Elliott Cooks

The Worst Kind of A$$hole...

2011-02-02T22:41:00.002-05:00

So, you know how, as a writer, you sometimes conceptualize an idea as being better or more interesting in your head, than it is on paper...?
(I mean, maybe you don't; after all, I'm the one with the blog that you're hopefully reading...) Well, that happened with what was to be my next post, "There Are No Darlings Here..." Suffice it to say, I went to my new favourite wine bar and as accosted by this agro, gay, server guy. It's not really important that he was gay or agro; the funny part was my buddy the bartender who informed him, "there are no darlings here," upon being called that.
So, anyway, this little rant comes to you courtesy of the Late-Night Menu at the restaurant I'm currently working at. I've never really seen the need for a late-night menu at most restaurants, because the man-hours usually outweigh the covers. But, whatever. You gotta do what you gotta do, right?
This past Friday, I ended up having to work the late-night shift. It's not important that I wasn't scheduled to work that night; or that a good buddy of mine who lives in Japan was going to be in town for the night and wanted to catch up...or the fact that I found out I was going to have to work the late-night about 10 minutes before I was about to pull up stakes; or the fact that after we got absolutely crushed for dinner service, we were dead from about 11:30, on; or that I was told by "Management," that if we remained dead, we would have last call for food at 1:15. What I feel is important: is the couple that walked in the door at 12:05, sat down, ordered a couple rounds of drinks and made every indication that they were there to drink, and not to eat.
The joke, it would seem, was on me. Because around 12:45, they began to look at the menu, which they followed up by closing the menu, and then followed up by asking the waitress if they could substitute certain things on the menu. Well, as my bartender buddy LPD said when I told him this story, "it's one o'clock in the fucking morning, just order something and be done with it!"
After they had perused the menu for the third time and still hadn't ordered anything, I asked our waitress, perhaps a little too loudly, "are these fucking people going to order some food, or what?!?!" Was there a better way of asking the question? Should I have been cognizant of the fact that if I could make out their hushed conversation, then odds were good they could hear my angry comment? Should I have been happy to have a job? Yes, on all accounts. But honestly, if you walk into a restaurant that you're lucky enough has a late night menu, then order some fucking food. Don't sit down at a table and drink for an hour, and then decide you're hungry, because if you do that, you're the worst kind of asshole. Look, I get it. It’s a restaurant, it’s open late, it’s my job. I understand all of those things. But there’s nothing more maddening than standing on the hot line, in a virtually empty restaurant, after you’ve already been there for 12 hours, watching two people actively not interested in ordering food, only to change their minds five minutes before last call.
I guess what I’m saying here, is don’t be a douche. If you walk into a dead bar at 3 in the morning, odds are pretty good the bartender probably isn’t going to stay open until 4 while you drink fucking ginger ale. So if you walk into a dead restaurant, what makes you think you’ve got unlimited time to order some food off the menu? Bars and restaurants are in the business of making money. There’s no money to be made by people not walking in the door. And there’s very little money to be made by two people walking in the door, not ordering food, and then no one else walking in after them.
Basically, I was pissed, and I think I had a right to be pissed. But I’ll concede the fact that I could’ve been a little less vocal in my pissedoffness.
But seriously, when you walk into a restaurant, especially late at night; don’t be an asshole…

Next Up:

My descent into bacon fat, and the dangers of popcorn obsession…

* Note: That's not the ticket from what they ordered, it's from an old restaurant when four high kids came in and ordered dessert and apps and a snack all at the same time...

