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.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
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.)
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.
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?
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 |
 |
| Finished bagels |
What is your favorite bagel and where is it from?
Monday, April 4, 2011
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.
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.
Friday, April 1, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The Beginning
After a full month of meticulously picking out ingredients and preparing a home cooked meal for two, I was starting to go a bit stir crazy. Had I been cooking in a Martha Stewart kitchen overlooking the bay, wandering the gardens with a basket to select ingredients for dinner, it may have been a different story. Except that in our kitchen, I am pretty sure we are the first tenants to ever use anything other than the microwave in our wee cooking space. If I open the fridge, dishwasher, and oven doors, there isn’t a floor anymore. After spending hours in our tiny Capitol Hill kitchen trying to develop the perfect pork rub, twice fry sweet potatoes to make them crispy without being dry, or the pan fry the crispiest yet moist wienerschnitzel, I was ready to cook for someone else. Somewhere else. Nothing beats nurturing the ones you love with food, except maybe a chance to banter and cook alongside some great chefs in a beautiful kitchen.
With a full schedule of cooking planned for summer, I decided to revisit the concept of an apprenticeship this spring. As I mentioned in the last entry, my plan was to never work for free again. The last couple of years has taught me, however, that there are more ways to cook the sizable pantry of ingredients out there than I will ever learn. And my chances of maximizing these skills will not come from any single restaurant. I decided to spend the month of March learning about Piedmontese cuisine (that’s a northwestern Italian region, in case you’re wondering).
Before committing to this path, I evaluated what I would be giving the restaurant. I then listed what I hoped to gain from the experience. It seemed like a fair trade, not to mention a great new group of contacts. In exchange for learning regional preparations of mixing, rolling, and cooking pasta, making ragout and other savory sauces, rich Italian desserts, as well as other preparations yet to unfold, I would be a focused chopper, cleaner, delivery putting away runner, and if they let me, cook. The cost to them: taking the time to show me how they do what they do, a 2 x 3 foot space, and the risk that I would turn around and open a competing Italian restaurant next door. The cost to me: pay, time, my aching feet and back, and any semblance of ego (which, as I am sure you will agree, is a good thing to be rid of).
I am embarrassed to say that I have never applied for a job in the culinary industry. The sub shop at 16 doesn’t count, and every other cooking job I’ve had since has been offered through a contact or by chance. No time to complain about that (I know, poor me, right?), except that I quickly realized that I’ve been lacking the confidence one gains from the application process and overcoming rejection.
This is how I found myself sitting behind the wheel of my car, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. The rain outside had fogged the windows considerably, and my racing heart and panicky breath were muffled by the drops hitting the roof and windshield. My resume sat on the seat beside me, and I could just make out the shadows of figures moving behind the large restaurant windows. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that this could be scary.
I walked through the front door (there is no back door) at the Seattle based Piedmontese establishment, resume in hand, lines well practiced.
The front of house servers, bartender, and floor manager (the gatekeepers) eyed me as I faltered with the door handle. A single anonymous voice from the small crowd, “we’re closed, service starts at 5 pm,” as they all returned to napkin folding and polishing glassware. “Actually, um...” I paused. Two useless words have flooded out of my mouth, and I realize I hadn’t practiced how to get past the aloof gatekeepers. They’ve been heavily prepped to not allow anyone to distract from the kitchen preparations for service. Especially not the chef. But to my surprise, they all turned to me, waiting to hear what I had to say next.
“I, um...” wow, this had gone so much better in my head. “I am here to see Chef Jason?” I optimistically hoped that this would be sufficient.
“Is he expecting you?”
Argh. Why isn’t he expecting me. Why didn’t I call or email or do ANYTHING to make my visit anything other than an unexpected inconvenience? I glanced at the clock, also noticing that it was already nearly 4. My mini meltdown had set me behind by half an hour, bringing my visit dangerously close to the time when a Chef would not hire you on principle for disregarding the demand of crunch time before service.
“If he is expecting me, he must be really good.” I forced a laugh. It worked. I got a chuckle out of the woman closest to the bar, and she asked my name before heading into the kitchen to fetch the Chef. He immediately came around the corner, and time seemed to speed up exponentially.
I won’t bore you with details here, but after some back and forth where I explained my desire to learn from the best Italian restaurant in Seattle combined with my timing constraints for summer, and he asked many questions about my credentials, intentions, and desire to learn, we were both smiling. At that point I realized that we had sat down at a table, he was holding my resume and inviting me for a one day stage the following afternoon.
“After that,” he said, “we can see if this will be a good fit for both of us and devise a plan.”
Getting back into my car, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over, I had gotten through it. But wait. It wasn’t over, I realized. It was the beginning.
With a full schedule of cooking planned for summer, I decided to revisit the concept of an apprenticeship this spring. As I mentioned in the last entry, my plan was to never work for free again. The last couple of years has taught me, however, that there are more ways to cook the sizable pantry of ingredients out there than I will ever learn. And my chances of maximizing these skills will not come from any single restaurant. I decided to spend the month of March learning about Piedmontese cuisine (that’s a northwestern Italian region, in case you’re wondering).
Before committing to this path, I evaluated what I would be giving the restaurant. I then listed what I hoped to gain from the experience. It seemed like a fair trade, not to mention a great new group of contacts. In exchange for learning regional preparations of mixing, rolling, and cooking pasta, making ragout and other savory sauces, rich Italian desserts, as well as other preparations yet to unfold, I would be a focused chopper, cleaner, delivery putting away runner, and if they let me, cook. The cost to them: taking the time to show me how they do what they do, a 2 x 3 foot space, and the risk that I would turn around and open a competing Italian restaurant next door. The cost to me: pay, time, my aching feet and back, and any semblance of ego (which, as I am sure you will agree, is a good thing to be rid of).
I am embarrassed to say that I have never applied for a job in the culinary industry. The sub shop at 16 doesn’t count, and every other cooking job I’ve had since has been offered through a contact or by chance. No time to complain about that (I know, poor me, right?), except that I quickly realized that I’ve been lacking the confidence one gains from the application process and overcoming rejection.
This is how I found myself sitting behind the wheel of my car, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that my fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. The rain outside had fogged the windows considerably, and my racing heart and panicky breath were muffled by the drops hitting the roof and windshield. My resume sat on the seat beside me, and I could just make out the shadows of figures moving behind the large restaurant windows. It hadn’t occurred to me until now that this could be scary.
I walked through the front door (there is no back door) at the Seattle based Piedmontese establishment, resume in hand, lines well practiced.
The front of house servers, bartender, and floor manager (the gatekeepers) eyed me as I faltered with the door handle. A single anonymous voice from the small crowd, “we’re closed, service starts at 5 pm,” as they all returned to napkin folding and polishing glassware. “Actually, um...” I paused. Two useless words have flooded out of my mouth, and I realize I hadn’t practiced how to get past the aloof gatekeepers. They’ve been heavily prepped to not allow anyone to distract from the kitchen preparations for service. Especially not the chef. But to my surprise, they all turned to me, waiting to hear what I had to say next.
“I, um...” wow, this had gone so much better in my head. “I am here to see Chef Jason?” I optimistically hoped that this would be sufficient.
“Is he expecting you?”
Argh. Why isn’t he expecting me. Why didn’t I call or email or do ANYTHING to make my visit anything other than an unexpected inconvenience? I glanced at the clock, also noticing that it was already nearly 4. My mini meltdown had set me behind by half an hour, bringing my visit dangerously close to the time when a Chef would not hire you on principle for disregarding the demand of crunch time before service.
“If he is expecting me, he must be really good.” I forced a laugh. It worked. I got a chuckle out of the woman closest to the bar, and she asked my name before heading into the kitchen to fetch the Chef. He immediately came around the corner, and time seemed to speed up exponentially.
I won’t bore you with details here, but after some back and forth where I explained my desire to learn from the best Italian restaurant in Seattle combined with my timing constraints for summer, and he asked many questions about my credentials, intentions, and desire to learn, we were both smiling. At that point I realized that we had sat down at a table, he was holding my resume and inviting me for a one day stage the following afternoon.
“After that,” he said, “we can see if this will be a good fit for both of us and devise a plan.”
Getting back into my car, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was over, I had gotten through it. But wait. It wasn’t over, I realized. It was the beginning.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Changes
As I grow older, I find that I am starting to do things that I vowed I would never do again. Some are small, like I promised myself that I’d never eat fast food. But now, and only sometimes, there is a hazy smear of mustard where there used to be a clear bold line. Other standards hold more significance, having more to do with reevaluating what I want to get out of life, (not that a burger from A&W doesn’t impact what I get out of my life). After my culinary school apprenticeship, I decided that I would never work for free again. Now, I don’t want to confuse this with charity work or volunteering to help a good cause or a friend, not that my date book is full of these, either. I mean volunteering to work for a profitable business. An accountant wouldn’t do this, nor would a salesperson or barista. No cook wants to admit that they ever worked for free, but we all have.
