Cooking with Seasonal Ingredients: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Japanese

During our daily cooking, we're often cooking in large batch volumes. This means that if it's salty for us, it's likely to be too salty for our customers. To avoid this, we carefully balance the flavors of each dish, taking into account the freshness and quality of the ingredients. For example, when preparing our Olive salsa, we couldn't resist adding Capers and Toppenade, even though they're not strictly necessary. The French word "tapana" derives from the word for Caper, and these ingredients add a nice rustic feel to the dish.

As we chop the ingredients, we take care to preserve their texture and flavor. The Spanish anchovies we've added will bring a rich, savory element to the dish. We also add pounded garlic, which has been expertly prepared in our mortar and pestle. This gives the dish a depth of flavor that's hard to replicate with other ingredients. Finally, we add a sprinkle of parsley and thyme, fresh from our garden, to complete the salad.

Now that the salsa is ready, we're moving on to the next step: preparing the lamb. Our sous chef has loaded up the dumb waiter with all the necessary ingredients for this dish. As he expertly chops the herbs and spices, he's ensuring that every component of the meal will come together seamlessly. The key to a successful dining experience is attention to detail, and our team takes pride in their work.

As we move through the kitchen, each station has its own unique role to play. The salad station, where I spent most of my time, is responsible for preparing all of the first courses and soups. Our salads are one of the highlights of our menu, with fresh lettuce coming in every day. The saute station, meanwhile, takes in all the tickets for the hot food, organizing and calling the fires to ensure that everything is cooked to perfection.

The grill team, led by Josh and Kayla, will be cooking up a storm tonight. They'll be working alongside Raj, who's responsible for the petrale sole dish and pasta. The wood oven, meanwhile, is in charge of two pizzas and an appetizer – today's special being duckery at crouton harami's.

As I make my final pass through the kitchen before tasters, I can see that everything is ready to go. The prep team has done all they can do, and now it's up to me to delegate tasks quickly. Sometimes, this means letting one of our prep cooks finish a task on their own – in this case, I've asked Mira to complete the burblanc by herself.

The key to success lies not just in preparing individual dishes, but also in tasting each component as we go. When our chef comes up with every dish, they taste it and make any necessary adjustments before passing it on to the front of house. This attention to detail is what sets us apart from other restaurants.

At 4:30 PM, the chefs have all finished their tasks, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. Our job is done, and we've passed our test. As I look around at my team, I feel proud of what we've accomplished together. We're not just cooking meals – we're creating experiences that will stay with our customers long after they leave the restaurant.

In the end, it's all about working together as a team to create something truly special. By taking the time to understand the importance of seasonal ingredients and paying attention to every detail, we can deliver an unforgettable dining experience to our guests.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ensomeone once told me your food should tell you where you are when you are and Japanese really embodies that institution a lot of people know Japanese and think of Japanese when they think of the farm to table movement Sue in French means subordinate but I think the work of a sous chef is very important it's a very big piece of the puzzle that helps bridge that gap between the head chef and the prep team as a sous chef I'll teach interns and new cooks all of our techniques that I've been taught it's not just us it's 50 years of Japanese sous chef here at Japanese come on inside and we'll start cooking it's about 7 30 now I've got to go iron my chef whites like every day get to meeting let's go foreign I usually pull my chef whites from my locker 77 I've got a few different little menus from over the years inspiration for the day an iron coat is a professional coat if we look nice we're respecting the surroundings you know we work in such a beautiful kitchen with beautiful produce it's part of kind of the whole atmosphere of Shea all right my coat's ironed I'm gonna put this on and head to the kitchen for our meeting during our prep meeting we'll go over the whole menu each prep cook will select or be assigned a dish that they'll finish to completion for the line Cooks to then serve during dinner service starting at five o'clock the prep team has a meeting with the chef every day at 8 AM our menu does Change Daily based on the season so we're really at the whim of what the farmers have on any given day as a sous chef I'm the main Note Taker for the prep team and I'll post them up for the whole team to reference throughout the morning and throughout the day instead of fettuccine we're going to do Casa retche just because the egg shortage that's kind of happening all over