G-E-T S-O-M-E, or Comeuppance is a Bitch

2011-01-15T10:54:00.002-05:00

So, I've got a buddy who's a pretty good cook in his own right. We both finished culinary school around the same time and have taken similar paths, thus far, in our careers. That is to say, both of us have tried to work for well respected chefs, in solid kitchens; while shying away from the dying world of "Haute Cuisine," with the likes of Per Se, Daniel, Le Cirque, &c. This isn't so much "his story," as it is, a story about him...
A few months ago, he reaches out to me and asks if we can get a drink after service. I didn't think much of it at the time, just figured he'd had a shitty service, and wanted a sympathetic ear to bounce his frustration off of. By the time I got to the bar, he was already there, a thousand yard look in his eyes and a glass of Eagle Rare in front of him. After we exchanged pleasantries, he wasted little time in getting to the point.
"So, you guys need a fuckin' line cook, or what?"
As it happens, he had; that very same night; been fired from the restaurant he had recently given notice too.
To hear him tell it, they got a new chef at the restaurant and the guy was, for lack of a better word, a prick. He apparently came in, badmouthed the way things used to be done and told the staff on his second first official night there, “if you guys don’t want to be here, let’s find that out now.” Now, that’s all well and good, but I’d say it’s kinda tough for someone to tell whether or not their boss is going to turn into an alcoholic psycho after working with them for about eight hours…but I’m jumping ahead.
Apparently, their new chef had no idea what he was actually getting himself into, had a big chip on his shoulder and didn’t know how to expedite tickets. This means that servers would regularly stop by the pass to alert him that teams were ready for their second courses; but that the information was never passed on to the people who actually needed to be cooking the food. So my buddy tells me that the entire kitchen staff sized this guy up and started talking about putting in their two week’s notice; but that no one actually pulled the trigger. Then one night, my buddy got kicked off the line. I don’t know why, he didn’t say why; but called it, “a whole bunch of bullshit.” He said he put in his notice the very next day and three days later, there he was, sitting next to me getting drunk on bourbon.
So I asked him to back up and say that there must have been some signs leading up to the point that brought us to those bar stools. He said no, but “get this. When that asshole canned my ass, he followed me outside and got in my face!”
This in-and-of-itself isn’t all that surprising. Kitchens are high stress environments, and sometimes people say things in a “heat of battle,” I get that. I can even understand a chef yelling at a former employee; even though at that point just let it go...
This guy didn’t let it go. My buddy told me this prick got in his face and apparently called him: “a whiny little bitch,” a “punk,” a “little fucker who should rethink the profession,” “to be careful” and apparently even went so far as to stick a finger in his chest and ask, “do you want a fucking piece of me?” I was especially pissed by all of this, although I can only imagine how my buddy felt. The thing that I didn’t say that night, but have told mutual friends when we’ve discussed the story is that it was especially uncool of this guy to threaten my buddy’s future employment by telling him to rethink the profession and to watch out. Those things, to me: sound like the kind of things you say to someone before you start badmouthing them all over town…
Long story short, I talked to my buddy about a week ago, to see how his job search was going and he said it was going slowly, but that he had been given a bit of good news. “Remember that asshole who fired me? They fired him about a week and a half ago!”
While I’m never happy to hear about someone losing their job, I told my buddy it couldn’t have happened to a better person than that guy….

Special thanks to my buddy (Name Redacted) for letting me tell this story.

Next up: There Are No Darlings Here...

And maybe an Banana Pudding recipe.

Crush Some Soup!

2010-12-17T02:57:00.004-05:00

If you live in the Northeast, you've probably noticed an alarming new trend: it's fucking cold as a witches’ tit outside!
Unfortunately, most of us don't have the luxury of sitting on the couch, wrapped in a down comforter cocoon while we watch Top Chef reruns; emerging only to go to the bathroom or answer the door for the take-out we'd forgotten we'd ordered. When I was working a soul-crushing desk job, nothing used to give me greater pleasure, during the cold Winter months, than coming home and turning on the stove. I could've been boiling water for pasta, or making soup from scratch; as long as the stove was on I felt...right.
Today, we're not going to focus so much on boiling water for pasta, but making soup. The kind of soup your grandma used to make, from scratch, that takes half a day, and most importantly, warms your kitchen to the core.
This past weekend I helped cook a pot luck dinner (one of many) for the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society Gala. Until 24 hours before we ate, I still had no idea about what we were going to eat...but I KNEW it had to involve butternut squash soup. So, without further verbiage, here's an awesome recipe for soup.

Butternut Squash Soup, with Cinnamon Toasts, Fried Sage & Chili Oil

Soup
2 large butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks
1 large Spanish onion, small diced
1 carrot, small diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 TBSP ground Cinnamon
Salt & Pepper, to taste
3 TBSP Olive Oil
½ Cup, White Wine
4 Cups of water

Cinnamon Toast
1 Cup of Brioche bread, cut into 1-inch-by-1-inch cubes
4 TBSP Butter
1 Sprig of Thyme, picked
3 TBSP Cinnamon
1 TBSP Sugar

Fried Sage
12 Sage leaves
¼ Cup Canola Oil
Salt, to taste

Serves 6, with enough soup for leftovers

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, sprinkle the squash with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper, to taste.
Roast until soft, but not until the squash takes on too much colour (approximately 45 minutes).
While the squash is roasting, add the remaining oil to a large pot and begin to sweat the carrots, over medium heat. When the carrots begin to soften, add the celery and then the onion and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Raise heat to high and deglaze with white wine, and reduce to a sec.
Add the roasted squash, remaining cinnamon, and cover with water. Bring the whole pot to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer until the squash is soft, and the water has reduced by 1 quart.
Working in batches, puree the soup until smooth in a blender or food processor. (NOTE: The soup will be hot, so make sure to be careful and if necessary cover the top of the blender with a kitchen towel to avoid burns).
When fully pureed, return to pot and check seasoning and consistency; adding more water or reducing further depending on how thick or thin you like your soup.

