Hi everyone, welcome to potluck food talks. Today I'm here with Jonathan Pomerink. He's
a whelver's chef that has worked in different countries and now he's a co-worker of mine
at Basque Culinary Center and I wanted to check on his life track because he's been
in some interesting places with different philosophies. Well, first of all, welcome
Jonathan, nice to have you here. Thank you for inviting me to your podcast. So you've
had an incredibly diverse career. Let's start with your roots. How did growing up in New
York City influence your early relationship with food and cooking? Well, I mean, living
in New York in general, one starts to like normalize certain things. You have so many
different cultures and cuisines that you just become kind of, I don't know, numb to it. So
it's like growing up around everything, you just try to consume as much as possible. And
in my family, it's always about what's the next thing we're going to eat. You know, like
every time we're eating something, we're already talking about our next meal, what we're going to
be eating. You know, it's something that from a young age, it's always been around. Food's
always been a part of every aspect of your life. You know, like you go to somebody's house for a
party or whatever, it's just a bunch of food, who brings what. But New York, it's just you get
so many influences and you get so many chances to try different types of food from a young age.
And it makes you a little bit more, I mean, one or two things that makes you a lot more open
towards them or makes you completely closed off from wanting to try anything different. Yeah,
I like the times I've been in New York City. It's crazy because you can find an amazing place from
Haiti or you name it, like Tibet. It doesn't matter. Like I think every single country
on earth is well represented with a restaurant in New York City. And you just have to look for it
and find it. And it seems most of the time very authentic. I mean, I didn't leave the United
States until I was like 24, almost 25. But it's like living in New York, it kind of feels like
you can like visit several different countries all in one city. And it's like, it's not just
the food you would like a certain neighborhood and like a certain community of people live there.
And it's like everything's in their language, you know, from the grocery stores to the street signs.
It's like everything's in that language and it just becomes like a little mini country.
And it's kind of mind blowing. And you don't notice how how lucky or how how much variety
there is until you move away from that. Because I lived a few years in Florida and it was just like
night and day. And also when I moved to after I moved to Argentina, too, it's like being in a
little in a place where it's like so many different cultures that have to live together and having the
opportunity to try so many different things. When you go somewhere else where things tend to be a
little bit more pure, in a sense, you kind of start missing those those opportunities that you had in
the past where you were able to just walk down the street and try certain Chinese food from a
certain region in China. Whereas like now you're lucky if you can even find fast food, Chinese
fast food.
And how how did you start cooking? What was your like your first steps or your first food?
Your first steps or your first restaurant? Your first kid in high school? I don't know.
So I started out when I was really, really young because my my parents were working. So I would
cook for like my brothers in my family with my grandmother. And then later on, I mean, I started
getting I started liking food. I started getting a lot of weight when I was around being a teenager.
So I just enjoyed eating. So it pretty much went from there. Enjoy eating. So if I enjoyed eating,
I'd have to cook to be able to eat. And then I got into a high school for that had a culinary
program and the culinary program was like a four year program. It was a trade school and
the it was a restaurant that was connected to the school. So the students will work
in the restaurant in your periods, your class periods of the day, depending on what
period you were in, you would be doing big production for the service or production or
mise en place service or clean up. So those four years of just like doing every aspect front of
house also in back of house, learning the history of I mean, everything you would learn in normal
culinary school, but at a high school level. Okay, that's that's super cool. That's amazing. Yeah,
it's not so common. I mean, this place is in the United States and like that, but it's kind of like,
I don't know, it almost seems kind of like when you think about it, the Europeans has like an
apprenticeship program or something from years and years ago, people would do like start from
a young age, learning something and then just work up from there. How old were you? I was 14.
Wow. Okay. 13 or 14. So yeah, I was able to absorb a lot. I mean, it became a little repetitive at
once, but that's sometimes the best way to learn when you're younger, like repetitive consistency.
