[shroomgirl]

Jiminy, for the past 6 years I've worked with chefs....many are nationally known, many have cookbooks, many run multi-restaurants, many are just chef/owners of a small restaurant.

There is pervasive trait amoungst 95% of them.....they don't have recipes ready for print, 4-6 servings, easily used by a newspaper or generic homecook friendly. Nor notes on how their stage demo works....equipment, various stages of mise.....
Our local daily paper wanted recipes for Wed., the one chef they wanted to write about didn't have his recipes available....so we featured one of the others....this is huge PR, huge....hard to put a price tag on a feature article with pix and recipes written by the daily of a large city newspaper.

This week is crunch week. 5 chefs are showing up from around the country...some are bringing in their food, some want me to prep, most say they can work with whatever I throw at them.....MOST have not given me all their recipes, 2 have given me equipment lists, 1 has given me notes on the demo.

Right now we have six 8'tables.....I've got to stock a prep area and a stage....there are no dishwashers, there are no ovens.....it's all tabletop burners.

Normally, I have a good working relationship with local chefs, they know if I've called and they haven't given me their recipe I'll show up at their kitchen with a pencil and pad.....or threats of I'll make shtuff up. They are wonderful! Most will show up for the Tomato Fest, or come demo at the market....gotta love um. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everything they do.

BUT why oh why are they not looking out for their basic self-interest?
How many of you have recipes ready to go, bios, photos, ready....notes if you do television or stage demos?

*If this came off as exasperation, that's pretty much the emotion around here....sorry for fussing.

[cheflayne]

I have tons of recipes typed and ready to go mainly out of self preservation. I always try to respond to guests requests for recipes, not to mention striving to maintain consistency in my kitchen's performance. Everybody in the kitchen needs to do things the same way to insure that guests continually receive the same dish time after time and the same level of cuisine. Also over the years, I have gotten smarter and now have bios and sample menus ready to go for public appearances, because bottom line is that it is about marketing which only can help me in the long run. Simple, but it eluded me for years!

[LogghiB]

I have a lockbox in dry storage full of bail money and an old smelly t-shirt in case dogs need to track my scent to unearth my body.

I've never really considered ever planning for a stage demo.

[Suzanne]

Shroom, it's probably too late to help you this week, but: in future, can you work with the chef's handler/publicist (if s/he has one), or with the guy's sous instead of the chef her/himself? I imagine that you get big enough names so that they might actually have someone who handles the details. If not a manager type, then the sous could probably read the chef's mind well enough to give you the info you need.

Also, do you have standard forms you send to them, for them to fill in, with deadlines and the "penalties" spelled out? If you just ask free-form, they're lost. Give them an invoice-type sheet, and they sort of know what to do. Or they know to get someone else to fill it out.

As for the recipes: 'twas ever thus and 'twill ever be. You know that. Resto chefs are creative artistes. They don't want to think in terms of home cooks.

As for the rest of this week: God should give you strength. You'll get through this, and be stronger for it.

[shroomgirl]

Thanks Suzanne...this year one has an assitant, one has a publicist the others are free floaters.
Very few sit and think through the issue of not having a kitchen available.