To make the Cinnamon Toast, melt the butter in a large sauté pan, over medium heat, until it begins to brown. Working quickly, add the bread and picked thyme to the pan, tossing frequently to evenly coat the bread with the brown butter and thyme.
When browned, remove from heat and toss with the cinnamon and sugar, until well coated. Then transfer to a sheet lined with paper towels and dry.

To fry the sage, simply heat the oil in a pan until approximately 325 degrees. Add the sage to the oil and fry until crispy (approximately 5-to-7 seconds per side). Then remove to a sheet lined with paper towels and sprinkle lightly with salt.

As far as the chili oil goes, you can buy a bottle from an Asian market somewhere; or you can infuse your own at home. I like to infuse my own, but that takes time; and you probably want soup.

To serve, ladle 12 ounces of soup into a large bowl and garnish with a small mound of toasts in the center of the soup. Then place two sage leaves on top of toasts and lightly drizzle with chili oil.

* The last two times I've made this soup, I've been doing other stuff has haven't taken a picture, so instead you get a funny picture from dinner service a few months back...

I Hate the Food Network

2010-12-08T23:13:00.007-05:00

By the way, this post is a lot longer than most of my normal one's, so you might want to settle in with a Biali and a cup of Joe while you read...

In case you couldn't figure out from the title what this piece is about, I hate the Food Network! I hate the network like I hate self-obsessed, overly opinionated vegans who spend every waking moment they’re not eating quinoa and white bean salads and drinking wheatgrass, telling me what's wrong with my eating habits! It should be noted that I re-wrote the first three paragraphs coming home a little buzzed on the train.
I've realized; after many conversations with friends, who both work in the restaurant industry and don’t; that my hatred of the Food Network doesn't stem from a place of jealousy...it stems from a point of fundamental confusion and anger with what they see fit to put in front of their cameras.
Let's start with Sandra Lee; a woman who Anthony Bourdain has devoted pages upon pages worth of ink to. So without belaboring this too much, let’s just talk about my anger that the Food Network would have the audacity to call this hack a “chef,” even though I doubt she's ever even seen the inside of a culinary school; much less knows how to break down a fucking chicken! This lithe, blonde, smiling succubus poses in front of the cameras, as she supposedly “teaches” mid-American housewives how to cook. And what is she "teaching" them? Not how to make cassoulet or pan-roast Brussels sprouts or make a butternut squash bisque; but how to open a can of Brand X sauce, add a tin of Brand Y diced meat and pour the whole unholy amalgam over limp pasta, top it with some yellow cheese and toss the whole monstrosity in the oven. Oh, and lest I forget: how to mix the dusty bottles of booze, laying dormant in a housewife's cupboard into something she can drunken herself with to the point that dinner with her family is palatable. And yeah, I might be speaking in absolutes, here, but I don't think I'm that far off base.

Basically, I don't understand what purpose her show serves. If her aim is to give people a quick alternative to a "home-cooked" meal, then there are plenty of things she could cook that don't have their genesis in a can, package, or spice mix. And if her aim is to cook primarily what's available to a mid-American housewife; then for the love god, use a fucking potato, or fresh corn or any of the myriad bounty that our heartland currently produces. Look, I get it. It's easier to open a can of tuna & mix it with a box of Ronzoni than it is to actually cook something from scratch. And I know that not everyone in America, certainly far more than those that have access to Sandra's little Half Hour of Hell, can afford to go to the green market or plant a garden or be choosy when they’re in the soup isle at the Price Chopper. But that doesn't mean they should be forced to cut corners and eat crap. I guess I should keep my fingers crossed now, that Sandra doesn’t have her Governor-Elect boyfriend send a death squad to my front door…

