Making the Chef

This blog is dead

2007-02-06T00:22:00.000-08:00

I've got a new blog now on the updated version of my site. A little more personal, less foodie, and definitely more alcoholic ...

Me and My Gin

Advice for the Prospective Cook

2006-08-15T18:08:00.000-07:00

Don't go to culinary school until you've spent some time in a kitchen. And I don't mean just glancing in one. Actually go and do a stage for a while in a real production kitchen to get a feel for it.
Even though you're going to be in the back of the house, it's still a people focused business. You need to get along well with your co-workers. Without good people skills, you can still be a great line cook, but you'll never be a great chef.
If you ever want to run a restaurant, go work in front of the house. In fact, go work in front of the house period. You may be pissed off at a server, but your perspective will change once you see the world through their eyes.
People will always judge you by your actions. Your intent doesn't count for shit.
Always lead by example. Never be the person that's "do as I say, not as I do." If you can't do it, why should you expect others to?
Always be calm in the storm. Slow is fast and fast is slow. Learn to touch things only once, so that you don't have to touch them two or three times and waste your time (for example, always put yout tools back in the same place ... they'll be there and you won't even have to look to grab them)
Just because you went to culinary school, it doesn't mean shit. Expect to start out as a prep cook. You're not the next incarnation of Thomas Keller. And even if you are, you're still going to start out as the prep cook.

Ramsay the Angel, Ramsay the Devil

2006-06-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

If you didn't already know, Chef Gordon Ramasay (of Fox's awful reality TV show Hell's Kitchen) also has a show that's on BBC America, called Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. It's odd to see the same chef on one of the worst food-related reality TV shows and one of the best food-related reality TV shows.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is everything that Hell's Kitchen is not, and the premise is pretty simple. Ramsay walks into an operation that is failing and works with the chefs and staff to help turn it around. It's amazing to watch him work ... in HK he's shown as a domineering, cursing, asshole, someone you'd never want to work for. You only get little glimpses of someone who is genuinely concerned about the people he is working with, but in RKN, you get to see the mentor in Ramsay come out. Sure, he has an edge ... what chef doesn't? But it's funny how he takes a quiet yet firm approach, not tolerating any BS, yet also praising and rewarding when necessary. In a recent episode, it amazed me how quickly he found the root of the problem ... although many of the complaints were about the food, he soon realized that it wasn't the chef and instead could be traced back to poor management. He took a very soft, tender, almost loving approach to mentoring the chef. And watching him charm a table of guests using ribald British humor was a revelation.

Ramsay in RKN is a revelation ... here's a man that I wouldn't mind working for, but one that I'd also love to hang out with. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is on BBC America on Wednesdays, 9 PM ET/PT ... check it out.

Oh, and the past few weeks in Hell's Kitchen? I've literally been cringing ... Sara deserves to be shot for sabotaging her team ... it strikes a huge professional nerve for me to see someone not owning up to their mistakes or, even worse, sabotaging their team. If you're not carrying your weight, you have no reason to be in a kitchen.

A Whole Mess o' Stuff

2006-06-14T23:37:00.000-07:00

Hell's Kitchen

So the new season of Hell's Kitchen got off to an explosive start last night and I just had to wonder ... did the people who were applying to be on the show even bother to watch it last year? The signature dishes were a sorry disappointment, especially when you consider that Ramsay made it clear last season that he, in typical French trained fashion, didn't like spiciness. What did the dumbasses do?

Yeah. And then there was Virginia. Lovely cute gal, but there's no business for a pantry cook to be on the show ... if you don't know how to run a hot line, you're not going to win. She obviously didn't watch the show last year either. If she did, she would have realized that you don't make a salad for your signature dish.

I looked at the sorry state of the teams and I just don't see anyone on the men's team that I can see going all of the way ... the two supposed "cooks" on the men's team make me want to vomit. The prison cook, Garrett, is not going to do well in a plated environment and the other cook, Keith, has some of the most horribly amateur presentations I have ever seen.

The only person I could even begin to see as the winner is Heather. Not only is she a professional, but she has great presence of mind ... the fact that she was able to keep her team working on her dishes after she burned her hand was true professionalism.

I do have to say that I got less enjoyment out of watching this show this season. After seeing Bravo's Top Chef, there's just no comparison. At least in that show it was focused on professionalism, and the people there were representative of all parts of the culinary world (well, except for the fact that they had no baker). Hell's Kitchen is just, for the most part, taking some amateurs and some people that are crap in the kitchen and throwing them to the wolves. In any case, if you want to win, I don't think it's something you can learn on that show ... you have to be able to run a hot line, period. So Heather is my (reluctant) bet ... the other cooks on that show are just lost causes.

Standards and Leadership

One of the most disheartening situations anyone can be in professionally is to work at a place that has low standards. If you're at a place where their standards are high, then you have the constant challenge of meeting those standards; people respond well when challenged. Deep down we want to be challenged, to be made into better people. However, if you are working at a place that has lower standards, one day you will wake up and find yourself doing something where you ask yourself, "How in the hell did I ever get here?"

I got to that point this past weekend. And what made it worse was, when the chef called me out on it, I wasn't pissed about him calling me out. He was right to and I shouldn't have done what I did. However, what truly infuriated me was the fact that he lets sub-standard stuff slide by in his kitchen all of the time. And now, now he's looking to enforce some standards? I'm all fine in being told when I'm doing something wrong. I'm not so fine when you don't practice what you preach.

It's funny because I have done an informal survey of most of the restaurant staff at the hotel and they are all in the same boat. They are pissed and sick of working in a shitty environment. Most are either looking for a new job or are very close to starting a job search.

The irony is that I could see this all coming and it all comes back to the chef.

Back in Jan/Feb, there were some big changes that needed to be made. Standards needed to be raised, we needed to hire more staff to prepare for the summer rush, we needed to start thinking about how we were going to be doing seasonal menus. Things started out alright, but then efforts stalled.

Why? Because the exec hasn't followed through. He has good intentions, but isn't much of a leader. A leader is someone that sets a good example and this guy just half-asses it. For example, whenever he and I are scheduled to work together on the line he usually 1) shows up two hours after the shift begins, 2) spends all of his time down in his office, either playing on the internet or reading magazines, 3) I have to call him in order to get his butt up on the line to get help, and 4) after any sort of rush ends, he goes back downstairs to read ... I'm sorry, but you can read on the line.

When it comes to menu design, who's the one that's experimenting with new menu items? Me. Who's the one that does all of the charcuterie? Me. And so on and so forth. I've basically become an underpaid bitch ... no wonder I'm looking for a new job. There's little to no accountability and in a place like a restaurant, the chef needs to be the first one in and the last one to leave. The chef needs to set standards of excellence that he holds everyone to every day ... he needs to be aware of issues in his restaurant by being there and seeing them happen, not by hearing about it second-hand.