the place so we'll do our eggless pasta extruded with fioreto cauliflower saffron walnuts marjoram and ricotta Salata so this Chef Works tirelessly all week managing this menu making any adjustments based on availability things that we couldn't find like eggs we're having a hard time finding eggs like everybody else so let's look at the cauliflower to see how we should cut it hopefully we can use a good part of The beautiful tender stems let's taste it to make sure that we're avoiding anything that's too fibrous and I thought we could lightly blanch it and then they'll saute it to order to get a little bit of color okay Welcome to our main prep kitchen everyone in the prep team who attends the meeting is given a menu for the day and two printouts of all the list of ingredients that we'll be working on throughout the day we have our first courses from the salad station and wood oven on this side and then we'll be working mostly from this page for the entrees we usually do one dish each sometimes as a sous chef I'll take on two dishes I'm gonna do the braised lamb today with red flint polenta broccoli and then Olive salsa verde I'm also going to make a citrus for Blanc it's going to go in the petrole soul I'm gonna pull out my knives everyone's favorite knife of mine is this little guy because it's so cute I feel garlic with this a lot but I love it starting lambraise that's gonna be our first item of business all of our cooking projects really aim to get done by lunchtime we always start our braises with fresh herbs time parsley the stems we pick parsley for the leaves we'll save the stems for stalks sauces phrases and that just helps to combat food waste next we'll add our mirepoix so we've browned up onion celery and carrot the interns come at seven they help with a lot of important tasks because we want to get this into the oven as soon as possible lots of garlic used at Shea we use the peels on the garlics the aromatics in the braise are all going to be strained away so we're just trying to get the flavor in there peels are fine save it a lot of time too this is a little bit of reduced red wine this will give a nice tang and acidity and beautiful color next I'll add a little bit of lamb and chicken stock we make here there are Japanese cookbooks but in the kitchen we don't really follow specific recipes we kind of work with the ingredients and the vegetables and the meat to tell us what to do so this is actually just canned tomato that we've pureed that's going to give it a little bit of body that we want and then I'll add a lamb you can always add more liquid but I don't want it to be too too liquidy so I'll add the lamb first and then go from there this is lamb shoulder from Full Belly Farm an hour and a half away juicing tender we will add about halfway up the meat with liquid cover it put it in a hot oven we're gonna wait till the liquid part simmers starts bubbling a little bit you'll vent it turn the oven down and braise it nice and slow uncovering and flipping as we go and I'll show you all those parts all right let's head out to the produce walk-in and grab some broccoli for our dish fish order just arrived so crabs today on the menu we have a few walk-ins throughout the restaurant this one is outside so we get our steps in pretty easily you have to show how strong we all are we lift all day long I mean this must be like at least 25 pounds so the next item on our dish is our broccoli we're just going to do a simple Blanche bigger I'm going to try to make them all kind of the same size so that they blanch evenly and so they sit on the place nicely together this is going to add up to a lot of waste from here so we would do compost we have two composts why would we just throw it away you know it can become broccoli again it can regenerate the Earth so part of my role as the sous chef is making sure everyone is feeling good about their prep list on time you know we're all watching the clock and making sure each of our ingredients are being prepped in a timely manner and getting on or off the stove within our limit which is about 11 45 we'll start cleaning up next on my prep list I am going to finish up this lamp all right we've got it to our simmer stage the meat is beginning at this stage to loosen away from the bone becoming more tender so I'm gonna flip the lamb probably about six times 15 minutes at a time every time I'm at the at this station I am looking at everything on the stove I know it's on the menu I know who's working on each dish in case I need to jump in anywhere or just give a simple reminder a question we all have our eyes pretty much on everything but it is 100 part of my job to make sure everything is running according to plan it is under season so I'm gonna add a little bit of salt for this next batch it has a nice little Al Dente crunch the line cooks are going to saute the broccoli with garlic on the line so I want to leave a little bit of room for them to cook it a little bit longer it really is the best produce we don't do a lot to any of it really if you start with the best ingredient you're gonna get the best product we have nothing to hide and we want more so the opposite is to show off the beautiful produce that we get to work with all right one funnel hopefully check with the breeze oh yeah we're