So it was four years and it's to be honest, I look back on it very fondly because it was actually
like, I don't know, a pathway to continue and on with it because I actually enjoyed it. It
wasn't something I hated. So I was able to continue with it. So then you've worked in some iconic New
York City restaurants, like the Modern and the Living Madison Park. I mean, a book that really
influenced me was Setting the Table from Danny Mayer and both of these restaurants, at least
originally Living Madison Park were part of Union Square Hospitality Group. How was it? Did you
got any influence in your philosophy on hospitality and food from these places?
I feel like it traveled down to like the employees, but on a day-to-day basis, not as much as you would
want it to me or at least when I was there. I mean, so Setting the Table, I never read, I have it in
three different versions. I have it in a hardback, a paperback and another version. I mean, I had
several different versions of Setting the Table. One I got when I finished culinary school in New
York that they gave you when you graduated from there. Another one when I was working for Union
Square Hospitality, I never read a single page of it. So the book is actually like a textbook
you get at culinary schools or these kind of things. So when you graduate, like I had two
different classes. So I had like the whole culinary arts part and then I was also taking another
class, another degree with restaurant and hotel management. We actually learned a lot there, but
I was the youngest person. I was like 19 or something like that and everybody else there was like
people that wanted to start their own businesses or people that changed their careers. So yeah,
they gave you the book when you're done with that class along with a whole bunch of other books and
stuff like that. And the culinary when you finished that, they gave you LaRouche, which is like the
encyclopedia for like cooking and stuff like that. Yeah. But yeah. And then I also got it when I was
working for a New Square Hospitality group. To be honest, I was actually at a living mass park when
it was still a part of a New Square Hospitality group. And to be honest, one of the craziest
things, one of the funnest things about it was that so one of the original Shake Shack spots,
which is in Madison Square Park is literally across the street from 11 Madison Park. So I have so
many memories of days like when we were so much in the shade or something was happening where we
wouldn't be able to do family meal. So we would just make a run over like an order and make a run
to Shake Shack. But I mean, I've heard so many things and the classes that I did take for like
restaurant, hotel management, so much of stuff like Danny Meyer and people from his company.
There was other people like Mark Maynard and a whole bunch of other people that were super
influential inside of Unisquare House, how they would come and speak to us. So we had speakers all
the time and I'm talking about a class of like 15 people. So it was all very intimate information.
And we would get a lot of stuff. We would do tours of different restaurants and bars and stuff like
that, part of Unisquare Hospitality Group. And then I mean, I started working there. I wasn't even,
to be honest, when I was looking for the jobs and for my externship, I wasn't looking at it because
it was Unisquare Hospitality Group. I was looking at it because of what they were working, what they
were like accomplishing. Yeah, because I mean, these are well-known restaurants and even from
the very beginning, both of them, well, modern as far as I know, it's much older, but 11 Madison
Park is that from the very beginning was like a big deal. Like already well-established chefs,
and everything. Yeah. I mean, 11 Madison Park, I will always look back on it finally, but it was
definitely like bootcamp. I can't imagine. Yeah. And I'm talking about French old school bootcamp.
Yeah, but it was just bootcamp on the level of just like trying to be super, I'm talking about,
this is 2010, 2011. So, I mean, this was right around when they first started, like blowing up
with like three Michelin stars when they were getting four stars from New York Times,
I'm not even sure what year they were first on the 50s best. I don't remember what year the 50 best
came out, but it was just like everything was blowing up. Things were getting so toxic. I mean,
it was just getting so to a level of success, but at the same time, things were just like so skewed.
Like you come, you start, I don't know, it was just like, it's hard to look back on it right now.
I forget that it was a part of the Union Square hospitality group in this moment, just because of
like, I don't want to say like their goals or their values were, did it line up because in a sense
they did, but it was just like, we're working at such a high, at such a level that like hospitality
in the back of house wasn't really like, we weren't being hospitable to each other. Okay.
