Culinary Skills Quotes

Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have.

What is good is difficult, and what is difficult is rare.

Some people when they see cheese, chocolate or cake they don't think of calories.

Manto's take on Ismat: "Ismat’s pen and tongue both run fast. When she starts writing, her ideas race ahead and the words cannot catch up with them. When she speaks, her words seem to tumble over one another. If sheenters the kitchen to show her culinary skill, everything will be in a mess. Being hasty by nature, she would conjure up the cooked roti in her mind even before she had finished kneading the dough. The potatoes would note yet be peeled although she would have already finished making the curry in her imagination. I feel sometimes she may just go into the kitchen andcome out again afer being satiated by her imagination.

Having a sous-chef with excellent cooking skills and a criminal mind is one of God's great gifts.

You don't learn knife skills at cooking school, because they give you only six onions and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are only six, and you're not going to learn as much as when you cut up a hundred.

Bigfoot understood — as I came to understand — that character is far more important than skills or employment history. And he recognized character — good and bad — brilliantly. He understood, and taught me, that a guy who shows up every day on time, never calls in sick, and does what he said he was going to do, is less likely to fuck you in the end than a guy who has an incredible resume but is less than reliable about arrival time. Skills can be taught. Character you either have or don't have. Bigfoot understood that there are two types of people in the world: those who do what they say they're going to do — and everyone else.

Balderdash. Pure malarkey. Detective, don’t listen to one word of that folderol—that nasty attempt to besmirch my exceptional culinary skills.” “Your culinary skills are exceptional at killing vultures—and everyone who eats your cooking.

My mom absolutely LOVED all things English, so it’s not too surprising that she loved English tea parties. When she and I traveled—which was frequently—we often found ourselves in locations (Vancouver, Ottawa, London, Bath, Cardiff, to name a few) where we could take advantage of that lovely English custom of “taking tea.” So, for a special surprise party, I invited a dozen of Mom’s Gainesville friends to “take tea” with us. Even though it was December, it was warm enough to use the screen porch and the deck. That’s the “Florida advantage!

Spices are like colors: if you mix them all together you get a taste that is akin to the colors black, dark brown, or grey. But if you mix spices judiciously and sparingly—as you would mix yellow and blue to make green—you get a wholly unexpected and beautiful flavor.

Mastership of great culinary skills enriches the wholeness of a fine dining experience.

Does it involve getting naked and going back to bed, and you assuring me that you didn’t marry me for my culinary skills?

Male, female, gay, straight, legal, illegal, country of origin—who cares? You can either cook an omelet or you can’t. You can either cook five hundred omelets in three hours—like you said you could, and like the job requires—or you can’t. There’s no lying in the kitchen. The restaurant kitchen may indeed be the last, glorious meritocracy—where anybody with the skills and the heart is welcomed. But if you’re old, or out of shape—or were never really certain about your chosen path in the first place—then you will surely and quickly be removed. Like a large organism’s natural antibodies fighting off an invading strain of bacteria, the life will slowly push you out or kill you off. Thus it is. Thus it shall always be. The ideal progression for a nascent culinary career would be to, first, take a jump straight into the deep end of the pool. Long before student loans and culinary school, take the trouble to find out who you are.

At ten o’clock breakfast was served in the dining-room; and, seated at a table which was far less shaken than it would have been in a first-class railway carriage, we did ample justice to the culinary skill of Monsieur Parazard.   We

Almost every family has their own Christmas traditions (if, indeed, they celebrate Christmas) and we certainly had several. First, the house was thoroughly cleaned and decorated with wreaths and paper chains and, of course, the Christmas tree with all its sparkling lights and ornaments. The cardboard nativity scene had to be carefully assembled and placed on the mantle. And there was the advent wreath with its little windows to be opened each morning. And then there were the Christmas cookies. About a week before the holiday, Mom would bake several batches of the cookies and I invited all my friends to come and help decorate them. It was an “all-afternoon” event. We gathered around our big round dining table with bowls of colored icing and assorted additions—red hot candies, coconut flakes, sugar “glitter,” chocolate chips, and any other little bits we could think of. Then, the decorating began!

