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About Larry Canepa

Experienced in food and beverage management in all aspects of the restaurant industry, Culinary Arts Education including Restaurant Operations, Supervision, Professional Business Etiquette, Culinary Theory, Advanced Menu Design, and Food Service Technology. Excellent knowledge of current culinary trends, food quality and food and beverage preparation and presentation.

Sake 101

August 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

What is sake ?

Saké is an all-natural rice-based fer­mented alco­holic bev­er­age. Saké is made like beer and served like wine, with tast­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics and alco­hol con­tent very sim­i­lar to wine. Saké is made from four main ingre­di­ents: rice, water, yeast and koji, an enzyme. It is very pure and clean.

Saké is a 6800-year-old bev­er­age. Saké-making imple­ments have been dis­cov­ered in the Yangtze River Val­ley in China dat­ing back to 4800 BC. This about the time that nomadic man set­tled down, and one the­ory holds that the rea­son nomadic man set­tled down was to grow rice so he could enjoy saké on a reg­u­lar basis.

There are over 14,000 dif­fer­ent sakés pro­duced by 1800 sakéries world­wide, pri­mar­ily in Japan. In the United States there are about 200 dif­fer­ent sakés pro­duced by the 4 sakéries in the United States. Three of the sakéries are in Cal­i­for­nia and one is in Oregon.

Saké was actu­ally first made in China, but was later dra­mat­i­cally improved in Japan. It is now made in many coun­tries around the world such as the United States, Brazil, Viet­nam, China, Korea and Japan.

World­wide, one out of three glasses of wine con­sumed is saké. In the United States, two out of one hun­dred glasses of wine are saké. Saké sales in the past 10 years have quadru­pled, and saké enjoy­ment in the US may some day reach the world stan­dard of one out of three glasses of wine.

How Saké is made

As with the best wine made from grapes, the finest saké starts with the finest pre­mium ingre­di­ents — the purest water, high qual­ity saké rice, spe­cial yeast, and koji.

The starches in rice are con­cen­trated in the cen­ter of the rice grain. For pre­mium and super pre­mium saké, the out­side of the grain, con­tain­ing the unde­sir­able fat and pro­tein, is pol­ished away. This exposes the heart of the rice that con­tains the starch that will be con­verted to fer­mentable sugars.

The rice is pol­ished washed and soaked to bring up the water con­tent, and then steamed. Part of the steamed rice is reserved for koji.

Koji is the key to the saké mak­ing process. Koji mold is cul­ti­vated on a bed of steamed rice and this mold eats its way into the rice. As this occurs, the enzymes pro­vided break down the rice’s starch mol­e­cules into smaller sugar mol­e­cules that are food for the yeast. The process relies on the proper tem­per­a­ture and humid­ity and is done in a spe­cial room much like a sauna to main­tain the proper con­di­tions. This process takes about 2 weeks.

 

 

 

Steamed rice and koji are sent to the yeast starter room, and moto (yeast starter) is pre­pared. Moto is added over a period of 4 days to the rice, water and koji. Fer­men­ta­tion occurs over a period of 18–32 days. The saké is then fil­tered, aged, pas­teur­ized and bottled.

Types of Saké

There are two broad cat­e­gories of sake: Jun­mai and Honjozo.

Jun­mai means that no dis­tilled alco­hol has been added.

Hon­jozo means that dis­tilled alco­hol has been added.

Hon­jozo in Japan is defined as no more than 5% dis­tilled alco­hol added by vol­ume. There are sakés that have more alco­hol added than Hon­jozo, but they are almost never imported into the United States.

In Japan, about 88% of all sakés made have dis­tilled alco­hol added. This dis­tilled alco­hol can be processed grain alco­hol. For the finer sakés, it may be dis­tilled alco­hol col­lected from the esters dur­ing fer­men­ta­tion and dis­tilled down in a mini-distillery to be added back dur­ing the blend­ing of the saké to enhance the aroma. Either method of adding dis­tilled alco­hol to saké is ille­gal in the United States. How­ever, this Hon­jozo style of saké can be imported into the United States.

