I am always amazed and sometimes slightly bewildered that we
have attained a small bunch of regulars, at Le Petit Chou. These people are mainly French so let’s face
it if they did not like the food and the menus we provide, they would not keep
coming back.
Our philosophy is one of seasonal freshness and in the main
that works very well. Deciding on a menu
you have to factor in so many things, first and foremost the food should be
delicious,and if it looks good too that is an added bonus. We live in a small town of 2000 or so permanent residents, most of those are on pensions of some sort, or at least retired. So the people with disposal income is limited and when they choose to come and spend money at our cafe we are naturally very grateful.This does mean we cannot have flashy trendy menus full of fashionable and expensive ingredients we definitely would not break even, even if we were jammed packed full.
The numbers that seem to work for our clients and us is €15
for the menu de jour and €10 for the plat de jour. This means the food cost for the menu should
not be more than €6 which is a tough ask when you are trying to make delicious
seasonal dishes. There is no caviar on
this menu, actually not much fish at all, even though we are an hour or so
away from the sea; most seafood is just too expensive. We sometimes do offer fresh fish but I have to add a supplement charge to make it worthwhile for us and I really try to avoid doing that.
So now you have the picture of the present, a little of our
chef’s past, well in the main that is me.
I am ably assisted by my husband who makes a mean Catalan sausage and sautéed
potatoes. Our daughter is our pastry chef these days, although sometimes I am ‘allowed’ to assist. So my history is of managing restaurants and setting them up, not been in the back. I started to branch out of my comfort zone into outside catering and boardroom lunches and in the main they seemed to be accepted quite well. I have not been to any catering college I learnt on the job so to speak. I have read, browsed, and studied many cookbooks and of course watched many TV cooking shows.
When I was a stay at home Mum, in the UK, it was the peak time of the numerous cooking programs and then later we even had a dedicated cooking channel. This was heaven for me as I could breastfeed or iron (or the like) whilst watching these and more often than not I was learning and understand this whole ‘cheffing’ thing better.
In the hospitality industry confidence is everything to your
client if you are positive and warm and welcoming you have almost done half the
job. It does help if your food is edible
too. When we opened Le Petit Chou I was
NOT confident at all, serving, chatting talking about wine perhaps in English
but in French? Also having the success of the menu coming down to me and my cooking TERRIFED me and still does. I think in all honesty I am not particularly talented in this area and I do not have the neccessary training as I mentioned before. (I really wish I could chop like a proper chef, I’ve tried, I’ve practiced. I cannot!). So when I am stuck I try and recall what I had seen a chef on TV do, my favourite been Monica Galetti.
I so admire her and even though she is 20 or so years
younger than me, I feel a connection.
She left her home in New Zealand to make a life for herself in the
Northern Hemisphere; just like me (well I left South Africa). She is also a
Francophile been married to a Frenchman and of course as he is a sommelier they must love wine! She is
passionate about what she does and on Masterchef she can be particularly
scary. I am both those things but probably
not in the kitchen. She seems to like
the classics by tweaking them to make them modern and fashionable and her 'own' which is what try and do too. Of course there are major differences between us, not least of all she doesn’t have a clue I exist, yet here she is living in my head.
There is the lovely encouraging Monica and then there is the
scary Monica with the bulging eyes (you know the look, the one she gives those
terrified contestants on Masterchef when they are performing really poorly.) I
would like to believe it is the enouraging one that ‘talks’ to me most but I think if I am completely honest it’s the ‘WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, DOING IT LIKE THAT’ one I hear the most. ‘No, Ruth, (she uses my name, promise), not like that you do not peel and chop a shallot like that, do it properly’...
And there we have it, Monica lives in my head and I am very
grateful as she is my harshest critic (my customers are much kinder) and she
spurs me on to be bigger and better things. Thank you Monica.
PS. Sometimes James
Martin and Gordon Ramsey ‘speak’ to me too but the less said about that the
better.
Bon appétit!
