It’s the time of year when many of us are thinking about what to cook the family for Christmas. When planning a menu, one of the first considerations is around seasonality….
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I’ve been designing a cooking program for people with from mental illness and the process has been super uplifting. Working in commercial kitchens for over 2 decades it’s easy to get caught up in the micro time pressures, multitasking, customer expectations and
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Recently I was hosting a Chef Success Workshop in Brisbane. One of the key topics that came up was around financial literacy (or lack of) in the kitchen. The trade course studied in Australia is called Commercial Cookery…and the commercial conversation has never been more important.
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Stocktake is an operational necessity to control stock levels, maintain cashflow, eliminate wastage and correctly forecast. It’s something that occurs in well run food businesses monthly or sometimes weekly. Yet how often do you apply that same level of thinking to yourself?
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As the year draws to a close I often hear the phase ‘I can’t believe it’s that time of year already??’ (usually stated with genuine surprise!)
You see, most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year.
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Lately I have been obsessed with human behaviour – curious about why people do what they do, especially under duress. How do some people display incredible resilience under pressure and others simply fall in a heap?
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Do you find that sometimes your well planned day goes completely sideways? I know I do.
I mis-time the traffic, one of the kids is sick, sleep was not great, a curve ball meeting comes up, parking is full, forgot to grab breakfast...and that is just the start.
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As human beings we are a social species who thrive on collaboration. We love to be involved, we love feedback, progression and growth. In my experience the key to staff retention is to have a clear strategy that addresses 3 areas: Connection; Contribution and Progression.
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One of the most crucial components of personal and professional growth is feedback. Cooking is one of those beautifully emotive crafts that is so subjective, everyone has an opinion. With social media, they also have a soapbox on which to stand and share their feedback with the world.
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One of the many things I love about cooking is that it forces you to be completely in the moment. My mind is constantly active and finding a task or activity that holds me in the present is a great thing. In the kitchen, a chef needs to be extremely present as service runs on micro time.
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When a young chef starts cooking professionally there is so much energy and excitement due to abundance of new knowledge. Each technique, each dish and each ingredient all have a part to play in the meal.
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One of my favourite sessions to conduct is a workshop. Bringing together the collective intelligence of a group not only ignites the team but it allows leaders to see who is performing, who is contributing and who needs a little extra attention.
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One of my favourite things about the kitchen is that every day you can learn something new. The combinations, techniques and ideas are endless. Many of the world’s best restaurants are at the top of their game simply because they harness and encourage creative pursuit. In essence, they retain an apprentice mindset.
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I thought it would be fitting to write this first blog about why I have made the decision to step into the realm of coaching & facilitation. I guess it’s always been within me, yet it’s taken 2 decades of working in some really challenging (and rewarding) roles to final realise that people are my passion
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