The Experiment

Every Spring I begin waking up at the five o’clock hour.  It could be the earlier rising sun or the joy of being out of the gloom of winter.  But I believe it has more to do with my mind and body anticipating life on the schooner, lighting the wood stove at 4:30 to begin a long and adventurous day of sailing and cooking. 

This is also when the dreams begin.  Feeling like a dog running in its sleep, I dream of pork roasts refusing to temp beyond 105 degrees, of mountains of over-proofed dough sticking and deflating all around me, and sauces curdling while my back is turned from the stove.  Cooking nightmares rank among the worst dreams I’ve had, and ones about the schooner always reflect my real life fears. 

Trying a new menu or recipe on the schooner has its limitations and drawbacks.  The first is that there are a finite amount of provisions.  Due to humidity and space constraints, I don’t really want to carry an extra twenty-five pound bag of flour on board.  Rowing out to the store is not always an option.  Secondly, if I try something new and it just doesn’t come together, a meal may be short one course that night.  So last summer when I considered making croissants before breakfast, images of exploding buttery dough followed by sad sailor faces haunted my imagination.  I also have a tendency to stray from a baking recipe, even on my first go around.  Those of you who remember the great sourdough starter disaster of 2004, I am sure you can relate.  The following experiment may be as much about practicing self control as it is scientific.

I haven’t made croissants since “laminated dough day” in culinary school.  Anyone who has made this dough from scratch can surely relate to my hesitation of attempting it in a hot, pitching galley with few controllable variables.  If I can practice working with the dough at home while simulating less than ideal conditions, then perhaps I’ll feel confident enough to make some buttery flaky pastries for our guests this summer. 

Step one: find a recipe that fits with my cooking style.  That part was easy.  Tartine, a pastry book by a couple* who own a San Francisco bakery and cafe, has a straight forward but detailed recipe using quality ingredients and allowing time to maximize flavor development. 

Step two: using the scientific method, establish a control group and a series of experimental groups.**  The control group involves using a fully functioning refrigerator, freezer, and oven that operate at exact temperatures, using the conditions specified in the recipe.  The experimental groups involve varying temperature and time conditions, from an oven that won’t heat above 350 (those rainy mornings can be a drag), to rolling out the dough in a 90 degree prep space (still not sure how I am going to simulate this condition), and chilling without the use of a freezer.  And then...?  Am I supposed to fix those problems?  We will have to see how they turn out, and then figure out how to compensate to yield more consistent results.  Other variables, such as putting shims under the legs of one side of my prep table to simulate heeling over, may just have to wait.

Step three: gather ingredients, turn on music (this is called negative control, having no effect on the result, at least I assume so), and apron up. 

Because I only have one kitchen and a single set of equipment, I must perform my control group first, with the successive experimental groups in the following days or weeks.  The side benefit is enjoying (hopefully) perfect croissants first.  Then oddballs to follow.  

 

Without going into too much detail, the basic idea behind laminated dough, or puff pastry, is a base dough slightly sweetened and with a long slow ferment rolled with many layers of butter.  The layers of fat combined with added yeast make for a high rise of flaky buttery baked layers of pastry.  This particular recipe has me fold the dough like an envelope (two folds, making three layers) four times.  Anyone want to venture a guess as to how many layers that makes?  (and yes Dad, the answer is an odd number)

What happened with the control group:

Rolling out detrempe (that is the base dough, and this is the easy part)

Spreading butter over 2/3 of the rolled out dough

The second envelope fold, butter fully enclosed

After the third fold

After four folds and an overnight to rise, cutting to form croissants

Rolling croissants, remember to stretch the tail as I roll

Long and slow rise

Baked and cooled just enough to....

Eat! With truffle honey and soft ripe cheese

The next phase is to repeat the process shown above with the different variables.  I made a large batch of the base dough and froze it so that the results will all be based on the final few stages of making the croissants.  Stay tuned for some funky looking pastry, hopefully they will still be edible, and even more so educational!