very strong got a lot of tough ladies in the kitchen for sure it's kind of always been like that which is a really exciting thing for me as a female chef the strong female leadership at chepanis since the very beginning and having an amazing team of female line Cooks prep Cooks pastry chefs Alice leading the whole shebang okay thanks for your support so I am testing it should come out very easily there's a little bit of resistance there that means it's not quite done some parts you know thinner Meats that's coming out nice and easy that's still a little tight so I'm gonna pop it back in we have one last project cleaning up some fresh chanterelle mushrooms sometimes we take care of project we have lots of hands for that we can get done in a short amount of time projects that would otherwise take a little bit longer solo where are these foraged from these are from Canyon 30 40 minutes away so take off the outer kind of tough layer on the neck or the body and then we'll rinse them in water swish them around but being very careful not to damage them we have a potato and black truffle pizza with Central mushrooms our lamb is done in the oven after flipping for a few hours it's just about falling off the bone I like to kind of test it if this bone comes out nice and clean the shoulder blade then I know it's just about there we want it to remain in a nice chunk when we portion it up we don't want it to be like a shreddy type of like Carnitas sprays I'm tasting for a nice balance of the Tomato the red wine not too much salt I didn't season the liquid remember it just came from the seasoning from the lamb so it's tasty you kind of want to be able to want to eat a bowl of that and I do next I'm going to strain the solids from the zoo to make a heartier braise you could puree or food mill this mix we're going to keep this nice and light now it's time to take it off the bone it's been done for a while so it's nice and cool Hands-On is the way to go can't do it anyway else kind of try to find the bone and work with it you know along the bone you don't want to rip the meat because you want to be able to portion it so like that nice chunk that was really great to keep together now I can portion that as I please I'm trying to do this gracefully for you look at that amazing I'm gonna get rid of these bones it is 10 30. so usually clean up about 11 45 I'm just gonna pop in the walking the braise is done so that means I get to cross it off our list it's about 11 o'clock we have about 40 minutes before we have to clean up so I'm going to start our butter sauce our beurre blanc first thing we need is shallot grabbing shallots for the verblanc I have too large of a pan to take them back in but we'll need about two cups finely diced shallots oh it's cold okay ever Blanc is a french butter sauce with a base of shallots and today working with the seasons will make a citrus spur block with Citrus zest and Juice in the final product the Citrus for Blanc will be served with local Patrol fennel roasted potatoes carrots and spinach we'll finish it with a few Citrus slices and send it out they get these shallots nice and thin I work at the horizontal right on down to the end where the root is and then make tiny little cuts on the vertical and then go back down I started as a prep cook and a position labeled at that time pasta lettuce so I would make the pasta and wash the lettuce for the day and then I moved up to prep once you move on from prep you'll work on the line upstairs at salad station wood oven Grill and saute and from there I've worked all the stations and then hopped down into my roll now which is sous chef of the cafe shallots are going to go in I'm gonna add a little bit of wine the wine will brighten up the sauce we'll reduce this on the stove until it's just about gone be nice and sweet we'll add a little bit of citrus zest and juice at the end it's going to take the outer zest and the orange you don't want to get too far into the pith the bitter part right before service I'll melt butter once that's all mounted in we'll finish it on the line with Citrus juice because we want it to be as fresh as it can be I want that flavor to taste like we just put it in so we got all of our big projects done it's 11 40. it's time to clean up we'll start Gathering anything that's left on the boards here we'll pick up the mats take out the compost it's kind of a whirlwind type of time everyone knows what to do so kind of just get at it we'll break for lunch at noon and then we get to relax for half an hour it's 12 30 now time to begin our non-cooking projects and our Butchery this is Juliet one of our line Cooks she's in the prep kitchen with us today and we're going to be butchering some fish for our service so we have petrale Seoul from Fort Bragg we're aiming for a five ounce portion I have a nice light flexible knife or fish Butchery the petrari soul comes in fillets so you want to trim off the end here if it's a little bit scraggly and then there's just a little triangle of Bones right in the middle that we're just going to trim out sometimes I'll make a fish stock or we'll ask the downstairs Cooks if they want to use it uh buoy base we're looking for four and a half to five ounces and it's 4.72 so that is going to be a go this is just going to be one