Power Through

Most normal people…that is to say, most people who work a 9-to-5, or whoopty-do 8-to-6 or something; stay home when they’re not feeling well. Now, when I say not feeling well, I don’t mean, “oh my throat is sore and I have the sniffles,” I mean wake up puking, food in your stomach turning to liquid (don’t think I need to expound), taking anti-nausea medication kind of not feeling well. People who work in kitchens are wired a little differently. For the most part, we don’t get sick days or vacation pay or understanding bosses. We get the crystal clear understanding that if you don’t show up, you don’t get paid; its just that simple. At least on the flip side, you are working in a restaurant and at least get a free meal every day.
Last Saturday I woke up after getting about six hours of sleep and felt a little sick. I’d started feeling shitty on Thursday; and because cooks don’t have the part of their brain that tells us not to have a drink after leaving the kitchen; I wasn’t exactly getting a lot of sleep. So I rolled out of bed, my head pounding, and padded downstairs to the shower, started coughing and ended up standing in a puddle of my own puke. I cleaned my shower, re-cleaned my feet, got dressed and went into work. An old roommate of mine has a great expression to describe how I was feeling…like a bag of smashed apples. So I puked when I got to work, then set up my station (did I mention all of this was taking place before 11, a.m. because I work a double on Saturday’s and have to in for Brunch by 10 in the morning?) and tried not to pass out on my feet. Brunch started slowly and around noon I walked over to Duane Reed to buy myself some anti-nausea medication, mints and Sea-Bands (which don’t work, by the way). So I powered through most of Brunch until our Chef showed up, took a look at me and suggested I try to take five, off my feet. I got a little down time, came back upstairs and worked dinner service with 186 covers, turning out plates like a man (with a horribly upset stomach) possessed.
I’m not telling you this because I want to toot my own horn; I’m telling you this so you can understand the mentality of people who work in restaurant kitchens. We are wired differently. I can tell you with absolute certainty that when I was working on Wall Street, well fed, getting fat and getting paid to sit on my ass for nine or ten hours a day I probably would’ve called in sick if I stubbed my toe getting out of the shower. Ever since I’ve been living my life trying to be one second faster than I was the day before, calling in sick is no longer an option. In Ruhlman’s “The Soul of a Chef” (his follow up to “The Making of a Chef”), he talks about says, “Not getting enough sleep? Too bad, sleep later!...(its) you against the clock, every day, every year. Whoever does the most the best wins. Period.” And that’s how I live my life now. I bust my ass every day. Every day I walk into the kitchen, my goal is to be a little bit better than I was the day before, to be a little faster than I was the day before, to take on a little more responsibility than I had the day before. It’s a tremendous amount of self-imposed pressure, but honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, my Chef and I were having this talk the other night about two kinds of people who work in kitchens: guys who spend their entire lives never advancing beyond line cook and those who become Chefs (capital ‘c,’ not cooks) and run kitchens, own restaurants and make people stand up and take notice. Well, I decided long ago that I wasn’t very good at flying under the radar…

Floor Spice and Everything Nice

I love New York City like nobody’s business, it’s got just about everything anyone could want; especially when it comes to the food. But the one area in which New York is seriously lacking is our street food. New York has no good street food, none. I like hot dogs as much as the next guy, but the meat tubes that spend their days floating in 180 degree water aren’t exactly my idea of a good meal, or even a meal in a pinch. We’ve got some of the best restaurants in the country; great food shopping, including awesome farmers markets and fresh fish; and probably the only place in the world where you can find geoduck, Ghost Peppers, Yorkshire Pudding, durian, Ras el Hanout, Langoustine, over 100 different types of Curry, pulled tea, chocolate-covered bacon and quite possibly some black market Pufferfish. I can get a hot dog from a cart or rice and beans or a knish or shish-kabob or even roti from a truck on Wall Street in New York City…but I can’t get a fish taco with fresh lime (like I can on La Cienega) or split a Three Dog Night with a buddy of mine (like I can at Pink’s on La Brea). What I’m trying to say is that the street food is Los Angeles is dynamite. Nothing hits the spot like a fish taco from a taco truck after a long night of drinking at one of LA’s clubs or bars. I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with driving everywhere, that you work up an appetite. But there’s certainly no shortage of awesome food to be found on street corners in LA.
I remember when I lived in Salamanca, Spain for a Summer my girlfriend and I used to get churros or empanadas when we were hungry. I don’t just mean around one in the morning, we wanted to munch on something; I’m talking about the sun is blinking its eyes and we have maybe three hours to get home, sleep and then wake up before trying to conjugate in a different language. The churro guy was open…with a line behind his cart. The empanada guy (if he hadn’t sold out already) was probably the right combination of surly and ready to bargain with you for a few Pesetas over the last of the night’s food. The best we were able to do in the City was grilled hot dogs in Midtown or an Arab guy selling “authentic Mexican” rice and beans…
New York’s lack of good street food surprises me. It doesn’t make any sense that a city that has so much to offer; wouldn’t have something as innocuous and simple as good street food. Sure, you can go to Gray’s Papaya or Shake Shack and get a decent hot dog or hamburger, but those places are closed by midnight and sometimes when I go out drinking I want something other than a slice of pizza.
I don’t know what we can do to change the street food culture in New York City, but I know that something needs to change. There’s no reason, we can excel as a city in so many areas related to food and fail so horribly when it comes to something as simple as keeping cheap food warm in your truck, or cart or insulated box…steps in the right direction are maybe being taken; what with the advent of the “Wafles & Dinges” truck, the “Cookie Truck” and others, but the problem therein, is that these trucks cater predominantly to those with a sweet tooth, and also become like a groundhog in sunlight after 1, a.m. I know there’s not a lot I can do about it, but I don’t think its too much to ask for a fish taco or Yakitori or even some decent churros when I leave the kitchen or the bar, or where ever my wayward travels have taken me…