You know what I mean? Like the guest definitely was, the guest was definitely receiving that,
but it's like, it's like, we will work super hard. And then like whenever it was partying for any
of the athletes we would get, the parting was just ridiculous. I have a story, one story that was
pretty crazy about the party that we did when they got the, the three mission stars,
but I can leave that for later or whatever. No, no, no, go ahead. So that night after service was
over. So whenever they did any sort of party at 11 Madison park, it pretty, pretty much would be
open. I mean, they weren't, I mean, in this moment, what was that Facebook maybe, uh, in Twitter,
but nobody was like posting online, like party at EMP, you know, but like, it'd be like everybody
would know when something was one people in the industry, all the work is there. People that were
there are like previous workers or coworkers or people that you're not the whole place would just
fill with celebrities and you would just drink and eat crazy shit all night long. And the thing was
is that morning shift started every day at least well pastry. I don't remember if it was like five
o'clock or something like that, but like everybody else that worked the morning shift would come in
at 6 a.m. So actually at this point I was already working nighttime, so it didn't bother me much,
but basically everybody that had worked morning shift after the night that we had this crazy
party, like I have pictures like Daniel will loot on top of tables and stuff popping, I've got
champagne, magnums of champagne. It was just crazy. He was just soaking people with champagne
bottles. Just like these things I look I think back on it. I'm like, like that really happened,
you know, and it's like that night everybody that worked AM shift slept in dry storage.
So I dry storage was separate, which was actually kind of like its own little
torture room because every like everybody every single day would have to go in to like dry storage
and do relabeling and stuff like that. It was kind of like its own craziness. But the fact is that
they all had a whole AM back house team had to sleep in dry storage the whole night. But there
was also people sleeping in the locker rooms on top of like, I don't know, old chef coats and stuff
like that. People just sleeping in random spots. It felt like like a teenager, like a weekend party,
like everybody got fucked up, you know what I mean? Like just random people sleeping in random spots.
And the next day everything was business as usual, but at the same time everybody was
completely like destroyed. Like there was like no talking. And it was kind of like one of the times
where you can think back on it as like nobody was being too hard on anybody because everybody was
in the shit. Like everybody was feeling like terrible. It was quiet front of house, back of
house. Nobody was yelling at anybody. And it was just, I don't know, I remember that service very
well. So then later you, your career took you to Argentina and you let some fine dining kitchens
over there. Like how did you end up in Argentina? What were the places you work? What can you share
about that? Well, I mean, the reason I got to Argentina was because my, my now wife, but my
girlfriend at that time was, is Argentinian. And she came a few times to the United States for a
couple of months. And then they came up on where it was just like, she's like, I'm gonna be able
to finish what she's doing. So I went, I ended up going there and it was my opportunity to actually
leave the United States because I had never gone before. And I had a passport either until I was
like 24. So it was my opportunity to go to Argentina Kate that I had to be honest, I didn't
really know much about. I knew some stuff, but I went there on a whim and I basically just went
there in 2015. And that's when like the real stuff started. Like I, I tried contacting so many places
for visas, like work visas and all these types of things. And to be honest, like even, I mean,
I was still young, but even with the resume I had, it was just super difficult to get anybody to like
take you on because I mean, it was just, I don't know exactly. Most of the time people were just
not knowledgeable of how the visa stuff worked. So I was trying a bunch of different places
in what I say is actually like the main where I say the city. And I wasn't able to get a job. I
was like, it was really hard to get a job. I was like trying to hit all the places that were like
higher up. And I wasn't getting, I mean, I had people, for example, out of Mudo, which was like
just this year I got there for the one of the, it's the only restaurant I went to that has two
Michelin stars and they just got it this year. Yeah. I had a sit down interview with him when I
went there in 2015 and tried getting a job with him. And he was like, like the interview was in
English, which I'm grateful for. And then that moment I wasn't able to communicate to all Spanish,
but like literally the guy said to me, he's like, we work long hours and we pay very little. That
was his intro. Yeah. Basically it was kind of like, that's what we do here and I'm not hiring.
