Grilled Pork Tenderloin
Living Small — but not too small
This has been a tough month financially. My two most regular clients have been on hiatus and although my one-off business (dinner parties, picnics, that kind of thing) has continued to improve, food costs have been eating me alive.
I've always had a problem managing food costs. My attitude is I want to eat the best food I can find and that attitude extends to my clients as well -- I want to serve them the best food I can find. But food prices have risen a lot this year (cutting into profits from my regular clients who have a fixed, per-service, price) and although I cost the menu for a one-off before quoting a price I've done a poor job of estimating direct subsidiary costs.
Direct costs are the costs of all the fundamental elements of the meal. Meat, vegetables, fresh herbs, heavy cream, canned stock when I don't have homemade. These items compose the bulk of the meal.
Pantry costs are the ingredients of a dish that I amortize over multiple clients. Dried herbs, oils, vinegars, flour, wine, and on and on. I figure these constitute 25 percent of total food costs for my personal chef service clients.
Direct Subsidiary Costs are where I really get burned. These are expenditures associated directly with a meal, but they only apply to one-off meals. They're for things like flowers for a table setting, radishes for a garnish, or nice paper napkins for a fancy picnic. I never think of them while I'm planning the menu and concentrating on the food and recipes and burners and oven space and the 100 other things needed to serve a fancy meal precisely at 6:30 PM on a Monday evening. No, I think of these things when I'm in the store buying the ingredients or the night before as I'm working out the cooking schedule and figuring out what equipment I need to lug to the site.
Direct Subsidiary items are non-essential from the flavor standpoint, but essential for creating a perfect experience for the client. My Monday night dinner party cost me $15 in unanticipated direct subsidiary costs. A 23 percent cost increase over my estimate. Damn! I've got to do better.
All of this is to say I'm broke again after a decent spring and early summer. So I've been eating out of my freezer as much as possible. A good thing as it's time to scrub my refrigerator again. Hiding in the back I found a pork tenderloin from Laurel Creek Farms.
Laurel Creek is owned and worked by a fellow named Tracy Monday. I'd guess he's in his early forties. He's a short and rotund fellow with a slow, but ready, smile; a soft voice; old Southern manners; and the bib overalls that would make him a complete cliché if you didn't shake his hand and feel the callouses. He exudes honesty like parmigiano regiano exudes flavor crystals.
I've been saving the tenderloin for a special occasion, and I guess not starving to death would have to do. So I moved it to the fridge to thaw and gave some thought to how to cook it. I finally settled on marinating it in wine, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, and a touch of lemon juice. Once thawed, the tenderloin got 24 hours in the marinade, was patted dry, and went on a hot grill for 2 minutes per side (I figure the cylindrical tenderloin has four sides). As you can see it was nicely pink in the center and I only needed a fork to cut it thanks to Tracy.
To go along with it I blanched some broccoli rabe then sautéed it in olive oil with pancetta, garlic, and anchovies. I also repeated the Potatoes Parmigiano recipe because I had a few taters left and it's so damned good.
Tonight I plan a wonderful cold broth based on fresh ice cubes and to go along with it some moldy asiago. And, well, there are a few tomatoes I got at the farmers' market yesterday and a cucumber. Checking freezer... Hmmm... Wonder what I can do with raw pig fat? Oh, I know...
This has been a tough month financially. My two most regular clients have been on hiatus and although my one-off business (dinner parties, picnics, that kind of thing) has continued to improve, food costs have been eating me alive.
I've always had a problem managing food costs. My attitude is I want to eat the best food I can find and that attitude extends to my clients as well -- I want to serve them the best food I can find. But food prices have risen a lot this year (cutting into profits from my regular clients who have a fixed, per-service, price) and although I cost the menu for a one-off before quoting a price I've done a poor job of estimating direct subsidiary costs.
Tonight I plan a wonderful cold broth based on fresh ice cubes and to go along with it some moldy asiago.
"Direct subsidiary costs?" Ok, just for the hell of it, here's how I classify food costs. Note: this is my working approach, not my accounting approach. (Just in case some IRS dude sees this and tries to hang me on it.)Direct costs are the costs of all the fundamental elements of the meal. Meat, vegetables, fresh herbs, heavy cream, canned stock when I don't have homemade. These items compose the bulk of the meal.
Pantry costs are the ingredients of a dish that I amortize over multiple clients. Dried herbs, oils, vinegars, flour, wine, and on and on. I figure these constitute 25 percent of total food costs for my personal chef service clients.
Direct Subsidiary Costs are where I really get burned. These are expenditures associated directly with a meal, but they only apply to one-off meals. They're for things like flowers for a table setting, radishes for a garnish, or nice paper napkins for a fancy picnic. I never think of them while I'm planning the menu and concentrating on the food and recipes and burners and oven space and the 100 other things needed to serve a fancy meal precisely at 6:30 PM on a Monday evening. No, I think of these things when I'm in the store buying the ingredients or the night before as I'm working out the cooking schedule and figuring out what equipment I need to lug to the site.