If there’s an eighth wonder of the world, I would suggest lavender. Not only is it beautiful to the eye and heavenly to the nose, it also is said to have antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties and research suggests it may be useful in treating anxiety, insomnia, and depression. And it’s a wonderful addition to—ta-da—COOKIES! Mom always kept a large wooden wine barrel filled with lavender next to the back porch so she could grab a handful of lavender flowers whenever the mood struck her. She made lavender sachets to hang in the closets and added lavender to her rose potpourri. We regularly had lavender lemonade or lavender muffins and often some lavender flowers were identifiable in a lamb stew or as a garnish for steaks. All part of our Mediterranean lifestyle.

I don't know what you said to my chef," Rick's voice came from the doorway, "but he's now creating a dessert of some kind in your honor." She grinned. "Just so it's not Jellicoe Jell-O or something." "How charming were you?" "I just asked for a sandwich," she said, licking mayonnaise off her finger and turning a page, "and complimented him on his culinary skills. I'd heard somewhere that his coffee won an award.

So, it wasn’t until I was living in Mexico that I first started enjoying chocolate mousse. See, there was this restaurant called La Lorraine that became a favorite of ours when John and I were living in Mexico City in 1964–65. The restaurant was in a beautiful old colonial period house with a large courtyard, red tile floors, and a big black and white portrait of Charles de Gaulle on the wall. The proprietor was a hefty French woman with grey hair swept up in a bun. She always welcomed us warmly and called us mes enfants, “my children.” Her restaurant was very popular with the folks from the German and French embassies located nearby. She wasn’t too keen on the locals. I think she took to us because I practiced my French on her and you know how the French are about their language! At the end of each evening (yeah, we often closed the joint) madame was usually seated at the table next to the kitchen counting up the evening’s receipts. Across from her at the table sat a large French poodle, wearing a napkin bib and enjoying a bowl of onion soup. Ah, those were the days… Oh, and her mousse au chocolate was to DIE for!

A mama's boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times crossword puzzle — to which he was hopelessly addicted.

Take the greatest care of your knives; don’t cut with them on an enamel or marble-topped table or a plate; have a good steel for sharpening; keep your kitchen knives in a special box or compartment of the knife drawer; wash, dry, and put them away, with the points stuck into a cork, as soon as you have finished with them. Let it be understood by all members of the household that there will be serious trouble if your knives are borrowed for screwdriving, prising open packing-cases, cutting fuse wire or any other purpose for which they were not intended.

My passion for cooking grew as my mother taught me how to make her chewy cranberry bread, Dijon mustard vinaigrette, and Nantucket quahog chowder thickened with chopped clams, potatoes, and sweet onions. Then it reached new heights in college when I took a year off to study French cooking at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I learned to master a mean spinach soufflé, make a perfect sauce Bordelaise, and craft authentic shiny chocolate-topped éclairs. When I was hired as the sous-chef at Le Potiron (The Pumpkin), a Parisian restaurant near Les Halles, I used my newfound skills to transform tough cuts of beef into tender stews, improvise with sweetbreads, and bake cakes from memory.

A sous-chef with dreams of her own restaurant empire may have mastered the art of classical French sauce making, but not yet have developed the signature cooking style she imagines as the cornerstone of her own chain of restaurants. She gauges her progress not only by whether she is moving toward her aspirations, but also by her improving skills. Our chef may not yet have the stature of Chef Auguste Escoffier or Emeril Lagasse, but she can remember a time when she could not name the five French mother sauces, let alone execute them. She's made progress. Appreciating the skills she has developed is a marker along the path toward her culinary aspirations. The sense of accomplishment that accompanies improved skills is one of the rewards we reap when we dedicate ourselves to mastery.

