Worker Spotlight: Chef David Duvall
Q: How long have you been working at Black Star?
CDD: As of July 1st, I’ve been working at Black Star for one year. I’m currently waiting for the parade I was promised.
Q: What do you do at Black Star?
CDD: Meat and potatoes. I cut up all the chicken, fish, beef, shrimp and chips. Grind and hammer out all the burger patties and occasionally get time to come up with a special or an idea for the menu. But mostly, it’s cutting meat. I am the Prep Czar: the Most Dangerous Man in America. I also yell at people if they don’t leave the kitchen clean.
Q: What is your favorite thing about working in a cooperative environment?
CDD: The lack of micro-managing. Everybody who has passed their 3-month evaluation period is on equal ground, more than welcome to question, suggest or call out anything and anybody they feel might not be quite correct. Of course this opens the door for people who can put on a good first impression but eventually start to feel a little more entitled to try and throw their weight around, but those people always wash out. I also like it because it scares the bejeezus out of most people who can’t imagine a work environment outside of your traditional service industry gig.
Q: What is your favorite dish we’ve ever served?
CDD: Not to blow my own horn, but the last time I cranked out a batch of Caldo de Guero on a cold, rainy February morning, I was very pleased with myself. Because not only was it tasty, but with a little bit of sliced, fresh jalapeno and avacado, it makes ya feel goooood. Aside from that, Chef T’s etouffee is hard to mess with. And I still say that we have the best burger in town.
Q:What is your favorite house brew?
CDD: At the moment, Pneuma. I’m a big fan of hoppy pale ales. IPAs are okay. I kind of look at hops as the spice of the beer world. Too much, and you’re blowing out taste buds, but when you get it just right, so that it’s palatable but still gives you something to “chew on”…now that’s a good beer. I’ve also drunk my bodyweight in Vulcan many times over.
Q:Bourdain’s, ‘Kitchen Confidential’ and Orwell’s, ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ both describe the intense nature of the underground culinary scene in kitchens across the world. How would you compare these depictions to the burgeoning Austin restaurant scene based on your own experience?
CDD: I haven’t read “Down and Out in Paris and London”, but “Kitchen Confidential” made it’s rounds through my circle of friends many years ago, many of whom were already years deep into the kitchen biz before we even graduated high school.
As a rule, kitchen staffs are more-often-than-not populated by alcoholics, drug-users, perverts and miscreants of varying degrees of functionality. Every once in a while, you’ll find some who fancy themselves wordsmiths….. They’re the worst. Anyway, the depictions of hyper-aggressive, high-octane, knife-wielding gorillas with hearts of gold is sadly not far from the truth. Pranks and shit-talk are commonplace, every day occurences. Whether it be frozen shoes or getting trapped in the walk-in cooler, we find very unorthodox ways of relieving the high-stress situation that can be a busy kitchen line on a Friday night. You’re going to get yelled at, you’re going to be insulted, you’re going to have your life threatened. And then you’re going to have beers together at the end of the night. Bourdain was right about everything.
Q: What is the best animal?
CDD: A vaudeville? A nation including one superior creation
A vertebra? Inverted…quite unheard of…
Orphan in a family
And a sole survivor
He’s a living fossil”
If wrath is a venom-injecting spike, lust is having so many babies you need to lay eggs, pride is owning the nicest homes in the neighborhood, vanity is wearing the quirkiest outfit everyday, envy is murdering potential rivals with poison, sloth is floundering around in murky river water, and greed is propogating your seed across millions of years when most of your contemporaries are long dead, then you must bow in awe at the webbed feet of Ornithorhyncus anatinus… The Platypus. Hail Satan!