Whenever you are having difficulties with an employee, a good leader will ask, "What did I do to enable this to happen?" Even if it's as simple as, "Well, I hired the wrong person," that's enough. But as a leader when you see one of your best cooks doing something that you don't like, you need to sit down and ask yourself, "How did I let this happen," because I guarantee you, that cook never wanted to be in that situation in the first place.

A Return to Ideals

Anthony Bourdain ... he's like a culinary god to me. I've expressed my love for the man in previous posts, but this is something special. Why? He stayed in my hotel ... and I got to cook for him.

I found out he was staying with us a few days before he arrived; immediately me and some of my friends in the front of the house staff started planning on what special amenities we would come up with ... in the end, we sent up the works for a man of his hedonistic nature: a bottle of fine wine, pate, cigarettes, aspirin and antacid. Yeah, we know our idol and we're total groupies.

The day of his arrival I got in early and started prepping up the pate ... I was going to do some sort of duck liver mousse, but the duck livers weren't in the freezer. Time to improvise. I had some duck breast, some pancetta (which I had made from the finest berkshire pork) and some bacon ... it was a good start. Combine it with a miniature cake pan and I had the workings of a great terrine. Two hours later, there it was ... an individually sized duck pancetta pate that was ready to serve ... fabulous.

Then came the waiting ... I was haunting the front desk, hoping to catch a glimpse of when he would arrive. Time to close down came and I started breaking down the line when, lo and behold, the front desk clerk comes and tells me that he's arrived and if I would be willing to keep the line open for him to order room service.

Like she had to ask.

I put a pot of water on the stove and send room service up with the amenities and the full menu from the restaurant (because the room service menu wasn't enough). Giddiness, excitement, I was jumping up and down ... I had hoped I would maybe be able to hang out with him in the bar, but this? To cook is to serve, to take care of someone, and here I am in a position to take care of one of my idols! I was going to cook for a man who truly appreciates food and understands my love of the craft.

Room service comes back with the order ... two cheeseburgers and two Heinekens. He could have asked me to make beef Wellington and I would have been making puff pastry, but two cheeseburgers? My grin was from ear to ear.

Now the average bridge and tunnel foodie wouldn't understand this. Why wasn't he ordering something, well, more gourmet? The lamb pasta or the salmon with pancetta? But I understood. You can gorge yourself on gooeyduck, chicken assholes, and the weirdest ethnic and gourmet cuisines of the world, but in the end, food is about comfort and warmth. And what's more comfortable to an American than a cheeseburger and beer?

I asked room service for a small favor ... if I can go up with him to deliver the food. He thought that Bourdain is amiable enough (of course) and so I changed into a fresh set of whites and went up with him. The man was gracious and happened to have Beth, the hilariously inappropriate grill bitch with him. I was pleased to notice that he had already torn into the pack of cigarettes that we had sent up (Later on, I learn he has one preferred brand of cigarettes, to the point where he will only smoke other brands out of desperation ... and I guessed the right brand. Fucking cool.) After having a short conversation with him, I got my book and bid the pair goodnight.

I did manage to catch up with the two of them the next night at his dinner at Union. I was impressed by how grateful he was about the cigarettes and just happy to see other cooks there. I think, though, I had an even better time hanging out with Beth there, whose dry-humping-of-Mexicans made for one of the best scenes in Kitchen Confidential. As a cook, you couldn't help but just be completely in love with the girl ... but then again, we cooks live in a different world. Her account of the sexual inadequacies of the "kosher" gooeyduck she had that afternoon sealed the deal ... I think all of us fell in love with her right then. Unfortunately, it didn't turn into the night of debaucherous drinking that I had hoped for ... Bourdain decided to escape due to a pink sweatered bitch that would not leave him alone and instead of heading to the agreed bar, he ended up at one of those "undisclosed locations." And I don't blame the guy. When you're traveling that much, doing that much promotion and spending that much time with strangers, sometimes you just need to be alone with someone that you trust.

But I got what I needed out of the past few days. Cooking for Bourdain and Beth ... no, taking care of them, that has been the highlight of my career and it makes me so happy to think about how I felt serving someone else. I need to keep that feeling in my heart every day.

Finding FOH

2006-06-01T23:45:00.000-07:00

I've gotten my checkup, I've been to the optometrist, I've had my teeth cleaned ... in short, I've used up all of my health benefits and I'm looking for a new job.

After an experience I had yesterday doing a trail at a respected restaurant here in town, I was a bit surprised. Rather than talk about my specific experience there, I think it's illuminating to reflect on what I realized about myself.

I have a real bug up my ass when it comes to professionalism. I can understand the American desire to create a more flat scociety, but in the end, the head guy in the kitchen is called chef. That's French for "chief." It works for some people, just not for me ... when the shit hits the fan, I'm calling my chef, well, chef, not by his first name.
I don't want to settle. A lot of the places I've eaten at lately have felt tired, like they're coasting. I want to work at a place that is constantly challenging me to meet its standards, not me challenging them to raise their standards.
I'm not going to leave the place I'm working at now unless I either get offered big bucks, a cooking job at a top place in town, or a front of the house job in a well run restaurant. I'm comfortable where I am and I'd be hard pressed to find a place where I have as much influence as I do now. Yes, it's in a hotel, but pretty soon the best damn veggie burger there is (according to all who have tasted it) is going to be on our menu.

So here's to looking for a front of the house job ... may take me a few months, but I'll make it eventually.

Tamara Murphy and Her "Life of a Pig" Blog

2006-04-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

So, if you're plugged into the Seattle food scene by now you've heard of Tamara Murphy's "Life of a Pig" blog (http://tamaramurphy.typepad.com/). Tamara (head chef of Brasa) kept an admirable blog about raising the pigs, but the one thing I just can't forgive her for was the fact that she missed the slaughter. Having had a recent experience with slaughtering an animal for food (more on this at a later date if the farmer lets me post about it), I can say that the most difficult part of the whole process, the only part that made me hesitate, was the actual killing act.

I don't know if she wasn't allowed to do it because she needed to be certified by the WSDA or some other bureaucratic mumbo jumbo, but if that's not the case, then I think, on one level, that she wasted the whole experience. Nurturing a life is one thing. Butchering a carcass is one thing. But in the middle is this very important step where there is a distinct, quick change from animal to food. And if she missed that, then *shrug*.