The next, and quite possibly biggest, offenders on my list; are a pair of southern assholes that manage to offend me on many levels. Patrick and Gina Neely, the co-hosts of their own show; Down Home with the Neely's, or as I call it, “The Step-n-Fetchit Cookin' Hour,” is probably one of the most offensive things I've ever seen on television. These two assholes dance and sing and smile and sass their way through a half hour of TV, while they teach Americans how to make: fried chicken, biscuits & gravy, pork spare ribs, barbequed everything!, mud pie; and wash it all down with watermelon-flavoured sweet tea! They offend me because, as people of colour who cook for a national television audience, I believe they have a responsibility not to perpetuate the stereotype of what “America” thinks black southerners eat and cook at home. But who the hell am I to say what their responsibility is? I’m just an opinionated dude who doesn’t have a TV show. But you know what I also am? I’m a black guy who cooks for a living and when I watch those two it affects me like fingernails across a chalkboard. I just think that maybe perpetuating stereotypes isn’t the best use of their talents. If; and again I know I'm generalizing, but; if most Americans have never come face-to-face with a real live chef who is a person of colour, then why does the Food Network trot these two out, as if to say: "these are black chefs and this is what black people cook. Fatty food that's deep friend and dripping with sweet sauce." The Network has Aaron McCargo Jr., a well spoken guy from New Jersey who actually has good, healthy recipes; and to my knowledge has never danced in front of the Food Network cameras. But I suppose a fairly well-spoken black chef, who may not know how to dance is more threatening to the Network and their viewers.
Next, are the "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills." A group of clueless, wealthy shoemakers who go into even more clueless, even more wealthy idiots homes to make canapes. But apparently, it's funny because the Botoxed broad having the doggie party says she doesn't want her dog eating beef; or at the last minute, the marginally famous person they found decides they don't want anything fried at their parties. No recipes are given, technique is non-existent, and to hear these people talk about food is like listening to me talk about the Flat Tax...it might sound good on paper, but sooner or later you're going to realize I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. On a recent episode, I watched as this cute blonde chick dumped packaged ground chicken and canned pumpkin puree into a sauté pan together, then poked at it a few times with a spatula. We then saw her take the whole brownish culinary abortion and use it as a filling for something she called Chicken-Pumpkin Pot stickers...or something equally as offensive and stupid.

Then, there's the bleach-blonded, goateed tubby bastard Guy Fieri; who I'd just as soon push out a moving car on the 101, as I would have him attempt to teach me how to cook something. He drives around the country sampling road-side fare, withstanding the urge to call everyone he encounters, "brah" and can also be seen judging tailgating competitions, participated in by overweight, mustached Middle Americans.
Recently, I watched this jackass demonstrate sushi; but talk about how Americans "don't like sushi," so it apparently, it's up to him to "jazz it up." You know what I say? You don't like sushi? Don't order sushi! But don't wrap cheese steak filling or whatever, with raw carrots, in rice; call it the Spikey-Haired-Asshole Roll and call it a day. That's about as ridiculous as it is offensive.
What qualifies him to be an authority on sushi, or anything, for that matter? I mean, aside from looking completely ridiculous, I'm not sure he has any discernable talents. It seems the Food Network is telling me they'd rather trot out some bleach-blonded fat ass to teach me how to make sushi, than offering that job to Ming Tsai or David Chang (though I'm sure he'd loudly turn them down), or hell, a Jackie Chan impersonator. And why? Is it a visibility issue? Are Asian chefs not well known enough for the Network to think Americans would be comfortable with them? If that's the case, then the solution is obvious: pack the cast of their laughably rigged Next Food Network Star with a bunch of Asians and grease one through! Either that, or drive a truck load of money up to the guy from Lost's house.
Then there's Michael Symon's new show, "Food Feuds." A rip-off of Food Wars, which airs on the Travel Channel. And lest we forget, Scripps (papa bear of the Food Network) closed on a $1.1 Billion dollar deal for the Travel Channel earlier this year; so exactly what function does this show serve?
Don't get me wrong, I like and respect Michael Symon; and can even forgive his appearances on The Iron Chef, but it’s just him passing judgment on various foods. At least on Food Wars the host sets up a panel of three locals that participate in a blind taste test. This adds a fun element when the die-hard fan of say, Shake Shack picks the burger from Burger Joint (this has not, to my knowledge, actually happened). Instead, Michael thinks about it off-screen, and presents the winner with a giant, and quite ridiculous looking, trophy. I’m not saying this has actually happened, but what’s to stop the owner of Mom’s Happy Cupcakery from taking bald Mikey out back and helping him out with a little hand release to sway the competition in their favour?

Basically, what pisses me off about the Food Network is their seemingly constant view of the American public as generally retarded, completely gullible and in need of constantly being pandered too. And yet, obviously, I still watch the Network. I still know about their new shows, their talentless former skaters and homemakers they call “chefs,” and sheer nonsense that is on their channel at any given moment. I just wish the Food Network would have more respect for their viewers intelligence, because they honestly don’t seem to care…like not even a little bit.