*By Elisabeth M. Prueitt and Chad Robertson, owners of Tartine Bakery
**I would like to say here that my Dad should be proud.  He always inspires the little scientist in me.  Also, I expect his full critique when my research is complete, requested or not.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Growing up in New Hampshire, I always felt as though we had a small farm.  With more than an acre of trees and grass and garden, I could jump from rock to rock or swing from tree to tree all day without touching the same place twice.  I quoted Robert Frost daily as I stumbled across a stone wall long forgotten, listened to the rustling leaves of birch trees, and chased toads and snakes over the grass and into a hill thick with wildflowers.

While I fancied myself a young farmer, the reality was this.  My parents are incredibly hard working green-thumbed gardening enthusiasts, and I had enough of an appreciation of it to be nearby while all of their hard work was going on.  I walked barefoot along the edges of raised beds while my father watered in the early evening, was the first to announce (mouth crunching) the earliest of edible snap peas, and was a seeker of green hornworms lurking among tomato plants for my dad to remove (I, of course, would not touch those hungry horned villains).

Those childhood memories are the benchmark in which I have compared all gardens and yards since.  When I was seventeen, my parents moved to Ohio as I went off to college.  A scant stony acre became five flat ones, rich and dark with fertile soil.  To romanticize the grounds there was a bona fide barn, pond, and horse fences.  Yet it wasn’t the magical garden of my childhood.  It was surely easier to grow everything in the relatively flat landscape devoid of rocks and April snow and confined space.  I ate my first homegrown cantaloupe the second summer we were there, and toted a frog raised from a tadpole back to school in the fall.

Since then, the outdoor spaces to my homes have fallen short of my hopes.  Tiny over-shaded mossy lawns, one hot sunny field overrun with poison ivy and impossible to till without some serious equipment, an apartment here and there with no outdoor space, and one over-manicured yard that I did not have the heart to dismantle to become my fairy garden.

Until now.  Our new old house sits almost in the middle of a three thousand square foot lot.  It has taken me years to adjust to city living: tiny, efficient houses with even tinier yards.  No spacious houses with a room just for muddy boots and damp outerwear.   But I finally have an appreciation for it.  We have mastered living in 800 square feet of a house, and this Spring we are going to maximize the potential of our cozy backyard.  Not sure where our dirty yardwork clothes are going to hang, but we’ll find a spot.

Luckily, our outdoor space was already beautiful when we moved in, making it easy to envision our dream yard.  Our goal is to create a vegetable garden space without disrupting the mature growth of a plum tree, an apple tree, lilacs and hydrangea bushes, wisteria vines, and a hedge along the perimeter thick with irises, daffodils, crocuses, and hyacinth.  With decks in both the front and back, we'll have ample room for some growing containers and seating areas from which to admire them.

My friend and farmer Trish told me that the beauty of a small garden is the opportunity and need to be creative and make every bit of space count.  With her farmed two acres on a four acre plot of land, she doesn’t have to plant anything in wine boxes or pots, and can allow a row to sit fallow for half a season until she decides what to plant next or how to rotate her numerous crops.  While agonizing over how much of the grass to edge for our garden border, I envied her vast space.

Our true city dwelling friends of Brooklyn and Chicago have managed to grow peppers, herbs, scallions, and more in window boxes and on patios without complaint.  So I feel lucky to have this much room, even without a grove of birches or a strawberry field.

Jaimy and I have both grown vegetables before, from my gardens in Maine and Ohio to Jaimy's in British Columbia and North Carolina.  But how do things grow in the Pacific Northwest?  With some personal advice from friends and neighbors, along with a bit of reading, we quickly determined which vegetables to grow and how to best prepare the soil.  While I still can't believe that there may be more than one day a week with sun, our neighbor insists that it gets pretty hot come July and August.  So we proceed while looking doubtfully at the indefinitely rainy forecast.

This is what we've done so far:

We dug up our main growing area, added two pathways for ease of harvest and care

Jaimy dug up and edged this extra sunny spot with brick

Herbs planted in wine boxes, brought inside waiting for the hailstorm

After planting seeds and buying a couple of starts, day 4

Spinach: day 4

Broccoli and pole beans, day 12

Spinach: day 12

All veggies: day 12

The starts we have growing in the big front window include: fennel, snap peas, pole beans, green beans, mustard greens, spinach, arugula, little gem lettuce, French crisp lettuce, broccoli, cucumbers, and brussels sprouts.  I've been advised to direct seed the peas and beans, so we have some seeds nestled in the ground outside as well.  Our window seedlings of the peas and beans are the backup plan/experiment.  Once we know which will grow and produce better as the summer progresses, we'll have a better plan for next year.

