Roland G. Henin

by Susan Crowther

  SUSAN: What led to your meeting Chef Henin?

  STEVE: I wanted to learn to cook when I was sixteen, at home. My mom told me, “You want to cook? Go to school. Get out of my kitchen.” I went to cooking school where my father taught, but for cooking instead of pastry. I went on to work for a country club for a few years under a French chef in New Jersey. From there I apprenticed at the Greenbrier for three years, graduating in 1976, stayed on as a cook for ten years, and then became catering chef. In 1983 I assumed a supervisor position as a sous-chef. At that time there were only three sous-chefs. Hartmut Handke then came to the Greenbrier as executive chef. After a short time, he promoted me to executive sous-chef, a title I held for over twenty-five years.

  When Rich Rosendale was here a few years ago, he gave me the opportunity to buy the food for the entire hotel. I’ve had my forty years in the kitchen. I can do this and still be happy. I hold the Greenbrier’s food quality to the highest standards. It reverts back to my earliest teachings about doing it right, and doing it right the first time. I buy the finest food, because I don’t accept anything less for our guests. Since I’m buying the food, I know what they’re doing with it. I don’t expect the chefs to take truffle oil and pour it all over the salads and serve it for ten dollars.

  Maybe Roland saw the same thing in me. Maybe he felt, Here’s an apprentice at the Greenbrier who’s going to have a future, and he wanted to latch on and help me. I don’t know. At that time in life you don’t realize it, but I worked with Hartmut Handke for many years, and I learned extensively from him. In that respect, Hartmut knew what I did. I was always Hartmut’s right-hand man. If something needed to get done, he’d come to me. Roland found that out on his own by talking with people who I worked with, and he gained respect for me in that way.

  SUSAN: What was Roland’s impact on your life?

  STEVE: Proper technique. He was the battering sergeant who would look at your tarnished star and make you re-polish it until it was shiny. He wasn’t out-of-line, but he was hard on us.

  During the afternoon hours, we prepped the evenings sauces—six sauces in a steam table, staying good and hot, until service that evening. We made sauce between 2:00 and 5:00 p.m. If the sauces were sitting in the steam table for two hours, he would tell you to change your bain maries [stainless steel containers]. We had to get clean ones from the shelf, strain the sauce, and re-coat it with butter on top. Back then we didn’t use cellophane; we used clarified butter to coat the sauce, so it wouldn’t form a skin. He would ask us to re-strain the sauces and put them into new vessels. I thought, The sauces are fine. Why do we re-strain? It’s ridiculous. We should do it when we’re ready to serve. But that was his way, and we had to adhere to it. We thought he was just trying to make our lives difficult, but later on I realized this was done because he upheld a standard.

  Once we were peeling oranges for a large banquet of 500 people. We needed several sections for each plate—about 2,000 sections. We spent the morning at the beach and came to work already tired. We’d do a lot of fishing, then come in with sunburns and put on our chef coats. It was miserable! Two of us were trying to cut these oranges, and we weren’t doing it very well, with too large a knife for cutting flatly on sides. We had a square piece of orange on the plate. Chef came over and said, “Look. This is the way it has to be done.”

  We thought, “God, this is ridiculous. You gotta be kidding me.” But, when you see the finished product, it makes a difference. His had a nice, rounded edge.

  “Fruit grows round, it doesn’t grow square! Why are you cutting it square?” He came around and would completely peel the side of the orange round and said, “Do it like that.”

  It took more time because instead of five slices to take the edge off it took ten. The tediousness of it … some people tried to cut corners. He would not let you cut a corner. That’s not his style.

  I’d watch him turning an orange and thought, Wow. That’s great. I hope I learn to do it that way someday, too. And now I do the same thing with my people here!

  Everybody has something they could always learn. It’s a different era now. More chefs experiment with chemicals and techniques. Food doesn’t have to be mounted with fancy flowers or have multiple flavors so that you can’t figure out what’s what. That’s what this industry has become … mustard ice cream. I put mustard on a hot dog, and I eat ice cream. I don’t want mustard on or in my ice cream.

  SUSAN: Amen! Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.

  STEVE: Who wants it? Who says, “I gotta go have mustard ice cream today!” My tagline about that is simple: Good food, done right!

  Jerry Dollar

  Executive Chef, Retired, at Sea World

  It was like playing basketball with Michael Jordan. When you work with the best, you become really good.

  My best friend’s dad got me into the culinary field. I was working at the Hilton Hotel on Mission Bay. At that time, Chef Roland Henin was a Certified Executive Chef. When I met him and saw him at the Rancho Bernardo Inn, I was in awe because he was a real chef—not one of these people who thinks they are. He was tall, strong, young, and he sat me down in his office and asked me, “Why do you think I should hire you?” I told Chef, “I’ll give you everything I got. I love to cook.” He liked that and gave me a chance.

  At that time, it was 1979. I was nineteen years old and so skinny you could wrap an apron around me twice. I had no idea where my career was going to be. At that time, when you worked at a hotel or nice restaurant, you worked all the stations. There were six apprentices, and I was youngest. What I liked about Chef was, he was tough on us, sometimes scary, but he molded us to be the best people we could be. He treated everybody fairly, but molded individually! Like clay. [Laughs] When I met him, I was making $2.95 an hour. My mindset was that I always wanted to make my boss look good. That was my job.

  I did a three-year apprenticeship at the Rancho Bernardo Inn. No one wanted to apprentice there at the time. Each week when all the apprentices would meet in school, learning stocks or hollandaise sauce—whatever it was—all the other students couldn’t believe how much stuff I was learning, how much knowledge I had. The way I look at it, it was like playing basketball with Michael Jordan. When you work with the best, you become really good.

  He helped me in my first food competition, the Culinary Salon. I had never done anything like this. The piece he helped me on was a decorated ham. We trimmed off the ham as smooth as possible. Then we took bread crumbs and ground them up in a Buffalo chopper, and then we whipped up egg whites and folded those in to make like a smooth paste. We coated the ham with that, starting from the bottom and working our way to the top, so it was super nice and smooth. We chilled it and then coated the ham with a chaud froid sauce—two or three nice coats—and let it set. We made seven tomato roses and put clear aspic on them, so they were nice, firm, and shiny. We sliced radishes real thin and made a circle on this ham. We used leeks and green veggies, with all their green good color from the chlorophyll. We’d dip the leek into the aspic and put it on the showpiece. Then we put the roses on. We’d put aspic on the roses, shake them real gently, and then put them on the showpiece with a toothpick. Later on, we’d remove the toothpick when we knew the rose was attached. We put the half-radishes around the border, just beautiful. We made a papillote out of parchment paper that went on top—the same thing you’d do for a rack of lamb.

  Chef asked, “Why do you think we made seven roses?”

  “I know it’s an odd number, but I don’t know.”

  “In flowers, and other things in nature, you should always do things in odd numbers.”

  I made galantines with some different aspic decorations. In competitions, it’s not about winning; it’s about doing the best you can.

  Chef was an excellent ice carver. He would take me back into the butcher room, back to where the freezer was. We’d pull the 300-pound ice block out and let it sit for about an hour. Chef would make a sketch and bring out h
is tools. He didn’t have a chain saw, but he had hand saws. He never let me touch the ice block! For about three months, all I did was clean all the ice around it and into the drain. He would ask me certain questions about it. “Do you do everything on one side? Or do you go back and forth and back and forth?” With 360-degree carvings, you have to step back and look from a variety of different angles. You need to be constantly walking around, ensuring a balanced perspective. It opened my eyes and affected other things. Maybe that’s another reason why he’s so good at what he does; he looks at things from a 360 angle … instead of quick decisions, he looks at the whole picture.

  The first couple months, I was just observing the ice carving. He let me touch the blocks, move the blocks around and stuff. He had a story for everything. He helped you understand why certain things happen. What do you do when a piece breaks off? How do you freeze it back on? When something breaks, how do you work around that break? At the end, before he left, he’d let me hold the pieces of leftover ice. You get the feel for them. I never would have been able to do this without him. He believed in me and he saw something in me—something I don’t even know, that no one else did. There’s no artistic talent in my family, but I became an accomplished ice carver. Over the years, I’ve had people ask, “How do you do this?” And I say, “I don’t know. I just do.”

  One of the things I admire most about Roland is that he had a keen eye on all details. In the banquet: rotating everything and icing things down properly … he didn’t miss anything! We had to order more silverware, and I tell you, Roland was pretty pissed off. He says, “Where is all this silverware going?” He goes over to the dishwasher area. He took the garbage can—and this blew me away—and he turned the can upside down and pulls all the trash apart. There were probably twenty-four pieces of silverware in there. Then he got one of those magnet things that go over a trash can, so when you empty the trash, if there’s any metal, like silverware, it’d grab it. It probably saved us a couple thousand dollars. Otherwise, it’s like money going right in the trash.

  It’s like when you’re making stocks, you leave nothing to waste. He would show me how to make stocks and consommé—the clarification. When you’re younger, you don’t care about how something works; you just want to do it. One night I was up, sitting on milk crates, looking at our kettle, making a consommé. I was watching the raft being formed. To me, it was kind of like watching an island being formed … it’s got the eggshells and everything in there, and all the crud is coming to the top. When we got it exactly right, we put the cheesecloth down below it. Oh my gosh, it’s so exciting to see. You make a great stock and then a great consommé, and then maybe you put in a julienne of chicken, whatever your vegetables are, and you can see at the bottom of the cup, and the flavors are just so intense.

  When Roland was pissed off about something, the look he’d give you would scare the hell out of you! You’re like, “YES SIR!!” There was no back talk; we were trained right. A number of people quit because they gave up. This one time, I’m making salmon en papillote on the table. Chef Henin’s large glass office is in front of me. One of the pantry guys gets into a heated argument with him. The pantry chef goes into chef’s office with a big bowl of fruit. All of a sudden, the fruit is dumped all over Chef’s head and the table. Chef Henin doesn’t yell. He doesn’t scream. He stands up, wipes the fruit off, wipes his jacket off. Just to see how he handled that … to see him not kill the guy … was pretty interesting. It was so cool. (Chef fired that guy, of course.)

  One thing that’s great about Roland is, if he believes in you, he’s always there for you. For years, he kept track of me. This was before computers … I don’t know how he did it. I’ve had many health concerns. I had two kidney transplants. Roland would check on me. He sent me an email, said something like, “I wish you best, and I want you to get a kidney.” That was on August 18, 2011. Two hours later, I got a call from the Kidney Foundation that they had a kidney transplant.

  Once I was in a coma for eleven days and almost died—I was two hours from dying, and I made a promise that I would devote my efforts to charity. So, six other chefs and I did Meals on Wheels, and we raised over a million dollars. We did Make-a-Wish, Share Our Strength—we did many fund-raisers. Being a culinarian, you do everything to help everybody. It’s not about you; it’s about helping people in need and doing little things for them … to touch people.

  In 2001, I was nominated for Western Regional Chef of the Year at an American Culinary Federation (ACF) convention. I had no idea. There were about 400 chefs gathered for the ACF Presidential Medallion, which honors the top fifty chefs of the United States. I was in the back row wearing my chef’s coat and pants and my tennis sneakers. They were naming some people, and I was clapping … I recognized some of my friends … and then they called my name! I was thinking, This can’t be friggin’ right! I didn’t get up, and they called my name again. I got up there, and the chef shook my hand and put this medallion around me. It was really heavy!

  Whatever I’m making—a flan, a chocolate brûlée, or clam chowder—people will say, “Why does yours taste different?” Everything I make, I make with love. You give everything to it. I always use the best ingredients. Also, just because the recipe is in a book doesn’t mean it is right. I’ll make a recipe, and I’ll make notes and adjust it. You have to make adjustments. Being a chef, when things happen, it’s like, how smart and quickly can you do things without panicking? When you’re focused, nothing will get in your way. Being a chef, people say, “You’ve been so blessed because you found a career you love.” Me being Christian, I believe that this is the journey God gave me, and I believe He put Roland in my life. Roland means the world to me. I’d do anything for him. I feel like one of his kids. Roland only has one son, but he has many more.

  The thing about Roland is, he’s done so many things for people. He ran the Culinary Olympics. He’s been in charge of teams. He’s been named the best chef of the United States. He’s won almost every award that you can imagine. He’s just about to retire from Delaware North. He has a hundred chefs underneath him. A while back, he was always inviting me up. He’d say, “Come up! Catch some salmon! Those things are fighting like hell!” He says, “Yeah, I’m looking for a chef for the Seattle Seahawks. You interested?” I thought, “My God, if my body wasn’t broken, I would do that!” But everybody’s given certain things, and you just do the best with what you’ve got.

  I sent Roland a note talking about how, as you get older, it’s so great seeing people who you’ve trained all over the world! They’re in Ireland working with Gordon Ramsay, or the Broadmoor in Colorado, Ritz Carlton, or wherever they’re at. I can’t even imagine how many thousands of cooks and chefs Roland’s made … I have no idea what the number would be. The thing is, you only live once. When we’re gone, people are going to look back and say, “Oh my gosh, look what Roland taught me.”

  The General: Culinary Institute of America

  Roland Henin spent ten years as a Culinary Arts Educator. His first year was at Johnson & Wales University, where he developed the Sauce Kitchen from scratch and created its textbook.

  RGH: Johnson & Wales was one of the worst starts of any position in my life. At the Dunes Club, I had a few cooks from there, so I knew about the college. When approached to teach there, I said, “I am no teacher.” The director responded, “All chefs are teachers.” I was hired as a Chef Saucier. There was no Sauce Kitchen, and they hired me to develop it.

  That first day, I arrive in the morning and go to the room where I will teach Sauce Kitchen. There are eighteen to twenty kids waiting in the hallway. We enter the room, and there is … nothing. No walk-in refrigerator. No shelves. No counters. No workstations. No equipment. No desks. No chairs. No paper. No curriculum. No food, pans, or pots. There are three steam kettles and two steam holders … in the middle of this empty room. That’s it

  I say to the kids, “Good morning. Sauce Kitchen is brand-new, as you can see. Let’s see wha
t we can do here.” I sit them down, roll a chalkboard over, and begin to talk about sauce. The next day I complain, say I could do quick sauces—hollandaise, simple butter sauces—but, without pots, we had nothing. I borrow some pots and other equipment from other kitchens. By the end of the week, I have two boxes of bones—chicken and veal. I felt bad for the kids.

  At the end of that first year, they came to me and asked if I would consider returning as Sauce Kitchen instructor. I said no, but proposed something else. We are in New England. We could get support from the local fishing companies and do a Fish Kitchen. They looked at me like I was from Mars. They said, “We’ll check it out,” then returned and said, “No. The director doesn’t like fish.”

  Master Chef Ferdinand Metz became president of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in 1980. In 1981, a female chef colleague, Lyde Buchtenkirch (the only female CMC), and I talked. She was teaching at the CIA. She said, “Let’s go and meet Metz.” He was trying to rebuild a Chef-Instructor brigade.

  Metz asked me, “Why didn’t you go back to Johnson & Wales?”

  “I did not want to continue teaching Sauce Kitchen.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “A Fish Kitchen.”

  “Why?”

  I explained. It’s New England and the kids cannot do fish. Fish is a big food, and it’s going to get bigger.

  Metz says, “Well, if you come here, I will start a Fish Kitchen with you.”

  In the beginning of first year of Fish Kitchen, our inventory was 400,000 frozen product and 40,000 fresh product. By the end of that year, the inventory had switched: 400,000 fresh product and 40,000 frozen.