Stuff for your Dressing

2010-11-17T23:30:00.004-05:00

With the Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, I thought it was appropriate to have a little discussion about stuffing...or as my late grandmother used to call it, "dressing."
The general consensus, at least among my northern friends, seems to be that the bread and nut a giblet mixture served with your bird; is called stuffing...regardless of whether it's getting stuffed inside the bird, or served alongside it.
From what I’ve been able to find, stuffing has its roots in the early 16th Century, when the term “stuffing” first appears in print. Prior to that, it seems that anything that got stuffed all up in them (former resting place of the) guts, was called “farce.” Sometime around the late 19th Century, the hoity toity set felt that “stuffing” was too; shall we say common; and “dressing” became de rigueur. Interestingly enough, I’ve always associated “stuffing” with a north of the Mason-Dixon culinary term, and “dressing” with being its southern equivalent. Whatever the case may be, and whatever your personal preference for calling the bread and nut and sausage and if you’re weird fruit, amalgam is; I think we can all agree that stuffing is pretty awesome.

My personal stuffing recipe, one that I also think is pretty awesome, has changed over the years; but it has its genesis in a recipe I got from the New York Times about eight or nine years ago. That recipe, itself, seems to be on the older side, and has what I would call, southern leanings; what with its call for pecans (not walnuts), cornbread (not white bread) and hot sausage (not giblets; although the sausage thing may be more “Italian” than actually southern, but it seems like up north, we ain’t too fond of meat in our stuffing). Those ingredients are mixed with eggs, chicken stock and a healthy dose of herbs, to create a stuffing; that while not your mama’s Stove Top, it will have everyone at the dinner table happily and silently munching away. I also learned, through trial and error and my family's penchant for over-indulgence, to make a lot; stuffing a little bit of my dressing in the bird, but reserving the rest to be baked outside towards the end of the cooking process. Not to mention, my stuffing’s got booze in it; and who doesn’t like a little booze during the holidays?

Elliott Cooks Stuffing
- 1 large Yellow Onion, small diced
- 2 Carrots, small diced
- 2 stalks Celery, small diced
- 2-to-3 cloves Garlic, minced
- 1 ½ lbs Hot or Sweet Italian Saugage, casings removed & crumbled
- 1 lb pecans, shelled & halved or lightly crushed
- 6 Cups, Cornbread*
- 1/8 cup Thyme, picked
- 1/3 cup Sage, minced
- 1/4 cup Rosemary, minced
- 2 Eggs, beaten
- Chicken stock, as needed
- 1/4 cup Butter, unsalted
- 1/4 cup, Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

In a large cast iron skillet or saute pan, sweat the carrots in butter until soft, then add the onions and celery until the onions are translucent.
Add the garlic and continue to sweat, being careful not to brown or burn it.
When all vegetables have been sweated, add the sausage and saute until just cooked.
Deglaze with the bourbon, and reduce until sec (until most of the liquid has reduced).
Add the cornbread, pecans and herbs and stir to fully incorporate.
Transfer to a large bowl and allow to cool slightly.
Add the beaten eggs and mix thoroughly.
Add chicken stock, if necessary.
Stuff a small amount of dressing in the cavity of the bird and place the rest in a buttered casserole dish and cover with foil. Bake along with the bird for approximately 30 minutes, then remove the foil and continue to bake until browned on top (It should stand to reason that the stuffing can be made ahead of time, but unless you want it to sit in the oven, or your kitchen counter, for like four hours; you'll put it in the oven when the bird's almost done).

* Cornbread Recipe
(I don't know about you, but I like having extra cornbread. Cornbread is awesome. So I'm giving you a recipe that will more than fill a 9 by 9 by 2 inch baking dish)

2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter, plus grease for pan

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
Sift, or whisk, together cornmeal, flour, baking powder, salt, pepper, and sugar. Then add beaten egg, milk and butter.
Grease a shallow (9 by 9 by 2 inch) baking dish with butter, then pour in batter. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean.
Cornbread should be made a day early so it has a chance to dry out slightly.

Hide yo’ kids, Hide yo’ wife, Hide yo’ Knives!

