It’s all about learning for Mike Smith.
One Wednesday morning in December, the east Cobb resident arrived bright and early at Staplehouse in the Old Fourth Ward, where chef de cuisine Jake Pollitz showed him how to peel and mash sweet potatoes through a tamis, or a mesh straining tool. Smith picked it up quickly, and soon settled into an easy rhythm of slicing a sweet potato in half, peeling off the skin and scraping the orange flesh against the tamis.
Smith is no stranger to this routine; he has volunteered in close to 30 Atlanta restaurants, doing anything from chopping onions to breaking down an octopus. While he has no formal training — and no plans to attend culinary school — the 70-year-old retiree loves learning food preparation.
“I’ve got my own education going,” he said of his work at restaurants in the metro area and elsewhere, including Cúrate in Asheville.
Smith said his passion for cooking was inspired by three women: Grandmother Smith, who made homemade biscuits that “tweaked something in my soul,” Aunt Leola Hutto, who founded a church camp in Alabama with her husband and ran the kitchen; and his mother, whose meals were filled with love, he said.
However, growing up surrounded by excellent home cooks meant he didn’t do much of his own cooking. The first meal he made for someone was an Atlanta Journal-Constitution recipe he prepared for his future wife, Dianne, about a month into their dating.
His job as an information technology manager with the federal courts took up most of his time, but he found cooking helped relieve stress, Dianne said. He started by watching celebrity chef Alton Brown and, over time, worked up to more challenging recipes.
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Smith didn’t start volunteering until he was around 60, when Lunacy Black Market was opened near his office by Paul Luna, former chef and owner of Eclipse di Luna. After months of dining at the since-closed restaurant and falling in love with the food, he gathered up the nerve to ask Luna if he could come in on weekends, when business was slow.
Luna agreed, and the chef showed him how to make mozzarella and braise chicken thighs.
Dianne said she was a bit “incredulous” about the whole situation, especially her husband wanting to work on weekends.
“But he came back all invigorated,” she said. “And he kept going back for more.”
Smith’s next stop was Kevin Rathbun Steakhouse at Krog Street Market. He explained to the chef that he’d volunteered with Luna, and asked if he could do the same there.
“I was frankly just impressed with his boldness, that he would go in and offer and ask, and they would say yes,” Dianne said.
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
In the years after his retirement in 2016, he began volunteering anywhere from two to four times a week. He keeps logs of the various restaurants where he has spent time or offered his services. Included are notes from conversations with chefs and staff and excerpts from news articles.
He also has status updates on restaurant openings, remarks about where chefs have moved over the years and reminders, such as “send chef Moss at Buxton Hall some chocolate and pecan cookies,” or “because of samples I left for Nick, the bartender calls me ‘Mr. Cheesecake.’ Ha.”
During his most recent visit to Staplehouse, Smith caught up with Pollitz and chef Sam Herndon, who first approved his volunteering at the restaurant years ago. Herndon said it’s rare to see a person Smith’s age staging, which is what it’s called when cooks volunteer to work in restaurant kitchens to gain experience, like an internship.
But for Smith, whose career is behind him, volunteering isn’t about finding a full-time job, or opening his own restaurant. He adores the Atlanta restaurant scene, so his hobby lets him support the eateries he loves, associate with “rock star chefs,” and gain new experiences, such as when he crafted coppa in beef “bung caps” (the appendix of a cow used for casing meat), or when he made 22 molten lava cakes for a New Year’s Eve gathering.
It’s a genuine interest in cooking that drives him. On a vacation in New Orleans, for example, he spent a morning prepping gumbo ingredients at Emeril’s. And he has found ways to use his cooking and baking skills to help others, such as volunteering to make treats for the Ronald McDonald House, a charity that supports families with sick children.
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
Credit: CHRIS HUNT
“He’s like one in a billion,” said Nick Anderson, who was chef de cuisine at Kevin Rathbun Steak when Smith volunteered there. “He just has a passion for cooking, and loves the art of it and wants to learn. He was a sponge.”
And it certainly doesn’t hurt that he brings home what he learns, Dianne said. When their kids are looking for something new, such as sous vide short ribs cooked for 36 hours, they turn to him.
“He finds joy in really doing something at a very excellent level,” his wife said.
Smith usually had a smile on his face at Staplehouse, whether he was slicing potatoes or zesting satsumas. While there are plenty of monotonous tasks that come with prepping in kitchens — such as when he spent several hours clipping a bin of nasturtium leaves to a specified length — he finds joy in those bits, too.
“I like supporting restaurants in Atlanta, my home, and I’m taking some work off these chefs, and I feel the camaraderie and appreciation,” Smith said. Plus, he added with a grin, “I know how to clip herbs now.”
HOW TO BE A BETTER HOME COOK
“I’ve certainly upped my cooking game by volunteering in restaurant kitchens, but most of what I learned are things most seasoned cooks know,” Mike Smith said. Here are his 20 biggest takeaways for smarter cooking:
- Get a digital scale to be more precise with from-scratch baking projects.
- Review recipes a day ahead to avoid last-minute trips to the store.
- Sharpen knives.
- Put a wet towel under your cutting board to keep it from sliding around.
- Mise en place — Measure all ingredients ahead of time.
- Use timers.
- From a good height, rain down salt on all sides of a protein (“dry brine”). Let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour, but not more than two, before cooking.
- ”Same cut, same cook” - Cut food into the same-size pieces so that the ingredients cook at the same rate.
- When searing, make sure the surface of the protein is very dry. Using a doubled-up paper towel, carefully dry the top side of the protein before turning to sear that side. Carefully flip proteins away from you in the skillet to avoid hot oil splashing on you.
- Clean dishes as you cook.
- Salt dishes several times as you build the dish.
- Taste the dish as you build it.
- Add a small amount of soy sauce and/or miso paste to increase savoriness in dishes. A little bit won’t be able to be identified in a dish.
- Use fresh herbs to add to freshness and complexity of a dish.
- Consider adding a bit of heat to a dish. A bit of hot sauce or red pepper flakes can enhance many dishes.
- Add more butter!
- Keep the container of nutritional yeast in the fridge to be able to add savory, cheesy flavor.
- Add last-minute lemon juice or other acids to brighten the taste of dishes.
- Serve hot food on hot plates and cold food on cold plates.
- Label leftovers with a description and date. Restaurant kitchens store use plastic deli containers. The quart-, pint-, and cup-sized containers all use the same lid size, so there’s no need to hunt for Tupperware matches.
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