*yawn*

I am worn out. I can't wait until my body acclimates to my new all work lifestyle. My eating habits have become cartoonishly bad. I had mashed potatoes for dinner last night... It was the only dish I recognized out of staff meal and I only managed a bite or two of them cause I was in the weeds when I got to work and the were saltyyyyyyy as *&^%. Despite all of that I've dropped approaching 20 lbs.
In any case, I must have been doing much better than I've thought because I got a raise two nights ago, so... I don't suck!
I really do feel like I've pretty much got the station under control. I need to get it organized in a way that I can handle and get the last bit of the prep under my belt. One of the things that I don't think that my bosses get is that just because I know how to make a dish, it doesn't follow that I know how they want a dish made.
Squash soup for instance... chef wanted it cooked in a wider pot. Cool. I followed the standard proceedure for making a pureed vegetable soup and added parsley to make it green after which I find out minutes before service that they puree roasted garlic into it. It wasn't a hige deal (unlike me leaving two other major items off my station). There doesn't seem to be a "recipe book" which is frustrating in a way, but also forces some independence. You see how to make something once, then you make it from memory from then on.
I guess I'm going to be on the station myself soon, which isn't that exciting to me. Contrary to what seems to be popular belief... it's not a one man station; especially on a night like tonight, when we've got a hundred covers on the books. a pretty big night. And it's not like Applebee's kids, where some people order an appetizer and some don't. It's rare for a customer to have less than three courses, which means at least one plate off my station for every table, often more.
After my trainer is gone, I guess on big night I'll get some help from the back staff... better brush up on my espanol.

Another week...

Going into my third week and I'm happy to be settling into my routine. I'm getting my prep done faster and am more sure on my feet around my station. I'm getting yelled at A LOT less, which is a good thing.
We got crushed yesterday, 130 covers in two hours; but we just rolled through it. We were in the weeds from the start, but we pulled through without any real trouble. I work it solo tomorrow. Hopefully it'll go well, as in no freaking tomato salads.

It's gonna be a long week

I'm not off till Sunday.
It seems my schedule was crafted with the specific intention of *&#^%@# me in the !#@!
Oh well. Things have been going well. Chef is a tough man to work for. You might think I'm going to qualify that with some sort of honorific positive, like those guys that are "tough but fair" or any number of combinations that end with me saying that he's basically good guy. I'm not gonna do that.
I'll say that I still have a lot to learn about that place and the food. I'm stilled pumped about the work and I'll reserve judgment on Chef.
Yesterday was supposed to be my first day on the garde station by myself. Turns out some of the prep staff was out sick so my trainer was called in. It would have been ok I think because the place was kind of dead.
I felt way less useless yesterday, hands are a bit less shaky. My first ticket of the night was all three of the plates I hadn't done, so way to get that out of the way. The tomato salad plate is a beast, but I'm getting faster with it. Now I have to get the prep list down so I can stop spending so much extra time in there.
One of my burns is getting all blistery and peely, it's kinda cool looking.

Day two in the can...

As I sit here gnawing on my ice cold McDonald's cheeseburger, I can't help but reflect on another exhausting day, and wonder is it by providence or some darker influence that I take so naturally to this work and tried out and accepted this job. What a pay cut?! I guess I'll keep trusting the guidance I feel like I've been getting and hope my path leads me where I want to be.

I learned some things today. Firstly, if you want a job in a kitchen, for goodness sakes, show up with the right outfitting and equipment. A guy came for a tryout today and I promise you this is the conversation I heard on the pass.

Chef: What's the deal with the guy back there in tennis shoes?
Sous S: Uh, he's from Australia and...
Chef: So they let you wear tennis shoes in kitchens over there?

Not good...

The poor guy came on the line, pale, and asked to borrow some things out of my kit, which is a big no-no, but I let him cause things weren't going well. Turns out - they made him fix a dish Top Chef style. I asked my trainer if they'd made him do that. He silently shook his head no. Me neither. And thank goodness. Everyone grabbed forks and tried it, weighing in. I didn't want it. I can't bear the taste of shame... It might have been delicious, but an hour later he was gone. He was a nice guy, an Aussie. Hey - if you say no worries to an Australian dude, does he have a patriotic duty to kick your ass? I hope not. I really wasn't trying to be funny, I just say that a lot.