Outside, we also have beets, radishes, and carrots planted.  It has been seven days and only today have I started to see little green radish leaves poking through the soggy earth.  It has rained the past five out of seven days, so I imagine the carrots and beets are still hiding from the rain or the seeds will rot into the soil.  We will have to wait and see!

The big day to move starts outside is planned for April 5th, weather depending.  The last frost will hopefully be over, and we will have the first part of the week to harden off the starts out in the elements.  Stay tuned for more (and not so lengthy) updates on the yard!

How Hard To Push

There is too much noise in my head.  Do this, make that happen, work harder over there.  Since leaving one job and going out on my own a couple of years ago, I find it difficult to whittle down the possibilities.  When I worked in a restaurant, the potential was not even on my radar.  Backbreaking, sweaty, exhausting, hard work.  But simple.  I knew what each day would look like, (a ridiculously long day), and I found comfort in that. 

Now every day looks different.  Sometimes I am cooking in Seattle, but often in another state with a whole new crew, along with Jaimy of course.  Some mornings begin with collecting eggs and cutting heads of lettuce and fennel bulbs from dewy garden beds, others begin lighting a wood stove and watching bald eagles hunt (or scavenge, really) for their morning meal.  Distractions include setting sail or watching a herd of elk cross a river.  Other times I am setting a stage for a celebrity chef, hundreds of audience members wondering when I’ll step aside so that Bobby Flay or Emeril can make their entrance.

These past few years have been a revelation.  Having committed to the culinary world for a profession continues to be the best difficult decision I’ve ever made.  But now I am coming to bear the full weight of what it means to create my own job.  And it is completely narcissistic.  I am not an employer trying to make payroll for dozens of hardworking cooks and servers.  I am simply trying to make it so that at the end of the day, I only answer to one person.  Me.

But me has been asking a lot of questions lately. 

“What have you actually gotten done today?” 

“Why are you spending hours researching food carts, when did you decide to do this?” 

“How is anyone ever going to find out about your services if you lock yourself in the office all day?”

Jaimy and I talk about our long term careers often.  Where do we see ourselves in a year?  In five? Ten? Thirty?  How do we plan to get there?  I often feel that we need a timeline, a bullet point list, and specific if-then analysis directly linking every single action we take to our future.  Control.  That noise in my head?  It sounds a lot like trying to control something that doesn’t want to be confined by my brain. 

Most will agree that everyone works best with a plan.  Creating goals and a path can be fun, and it also gets everyone on the same page.  But once the planning session is over, Jaimy is able to move on.  His mind finds peace in the present.  I marvel at this ability, explaining the constant stress discussion going on in my mind to him.  He tells me not to force it, just to open myself to the opportunities and allow it to happen.

Which leads to the question, how hard to push?

My business training taught me that we must focus on what we are good at, and find ways to get the other stuff done.  Whether it is hiring someone else to do the accounting, bringing in a gardener to tend the veggies, or even enlisting help to renovate an outdated living space, we can’t to everything ourselves.  It is inefficient and can be crazy making.  But I ignore the logic.  I want to dabble in everything, but also be an expert at it.  In a given day I decide that I would like to be a master gardener, a wine expert, teacher, interior designer, carpenter, bookkeeper, writer, chef, prep cook, and dishwasher. 

A friend says I should go on Top Chef, and I think, “YES!”  The neighborhood pea patch is looking for a new volunteer organizer, and I think, “I am the man for the job!”  A prize is being offered for the best literary work submitted to a magazine, and I think, “THIS is what I’ve been waiting for!”

So before I do it all, I will take a moment.  I’ll look out the back window at the freshly turned soil lightening in the afternoon sun and I will not begin sowing rows.  I’ll turn my head from the dishes in the sink.  I will not check my inbox, and while I’m at it, I’ll consolidate the recently collected tax documents and put them away.  I will close the artisan bread book and guide to molecular gastronomy and slide them back on the shelf.  And I will breathe.  And not push.  Not today.