So I went to Mar del Plata and then that's like a four hour away beach city. It's like their biggest
beach city they have in Argentina where everybody, the Porto Inos from Buenos Aires go to during the
summer. And I just started trying to find places. I was working in what they call in Negro, basically
undocumented at that point. I had a tourist visa, but I was just trying several different places
working three months at a time. And then about a year, year and a half in, I ended up getting
married. So once I got married, that completely paved the way to have paperwork to be able to
like have an actual residency and work like legally. And I started working at a friend of a
friend of my wife. He was leaving as the Chateau Gouzine and I got into a place that was like a
Nikkei restaurant. So for people that don't know, Nikkei is a Peruvian Japanese fusion that started
with the migration of Japanese to Peru. And it's quite interesting because basically you will see
like sushi with ceviche mayos or these kinds of combinations of Peruvian cuisine and Japanese
culture. It's kind of like the more elegant or interesting version that Japanese food took
internationally. You have like United States version, the American version where they had
Philadelphia cream cheese to like Japanese food. And then you have what they did in Peru, which
is a little bit more refined or interesting. Yeah, I love that trade by the way. I was recently in
Yacumanca in Barcelona and I had like a super beautiful Nikkei ceviche, super delicious.
I mean, it's super interesting. To be honest, I was a little bit ignorant before going into the place.
And I mean, I found the things that they were doing somewhat interesting. I mean, there was
other things that were kind of a little wild, like cooking sweet potatoes in Fanta, for example,
for a dish. You know, I mean like wild shit that I had never seen before in my life. Like I don't
know anybody else that ever cooked sweet potatoes in Fanta soda. But I mean, they were doing like
ceviche with like hot, hot, hot rock rocks that we would heat up in the oven and then serve a ceviche
with like a clear leg that we would put on the rock when we serve it. But it was kind of a wild
place because there was also sushi as well. It was just and it was kind of like one of those places
that was trying to be a little bit more than they could like trying to be something that they
couldn't exactly execute 100 percent. Yeah. I know. I know that that profile. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. The thing is, like in Argentina or at least in Maratlata, that's like like the MO for like 90
percent of the places, you know? Yeah, like 90 percent of places happen like that. Like people
that have money open a place without really knowing the restaurant industry. I mean, it happens
everywhere. But in this particular place, which is open to this day, but like there are the scope of
what they're doing changed over the years, but they're still doing sushi stuff. It was just
kind of wild. Like I was the chef to cuisine and the restaurant part of the order would do all the
sushi stuff like one of the partners owners. And it was just mismanagement, you know, like.
I don't know discrepancies between the owners. One of the owners would like disappear for like
a month and go to Morocco on a trip. And there'll be days that would go by. We didn't even know if
we would sometimes we would get paid or or if the restaurant closed because there would be
disagreements between the owners. The other order would was club would play in a band. So like Friday,
Saturday nights he would even be there. So it'd be like wild Friday, Saturday nights. They would do
like Wednesday or you can eat sushi with the kitchen open as well. And it was just like it was just
wild. And you know, like when I went in there, I should have I asked the guy to that was like the
chef was like, you've been here for less than a year. Why are you leaving? And it was just kind of
like, no, I want to do something else. You know what I mean? Then I was just like, this isn't
sitting with me right. But I mean, it was a month after I got my paperwork, I was actually finally
able to work. So it was like step in, you know, I was there for five months and then I decided to
leave. So then from there, I got into a hotel from from a previous customer at the restaurant.