Mr. Fix-It

Every neighborhood has one, I’m sure just about every restaurant has one…a local handyman who comes by whenever he sees fit to work on “projects” for the restaurant. He’s not an employee, you don’t know exactly where he lives or if he has an actual job; he just floats in like an apparition freaks out your customers and then leaves until the next time. We’ve got a guy like that, a toothless, bespectacled old codger who walks into the restaurant at least once a day to build something for us and then like clockwork he walks into the kitchen to request, er demand a burger, “with bleu cheese if ya have it!”
A few weeks ago, he rolled in during Sunday brunch, while we were slammed and proceeded to paw through the pastry basket with his dirty street fingers until he found the doughnut he was looking for. Then last weekend he came in and demanded I give him “four or five” slices of Prosciutto. I informed him that it was a busy service and that we were running low and I couldn’t just give him over an order of meat. He looks at me and says, “well how about I ask this guy?” This guy being our assistant manager. I told him he could ask, but the answer would be the same.
So that’s that, what can you do. Mr. Fix It’s always going to stop by, he’s always going to demand food and skeeve people out; but where else are you going to find someone to build you cabinet to hold menu’s for like $30 bucks…?

Oysters Man…Effing Oysters!

This is more like a little rant than an actual post. I hate oysters, I really do. I hate eating them, I don’t finding them all that tasty and I especially hate opening oysters. Most restaurants serve oysters because most people like the idea of oysters. That is to say, people like being able to go out and order a dozen oysters when they’re on a date because they think eating said oysters will make them more attracted to the person sitting across from them. This is just plain wrong. Oysters are no more an aphrodisiac than fried chicken is a health food. Somewhere there are some gristled old Mainers having a good laugh about this. I’m pretty sure (and I’m sure if I were writing a book and could take the time to research this) the idea of oysters as an aphrodisiac was perpetuated by fishermen trying to unload large quantities of oysters…most likely when they were out of season. This in-and-of-itself, is another problem I have with the serving and eating of oysters, is that for large parts of the year, oysters spawn; which makes them taste fairly terrible. There are a few different schools of thought on this, the two most common being: do not eat oysters in months ending in “y” and the other most prevalent being only eat oysters in months that contain an “r.” As you can see, this poses some problems, January, for example, contains an ‘r,’ but it also ends in a ‘y,’ thus making it difficult to determine whether you should eat the slimy fuckers in the first place.
As I understand it, the ‘y’ principle primarily applies to Summer months, when male oysters are busily gunking up ocean waters with their sperm and go from being concerned with being snatched out of the water and eaten, to knocking up all the eligible female oysters in the vicinity. Don’t get me wrong, I like an oyster Po’ Boy, I think they’re pretty tasty, but then again, that’s a fried oyster that’s served with some friends on a Baguette with a Remoulade and usually lettuce, tomatoes and pickles. That’s neither here, nor there though; I have an awesome Po’ Boy recipe which I’ll share at some point, along with many of my other Southern recipes which make little sense as my being a Northerner.
Bottom line, oysters suck. And I’m especially upset with them now seeing as I opened up a two inch gash on my left thumb trying to open two dozen oysters in the practical dark on Saturday night. To that end, the next time you go out to eat and think you need a little “help” when it comes to getting your dinner companion on their back, or all fours (as it were), order some Champagne and leave me out of it.

Fast Food Fantasies

The past few weeks I’ve been craving fast food. I don’t mean a burger from Five Guys or a dirty water dog, I’m talking about abandoning my faculties and going to McDonald’s for a Big Mac, Wendy’s for a chicken sandwich or god forbid even Arby’s. Seriously, you know you’ve got a problem when you find yourself actively watching McDonald’s and Burger King commercials and wishing there was one next door to you.
So today, after I exercised my democratic responsibility to vote for someone who I don’t think is going to send our country further down a sewer; I walked over to McDonald’s and made my first bad decision of the day. I purchased a Crispy Chicken BLT meal with medium fries and a Coke as well as a Big Mac…because I figured, why not? To give you some background, the last time I ate fast food, or McDonald’s for that matter was in 2004 shortly after watching Super Size Me. Those of you that know me, know that I have since eaten at In-n-Out Burger on my trips to Los Angeles, but I don’t consider In-n-Out to be fast food considering they deliver fresh unfrozen meat to their restaurants every day and cook your food to order. We all know about McDonald’s on the other hand. And while I stood there waiting on line, I watched someone slapping ¼ inch thick “ burger” patties onto some kind of double sided grill, tossing the excess back into a freezer and then closing the lid. Then I got home and started in on my sandwiches. I removed the top piece of bread to my Chicken BLT to find a piece of lettuce as brown as one of the patties on my Big Mac staring me in the face.
To say the least, my McDonald’s experience today will be the last of my life. After I ate the once frozen, unsalted fries, the soggy chicken sandwich with the brown lettuce swimsuit and the Big Mac; which tasted primarily like Thousand Island dressing and bread; I felt pretty crappy. I know Morgan Spurlock talked about this in his documentary, saying how McDonald’s food would make him feel sluggish and sick after eating it. That’s basically how I felt. I had a slight stomach ache, I felt tired and ever so briefly contemplated praying to the porcelain goddess. I’m since doing a lot better, but I’m serious about never eating McDonald’s food ever again. I can say for sure, I’ve gotten over any fantasies I may have been harboring about eating fast food and am going to turn my attention to other pursuits like trying out a vegan restaurant…just once, and basically so I can ridicule the waitress and cooks the entire time I’m there. Who knows, I might even bring a bloody steak and leave it on the table like a party favor. I’m also going to continue eating some of the foods that fall outside the norm, such as Goeduck, Durian, Balut and Sheep Testicles. The way I look at it, if I was able to keep down a Big Mac and a Chicken BLT, or whatever the hell that thing was, I can eat a fertilized duck egg or the stinkiest fruit known to man. I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and as long as I’ve got a stomach that works, I’m going to continue to find crazy food to put in it.