Within these two broad cat­e­gories of saké, there are sev­eral types related to qual­ity. The qual­ity is deter­mined by how much of the outer ker­nel of the rice is milled away. Milling removes the pro­tein and fatty acids in rice ker­nels and leaves the dense starch packet at the cen­ter of the ker­nel. The more of the outer coat­ing that is milled away, the higher the qual­ity the saké will be.

How to serve Saké

In 2 words: Chill Out!

Good saké is always served chilled, mediocre saké can be served warm and bad saké should be boiled! Econ­omy saké may be served warm and this has its place on a cold win­ter night. The cer­e­mony of serv­ing saké warm, where you don’t pour for your­self, but pour for oth­ers, sends a sign of respect.

Chilled pre­mium sakés were first intro­duced in the late 1960’s. Saké-making tech­nol­ogy, par­tic­u­larly in rice milling, had improved so dra­mat­i­cally that it enabled saké­mak­ers to make sakés so del­i­cate they are actu­ally dam­aged by heat.

 

 

 

 

 

Some peo­ple enjoy using the tra­di­tional square masu boxes to drink saké. This was a tra­di­tional rice-measuring device, typ­i­cally made from aro­matic cedar, which imparts aro­mas to the saké. Other peo­ple enjoy their saké on the rocks in a tum­bler. Our favorite way to serve saké is chilled in a wine glass, which enhances the enjoy­ment of the sub­tle aro­mas and fla­vors of pre­mium saké.

When serv­ing saké chilled, we rec­om­mend serv­ing it at 45 degrees F (7 degrees C), which makes for a won­der­fully refresh­ing first taste. In a wine glass, the tem­per­a­ture of the saké grad­u­ally increases, which changes the aroma and fla­vors and is great fun to follow.

Saké should be stored in a cool place, out of strong light. It does not age like wine does, and is best when fresh. Once opened, saké will stay fresh for about a week in the refrigerator.

Saké enjoy­ment is grow­ing rapidly in the US because of three main trends. The first is the grow­ing influ­ence of Asian cui­sine. Amer­i­cans enjoy an Asian wine, saké, with their Asian cui­sine. The sec­ond major trend is the grow­ing aware­ness of the impor­tance of a healthy lifestyle. Unlike wine, saké has no sul­fites. Twenty five per­cent of all Amer­i­cans believe that they are aller­gic to sul­fites. Saké has one-third the acid­ity of wine, so it is easy on the stom­ach. Pre­mium saké is vir­tu­ally hang­over free because it is so pure. The third trend is that saké is so mix­able, and it has become the base for many excit­ing new cocktails.

Saké can be paired with any foods that wine is paired with, but it goes excep­tion­ally well with lightly pre­pared seafood and veg­eta­bles and, of course, any Asian cui­sine. Saké can be com­pared to steamed white rice, in that it har­mo­nizes with what­ever it is served with, actu­ally enhanc­ing the aro­mas and taste of most foods.

Saké is a very ver­sa­tile drink. It can be served warm, chilled or on the rocks. It can be used as an excel­lent low alco­hol mixer in cock­tails. Saké is the secret ingre­di­ent of many chefs and can be used in cook­ing just like a wine. It is an excel­lent mixer and is the basis for many won­der­ful new cocktails.

 

Filed Under: ACF AZ

Communicating Effectively

August 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The abil­ity to effec­tively com­mu­ni­cate and man­age inter­per­sonal rela­tions is cen­tral to a pro­fes­sional culi­nar­ian. Through com­mu­ni­ca­tion, peo­ple exchange. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is an essen­tial attribute of human life, which is why we spend most of our time either receiv­ing or request­ing for infor­ma­tion. Lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion cre­ates ten­sions and destroys per­sonal and busi­ness rela­tion­ships. The abil­ity to exchange infor­ma­tion or con­ver­sa­tion with oth­ers is cru­cial to the suc­cess of the indi­vid­ual, fam­ily or busi­ness orga­ni­za­tion. It should be noted, how­ever, that it is one thing to com­mu­ni­cate but quite another thing to com­mu­ni­cate effectively.