It was like Argentinian guy, but he had like he was like a glass manufacturer in Canada. I don't
know. But he was Argentinian. I don't understand this. So many people that I met in Argentina
would just have companies in other countries. So the guy would come to the restaurant once
in a while and try to talk to me in English to practice his English. And when I stopped working
that he contacted me and he wanted to contact me for like a private event. And one day he brought
me to the like the five star hotel in the city there. One of the two or three that are there,
a luxury hotel, Hotel Casalana. And I went there and he brought me and he brought me to the food
and beverage manager. Food and beverage manager is a French guy. He's like in his 60s. He's been
working. He's been making bang the guy. He's like one of the only French people that are in the food
business in Malibu. So like he has lots of experience from many years, but he's been there
for 30 and 30, 35 years. And this guy brought me there. He just started. Who is this? Is this the
La Borgonia? No, so La Borgonia is the restaurant. It was how do I explain this? So like the
restaurant, it's kind of like, like when Gordon Ramsay, you know, he opens a restaurant, puts his
name on it, but it's a little bit more intimate in a sense. Like so La Borgon, the restaurant,
the chef is Champolle Wondou. Exactly. Because this guy, since I started cooking like over 20
years ago, he was already like the only Argentinian with a Réle Château or something. Yeah. That's
the chef, but he has, he had several restaurants in different countries in Latin America, but the
food and beverage manager was also French. So that's where the connection comes in. So the
restaurant came in through the food and beverage manager, but this guy brought me there. He just
started like, like making up stories to the French food and beverage manager. You know, you have no
idea how good French food this guy makes. I'm like, I'm working at a Niké restaurant. Like,
what are you talking about? You don't even know me. And he basically sold me to the food and
beverage manager. And I got called in two weeks later. And then from there, I just became, went
from like a line cook one week. The next week I was a sous chef. And then a month later I was like
becoming the chef of that restaurant, La Borgon. And, uh, I mean, it wasn't really, really well
because like, so Jean Paul won't do. Yeah. The guy's like in his seventies. He's been in Latin
America since like the seventies. Like there's a, there's a YouTube channel where it's like great
European chefs, I think it's called, or it's like a series from like the eighties or something like
that. Great European chefs were like, they'll bring you, they'll show you like a French chef
and he'll do like 20 minutes of just like his most iconic food. And it's a British series.
And it's really interesting. Like if you watch it, there's so many different random chefs,
some that you really know today and other ones that are kind of like really good gems from like
the seventies, eighties, nineties, very like new veil cuisine. Okay. But, um, so he was in one of
those pro he was in one of those episodes. What year, what year were you in this restaurant?
So that was in 2000. So from 2017 into 2023, I was there. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now,
because I have a friend who was there, but like, uh, I don't know, I would say 2014 and something
like that in Argentina in La Volgonia. Yeah. Okay. Because they're, they're headquarter, like their
headquarters, they're, they're like, how would you say like the flat, um, their main restaurant
is in Uruguay in Punto del Este. And that's where they have like their, I think he actually
wasn't the, in the Ruan restaurant. Yeah. Cause that's the one, only one to this day that's still
open. Um, but that's like their, their main one, like the flagship. Okay. Yeah. Flagship. That's
how I was, I was trying to forget English words all the time. Yeah. So then I started working there.
I worked like, uh, with, with Sean Paul and we were go back and forth. His kids would come as
well, which are also in the same industry, his son and daughter. And we would like work on,
we would change the menu four times a year. We would do certain festivals around certain times
of the year. We'd do certain festivals. And then like maybe two years into it, a year and a half,
he just started letting me go along with the menu, you know, uh, before that it would be kind of like,
uh, a thing between all of us or if his kids wanted to try something out. But then from on,
from that point on, it was just me talking about certain things. And then I just took off from
there, you know, like I was just doing my own thing, creating the menu, every, I mean, it was
kind of like a weird concept, not a weird concept, but like the hotel working at hotels, sometimes
they constantly are changing things, you know, they always want to try to like be the best or
try something different. So like, I would basically be doing five course or six course tasting menu
changing weekly. And it was just wild because I owned it was me and two other people. And that's
crazy for a 40, 40, uh, like we can fit 40 people at one sitting, you know what I mean? And for three
people to do 40 covers and half of them are doing tasting menu, six courses plus the regular menu,
it was just insane. Like it was just, but that was most of my time there. It was just most of my time
there was that, you know, it was just, it was wild, but it gave me lots of opportunities to be creative,
try different things. Uh, nothing. It was just, it was, it was a really good experience.
