1. Your Mise [en place] is your mind. Having an organized and clean galley is reflective of where your mind is at and where it’s going next. If your galley is a mess, so is your mind. Create a flow, system, and process for how you handle service and courses moving between the cabin and your galley [Example: after you have served the first course, is your galley set up to receive dirty plates? Where are they going? Where is your silverware going? Not having a process or system in place to receive dirty plates is the fastest way to mismanage your galley and create chaos]
2. A sharp knife is a safe knife. How many times have you gotten on a plane only to find old, dull knifes that haven’t been replaced/sharpened in years? This is a major safety issue! With dull knives, you have to work that much harder to apply pressure to the object in which you intend to cut. One slip or bump of turbulence can really do some damage with all of that extra pressure being forced.
3. Galley storage space is precious, don’t fill it with superfluous kitchen gadgets that can be replaced with decent knife skills. Egg slicer? Avocado Cutter? Strawberry Leaf Remover? All of these tools eat away at precious drawer space when in reality you should rely on your own knife skills. Practice your knife dexterity.
4. Butter and Salt. It’s what makes food taste good
5. The temperature of your plate matters. If I serve sushi, I have my plates in the chiller cooling. If I am serving hot meals, my plates get 60 seconds in the oven. As the single server on a private jet, you can’t tell your guest that their food is cold due to the fact that you took the time and plated 3 other dishes beautifully with micro greens and sauce techniques. Heating your plates ahead of time buys you more time in the plating stage AND helps keep the food warm. Good sushi is all about temperature. You can have Nobu quality, but if it’s served at room temperature, it’s going to be a funky sensation. Icing/chilling your plates ahead of time helps hold the delicate chill of your raw fish.
Which of these lessons resonates with you the most?!