NYC Visit, Part IV

2006-03-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

Lessons Learned

Slow is fast, fast is slow. This is the mantra of the Navy SEALS. What it means is that when the shit hits the fan, don't panic, don't try to do things too quickly ... when you do, you'll end up in a situation where you're likely to make more mistakes. Instead take a deep breath and just go at a slower pace. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't work without a sense of urgency ... you should, but don't let speed become the number one issue. Do the job right first.
The industry is still about the industry. At the trade show, I saw way too many things involving prepackaged, convenience goods or the latest machine or the latest in food science. Very little of the show was actually devoted to seasonal, locally sourced sustainable foods. It was kind of sad.
You need to staff at adequate levels. I can be perfectly happy at a restaurant just sitting at the bar, watching the employees do their work. You learn a lot. For example, at Lucille's, I saw a bar that was poorly laid out and the bartender had no barback -- on a Friday night. He was slammed the entire night, doing his best to get drinks out, but he was working fast, not working slow, and in the end it showed. He broke a glass, he didn't wipe down the bar, etc. I felt bad for him because he needed help and I wanted to jump back there and help him, but I couldn't. The worst thing is that the manager would come by to talk to him while he was slammed and didn't even bother to help out. In this business you either need to staff at adequate levels or, if there's a job to do, just fucking do it, no questions asked.
Traveling as an industry insider. I love it. We take care of our own. Whether it's great deal on the bottle of wine, free drinks, free apps, free dessert, it's nice to be comped and to feel special. Of course, pay on credit, tip in cash, and leave everyone feeling happy. I love our little community.
Whipped creme fraiche beats the pants off of whipped cream any day of the week.
Excellence vs Hospitality. You need both to be successful. Excellence is being met at the door as soon as you enter, having your coat taken, being taken to your table immediately, etc. Hospitality is being greeted enthusiastically, having your real wants and needs taken care of. However, you can have one with out the other (waiting 3 minutes to be greeted at the door, but having a warm greeting when it finally happens is hospitality without excellence, for example) but you need both to be successful. You need to have absolute standards, written down, so that each day when you start the day everyone knows what their responsibilities are, they are documented, and they are signed off by the manager so you have an audit trail. It's simply a matter of setting your standards of excellence and hospitality and then making sure your employees are meeting those standards.
Read the room. When I walk into a place now, I'm always checking out how it's designed. Does it feel right, is it adequately lit, how is the color scheme, how is the lighting, are the fixtures and art appropriate, does the furniture and tablewear work, are the linens good, are the dishes cracked, etc. I'm also looking at the layout, seeing where the traffic flow is congested and thinking about how to redesign the space to make it more manageable and how I would work around the limits of the space. It's good practice.
Bartenders. A bartender is the heart and soul of the social life of a restaurant. Seated customers interact with servers a bit, but mostly with each other. Bartenders can create awesome drinks, create a following ... get a great bartender that is excited about making cocktails the right way and your restaurant can only prosper.

On a more personal note

What does all of this mean to me? I learned a lot from my visit to NYC. One of the things that I realized was that the only places I felt comfortable at while I was in NYC was in restaurants. I really didn't like the idea of living in the city. I love Seattle because it's different ... it's got little neighborhoods, each with their own appeal and they feel like small neighborhoods with green spaces, wide streets ... NYC is the epitome of urbanization in the USA and I feel like I'd like to be able to fool myself into thinking that I live in a small town at times. I can do that in Seattle.

Honestly, you can get good food anywhere and your mouth is just as happy with a $10 pizza as a $150 meal. Good food is good food and I see a lot of potential in Seattle, especially with the region's lead in getting people to buy local, buy sustainable. There is a real chance in this region to be the model for sustainable agriculture, where it's not just the restaurants that lead the way, but the community as a whole.

Of course, all of this means that there are very few places now that I would want to work at here in Seattle. In fact, I think there's only one - Tom Douglas' restaurants. He has a proven track record of delivering hospitality and investing in his community. I really love that and of all of the people who embody being good business people and being good restauranteurs in this town, Tom Douglas is that man. The next stop is probably a front of the house job at one of his properties. Next goal? GM of one of his properties.

Read this book

The celebrity chef phenomenon tends to elevate cooks into gods. I don't like it because, honestly, rarely, if ever, will you eat a perfect dish (I think food is just as much about the company you keep, the conversations you're having, and how drunk you are, as much as the restaurant, the staff and the food). I think that restaurants that build communities do much better than places that are one note, that are a cult of personality. However, these gods are actually mortals, and one book, Don't Try This At Home : Culinary Catastrophes from the World's Greatest Chefs, does a good job of describing a chef's mortality. You get 40 short stories by some famous chefs talking about their greatest failures in the kitchen. Get this book. You'll enjoy it. I laughed my ass off.

PS. Stefan, I've tried getting in contact with you but none of the numbers I have work. Drop me an email at martin@lindychef.com

NYC Visit, Part III

2006-03-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

Casa Mono
Casa Mono is Mario Batali's Spanish tapas restaurant in the Flatiron area. I remember recently seeing an article somewhere that Spanish cuisine is working its way up to be the new Italian, with Manchengo to be the new Parmesan. To be honest, I personally feel that Spanish food is kind of been played out a little too much in the hype and hasn't delivered enough in actual presence. When was the last time you walked around and saw your authentic friendly neighborhood Spanish tapas bar? Right. Having said that, the food, for the most part, was very good. They had a fantastic grilled baby octopus plate, and three other well executed plates - braised oxtails stuffed into pasella peppers, braised tripe with chickpeas and papas bravas. Unfortunately, although the dishes were pretty good, they all seemed to have very similar flavor profiles with somewhat cumin, somewhat smokey, etc. The one dish I didn't like, a clams and pasta dish was just way too harsh, with that minearly/bitter/astringent flavor that comes from too much white wine.

Stage Left and Catherine Lombardi in New Brunswick, NY
OK, so I go out to New York, the restaurant capital of the world, so why do I go to Jersey of all places for a meal? Simple answer? Mark and Francis of restaurantguysradio.com. These two restauranteurs also have a radio show on an AM station in central Jersey that also happens to be available in a podcast. Since I found their show a few months ago I downloaded every single episode in their archives and I have just come to love their philosophy of building a community in all aspects of their restaurants. They had a fantastic bar program (big, real ice cubes, not ice slivers!) and some of the best polenta I have ever tasted. But what really set them apart was their service, which was some of the best during my NYC visit. Not only were there some nice things from a managerial standpoint (very detailed checklists for sidework, for example), but when there was a job to do, it didn't matter whose job it was, it got done. It's such a small detail, but something that many restaurants, even good ones, sometimes fall short on.

BB King's Lucille's
Okay, so I didn't actually eat here, nor would I recommend it (I got the sneaky suspicion from the menu that most of the stuff was premanufactured and of the Sysco variety). However, there are a few things that I learned from the experience: 1) If you ever need anything, always check in with the local hotel's concierge. They will always know what's going on where and, if they don't, they'll be able to direct you to someone who does and 2) It's practically the only place in NYC you'll be able to find that allows you to dance. At 2:00 AM on a Friday night with a live blues band, I couldn't think of any other place I'd rather be.

NYC Visit, Part II

2006-03-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

Some more restaurants from the week of fun.