For those of you who have not been to culinary school, there is an odd rushing-for-a-fraternity feeling in the air. With a definitive separation between students who worked in the industry already and those who did not, there was a constant buzz of who was working where, what position they held, and which popular chefs they got to rub shoulders with. A one night stage at The Harvest Vine or Canlis was likened to a new undiscovered actor being invited to a movie premiere.
I landed an internship at one of the most prominent restaurants in Seattle. About half of the interns never completed their commitment, with the Chef signing their required paperwork just to get them out the door. After living off of savings, and (only because my mother reads this), borrowing some cash from my parents, I was left feeling an imbalance in my life with an internship. As the weeks passed, I became acutely aware of the fact that the work I was doing was the actual job of a paid line cook, not supplemental busy work. I made prep lists, helped develop new dishes, and was responsible for a station. Typical intern duties included hours of washing herbs and making ninth pan after ninth pan of brunoise shallots. I was cooking on the line, coming in by noon most days, and staying until midnight.
So why was I doing it for free?
After my first year of culinary school, I attended a seminar with a panel of local chefs and restauranteurs. In attendance were the Chef de Cuisine of the prominent Tulalip Casino, Ethan Stowell, owner of Union in his pre-empire days, a Chef de Cuisine of one of the big downtown hotels, and several other Chefs with less memorable resumes. I didn’t even really know what questions to ask, so I sat back and waited for them to bestow their wisdom upon me.
Instead of inspiration, I was shown the harsh reality of culinary school internships. Starting with the good news, the hotels and casinos boasted steady apprenticeship hours, decent pay, and an opportunity for long-term employment. It all sounded dreamy, like a real job in the actual culinary industry. While listening eagerly, we all tried to forget the fact that these jobs were in sterile hotel environments with standardized recipes, corporate menus, and a human resource department that looked down on the legendary tales of knife throwing chefs screaming expletives. (For the record, while none of us want to be the recipient of this type of lashing out, we all want to be in the kitchen where it does happen).
Ethan Stowell politely let them finish, furrowing his brow a couple of times, nodding, and doodling on the pad in front of him. Everyone in attendance knew the unspoken fact, including Stowell. We were all there to hear him speak. When he began looking around the room, we all sat a bit more straight in our chairs. It was as though at any moment he might choose one of us, take our exceptional posture as a sign of culinary skill and offer them a position.
When it was Stowell’s turn, he told us what we’d been waiting to hear, what we already knew inside ourselves and needed to validate. If we wanted to learn how to cook, to really cook, (and let’s face it, so many students were looking to be abused a la Kitchen Confidential), then we needed to get an internship at the best restaurant that would let us in. The cost of this stellar experience that would help shape our cooking futures? Pay. Personal boundaries. Sleep. Probably our relationships.
A culinary degree with zero restaurant experience proved that we thought we wanted to become chefs. A degree with one of the coveted back and spirit breaking internships to back it up held a lot more promise.
Long out of school and with many paid gigs behind me, I have re-entered the world of working for free. This time I have a new attitude and am approaching it with a humbleness that I did not possess when I knew so much less than I do now. My next few entries are going to highlight my most recent experience as an intern once again. Hopefully I will answer the question I’ve been asking myself all along: what is the compensation for my work?
For those of you who have not been to culinary school, there is an odd rushing-for-a-fraternity feeling in the air. With a definitive separation between students who worked in the industry already and those who did not, there was a constant buzz of who was working where, what position they held, and which popular chefs they got to rub shoulders with. A one night stage at The Harvest Vine or Canlis was likened to a new undiscovered actor being invited to a movie premiere.
I landed an internship at one of the most prominent restaurants in Seattle. About half of the interns never completed their commitment, with the Chef signing their required paperwork just to get them out the door. After living off of savings, and (only because my mother reads this), borrowing some cash from my parents, I was left feeling an imbalance in my life with an internship. As the weeks passed, I became acutely aware of the fact that the work I was doing was the actual job of a paid line cook, not supplemental busy work. I made prep lists, helped develop new dishes, and was responsible for a station. Typical intern duties included hours of washing herbs and making ninth pan after ninth pan of brunoise shallots. I was cooking on the line, coming in by noon most days, and staying until midnight.
So why was I doing it for free?
After my first year of culinary school, I attended a seminar with a panel of local chefs and restauranteurs. In attendance were the Chef de Cuisine of the prominent Tulalip Casino, Ethan Stowell, owner of Union in his pre-empire days, a Chef de Cuisine of one of the big downtown hotels, and several other Chefs with less memorable resumes. I didn’t even really know what questions to ask, so I sat back and waited for them to bestow their wisdom upon me.
Instead of inspiration, I was shown the harsh reality of culinary school internships. Starting with the good news, the hotels and casinos boasted steady apprenticeship hours, decent pay, and an opportunity for long-term employment. It all sounded dreamy, like a real job in the actual culinary industry. While listening eagerly, we all tried to forget the fact that these jobs were in sterile hotel environments with standardized recipes, corporate menus, and a human resource department that looked down on the legendary tales of knife throwing chefs screaming expletives. (For the record, while none of us want to be the recipient of this type of lashing out, we all want to be in the kitchen where it does happen).
Ethan Stowell politely let them finish, furrowing his brow a couple of times, nodding, and doodling on the pad in front of him. Everyone in attendance knew the unspoken fact, including Stowell. We were all there to hear him speak. When he began looking around the room, we all sat a bit more straight in our chairs. It was as though at any moment he might choose one of us, take our exceptional posture as a sign of culinary skill and offer them a position.
When it was Stowell’s turn, he told us what we’d been waiting to hear, what we already knew inside ourselves and needed to validate. If we wanted to learn how to cook, to really cook, (and let’s face it, so many students were looking to be abused a la Kitchen Confidential), then we needed to get an internship at the best restaurant that would let us in. The cost of this stellar experience that would help shape our cooking futures? Pay. Personal boundaries. Sleep. Probably our relationships.
A culinary degree with zero restaurant experience proved that we thought we wanted to become chefs. A degree with one of the coveted back and spirit breaking internships to back it up held a lot more promise.
Long out of school and with many paid gigs behind me, I have re-entered the world of working for free. This time I have a new attitude and am approaching it with a humbleness that I did not possess when I knew so much less than I do now. My next few entries are going to highlight my most recent experience as an intern once again. Hopefully I will answer the question I’ve been asking myself all along: what is the compensation for my work?
Friday, February 18, 2011
The Pig's Head
My friends are not all cooks. Some of my culinary colleagues appear surprised when I mention visiting an old schoolmate, who may be in film, an artist, a PR agent, or a teacher. There is some kind of alien-like wonder about how they live... “so, your friend gets out of work at 5?” or “is there like a desk that she works at in an office?” or even, “a teacher? I don’t think I’ve seen an actual child in 3 years.” Many cooks appear shocked when I mention a life before cooking, a sailing career, or working for a consultant. Upon my recent return from Mexico, a friend immediately asked what I ate and how I planned my trip. Did I decide on where to go, then look at restaurants, or find out where I wanted to eat, and then plan my trip around that? The answer was neither; I decided where I wanted to go to not think about cooking, as in, where I wanted to go on vacation. Yes, I wanted to eat, but I also wanted to be freed from the constant burden of making every single eating experience focused on learning and inspiration.
It’s just that in order to lead a successful cooking career, it always feels as though every moment not spent cooking, eating out, discussing food trends, or reading about cooking techniques or restaurants, is time contributed to becoming left behind by the industry. I recently spoke with the office manager at my previous restaurant, explaining to her that I had taken most of December and part of January off to just relax. Her eyes grew wide, but I could tell she wanted to reach out and relate in the way someone does upon hearing about a tremendous loss, illness, or tragedy. “Chef gave me a Monday off a few weeks ago. By 4 pm, I had cleaned my whole house, worked out, paid the bills, and was chomping at the bit to get back to work. I get it.”
But did she?
Or, am I simply lazy, basking in time to just..... be?
Where I am heading here is that while most people work hard, cooks work really hard. Often 12 hours at a clip, standing, not drinking water in order to minimize breaks, constantly calculating ways to be more efficient with one’s own energy and the product at hand, brainstorming new combinations or unsuspecting cooking methods. I can’t think of a single day on the line where my prep time wasn’t also my brainstorming session, (or shower time, driving time, going to sleep time). Scallops on the menu tomorrow... do I want to brine them... smoke them, and if so, hot or cold... or dust them with ground coriander and sear them... should I make a sauce or perhaps gremolata.... the flow of ideas can be constant.