Nice, nice, nice. And from then you flew directly to the Basque country or, or did you work somewhere
else in the South? So I had to go a little back and forth between the United States and Argentina
because I had some like family members that were sick, but, um, there was a, it was actually
interesting because it was a short period in, uh, in that time period where I was helping a friend
that opened a restaurant in Florida. They opened up a Spanish restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida,
where there's no Spanish restaurants and, uh, actually helped. Like I was there with him after
he opened it up like a month after and I started working. I worked there for like six months
before coming to Spain. Okay. And did you work here in Spain and some restaurants or you went
directly to the, to BCC? No, I tried, but I mean, that took, it was a long process for getting my
residency here as well. They didn't like your Argentinian accent. Like no, you...
Most of the time, yeah. I know. I mean, to be honest, yeah, everybody can tell. And a lot of
times I can pass as, uh, people think I'm actually Argentinian when I speak Spanish. So... That's
very funny. Like an American talking Spanish with Argentinian accent. Yeah. I mean, everybody
last month, when they find out, when they find out, it catches people off guard because they
usually have the guard down. But I'm talking about like if I'm speaking with other Argentinians,
they have the guard down. And then when they find out or they figure out that I'm actually American
or from the United States or there, they completely like blown away and you can see the change on
their face. Kind of like you, you tricked me and I never said I was Argentinian. You know, like I
just, I just spoke to you. That's it. And how has it been arriving at the Basque country? I mean,
the foot here is one of my favorite regions in the world. Like at least San Sebastian is a city
where it's hard to get a bad meal. You know, like the average quality is very high and, uh,
and there are so many amazing places like unpretentious bar where you walk in and you
have something amazing. Like, what are your impressions? Yeah. I mean, like you said,
it's hard to get a, it's hard to get a bad meal. Um, to be honest before living in Argentina,
I didn't really know much about Basque country. I mean, that was like the whole wave that was
starting to grow with like Hispanic cuisine. You know what I mean? Like in early 2000s and stuff
like that, I knew some stuff, you know, but to be honest, I learned a lot about Basque country
from living in Argentina simply because so many of the high, like the, the more prolific chefs
in Argentina, most of them studied or did like internships or there's a big connection between
San Sebastian and Argentina because a lot of them look towards San Sebastian as like, uh,
as like a reference point. Yeah. I, I started, I started at Mugari in 2005 and I would say
at least half of the study years were Argentinians. Yeah. They had, they had, they had like,
their reference point is like Spain, but specifically this region. So I started looking into it mostly
because I, when I would hear from people there and, uh, but then my wife was kind of doing some
research and decided on San Sebastian because of whatever reasons there were, but astronomically,
it would be interesting to me. And to be honest, it's like, I don't even know, like when people
asked me to categorize, like Basque food, for example, or Basque cuisine and stuff like that,
like it's kind of hard to like pigeonhole, you know, it's hard to like categorize it.
You can give an explanation or at least for me up until this point, I'm not able to like
give like, uh, like if someone would be like, what, what is something they always use?
Yeah. Like I do have like some, I do have some, yeah, I would say that they never really
go too crazy with ingredients. Yeah. They look at you crazy if you have more than four stuff,
more than four things to look at you like, what are you doing? Yeah, exactly. Bay leaf is already
exotic and not to talk about coriander, forget about it. That's already extra special, you know,
like, and then everything is only salt, very produce driven, uh, very respectful towards the
produce and nothing is over cooked. Everything is on the right point. Everything is very sensible.