2010-11-07T13:53:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I’m back, bitches! Somewhere between the return of the Lorax and the return of Kenny Powers; there’s me. The return of the guy who writes about food, complains about shit and gives you recipes; when he feels like it.
I was going to signal my triumphant return with a long-winded, angry, shot across the bow entitled: “I Hate the Food Network.” I had been working on it for the past month, slowly updating it on my Blackberry, on my rides to and from work, waiting until it was just right and I could unleash it upon the world. But then I got drunk one night earlier this week and decided to delete all of my old e-mails…like an asshole. I mean, either that’s what happened, or a big yellow van with cupcakes and Dandelions painted on the side and driven by Paula Deen came up beside me as I was walking home and Sandra Lee, Bobby Flay and that no-talent hack from Upstate jumped out, drugged and kidnapped me, wiped my phone and my memory and then left me face down in a puddle of cloudy bourbon at Charlie Sheen’s apartment. But rest assured, it won't be too long before you get to read my hate-filled little rant.
And yeah, I know I’m kind of an asshole because I haven’t posted anything in a while. But I’ve also been ridiculously busy. When you wake up at ten and are in the shower before noon and don’t leave work until one in the morning…before you probably have a couple glasses of Makers Mark and then crawl into your warm bed at four; writing isn’t especially high on your list of priorities; like say: wiping the crust out of your eyes; finding out why your mouth tastes a certain way; or trying to determine; “if I have So-and-So’s phone, I really hope they’ve got mine!” might be.
But being busy also breeds lots of interesting things going on and happening to me and happening to people I know. Which in turn leads to funny stories I get to tell you; as well as a couple recipes tossed in, for good measure. So get ready for it. I’m back and I’ve got a lot to say.

Now This, I Like

2010-08-25T10:48:00.001-04:00

I wake up, almost every morning that I have to get to work, exhausted. It's like a half a Bell Curve, that grows exponentially throughout the week. Meaning, my first day back in the kitchen, I wake up feeling pretty refreshed, especially if I haven't spent the previous night participating in my own personal Alcoholympics, whilst talking shit with Sicilian J, and playing Americas favourite game, "I can drink more bourbon than you can (let me be the first to tell you, there are no winners)." But with each passing day, I wake up a little more tired than I was the day before.
I swing my legs onto the floor and tap my feet on the ground, letting the tingling sensation in my toes subside; then it's downstairs to the living room where I watch SportsCenter while checking my email and surf Yelp to see that the mindless, idiot "foodies" are (incorrectly) saying about food and restaurants. After about an hour, it's into the shower and my day really begins.
On my walk from the subway, I usually smoke a cigarette and go through a list of what I need to have prepared for my mise that day; bumping up big projects like cleaning trout and then wrapping it in caul fat or making a dozen potatoes worth of Lemon-Parmesan Gnocchi, to the top of my list.
If my work week has started on a Wednesday, which it usually does, by Saturday or Sunday afternoon I'm actively thinking about how tired I am, and how I'd like to curl up in a ball on my couch with a quart container full of water, the remote in my hand and a couple delivery menus scattered across the coffee table.
But a funny thing happens shortly after I get to work. It's not quite an instantaneous Superman-into-the-phone booth, kind of thing; but I start to feel better, and I forget how tired I might be. I walk in the door, I say hi to our GM, our waitresses and the lunch cook; I toss my Dunhills and my Blackberry in the cubbyhole on my station and I head downstairs.
Right around the time I've changed out of my civvies and into my whites; that's when the “oh, poor me” feelings start to melt away; and by the time I'm standing in front of a cutting board, my knife laying across it at 45 degrees, and my long black waiters apron is tied around my waist, I'm ready for battle. Fuck, I'd probably take you up on your offer to run a 10K...and do the whole damn thing in my clogs!
This feeling, or rather this change in feeling; is something I never really gave much thought to before. It just happens, and I accept it. But psychoanalyzing myself it seems pretty clear that I feel the way I do when I'm at work, because I actually want to be there. The memories of working on Wall Street are still entirely too clear for me and I'll be damned if I ever feel like that again. The kind of feeling only a privileged asshole, with a good-paying job can feel: “I'm tired, I sit behind a desk all day and get paid to tap a keyboard, I have a paid lunch break which I can fuck off for an hour and a half if I want too, and I don’t want to be here!”
Those days are gone, and they’ve been replaced by strange calmness and a nervous excitement. Calmness because I know that if I do my job, everything will work out alright; and excitement because every day brings something new; a new way making gnocchi, a more efficient way to make Taramasalata, or a new “perfect” way of soft-boiling an egg. Whatever the case may be, I’m happy and at the end of the day that’s all that matters.

What’s On My Mind This Week?:

The weather’s gotten cooler this week, which is awesome, because it means Cassoulet weather is right around the corner.

