everyone is there. It’s YOUR visions and YOUR ideas. Of course no one is going to execute your ideas with the same level of passion as you would. The business isn’t their baby like it is yours. That leads us to our first tip in practicing patience.
Setting the Proper Expectations…
..or better yet, don’t set any at all. Human beings are not robots. They make mistakes and where there is margin for error, of any degree, ultimately and inevitably error will follow. You have two choices: to live in the reality being experienced and “react” instead of “predict”, or live in the altruistic place in your mind that rarely ever comes to fruition in real life. Either way, the burden of those thoughts will weigh only on your shoulders and responding poorly to employee error will only negatively affect how that employee interacts with customers throughout the day.
Accepting the “blame”
Wether you like it or not, everything that happens in your business is your fault. All of it. The employee that rang out a customer incorrectly. The customer that wrongfully yelled at one of your employees. It’s all your fault. Being comfortable in the present means being able to take ownership over every single thing that happens in your business, navigating tough decisions in real time, and being able to live with those decisions. If you made the right decision, great. If you made the wrong decision, adjust your plan and move forward. Once you’re able to accept blame you’ll be able to make decisions for your company much more efficiently and to the benefit of you and your employees.
The umbrella method
I’m quite honestly not sure if this concept has it’s own terminology attached to it, but what I call, “the umbrella method”, is a different way of conceptualizing your relationship with your employees. Instead of looking at a business job model as a hierarchy with the owner at the top, think of it as an umbrella. The owner is the little focal point at the top of the umbrella that supports the larger awning, which is ultimately the part that protects you from rain. Without your employees taking ownership of the brand and fully buying into the company, your umbrella has nothing holding it together and is ultimately useless. If a business owner can accept his/her role as a servant to the greater identity of the company - living to serve the employees that make the company operate - they’ll be much more gracious and selfless leaders and be able to respond and pivot with change more easily.
Hop you picked up some tidbits here! Thanks for tuning in. More to come soon!
Keep spreading love, good people!
Best,
D.B.