Bread Bar at Tabla
Tabla was one of my first fine dining experiences in NYC (that was way back in 2002) and what I remember from that original night was a few small things. Small fried fish, eaten whole, as an amuse. My first encounter with a fish knife, which I hadn't the foggiest of what it was and had to ask the server how to use it. A pistachio chocolate kulfi, which was one of the finest desserts I had ever had in memory. This time out, I have to say the food was not as memorable, but the whole process was. I've come to appreciate everything that makes up a restaurant - the bar program, the wine program, the hospitality, the food, etc. Not only does Tabla serve some great cocktails, but the extensive signature non-alcoholic cocktails are quite impressive. And the sommelier of the evening produced a fantastic wine that was even cheaper than the price range that I asked for. One thing that I do have to admit ... the saag paneer pizza that was on the Bread Bar menu was one of my favorite things that I put into my mouth in NYC (well, after those chicken liver crostinis at Gramercy Tavern).

Blue Smoke
When it comes right down to it, I'm a southern boy at heart. I am steeped in the culinary heritage of the south, so when someone makes a fuss over BBQ, well, I'm probably going to have a word to say. There's been quite a few not-so-nice words written about Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke and how it's not authentic BBQ. My response: bullshit. This stuff is the real deal. Just rip into the St. Louis style ribs to see for yourself ... instead of the normal small red ring around a piece of meat that shows it's been penetrated by smoke, the whole piece of meat has been penetrated by smoke. It's intense, some of the best BBQ I've had. The same critics also say that the sides are where it's at. To me, they were hit and miss. Deviled eggs, cornbread and sweet potato fries (with honey dipping sauce) were excellent. But the baked beans (a little too smokey/southwestern), cole slaw (I'm sorry I like mine sweet and creamy, not savory) and braised kale were not so memorable. I also had to laugh a little bit at the fact that there was a pastry chef listed on the dessert menu. Now, I'm not knocking her skills or anything, but in presentation and content (brownie sundae ala mode) they were pretty much diner desserts ... it matched the sophistication of the location, but honestly I don't think they needed to devote the space to developing the ego of a pastry chef there. One thing I did love was their bar setup. In true BBQ joint fashion they had a wide swath of ice where they iced down their longnecks ... very nice. And their bourbon menu? Anything that has Rebel Yell on it has got my approval.

Olives
I only stopped in to have drinks at Olives and to see what it was all about. Olives, for those not in the know, is one of Todd English's flagship restaurants. English, in foodie-land, gets more chuckles than smiles since it seems like he used his looks more than his skills to create a now-struggling restaurant empire. However, he had to have been a good chef in order to get his start (which is a fact that I think we sometimes lose sight of in celebrity chef culture ... Rocco DiSpirito might have crashed and burned at Rocco's, but someone had to believe in his food in order to fund him). Olives, in my opinion, looks cool, but misses the whole point of a good restaurant - it isn't comfortable, it isn't welcoming. It has no soul. English's empire focused on expanding too quickly and lost that ephemeral quality that gives restaurants life.

NYC Visit, Part I

2006-03-12T21:47:00.000-08:00

Alright, so my visit to NYC covered a lot of ground, so I'll be making multiple posts about it ... first up, some of the restaurants I visited.

Gramercy Tavern
My first experience was one of the best of the week. I can still remember the meal. Chicken liver crostinis with chive and bacon, with a roasted tomato relish, onion marmalade, spinach salad and 1/2 of an egg ... perfectly delicious. Tenderloin of pork with braised red cabbage, potato puree and sauteed fingerling potatoes. It's Tom Coliccio's food and the ingredients speak for themselves. With some great cocktails being doled out by Jim the bartender and a homey, warm, energetic service staff, I was quite impressed. My only complaint? The dish that my entree was plated on was cold. Small complaint, but the only one I had.

Union Square Cafe
I stopped in for lunch at USC the next day. I have to admit, I was prepared to hate the space ... I had seen it in a restaurant design textbook before and the space just looked very dated. Walking inside, it felt, well, right. Sure the murals were a bit dorky, but it worked in the space. I have no other way to describe it. People who have been there will have pretty strong feelings about it, I imagine ... personally, I loved it. For lunch, I had the garlic potato chips - pretty good, salty, garlicy, but I was wanting something a little more crisp and a berkshire pork sammich with mostarda. Now the sammich was great, rustic Italian but the southerner in me couldn't help but think that, well, that pork was wasted on doing some Italian version of a pulled pork sandwich. I can't think of a nobler ending for a Boston butt than barbecue ... but I digress. Desert was a lovely meyer lemon cake with whipped creme fraiche. I can honestly say that I didn't care for the garnishes or the cake after I tried the whipped creme fraiche ... it was a revelation. From now on when I want to add a bit of rich creamyness in dessert with a bit of a tang cream cheese and sour cream aren't going to be what I turn to ... creme fraiche is where it's at.

Les Halles in the Financial District
I was in love with the Les Halles on Park Ave. Great food, good service, and it's where I met Tony Bourdain. With those fond memories, I thought it would be cool to get a quick bite at the Les Halles in the Financial District. I was staying with a friend who lived a few blocks away, so this seemed to be a natural thing to do. I go in and immediately I am not greeted by the hostess at the podium. I'm not asked if I'm here for dinner, if I need my coat taken, if I have a reservation, nothing. The slack jawed blonde that comes by next is equally useless. So I just say I'll go sit at the bar and move my ass there. Halfway into my beer my bartender proceeds to spill it all over the bar. At least he refills it for free ... in any case, the cassoulet was good, not great, but good ... I would have liked the sausage to have a little more seasoning to it and the beans were, well, kind of bland, and the duck confit was downright puny ... I remember the cassoulet we made at school with a whole lot more fondness.

Hacker Food

2006-02-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

I am a geek. Geekiness is in my blood, so when I hear about the cool things that are going on at elBulli, WD-50, Fat Duck and the like. It's cool, it's intriguing, it's applying the basics of science towards food so that you can do some amazing things. I admit, when Wiley Dufresne was on Iron Chef America, I was intrigued to see what he was going to do.

And you know what? My inner geek was satisfied, but the inner chef was not. And not because of his techniques. His techniques were beautiful, flawless. I admired his presentation and his creativity. I just couldn't get behind the whole concept of his food.

A lot of the techniques and ingredients that are being used in this new trend in food science coming to your plate (sorry, I haven't found a commonly used term for this phenomenon) come from the food processing industry. These are the same techniques and ingredients (and in some cases, equipment) that are used to manipulate a set of ingredients into something that will shelf-stabilize a meal for ten years, like an MRE. There's a reason they're packed in survival kits. Food science makes all meals cheap, easy to produce, and consistent. But where's the flavor?

I know I have to hold off judgment completely until I'm able to visit one of these places myself, but one of my friends who recently visited WD-50 said that his favorite items in the meal were the ones that were manipulated the least. Not in the super cool items that had the latest in food science. Nice to look at, but where's the beef?

The real soul can be found in seasonal, local, sustainable food that is manipulated as little as possible to let the natural flavors of the food come through. I know it sounds like an over-used refrain, but in America, where people don't know were their food came from, I think it's very important. We don't need more food science in our diets, we need real food. We need an orange that tastes like an orange, not one that looks great and travels well but tastes like shit. We need to understand that our meat comes from animals that have to be killed in order to eat them, and that these animals deserve to be treated in a humane manner (please, no ground up cow fed to cow ... cows are herbivores). Food science creates frankenfoods, and the only frank I should be eating is a frankfurter.