I Dream of Pumpkie

The other night, I went to sleep on what was by all accounts a pretty normal night…I don’t even think I had a glass of wine before bed! Anyway, while I slept I had a rather interesting dream.
I dreamt I was at our restaurant, running between stations and trying to make a Pumpkin & Cheddar soup while the orders kept piling up. No matter how quickly I worked, it didn’t seem to matter the tickets came out faster and faster…and everyone seemed to be ordering soup. Worse yet, for some reason I had to make every bowl of soup from scratch. Now, for those of you that don’t know, I'd say probably ninety-seven percent of the restaurants out there do not cook your food to order from scratch; it’s just too hard. Not to mention, most people don’t want to wait forty-five minutes for someone to boil and then mash their potatoes.
I’m sure everyone has had this dream, where they’re at work and nothing goes right; naked, computer crashes, trying to cook with no hands, &c…or maybe they haven’t. I’m pretty sure though, that at one point or another, every cook has had a nightmare where they’re in the weeds and there’s nothing they can do to get out (being in the weeds is when your station gets hit with a large number of orders and you get behind, slowing down the entire kitchen. It happens to everyone and the best you can hope for is to put your nose down and stat cranking out plates). Anyway, nothing was working out for me, but instead of being discouraged when I woke up the next morning, I was inspired. And all I’ve been able to think of has been making pumpkin and cheddar soup.
Since I was at a wedding this past weekend and had to go into the restaurant last night, I haven’t had a chance to make it yet. By the middle of next month, however; I will post a recipe for what I hope will be a fantastic pumpkin and cheddar soup…you’ve been put on notice.

Sometimes it Pays to Complain

Last week, I read a restaurant “review” in the New York Times written by Frank Bruni, which reminded me of a dinner I had with my mother and her husband a few months ago. He was writing about the new Upper East Side restaurant Bloomingdale Road. Bloomingdale Road has been on my radar screen for a while now, mainly because I majored in History and have an abiding love of New York City History. Bloomingdale Road was the old name of Broadway, well one of the names that Broadway used to go by. Despite the name, the menu seems to be a whimsical take on standard-fare comfort foods (grass-fed sliders, buffalo chicken lollipops, coca-cola glazed ham, &c.); rather than a return to the foods of Old New York…which is what I was hoping for when I first heard about this place.
Anyway, Bruni was maybe a little unkind (to the point that he didn’t actually bother to rate the restaurant), and one Times reader posted a review, giving the restaurant one star. They claimed, “the service was terrible. One member of our party didn't get his meal until the check was delivered. There were no apologies offered by the waiter, no offered adjustments to the final bill. The food was as dismal as the service.” I immediately thought back to that night at dinner with my mother and her husband.
We went to a very highly Zagat-rated restaurant in New Brunswick, New Jersey and had a meal that was nothing short of awful. Right after we were seated I snuck off to the “bathroom,” found our waiter and informed him that it was their anniversary and that while I wasn’t looking for anything special, I wanted to make sure the staff was attentive to their needs. My mother ordered an appetizer of seared foie gras, she received a Swiss Chard tart. When we alerted our server, he removed the tart (which would’ve been thrown in the trash…another pet peeve of mine) and then returned fifteen minutes later with the proper appetizer. At this point, we had inquired after her dish once before and my step-father and I both finished our appetizers. Our waiter did a half-assed job of apologizing and we moved on to our entrées. Once again, my mother was on the short end of the stick. She ordered a Berkshire Pork Porterhouse, medium…because ya’know, she wanted to taste the pork. Her entrée was the third to arrive at the table and when she cut into it she discovered that her medium piece of pork had been cooked to well done “perfection.” Dare I say, that the meat had been cooked so far beyond well done that I could have put one of my loafers on a plate and it would’ve been barely indistinguishable from her pork. A second time, our waiter had to be called over and informed of the situation. He left and returned about fifteen minutes later with a properly cooked porterhouse. Shortly thereafter, a woman who I assume was the general manager or the waiter-captain came over to our table and informed us that my mother’s glass of wine was gratis. She then felt the need to add, “I know its not a free appetizer or an entrée, but at least it’s something.” I was so shocked that a restaurant employee would have the gall to say something like that, my jaw nearly hit the table! To add insult to injury, when our waiter brought a platter of assorted “complimentary” sorbets, it looked as though the platter had spent a few minutes sitting on the pass; because the platter held nothing more than pools of melted fruit puree.
We left the restaurant that night disappointed, and I left especially pissed off because I felt like the staff let me down. But I didn’t get on the New York Times to complain (although I did get on Zagat and savage them), or sit and stew in the dark in silence…I wrote a letter. I wrote a long angry letter to the owners of the restaurant highlighting the problems with the service and food. When I was done, I sent it off and essentially forgot about it. About a week later, I received a letter of apology from one of the owners along with a gift certificate for a free dinner for three people.
I know it’s a pain to sit down and compose your thoughts on paper or even via e-mail, and I know most people in this world have an attention span of about 40 seconds, but taking the time to write a letter is actually a win-win situation. The restaurant wins because no matter how scathing your letter, it will actually improve the restaurant…so long as they have management that cares. They will talk to their staff and they will probably hang it up outside the office so that every waiter who walks by will be reminded of it when they walk by. And you win, because if they do care, they might try to make amends; and even if they don’t send you a gift certificate you will have made the experience of every person who eats there after you, better.
So the next time you go to a restaurant and have a bad meal; don’t get mad, get even.