Inef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion usu­ally results in fail­ure, as it doesn’t cause the desired response in form of feed­back from the receiver. This is an irri­ta­tion of many busi­ness orga­ni­za­tions. Many man­agers do com­mu­ni­cate, but often not very effec­tively. Lack of capac­ity to com­mu­ni­cate effec­tively on the part of man­agers is the rea­son for the fail­ure of many busi­nesses. Every firm or busi­ness orga­ni­za­tion needs an effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work in order to func­tion prop­erly and achieve its set objec­tives. Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion plays an indis­pens­able role which in the daily func­tion­ing of a busi­ness organization.

The ulti­mate goal of every form of com­mu­ni­ca­tion — face-to-face meet­ing, tele­phone dis­course, tele­con­fer­enc­ing, video­con­fer­enc­ing, inter­view, email, let­ter or memo — is to get an expected response in form of feed­back from the receiver to the sender. This is what effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is about. It is about ensur­ing that the infor­ma­tion is well-packaged and prop­erly trans­mit­ted, so that the recip­i­ent under­stands the mes­sage and responds pos­i­tively. In other words, effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is the one that achieves the results for which it is intended.

Oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion includes face-to-face con­ver­sa­tion, inter­view, tele­phone dis­course, voice mail, meet­ings, group dis­cus­sions, oral instruc­tions, tele­con­fer­enc­ing, and video­con­fer­enc­ing. Oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion is quick and per­mits imme­di­ate feed­back as well as imme­di­ate response to feed­back. Par­tic­i­pants can ask ques­tions and get imme­di­ate clar­i­fi­ca­tion. More­over, ges­ture and facial expres­sion can be used to rein­force the intended mes­sage. The lim­i­ta­tions of oral com­mu­ni­ca­tion include sus­cep­ti­bil­ity to errors and mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion and lack of permanence.

Writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion involves the use of writ­ten words in the forms of busi­ness let­ters, mem­o­randa, reports, min­utes of meet­ings, writ­ten speeches, and train­ing man­u­als. Writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion has the advan­tages of revi­sion before trans­mis­sion, per­ma­nence and acces­si­bil­ity for ref­er­ence pur­poses. It also reduces the risk of dis­tor­tion in mean­ing; thus, it can be con­sid­ered as an ideal medium for long and com­plex mes­sages. Another advan­tage of the writ­ten medium is that it can eas­ily be repro­duced in many ways and dis­trib­uted to many recip­i­ents. One of its major lim­i­ta­tions is delayed feed­back; the read­ing of long doc­u­ments may be bor­ing and the writ­ing of a reply could also be delayed by a num­ber of other fac­tors. Writ­ten com­mu­ni­ca­tion also lacks the pres­ence of ges­ture, facial expres­sion and other forms of body lan­guage capa­ble of rein­forc­ing mean­ing in communication.

Man­agers should con­sider the cir­cum­stances and the audi­ence to deter­mine whether to use a tele­phone call, a face-to-face meet­ing, an email, a typed and signed doc­u­ment, etc. The fac­tors to be con­sid­ered when choos­ing the medium of com­mu­ni­ca­tion include: urgency, for­mal­ity, risk of mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion, con­fi­den­tial­ity, legal impli­ca­tions or the need for future ref­er­ence, the nature and size of the audi­ence. The hall­mark of effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion is a well-packaged and prop­erly trans­mit­ted mes­sage — that is, a mes­sage that is capa­ble of attract­ing the receiver’s response in form of pos­i­tive feedback.

Every busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion aims to invoke some mate­r­ial and imme­di­ate response or action. Whether it is a face-to-face meet­ing, a tele­phone dis­course, a sales let­ter, a let­ter of inquiry, a memo or a report, the aim is to get some­thing done. There­fore, every busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tion has to use clear and per­sua­sive lan­guage in con­junc­tion with appro­pri­ate action in order to con­nect with the audi­ence and invoke the desired response.

