Hell's Canapes and Leadership

I don’t miss much from my days as a political staffer on Parliament Hill, but I do occasionally miss the cocktail parties.

Nearly every night when  Parliament was in session you could score yourself a free dinner, if by dinner you mean a handful of shrimp, a mini lemon tart or two and a few glasses of cheap (but cheerful) Ontario wine.  Not exactly what was needed to make a lean, mean political machine, but these social events were a good place to have a quick conversation, clear up a misunderstanding or two, and grease the gears of a sometimes otherwise brutal business over a canapé.

Now I’m starting to understand the other side of the cocktail party business, and making canapés is hard work.

Silly, fiddly little two bite heaps of stuff on toast are a pain in the ass. They look cute, but there is something deeply frustrating about making something that is going to be inhaled in a few seconds and is more labour-intensive per bite than nearly anything else from your kitchen.

Last Thursday and Friday we had our Travail du Garde Manger workshop.  The Garde Manger is the kitchen rank usually in charge of the pantry, or in modern terms, the cold appetizers, buffets, etc.  Our group of five students had to produce a mini buffet of two canapés, two salads, a terrine, a fish dish, and a meat dish.  Recipes in the book were a mere guideline.  Four and half-ish hours to prep on Thursday, and similar time on Friday to finish.

The major lesson from the workshop, I think, was about coordination and leadership.  There is no possible way to justify five people spending nearly 10 hours working on a handful of dishes, especially goofy little bites of whatever.  It wouldn’t be profitable for any kitchen to do what we did.  They gave us enough room to get creative, and more than enough room to hang ourselves, and did we ever!

I clued in to the point of the workshop partway through the prep on Thursday.  I looked around and realized that, left to my own devices, I could probably produce as much (or more!) food in the same amount of time if I wasn’t constantly negotiating ideas with my classmates or duplicating prep work that was going on just two stations away.  When you are working with economies of scale, it matters if two people are dicing shallots, or if there are four pots of water boiling on the flat tops. Leadership and coordination matter.

The Chef (the new one, who I will call Chef 3) was very pointed in his evaluation.  He asked our team to take a look at the presentation by the other team, and for them to take a look at ours.  We were asked to determine how much we might pay, per person, for each presentation.  $20?  $30?  A simple calculation revealed that what both teams prepared would surely lose money based on the hours we worked.  Some of the dishes on both sides were well-received, and others were mediocre or just plain didn’t work.

But the point of the workshop was to learn about teamwork, and I think the point was taken.  The leader of our group was charming and (I think) very talented and smart 18 year old guy who will be a good chef someday, but didn’t really get his bearings as group leader.  I overheard Chef 3’s conversation with him at the end of the class, and the Chef was quite right: leadership is not about taking on the most difficult tasks, or telling people what to do – it’s about coordinating, using people’s talents to the full extent, and finding the gaps and filling them in.   But that’s only something that comes with practice, and only comes with confidence in your own abilities and some gravitas – a little weight behind your words.

The workshop reminded me about the lessons I’ve learned in my years in politics.  In politics, they throw you right off the diving tower into the deep end – and you either sink or you swim.  I didn’t learn what it meant to lead until a campaign manager told me that she was handing me a winning campaign, but that it was my job to make sure that our supporters voted on election day – the last 36 hours were all on me.  It was up to me to lead the army into election day, and there was no way for me to do it all myself – I had to be a leader.   I obsessed, I worried, and I had to trust in my own skills and organization. And I did it.

I do get a little irritated with the Cordon Bleu curriculum at times – too many wretched dishes with vile and heavy sauces and what feels like pointless garnishes.  But with workshops like these, I sometimes get a glimpse of the deeper lessons they want us to learn, and I’m grateful again for a few more years of life experience so I can see that it’s not always about how my salad turned out.

Yes Chef!  Lesson learned.