The surprise that comes to us cooks, however, is that not everyone is interpreting the earth with a plate as the canvas. Whether a cook is passionate about molecular gastronomy, slow food and barbeque, Vietnamese noodles, or sliders: every shape, every smell, every memory, the earth itself begins a reel of images and ideas and how it translates to food. I feel that this is true for any cook who is looking to grow, create an experience to marvel the diner, have an emotional experience, to be satiated in more ways than simply caloric fulfillment. And I am not just talking about chefs like Grant Achatz, evoking the sensation of a chilly autumn day with delicately prepared pheasant amidst a branch of burning oak leaves. Moons Over My Hammy not excluded, there are playful attempts everywhere to create a sensation, trigger a memory, and trick the eye only to reveal a textural or flavorful surprise. Whether it be antique French oak barrels lining a wall in a bistro, hearts of palm cut and prepared to look like a piece of bone offering marrow, or good old huevos rancheros playfully being spelled Wavos Rancheros, they each have a goal of broadening the experience beyond necessity.
Sometimes I forget that not everyone sees dirt as ground amaretti cookies, Jaimy’s desk the rich color of venison tenderloin, or a wooden jewelry box as a treasure chest to be recreated with phyllo and filled with culinary jewels like braised pork cheeks. Years ago, after I butchered my first case of rabbits, I went home and traced my own cat’s flesh and muscles with my hands, trying to recreate the motions and understand each part so I may be that much faster the following day.
Every now and then I am reminded of this. Yesterday, it was a discussion with Captain Noah. He had just informed me that he and another Captain had bought a pig to split for this coming season. As he listed off a few organs, asking if I had any interest, I blurted, “save the head! I want the head!” Now, if I had said this just an hour later at the Italian restaurant where I am trailing, they’d give me a weird look. As in, duh. Of course. When I blurted this to Noah, however, I was met first with silence, then, “one pig head it is, you bloodthirsty cook you.” And then I remembered that discussing the head of an animal isn’t exactly a topic that enters every day conversation.
Now, when I went into work that day, I shared my prep station with a pig’s head. It sat in a vat of brine, staring at me through the magnifying water. And this was normal. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it hadn’t been the topic of conversation earlier. But realizing that us cooks see things that ordinary folks don’t see all the time, it became very funny to me. My fellow cooks giggled as I made small talk with the head, pretending he was hard of hearing as the ears had already been removed.
We each have our own universe of what is normal. It is easy to become entranced, to get sucked in to an all encompassing career where we begin seeing everything in relation to our work. Perspective is maintained by having friends outside of our industry, taking time away to relax and just be, and allowing our minds to be quiet for a change. After a couple of months of purging my mind of obsessing over specials, integrating new product, or trying to get more creative with cooking, I am ready to rejoin the masses.
I hope I still fit in. I hope I have not been left behind in the dust. Or pig pen.
It’s just that in order to lead a successful cooking career, it always feels as though every moment not spent cooking, eating out, discussing food trends, or reading about cooking techniques or restaurants, is time contributed to becoming left behind by the industry. I recently spoke with the office manager at my previous restaurant, explaining to her that I had taken most of December and part of January off to just relax. Her eyes grew wide, but I could tell she wanted to reach out and relate in the way someone does upon hearing about a tremendous loss, illness, or tragedy. “Chef gave me a Monday off a few weeks ago. By 4 pm, I had cleaned my whole house, worked out, paid the bills, and was chomping at the bit to get back to work. I get it.”
But did she?
Or, am I simply lazy, basking in time to just..... be?
Where I am heading here is that while most people work hard, cooks work really hard. Often 12 hours at a clip, standing, not drinking water in order to minimize breaks, constantly calculating ways to be more efficient with one’s own energy and the product at hand, brainstorming new combinations or unsuspecting cooking methods. I can’t think of a single day on the line where my prep time wasn’t also my brainstorming session, (or shower time, driving time, going to sleep time). Scallops on the menu tomorrow... do I want to brine them... smoke them, and if so, hot or cold... or dust them with ground coriander and sear them... should I make a sauce or perhaps gremolata.... the flow of ideas can be constant.
The surprise that comes to us cooks, however, is that not everyone is interpreting the earth with a plate as the canvas. Whether a cook is passionate about molecular gastronomy, slow food and barbeque, Vietnamese noodles, or sliders: every shape, every smell, every memory, the earth itself begins a reel of images and ideas and how it translates to food. I feel that this is true for any cook who is looking to grow, create an experience to marvel the diner, have an emotional experience, to be satiated in more ways than simply caloric fulfillment. And I am not just talking about chefs like Grant Achatz, evoking the sensation of a chilly autumn day with delicately prepared pheasant amidst a branch of burning oak leaves. Moons Over My Hammy not excluded, there are playful attempts everywhere to create a sensation, trigger a memory, and trick the eye only to reveal a textural or flavorful surprise. Whether it be antique French oak barrels lining a wall in a bistro, hearts of palm cut and prepared to look like a piece of bone offering marrow, or good old huevos rancheros playfully being spelled Wavos Rancheros, they each have a goal of broadening the experience beyond necessity.
Sometimes I forget that not everyone sees dirt as ground amaretti cookies, Jaimy’s desk the rich color of venison tenderloin, or a wooden jewelry box as a treasure chest to be recreated with phyllo and filled with culinary jewels like braised pork cheeks. Years ago, after I butchered my first case of rabbits, I went home and traced my own cat’s flesh and muscles with my hands, trying to recreate the motions and understand each part so I may be that much faster the following day.
Every now and then I am reminded of this. Yesterday, it was a discussion with Captain Noah. He had just informed me that he and another Captain had bought a pig to split for this coming season. As he listed off a few organs, asking if I had any interest, I blurted, “save the head! I want the head!” Now, if I had said this just an hour later at the Italian restaurant where I am trailing, they’d give me a weird look. As in, duh. Of course. When I blurted this to Noah, however, I was met first with silence, then, “one pig head it is, you bloodthirsty cook you.” And then I remembered that discussing the head of an animal isn’t exactly a topic that enters every day conversation.
Now, when I went into work that day, I shared my prep station with a pig’s head. It sat in a vat of brine, staring at me through the magnifying water. And this was normal. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it hadn’t been the topic of conversation earlier. But realizing that us cooks see things that ordinary folks don’t see all the time, it became very funny to me. My fellow cooks giggled as I made small talk with the head, pretending he was hard of hearing as the ears had already been removed.
We each have our own universe of what is normal. It is easy to become entranced, to get sucked in to an all encompassing career where we begin seeing everything in relation to our work. Perspective is maintained by having friends outside of our industry, taking time away to relax and just be, and allowing our minds to be quiet for a change. After a couple of months of purging my mind of obsessing over specials, integrating new product, or trying to get more creative with cooking, I am ready to rejoin the masses.
I hope I still fit in. I hope I have not been left behind in the dust. Or pig pen.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
The Verdict
Last week I wrote about my adventure to the spice market and the resulting “Sichuan k-hole” of obsessively toasting, blending, grinding, and then rubbing down of every pork product in the house. Last night I tossed the last tasty end bits of braised pork belly into a tomato sauce destined for madras curry and, you guessed it. Rabbit. Rabbit is tender and moist, when cooked properly. But it does not have that fatty richness possessed by our friend the pig. I was hoping to disguise my desire to use up leftovers for an act of genius master cookery. It worked.
To completely digress...how many times have you tasted an interesting combination of ingredients at a restaurant and thought, “wow, who would have ever thought to grind up pappadum, coat a chicken breast, and then fry it?!” (Not that particular example, of course, but something like it). Chances are, a disproportionate amount of geniusly invented dishes you have experienced in a restaurant were an act of sheer desperation, not enlightened inspiration. The night those pan-fried tapioca cakes went on the menu, I guarantee you someone’s head rolled for not re-ordering polenta meal when they ran out.
Adding the pork belly created a rich yet balanced sauce, with the acidity of tomatoes mellowed by porky goodness. In culinary school, they taught us to balance an acidic tomato sauce with sugar, a gastrique, a dot of butter, cream or milk in the case of a bolognese, or even a roux (those crazy French). I have found that a bit of richness, whether it be ground lamb, pancetta, or finely chopped beef, provides the perfect balance to a tomato sauce.
Last night’s dinner is not the intended topic here. Let’s revisit the pork belly. Last week I wanted to compare pork belly that had been marinated with a spice rub to belly that had rested in brine.
This is very detailed, just in case you love knowing why things happen, not simply that they do.