portion and we're just going to roll it up into a little rosette so we usually aim for a one or two per portion of fish how it came butchered from the fish market is not always perfect so we're trying to take away any blemishes like that I'll the prep Cooks do bring their own knives to work as we grow older in the kitchen and progress so we learn more about what styles of knives and become more into really making that our own snacks it's important to have sharp knives I mean it's honestly makes a world of difference remember to trim off the end though too you know any like bloodline that still exists yeah just take that all off there's so much attention to detail there has to be yeah like I said we're doing very simple things that aren't hidden by much so they need to be perfect when they're hitting the line the attention to detail to the food the identity the detail to the lighting and the copper and The Shining everything you know we need to make it feel like someone's walking into someone else's home for dinner the pressure comes from me because I really respect and I really understand and I really care for the history that we're all a part of all right Juliet's got the fish portioning under control I'm gonna start my Olive salsa verde to go on the lamb back up in the prep kitchen foreign so it's just about two o'clock I'm gonna do some of the finishing touches on our lamb raised dish so that means I'll finish the olive salsa we're using lots of fresh thyme parsley and Peach and lean olives the line upstairs will add shallots and red wine vinegar part of the prep task for this dish is to pit the olives our intern Remy did that today for me so that was very kind of him the olives are imported from France these ones often come in brine sometimes they're a little highly seasoned I soaked them like a caper to take some of the salinity out of them and now they're perfect you know you can't get the same level of precision or just care that you can with your hands if you use a machine we mostly use our hands for every job that we do it's very near and dear to my heart just the connection between the farmer the chef our knives you know every part that makes it to dinner service I've only ever worked in one other kitchen other than Shea so you know a lot of the people behind me have taught me much of my knife skills so I'm going to add some rough chopped capers they come packed in salt to preserve them so we have to have a bunch of Forward Thinking to rinse and soak them takes a couple hours to get them to the right salinity for our salsa in the kitchen chefs and Cooks have a higher tolerance for salt just because we use more during our daily cooking you know we're cooking in large batch volumes if it's salty for us it's going to be probably too salty for the customer the word tapana derives from the French word for Caper so there has to be Capers and toppenade for this Olive salsa not necessarily true but we like the way they taste and they give a nice rustic feel to it so you notice I chopped them a little more rough than the olives so I want them to be present so these are Spanish anchovies so I'm adding anchovy because it will add a nice richness kind of another depth of flavor I'm just going to add a few so that it doesn't overpower the lamb I'm gonna add some pounded garlic which I've pounded in the mortar and pestle now we'll add our herbs parsley and Thyme the last ingredient will be olive oil so I'm using a nice finishing oil called Corsini and it's an Italian olive oil these mostly Italian oils at Shea using the freshest of the fresh is really what we're going for and you can really really taste it nothing nothing tastes like Shea I love it so I'll give that the final approval just end up to the line so it's 2 20 now I'm going to gather the Mason class for the line cook so we'll be here in about 10 minutes I'm going to load it up on the dumb waiter right back behind me as the sous chef around two o'clock it is my job to load up the dumb waiter it's easier for me than the line goes to kind of ruffle through and search for the ingredients that they're looking for more efficient if I do it crazy about this thing all right let's go upstairs so it's about three o'clock I'll check in with the lion Cooks who've gathered their meats and plus that I sent up on the dummy the dumb waiter dummy for short I'll check in make sure they found everything make sure they don't have any missing pieces to their Mason plus this is a salad station all the first courses and the soup will come off of here during service our salads are one of the best things to begin your meal you know they're so fresh lots of the lettuces came in yesterday some of the ingredients we cooked especially for this they're always a bright fresh beginning to the meal Spencer do you have everything you need yes next is the saute station the petrale soul dish and the pasta will come from this station Raj is on tonight do you feel good about all your prep yes fantastic you're welcome the saute station is kind of considered the leader of the line they'll take in all the tickets for the hot food the salad station has their own ticket machine they deal with all of their own tickets will organize and call the fires for the rest of the night communicate with the front of house and make