I asked about him. My trainer said he was just on a stage (tryout), probably went home. I replied that I worked till close on my stage. He shrugged and we went on about the evening.

I also learned that they want all of their cooks to be clean shaven. IIIIII thought that meant a well trimmed beard. They think it means shaving all of my facial hair off. I thought for about a hundredth of a second about quitting. The look on my face MUST have been priceless. The guy that told me looked at me and asked "Is it that bad?"

Yes it's that bad! I haven't seen my chin in like, 10 years or so and I've had a mustache since I was freakin' 16!

Anyway, I'm gonna do it. I'm certain I'll hate my face... they take and they take and they take!

I plated amuse bouches (beet salads with chevre) tonight and worked on some other garde manger plates. My fingers aren't quite as shaky and I don't feel so much like vomiting,which means I'm less nervous I guess.

Everybody is telling me to exercise my right of way and stop jumping out of everyone's way unbidden and to stop apologizing so much. Not my fault I have home training.

Back on the line

So it's my first day back. The kitchen is insane! Everything is shiny and top of the line. Robot Coupes and Cryovacs. A bank of walk-in's. Tilt skillets and super-mega hot broilers. Really talented Chef's and Sous Chefs.
It's been a long, long, long time. I've been out of the industry proper for some time and last night was reinstatement by fire to a french brigade style kitchen. Meaning tough. It what I want, but make no mistake... it's hard.
I haven't cut myself cooking, well... ever, till last night, not to mention the burns and the fact that I got my trainer so far in to the weeds that chef cursed him out on line. Sounds like a lovely evening, right?
The thing about being the new guy, is that everyone looks at you as though maybe you'll be better than the last new guy, when there's really one universal truth to being the new guy in a kitchen on any station... you're new. You don't know how this kitchen operates or what the plates are. You don't know that they mean cook, when they say blanch. How in the heck would you know where to look for the spice grinder?
It's so hot, and you're on your feet for 7 or 8 hours. You bend, you stoop - you get burned and you get cut. You say "yes chef" and "no chef" to a guy that is going to say really awful things to you... it's just a matter of time; and egos are inflated past the point of sanity cause to be a cook, you have to have swagger.
Why do I love it? Is it because I look so damned good in chefs whites?
Is it because I get to test myself and see what I'm made of in one of the hardest jobs out there?
Or maybe because I love to feed people?
Possibly a little bit of all of them, but mostly because it's what I love to do.

Go away jitters

I'm sitting here, trying to calm my nerves in a way that doesn't involve a stiff drink. I'm really excited about a pretty decent flock of interviews for interesting Culinary jobs over the next six days. Ruminating on the fact that I'll be sitting down with the readers choice third best Chef in DC, a lady on a list with the likes of Michel Richard and Jose Andres as well as the fact that I'll be doing a stage at one of the hottest restaurants in one of the most upscale areas of VA Wednesday has given me a serious case of the jitters. Jitters are bad. Ask the lady I interviewed with Wednesday and she'd probably say I made a good impression, but she might also mention the fact that I was pouring sweat for the first 10 minutes of our meeting. In my defense if was really hot!
As I try to focus on the fact that I'm a damned good cook, for some reason I can't shake the memory of my very first remembered culinary endeavor.
My family LOVES egg nog. I, at age 11, felt it would be a good surprise for them all if I made home-made egg nog to greet them with when they came home, having for some inexplicable reason left me home alone. I dug out my mothers old checkered Betty Crocker cookbook, or perhaps it was The Joy of Cooking, and poured over the printed recipe. I investigated our pantry and fridge and was pleased to find that we had everything one would need to undertake the task.
Early on, I came across a word I didn't understand in it's context. Temper. I stared at it for a long time. I was supposed to temper the eggs, but my only experience with tempers had to do with tantrums and I didn't see how that would help.
I questioned how important that step could be if I, at eleven, was unaware of it's meaning... so I skipped it; dumping a bowl of cold eggs into a pot of simmering milk and sugar and watched in horror as the strands of eggs curdled and bubbled to the surface. You can imagine that we didn't have homemade egg nog that night and there was a price to pay for having wasted all of those good ingredients in a poor home.
BUT - I wondered why. Why did those eggs betray me? Now I know, and for every mistep I've made, I've worked hard to do better, to know more and BE greater. It's some comfort I suppose that I haven't curdled an egg in a custard since. Some.