The new wave food science chefs have their place in coming up with using science to find innovative parings of ingredients. White chocolate and oysters? They have chemical similarities and I thank the food science chefs for finding a delicious combo that, before them, could only be rationalized by pregnancy. But I become skeptical when a piece of food becomes so manipulated beyond its original form that I have no idea what it is. Cool to look at, but what's it taste like? Hopefully, nothing like an MRE.

Coolest. Knife. Ever

2006-01-15T21:46:00.000-08:00

So, I was named employee of the quarter for back of the house staff. I don't really look at the award as having any meaning. It's chosen by a guy that has furry tendencies. What's meaningful is the cash prize that comes along with it! I was thinking about just using it for paying bills, but then I saw my new favorite knife.
Ohhh, yeah, baby, a folding deba, the AG Russell Honcho (from AG Russell). As a cook, I'm always asked to help out at a friend's house with the cooking (okay, sometimes I volunteer too). But when I'm cooking in a friend's kitchen, what's the one good tool that I want that I never seem to have? That's right, a good knife. Why? Because most of you non-cooking types have shitty knives that are dull as fuck and will maim anyone that tries to use them (or you have ginsu knives, which I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole). It's a pain to carry your knife roll around, and you never really know when you'll be asked to help out. The solution? A pocket chef's knife. I swear, once I get this, I'll be carrying it everywhere.

Infrequency and Death

2006-01-12T21:12:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, but the Beaujolais nouveau is in season now and I'm ripping into a bottle ... drunken posting always has its dangers.

Since I have figured out the direction I want to go in the restaurant biz, I've found less and less need to post in this blog. In a way, this blog was a tool for me to sort out the direction I was going in the restaurant business, and I appreciate all of you that came along for the journey, but now, I will be posting even more infrequently, only when something really important or interesting strikes me. You can expect some really interesting stuff at the beginning of March when I go to NYC for a restaurant trade show and check out some restaurants, but once I find that job in NYC, I think it will spell the death of the blog. Which is fine and natural.

Speaking of death. In a recent episode of my favorite podcasts, The Restaurant Guys, they talked about heritage turkeys and it got me to thinking that I want to reconnect with the meat that I eat in a more visceral way. I have killed fish and lobster to eat, but I've never really taken the life of a mammal. I understand where my meat comes from, but I want to develop that greater that comes from the understanding of killing an animal, butchering it, cooking it and eating it. I keep on coming back to the French Laundry cookbook where Keller talks about killing rabbits ... with that in mind, I am going to try to find a rabbit farm in the next month or so and go out and actually kill a cute little bunny to eat.

I think the reason that I chose the rabbit is that it's cheap and, more importantly, its cute. Killing a pig, deer or cow I think, though difficult, could be easy, or rather, easier to do than to kill a comparatively cute animal. We keep bunnies as pets. Perfect for making fricassee.

Sometimes, I'm such an asshole. But I eat well.

Smoke Break

2006-01-04T00:38:00.000-08:00

Ever since college, I've had a certain affection towards nicotine. Cigars, pipes, cigarettes - I had them all. I have to admit, I didn't smoke because I needed nicotine or a stress reliever or anything like that. Instead it was more like trying on an accessory to a lifestyle. I loved the trappings of of the foodie lifestyle and, since I hung my identity on it, I naturally embraced the accessories. Cigars, major accessory. After a good meal, there was always time to enjoy a scotch and a cigar.

Moving from the IT world to the world of a cook, things go decidedly downscale. Instead of cigars, you smoke Parliment lights. Instead of a scotch, you might enjoy a High Life (the champange of beers). The best part is, there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, sometimes, it's better than the cigar and scotch.

However, where it goes wrong is when the nicotine becomes part of your life, not in "I'm an addict" sort of way (because anyone who ever smoked regularly is an addict in some way, shape or form) but instead, more of "It's part of my daily life" kind of way. Now admittely, for a line cook, this is a useful tool. After all, what better excuse for a break is there than, "I'm going outside for a smoke?"

The break is worth it. But the rest of it? Not so much. My fingers reek, my clothes smell, I'm left with a foul taste in my mouth, I'm wasting money on cigarettes. And I'm left with this lingering feeling of "why the fuck do I want to do this?" So I cut back, stop buying, and now, when the occasional stressors just become too much, I'll bum a smoke. And what happens? Since I'm using them less and less, my system doesn't tolerate the toxins, to the point where I'll get dizzy spells.

That is definitely not worth it.

Not to say I'll stop completely. The next time I'm out at a bar with a friend who has a pack and we're in the process of getting sloshed, more than likely I'll bum one. Cigarettes and beer? They're just like peas and carrots.

Quiet Time

2005-12-27T01:58:00.000-08:00

It's the quiet time of the year now. The holiday rush is over, we have no banquets on the schedule for weeks and nights are weirdly slow. Sometimes I just don't know if I can make up my mind whether I want it to be mad busy or molasses slow. When it's busy, you're having fun, there's a big rush of adrenaline and you just kinda laugh and smile when the next ticket comes in, but deep down, part of you still wants to have a bit of a breather and get caught up. When it's slow, you're bored out of your mind, and even though part of you is pausing to relish the fact that it's slow, another part of you wants it to be mad busy.

Of course, the other effect of it being slow is that you get to listen to all of those thoughts bouncing around in your head. I keep on going back to something that Stefan asked earlier in one of the comments - why am I still here? Why am I still working in a place that turns out mediocre food? Why am I not working at a place like my original stage?

Short answer? New York.

Longer answer? I remember seeing the Dali Lama in an interview once talking about happiness. When asked, he said that "happiness is helping others." It struck me that, until now, I haven't been ready to embrace that philosophy. Being a cook was something that I needed to do for myself. Before that, I was in a job that I didn't really like and it seemed like all I did was just different variations on trying to find some things to do, to enjoy myself. I couldn't even think about helping others because I needed to help myself. But the first real step to allowing myself to help others was becoming a cook. I didn't know exactly how long I would need to do this (I figured I might get myself up to sous chef, maybe even exec, before I went and made some sort of transition), but I knew that, eventually, something would change, and my path would take me out of the kitchen.

As time has passed since the Emerald City Blues Festival, I can't get over the joy I felt from helping people come together and experience something they all love. And when I focus on that, I realize that I am ready to help others.

Part of that comes from a willingness to become more humble. Though I am a proud and stubborn person, I'm coming to realize that I've never been the ideas man. Sure I could come up with a good idea here and there, but my mind has always been one focused on execution and planning, the mind of an ops man. Ops men hold organizations together but are usually not the ones leading organizations, and to me that's okay. I am excited by the idea of taking someone else's vision and making it reality. I've come to realize that it's not important that my idea come to life, but that the best idea come to life. I want to help someone who has an idea for a restaurant flesh it out, refine it, create new variations and eventually find the best fit for the space, the budget and the people involved. I want to help make them a success. I want to build restaurants.

