The Right Tools

Thermometers, organization and common sense all are part of food-safety maintenance

By Margaret Sheridan, Senior Editor -- Restaurants & Institutions, 8/15/2003

For Laurel Cudden, a sense of humor and a healthy dose of common sense are important tools of the trade. Director of food safety and risk assessment for B.R. Guest in New York City—operator of 11 white-tablecloth restaurants, including Atlantic Grill, Dos Caminos, Fiamma and Park Avalon—Cudden dresses herself and her employees to maintain the rigorous safety of foods served at the restaurants. Over a white lab coat, she wears a utility belt jammed with digital thermometers, test strips and flashlights. Must-haves for kitchen staff are gloves, goggles, facemasks, hair restraints and slip-proof shoes.

But even with all this gear and access to increasingly sophisticated electronic monitoring equipment, her credo is to keep things simple. Food safety is about cleanliness, personal hygiene and proper temperatures, she says. A training plan for each operation, with customized checklists for every employee, is vital. So, too, is using all one’s senses, Cudden adds, especially common sense.

Checks and balances
B.R. Guest cooks carry stem thermometers to check temperatures of cooked foods and test strips to determine the concentration of sanitizing solutions. Porters and dining-room managers use flashlights to uncover dirt and crumbs behind kitchen equipment or between cushions in chairs. “There are always nooks and crannies for dirt,’’ Cudden insists. “Anyone can keep a countertop clean, but look at the legs of equipment. That’s where food debris lands and odors start.’’

All staffers receive checklists tailored to their position. Created by Cudden, the laminated, wallet-sized cards review specific tasks pertinent to individual jobs along with universal goals such as strict personal hygiene. Her personal 30-page checklist covers 14 categories.

Employees are trained to run fingers along ledges, shelves and equipment corners in search of grime, and to inspect oven parts, grease traps and equipment legs “on all fours.”

Cudden makes surprise visits to B.R. Guest operations and stages “dress rehearsals” of health department inspections, which can last as long as six hours per restaurant. Employees anticipate her food-safety pop quizzes, brushing up by reviewing personal-safety basics cards.

Shedding light
Disposable gloves, thermometers, cleaning solutions, hairnets and hand towels are standard issue for employees at operations served by Whitsons Food Service, a Huntington Station, N.Y.-based contractor. More importantly, clients—including schools, colleges, B&I dining sites and off-premise catering—get inspections by people such as Chris Fautas.

Whitsons’ regional manager for New Jersey, Fautas insists on inspecting loading docks, corridors, stairways, lifts and walk-in coolers and freezers. He also looks for malfunctions in electrical devices and appliances. “The loading dock is the starting point for the safety of food,” he says. “Good lighting, especially on the loading dock and in walk-ins, is essential. It’s the first thing I look for.”

Top drawer
When David Walzog got the go-ahead to design the kitchen for Strip House at The Westminster Hotel in Livingston, N.J., the executive chef’s wish list drew on his experiences working at the Monkey Bar and Michael Jordan’s The Steak House N.Y.C., both in New York City.

Walzog insisted on 14 sets of refrigerated drawers—where food is held below 40F—for mise en place. Several drawers were installed on the line, providing more space for plate assembly and enabling 14 cooks to keep surfaces clean and orderly.

Drawers and gaskets are cleaned daily, and twice a week they’re disassembled for bleaching. The quarry tile floor in the kitchen is graded and easy to hose down and power wash, he says.

Strip House’s five walk-in coolers are extra-spacious. The lowest shelf is 10 inches off the floor, two inches higher than health codes mandate, Walzog says, to facilitate mopping and cleaning. Rubber-coated shelving resists rust and cleans and moves easily to accommodate a variety of bin sizes. Safety glass and wire grating enclose two pairs of fluorescent bulbs for ceiling light.

Each walk-in is equipped with three hanging thermometers. In addition, Walzog uses a portable battery-operated infrared thermometer. Walk-in air temperatures are recorded three times a day to ensure that proper safety levels are maintained. Strip House also stocks dozens of stem thermometers so each employee can carry one.

Two boxes of gloves are positioned on the hot line and one on the cold line for easy access. Baseball caps or paper toques are the suggested headwear, and black leather shoes with steel toes and sealed tongues are recommended.

Additionally, every manager is certified in ServSafe food-safety basics. “Someone is always going through the ServSafe program, so people are constantly talking it up,” says Walzog. Recent graduates always exhibit improved safety understanding, he says, changing sanitation containers more often and often buying safer shoes.

“The topic of food safety is one that never dies,’’ he says.

Temp workers

B.R. Guest Director of Food Safety and Risk Assessment Laurel Cudden checks temperatures of foods and holding equipment with two types of thermometers: a battery-operated, handheld thermocouple (her favorite) and a bimetallic stem thermometer.

Food-safety authorities approve of the stem version, used by most cooks. It is durable, inexpensive and easily calibrated. The thermocouple, however, is faster and highly accurate. It takes a second or two to get a reading with accuracy of plus or minus 0.9F. The stem thermometer takes seconds longer and is accurate to plus or minus 2F.

Precision comes at a price, however. Thermocouples cost between $100 and $200 each, stem thermometers less than $8. “If you break it, it’s no big deal. If I lose a thermocouple, it is,’’ says Cudden.