This is why it's naptime...

They called it a small. If that's small, so's my head...

ouch

How many times have I seen a heart ripped out in a movie, or a game? I guess - an oddly inflated amount of times now that I think on it. The soon to be heartless stands hapless, chest invaded to the wrist by a powerful arm, a surprised look etched on thier face as they look from thier attacker to the now sucking chest wound, perhaps pausing to contemplate thier still beating heart.
I always wondered why no one fights back, save Indiana Jones.
I think I know now. How could they possibly have seen that coming until it was too late; until they find thier blood made immobile by the lack of a pump and the light fading in thier own eyes. That last lingering look. How? How could you, no matter how bitter of ememies we've been, have done this... then they fall, heartless, lifeless.

It's late....

Flash... something

I'm supposed to be writing, but I haven't been...

There's something electric about the look in her eyes as she sits, glistening guacamole green to the second knuckle. It's an extraordinary thing to watch the ecstatic way she eats something she enjoys. Her with her wild hair and hawkish features, her bony fingers and easy smile.
It's almost as though she experiences things on another level, has a more... intrinsic experience. You can almost see it on her face 'This thing is good and in this moment I'll stay until it's gone; or no longer good.'
What a way to live life, living and dying by a series of finite moments? The good most be so much more vivid, all bright colors and round flavors. The bad, doubly devastating and ashen.
There reckless sort of freedom attached. Normal boundaries only apply in the most loose of interpretations. Curisosity always fully engaged. Questions spill forth, yet there is a surety - a bald confidence underneath.
Here lives this educated hippie, with grabby toes and spindly limbs, diving heart first into life.

And a lot of work done today

Well, not all today - but a lot actually. It was a productive day after a non-productive week.

Funny conversation from this evening

Called Uncle Rocco's Pizza in Santa Barbara and sat on hold, decided to stay on hold but walk over there.

When we arrive, the place was not really that busy. At the counter my friend says "We called over to place an order. I was on hold for a long enough to walk here, but then you guys hung up on me."

Unapologetically the counterman replies "Hey, we were busy and some times the phone..." he waved his hand over the phone with disinterest.

I, trying to inject some humor and solicit perhaps a bit of contrition sniped at my friend "So - basically, F you!"

And the counter guy says "Yeah basically. Are you gonna order or not?"

Not.

The moral of the story is - if you are ever in Santa Barbara, you want pizza, and you even the most cursorily consider yourself my friend, DO NOT EAT AT ROCCO'S. Take that chump!

Making a little progress. Floor down, two ceilings up, one room primed and ready to paint. Have two more ceilings to raise, cabinets to install and a lot of painting to do. This quiet rock is heavy as hell, and floating ceilings can s my c! I think my back might be planning to escape. I'm grateful for a couple of days off.

Definetly not Starbucks

Ocean View

Wow, right?

There's something about the ocean that makes me feel like I'm right on the edge of the world. It's incomprehensibly massive to me, giving me the most vague sense of just how big this rock is.

The expanse bows across the horizon just slightly, the meanest fraction of curve that composes the circumference of the planet. Deep blue as far as any eye can see.

It has a way of making me acutely aware of how very, very, very small I am.

WTF?

This chick just picked up my latte from the counter - took a sip or a really deep sniff, I mean deeep and then put it down and walked away.

Sent from my iPhone

And it smells like fart...

How many places have you been that you just didn't want to be? I've been a few recently and the reasons for my discomfort are many and varied.

Today, the place I was that I didn't want to be was just a room in a house. A room, like a lot of other rooms. It was designed as a haven from construction dust and commotion; a place to sit and relax, make plans and stage.

That was all well and good until one of the workers had a burrito for lunch. I doubt that it's a poor reflection on the owners of the little taco stand that made the burrito as much as on the poor operation of the digestive system of the consumer, but what happened in those miles of intestine should be against some law, and might be given the ecological repercussions of the greenhouse gasses on the ozone.