Which is why I need to be in NYC, which has the most vibrant (and concentrated) restaurant scene in the country. I want to work as an assistant project manager for a restaurant consulting company or a restaurant group. I want to take someone's vision and make it reality. I want to mold an idea into something that gets a rave review in the Times. I want to create places where people will go and appreciate good food.

I've got the know-how and skills to do the project management aspects right (Emerald City Blues Festival, my years in business consulting and IT) but I really needed to be a cook to understand some of the other things - the need for soft skills and how to apply them, a better understanding of how the physical spaces inside a restaurant work, etc. Not to say that I've learned everything I've needed to know about restaurants, but with time in the kitchen comes a certain amount of credibility and empathy that will help make the job easier.

Now all I need to do is get a job.

It's not like I'm abandoning the Pacific NW. My heart of hearts loves being surrounded by the Olympics and the Cascades, looking around and seeing a snowcapped Mt. Rainier in the distance. More than likely I'll be back after cutting my teeth in the restaurant scene in NYC. But in the present, my mind has already shifted from finding a new place to work in Seattle and to finding a new place to work in NYC.

And this is what happens during the quiet times. You get an idea that yet again changes your life. Theater and marketing major. Consultant. IT Guru. Cook. Now, project manager. Career number four, here I come.

My Kids

2005-12-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

I don't have any. Won't for a while. But when I think about the culinary legacy that I would like to leave for any of the children that I could have in the future, I think I can sum it up in one word:

Fearless.

I don't want my kids needing cook books as a crutch, constantly relying on them to cook their meals. I don't want them to immediately reject new things. I don't want them to be afraid to try to make anything.

I want them to know in their bones that they can cook. I want them to know when something is balanced and well seasoned. I want them to know why things happen and how to fix it. I want them to be delighted to go to the farmer's market, select their ingredients, and come back and create something delish. I want them to be smiling as they stand on a stool beside me, looking into the pan as I cook their dinner for them. I want the rich world of organic, local, fresh food ready and available to them.

Doesn't mean they can't enjoy a Big Mac every now and again, but they should know a good pomme frite when they cook one.

Happy Holidays

2005-12-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

Now fuck off.

I'm dead serious. What you call the holidays, a relaxing magical time filled with friends, family, parties, good cheer, presents and good food is something else to me and the millions of others that work in the service industry. To us, this is the busy season.

Mind you, a lot of aspects of working in a restaurant are exhausting as it is: you're on your feet all of the time running to and fro for long hours. Now, let's add to your workload, extend your hours and take away one day of your weekend. You've got four banquets going out at the same time in a kitchen that could maybe handle three of them (on a good day) with a crew that is staffed to only handle three (and that doesn't include the balls to the wall lunch service that you have going on while you're trying to prep for the afternoon's banquet). Plus, you get those lovely short nights where you're in until 10 getting the banquets out and then up at dawn to get prepped for the next day's work.

Thanksgiving? Christmas? Christmas Day? New Year's Eve? New Year's Day? *shrug* someone's gotta cook all that food ... one of those someones is me. If you wonder why I seem to be grumpy over the holidays, if you wonder why you don't get that service with a smile from another service employee over the holidays, just know that we're in the weeds.

Oh, and that one day you thought you had free this weekend? Guess what, we just had a banquet sign on at short notice. Sorry, but you're coming in.

Happy holidays.

Are you sure they're related?

2005-12-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

Menus and Music

Why? Lord why?

As a dancer and a DJ, I appreciate good music; likewise, as a cook, I know good food. But seeing something like this just makes my skin crawl. People nowadays spend way too much time trying to find connections between completely unrelated experiences. Music at its base level involves one sense, hearing. Eating involves taste, touch (especially for finger food), sight, smell and hearing (how attractive is the sizzle on a steak?).

Or, more simply. Music is music and food is food. We provide our own meanings by adding the contexts and, in all honesty, any connections, besides some tenuous ones involving culinary anthropology, are all in one's head.

For example, many people have this stereotype of associating blues with barbecue. Barbecue is not blues. Instead, the poboy would represent the blues best. Cheap, nutritious, and often times it was one of the few things a poor person could afford to buy to eat. The poboy also benefits from its association with New Orleans, which I feel is the real cultural heart of the blues. It's an association that takes a bit of insight and knowledge, but it rewards you with a truly genuine association, as opposed to pairing barbecue with a "generic white boy blues band."

But food nowadays has to be glamourized. You can't have straight Italian cooking done well. You have to have Giada De Laurentiis shoot food porn with her best sexy "oohs" and "ahhs." You have to have Emeril do his trademark money shot, "BAM!" You have to have Tyler Florence rescue the damsel in distress.

Thank god for the Alton Browns of the world, where food can still be food.

$75.26

2005-11-23T03:30:00.000-08:00

$75.26. Every pay period, I now have $75.26 being deducted from my take home pay. In the life of a line cook, that's a helluva lotta money. But I'm choosing to let them doing this, and why? So I can have health care.

In this life I have chosen for myself, I sometimes question whether America is truly a land of opportunity. The key factor is that I have chosen it for myself. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I did have a lot of advantages given to me. I was insulated from the types of stories from the people that I now have around me. A Mexican who can barely speak English and is trying to provide for his family working as a painter by day, cleaning the restaurant seven days a week at night. The Chinese immigrant that works two jobs seven days a week to make a modest living. The Nigerian immigrant who can barely speak English, yet is one of the most fastidious workers I have ever seen.

It's the same story all across the service industry. Immigrants and the working poor do the low paying jobs, the prep jobs, the cleaning jobs, and whites work management. With the salaries paid to this underclass, how are they able to afford the $75.26 for health insurance, let alone putting away money for retirement?

Because of my background, I tend to keep up on current events. Instead of listening to music on the radio when I work, I listen to NPR and talk radio. Instead of doing the crossword or reading the latest novel, I read business and current events periodicals. What I hear and what I see frightens me.

I see a nation that was once composed mostly of blue collar workers transitioning to a white collar world. I see a nation that used to take care of its blue collar workers with a defined benefit plan (read: pension) shift completely to defined contribution plans (read: 401(k)) - great if you're the company. Your obligation to your employee is significantly reduced, but who takes the risk? The employee, and I don't see a culture being created that reinforces the fact that these employees will be responsible for their own retirement. And the best part? This reduction in risk is packaged with the glossy promise of being able to take control of your own retirement. So companies declare bankruptcy, shift their crippling pension obligations over to the government, and, in the end, the worker who was counting on the nice pension is screwed because 1) the government won't pay out as much in benefits, 2) the company overestimated its ability to make money in the stock market to pay its pension obligations, and 3) most importantly, somebody let them overestimate their ability to gamble in the stock market to fund their pension.