What a joy this book is! I love recipe books, but it’s short-lived; I enjoy the pictures for several minutes, read a few pages, and then my eyes glaze over. They are basically books to be used in the kitchen for one recipe at a time. This book, however, is in a different class altogether and designed to be read in its entirety. It’s in its own sui generis category; it has recipes at the end of most of the twenty-one chapters, but it’s a book to be read from cover to cover, yet it could easily be read chapter by chapter, in any order, as they are all self-contained. Every bite-sized chapter is a flowing narrative from a well-stocked brain encompassing Balinese culture, geography and history, while not losing its main focus: food. As you would expect from a scholar with a PhD in history from Columbia University, the subject matter has been meticulously researched, not from books and articles and other people’s work, but from actually being on the ground and in the markets and in the kitchens of Balinese families, where the Balinese themselves learn their culinary skills, hands on, passed down orally, manually and practically from generation to generation. Vivienne Kruger has lived in Bali long enough to get it right. That’s no mean feat, as the subject has not been fully studied before. Yes, there are so-called Balinese recipe books, most, if I’m not mistaken, written by foreigners, and heavily adapted. The dishes have not, until now, been systematically placed in their proper cultural context, which is extremely important for the Balinese, nor has there been any examination of the numerous varieties of each type of recipe, nor have they been given their true Balinese names. This groundbreaking book is a pleasure to read, not just for its fascinating content, which I learnt a lot from, but for the exuberance, enthusiasm and originality of the language. There’s not a dull sentence in the book. You just can’t wait to read the next phrase. There are eye-opening and jaw-dropping passages for the general reader as Kruger describes delicacies from the village of Tengkudak in Tabanan district — grasshoppers, dragonflies, eels and live baby bees — and explains how they are caught and cooked. She does not shy away from controversial subjects, such as eating dog and turtle. Parts of it are not for the faint-hearted, but other parts make you want to go out and join the participants, such as the Nusa Lembongan fishermen, who sail their outriggers at 5.30 a.m. The author quotes Miguel Covarrubias, the great Mexican observer of the 1930s, who wrote “The Island of Bali.” It has inspired all writers since, including myself and my co-author, Ni Wayan Murni, in our book “Secrets of Bali, Fresh Light on the Morning of the World.” There is, however, no bibliography, which I found strange at first. I can only imagine it’s a reflection of how original the subject matter is; there simply are no other sources. Throughout the book Kruger mentions Balinese and Indonesian words and sometimes discusses their derivations. It’s a Herculean task. I was intrigued to read that “satay” comes from the Tamil word for flesh ( sathai ) and that South Indians brought satay to Southeast Asia before Indonesia developed its own tradition. The book is full of interesting tidbits like this. The book contains 47 recipes in all, 11 of which came from Murni’s own restaurant, Murni’s Warung, in Ubud. Mr Dolphin of Warung Dolphin in Lovina also contributed a number of recipes. Kruger adds an introduction to each recipe, with a detailed and usually very personal commentary. I think my favorite, though, is from a village priest (pemangku), I Made Arnila of the Ganesha (Siwa) Temple in Lovina. water. I am sure most will enjoy this book enormously; I certainly did.” Review published in The Jakarta Globe, April 17, 2014. Jonathan Copeland is an author and photographer based in Bali. thejakartaglobe/features/spiritual-journey-culinary-world-bali

A sole cooked in a rich sauce of cream and mushrooms must be followed by a dry dish of entirely different aspect such as a roast partridge or a grilled tournedos, cold ham, jellied beef or a terrine of duck. It must not be preceded by a creamy mushroom soup, nor followed by chicken cooked in a cream sauce. Have some regard for the digestions of others even if your own resembles that of the ostrich.

The hypotheses I set out with on this journey is that unnatural stimulants (or super stimulants) have wrecked the natural reward system that gives us pleasure in life. We have gotten used to cheap fixes and have become numb to real life. The best example of this that I can think of was the disappointment I felt when I first tried real Vietnamese food in Vietnam. I had been reliably informed by Anthony Bourdain that Vietnamese culinary skills would rock my world, and they did not. At least not at first, apparently when you are used to everything being loaded with sugar, salt and cheese, someone can spend all the time they want brewing fresh stock and dicing up wild herbs, it is just not going to blow your socks off. We have been numbed to natural, life-giving goodness by saturating ourselves in a ‘processed’ reality.

Dr. Poupak Ziaei, a skilled Hospitalist serving Henderson Hospital, brings her expertise to Platinum Group. Beyond her profession, she cultivates a well-rounded life by participating in sports activities such as hiking and yoga, nurturing her mind and body. During her leisure time, she treasures family bonding embarks on exciting travel journeys, and indulges in culinary experiments.

The creature stretched amoeba-like pseudopodia projections, trying to squeeze its way out of the carnivorous flower. It let out a high-pitched whine like roasted green beans coming out of the oven. Uh, hopefully, you know what I mean and that’s just not my terrible culinary skills. Because as that creature screeched, the plant cooked it. Literally.

French Special Ops. Sir? Isn’t that a culinary skill? Like soufflé flambé? Or crêpe suzette?