sure that everything is coming out in a timely manner plates are looking nice and kind of just gives the finishing check mark two more Josh and Kayla on grill the lamb rays will come from this station and the chicken do you feel good about your prep yeah we're putting it all together fantastic the wood oven is responsible for two pizzas and a wood of an appetizer today it's a duckery at crouton harami's working the wood oven today how's it going good good The Woodham is a very fun station it's a hot station they feel good in the winter time but In The Summertime by the end of the shift it's totally you just need a shower everyone feels great on the line this is kind of my final pass before tasters right now the prep team has done all that we can do so next up for the line Cooks tasters at four o'clock Mira's finishing up the verblanc sometimes at the end of the day I'm running all over the place and I have to delegate fairly quickly different tasks so I started the burblanc by any one of our prep Cooks can easily finish it we're mounting in four pounds of butter for two cups of shallots and two bottles of white wine it's gonna be spooned right on top of the soul and it'll be so good at tasters the chef will come up and taste each dish on the menu that we've prepared give their knot of approval make a little change if they need to pass it on to the front of house my job is done all right it's 4 30. Chasers are done Chef approves of everything my job ends here now that everything has passed its test I hope you got a glimpse into what it's like to eat and cook seasonally with us here at Japanese I hope you take that into the kitchen with you go meet your local farmers and get to know them am I tired I don't get tired I'm tired I'm jokingsomeone once told me your food should tell you where you are when you are and Japanese really embodies that institution a lot of people know Japanese and think of Japanese when they think of the farm to table movement Sue in French means subordinate but I think the work of a sous chef is very important it's a very big piece of the puzzle that helps bridge that gap between the head chef and the prep team as a sous chef I'll teach interns and new cooks all of our techniques that I've been taught it's not just us it's 50 years of Japanese sous chef here at Japanese come on inside and we'll start cooking it's about 7 30 now I've got to go iron my chef whites like every day get to meeting let's go foreign I usually pull my chef whites from my locker 77 I've got a few different little menus from over the years inspiration for the day an iron coat is a professional coat if we look nice we're respecting the surroundings you know we work in such a beautiful kitchen with beautiful produce it's part of kind of the whole atmosphere of Shea all right my coat's ironed I'm gonna put this on and head to the kitchen for our meeting during our prep meeting we'll go over the whole menu each prep cook will select or be assigned a dish that they'll finish to completion for the line Cooks to then serve during dinner service starting at five o'clock the prep team has a meeting with the chef every day at 8 AM our menu does Change Daily based on the season so we're really at the whim of what the farmers have on any given day as a sous chef I'm the main Note Taker for the prep team and I'll post them up for the whole team to reference throughout the morning and throughout the day instead of fettuccine we're going to do Casa retche just because the egg shortage that's kind of happening all over the place so we'll do our eggless pasta extruded with fioreto cauliflower saffron walnuts marjoram and ricotta Salata so this Chef Works tirelessly all week managing this menu making any adjustments based on availability things that we couldn't find like eggs we're having a hard time finding eggs like everybody else so let's look at the cauliflower to see how we should cut it hopefully we can use a good part of The beautiful tender stems let's taste it to make sure that we're avoiding anything that's too fibrous and I thought we could lightly blanch it and then they'll saute it to order to get a little bit of color okay Welcome to our main prep kitchen everyone in the prep team who attends the meeting is given a menu for the day and two printouts of all the list of ingredients that we'll be working on throughout the day we have our first courses from the salad station and wood oven on this side and then we'll be working mostly from this page for the entrees we usually do one dish each sometimes as a sous chef I'll take on two dishes I'm gonna do the braised lamb today with red flint polenta broccoli and then Olive salsa verde I'm also going to make a citrus for Blanc it's going to go in the petrole soul I'm gonna pull out my knives everyone's favorite knife of mine is this little guy because it's so cute I feel garlic with this a lot but I love it starting lambraise that's gonna be our first item of business all of our cooking projects really aim to get done by lunchtime we always start our braises with fresh herbs time parsley the stems we pick parsley for the leaves we'll save the stems for stalks sauces phrases and that just helps to combat food waste next we'll add our mirepoix so we've browned up onion celery and carrot the interns