Chef Profile: Joel Hetrick
Joel Hetrick: mild-mannered toque-wearing senior home chef by day, raging lead singer of The Steel Chops by night.
The Chef: Joel Hetrick is sous chef at Classic Residence by Hyatt, an independent-living and continuing-care facility for seniors in Glenview, Illinois. He also sings in a band called The Steel Chops and blogs about the biz at Restaurants & Institutions.
The Toolbox: For Hetrick, there are clear advantages to working for a multinational conglomerate. For one, he only needs to ferry a knife roll around. “Working in a kitchen with every tool imaginable allows me to leave the culinary school tackle box at home,” he says. Ah, if all chefs were that lucky…but then again, if that were the case, we wouldn’t have a blog now, would we?
His Voyeuristic Side: (Editor’s Note: The astute BehindTheKnife.com reader will notice that we’re doing things a bit out of sequence here…you’ll soon discover why.) When asked about what he’d most like to know about what’s hidden inside other chefs’ toolboxes, Hetrick replied, “Why do some chefs overload their kits? I understand being prepared but do you really need ten knives?”
The Tools: How about six? “Inside my roll are two Chinese cleavers — one 3-1/2” tall and one 1-1/2” tall — a 10-inch Henckels French knife, a Wusthof paring knife, a 10-inch Chicago Cutlery flexible boning knife, a Forschner serrated knife, a bowl scraper, star piping tips, a Y-peeler, and a diamond-steel sharpener.” Alrighty then.
Well-worn knife roll, two Chinese cleavers, five knives (where's the sixth?) and the infamous bowl scraper.
What A Psychologist Would Say About His Tools: “He’d say I’m a minimalist schizophrenic who’s clean and organized with multiple personalities…Who said that??”
(Lisa here again: We could stop right now and you’d already know everything there is to know about the lead singer of The Steel Chops, but indulge me…and Joel.)
The Sentimental Tool: “I’ve had my Chicago Cutlery 10-inch flexible boning knife for ten years now,” he says. “I bought it at the True Value back home when I first started cooking, and bought the whole set piece by piece with the money I made. I really wanted to cook and made a commitment by purchasing my own knives, and in the small town where I grew up, these were the best you could get.” Hetrick is sentimental, but he’s not that sentimental. Where are the others? “My father has the rest of the collection,” he admits.
The Long-Gone Tool: Hetrick obviously marches to a different drummer. “I used to use a Wusthof Santoku religiously,” he says. “You couldn’t pry that thing away from me. I was the first in my class to have one. Then it started to show up everywhere, and soon everyone had them.” And so he moved on to the Chinese cleavers. He still uses the Santoku occasionally, but only in the privacy of his own home. “My Chinese cleavers are my pride and joy and have been for seven years now,” he adds. Yeah, until they become the tool of the moment. Then what’s next?
The Strangest Tool In There: There are two: a bowl scraper and a putty knife. With the former, Hetrick says one of his teachers in culinary school was a German Master Baker. “He’d always yell at students and ask, ‘Where is your bowl scraper?’” Guilt obviously runs deep with Hetrick. As a result of the early culinary school traumas, “I’ll probably carry one until I retire,” he admits. “And I hope that’s as far as it goes.” As for the putty knife, he says it comes in handy for scrubbing down flat-top grills by cleaning up the edges and cutting into caked-on food.