Your culinary skills are low on the list of reasons I'm attracted to you.

With a stellar entrepreneurial track record, Adam S. Kaplan is a seasoned professional with a wealth of expertise. His excellence in the field of financial guidance and adept provision of strategic consulting showcase his extensive experience. His diverse licensing credentials underscore his multifaceted skills and unwavering commitment to ethical standards. Beyond finance, Adam offers consulting services on a wide range of topics, including business projects, career development, networking, insurance, and life coaching. He's also an aviation enthusiast, a meticulous model car builder, a dedicated Mets fan, a tennis aficionado, and a connoisseur of culture and culinary arts.

Culinary skills don’t rule out being a total bitch.

More and more university students lack social skills after growing up in small families and suffering intense competition at school. If people prefer eating alone this may be a sign of psychological problems,” said Kim Hye-sook at Ajou University.

As an egg ages, the cordlike strands that center the yolk weaken. If this happens, the yolk can end up close to the outer wall of the hard-cooked egg, making it likely you will tear the white when removing the yolk. Of course, this is not a concern in recipes like egg salad that call for dicing the hard-cooked eggs.

Bone-in hams with natural juices are the least processed of all the options at the supermarket. Boneless hams may seem like a good choice, but they contain several muscles that have been pressed together to look like ham and all that manipulation compromises the muscle structure, making them less able to hold on to natural juices. And while “water-added” ham might sound juicier, these hams taste awful and shed all that extra water in the oven. We do like the convenience of a spiral-cut ham, which makes serving a cinch.

A whole rib roast (aka prime rib) consists of ribs 6 through 12. Butchers tend to cut the roast in two. We prefer the cut further back on the cow, which is closest to the loin and less fatty. This cut is referred to as the first cut, the loin end, or sometimes the small end because the meat and ribs get larger as they move up toward the shoulder. When ordering a three-rib roast, ask for the first three ribs from the loin end—ribs 10 through 12.

Weighing each roast before and after confirmed our tasters’ impressions. The roast in the 250-degree oven lost 9.4 percent of its original weight. The roast cooked at 450 degrees shed 24.2 percent of its original weight, almost three times more than the slow-roasted beef. Put another way: The slow-roasted beef lost only 9 ounces of moisture during the roasting process while the high-temperature roasted beef lost 25 ounces. Since we had trimmed both roasts of exterior fat, these numbers represented moisture lost from the meat itself—no wonder the slow-roasted beef tasted so much juicier.

We often store chicken breasts in the freezer. But then we read that storing chicken breasts in the freezer for longer than two months negatively affects tenderness. Ever the skeptics, we wanted to see for ourselves if this was true. So we bought six whole chicken breasts and split each one down the center. We immediately tested one breast from each chicken using a Warner-Bratzler shear device that measures tenderness by quantifying the force required to cut meat. We wrapped and froze the other breasts at 0 degrees (the temperature of the average home freezer). We tested three of the previously frozen breasts for tenderness after two months and the remaining three after three months. Our results confirmed it: Two-month-old chicken was nearly as tender as fresh chicken, while three-month-old chicken was about 15 percent tougher. We recommend freezing chicken wrapped in plastic and sealed in an airtight zipper-lock bag for no longer than two months.

Remember to account for the reduction of liquids when seasoning a dish—a perfectly seasoned stew will likely taste too salty after several hours of simmering. Your best bet is to season with a light hand during the cooking process and then adjust the seasoning just before serving.

The moisture in food begins to freeze at temperatures below 32 degrees, and whether that moisture is in fruit, ice cream, or meat, it will form ice crystals. These crystals rupture cell walls and internal cell organelles in fresh foods, like fruits or vegetables, which release enzymes from their locked compartments. When thawed, these enzymes cause produce to develop off-flavors and turn brown and soggy.

Since the temperature of meat will continue to rise as it rests, an effect called carryover cooking, meat should be removed from the oven, grill, or pan when it’s 5 to 10 degrees below the desired serving temperature. Carryover cooking doesn’t apply to poultry and fish (they don’t retain heat as well as the dense muscle structure in meat), so they should be cooked to the desired serving temperatures.

Even your oven isn’t as reliable as you think. How do we know this? We have more than two dozen ovens in our test kitchen and we keep an oven thermometer in each oven to tell us if they are properly calibrated. That is, are they reaching and holding the temperature set on the dial? With heavy use, we find that our ovens generally slip out of calibration in just a few months, so we get them serviced. The process will happen more slowly at home, but the odds are pretty good that your oven is not at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, even though that’s what the dial says.