Someone Needs Their Blankie

So apparently some of you; or at least one of you; was offended by my previous post about dish washers. God forbid I offend anyone, but seriously, you can eat it! I said I wasn’t trying to sound callous and ended the piece by saying that occasionally one of those guys goes on to do great things. They are called examples for a reason and I’m sorry, but I don’t have too many stories about dish washers going above and beyond the call of duty or sharpening my knives without my asking. My old sous chef and I KNOW it was dish washer who used his knife to open a can…I KNOW a dish washer drank 20 beers during dinner service, I practically saw him do it…dropping my knife, I’m not so sure of. But judging by the number of times the dish washer/prep guy used to reach for my knife roll, there’s a pretty good chance I didn’t knock a chunk out of my own knife, forget and put it back.
In short, some of what you read might upset you…I probably wouldn’t be doing my job if some of it didn’t.

Update: Thursday, October 16, 2008.
Because I’m a man, and because my parents taught me to stand for what I believe and stand behind what I believe; from now on, if you want to post on this blog, you’re going to have to put your name behind any comments you want to leave here…anonymity breeds cowardice.

Can’t Take My Eyes Off You...

You can’t trust a dishwasher. I don’t mean that to be as callous or as cut and dried as I make it sound, but from time to time you’ve got to watch them like a hawk; and thes guys are the exception to the rule. Dishwashers are an interesting sort. Almost always immigrants from Central America or occasionally one of the African countries, they work in the basement or ante-room of the restaurant doing the same fucking thing for about 8 hours a day, for very little money and leave work with a sheen on themselves from constant spraying of a high pressure hose. If they’re lucky the chef might ask them to do a little light prep work; such as de-boning some chicken or cutting vegetables for a stock; to break up the monotony of sliding trays of dishes into and out of a power washer. This isn’t a piece on hardships however…
The first instance that springs to mind was several months ago when I was still working at the Meatpacking District restaurant, formerly owned by a young “European” superstar chef (you’ll probably hear more about this place and the people I worked with as the weeks progress) that I first mentioned in “Knifey-Spooney.” Our sous chef, the guy who told me the aforementioned story, had this absolutely beautiful knife. I don’t remember exactly what kind it was, but suffice it to say it was a 10 and a half inch piece of steel with a wooden handle that retailed for around $400…I’m sure when he bought it was closer to $500. Anyway, one day he got into the kitchen and he found his knife, where he usually left it under the pass, (the area where cooks put food up for the chef or sous chef to inspect and “finish,” who in turn give it to the runners where it ends up in front of you) except it was mangled and wouldn’t have filleted a salmon, let alone properly sliced a tomato. How did this happen? How did a piece of Japanese steel end up looking like it got ran over by a lawnmower? By a dish washer using it to open a can of god-knows-what, that’s how. I’m not saying he did it callously, but these guys don’t know the difference between the plastic handled “house” knives and a piece of forged steel that costs over a grand. Incidentally, we suspected it might’ve been the same guy who was helping himself to the vodka we used in our Granita’s (that’s a story for another day).
I also similarly found one of my knives in questionable condition when just last week, I pulled out my boning knife to find a huge chunk missing from the handle; the kind of missing chunk that could only be made by someone dropping the knife onto the tile floor of the kitchen. And also the kind of missing chunk that I would not notice until I personally pulled the knife out of my bag to de-bone another chicken; because who ever dropped it had been kind enough to slip the knife back in my bag without telling me.
Another interesting example came a couple weeks ago (at my new restaurant) during a particularly busy dinner service; so busy in fact that it saw me running up and down the stairs several times because we kept running out of things we had prepped earlier. Around 9:30 there was a great deal of yelling from the basement and our GM came to investigate. He asked me if I knew what had happened and I had to plead ignorance; he went downstairs and I went back to work…running between the garde manger and fry stations. At some point I ran out of fries or mixed greens or sardines and had to run downstairs again. That’s when I saw our GM in our uniform room with a red-faced dish washer who was attempting to change into his clothes, but having great difficulty due to his teetering about. I went back upstairs, briefed my colleagues on what I’d seen and went back to work. It was only a little while later when I had a chance to get back down that I found out this particular dish washer had taken it upon himself to have a “few” drinks while he was working. How many you ask? Well, our GM usually picks up two cases of beer for us on a Thursday or a Friday that slowly get drank after service by the entire staff over the course of the weekend (do the math, 48 beers, about 12 or so different people a night, that’s like 2 beers). Well, Friday was busy and we treated ourselves, which meant there was only one case left on Saturday. This guy had polished off 20 beers from a case and was still standing…albeit with a great deal of difficulty. Needless to say, he is no longer employed by our restaurant, but more importantly we had no beer to drink that night.
I guess what I’m saying is that from time to time you need to check up on the dish washers because you never know when one of them is going to be using your knife to open a pickle jar or a can of tomatoes or half in the bag or taking a nap in the walk-in. But at the same time you should remember that every once in a while, one of those guys rises through the kitchen ranks and opens a place of his own, so whatever you do, don’t treat him like outright shit.