A marinade is used to flavor, moisturize, and tenderize meat. This marinade consisted of Chinese five spice, a bit of kaffir lime juice, grated ginger, and a 50/50 sugar and salt mixture. (David Chang of the Momofuku empire uses just this sugar and salt blend on his pork belly, allowing it to rest anywhere from a few hours to a day before roasting it). The acid in the lime juice breaks down the muscle filaments, allowing for absorption of flavor and a more tender cooked result. The salt, without water, actually begins to dehydrate the meat while infusing it with aromatics. A typical marinade or rub that will be allowed to rest for a while should not include salt, as it will dehydrate the meat. Using Chang’s method was a first for me, as I was curious how the fatty pork belly would hold up.
Brine, on the other hand, is that thing we talk about around the Thanksgiving table. If the turkey is moist, a guest may exclaim, “wow, this is so moist, did you use a brine?” while the other impressed guests turn their attention to the host, hoping for a clue as to what a brine actually is and what it does. It is about one tenth as interesting as a deep-fried turkey and a million times safer (but don’t drink the brine). This pork brine included half a gallon of water, half a cup each of salt and sugar, along with ginger, kaffir lime, and Chinese five spice. I brought all of the ingredients up to a simmer for five minutes, then cooled it down and poured it over the pork.
Harold McGee, the authority on the chemistry of food, explains the two purpose benefit of using a brine in his book On Food And Cooking. The first is that the salt begins to dissolve and disrupt the structure of muscle filaments, creating a more tender result when cooked. The second benefit is the transfer and absorption of salt and the brine itself into the meat. A pound of pork belly can increase it’s weight by about ten percent by absorbing the brine, which counterbalances the yield loss of nearly twenty percent when it is cooked (that twenty percent doesn’t include rendering fat loss, which can be collected for delicious use later*). The downside to a brine is the saltiness, but it is the salt, ranging from 2-4 tablespoons per quart of water, that is required for the aforementioned processes to work.
The sugar used in both methods exists primarily to cut the harshness of the salt.
I decided to braise both specimens, rather than roast them as in the initial plan. The scored fat caps were seared until golden brown and crispy, then the bellies were seared all around before being immersed in chicken stock and (everyone will tell you not to do this) a very small amount of brining liquid. The key is to avoid making the braising liquid too salty, so if you use part of the brine, add it slowly and sparingly. The liquid stood about halfway up the pork. Some aromatics were added, and the bellies were placed in the oven at 250 degrees for almost three hours. I turned them over several times while cooking, making sure they were fat side up for the final hour.
That night we had half inch steaks of pork belly seared and then glazed with soy, mirin, rice vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. I finished the glaze with some of the brining liquid, making sure not to reduce it too much. The sauce was a bit sticky, perfect for serving over rice with a saute of shredded brussels sprouts. The following day we made steamed pork buns with fresh pickled carrots and red onion, cilantro, and hoisin from a jar.
So which one did we prefer and why? They were each delicious in some similar and some different ways, but the brined pork belly wins. It was the most flavorful and moist overall, though I found myself picking out some of the larger layers of fat. The marinated pork belly did have some delightful attributes. The fat was more edible; it was slightly dried out and hard, giving more resistance to the bite, making it delicious.
*To avoid changing the subject too many times during the entry, I am making a little list of things you can do with rendered pork fat here. Use it instead of oil or butter when searing meat, especially scallops. Saute veggies in it, such as cabbage or brussels sprouts. Or utilize it in a number of pastry recipes calling for lard, such as steamed buns or empanada dough. The fat used here is seasoned, so it limits the uses for pastries, but pork fat can help make such tender breads.
To completely digress...how many times have you tasted an interesting combination of ingredients at a restaurant and thought, “wow, who would have ever thought to grind up pappadum, coat a chicken breast, and then fry it?!” (Not that particular example, of course, but something like it). Chances are, a disproportionate amount of geniusly invented dishes you have experienced in a restaurant were an act of sheer desperation, not enlightened inspiration. The night those pan-fried tapioca cakes went on the menu, I guarantee you someone’s head rolled for not re-ordering polenta meal when they ran out.
Adding the pork belly created a rich yet balanced sauce, with the acidity of tomatoes mellowed by porky goodness. In culinary school, they taught us to balance an acidic tomato sauce with sugar, a gastrique, a dot of butter, cream or milk in the case of a bolognese, or even a roux (those crazy French). I have found that a bit of richness, whether it be ground lamb, pancetta, or finely chopped beef, provides the perfect balance to a tomato sauce.
Last night’s dinner is not the intended topic here. Let’s revisit the pork belly. Last week I wanted to compare pork belly that had been marinated with a spice rub to belly that had rested in brine.
This is very detailed, just in case you love knowing why things happen, not simply that they do.
A marinade is used to flavor, moisturize, and tenderize meat. This marinade consisted of Chinese five spice, a bit of kaffir lime juice, grated ginger, and a 50/50 sugar and salt mixture. (David Chang of the Momofuku empire uses just this sugar and salt blend on his pork belly, allowing it to rest anywhere from a few hours to a day before roasting it). The acid in the lime juice breaks down the muscle filaments, allowing for absorption of flavor and a more tender cooked result. The salt, without water, actually begins to dehydrate the meat while infusing it with aromatics. A typical marinade or rub that will be allowed to rest for a while should not include salt, as it will dehydrate the meat. Using Chang’s method was a first for me, as I was curious how the fatty pork belly would hold up.
Brine, on the other hand, is that thing we talk about around the Thanksgiving table. If the turkey is moist, a guest may exclaim, “wow, this is so moist, did you use a brine?” while the other impressed guests turn their attention to the host, hoping for a clue as to what a brine actually is and what it does. It is about one tenth as interesting as a deep-fried turkey and a million times safer (but don’t drink the brine). This pork brine included half a gallon of water, half a cup each of salt and sugar, along with ginger, kaffir lime, and Chinese five spice. I brought all of the ingredients up to a simmer for five minutes, then cooled it down and poured it over the pork.
Harold McGee, the authority on the chemistry of food, explains the two purpose benefit of using a brine in his book On Food And Cooking. The first is that the salt begins to dissolve and disrupt the structure of muscle filaments, creating a more tender result when cooked. The second benefit is the transfer and absorption of salt and the brine itself into the meat. A pound of pork belly can increase it’s weight by about ten percent by absorbing the brine, which counterbalances the yield loss of nearly twenty percent when it is cooked (that twenty percent doesn’t include rendering fat loss, which can be collected for delicious use later*). The downside to a brine is the saltiness, but it is the salt, ranging from 2-4 tablespoons per quart of water, that is required for the aforementioned processes to work.
The sugar used in both methods exists primarily to cut the harshness of the salt.
I decided to braise both specimens, rather than roast them as in the initial plan. The scored fat caps were seared until golden brown and crispy, then the bellies were seared all around before being immersed in chicken stock and (everyone will tell you not to do this) a very small amount of brining liquid. The key is to avoid making the braising liquid too salty, so if you use part of the brine, add it slowly and sparingly. The liquid stood about halfway up the pork. Some aromatics were added, and the bellies were placed in the oven at 250 degrees for almost three hours. I turned them over several times while cooking, making sure they were fat side up for the final hour.
That night we had half inch steaks of pork belly seared and then glazed with soy, mirin, rice vinegar, brown sugar, ginger, and garlic. I finished the glaze with some of the brining liquid, making sure not to reduce it too much. The sauce was a bit sticky, perfect for serving over rice with a saute of shredded brussels sprouts. The following day we made steamed pork buns with fresh pickled carrots and red onion, cilantro, and hoisin from a jar.
So which one did we prefer and why? They were each delicious in some similar and some different ways, but the brined pork belly wins. It was the most flavorful and moist overall, though I found myself picking out some of the larger layers of fat. The marinated pork belly did have some delightful attributes. The fat was more edible; it was slightly dried out and hard, giving more resistance to the bite, making it delicious.
*To avoid changing the subject too many times during the entry, I am making a little list of things you can do with rendered pork fat here. Use it instead of oil or butter when searing meat, especially scallops. Saute veggies in it, such as cabbage or brussels sprouts. Or utilize it in a number of pastry recipes calling for lard, such as steamed buns or empanada dough. The fat used here is seasoned, so it limits the uses for pastries, but pork fat can help make such tender breads.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Everywhere, Everywhere, Whoopie!
I’ve been eating a lot of rabbit lately. I wasn’t giving that fact much thought when shopping for dinner, the muscular rabbits arranged in a conga line next to the less svelte chickens in the glass case. I love the completeness of rabbit, from start to finish. Butchering them is quite similar to chicken, trading in wings for front legs and breasts for loins. The parts are all there, and can intuitively be sorted out with a few minutes and a boning knife. And the saying that they taste like chicken is, actually, fairly accurate, especially if you’ve never knowingly eaten it before.
