![]() For my Fillet Mignon w/ Roasted Garlic-Pecan Crust recipe I have separate tabs for each of its sub-recipes: Plate-up (which has the specs for the plate when it hits the window, including a photo), Thyme Demi, Roast Garlic-Pecan Crust, and Scallop Potato Pie. Awesome.Įxcel makes “signature” dishes easy to organize as well. You can add as many recipes to one Excel workbook as you want to, allowing you to keep all recipes for a project (a foodshow, a food & wine dinner, a new menu concept, whatever) in one place.And you can scale them! So if the recipe needs to serve 25 people one week and 450 the next week Excel makes it easy to transform a recipe into a scalable recipe…simply change the batch size and the entire recipe recalculates. Of course, any event for a Chef will have recipes, and usually lots of them. By working through the various prep phases for the lox I now know that I need to pull the salmon from the freezer on the previous Friday in order to complete slicing it on schedule. In this example the foodshow is on Thursday and I need the Lox cut by Tuesday. The best way to structure this is by starting at the end (ie the day of the event) and working backwards. ![]() ![]() It is everything which needs to be done, what day it needs to be completed on, how much needs to be done, and who is assigned to do it. This is where using Excel for “ mental mise en place” can significantly organize any event and save you a lot of stress. I like the presentation of this dish so it is one of the plate designs I was considering for my finished concept. You’ll notice that there is a photo of a white fish even though I’m planning on working with salmon. I may not use any of these, but putting them here helps me experiment with a dish before I actually make it. I’ll put recipe ideas, and their sub-components, on the left, and images for inspiration on the right. (see the 3rd item in the example: Smoked Sockeye Salmon & Dungeness…) I’ll list the main idea for a dish concept, then indent its sub-components, and if I’m still working on an aspect of the dish like the sauce or garnish I’ll add another indent and list off a bunch of ideas for this part of the dish. What I particularly like in Excel is the ability to quickly create an index of tasks with multiple sub-categories, so when I’m working on a new recipe I can brainstorm by throwing “whatever” on a page like this. It is the first step in planning a foodshow or new recipe, a place to “play” with ideas. Here is an example of the “Idea” tab, which is a virtual “Idea Board”. Excel is your “ mental mise en place” tool for organizing any project in the kitchen. If you pay attention to the technique then you’ll be able to create your own forms and use Excel to organize anything from implementing a new recipe, to rolling out an entire menu, to opening a new restaurant. However, the tutorial is not about the form, rather it’s about the techniques and concepts I used to create the form. In the video tutorial at the bottom of the page I go through the whole process using this form as an example. Now everything for this event is organized in one place, easy to edit, easy to print, and uploadable to my phone or tablet. I named the Excel workbook after the event, and then added the following tabs, each with its pertinent info: Ideas, Menu, Prep, Ordering, Loading (for equipment & transport), Recipe. ![]() Following is an example of how to use Excel for an off-site catered event, including a video demo/tutorial. Using Excel for event planning and project management makes it easy to look both at the big picture and at all the minutia of details it takes to make any project successful. By creating an Excel workbook for the task/event you can have a separate tab (page) for every aspect of the project and have it all organized in one spot. This is where a catering Excel spreadsheet can be extremely helpful to the chef. I’ve learned that using Excel culinary spreadsheets can save you time and money. There is the creative phase where you design the dish, the “naming” phase where you decide how to phrase in on the menu and/or for social media, if its a catering then there are all of the function details & how many servings you need to prepare, then there’s the prep phase which may take multiple days, the ordering phase, and so on.Īlthough Excel is known for its computing abilities, it is also an extremely powerful and versatile tool when it comes to planning complex tasks. Every time you create a new recipe, plan a catered event, or implement a new menu there are a number of steps which need to be taken in order for its roll-out to be smooth and successful.
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