Ooh Mami, I did not Know you Could do it Like Dat!

A couple weekends ago, I went out to New Jersey to visit my mother and while I was milling around Penn Station, I bought a copy of Food & Wine magazine; mainly because it beat standing around, staring at the wall and twiddling my thumbs.
As I was flipping through the pages, I came across a recipe for Goat Cheese – Stuffed Mushrooms with Bread Crumbs (F&W, pg. 134); which immediately got me thinking. You see, several weeks ago, a friend of mine contacted me regarding recipes that involved goat cheese; and it was then that I started working on the Prosciutto-Wrapped Watermelon Stuffed with Goat Cheese & Jalapeño recipe. Today, I’m happy to say I’ve worked out a new recipe which combines my love of bacon with the mushrooms and goat cheese from FW’s recipe…I call them Umami Bites. They combine the meaty taste of the mushrooms with creamy goat cheese, savory bacon and a bit of sweetness from Grade B maple syrup. For those of you not familiar with it, Grade B maple syrup is a darker, thicker late-harvested syrup that is traditionally used in cooking, but as far as I’m concerned is pretty damn tasty on waffles or French toast too.

Umami Bites

24 Large Cremini Mushrooms (stems removed)
4-5 Slices – Bacon
6 oz – Goat Cheese
4 Tbsp – Grade B Maple Syrup
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice bacon crosswise into ¼ - inch strips, then fry until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, allow to cool and reserve rendered fat. Quickly sauté mushroom caps in bacon fat, seasoning with salt and pepper, until slightly soft and dark. Remove from pan and place in an oven safe dish or baking sheet. Place mushrooms in the oven for approximately 10 minutes. While mushroom caps are cooking, combine remaining ingredients (goat cheese, bacon and Grade B maple syrup), if necessary, adjust seasoning with salt and pepper. When mushroom caps are cooked, remove from oven and immediately place filling inside. Serve warm or at room temperature.

There’s a First Time for Everything!

Last night I ate bull penis. Yeah, that’s right, you read correctly; last night I ate a bull’s penis! I’m not saying I’m Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain and I go around eating the craziest food I can get my hands on just for the sheer shock value, but I’d like to try everything at least once. My philosophy on being a cook is, and has always been: you are doing yourself a disservice as a chef if you are unwilling to find out how certain foods taste. To that end, I’ve eaten Alligator, Rabbit, Elk, Venison, Squab (which is basically a small pigeon), Ants, Crickets, Grasshoppers, Lobster tomalley, Fish Heads (eyes and all), Ox Tail, Pig’s Feet, and probably a whole host of things I can’t remember right now. So when I walked into the restaurant last night and looked that the menu, I knew I’d kick myself if I walked out of there without trying the bull penis.
It took about 30 minutes for my bull penis to arrive, and when my waitress set it in front of me I started to have second thoughts. It’s pretty easy to think you’re s tough guy when you order penis off the menu, it’s another thing when they actually set that penis in front of you, with nary a knife or fork in sight.
I picked it up, stared down the urethra, and took a bite. For those of you who have never eaten another animals’ penis, I can honestly say it is unlike anything you, or I for that matter, have ever tasted before. The only way I can describe it is like trying to chew a large mouthful of unflavored Laffy Taffy with soft pebbles in it that has been soaked in beef stock. In more plain terms, you can chew and chew and chew and what is in your mouth simply refuses to be broken down; which leads to another problem when it comes to trying to swallow. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a gag reflex and having what amounts to a Super Bouncy Ball at the back of my throat kinda put a damper on ingestion.
That said, if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend trying bull penis.
And yes (Megan), I recognize that this makes two phallic related posts in a row…just the way the cookie, or in this case penis, crumbles.

No Foot Longs, They Make Me Nervous

This is more of a random food-related observation, rather than a recipe or anything, but ya’know. So anyway, Tuesday night my buddy Craig (the names have been changed to protect the innocent; or guilty, as it were) called and invited me to a Mets game. I know I used to write about sports but this isn’t going to be one of those times. I’m also not going to talk about how the Mets are getting a new stadium even though their current stadium is only 44 years old! Nor am I going to talk about the fact that there are virtually zero concession stands at the stadium that accept debit or credit cards…yeah, yeah I know it’s my fault for not getting cash before the game, but to paraphrase Richard Pryor, “it’s 2008, boy, get yo’ shit together!”
Anyway, Craig and I had a few beers and then I went in search of a concession stand that would take my debit card. So finally I found one, and made a rather curious decision to buy hot dogs for Craig and me. Not only that, but I made the further curious decision to buy foot long hot dogs. I returned to our seats handed one to Craig along with several packets of ketchup and mustard (we then had an utterly useless conversation about how I like pickles but not relish) and settled into my seat. It was only after about two minutes of eating our hot dogs, in somewhat cramped quarters, virtually elbow-to-elbow; that I noticed Craig was about finished with his hot dog and I had probably only a few bites left myself. That’s when it hit me: no man wants to savor a foot long tube of sausage while seated next to another man.