Yesterday, I picked up two rabbits from the local butcher shop. The owner and I chatted for a moment about my plans to braise the legs, thighs, and belly flaps, how the loins are to be saved for a client, and the bones set aside to make a stock later in the week with chicken bones. The livers are going to become a rabbit liver mousse, along with a nub of foie left over from a previous project. If included, (sometimes they get lost in the shuffle), hearts will be braised and kidneys are to be seared off and nibbled by Jaimy; I’ll go for a half kidney, but that is my limit. Discussing my plans for the rabbit felt good, knowing I was accounting for each part of the bunny for complete utilization. I very much enjoyed walking these three and a half pound brown paper bundles home for dinner, daydreaming about new dishes the whole way.
An hour later, I began telling my mother the dinner menu over the phone. There was a long pause. With the two hour time difference, I thought that perhaps she was already eating dinner, that her mouth was full and needed a few seconds to finish chewing so that she could exclaim how delicious my braised rabbit bolognese sounded. But no, she was taking a moment to choose her words carefully.
“Aren’t you afraid of the.... karmic repercussions of eating so much rabbit? You used to have one as a pet.” Now it was my turn to pause. I immediately knew what she meant: cute adorable little bunnies, the subject of many children’s books, nursery rhymes, MY own childhood pet, eaten for dinner? I get it. They are adorable. Painfully so- I still get weepy over my childhood rabbit, Max, and his terribly sad ending when his tunnel caved in on him. I even named, as an adult, a cat in his honor.
As any daughter does when speaking to her mother, I became defensive. “What, you think that because they are cute, their lives are somehow more valuable than that of a fish or a chicken? How cute was that pig whose shoulder you braised last week?” While I waited for a response, adorable bunny memories began flashing through my mind. At the Common Ground Fair in Maine a few years ago, a woman sat with an angora bunny in her lap while she combed it and directly fed it’s fur into a spinning wheel. The bunny sat there, patiently chewing on a piece of hay. Tonight’s memory will be bunny sitting on a sauce of San Marzano tomatoes and picholene olives over pappardelle.
Now, I am not one of those people who does not understand that eating meat means killing animals. I have spent countless hours trying to decide which factors are most important in deciding how to and what to eat. An average cow of 1,200 pounds will yield nearly 500 pounds of meat, or anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 servings. A 3 1/2 pound rabbit will provide 2-3 servings. One life for a thousand meals or one life for dinner for two? Looks like it’s beef for dinner. But what about carbon footprint? Slow Food USA reported that the resources required to create one pound of meat of beef can create six pounds of rabbit meat. And while I have never myself raised (well, not for the purposes of eating) or slaughtered (never, for any purpose) a rabbit, Michael Pollan reports that they are not invasive: they are quiet, less stinky, and easier to kill than most other farm animals. Not to mention they have reputation for fast and frequent procreation- a gestation period of only thirty days and potential to breed four to six times a year (though I still can’t seem to get the notion of rabbits laying eggs out of my head, damn you, Cadbury!). Now I’m leaning toward rabbit for dinner.
After serving a rabbit confit terrine during the French wine tasting on the Taber this summer, I was proudly rattling off my rabbit knowledge to a guest from British Columbia. From a couple of visits to Jaimy’s hometown in the Kootenays, I had a good idea that the guest knew a bit or two about animal farming. And, without being patronizing, he very quickly showed me that I did not. After quoting the ease of raising and dispatching rabbits and my intention to raise some myself when I have some land, the guest told me that he raises cows instead. I was insistent to communicate what I had read about how quiet and pleasant rabbits are to raise.
“Well, they’re only quiet until you try to kill them. Then they scream so loud that the neighbors think you’re killing your own kids. I got tired of having to kill an adorable animal every single time I wanted meat for dinner, it created an unappetizing association.”
My eyes grew wide with my naivete. “Oh, um, wow.” No rebuttal there.
Back to the karmic value of taking a rabbit’s life. I’d like to think that I have pretty good karma. I let cars merge in front of me. I pick up trash on the street. I smile at strangers. Am I cashing in the good karma I am creating here so I can eat rabbit for dinner? Once my mother planted the seed, I started wondering how other people felt about rabbit. Thomas Keller described his first rabbit dispatching experience in The French Laundry Cookbook. His farmer arrived with six rabbits in a cage, demoed killing and cleaning one for Chef Keller, then abruptly left him with the remaining terrified rabbits to deal with. The lesson he was reminded of? Respect every ingredient.
But that doesn’t apply only to rabbits. It may be their cuteness that reminds us to think about the food we eat, but in the end it applies to all animals, all ingredients. Life, energy, and resources go into everything that grows, animal or vegetable. Cute or ugly, we must not waste or disrespect any ingredient. As a cook, I’ve seen other line cooks, even chefs, toss the narrow tail portion of salmon, the rounded trim of parsnips that were squared off, and chicken carcasses into the garbage. It is this wastefulness, this assumption that food is abundant, never-ending, and cheap, that contributed to the birth of the nose to tail movement. In a culture where I swear there is a boneless, skinless, chicken breast factory full of legless chickens out there, there is another culture growing that utilizes everything, treats every part of every animal with respect. The cute bunny munching on carrot tops? A reminder to us all to consume meat mindfully. And give thanks to the animal whose life was sacrificed for us to eat.
Please tell me your thoughts on rabbits. I am fairly vocal about my continued love for them, and have found that it is often met with intrigue and curiosity. They are everywhere, let me know if you prefer them in a field or on your plate. This includes you, Mom.
*Please be aware that during the entire writing of this entry, I sang a song of rabbits in my head. Captains Ken and Ellen used to sing this song with Evelyn and Jan Kok from Presque Isle. It was coined “The Dead Rabbit Song”, and starts with “everywhere, everywhere, whoopie! rabbits rabbits rabbits rabbits” and continues to tell a tale of rabbits procreating and taking over... until someone decides to fight back.
Yesterday, I picked up two rabbits from the local butcher shop. The owner and I chatted for a moment about my plans to braise the legs, thighs, and belly flaps, how the loins are to be saved for a client, and the bones set aside to make a stock later in the week with chicken bones. The livers are going to become a rabbit liver mousse, along with a nub of foie left over from a previous project. If included, (sometimes they get lost in the shuffle), hearts will be braised and kidneys are to be seared off and nibbled by Jaimy; I’ll go for a half kidney, but that is my limit. Discussing my plans for the rabbit felt good, knowing I was accounting for each part of the bunny for complete utilization. I very much enjoyed walking these three and a half pound brown paper bundles home for dinner, daydreaming about new dishes the whole way.
An hour later, I began telling my mother the dinner menu over the phone. There was a long pause. With the two hour time difference, I thought that perhaps she was already eating dinner, that her mouth was full and needed a few seconds to finish chewing so that she could exclaim how delicious my braised rabbit bolognese sounded. But no, she was taking a moment to choose her words carefully.
“Aren’t you afraid of the.... karmic repercussions of eating so much rabbit? You used to have one as a pet.” Now it was my turn to pause. I immediately knew what she meant: cute adorable little bunnies, the subject of many children’s books, nursery rhymes, MY own childhood pet, eaten for dinner? I get it. They are adorable. Painfully so- I still get weepy over my childhood rabbit, Max, and his terribly sad ending when his tunnel caved in on him. I even named, as an adult, a cat in his honor.
As any daughter does when speaking to her mother, I became defensive. “What, you think that because they are cute, their lives are somehow more valuable than that of a fish or a chicken? How cute was that pig whose shoulder you braised last week?” While I waited for a response, adorable bunny memories began flashing through my mind. At the Common Ground Fair in Maine a few years ago, a woman sat with an angora bunny in her lap while she combed it and directly fed it’s fur into a spinning wheel. The bunny sat there, patiently chewing on a piece of hay. Tonight’s memory will be bunny sitting on a sauce of San Marzano tomatoes and picholene olives over pappardelle.
Now, I am not one of those people who does not understand that eating meat means killing animals. I have spent countless hours trying to decide which factors are most important in deciding how to and what to eat. An average cow of 1,200 pounds will yield nearly 500 pounds of meat, or anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 servings. A 3 1/2 pound rabbit will provide 2-3 servings. One life for a thousand meals or one life for dinner for two? Looks like it’s beef for dinner. But what about carbon footprint? Slow Food USA reported that the resources required to create one pound of meat of beef can create six pounds of rabbit meat. And while I have never myself raised (well, not for the purposes of eating) or slaughtered (never, for any purpose) a rabbit, Michael Pollan reports that they are not invasive: they are quiet, less stinky, and easier to kill than most other farm animals. Not to mention they have reputation for fast and frequent procreation- a gestation period of only thirty days and potential to breed four to six times a year (though I still can’t seem to get the notion of rabbits laying eggs out of my head, damn you, Cadbury!). Now I’m leaning toward rabbit for dinner.