Good Cook, Bad Cook

For the past few weeks, our tiny cooking space has become a test kitchen for summer house and galley menus.  Our adventure in Maine is definitely going to be a wild fast ride, and if I’m not planning ahead, I may fall into the pattern of weekly menu repeats.  I loved “taco Tuesdays” as a kid, but looking back, I am sure that my mother groaned every time she picked up another package of ground beef and taco mix. 

This morning, as I turned apple cider doughnuts over in their bubbling hot oil, I thought, “well, I’m definitely not doing this for my health.”  Last summer I brought together my favorite doughnut recipes to form one easy and reliable favorite.  I knew the recipe by heart and was able to easily adjust the liquid to flour ratio for damp days.  I could also whip them out in less time than it took me to gather ingredients for the new recipe this morning.

While scrambling to layer paper towels over a cooling rack, dough balls quickly browning to a questionable darkness, I had to ask the question, “why am I making more work for myself?”  Businesses run well when they have systems.  A static menu that is driven by standardized recipes reinforces consistent production, ordering, and costing standards (not to mention profitability, or at the very least knowing if you are making or losing money).  When working with our small business clients in any industry, I remember constantly having to revisit the owner’s desire to reinvent the wheel every day.  We worked hard to establish procedures and protocols, and then trained employees to follow them.  It was usually the owner who was the first to break the rules.

One particular client came to me with her frustrations over the new system of operations we had established.  “I went into business for myself so that I wouldn’t have a boss telling me what to do anymore.  Now I have to answer to that stupid manual.  It heckles me from the shelf every time I try to do something differently.”  I recall how frustrating it was for me to work with owners who didn’t understand the importance of consistency.  But it was also frustrating for them because they wanted the freedom to change things on a whim.  What we often found, however, was that margins were sliver thin or non-existent, customers were confused by the inconsistencies, and employees were not held accountable for their actions. 

Today, I sit on the other side of the desk, but I don’t have my own small business consultant.  Instead, I have a good and responsible little business woman on one shoulder, suit neatly pressed, arm waving an organized clip board from which she nags me about accounting and standardization.  On the other shoulder, there is a little chef with flour on her face and an excited look of inspiration, urging me to prepare new dishes with whatever ingredients are fresh, regardless of cost or what the consumers want.

The concept of the “fresh sheet” is grounded in the commitment to prepare the freshest and most locally available ingredients for diners.  Some menus are printed daily (or written on a chalkboard, verbalized by ambitious servers, or posted online), while others change weekly, monthly, or seasonally.  While a fresh sheet supports the culture of the Slow Food Movement, current trends might be about more than what was just harvested at the farm or hooked on the fishing boat.  Us cooks get all excited over a new immersion circulator, a Paco Jet, or dehydrator.  We ask for more details when hearing about the latest and greatest way Chef Sundstrom or some other local iconic chef is preparing ramps.  And when a new chef begins gaining accolades, the rest of us discuss their menu, our personal dining experiences, and their overall fit in the Seattle food scene.  This is what makes cooking exciting and fun, being able to direct the daily menu to follow (or lead) the flow of the whole food scene, minute by minute, day by day.

In other words, this is why we’re cooks, or at least what makes being a cook so exciting.  At the same time, every cook, whether they are on prep or running the line, has to be a manager.  A manager of ingredients, of time, of their space and station, and their future.  But many of us also fancy ourselves as artists, not held down by the rigid structure of a standardized recipe. 

But bad things can happen when a boss tells their employees to “get creative”.  One particular example stands out in my mind.  When we were just getting started, the same client who was opposed to having an operations manual, invited me in for lunch at her cafe.  I had already eaten, but came in for coffee, dessert, and a glimpse of how service was going.  I ordered a piece of chocolate fudge cake.  As part of training her new employees, my client had told her team to “have fun, get creative.”  My cake arrived garnished with nicoise olives and basil. 

So what is my personal culinary threshold?  Writing a new menu each week costs me hours in brainstorming, planning, testing, and ordering.  Then there is also execution time, as it takes so much longer to cook something for the first, second, third times as it does the hundredth time.  But that hundredth time, that exhausting, “we’re having this again?” feeling that can be so much worse for the thrill-seeking cook than the consumer. 