It's very sensible. The, the, also the salt level is low. Uh, the, the very sensitive towards texture,
like gelatinosity, something like that. We really look forward and sauces and meats and this kind
of thing. Uh, but yeah, as you say, never more than four or five ingredients. Uh, I would say
those are some of the key features of Basque cuisine. Yeah. It's just like when you try to like,
you can try to categorize something a little bit more like, or define something a lot finer.
It's, I don't know, like somebody asks you about a certain region of India or China or Thailand
or Mexico scene that you can give things. But like when people think of Spanish cuisine,
you know what I mean? Like they tend to like have more, I guess more from an American's perspective,
like, I don't know, they try to categorize it in a certain way, but then like Basque cuisine is kind
of like, it doesn't really fall into that same category or at least what most people would think.
Yeah. It's just something. And I would even say that, uh, San Sebastian cuisine is its own thing
compared to Bilbao and Biscay. That's something different. Uh, both the way of the people and the
way of the cooking and eating. I mean, it's very unique. That's for sure. I mean, it's always
interesting to see how like places that live near the coast, how they, how they differ, you know,
and like I was living near the coast and in my left in Argentina. And to be honest with you,
like Argentina is a neat country, a hundred percent. Uh, they don't very much, they don't
really value fish and seafood for as much as they're surrounded by the ocean. Um, but here it's kind
of like, it's normal. It's like integrated mostly into like cuisine and stuff like that. You don't
hear like people complain, like, I don't like fish or I don't like seafood. Obviously those people
exist, but it's not kind of like, I don't know. That's not, it's not, it's interesting to contrast
the two things. Now you work as a research chef and a culinary lab. How, how has the transition been
and this change of way of working and cooking, what would you say are the main differences and
what would you tell someone who would like to have a position like that? I mean, the transition is
ongoing to be honest. Um, getting into this or seeing the job posting, I honestly didn't know
what I was getting into for as much as I had a description. Uh, I just see it, just thought it
seemed interesting, you know? And, uh, I mean, I had like, uh, a moment too, when I got here,
I kind of like, what do I want my, my life to be in like working, like my work life to be,
do I want to get back into that, that cycle of working long hours, you know, being tired all the
time and, uh, just working constantly. And I mean, the transition, like I said, it's ongoing. Uh,
what's nice about it though is like, it is basically all the experience that I have up to
this point, applying it towards something a little bit more ambiguous, I'm big, like ambiguous, you
know, all kind of like, I don't know, something you're using your experience at the intellectual
level as well, because, uh, you're working on a culinary lab because of what's inside your mind,
right? Like that's basically your, your, I don't know, you're kind of like simulating things a lot
of times too, instead of actually physically doing it. But it's, it's interesting. Like one of the,
the first things too, like I add to like, I'm still trying to like accustomed to is like the change in
pace, you know, like working at restaurants and stuff like that, you're just expected to constantly
be producing it, working and constantly all on 120%. Whereas like, I mean, obviously things change
throughout the year, but, uh, like it's a little bit, the workflow is a little bit different,
you know, and, uh, you don't necessarily get in that, that rush constantly and you're not expecting,
you don't see the result as quickly as you would in a restaurant. You know what I mean? Like if
you're doing something in a restaurant, it's like you, every time you're always looking like five
minutes ahead, two minutes ahead, you know, and you're always looking at things in 30 second bites.
Whereas like in this job, you have to like, you have to look at the bigger picture and then once
in a while, like a snapshot of shorter periods, it's just a change in rhythm perspective. And
I don't know, it's just, it's completely different, but it's interesting and it's a good way to like
apply past experience towards something that's actually changes or can change things outside of
a restaurant, which is kind of like its own world. You know what I mean? Like this job now, you can
actually have more influence over or more, uh, it's not influence. It sounds a little too
controlling, but, uh, you can have more opportunities to change things at a larger scale.