After serving a rabbit confit terrine during the French wine tasting on the Taber this summer, I was proudly rattling off my rabbit knowledge to a guest from British Columbia. From a couple of visits to Jaimy’s hometown in the Kootenays, I had a good idea that the guest knew a bit or two about animal farming. And, without being patronizing, he very quickly showed me that I did not. After quoting the ease of raising and dispatching rabbits and my intention to raise some myself when I have some land, the guest told me that he raises cows instead. I was insistent to communicate what I had read about how quiet and pleasant rabbits are to raise.
“Well, they’re only quiet until you try to kill them. Then they scream so loud that the neighbors think you’re killing your own kids. I got tired of having to kill an adorable animal every single time I wanted meat for dinner, it created an unappetizing association.”
My eyes grew wide with my naivete. “Oh, um, wow.” No rebuttal there.
Back to the karmic value of taking a rabbit’s life. I’d like to think that I have pretty good karma. I let cars merge in front of me. I pick up trash on the street. I smile at strangers. Am I cashing in the good karma I am creating here so I can eat rabbit for dinner? Once my mother planted the seed, I started wondering how other people felt about rabbit. Thomas Keller described his first rabbit dispatching experience in The French Laundry Cookbook. His farmer arrived with six rabbits in a cage, demoed killing and cleaning one for Chef Keller, then abruptly left him with the remaining terrified rabbits to deal with. The lesson he was reminded of? Respect every ingredient.
But that doesn’t apply only to rabbits. It may be their cuteness that reminds us to think about the food we eat, but in the end it applies to all animals, all ingredients. Life, energy, and resources go into everything that grows, animal or vegetable. Cute or ugly, we must not waste or disrespect any ingredient. As a cook, I’ve seen other line cooks, even chefs, toss the narrow tail portion of salmon, the rounded trim of parsnips that were squared off, and chicken carcasses into the garbage. It is this wastefulness, this assumption that food is abundant, never-ending, and cheap, that contributed to the birth of the nose to tail movement. In a culture where I swear there is a boneless, skinless, chicken breast factory full of legless chickens out there, there is another culture growing that utilizes everything, treats every part of every animal with respect. The cute bunny munching on carrot tops? A reminder to us all to consume meat mindfully. And give thanks to the animal whose life was sacrificed for us to eat.
Please tell me your thoughts on rabbits. I am fairly vocal about my continued love for them, and have found that it is often met with intrigue and curiosity. They are everywhere, let me know if you prefer them in a field or on your plate. This includes you, Mom.
*Please be aware that during the entire writing of this entry, I sang a song of rabbits in my head. Captains Ken and Ellen used to sing this song with Evelyn and Jan Kok from Presque Isle. It was coined “The Dead Rabbit Song”, and starts with “everywhere, everywhere, whoopie! rabbits rabbits rabbits rabbits” and continues to tell a tale of rabbits procreating and taking over... until someone decides to fight back.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Spicy!
In December, I entered World Spice Merchants in Pike Place Market. I was immediately overcome with the I-want-one-of-everything feeling of a comic book junkie upon discovering Comicon. And then I was overcome with a sneezing fit. How do these spice gods and goddesses survive with their sinuses intact?
After curiously watching my hummingbird like flight from jar to jar, the merchant recommended The Spice Lover’s Guide to Herbs & Spices by Tony Hill. I felt like Buddy the Elf when I actually started speaking with the expert spice blenders and toasters, “Hi! I’m Aimee, I cook food. What’s your name? What’s your favorite spice? What’s your favorite food? Do you have a best friend? Can I be your best friend?” If I hadn’t been mopping my eyes and nostrils from overexposure, I surely would have tried to hug them.
Seventy six dollars and thirty two cents later, I arrived back home with enough spices and herbs to season the entire Pacific Ocean. I did pick up the recommended book, but that still leaves me with over fifty dollars in spices. Had I slipped and fallen on a wet grate upon leaving the store, the Puget Sound would have become a spicy dungeness crab and killer whale stew.
I spent the first two hours back home reading spice profiles and origins, (aloud, I may add, how annoying to be anyone around me, in this case Jaimy). “Hey did you know that the black lemon is actually a lime?” Of course he didn’t, who would know that? “Well, it is.... ooh! Hey, we can make them ourselves, we just have to....” Before I was finished, I had already mentally planned to plant an organic rooftop garden that included ginger and lime trees, a trip to India and China to taste how the locals used everything from finger root to Chinese five spice, and a trek across La Mancha to pick our own saffron.
In the meantime, I figured I should actually use the spices. If you happened to receive some spice blends for Christmas from Jaimy and me, this was the story leading up to it. Our apartment smelled like the neighbors everyone complains about. Mixing, toasting, grinding, adjusting, jarring: we went into full production mode. We debated the benefits of hand grinding with a mortar and pestle versus blending with an electric spice grinder. We tasted the difference between the dry spices themselves and their toasted versions. At the end of the night, the kitchen was powdered with everything from finely ground cassia-stick cinnamon to ras el hanout. I swept the surface remains into a pile and set it aside for a seasoning surprise dinner later. Don’t worry, I won’t use it on you.
 |
| Toasting Chinese five spice |
 |
| Grinding Chinese five spice |
There are a few projects in the works, and we plan to update with how the pork belly turns out. We are doing a comparison between dry rubbed (and slightly cured) belly and brined belly, both with a Chinese five spice base. Since I keep mentioning it and not elaborating, Chinese five spice is a blend of star anise, fennel seed, cassia-cinnamon, cloves, and Sichuan or black peppercorns. After marinating in these flavors overnight, they’ll be slow roasted, (though braising is another favorite pork belly technique). I’m thinking steamed buns, although Vietnamese sandwiches (Banh Mi) also sound good. Anyone have any ideas for serving the belly?
*Upon further reading this morning, kaffir lime is used quite often in Chinese cuisine, even if it’s point of origin thousands of years ago was a few miles down the road. AND, the kaffir lime is in the same family as the Sichuan peppercorn. It was even recommended to use some lime to replace the absence of Sichuan peppercorns in spice blends (they've been banned for import through the years due to blight). Sichuan peppercorns do not grow well in the U.S., but they've had success growing kaffir lime trees in California.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
First To Leave The Party
I was invited to a post-holiday holiday party last night. In the restaurant industry, we are typically so busy before and during the holidays working AT events that if we have a party at all, it is not until mid-January.* The party was for the restaurant that I left back in April. It was a peaceful and polite departure, as I had simply found that it wasn’t the direction I wanted to head in for the long term. Strangely, over the course of the year, I began to second guess my decision, wondering (even if just for a moment), where I would be had I stayed.
If I haven’t made this clear yet, it really was the best decision for me. Sometimes continuing to work for the best in the industry doesn’t mean that we will be the most successful, the happiest, or the most fulfilled. Like everyone, we cooks all have our niche, the uniqueness being what we are passionate about; otherwise all restaurants and the cooks in them would be the same. Take the contestants on Top Chef, for example. Each cook has a different set of memories and experiences to draw from and develop new dishes (often on the fly). Rarely do we see two dishes that are quite similar, even when the same few ingredients are required across the board. Years ago, when walking onto a line for the very first time, did these cooks understand at that moment that each and every day of cooking would mold their cooking skills, menu development, thought process, even neatness and organization?
Cooks seek out line jobs for a number of reasons. And many cooks, at different points in their careers, seek out different types of jobs with varying needs in mind (or not in mind). Sometimes we have an ideal of working for a mentor, a leader in the industry with a food ideology. Other times we simply need income. As time passes, we often trade in low positions at high end places for high positions at... well, a variety of establishments. Each experience, from the process used to check in new produce and manage inventory to the method preferred to blanch fava beans, will differ slightly (or, perhaps frighteningly, differ a lot), from one establishment to the next. And, in turn, these experiences will influence how we teach others when the time comes. I find that the influence comes from wanting to either model an inspiring experience or from wanting to get as far away from a terrible experience as possible. Regardless of the line of work you are in, either way can be an effective teaching tool.
To get back on topic here, I left the restaurant eight months ago. I am going back for a party, partly to visit with old work friends, but also to (and I really hate to admit it), gauge my culinary growth with that of my old colleagues.