I believe what it comes down to is what we’re willing to do for love.  I love to cook.  Period.  New menu items, however exciting, are more about honing new skills than seeking new love.  The love is there with dishes new and old, it isn't dependent on being entertained by a new menu.  At the same time, this research feels good, like my favorite thing to do.  And yet it is my job.  As soon as it begins to feel like work, I'll have to reconsider the process.

There's A Hole In My Heart Where You Used To Be. The Bagel: A Love Story

There is this one round chewy luxury of a breakfast food that I have longed for ever since moving to Seattle: the bagel.  It seems that everywhere I have lived has had a local institution with their own special recipe secrets, unique clientele, and rituals that let you know you’re home. 

My first eye opening experience with the bagel was in college in Ohio.  Bagel And Deli was a fast paced little restaurant, as narrow as a hallway and always full of every walk of life.  With what seemed like hundreds of interesting options (like the Randy Ayers, Pig In The Mud, Missy’s Bloodbath, or the tribute to our local basketball star, The Szczerbiak), on any given night this place was in its bagel sandwich pressing groove.

A few years later, I spent several weeks with my friend Sara in New York City.  At the time, she lived on the Upper East Side, and to this day is as in love with a good bagel as I am.  Due to their carboliscious density, bagels have kind of a bad rap that never quite recovered from the Atkin’s push of the late ’90’s.  (Not to mention the irresistible delight of biting into softened cream cheese smeared all over the crunchy toasted bagel).  We would start the day by discussing our more responsible breakfast options, scanning the fridge and feigning dismay when we didn’t have the healthy ingredients.  One of us would suggest (as though we had just come up with it right then), that maybe we could just stop by the bagel place on her way to work.  It was so close to the green line stop, it just made sense.  And so we did.

Other delicious bagels come to mind over time as well.  While far from perfect, the Dunkin Donuts everything bagel was my first exposure to a bagel that did not come in a plastic sleeve of six.  After college, our mini reunions in Chicago often demanded bagels for our epic breakfast all day parties, with one or two of the ladies setting out into the windy cold to fetch a dozen from Einstein Bros.  And then there is Hole In The Wall, across from the shipyard in Rockland, Maine.  Going there always guaranteed a nice long view to the harbor and a chance to read the local paper cover to cover. 

Here in Seattle, I haven’t yet found a delicious bagel.  Based on my past memories, I would venture to say that I need a ritual to make any establishment legit.  So this time, I decided to make them myself.  I first made a list of all of my favorite things about a bagel.  Dense.  Flavorful.  Chewy.  Crunchy crust.  Tasty salty toppings.  Never cinnamon raisin.  Ever. 

I then turned to my most trusted bread book: The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.  This book came to my rescue when I wanted to serve English muffins to our sailing guests.  I had an extra good feeling when I saw that their beauty shot of the finished bagels were presented on the same plates we had growing up. 

I wanted to make sure that this recipe would help create my dream bagel as described above.  I read that these would be dense, as the dough has a much lower liquid to flour ratio than any other bread, at around 50% (as opposed to 55-65%).  They would be flavorful because of the long, slow fermentation time in the fridge, allowing the malt and naturally occurring enzymes to work their magic developing flavor.  The chewiness would come from the slow but not too high rise, the dense dough, and the boiling before baking.  Chewy bagels are made from boiling before baking, while softer bagels are steamed first.  The recipe promised a crunchy crust as long as I boiled them in water with baking soda and baked them at a high temperature of 500 degrees.  Tasty toppings would be up to me, and I already had poppy, sesame, and cumin seeds, onion flake, and coarse salt and pepper standing by.

The Recipe
Sponge:
1 tsp  instant yeast
4 c  unbleached bread flour (I used AP)
2 1/2 c  water, room temperature

I mixed these together well and covered with plastic, leaving at room temperature for 2 hours until bubbly and almost doubled in size. 

Dough:
1/2 tsp  instant yeast
3 3/4 c  unbleached bread flour
2 3/4 tsp  salt
2 tsp  malt powder, malt syrup, honey, or brown sugar

Starting with the sponge, I made the dough by mixing in the yeast, followed by the salt, malt, and flour.  I saved the last 3/4 c of flour until I started kneading and slowly worked it in over 10 minutes.  Unlike many other doughs, this one was not tacky, but rather firm.