On entering the room, there was a gust or rarefied air, only this air was more rare than most. Over the hours past lunch, this guy steadily, one gust after another, filled that room with some of the most raunchy air I've ever been disadvantaged to inhale. I mean, truly unbreathably trenchant, noxious fumes. So a room, one that I hadn't truly been comfortable in initially, seemed much smaller and much less comfortable and also, it smelled like fart.

Nothing like a little hard work

There is nothing in the whole world like a little hard work to help clear your mind. You start plugging away at your task and before you know it, you're in a zone if not the zone. All of your troubles, worries and concerns fade to gray for a time and if you're lucky - when you emerge weary and sore, perhaps you're also a bit wiser and more certain.
I looked forward to my time here in cali, where fruit actually grows on trees instead of a supermarket stand, as a span of time where I could make some decisions and chart out the changes I've chosen, somewhat haphazardly to enact. The list of things I need to decide is long and the stakes are high. Everything is on the line.
Signs are dire, unemployment is way up, call for things for which I have skills such as cooking and writing are down, but somehow - I'm not yet panicked. I'll take it one day at a time, one step. One roll of fiberglass insulation or one sheet of obscenely heavy drywall. One semi-annoying, semi-sweet customer at a time and pray that when I emerge, everything will be alright.

Heart disease and teens

I just read in "Food Matters" by Mark Bittman of the times that heart
disease is the second leading cause if death of children under 15.

Why are people so rude...

In airports? Hi. Excuse me. I'm sorry I cut u in line and now my little girl is pelting you with ice.

Sent from my iPhone

Writing

I feel a need, a physical need to write sometimes. Not always, though I do try to write often. I feel that I can't always be honest in what I'm writing because of who's going to read it. That's a problem for a writer.
There needs to be some detachment between what I do and who I am, or I have to decide that I don't care how people feel about what I write. There's freedom in the latter, but I don't want to alienate the people that I know - the people I love.
The conventional admonition is to write what what you know, but what if what you know, or who you know is so close that they might be hurt in some way if you write about them? Do you just ignore it? Just say forget them and move on with the piece?
It's a thin line to be walked and I don't know how to proceed. As I embark on this adventure, I hope to get a handle on that question and others. So many others.

The Chopping Block...

...needs to get the chopping block. The show is actually just awful. It is one of the worst things I think I've seen in a long time.
I respect Chef White. He's one of the purist talents I think we'll see. His philosophy about food is an inspiration to me. It's too bad really that it doesn't seem to be an inspiration to the show or the contestants.
Maybe it's the editing, but I can't imagine a more self-serving, unpleasant bunch of people to be around. I wouldn't spend a dime in any of their restaurants because they seem poorly run and that's a shame for them, because they're never given the proper tools to run a proper shop.
The food doesn't even have a supporting role. It's almost outside the shows periphery! Can we see the food other than to know that someone doesn't like it? Are the preparations detailed in a way to give us a stake? This is not a show for cooks. It's a kitchen survivor that somehow is worse than Hell's kitchen. Somehow.
When you add their nasty, backstabbing behavior and overinflated egos, well - it's nearly unwatchable. I don't care who wins. On Top Chef it's fun to hate Hung or Stephan because there is a counterpoint to their douchery and a lot of really great cooks.
It would be great if the show, stood for something - ever. Sustainable cuisine. Conservation. Good clean dishes. Respectful competition. A great chef helping make other aspiring restaurateurs better. Something! Anything!
Marco! RUN! You're not doing yourself any favors. Or us.

Ooooooh snap!

It's done.

Saturday is the last day.

THE VERY LAST DAY!

What in the holy hell have I done?!

So I hated my job? Lot's of people don't have jobs to hate, right?

Well, now... neither do I. Cest' La Vie

Commitment

If you want to understand commitment, all you have to do is look at the American breakfast of bacon and eggs. The chicken was involved, but the pig is commited! Be the bacon! - Thomas Keller

For more see my buddy's post over at the gurgling cod. The best blog ever.

thegurglingcod.typepad.com

What a piece of work is man!

"What piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!how infinite in faculty! in form and moving howexpress and admirable! in action how like an angel!in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals! "

A piece of work indeed. I didn't get it, I understood it to be irony - but now I see.

Translation
What piece of work is a man! How cowardly and stupid! How small minded! In form and moving, how slow and inelegant! In action how like a serpent! In apprehension how shortsighted! The scourge of the world! The meanest of animals!