And memorize this now: 1 tablespoon equals 3 teaspoons. Forget this fact and you will invariably make mistakes when trying to scale recipes up or down. It also helps to remember that 4 tablespoons equal ¼ cup.

Recipes written for home cooks rely on volume (teaspoons, tablespoons, cups) for measurement. Recipes written for professionals generally list ingredients by weight. That’s because weight involves no chance for operator error. Assuming the scale has been properly calibrated, 8 ounces of flour is 8 ounces of flour no matter how the flour is handled.

What separates success from failure in the kitchen? It’s the ability to think on your feet, to make adjustments as you cook. And, despite what you might think, a lifetime of experience isn’t a prerequisite for being a good cook (although it does help). Knowledge, however, is essential. The successful home cook understands the fundamental principles of good cooking and is able to apply them on the fly, almost without thinking.

Some people like spicy foods and others don’t, but there is a right way to sauté, there is a best way to cook a pot roast, and there are measurable scientific principles involved in producing perfectly beaten, stable egg whites.

When you understand the language of science, cooking becomes clearer and you naturally make better choices in the kitchen.

Since there’s no liquor in the house, I concoct for myself a backache, filching a few of the blue valiums Warren rarely takes for his—truly bad—back. They’re for sleep, I tell myself. (My creative skill reaches its zenith at prescription interpretation, i.e., the codeine cough syrup bottle seems to read: Take one or two swigs when you feel like it. I take three.) In February I decide I’m under too much stress to quit booze cold turkey. Full sobriety as a concept recedes with the holidays. I’ll cut down, I think. But all the control schemes that reined me in during past years are now unfathomably failing. Only drink beer. Only drink wine. Only drink weekends. Only drink after five. At home. With others. When I only drink with meals, I cobble together increasingly baroque dinners, always uncorking some medium-shitty vintage at about three in the afternoon while Dev plays on the kitchen floor. The occasional swig is culinary duty, right? Some nights I’m into my second bottle before Warren comes in with frost on his glasses and a book bag a mule should’ve toted. Maybe he doesn’t notice, since I’m a champion at holding my liquor. Nonetheless, by the end of March, I have to unbutton my waistbands.

Perhaps just as important as cookware material is the pan shape and size. Crowd four chicken breasts into a 10-inch pan and they will steam; space them out in a 12-inch pan and they will brown. Skillets should be measured from lip to lip to determine their size. Pots are generally measured by volume (2 quarts, 4 quarts, etc.). Use specified equipment in the specified size when following any recipe. This admonishment applies to bakeware as well as cookware. If a recipe calls for 9-inch cake pans, don’t use 8-inch pans. We’ve found this simple change will prolong the baking time (the batter is in a deeper layer in the smaller pans) and this can cause the bottom of the cake layers to burn by the time the middle is sufficiently baked. Even something as simple as the presence or absence of rims on the edges of a baking sheet can affect the outcome of a recipe.

Carryover cooking can’t always be used to the cook’s advantage. For example, seared tuna needs to stay in the pan long enough to develop a good crust, but by the time that happens the interior is already rare (that is, perfectly cooked). You can’t pull the tuna out of the pan any earlier, so our advice is to slice the fish as soon as it comes out of the pan. Unlike meat and poultry, which must rest before slicing, fish can be sliced immediately with no ill effects. Either way, fish won’t lose juices like meat or poultry. So all you’re doing by slicing immediately is speeding up the cooling process and thus preventing carryover cooking from having much of an effect.

Why do foods taste better hot? The explanation is twofold: First, scientists have discovered that our ability to taste is heightened by microscopic proteins in our tastebuds that are extremely temperature-sensitive. These proteins, known as TRPM5 channels, perform far better at warm temperatures than at cooler ones. In fact, studies have shown that when food cooled to 59 degrees and below is consumed, the channels barely open, minimizing flavor perception. However, when food is heated to 98.5 degrees, the channels open up and TRPM5 sensitivity increases more than 100 times, making food taste markedly more flavorful. Second, much of our perception of flavor comes from aroma, which we inhale as microscopic molecules diffuse from food. The hotter the food, the more energetic these molecules are, and the more likely they are to travel from the table to our nose. The lessons? Dishes meant to be served hot should be reheated, and dishes served chilled (like gazpacho or potato salad) must be aggressively seasoned to make up for the flavor-dulling effects of cold temperatures.

