Two recent books vouch for the value in preparing and eating a meal together: Off the Menu: Staff Meals From America's Top Restaurants, by Marissa Guggiana (Welcome Books, $40) and The Family Meal: Home Cooking With Ferran Adria (Phaidon Press, $29.95).
"At its core, it is a time for the health of the staff to develop," writes Guggiana. "Like dinner for many families, it is the only time that everyone is together in an unstructured way."
At El Bulli, chef Adria's culinary temple in Roses, Spain, the daily supper was dubbed the "family meal" because the 75 staff members were like family. "It's an important moment when everyone sits down together to eat," he writes. "We believe that if we eat well, we cook well."
How a staff meal comes together often reflects a restaurant's character and style. Some let staff create feasts from items culled from the pantry. Some plan meals in great detail. Some meals are simple, yet fabulous. Some not so much. And sometimes, staff members order out.
Adria and a head chef at El Bulli (now closed, but reopening in 2014 as a culinary think tank) meticulously planned "everyday, varied, and inexpensive meals" of an appetizer, entree, and dessert, working from 100 or so favorite recipes, ranging from duck with chimichurri sauce to cheeseburgers with potato chips (commercial chips, by the way).
Several times a year, large batches of stocks and sauces (say, Bolognese) were prepared, then frozen in meal-size portions. Leftovers were used, frozen peas welcomed. And, Adria notes, "like any savvy cook, overripe or leftover fruit goes into sorbets or fruit sauces."