Steamy windows back lit by lights and moving shadows, I round the corner into a stiff evening breeze as I approach the entry. Am I even going to recognize anyone here? In previous years, our holiday party was a potluck, a patchwork of items consisting of everything from watery casseroles and store-bought cookies to fresh rolls and tart tatin. It was obvious that some cooks, unable to drive the menu on a daily basis, were aiming to impress. Others simply resented having to cook on their one day off. On this night, I walk into a party in full swing, with a complete balanced and decorated buffet with every accompaniment imaginable. Some guests are even dressed in coconut bras and grass skirts. This party is organized.
It is an interesting experience to suddenly be surrounded by those who stayed when I left. I recognize many of the faces around me, and I can guess by the mannerisms of the new faces whom they may have replaced. My old line partners update me on the promotions/hiring/firing over the course of the year. One line cook who I helped train is now the Chef de Cuisine. An apprentice who trained with me is now the Sous Chef. I am mixed with happiness and envy for my old partners in battle, but there is this other feeling. It is the one deep in my chest, seemingly protected by my rib cage, an ache that instantly fills my head with regret for jumping ship. Could I have been the next Sous Chef? Or better?
It is not until today that I revisit that feeling. Why did I suddenly feel again that this one restaurant holds my future in its hands? I didn’t align with the menu, the food preparations, the ridiculous hours, or the painfully low pay that required me to spend part of my retirement plan just to pay rent on a studio apartment. I didn’t get the lightness of step that tells me that I am on the right track. My aching back and feet, the disconnection between the guests eating the food and the cooks preparing it, the lack of overall direction that I felt I needed to become a stronger cook. How would getting a promotion make any of it better, I mean really better, not just a temporary boost?
It wouldn’t.
But what is the lesson here? Is it that I shouldn’t second guess my decision because it was the right one to make, or that I shouldn’t look back and fret over it because I can’t change the past and just need to move forward? Or both? I have friends who have given their notice at a bistro, only for that place to win a James Beard Award a few months later. Others who have stayed aboard at a sinking ship of a restaurant, forgoing their own paycheck and picking their drunk and crying owner/Chef out of the gutter to sleep on their floor. Cooks who have quit over a dispute for one single night off to go see Radiohead, cooks hired because they staged on the day the lead saute cook walked out over a complaint about too rare halibut.
Surely months of writing down my life goals and the steps to reach them, then taking the appropriate action - surely that is the right path. Right? Is my cause more legitimate than quitting to go to the Sasquatch Festival? Does it matter?
*Thinking of the movie Coming To America, when invited to a party by a previous or current employer, be skeptical when they ask you to wear something that sounds uniform-like. You might end up serving the meal or parking cars...
If I haven’t made this clear yet, it really was the best decision for me. Sometimes continuing to work for the best in the industry doesn’t mean that we will be the most successful, the happiest, or the most fulfilled. Like everyone, we cooks all have our niche, the uniqueness being what we are passionate about; otherwise all restaurants and the cooks in them would be the same. Take the contestants on Top Chef, for example. Each cook has a different set of memories and experiences to draw from and develop new dishes (often on the fly). Rarely do we see two dishes that are quite similar, even when the same few ingredients are required across the board. Years ago, when walking onto a line for the very first time, did these cooks understand at that moment that each and every day of cooking would mold their cooking skills, menu development, thought process, even neatness and organization?
Cooks seek out line jobs for a number of reasons. And many cooks, at different points in their careers, seek out different types of jobs with varying needs in mind (or not in mind). Sometimes we have an ideal of working for a mentor, a leader in the industry with a food ideology. Other times we simply need income. As time passes, we often trade in low positions at high end places for high positions at... well, a variety of establishments. Each experience, from the process used to check in new produce and manage inventory to the method preferred to blanch fava beans, will differ slightly (or, perhaps frighteningly, differ a lot), from one establishment to the next. And, in turn, these experiences will influence how we teach others when the time comes. I find that the influence comes from wanting to either model an inspiring experience or from wanting to get as far away from a terrible experience as possible. Regardless of the line of work you are in, either way can be an effective teaching tool.
To get back on topic here, I left the restaurant eight months ago. I am going back for a party, partly to visit with old work friends, but also to (and I really hate to admit it), gauge my culinary growth with that of my old colleagues.
Steamy windows back lit by lights and moving shadows, I round the corner into a stiff evening breeze as I approach the entry. Am I even going to recognize anyone here? In previous years, our holiday party was a potluck, a patchwork of items consisting of everything from watery casseroles and store-bought cookies to fresh rolls and tart tatin. It was obvious that some cooks, unable to drive the menu on a daily basis, were aiming to impress. Others simply resented having to cook on their one day off. On this night, I walk into a party in full swing, with a complete balanced and decorated buffet with every accompaniment imaginable. Some guests are even dressed in coconut bras and grass skirts. This party is organized.
It is an interesting experience to suddenly be surrounded by those who stayed when I left. I recognize many of the faces around me, and I can guess by the mannerisms of the new faces whom they may have replaced. My old line partners update me on the promotions/hiring/firing over the course of the year. One line cook who I helped train is now the Chef de Cuisine. An apprentice who trained with me is now the Sous Chef. I am mixed with happiness and envy for my old partners in battle, but there is this other feeling. It is the one deep in my chest, seemingly protected by my rib cage, an ache that instantly fills my head with regret for jumping ship. Could I have been the next Sous Chef? Or better?
It is not until today that I revisit that feeling. Why did I suddenly feel again that this one restaurant holds my future in its hands? I didn’t align with the menu, the food preparations, the ridiculous hours, or the painfully low pay that required me to spend part of my retirement plan just to pay rent on a studio apartment. I didn’t get the lightness of step that tells me that I am on the right track. My aching back and feet, the disconnection between the guests eating the food and the cooks preparing it, the lack of overall direction that I felt I needed to become a stronger cook. How would getting a promotion make any of it better, I mean really better, not just a temporary boost?
It wouldn’t.
But what is the lesson here? Is it that I shouldn’t second guess my decision because it was the right one to make, or that I shouldn’t look back and fret over it because I can’t change the past and just need to move forward? Or both? I have friends who have given their notice at a bistro, only for that place to win a James Beard Award a few months later. Others who have stayed aboard at a sinking ship of a restaurant, forgoing their own paycheck and picking their drunk and crying owner/Chef out of the gutter to sleep on their floor. Cooks who have quit over a dispute for one single night off to go see Radiohead, cooks hired because they staged on the day the lead saute cook walked out over a complaint about too rare halibut.
Surely months of writing down my life goals and the steps to reach them, then taking the appropriate action - surely that is the right path. Right? Is my cause more legitimate than quitting to go to the Sasquatch Festival? Does it matter?
*Thinking of the movie Coming To America, when invited to a party by a previous or current employer, be skeptical when they ask you to wear something that sounds uniform-like. You might end up serving the meal or parking cars...
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Kitchen Cabinet
At 7:15 pm on a Monday, I head out into the rainy Seattle night on foot. Walking the first few blocks, I feel invigorated, inspired, even empowered. As I approach my local butcher shop, Rain Shadow Meat, my heart sinks at the dim light and lack of sidewalk board. Closed. I take a moment to stand under an awning of a nearby store to gather my thoughts and construct a new plan. I glance at the time on my phone, then up at the night sky. Turning around, I begin the long trek over the freeway toward Whole Foods.
To walk in the frigid rain may lead you to believe that my refrigerator is empty. Perhaps some wilted lettuce and a bendy carrot, and just a can of garbanzo beans and the remains of a burlap sack of basmati in the kitchen cabinet. But that is not the case. The refrigerator is stocked with leftover braised rabbit thighs, an herb roasted chicken, chicken liver pate, the remains of a cheese night from a few days earlier, brussels sprouts, arugula, as well as the typical staples. In the freezer are pierogies and the last of the season’s king salmon. As for the pantry, it has recently taken over the adjoining cabinet with dried flageolets, three kinds of rice, canned tomatoes, and a variety of pickled and preserved items. The beans hollered, “pick me, pick me!” and the jasmine rice chimed in, “we’re the perfect team!” I peered to the back of the cupboard, bored with the options in front of me.
So why am I standing in a puddle up to my ankles waiting for the crosswalk to give the go ahead? I blame occupational hazard. Some of you have experienced the Stephen Taber first hand. While an amazing sailing (and to toot my own horn, culinary) experience, there is one specific geographic hurdle. We are on a boat. On the water. There is no last minute run on a Wednesday to grab an extra head of lettuce, or even half and half for coffee. When we back off the dock every Monday morning, I scan the landing for the last minute purveyor I may have forgotten about. I always expect to see our fishmonger, Jamie, running down the gangway, one arm waving, the other cradling our precious stone crab, Pemaquid mussels, and Atlantic salmon.