A little bit of New Orleans in New York Harbor

This past weekend I went out to Governors Island with some friends of mine; it was really fun, thanks for asking. Since I’m usually designated the “food guy,” it fell to me to make or bring something to eat. Seeing as I, ya’know, know how to cook, I thought it would’ve been a cop-out if I showed up with a Cold Cut Combo and a Bag of Funyuns. It took me about 5 seconds to come up with the sandwich I was going to make: the Muffelatta. I first "discovered" the Muffelatta about a year ago, while researching regional sandwiches for a Labor Day party. Shortly thereafter, I made my first foray into muffelatta territory and even made Muffelatta's for a Super Bowl party...they were a big hit!
A muffelatta is both the name of a type of Sicilian bread and a pretty damn tasty sandwich. The muffelatta loaf is a fairly large, flat, rounded loaf of bread that’s about 10-to-12-inches across and apparently tastes like focaccia. Although I wouldn’t actually know considering I’ve never been to New Orleans, and it’s virtually impossible to find the real McCoy in New York City.
A muffelatta sandwich is made using the aforementioned loaf, which is cut in half and then layered with alternating slices of cappicola, sopressata, mortadella, and then Emmentaler and Provolone cheeses. The whole sandwich is brought together by an olive salad, which is a combination of chopped olives, carrots, and peppers and then pressed overnight. Up till now I’ve had to make due with cheap imitations or quickly thrown together sandwiches made at home. This time I was determined to do it right. Saturday night I bought a loaf of bread that was the closest approximation of a Muffelatta loaf I could find, all the meats, cheeses, peppers and carrots; the olives I had at home. I did make one change, substituting prosciutto for mortadella; but in my opinion the difference in taste is negligible. Once home, I made the olive salad and tossed it with both an herb and a chili infused oil I had made some months before. Again, I’ve never had the original, but if I do say so myself the one I made was one of the most delicious sandwiches I’ve had in a while.

Elliott’s Muffelatta


1 Large Circular loaf of sturdy bread
½ Pint – assorted olives (mostly green), pits removed & rough chopped
¼ Cup – shredded & chopped carrots
¼ Cup – mixed (sweet & hot) peppers, stems removed
¼ Pound – Cappicola, thinly sliced
¼ Pound – Sopressata, thinly sliced
¼ Pound – Prosciutto, thinly sliced
¼ Pound – Emmentaler Cheese, thinly sliced
¼ Pound – Provoline Cheese, thinly sliced
Olive Oil for drizzling & mixing
Salt & Pepper, to taste


First make the Olive Salad:
Allow olives to come to room temperature, then press your thumb into the center of each olive; this should easily pit the olive. Roughly chop the olives, then combine with the carrots and peppers and chop once again. Place salad in a bowl and season with salt, pepper and olive oil (you can use an infused oil if you have one). Mix the salad together well, then set aside.

Then start the sandwich:
Cut the loaf in half and scoop out some of the bread from the inside of the top half, forming a well (this is where most of the Olive Salad is going to go). Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the bottom half of the loaf and begin to place the meats and cheeses in alternating layers, also on the bottom half of the loaf. When you have finished layering the meats and cheeses, spoon the olive salad into the well in the top half of loaf. Then, carefully holding one half of the sandwich in each hand, place the two halves together and immediately press down on the top half of the sandwich. Wrap the muffelatta in plastic wrap, place on a plate and cover with a baking sheet or plate and weight down, then place in the refrigerator at least overnight.
Remove from the refrigerator, slice and enjoy.

I See You’ve Played Knifey-Spooney Before

I can’t take credit for this story, but I think its far too fantastic to not retell. It comes to me from my former, and the former, Sous Chef at a Meatpacking District restaurant I used to work at. During a slow service one night, we were talking about whether or not it was smart to take your knives home every night and were exchanging stories about whether or not we’d ever been stopped by the police. I mean, how do you explain to a New York City cop that you’ve got 8 knives of varying size strapped to your back?
So the story goes, when he was working at a Celebrity Chef owned Midtown restaurant they had a Garde Manger Guy who lived in the Bronx and used to take the 6 train home when they were finished breaking down for the night. Apparently one night, they went out drinking after an especially tough but rewarding service and it was well after 2, a.m. when Garde Manger Guy finally jumped on the 6. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on getting on the 6 train at noon, let alone 2 in the morning. Anyway, Garde Manger Guy gets on the train and proceeds to read or zone out or do whatever it is that you do when you get on the 6 train at 51st Street and take it up to the Bronx.
So there’s this “Young Kid” sitting on the train listening to a brand new green iPod Mini. At the time, the Mini’s had only been out for a short while, and this was apparently one of the first one’s that was colored, or at least one of the first one’s anyone had seen. So at some point, a guy gets on the train and sits across from the Young Kid. After another stop or two, the guy stands up and goes over to the Young Kid.
“Hey, that’s a pretty cool iPod, can I see it?”
The Young Kid hands the guy the Mini, with the intention of holding onto it, and after a few seconds the guy is holding it in his hand. Then the kid asks for the Mini back, to which the guy responds ,”it’s mine now.” The Young Kid stands up and attempts to get his Mini back but the guy produces a switchblade from his jacket and says, “Whatcha gonna do now, huh?”
Meanwhile, Garde Manger Guy has been watching this whole thing transpire. Quietly as possible, he opens up his kniferoll and removes his 10-inch Henckel Chef’s knife. Then he walks down the train car to where the Young Kid and the other guy are standing. “Give it back,” says Garde Manger Guy. “Oh yeah, whatchu gonna do about it?” says the other guy, as he turns around and comes face to face with 10 inches of sharpened German steel. He looks at Garde Manger Guy, looks at the Mini in his hand; the plug still attached to the Kids headphones; and at the Young Kid and then back at the knife. Then he looks down at his own knife, a flimsy 2 ½ inch piece of metal.
Needless to say, after I heard that story, where ever I go my knives go with me.

Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here…?