To Grill is to Live

2010-08-05T10:59:00.002-04:00

It's Summertime in New York City; it's hot, it's muggy, you can cut the air with a dull butter knife! But Summertime also provides those of us lucky enough with an opportunity to do so, to stand in front of a flaming grill, while grasping a pair of tongs. I personally like to nervously snap my tongs, while the flames lap at my fingertips and the charcoal stings my eyes...
This summer, I haven't managed to grill as much as I would've liked too. Mainly because, I'm off on Mondays and Tuesdays and the majority of my friends are busy doing little things like working then. But I have been able to sneak in a couple hours in front the grill, so far...
I made pulled pork for the Fourth of July, and I grilled up some of my special blend hamburgers for my step-brothers arrival from Las Vegas. If you know me, you know I'm fanatical about my burgers, to the point that I called my friend's brother on the Fourth a couple years ago and told him to tell my friend to go fuck himself, because he suggested I stop at the grocery store and “just buy beef from them”...you know, completely rational behavior. I don't cook them beyond medium-rare, I don't use pre-packaged grocery store meat and I don't skimp or skim.
Instead, I go to my butcher, or Wegman's (if I'm in Jersey to see my mom) and have them grind me a mix of two thirds beef brisket and one third sirloin which becomes my burger.
I personally use salt, black pepper, a little onion powder, and that’s pretty much it. Also, I’m not telling you how to season your burgers, I’m just saying you should get yourself some high quality ingredients, rather than beef that has the potential to make you sick.
Go to your butcher, have him grind together two pounds of brisket and one pound of sirloin; take that shit home and season your meat, but remember this is definitely one of those: “let-is-more” kinda times. Make your burger patties (the whole pressing your thumb into the center of one side of the patty to prevent it from “baseballing” on you, only happens to me when I use crappy grocery store meat. So don’t use crappy grocery store meat and you should be okay). Since I usually get three pounds of meat I end up making nine, 1/3rd pound burgers; although I think the last time around, I made half-pound burgers and then a couple smaller ones for my mom. Brush your grill and burgers with oil (maybe not the same brush, huh?), and season your burgers with salt and pepper. Because every grill is different, I can’t say for certain that your burgers will come out medium-rare if you cook them about 6 minutes per side; but that’s a pretty good baseline.
While your burgers are grilling, enlist a friend to thinly slice some tomatoes and onions and tear some Boston lettuce and arrange them on a plate. If cheese on your burger is your thing, then put it on your burger about 2 minutes after its been flipped. The temptation to put the cheese on the burger until its almost cooked, tends to lead to either overcooked burgers or under-melted cheese, and neither of those things are good for anybody. Then take your burgers off the grill and dig in. Savor the taste of actual beef that came from no more than 2 different cows, instead of a couple hundred. Sit contented, as you chew, knowing you’ll only go to your grocery store to buy cereal or Gushers.

What’s On My Mind This Week?:

Well, for starters, The Ice Cream Festival at the New Amsterdam Market, Sunday, August 22. Might not be a bad way to start the day before I have to head to work.
Also, watched a few minutes of that new, god-awful Gordon Ramsay show I will not mention; and while I understand “everybody’s got their price” I am seriously disappointed to see he, Graham Elliot Bowles and Joe Bastianich lower themselves to this sad, sad level.

Daikon...

2010-07-15T12:00:00.003-04:00

One of my earliest food related memories, that didn't involve my mother's kitchen, was going to the Union Square Greenmarket for the first time. I was, maybe, 8 years old and here I was at my mother’s hip wandering around amongst farmers, and bakers and cheesemongers with no idea what the hell was going on. She took me to several stalls, but the one that sticks out in my memory was the guy who sold Daikon Radish.
He had long, straggly hair, and even longer fingernails; and what he didn't make up for in long hair and long fingernails, he more than made up for with long, brown rabbit teeth. His skin was the complexion of a discarded, greasy, white paper bag from a pizzeria; and had the same crinkly appearance. And his eyes, his eyes had a wild intensity about them that scared the ever-living hell out of me. One look at him, and I knew I wanted no part of being anywhere near his stand...my mother, had other ideas.
She dragged me over to his small table and picked up a gnarled off-white horn.
"Is this a type of carrot?" she asked.
"Oh no. This," he said, stroking one of them with his long thin fingers, "this is a Daikon..."
It was the way he said it too. The foreboding mysteriousness with which he said it, and the way he drew out the "i" and the last syllable; so that each had the same emphasis: "dye-khaan."
I'm sure he went on to explain to her that it was a type of radish and that it was used primarily in Asian cookery, but after he said, "dye-khaan" I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

What’s On My Mind This Week?:
My step-brother is in town and he’s a fan of the burger. What red-blooded American man who’s lived in the Southwest for any period of time isn’t a fan of the burger? So I will be grilling my brisket-blend burgers, with pictures and recipes to follow.