I then went on to divide the dough into 12 pieces and rounded them up into balls.  I covered them with a damp towel and walked away for 20 minutes.  (This time was spent calling my mother to tell her what I was doing.) 

Shaped and ready to go!

Boiling the bagels

To avoid going on for pages and pages, I’ll summarize the next steps and tell you that I shaped them into bagels, then covered and placed them in the fridge overnight.  In the morning I boiled a huge pot of water with a couple tablespoons of baking soda and boiled the dough in batches for two minutes per side.  I sprinkled the bagels with toppings and popped them in a 500 degree oven, rotating every five minutes until they were crusty and firm to tap, about 12 minutes. 

Finished bagels

Then I ate them.  The first one I went with the classic, just good quality butter.  The second one graduated to cream cheese status.  The rest have been enjoyed by Jaimy and myself, mostly bagel sandwiches with cream cheese, hard salami, sharp cheddar, and a fried egg.  I would have included a photo of it, but I am pretty sure my health insurance provider would drop me if they saw it.  I should probably make an appointment to get my cholesterol checked. 

What is your favorite bagel and where is it from?

The Things I Miss The Most

The other evening I went out to dinner with friends.  Over bountiful salads, a croque monsieur, and steak frites, we landed on the topic of comfort foods and things we miss from our youth.  From doughnuts to Spam, we each had different thoughts on childhood culinary delights.  It is so interesting how canned corned beef can make one person so nostalgic, and another traumatized at the sheer memory of opening that can.  For the record, breakfast, lunch, and dinner were all represented in the wonder-meat discussion.

This is just one example of many food related nostalgic discussions.  Everyone’s favorite comfort foods seem to stem from family tradition (including spiritual or ethnic customs), geographic location, and of course those unique discoveries and circumstances from which we draw our best (and worst) memories.  I believe that there is a worldwide understanding of the sacred love of a meal made by one’s mother, father, or grandparent.  Last summer, I watched a good friend labor over a very special cheesecake.  It was her mother-in-law’s recipe, and she was trying to recreate it for her husband on his birthday.  Desperately trying to source Zwiebeck cookies (or some kind of teething cookie for the unique crust), she cast aside her Pastry Chef degree experience in order to reproduce this sacred cake.  It is one of those weird things, this silent respect for the food made by those who raised us.

I will always remember my father taking the family on an adventure into the heart of Lowell, MA to seek out George’s Subs.  This was the sub shop that we used as a basis of comparison to all other sandwich establishments.  When we went, my father told the story (every single time) about going to George’s with my mother back when he was studying at UMass Lowell.  I think it has been about eighteen years since I have feasted on their Italian sub, but I can still feel the subtle softness of the bread and taste the zesty vinegar over mortadella, salami, ham, and provolone. 

And, of course, there are the emotionally and gag reflex triggered negative memories.  To this day, I completely dissect fillet of sole, remembering myself as a seven year old with a needle-like bone poking into my narrow throat.  My mother still talks about being forced to eat canned asparagus when her family was stationed in Germany.  To this day, I believe she skips the canned food aisle, hoping to avoid shuddering at the memory. 

Before I get to the food item that inspired my latest project, I want to make a list of my personal comfort foods.  This list includes childhood memories, brief experiences and homes along the way (where I needed a little extra love, even if it was in the form of food), and things I love now as I build my own house of memories and traditions. 

My all time childhood favorite was ground beef tacos, the kind with crunchy shells from a box and grated cheese, chopped tomato, and iceberg lettuce.  Sausage bread (do I detect a ground meat theme here?), where Mom baked fresh bread with sharp white cheddar and spicy sausage rolled up in it.  Chicken with rice and a creamy dijon sauce, where Mom could sneak a huge pile of broccoli onto the plate and I’d still eat every last bite.  Ham glazed with pineapple and maraschino cherries, with the warm aroma beating down the drafty chill of Christmas day at Grandma’s house.  Sweet peas picked fresh from the vine and served in a bowl of ice water, Mom’s tan gardening arms hugging me tightly.  Fried dough on the weekend with Dad and my brother Adam, our misadventures in the kitchen when Mom was at work.  The dough came fresh out of the hot oil and directly into a paper bag with cinnamon sugar- one of us shaped the dough, Dad fried it, and the other shook the bag before piling them high on a plate.  Along with this memory, I recall the sound of Dad popping corn on the stovetop, shaking the pot vigorously over the electric coil to keep the kernels from burning.  That too went into a paper bag, this time shaken with butter and salt. 