Somewhere on the island of Manhattan is a man who looks remarkably, dare I say almost exactly, like me. This, in and of itself, isn’t all that strange; people always talk about their doppelgangers and you’ve got to assume that sooner or later someone who looks like you will end up in the same city you’re in. The strange part is that this guy apparently also works in the food industry and shops at some of the same places I shop at; or more pointedly, I shop at some of the same places he shops at.
In late December of last year, I went to Ottomanelli’s Prime Meats on Bleecker for the first time ever. I was there to buy ground duck, veal and pork meat for a Country Pâté I was making for a friend’s New Year’s Eve party. Upon walking into the store one of butchers (who I have since come to know quite well), turned and smiled at the sight of me. He then asked, “how’ve you been? Whatcha cooking today?” Now mind you, when I first walked into Ottomanelli’s, I was still employed as an analyst at my Wall Street Bank and most likely walked into the shop with a suit on, not sporting a Mohawk. I thought he must’ve confused me with someone else, and this other person also must’ve rolled into a place where the air is heavy with the stink of meat wearing a suit on a regular basis. After exchanging some pleasantries where he attempted to catch up with me, even going so far as to ask how my mom was doing, while I attempted to not let on that I had no idea who he was or that the only time I’d seen the inside of the store was in a magazine. Once there was a break in the conversation, I placed my order and got the hell out of there.
For a couple months I chalked it up to nothing more than coincidence; some guy who looked vaguely like me had stopped into Ottomanelli’s on a few occasions and the butcher probably got a little confused when he saw me. Then, I walked into Broadway Panhandler on 8th Street and got a little scared. Again, it was my first time in the store and when I got to the checkout line, one of clerks said to me, “hey man, I haven’t seen you in a while. What’ve you been up to?” Again, he asked me about cooking and why he hadn’t seen me in a while. And again I went along with it and didn’t let on that I had never seen him before in my life. But of course my story wouldn’t be complete unless it ended with the phrase third time’s a charm…
The Thursday after Labor Day (before I cooked those Prosciutto Wrapped Watermelon blocks, but after I salted five half-racks of lamb to confit), I dropped by Fish Bar on 5th Street to relax and have a drink. I had been there no less than five minutes when one of my friends asked me if I had been on 16th Street or near Union Square earlier that day. I told her I’d only been to Ottomanelli’s and a few other places and this was the first time I’d even come above Houston. She quickly disagreed and told me that she had been sitting outside Chat-n-Chew with a friend of hers, when she saw me walking down the street. Seeing as I’m pretty sure I know where my own body is at all times, I reiterated that at this particular moment; standing on 5th Street; was the closest I had come to Union Square all day. She couldn’t believe it and even went so far as to have me turn around so she could “compare jeans.” Needless to say, the jeans weren’t the same but the guy did have a Mowhawk and was apparently also wearing a yellow t-shirt, which is too weird for words.
So it’s been almost a year since I first walked into Ottomanelli’s, and it seems where ever I go, my doppelganger is a few steps ahead of me…or maybe I’m his doppelganger, always a few steps behind.

Prosciutto-Wrapped Watermelon Stuffed with Goat Cheese & Jalapeño

The Saturday after Labor Day, I cooked a Five-Course dinner for an old roommate of mine and about 18 of our friends (do the math, that’s 100 individual plates of food). The second course was a dish of my own creation: Prosciutto-Wrapped Watermelon, Stuffed with a combination of Goat Cheese & Jalapeño. I had decided that rather than simply taking a piece of watermelon and a piece of cheese and wrapping the two with prosciutto, I would add some depth of flavor. I would cut blocks of watermelon and then use an apple-corer to make a hole in the center, into which I would pipe my mixture of cheese and peppers. I would then wrap the entire block with prosciutto and grill it. Grilling, however; became an impossibility when it began to practically monsoon that night. Instead, I placed the blocks in a hot sauté pan with a little bit of oil and cooked them until the outsides were crisp, but before the cheese inside began to melt. If I say so myself, the combination of the salty prosciutto, sweet watermelon, creamy goat cheese and spicy jalapeño is a perfect match. The other wonderful part about this recipe is the remaining watermelon can be used to make Granitas.
Here’s the recipe. Enjoy!

Prosciutto Wrapped Watermelon with Goat Cheese & Jalapeño

2 Large Watermelons, rind removed*
30 Slices – Prosciutto
2 Cups – Goat Cheese
8 Jalapeños, seeded & minced
1/8th Cup – Honey
¼ Cup – Olive Oil
1 Piping Bag
1 Box – Wooden skewers, cut in half & soaked in water

Slice the watermelon into rectangular pieces approximately three inches long, one & one half inches wide and one & one half inches tall. Cut each piece in half lengthwise and scoop out the center using a melon-baller or small spoon (this center pulp can be reserved for watermelon soup, granitas, &c. The center can also be removed using an apple-corer, without cutting the watermelon blocks in half). In a medium sized bowl, combine goat cheese, jalapeño & honey and mix thoroughly. Take combined cheese & jalapeño mixture and fill each piece of watermelon using a small spoon or piping bag. When each watermelon block is filled, wrap with a slice of prosciutto and secure meat in place with a skewer. Brush each wrapped block with oil, then place in refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. Preheat or turn on grill.
Remove blocks from refrigerator and place on grill at a 45° angle. Grill for approximately 2-to-3 minutes, then rotate 90° and grill for another 2-to-3 minutes (this should ensure nice crossedhatch marks). Flip blocks over and continue to grill, rotating the same way. When the blocks are ready, the prosciutto should be crispy and the watermelon should begin to release its juices.
Remove from the grill and serve warm or at room temperature.