I see a nation unable to provide adequate health care for its citizens. Individuals are taking on more and more of the risk of providing for themselves. Some can't afford it and go without. Many cooks do without, which is absolute shit. Look at the job. We are constantly working in an environment where most of the equipment can do some sort of bodily harm to us. Even with good ventilation, there is the constant grease and dust and soot in the air that we inhale each and every day. I wonder what equivalent of cigarettes I would have to smoke each day in order to produce the same effect. It used to be your employer would pay for your health care. Now, for the people in the most dangerous and debilitating of jobs, you're expected to take care of yourself. Just fucking great.

I read about proposed national tax reforms that provide most of their advantages to investment and derive most of their revenue from salary income. Who does that hurt the most? The person that gets most of their income from working revenue. I doubt that the guy in the laundry room is going to see a whole lot of savings from a capital gains adjustment. I know I'll personally take it in the ass if they get rid of the personal deduction for mortgages. That was the only way I was able to afford my home. And yet home ownership is one of these wonderful forced savings devices that lets me build wealth as I 1) save money that I normally would pay in rent and 2) if the housing market rises, I make a profit for selling my home. It's one savings device that is great for the poor because instead of forking your money over to someone else in rent, you're saving it for yourself. And tell me why we would then make it hard for someone to afford buying a home?

I see America transitioning from a land of opportunity to something quite different. Isn't a land of opportunity a place where you give the ones that need it most the best chance of succeeding? Instead, as recently illustrated on NPR's Hunger in America series, where mother of three Wretha Hankins describes choosing between eating or getting her dental work done. The choice? Her family eats and she does her own dental work by filling her cracked teeth with candle wax. The $150.52 I spend every month for my health insurance is more than she spends for family's entire food budget for a month. I don't know where the opportunity is in that.

I think every person of privilege should spend some part of their lives working a job that only makes you a living, nothing less, nothing more, and learn what it's like to not have health care, to worry about what happens if you become injured, to know the joy that a huge chunk of your paycheck is being withdrawn to pay for a small little peace of mind. $75.26 might change some people's minds.

I'm on the menu

2005-11-13T22:09:00.001-08:00

You might not believe it, but there's a lot of good energy flowing in the kitchen where I work. I know that I'm contributing to it. After working on the Emerald City Blues Festival, I have felt a renewed sense of purpose, vitality in my life. I worked very hard in the run-up to and during that weekend (12 hours of sleep over four days) but I got so much enjoyment out of it. I've realized something fundamental about myself: I enjoy creating spaces where people can enjoy themselves. It's only served to confirm the suspicion that I want to work in restaurant design/creation. I really love the idea of helping someone see the vision of their restaurant through from initial ideas to launch. Before the festival, I don't think that I would have been so ready to embrace someone else's vision, but now, I'm more of a people person. Me, a people person? I know.

I'm happy to have figured this out and this enthusiasm has carried over into work. We're in the process of redesigning the menu and I've been playing with a lot of pastries. After seeing that cool episode of Good Eats recently about pocket pies, I came into the restaurant on Friday with a huge jones to make some pop tarts (the irony here is that, in a lot of ways, pastry class at school made me hate pastries ... but now in the real world, I love playing with them again). My chef saw them and, after a few minutes of conversation, we had a new dessert: a couple of mini pop tarts, one with blueberry and dried cherries, the other with vanilla apple cinnamon served on a plate with a shot glass full of panacotta. Pop tarts with milk.

We're also finding ways to use of all of that duck confit we have in the freezer. First choice? Duck confit risotto with honey mascapone. Delish.

New York

2005-10-25T04:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be honest. I don't really like New York City. I've always felt that, though fascinating, there is a certain disconnect between the natural world and the East Coast in general, NYC in specific. Yes, I know there are parks and great natural areas in the east, but the area was the first area to be settled in the USA. Drive around much of the East Coast and you see the same thing: an old, crowded, dirty place that reeks of tiredness.

Yes, NYC is always in a state of renewal and yes, it's not really that old of a place when it comes to the surface and it's not really tired (in fact, its state of perpetual motion is something else entirely) but it is crowded and dirty and the biggest natural spot you can find, Central Park, is horribly crowded. Try finding a bit of solitude there.

There's other things to hate about NYC. The high cost of living, the shitty living conditions for people making a blue collar wage, the prevalence of the most monied of the upperclass and the aspiring idiots that want to be them (for a good example of this, watch "The Apprentice" on NBC and then proceed to laugh at how everyone makes fools of themselves while slitting each other's throats). I also detest the common New Yorker's attitude that NYC is the center of the universe. It isn't. Get over it already.

There's even stuff to hate within the restaurant scene there. Way too much money chasing way too many trends that eventually get overhyped and crumble under their own weight; trends for trends' sake, which usually emerge in NYC. I mean, come on, was foam ever a good idea for garnishing food? Ugh. (About the only exception to this trend is the use of ultra-scientific thinking to produce cool food tricks ... it appeals to my inner geek).

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I hate NYC. Nice to visit, but why the hell would I want to live there?

Because it's NYC. For all there is to hate about it, the simple fact of the matter is that the population density and the sheer amount of money in the city make it a great place to start the next phase of my career - becoming a restauranteur. I don't mean that in the traditional way of being someone who owns and runs restaurants. Instead, I mean it in the sense of someone that coordinates the development and launch of restaurants. I love the idea of managing the process of creation of a restaurant idea to opening ... it's fascinating to see the ideas come together and I know I could be a success at it (when I am ready to do it - I still need more practical experience in how a restaurant works, and, more importantly, how to deal with people).

So the simple fact of the matter is there's a lot of people that want to open restaurants that are in NYC. I want to open restaurants. Therefore, one of the best places I can be is NYC.

Can I swallow my pride and live in NYC? Perhaps that's the next big step ... after learning how to deal with people.

I am a slave to the printer

2005-10-18T02:05:00.000-07:00

Conditioned response. n. Psychology. In psychology , the response made by a person or animal after learning to associate an experience with a neutral or arbitrary stimulus. Conditioned response experiments by Ivan Pavlov paired a neutral stimulus (sounding a bell) with a natural response (salivating) by associating the bell with the presentation of food. --Answers.com

Sometimes I feel like Pavlov is running an experiment with me inside of it. Nights like tonight really do a number on me. I'm running low on a number of prep items and things needed to get done for tomorrow - onion tarts, a new soup, clams, cookies, etc. And yet, I am at the mercy of that fucking printer. Today wasn't insane busy ... I wasn't stacked up to the point where I had 8 or 9 tickets in the window, but I had a constant stream of tickets coming in when I had a shitload to do.

I haven't gotten to the point where I can just relax and just let things flow. When it comes to the line, the most essential qualities of people come out. Throw them into the crucible and the shit starts flowing out. For me, I get stressed and I tend to become curt and pissed ... I have to move beyond that and at times, I'm acle to keep myself from being stressed out. At others, I'm not and on a night when I'm flying solo and I'm fucking behind in my prep, it's not so easy to be relaxed.

Stimulus. Printer spits out another ticket, putting me further behind.

Response. Go into the walk-in, scream, then come back out.