Despite starting to drink coffee at fifteen (I loved Mom’s coffee breath in the early morning, much as my cat loves mine now), I truly fell in love with coffee in college.  Far from home I found a new family of friends, where my best memories revolved around our favorite coffee shop named Buzz and a certain red kitchen table on Vine Street.  We drank from thrift store mugs and shared stories of the day and dreams (and fears) of the future.  My last semester of school was especially stressful, and my friend Megan used to come by and start my coffee pot on her way to work.  For the first time since living with my parents, I awoke to the aroma of someone loving me unconditionally. 

When I spent a semester in Italy, my favorite comfort foods included pizza di carciofi (artichoke pizza) and ravioli di noci alle panna e gorgonzola (Walnut ravioli with a gorgonzola cream sauce).  Practicing restraint had never been one of my strengths.  Back at school, I matured beyond weekend Papa John’s pizza with garlic sauce and started actually cooking.  My dear friend Alicia showed me a love for food that I had tucked away for years, and we spent a summer making the best pizzas, salads, tacos, and pancakes I can remember. 

Then, in Maine, for the first time in my life I started to find comfort in my own cooking.  This opened up a whole new world to me, and while I didn’t know it at the time, began to shape my future.  It took the patient wisdom of my culinary and life mentor, Ellen, to show me the value of being methodical and organized in cooking (and let’s face it, also in health, matters of the heart, and pretty much across the board).  It is there where I never tired of making apple crisp, rustic french style loaves of bread, chowder and tomato based stews, and fresh pasta served with a bolognese that simmered for hours on end. 

Now, in Seattle, the food I make is a collage of those memories.  Jaimy and I share experiences of our youth and travels through what we cook for one another.  I also develop new meals inspired by current ideas and what I am learning now.  What hasn’t changed is the love I put in the food.  What has changed is the patience.  I remember jumping up and down, so excited for the fried dough to be ready.  Had it been up to me I would have pulled it half raw out of the oil.  Last week I fried chicken wings Vietnamese style, and while I contemplated pulling the wings as soon as I saw the telltale darkening of the skin, I patiently (still hovering though) waited for the deep golden brown that promised a crispy bite. 

A bit long on this one.  Tomorrow, I’ll dive into the thing I miss the most.  There will even be pictures.

First Day Clumsies

Even the most confident of cooks are nervous come dawn on the first day of a stage.  A stage is derived from the French term stagiaire, meaning “apprentice”.  It is typically unpaid, underwent by students or professionals in the culinary industry for the purposes of learning new techniques and gaining experience.  An applicant for a cooking position will often undergo a stage for the purposes of exemplifying their skills and proving worthiness. 

The most difficult obstacle to overcome is operating in a foreign environment with new people, a different menu, and unique methods of preparation of that menu.  Any cook who proclaims how they feel at home and quickly adapt in any kitchen is a liar.  Able to adapt more quickly than at, say, stepping onto an ice rink at the exact moment they change the skating direction?  Perhaps.  But complete ease of stepping into a new kitchen?  There are too many obstacles stacked in the way.  Flaming, sharp, slippery, perishable, hot-tempered obstacles. 

In an effort to arrive in a timely fashion, I gave myself forty minutes to accomplish a fifteen minute walk.  Arriving to a locked door and dark windows, I decided to walk off my nerves and rounded the corner.  When I came back ten minutes later, the kitchen was in full swing.  Of course.  I was so flushed from the cold that tears stung my eyes in the new warmth and my hands were close to numb.  I fumbled with my shirt buttons and apron, barely able to grasp the zipper of my knife roll.  My shaking fingers were surely misinterpreted as nervousness.  (Thinking back, perhaps my hands were shaking from nerves, maybe I blamed the cold to make myself feel better).