Our tastebuds have a harder time detecting flavors in cold foods. That’s why chilled soup must be aggressively seasoned. But cold soups also have almost no aroma, which is another reason that they require a heavier hand when seasoning. The aroma that wafts up to your nose from a piping-hot bowl of soup affects your perception of the flavor. Take away that aroma and the food does not seem as flavorful.

Simply put, buy a natural bird. When it comes to chicken, we prefer air-chilled versus water-chilled birds. The latter method (which soaks the bird in 34-degree water after slaughtering) causes the bird to absorb water. If you see the phrase “contains up to 4% retained water” on the label, you know the bird was water-chilled. Besides the fact that you're paying for the water, the water dilutes the chicken flavor and makes it hard to crisp up the skin during cooking.

Because fish has almost no collagen, it never benefits from long cooking. In fact, many fish are delicious raw or lightly cooked. In any case, fish should never be cooked beyond 140 degrees.

To say that Bittersweet Café was her happy place was perhaps an understatement. In the last two years, Rachel had left behind her high-pressure executive chef job and Melody her dead-end position in a chain bakery, then decided to open their dream restaurant together. The way all the details had come together was downright magical; nowhere in Denver's history had a functional café and bakery materialized in under four months. But Ana had no doubt there had been a healthy measure of divine intervention in the situation. She could feel it in the mood and the atmosphere of this place. Light, welcoming, refreshing. It was no wonder they'd quickly developed a devoted following. They were already in the middle of plans to take over the vacant space in the strip mall beside them and expand to meet their ever-growing demand. Ana couldn't be prouder. If she were truthful, she was also a little jealous. She might be good at her job, and she was certainly well paid, but there was an allure to the idea of working with her best friends, being surrounded by delicious food and baked goods. Too bad she had absolutely no culinary talent. Her mom had made sure she could cook rice properly and prepare Filipino dishes like adobong manok and kaldereta, but her skills stopped there. Considering the fat and calorie content of those foods, she'd left her childhood meals behind in favor of an endless stream of grilled chicken or fish over salad.

Gentle heat cooks food while minimizing moisture loss, but juiciness is not the only consideration when choosing a technique. High heat not only cooks a cut of meat but changes the flavor, too. (Think steak tartare versus a grilled steak.) Much of this change is related to the complex chemical interactions known as the Maillard reaction, named for the French scientist Louis-Camille Maillard, who first described the process in the early 1900s.

Lorenzo married a local English woman called Patricia Brown, who was also getting used to life's disappointments, having exchanged her dream of being an actress for the mundane, daily theatre of the suburban housewife, and whose culinary skills were forever under the ghostly shadow of her dead Puglian mother-in-law and her legendary spaghetti dishes, which, in Lorenzo's eyes, could never be surpassed.

The currency of proper food was so important that the teaching of basic reading became essential to guarantee culinary delight. It can be presumed that this skill was valuable to the larger enslaved community as well, for they could rely on the cook to read and write for those who could not. in addition to reading, enslaved cooks learned basic math. Counting, fractions, and knowing how to double or triple a recipe was mandatory for large-scale plantation cooking.

After level of skills, it's how sensitive you are to criticism and perceived insult — and how well you can give it right back — that determines your place in the food chain.

Bigfoot understood — as I came to understand — that character is far more important than skills or employment history. And he recognized character — good and bad — brilliantly. He understood, and taught me, that a guy who shows up every day on time, never calls in sick, and does what he said he was going to do, is less likely to fuck you in the end than a guy who has an incredible resume but is less than reliable about arrival time. Skills can be taught. Character you either have or don't have. Bigfoot understood that there are two types of people in the world: those who do what they say they're going to do — and everyone else. He'd lift ex-junkie sleazeballs out of the gutter and turn them into trusted managers, guys who'd kill themselves rather than misuse one thin dime of Bigfoot receipts. He'd get Mexicans right off the boat, turn them into solid citizens with immigration lawyers, nice incomes and steady employment. But if Bigfoot calls them at four in the morning, wanting them to put in a rooftop patio, they'd better be prepared to roll out of bed and get busy quarrying limestone.