Larry Canepa
Direc­tor of Train­ing and Devel­op­ment
Restau­rant Mar­ket­ing Partners

Filed Under: Training Tagged With:

Training: Aren’t we done yet?

August 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Train­ing is one of the most vex­ing of all Chef’s and Manager’s respon­si­bil­i­ties. It isn’t glam­orous; it isn’t fun; it takes time and money, but it IS impor­tant. Vitally impor­tant. Employ­ees are an essen­tial part of your oper­a­tion; they deliver the pos­i­tive atti­tude and respect that cre­ate a mem­o­rable expe­ri­ence for din­ing guests. Just as a man­ager should expect a top-notch employ­ees, employ­ees need solid train­ing and ongo­ing sup­port to succeed.

When employ­ees first start in a restau­rant, train­ing is essen­tial. Even if the newly hired employee has prior expe­ri­ence work­ing in a restau­rant, they will need an ori­en­ta­tion to the new envi­ron­ment, new pro­ce­dures and a new man­age­ment team. They may even have acquired some bad habits in their past jobs. Train your new employ­ees right from the start by edu­cat­ing new hires in the fol­low­ing areas: restau­rant con­cept, restau­rant lay­out, and menu knowl­edge. A bit of mar­ket­ing, sales­man­ship, safe food han­dling and eti­quette wouldn’t hurt either.

Back of the House employ­ees are the work­ers who are actu­ally han­dling food so it is impor­tant that they do so in a safe man­ner. This pro­tects both employ­ees and cus­tomers from harm­ful bac­te­ria. ServSafe train­ing and Allergy Awareness/Gluten-free train­ing are increas­ing fun­da­men­tal skills for both front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house employ­ees, as well as Chefs.

There are many rea­sons to invest in train­ing. The FDA Food Code stip­u­lates that all restau­rant staff need to have a work­ing knowl­edge of food safety to reduce the risk of food poi­son­ing. Person-to-person con­tact is the num­ber one method for trans­fer of harm­ful bac­te­ria. Work­ers who are prop­erly trained in safe food han­dling prac­tices will be less likely to be the source of bac­te­r­ial con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. Train­ing helps with qual­ity con­trol and food safety is a huge part of qual­ity con­trol. Less food will be wasted due to spoilage or con­t­a­m­i­na­tion when staff is prop­erly trained, lead­ing to greater profitability.

Front of the House employ­ees need train­ing also. Menu knowl­edge, ser­vice stan­dards, food and bev­er­age train­ing and cus­tomer ser­vice are all fun­da­men­tal skills for a server.

Train­ing and reg­u­larly apply­ing food safety train­ing prin­ci­ples will even­tu­ally change the way staff han­dle and look at food to the extent that safe food han­dling just becomes sec­ond nature.

Remem­ber, train­ing should not be viewed as an expense of time or money; train­ing is an invest­ment in your employ­ees and cus­tomers. Con­tin­ual and reg­u­lar train­ing gives Employ­ees a bet­ter appre­ci­a­tion for their jobs. Food safety train­ing teaches work­ers why safe food han­dling is impor­tant. Once they real­ize that they are directly respon­si­ble for the health and safety of the cus­tomers, their jobs may feel a lit­tle less monot­o­nous. And a well-trained employee allows them to con­cen­trate on your pri­mary pur­pose: cre­at­ing mem­o­rable experiences.

Filed Under: Training Tagged With: , ,

Month by Month Advertising Guide for Restaurants

July 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Ideas for restau­rant adver­tis­ing and pro­mo­tions for every month of
the year

Jan­u­ary
New Years Res­o­lu­tion Month. This is a time when many peo­ple vow to stop
eat­ing out to lose weight and stick to a stricter bud­get. Not the best con­di­tions
for many restau­rants. Depend­ing on where you are located you may be able
to adver­tise to win­ter vaca­tion­ers, skiers, snow­mo­bil­ers or in warmer cli­mates,
those look­ing to escape harsh win­ter con­di­tions. Offer up week­end spe­cials,
and mid-week spe­cials such as two for one deals. A lighter-side options for
those New Year’s dieters is another way to draw in extra business.