*Each watermelon should yield 15 pieces that are approximately 1½x1½x3 inches.

Setting the Special: First Published 2/11/08

So I’ve been pulling double-duty working in the kitchen of a Zagat-rated and Michelin Star restaurant in the morning and then going to school at night; which is making for some pretty interesting exchanges with my classmates once I get out of work after about nine hours and head to class. I’m heading to bed…setting the breakfast special tomorrow: Orange French Toast with a candied orange slice (maybe, I haven’t decided yet). But, I’m still alive. Just wanted to let you know.

If You Don’t Want to Get Bit, Keep Your Hand Out the Cage!: First Published 1/30/08

I’ve already told you that I can rub people the wrong way, inside and outside the kitchen; but it manifested itself in a pretty pronounced way yesterday when we were making Beef Bourguignon. Apparently, sometimes I don’t let people get enough stove time or don’t let people fabricate meat the way they want to…but not fish or “icky” meats, because girls don’t want to touch icky meats. So as soon as we were ready, I took some beef tri-tip cubes out of the fridge and separated it into three portions for our teams and then started cutting the beef into forkable pieces. One of my classmates came over and took some beef off my board, telling me she wanted to cut some too, I said fine. Fast forward to the end of class when we were getting some butter noodles ready and I apparently usurped the butter noodle duties of one of my classmates who proceeded to fly off the handle. Suffice it to say, when I get into the kitchen, I don’t fuck around. I don’t sneak off to the back of the room to bullshit with people and steal wine from a fucking box because I need a little bit of a buzz to get through class or go down the hallway to hang out with work study students. I am always by the stove or by the table looking for things to do. Excuse me if I want things to work out perfectly. As I said to her and to many of my other classmates, “if you want to cook something, or if you want to get on the stove, just say so. That’s all you have to do, just say so.” But if you sit there and don’t say anything when I grab some black bass, or chicken or shrimp or ginger root or venison and start to fabricate it, then you can’t get pissed off when I don’t see something getting done and decide to jump on it…especially when the chef stood right-fucking-next-to me, put his hand in a Le Creuset pot and said, “put some butter in this and get the drained noodles in it.” Basically, I’m not going to apologize for my behavior in the kitchen when my shit comes out nice! It’s like I told my buddy last night, “I’m an animal in the kitchen, if you don’t want to get bit, keep your hand out the cage!”

I Stink Like Fish: First Published 1/28/08

Well, things started off pretty well today. I got my grades back from the previous term, or rather, I got to actually see my project and my practical examination. I scored a 95 on my practical because my knife cuts weren’t sharp on my Pommes Persillade (basically hash brown-style potatoes, cut into medium dice served with minced parsley and garlic). The flavor profile was spot on, but I’ll admit the cuts could’ve used some work. I don’t know if this is a problem or not, that I knew I could afford to have less than perfect cuts because everything else was going to come out great. Nonetheless, I’ll keep working on my knife skills and plan on scoring nothing less than 100 on my third practical less than four weeks away. My project was to write four chicken recipes: Braised Chicken Rioja; Chicken Roulade, with Baby Spinach & Duxelle of Chanterelle Mushrooms; Sautéed Chicken Breast, with a Shallot-Cream Sauce and Pan Fried Sage & Chili Chicken. I knocked them out of the park, although that’s not saying much because most people got an A or close to it; but suffice it to say, I don’t think our previous instructor would’ve cloned too many of his other students...or basically said as much himself.

Things took a turn when it came time to make fish fume (stock) and I had to gut a couple pre-fabricated fish, rinse their heads out and prep them for a pot of stock. Our stock came out super-tasty, and the resulting soup was great, but rubber gloves or no rubber gloves, when you’re pulling the guts out of anything your hands aren’t exactly going to smell like lilacs and sunshine. Not to mention, I got into a bit of a “discussion” with our new (who was incidentally our first) instructor about the consistency of my dough for a tart…that was fun. So to sum up, got good grades, happy about that. Smell like fish and got into it with my instructor, not so happy about that. What the hell, tomorrow is a new day!

More on my four chicken recipes tomorrow and I’ll also tell you about my first foray into the world of marmalade.

Amuse-Bouche: First Published 1/28/08

We should probably set a few ground rules here, or I should at least tell you a little bit about who I am. I love to cook, I really do. Something about my wiring, I guess, means I don’t mind waking up at 7, a.m. on Christmas morning to pull a Capon out of brine or work all day and then cook at my friends house; and when I say cook at a friend’s house, I don’t mean boil some water for pasta, I mean putting sweetbreads through standard breading procedure, making a vinaigrette and blanching, shocking & pureeing broccoli to mix into risotto. This quality; that I find so wonderful is the same quality that can piss people off. My own mother has essentially banned me from her kitchen on any major holiday lest I repeat the actions of last Thanksgiving & Christmas when I refused any help from anyone even from something as simple as the assembly of salad, the mashing of a potato or even the making of a biscuit, which I refused to make from a Pillsbury tin. I’m trying to be better, I really am, but let’s just say I’ll help someone else out, who I know has more skill than I do, but I’m not exactly enthusiastic about having a sous chef.

As I sit here writing this, I’m getting ready to head to school and do a little cooking, god only knows what we’re doing tonight. I’m even going to take a picture of stuff we cook, show it to you guys and then I’ll probably critique it. So welcome, I look forward to our journey.

Oh yeah, a word about the name. The older brother of an old roommate of mine once dubbed me "the Sherpa" on account of my showing him the ways of New York City. My hope is I can be your food Sherpa.