I've gotta work on that. I'm not a fucking dog.

Old Habits Die Hard

2005-10-15T00:25:00.000-07:00

We don't have duck on the menu. About the only time duck appears anywhere on any of our menus is the banquet menu, which has a crostini with spiced duck breast and a cherry wine sauce. It's a delicious little thing to nibble on, but in order to make the crostinis, we order whole ducks. That's right. We just need the breasts, but we order whole ducks.

My French-trained brain starts salivating when I see those carcasses: domestic Peking ducklings, usually from Long Island, grown for their nice large breast/body weight ratio and their high fat content. A duck is a treasure trove to any chef and, in reality, the breast is probably the least valued part. Breaking it down, you end up with the duck legs, the carcass and the fat-laden skin. Duck fat is culinary gold. Great for sauteing, wonderful in so many recipes and absolutely delish. The legs? Wonderful as confit! And the bones? Wonderful for roasting and turning them into a lovely brown duck stock for duck soup and sauces.

But in my kitchen, do we ever use duck fat for cooking? Nope.

In my kitchen, do we have any menu items with confit? Nope.

In my kitchen, does any sort of soup with the word "duck" on it sell? Nope.

Ugh.

But I still use all of the duck. It would be wasteful not to. The fat, I just keep on rendering off and recycling for making confit. Problem is, all you do is keep on accumulating the fat. I started off with a nine pan of fat and now I'm up to a full half pan of duck fat. Delicious stuff, but I have no idea when we're going to use it. Soap keeps on coming to mind, which makes sense considering I saw Fight Club the other night.

The bones? I've absolutely given up on using them for anything other than just throwing them in with the chicken bones for the general white chicken stock we use in fortifying our sauces and soups. Again, any soup with "duck" in the title doesn't sell and, in all reality, usually needs to be finished off with some veal stock to have a nice round flavor. But at least we're using them.

It's the confit that's really the habit that I can't break. 3 more ducks? 6 more legs of confit in the freezer. I think we've got 24 legs in the freezer right now. I love the whole process of curing the legs, cooking them in the fat, and relishing the wonderful flavor of confit with the perfect accompaniment, cassoulet, a rustic French white bean casserole with bacon, onion, thyme and sausage. But unfortunately, I just can't seem to sell it. Any specials with confit just never seem to sell. So I'll often make cassoulet with duck confit for family meal, but even then, many of the employees don't appreciate rustic French cuisine. So there's leftovers.

Old habits die hard. I don't want to waste a bit of that duck and, in the end, it works out well for me. I usually end up eating cassoulet with duck confit for days, which is all the better since cassoulet was one of those "love at first bite" dishes for me.

Just put another 8 duck legs away to cure today. Duck confit on Monday, cassoulet on Tuesday, leftovers Wednesday through Friday. Sounds like a plan.

Kitchen Confidential - The TV Show

2005-10-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

Apologies on the tardiness of this post, but Blogger has been wigging out on me the past few times I've tried it.

I hate to admit it, but I like this show. Sure, they get a lot of details wrong (whites aren't dirty, no self-respecting restaurant would ever put their male servers in those outfits, etc) and yeah, it just isn't dark or filthy enough (the language they use on the show is, well, G, compared to some of the stuff you hear in the kitchen), but it's an entertaining show none-the-less.

What interests me about it the most isn't the actual details of the show, though, but instead the story arc that they've chosen for the character. We meet our hero after he's been a boozing, womanizing drug addict and has now reformed to become a better man. Nice, but not exactly the spirit of the book on which this show is - loosely - based. The book actually waxed nostalgic about the hedonisim of being in a kitchen where the cooks were cooks. On TV, well, maybe they're not ready for Adam Real-last-name-unknown or Bigfoot or their like ... or my like, for that matter, just yet. Actually, I think in a lot of ways I'm too damn clean for the subject material. But I digress.

You see, I find it a bit difficult for the show to be so in love with the idea of being in a professional kitchen and running a restaurant when they miss a lot of the darker areas. It's been sanitized, packaged for the general public, and has lost a little bit of the spirit that makes it such the insiders community. So, yes, Bourdain has admitted that he's sold out, but with the book and his travel TV shows, that's alright ... they appealed to a relatively small market and were still in keeping with the spirit of a cook. This show, instead, isn't the sell out of one man's story but of how we as an industry work and live. They've whitewashed our entire world to make a sitcom out of it. Now that's a sell out.

And that's why I hate myself for laughing while watching the show. Recent story line? John Laroquette plays a tyrant cook that was once a teacher for our hero, Jack Bourdain. He's had this third quad bypass and just wants to kill himself through eating over the top food. Naturally, Jack accepts at first, but then shows some semblance of a conscience at the end and serves him a crudite platter along with a moral message. Great. Me? I would have been shoving foie gras down the bastard's throat. Other cooks? I'm not so sure ... perhaps pancetta instead?

Mike and Katrina

2005-09-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

I just took a recent and much needed vacation to St. Louis for a dance event, but it's funny how my professional life found a way to come into the picture. First, I got to spend a good amount of time with a restauranteur friend from my college days, Mike Johnson. Mike has been in the industry for over a decade, getting his start by working for Emeril at Commander's Palace and eventually settling near his family in St. Louis. I met him when he was on his first venture in St. Louis, Cafe Mira, which quickly became my third space when I was living there.

Now? Mike's gone through six restaurants in the past six years, keeping the ones he likes and that are profitable enough and closing the rest. He now has a stable of four successful and thriving restaurants: Cyrano's (American style tapas), Momo's (Greek style tapas), BARcelona (Spanish style tapas - the original tapas) and Boogaloo (Cuban style tapas). Notice the theme? He's hit upon a format that works extremely well in the St. Louis area and I was glad to pump him for information. This was the first time I had seen him since I had gotten into the industry and it was instructive to talk with him about operating costs and how to run a profitable place. But I think even more important was the opportunity to spend some time in the kitchen of his newest restaurant, Boogaloo. Just looking with a watchful eye of how the place was laid out, how it was staffed, what went into the menu and the food costs, it was wonderful to see. Mike is the kind of guy that I would love to work for - personable, energetic, always opening up a new place. There would always be new things to do for him, which, to me, is very exciting.

I also happened to meet the former executive chef of Brennan's, New Orleans (another Mike, actually). For those not familiar with the Brennan family, they run a small group of select restaurants in New Orleans that are among the top restaurants in the country. I was able to sit with him for an hour and just talk shop with him, pick his brain for information about advice to be successful cook. It was instructive, reinforcing the statement in my previous post that interpersonal skills are paramount in becoming successful in the business. It was also sad to see a fellow cook with such skills just thrown out of the business. This is a guy that is used to running a classic French brigade-style kitchen producing some of the finest food there is. And now because of Hurricane Katrina? Slinging pasta for banquets in an Italian kitchen in St. Louis. Ouch. I'm sure he'll land back on his feet eventually, but I doubt that will be in St. Louis. Too much meat and potatoes, not enough demi.