Direct Subsidiary items are non-essential from the flavor standpoint, but essential for creating a perfect experience for the client. My Monday night dinner party cost me $15 in unanticipated direct subsidiary costs. A 23 percent cost increase over my estimate. Damn! I've got to do better.
All of this is to say I'm broke again after a decent spring and early summer. So I've been eating out of my freezer as much as possible. A good thing as it's time to scrub my refrigerator again. Hiding in the back I found a pork tenderloin from Laurel Creek Farms.
Laurel Creek is owned and worked by a fellow named Tracy Monday. I'd guess he's in his early forties. He's a short and rotund fellow with a slow, but ready, smile; a soft voice; old Southern manners; and the bib overalls that would make him a complete cliché if you didn't shake his hand and feel the callouses. He exudes honesty like parmigiano regiano exudes flavor crystals.
I've been saving the tenderloin for a special occasion, and I guess not starving to death would have to do. So I moved it to the fridge to thaw and gave some thought to how to cook it. I finally settled on marinating it in wine, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, and a touch of lemon juice. Once thawed, the tenderloin got 24 hours in the marinade, was patted dry, and went on a hot grill for 2 minutes per side (I figure the cylindrical tenderloin has four sides). As you can see it was nicely pink in the center and I only needed a fork to cut it thanks to Tracy.
To go along with it I blanched some broccoli rabe then sautéed it in olive oil with pancetta, garlic, and anchovies. I also repeated the Potatoes Parmigiano recipe because I had a few taters left and it's so damned good.
Tonight I plan a wonderful cold broth based on fresh ice cubes and to go along with it some moldy asiago. And, well, there are a few tomatoes I got at the farmers' market yesterday and a cucumber. Checking freezer... Hmmm... Wonder what I can do with raw pig fat? Oh, I know...
11 Comments:
Oh, that looks great :) We like to stock up on pork tenderloin when it's on sale here - which is a quite often - and have it at hand in the freezer. Nice.
hi. i mean HIIIII!!!!! i'm in tn tooooooo. i'm in nashville. i know i sound a bit over excited but i feel so alone here in the south - at least when it comes to bloggers. we're a rare breed, i guess... so i really like your blog. and i'll be reading along. i wish knoxville wasn't 4 hours away. i'd love a cooking buddy. or a market buddy. i'm originally from nyc and i've been here for about 13 years or so.
I know this feeling. My husband owns his own business (IT), and while he gets alot of business, we often times have to wait a couple of months to get paid. Plus he often times has to buy equipment for his clients out of pocket (like $3k worth of computers monitors and networking equipment).
It's easy to get frustrated, but we just remind ourselves that we have never gone hungry we have a roof over our head, and clothes on our back. We've got more than alot of other people have.
Anne,
It's one of my favorite cuts of meat.
Claudia,
I've got a brother in NYC, Brooklyn, actually.
Courtney,
Things should improve this fall.
First of all, that tenderloin looks perfectly cooked and mouthwateringly good.
Secondly, like Courtney, my husband has been burned by his last few jobs due to under-estimating. Don't forget to factor in gas/trasportation $$$ as well!
Thirdly, can I just tell you how much I <3 this line?
"He exudes honesty like parmigiano regiano exudes flavor crystals."
S'kat,
First, it was perfectly cooked.{g}
Second,I do factor in transportation costs.
Third, you may.
I guess there's an advantage to catering for time and materials. But having worked for one of Washington's savviest caterers, I have to say that someone with your talents should be making out like a bandit. You should have a place on the bill where you can recoup those costs. Time to re-think that maybe?
Ed,
Yeah, I've bumped my prices for the chef service and I have more control over those costs because I determine the menu. And I have decided, after this latest episode, to charge separately for food costs on catered events.
Here's a rule I came up with when I was a building contractor and then carried into my architecture career: "Bid high -- you might get the job! (And if you don't, you didn't want it.)"
This strategy has always worked well for me...and as you develop a reputation for quality and reliability, people are more and more likely to want to pay whatever it costs...so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy...of course, the prospect of living another month on the freezer and the plastic can make you want to cave but just try it! Nothing like putting in a nice fat proposal and getting the job to make you know the risk was worth it.
Stephen,
I do tend to underprice myself, but not badly. I've just been slow to adapt to rising food costs, and have a bad tendency to forget about those damned "direct subsidiary costs."
kevin, the devil is in the food costs. It was always something we agonized over before and after events. Did we charge too much (not likely)? Did we send too much food? What was the food cost, really? We tinkered with it for years, trying to get it right. And of course the food costs for smaller events are much greater, because the time involved is just as great, something clients don't want to hear. I agree with Stephen: you're worth more, charge for it.
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