Feb­ru­ary

Valentine’s Day. Unequiv­o­cally one of the best (if not the best day)
for many restau­rants. Pro­mote your Valentine’s Day spe­cials in the local paper.
Focus your din­ner menu on cou­ples meals and deca­dent desserts that can be
shared by two. Many schools have a win­ter vaca­tion in Feb­ru­ary, so run­ning
some lunch spe­cials and din­ner spe­cials that week can also help bring in extra
business.

March

Cabin Fever Month. Not warm enough for out­door din­ing and not cold
enough for win­ter sports. Con­sider adver­tis­ing a spe­cialty din­ner, like a wine
tast­ing or nightly prix fixe menu. Adver­tise your restau­rant pro­mo­tions, like
ladies night, two-for-one din­ners or a wine tast­ing din­ner . Local cham­ber of
com­merce or other local busi­ness orga­ni­za­tions begin putting together sum­mer
tourists’ guides in late win­ter or early spring. If you hope to draw from local
tourism in the sum­mer months, be sure to place an ad for your restau­rant
now.

April

Spring has arrived. Adver­tise your spring­time spe­cials, focus­ing on
lighter fare, like sal­ads, new veg­eta­bles and fruity desserts. If you have
out­door din­ing, adver­tise that the deck/patio is open for busi­ness. Noth­ing
draws a crowd like the promise of a warm, sunny out­door lunch after a long
winter.


May
May has great poten­tial for restau­rant adver­tis­ing. It is the start of
wed­ding sea­son, prom sea­son, and col­lege grad­u­a­tions. If your restau­rant has
a ban­quet room or does any kind of cater­ing, pro­mote it! May is the time to
gear up for sum­mer­ing cater­ing as well. It is never to early to adver­tise your
cater­ing ser­vices for sum­mer pic­nics, wed­dings, or barbeques.

June
If you are open on Fourth of July, be sure to adver­tise for it in June. Replen­ish
take-out menus at local hotels, cham­ber of com­merce, and any other places
they are likely to be picked up by vaca­tion­ers. With school out for the sum­mer,
you should look at ways to improve your kids menu and offer kid-friendly
specials.

July

Sum­mer is in full swing. If your area has a large tourist draw in the
sum­mer months, run pro­mo­tions in the local paper. Con­sider part­ner­ing with
local hotels to give dis­counts to their guests.

August

Along with sum­mer tourism, many areas have sum­mer fes­ti­vals that
draw large crowds. Con­sider spon­sor­ing fes­ti­vals or other com­mu­nity activ­i­ties
for some easy adver­tis­ing. Now is the time to start think­ing about revamp­ing
your hol­i­day cater­ing menus and get­ting ready for the change to autumn. Start
think­ing about back to school ads and other fall adver­tis­ing ideas.

Sep­tem­ber

Labor Day marks the unof­fi­cial end to sum­mer. Some restau­rant
adver­tis­ing ideas include back to school pro­mo­tions and har­vest din­ner menus.
Part­ner with local farm­ers for some organic, farm-to-table fare which you can
adver­tise and offer in a prix fixe menu.

Octo­ber

Get into the Hal­loween spirit with scary pro­mo­tions. If you have a bar
or pub, con­sid­er­ing throw­ing a Hal­loween cos­tume con­test. This is also a good
time to start send­ing out hol­i­day fly­ers and encour­ag­ing peo­ple to book their
hol­i­day par­ties early. If you pro­vide any off-site cater­ing, now is the time to
adver­tise it.

Novem­ber

Many peo­ple opt out of cook­ing their own Thanks­giv­ing din­ner. If
you are open on Thanks­giv­ing, adver­tise it well in advance. Other adver­tis­ing
for your restau­rant includes hol­i­day party pro­mo­tions and New Years Eve
reservations.

Decem­ber

Pro­mote your New Year’s Eve menu through local papers, radio
spots and your web­site. Even if you don’t nor­mally take reser­va­tions, New
Year’s Eve (and Valentine’s Day) is a good exception.

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Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , ,