Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 17, 1993 TAG: 9311180059
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As head line cook for Alexander's restaurant, she dealt with fancy sauces like Hollandaise, the deep-roux base for Louisiana gumbo, and specials like Veal Alexander with lemon sauce and crabmeat - everything fresh, everything made-from-scratch.
Now Bennett finds herself boiling scallops at Stephen's one day and frying country ham at The Roanoker the next.
If, say, the dishwasher at First Street just broke his ankle and can't come to work, she'll roll up her chef's-coat sleeves and fill in there, too.
Since July, Bennett has owned and operated Roanoke's first temporary service for restaurants, called Short Order Temporaries.
She has her own portable kitchen - a tool box of cutlery, tongs, zesters and pliers for deboning salmon - and she knows how to use it.
She has taken a crash course in country ham at The Roanoker: "There's small ham for biscuits, thinly sliced ham called wafer ham for red-eye gravy," she explains. "Then there's regular ham, which is breakfast ham. . . and there's biscuit ham, which is slices of small regular ham.
"And don't forget country-ham steak, which is thick, sliced ham done on the grill."
She has filled in on a moment's notice at Smith Mountain Lake's Anchor House, when the regular chef was in a car accident. Because the restaurant was new, many of his recipes hadn't yet been written down.
"I got to bring my own recipes in," Bennett recalls. "I did my own seafood chowder. It wasn't the same as his - but no one complained."
When the Jefferson Club needed 40 club sandwiches in a hurry, Bennett was on call, her cutlery set in hand.
"The deal is, I'm a very good line cook - that's my specialty," the 33-year-old says. "I set up my line so that if all the lights go out, I can still cook."
Bennett got the idea for the business from a magazine article on the rise of temporary agencies. It mentioned that restaurant-specific temp services were booming in some metropolitan areas - "and it was like a halogen light bulb went on in my head."
With an initial $500 investment, Bennett went to work at her office - the couch, phone and coffee table of her Southeast Roanoke home. She handed out business cards and refrigerator magnets at area restaurants. She got her lawyer-housemate to draw up the contracts.
"I had to convince these restaurants that something they'd been doing themselves could be done by someone else," she explains. "Restaurant costs are high, and the highest cost is payroll, which they're always trying to tighten [by using] smaller staffs.
"But at least once a month, the cook sprains his ankle or the dishwasher is sick. When that happens, they have to put someone on overtime or pay them double - or the manager has to work the line."
Now they can call Bennett - at less than the overtime price, but more than the standard per-hour rate. She and her three-member staff fill in as cooks, bartenders, wait staff and dishwashers. They've learned to hit the ground with their feet running, their whisks whirring.
"I've never had to be trained in a kitchen," Bennett says. "For me, it's a sensory experience. You go in and immerse yourself and cook."
And while Bennett considers her two-year stint at Alexander's "like going to cooking school and being paid for it," she's not above flipping burgers or making gravy.
"I know how to make mock apple pie with Ritz crackers," she deadpans. "I'm not proud."
A North Carolina native with a degree in arts management, Bennett came to Roanoke in 1988 to work as director of public information for WVTF/FM-89 - though she'd been cooking in restaurants off-and-on since college.
She left public radio to manage the kitchen at the now-defunct Blue Muse brew-pub, and later cooked at Wildflour Cafe & Catering before joining Alexander's in 1991.
"The truth of the matter is, I don't like to get dressed up. The pantyhose thing really sets me off," she says. "I won't own a pair."
Bennett may have chucked a career in the arts, but she maintains there's a strong parallel between food and art. "The restaurant business is a lot like the theater business: You're open every night. It's repertory - you have regular meals and specials.
"You have your audience, and you have the people in the back, the hands. That's what I've always been. I don't like to be onstage; I like to be backstage."
When the restaurant doors open for business, it's like a curtain going up. Bennett also applies this premise to acting: A good waiter can make a good meal great, but a mediocre waiter can ruin a great meal.
"With Short Order Temporaries, I figure out ways to be behind the scenes," Bennett says. "Without the backstage, there would be no production; there would be no meals."
Bennett also hopes to fill the catering niche between large-party operations like Alexander's and Murphy's Of Course, and the small trays prepared by grocery-store delis.
"I call it in-house catering: I shop, cook, come to your house and serve. And then I clean up and leave," she says. "It's for people who panic at the idea of having more than six people for dinner."
Bennett maintains a certain cool behind her cutlery, which explains why she calls her favorite recreational activity "kamikaze cooking."
"I like to come in the kitchen, open the cupboards, see what I can find and just make something. Sometimes I make stuff up.
"It's a show-off thing," she admits, her ham qualities creeping up to center stage. "My friends invite me over for dinner because they know I'll do all the cooking."
Conspicuous Consumption is an occasional series about the way Southwest Virginians are eating, drinking and cooking.
by CNB