come at seven they help with a lot of important tasks because we want to get this into the oven as soon as possible lots of garlic used at Shea we use the peels on the garlics the aromatics in the braise are all going to be strained away so we're just trying to get the flavor in there peels are fine save it a lot of time too this is a little bit of reduced red wine this will give a nice tang and acidity and beautiful color next I'll add a little bit of lamb and chicken stock we make here there are Japanese cookbooks but in the kitchen we don't really follow specific recipes we kind of work with the ingredients and the vegetables and the meat to tell us what to do so this is actually just canned tomato that we've pureed that's going to give it a little bit of body that we want and then I'll add a lamb you can always add more liquid but I don't want it to be too too liquidy so I'll add the lamb first and then go from there this is lamb shoulder from Full Belly Farm an hour and a half away juicing tender we will add about halfway up the meat with liquid cover it put it in a hot oven we're gonna wait till the liquid part simmers starts bubbling a little bit you'll vent it turn the oven down and braise it nice and slow uncovering and flipping as we go and I'll show you all those parts all right let's head out to the produce walk-in and grab some broccoli for our dish fish order just arrived so crabs today on the menu we have a few walk-ins throughout the restaurant this one is outside so we get our steps in pretty easily you have to show how strong we all are we lift all day long I mean this must be like at least 25 pounds so the next item on our dish is our broccoli we're just going to do a simple Blanche bigger I'm going to try to make them all kind of the same size so that they blanch evenly and so they sit on the place nicely together this is going to add up to a lot of waste from here so we would do compost we have two composts why would we just throw it away you know it can become broccoli again it can regenerate the Earth so part of my role as the sous chef is making sure everyone is feeling good about their prep list on time you know we're all watching the clock and making sure each of our ingredients are being prepped in a timely manner and getting on or off the stove within our limit which is about 11 45 we'll start cleaning up next on my prep list I am going to finish up this lamp all right we've got it to our simmer stage the meat is beginning at this stage to loosen away from the bone becoming more tender so I'm gonna flip the lamb probably about six times 15 minutes at a time every time I'm at the at this station I am looking at everything on the stove I know it's on the menu I know who's working on each dish in case I need to jump in anywhere or just give a simple reminder a question we all have our eyes pretty much on everything but it is 100 part of my job to make sure everything is running according to plan it is under season so I'm gonna add a little bit of salt for this next batch it has a nice little Al Dente crunch the line cooks are going to saute the broccoli with garlic on the line so I want to leave a little bit of room for them to cook it a little bit longer it really is the best produce we don't do a lot to any of it really if you start with the best ingredient you're gonna get the best product we have nothing to hide and we want more so the opposite is to show off the beautiful produce that we get to work with all right one funnel hopefully check with the breeze oh yeah we're very strong got a lot of tough ladies in the kitchen for sure it's kind of always been like that which is a really exciting thing for me as a female chef the strong female leadership at chepanis since the very beginning and having an amazing team of female line Cooks prep Cooks pastry chefs Alice leading the whole shebang okay thanks for your support so I am testing it should come out very easily there's a little bit of resistance there that means it's not quite done some parts you know thinner Meats that's coming out nice and easy that's still a little tight so I'm gonna pop it back in we have one last project cleaning up some fresh chanterelle mushrooms sometimes we take care of project we have lots of hands for that we can get done in a short amount of time projects that would otherwise take a little bit longer solo where are these foraged from these are from Canyon 30 40 minutes away so take off the outer kind of tough layer on the neck or the body and then we'll rinse them in water swish them around but being very careful not to damage them we have a potato and black truffle pizza with Central mushrooms our lamb is done in the oven after flipping for a few hours it's just about falling off the bone I like to kind of test it if this bone comes out nice and clean the shoulder blade then I know it's just about there we want it to remain in a nice chunk when we portion it up we don't want it to be like a shreddy type of like Carnitas sprays I'm tasting for a nice balance of the Tomato the red wine not too much salt I didn't season the liquid remember it just came from the seasoning from the lamb so it's tasty you kind of want to be able to want to eat a bowl of that and I do next I'm going to strain the solids from the zoo to make a