I had prepared by researching the restaurant ahead of time.  The menu was available for download online, and I had done my best to memorize the components and preparations of each dish.  Apparently that was last week’s menu. 

The overwhelming feeling upon entering a new kitchen for a stage is that everyone, from the Chef to the guy on Garde Manger who is afraid you’re going to steal his job, is watching you.  Willing you to succeed.  Willing you to fail.  Typically a stage works for several hours before anyone even speaks to them.  I was surprised to find out that all of the cooks had reviewed my resume, and spoke up quickly about my work history and previous experience.  (I trailed in a restaurant last fall, and the cooks did not speak to me until the third day.  And only then did a line cook who had been eyeing me for three days say, “so, are you like, a student or something?”  The Chef piped up to the other cooks about my experience, and they spent the next two days asking questions about it and trying to compensate for having been so aloof.)

Even through the tougher questions pertaining to my French training, this part calmed my nerves a bit.  Looking around, I could begin to clearly see where equipment was stored, and started taking a mental inventory of ingredients.  I took in the ovens, the dish pit, began sorting out who held what position.  A deep breath.  Getting comfortable.

And then, while removing a thigh bone from the chicken I was butchering, I stabbed my finger with a boning knife.  Instead of being the fierce and fast intern I had planned to be that day, I was quietly trying to locate the first aid kit without anyone noticing.  I had planned to be stealthy with my prep, not wrapping a self-inflicted stab wound.  Ask any cook out there how they feel when they cut themselves.  Nobody cares about the pain or cleaning out the wound, they just don't want it to slow their progress.  But the fact of the matter is that we can't have a bloody wound all over our quality ingredients.  So we have to deal with it.  Mothers would be mortified to see their cooking sons and daughters doctoring cuts with super glue and duct tape, anything to contain the annoying blood so that they can keep working. 

Every cook I talk to has first day horror stories about how they managed to filet open their hand, sprain an ankle, pour boiling water on the Chef de Cuisine’s clogs, or cook rice for staff meal not realizing it was the truffle rice.  Interns have been known to use potatoes to make stock (this does not work, trust me), accidentally tell the owner that his wife seems like an odd lady, mistake pork lard for fondant icing, and dump 50 pounds of hot veal bones on the floor.

While in culinary school, a good friend staged at a well respected restaurant downtown.  Before service, she supremed open her finger instead of the blood orange she was holding.  Later, while in the walk-in fridge, she slipped and fell on the floor in a very dramatic cartoon-like flop.  Instead of the responsible next step of checking herself for injuries, she quickly looked about to make sure that nobody had witnessed her embarrassing act.  Instead of asking if she’d been okay, even I quickly asked, “oh no!  Did anyone see you?”.  When we talked about it just last week, she didn’t immediately recall what she learned that day, instead remembering only the mortifying details.

Someday I will probably talk about what I learned the first day.  For now, I’ll summarize what stands out in my memory, much like the aforementioned details of my friend.  After cutting myself, I impaled my gut on the handle of the prosciutto slicer twice.  I then got it caught in my apron and had one of those embarrassing flailing turn-stumbles.  In our last encounter, I was passing through the tight space on my tiptoes and got the handle caught in my pocket, ripping my pants open enough to expose my underwear.  (I do not need a reminder as to my widest body part, but that damn slicer just had to heckle me all night).  While fetching an eight quart batch of brodo (that is an Italian style broth), I poured enough down the front of my shirt to enroll in a wet t-shirt contest.  Rounding the corner toward the dish pit, I forgot to announce myself and ran right into a server, accidentally grazing her boob.  To top it all off and really complete the night, I splashed bleach water across my legs and turned my already ripped black pants into a polka dot design. 

I’ve never considered myself to be a clumsy person.  Arriving home a hot mess twelve hours later, I had a hard time feeling otherwise.  Overall, it had been a very successful night for the restaurant.  Whether I rode on the coattails of the other cooks’ hard work or stood out on my own, misadventures notwithstanding, I was perceived to be worthy of working in the kitchen.  While I pulled dried bits of dough from my hair in the mirror that night, I smiled at my reflection.  I would live to cook another day.  And it will be in the same kitchen that seemed like a war zone on day one.  I’ll conquer it yet, it will just take a little time.