But we always manage to get through it. Ask any schooner cook. We forget even the most important of ingredients from time to time. Most often we can improvise. Low on milk? Use melted ice cream (churned the night before by our guests) or left over creme anglaise to soak bread for French toast. Guests meeting us at the breakwater for dinner and need to stretch the protein? Make a farce with chorizo and apples and stuff the pork tenderloin. And what about forgetting ingredients altogether? No apples for crisp, we turn to a chocolate and caramel dessert. If the star ingredient for crab cakes doesn’t make it into the icebox, we’ll have fritters with leftover corn and prosciutto and a horseradish dipping sauce. When the problem presents itself, us schooner cooks may take a moment to fret or sulk (or at the end of August, burst into tears), but then we jump into action.
There are, of course, those special moments when I realize that the swiss chard has wilted beyond saving or the last tomato saved for bruschetta went into the lentil soup. I walk aft, eyeing Captain Noah (sometimes I fret out loud, and it is usually in the form of whining) and I hear those magical words. “We’re taking afternoon walks in Stonington, and today is the farmer’s market.” And thus my desire to just have things go my way as planned wins over the part of me that wants to heroically solve the problem without being saved by modern conveniences (if a visit to the farmer’s market can be called a modern convenience; although after being on a schooner in Maine it feels like a trip to New York City).
And so here I am, back on land and feeling pretty good about it. While I love the simplicity of life on the boat, I fully indulge in the luxuries of being ashore. Yes, I savor a queen size bed, central heat, and hot water. But when I am in the kitchen, I marvel at the fact that I can cook on a whim. I can make whatever I am craving to eat or create, and I don’t have to row a mile to get there. Sure, the food processor, instant heat on the stove, and dishwasher are luxurious. But it is the freedom to cook that I love.
I consider this as a car splashes puddle water across my chest, soaking my scarf, jacket, and will to push on.
An hour later, I am pounding pork tenderloin medallions into flattened tender meat for Schnitzel and setting potatoes on the stove to boil. The meat counter is fresh out of veal, but I am hell bent at this point to create a dinner that at least vaguely resembles my initial plan. I am also surprised to see that I had used the last few ounces of flour, and can’t make the accompanying spaetzle (a spaetzle story to follow soon, perhaps in a collection of kitchen disaster stories).
I can hear the dried beans laughing at me, shaking like a pair of maracas.
Later, Jaimy and I bite into the first crispy corner of breaded pan fried pork, a slather of cheesy chive mashed potatoes bulging off the fork. I commit to cooking from what we have in house before going to the store again.
To walk in the frigid rain may lead you to believe that my refrigerator is empty. Perhaps some wilted lettuce and a bendy carrot, and just a can of garbanzo beans and the remains of a burlap sack of basmati in the kitchen cabinet. But that is not the case. The refrigerator is stocked with leftover braised rabbit thighs, an herb roasted chicken, chicken liver pate, the remains of a cheese night from a few days earlier, brussels sprouts, arugula, as well as the typical staples. In the freezer are pierogies and the last of the season’s king salmon. As for the pantry, it has recently taken over the adjoining cabinet with dried flageolets, three kinds of rice, canned tomatoes, and a variety of pickled and preserved items. The beans hollered, “pick me, pick me!” and the jasmine rice chimed in, “we’re the perfect team!” I peered to the back of the cupboard, bored with the options in front of me.
So why am I standing in a puddle up to my ankles waiting for the crosswalk to give the go ahead? I blame occupational hazard. Some of you have experienced the Stephen Taber first hand. While an amazing sailing (and to toot my own horn, culinary) experience, there is one specific geographic hurdle. We are on a boat. On the water. There is no last minute run on a Wednesday to grab an extra head of lettuce, or even half and half for coffee. When we back off the dock every Monday morning, I scan the landing for the last minute purveyor I may have forgotten about. I always expect to see our fishmonger, Jamie, running down the gangway, one arm waving, the other cradling our precious stone crab, Pemaquid mussels, and Atlantic salmon.
But we always manage to get through it. Ask any schooner cook. We forget even the most important of ingredients from time to time. Most often we can improvise. Low on milk? Use melted ice cream (churned the night before by our guests) or left over creme anglaise to soak bread for French toast. Guests meeting us at the breakwater for dinner and need to stretch the protein? Make a farce with chorizo and apples and stuff the pork tenderloin. And what about forgetting ingredients altogether? No apples for crisp, we turn to a chocolate and caramel dessert. If the star ingredient for crab cakes doesn’t make it into the icebox, we’ll have fritters with leftover corn and prosciutto and a horseradish dipping sauce. When the problem presents itself, us schooner cooks may take a moment to fret or sulk (or at the end of August, burst into tears), but then we jump into action.
There are, of course, those special moments when I realize that the swiss chard has wilted beyond saving or the last tomato saved for bruschetta went into the lentil soup. I walk aft, eyeing Captain Noah (sometimes I fret out loud, and it is usually in the form of whining) and I hear those magical words. “We’re taking afternoon walks in Stonington, and today is the farmer’s market.” And thus my desire to just have things go my way as planned wins over the part of me that wants to heroically solve the problem without being saved by modern conveniences (if a visit to the farmer’s market can be called a modern convenience; although after being on a schooner in Maine it feels like a trip to New York City).
And so here I am, back on land and feeling pretty good about it. While I love the simplicity of life on the boat, I fully indulge in the luxuries of being ashore. Yes, I savor a queen size bed, central heat, and hot water. But when I am in the kitchen, I marvel at the fact that I can cook on a whim. I can make whatever I am craving to eat or create, and I don’t have to row a mile to get there. Sure, the food processor, instant heat on the stove, and dishwasher are luxurious. But it is the freedom to cook that I love.
I consider this as a car splashes puddle water across my chest, soaking my scarf, jacket, and will to push on.
An hour later, I am pounding pork tenderloin medallions into flattened tender meat for Schnitzel and setting potatoes on the stove to boil. The meat counter is fresh out of veal, but I am hell bent at this point to create a dinner that at least vaguely resembles my initial plan. I am also surprised to see that I had used the last few ounces of flour, and can’t make the accompanying spaetzle (a spaetzle story to follow soon, perhaps in a collection of kitchen disaster stories).
I can hear the dried beans laughing at me, shaking like a pair of maracas.
Later, Jaimy and I bite into the first crispy corner of breaded pan fried pork, a slather of cheesy chive mashed potatoes bulging off the fork. I commit to cooking from what we have in house before going to the store again.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Moving On
It has been almost a year since my last blog post. We all neglect things from time to time to focus on other areas of our lives, and writing has been the one thing I have put on the back burner that I long to return to. In updating my profile, I noticed that the "About Me" section of my profile is completely outdated. To get myself and all of you up to speed, I am updating my profile and copying the old one in this post.
Who I was:
I am a recent culinary school graduate residing in Seattle. I am amazed every day that I work on the line at a restaurant that is regarded very highly in the industry. It is competitive. The hours are long. The work is highly physical and emotionally taxing. This blog will dive into what I am learning in the kitchen, from ingredients and food preparation to working with others and realizations about myself. If you ever wondered about the reality of a romantic career, I am here to provide a glimpse. So far, it kind of resembles a collage of the worst day of my life, the best day of my life, from feeling defeated to feeling on top of the world. I wouldn't change a thing.
Well, perhaps I would change a thing or two, or all of it. But my purpose stays the same.
Who I am:
I love cooking food. I love eating food. I love what food does for us. It brings us together, creates a vessel to celebrate life, ourselves, each other, what can grow from the earth and how it can nourish us. I left the line this year to pursue my love for food on my terms. I was exhausted and under-nourished. These days I try to treat myself in the way I treat those I cook for.
Who I was:
I am a recent culinary school graduate residing in Seattle. I am amazed every day that I work on the line at a restaurant that is regarded very highly in the industry. It is competitive. The hours are long. The work is highly physical and emotionally taxing. This blog will dive into what I am learning in the kitchen, from ingredients and food preparation to working with others and realizations about myself. If you ever wondered about the reality of a romantic career, I am here to provide a glimpse. So far, it kind of resembles a collage of the worst day of my life, the best day of my life, from feeling defeated to feeling on top of the world. I wouldn't change a thing.
Well, perhaps I would change a thing or two, or all of it. But my purpose stays the same.
Who I am:
I love cooking food. I love eating food. I love what food does for us. It brings us together, creates a vessel to celebrate life, ourselves, each other, what can grow from the earth and how it can nourish us. I left the line this year to pursue my love for food on my terms. I was exhausted and under-nourished. These days I try to treat myself in the way I treat those I cook for.
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