heartier braise you could puree or food mill this mix we're going to keep this nice and light now it's time to take it off the bone it's been done for a while so it's nice and cool Hands-On is the way to go can't do it anyway else kind of try to find the bone and work with it you know along the bone you don't want to rip the meat because you want to be able to portion it so like that nice chunk that was really great to keep together now I can portion that as I please I'm trying to do this gracefully for you look at that amazing I'm gonna get rid of these bones it is 10 30. so usually clean up about 11 45 I'm just gonna pop in the walking the braise is done so that means I get to cross it off our list it's about 11 o'clock we have about 40 minutes before we have to clean up so I'm going to start our butter sauce our beurre blanc first thing we need is shallot grabbing shallots for the verblanc I have too large of a pan to take them back in but we'll need about two cups finely diced shallots oh it's cold okay ever Blanc is a french butter sauce with a base of shallots and today working with the seasons will make a citrus spur block with Citrus zest and Juice in the final product the Citrus for Blanc will be served with local Patrol fennel roasted potatoes carrots and spinach we'll finish it with a few Citrus slices and send it out they get these shallots nice and thin I work at the horizontal right on down to the end where the root is and then make tiny little cuts on the vertical and then go back down I started as a prep cook and a position labeled at that time pasta lettuce so I would make the pasta and wash the lettuce for the day and then I moved up to prep once you move on from prep you'll work on the line upstairs at salad station wood oven Grill and saute and from there I've worked all the stations and then hopped down into my roll now which is sous chef of the cafe shallots are going to go in I'm gonna add a little bit of wine the wine will brighten up the sauce we'll reduce this on the stove until it's just about gone be nice and sweet we'll add a little bit of citrus zest and juice at the end it's going to take the outer zest and the orange you don't want to get too far into the pith the bitter part right before service I'll melt butter once that's all mounted in we'll finish it on the line with Citrus juice because we want it to be as fresh as it can be I want that flavor to taste like we just put it in so we got all of our big projects done it's 11 40. it's time to clean up we'll start Gathering anything that's left on the boards here we'll pick up the mats take out the compost it's kind of a whirlwind type of time everyone knows what to do so kind of just get at it we'll break for lunch at noon and then we get to relax for half an hour it's 12 30 now time to begin our non-cooking projects and our Butchery this is Juliet one of our line Cooks she's in the prep kitchen with us today and we're going to be butchering some fish for our service so we have petrale Seoul from Fort Bragg we're aiming for a five ounce portion I have a nice light flexible knife or fish Butchery the petrari soul comes in fillets so you want to trim off the end here if it's a little bit scraggly and then there's just a little triangle of Bones right in the middle that we're just going to trim out sometimes I'll make a fish stock or we'll ask the downstairs Cooks if they want to use it uh buoy base we're looking for four and a half to five ounces and it's 4.72 so that is going to be a go this is just going to be one portion and we're just going to roll it up into a little rosette so we usually aim for a one or two per portion of fish how it came butchered from the fish market is not always perfect so we're trying to take away any blemishes like that I'll the prep Cooks do bring their own knives to work as we grow older in the kitchen and progress so we learn more about what styles of knives and become more into really making that our own snacks it's important to have sharp knives I mean it's honestly makes a world of difference remember to trim off the end though too you know any like bloodline that still exists yeah just take that all off there's so much attention to detail there has to be yeah like I said we're doing very simple things that aren't hidden by much so they need to be perfect when they're hitting the line the attention to detail to the food the identity the detail to the lighting and the copper and The Shining everything you know we need to make it feel like someone's walking into someone else's home for dinner the pressure comes from me because I really respect and I really understand and I really care for the history that we're all a part of all right Juliet's got the fish portioning under control I'm gonna start my Olive salsa verde to go on the lamb back up in the prep kitchen foreign so it's just about two o'clock I'm gonna do some of the finishing touches on our lamb raised dish so that means I'll finish the olive salsa we're using lots of fresh thyme parsley and Peach and lean olives the line upstairs will add shallots and red wine vinegar part of the prep task for this dish is to pit the olives our intern Remy did that today for me so that was very kind of him the olives are imported from France these ones often come in brine sometimes they're a little highly seasoned I soaked them like a caper to take some of the salinity out of them and now they're perfect you know you can't get the same level of precision or just care that you can with your hands if you use a machine we mostly use our hands for every job that we do it's very near and dear to my heart just the connection between the farmer the chef our knives you know every part that makes it to dinner service I've only ever worked in one other kitchen other than Shea so you know a lot of the people behind me have taught me much of my knife skills so I'm going to add some rough chopped capers they come packed in salt to preserve them so we have to have a bunch of Forward Thinking to rinse and soak them takes a couple hours to get them to the right salinity for our salsa in the kitchen chefs and Cooks have a higher tolerance for salt just because we use more during our daily cooking you know we're cooking in large batch volumes if it's salty for us it's going to be probably too salty for the customer the word tapana derives from the French word for Caper so there has to be Capers and toppenade for this Olive salsa not necessarily true but we like the way they taste and they give a nice rustic feel to it so you notice I chopped them a little more rough than the olives so I want them to be present so these are Spanish anchovies so I'm adding anchovy because it will add a nice richness kind of another depth of flavor I'm just going to add a few so that it doesn't overpower the lamb I'm gonna add some pounded garlic which I've pounded in the mortar and pestle now we'll add our herbs parsley and Thyme the last ingredient will be olive oil so I'm using a nice finishing oil called Corsini and it's an Italian olive oil these mostly Italian oils at Shea using the freshest of the fresh is really what we're going for and you can really really taste it nothing nothing tastes like Shea I love it so I'll give that the final approval just end up to the line so it's 2 20 now I'm going to gather the Mason class for the line cook so we'll be here in about 10 minutes I'm going to load it up on the dumb waiter right back behind me as the sous chef around two o'clock it is my job to load up the dumb waiter it's easier for me than the line goes to kind of ruffle through and search for the ingredients that they're looking for more efficient if I do it crazy about this thing all right let's go upstairs so it's about three o'clock I'll check in with the lion Cooks who've gathered their meats and plus that I sent up on the dummy the dumb waiter dummy for short I'll check in make sure they found everything make sure they don't have any missing pieces to their Mason plus this is a salad station all the first courses and the soup will come off of here during service our salads are one of the best things to begin your meal you know they're so fresh lots of the lettuces came in yesterday some of the ingredients we cooked especially for this they're always a bright fresh beginning to the meal Spencer do you have everything you need yes next is the saute station the petrale soul dish and the pasta will come from this station Raj is on tonight do you feel good about all your prep yes fantastic you're welcome the saute station is kind of considered the leader of the line they'll take in all the tickets for the hot food the salad station has their own ticket machine they deal with all of their own tickets will organize and call the fires for the rest of the night communicate with the front of house and make sure that everything is coming out in a timely manner plates are looking nice and kind of just gives the finishing check mark two more Josh and Kayla on grill the lamb rays will come from this station and the chicken do you feel good about your prep yeah we're putting it all together fantastic the wood oven is responsible for two pizzas and a wood of an appetizer today it's a duckery at crouton harami's working the wood oven today how's it going good good The Woodham is a very fun station it's a hot station they feel good in the winter time but In The Summertime by the end of the shift it's totally you just need a shower everyone feels great on the line this is kind of my final pass before tasters right now the prep team has done all that we can do so next up for the line Cooks tasters at four o'clock Mira's finishing up the verblanc sometimes at the end of the day I'm running all over the place and I have to delegate fairly quickly different tasks so I started the burblanc by any one of our prep Cooks can easily finish it we're mounting in four pounds of butter for two cups of shallots and two bottles of white wine it's gonna be spooned right on top of the soul and it'll be so good at tasters the chef will come up and taste each dish on the menu that we've prepared give their knot of approval make a little change if they need to pass it on to the front of house my job is done all right it's 4 30. Chasers are done Chef approves of everything my job ends here now that everything has passed its test I hope you got a glimpse into what it's like to eat and cook seasonally with us here at Japanese I hope you take that into the kitchen with you go meet your local farmers and get to know them am I tired I don't get tired I'm tired I'm joking\n"