Photo: Feasting on Pixels

French Toast, Eggs Benedict and Other Small Tragedies, Part III

2010-07-09T02:41:00.002-04:00

It should come as no secret to you, that I have a visceral dislike of brunch...I hate brunch the way Lady Gaga hates pants! It very clearly stems from having to work so many Saturday and Sunday mornings. When most of you were ensconced in your comfy beds, I was dragging my ass out of bed at 6, a.m.; in many cases a few hours after I'd gotten in it; to head to the restaurant and start cooking: eggs; French Toast; hash browns; sides of bacon; pancakes and a plethora of other breakfast items I have grown to loathe. It has actually ruined me from even normal interaction at brunch with my friends. Although, in truth, I never understood what drove...what drives...people out of their beds hours after they've drunken themselves, for food they could normally make at home.
But since this is now, the third installment of the above-titled piece you might already know all that. So here goes with a couple other stories…
Back when I was still working with (and talking too*) My Boy Dopp, one of our waitresses...you could say she was a bit of a donkey; okay, she was a donkey...came into the kitchen during an especially busy brunch service to ask if our hamburgers were made with horse meat. The confusion, it seems, arose equally; around our menu description, an overzealous diner and her own stupidity. Our menu stated that the Brunch Burger was served, “au cheval,” which literally translated, means “of the horse.” However, what no one but; it would seem; me was in a position to explain; "au cheval" is also an idiomatic French expression meaning, riding on top...because our Brunch Burger was served with a fried egg on top of it.
So in she traipsed, cocking her head to the side like the RCA dog, and asked, “do our hamburgers have horse meat in them...?” Mind you, at this time Dopp & I are reaching into 600 degree salamanders and 400 degree ovens, while we try to cook for, your hungover, your drunk, your brunching masses yearning to eat food.
I was so shocked that I froze, with a cast iron skillet in my hand, and asked her, “I'm sorry, what the fuck did you just say?” She repeated her question, and while every fiber of my being was saying, “are you fucking serious? You've worked here for how many months and you want to know if there's fucking horse meat in the burgers?”
Instead, I painstakingly explained to her what "au cheval" meant and that she should tell her donkey table that no restaurant in New York City serves people horse meat. She did, and the chick who asked ordered the English Breakfast instead…because, ya'know, they're so similar.
I’ve got a couple more stories to throw your way, but lucky for me I don’t work brunch that much anymore these days, so I’m not gonna blow my wad just yet. Looks like, you’re gonna get a part four coming your way at some point.

* Story for another day, I promise.

What’s On My Mind This Week?:

Aside from the fact that it’s been a friggin’ dog’s age since my last post?
Interesting article in the Times this week has me thinking about Prosciutto Straws again…

Did He Just Say That?

2010-05-27T11:10:00.003-04:00

When I worked, for a short time, in the kitchen of a Michelin Starred Chef; not that many things happened that gave me a reason to laugh, let alone smile.
Actually, before we get into that, let's actually start by talking about the word, "worked;" and saying it's a bit of hyperbole, seeing as I didn't see a single red cent, in wages, from the time I was there, for over a year!
Anywho...The man was, for all intents and purposes, a tyrant. He was seldom in a good mood, his "innocent" kitchen teasing had an element of nastiness to it, and he exuded a Nicoise-air of holier than though douchiness at all times. On a regular basis, he would alternate between threatening to remove the cost of say a burned tray of crostini from my paycheck (which was fucking moot!) and making me clock out, then continue working...the most egregious instance, for nearly three hours.
I worked the entremetier station; which is to say I cooked the sides that went along with most of the main courses, as well as picking up hot apps. It did a pretty good job, especially when you consider I was still pretty green.
So, one night, the Manager came into the kitchen to tell our chef that Frank Bruni was in the dining room with four other people. He responded by essentially kicking everyone off the line so that he could cook all the dishes himself. Because, ya’know, that was the kind of trust he had in his staff…
Did I mention that it was my trail night and I was there to simply get a read on the kitchen...? Because it was. Oh, and did I also mention that the chef in question spoke with a, "very teek (bordering on comical) French ag-scent"? Because, he did.
So there I was, on my trail, watching this chef pick up all five dishes by himself; jumping between the pasta station, the grill and the range. It was a kind of poetry in motion...like, slam poetry, but poetry nonetheless.
Then, the wheels came off. Shortly around the time he was realizing he'd bitten off more than he could chew, one of the donkey servers came in and began to pepper him with questions. She was asking about substituting ingredients for a couple dishes, because she had a table apparently allergic to pine nuts, gluten, pollen, air-breathing, and quite possibly, common sense.
He was largely ignoring her, except to occasionally say "no" or “dat will make de deesh taste terr-i-bal!” As he began to plate, and finally asked for help, she returned with more questions; his back was to the kitchen door, a sauté pan in his hand and without turning around he said, “Excuse me, but can you please GET ZEE FUCK OUT OF MY KITCH-EN!” There was a moment of stunned silence before she slinked away, and then he went back to plating.
Looking back on it, I can laugh about it because it was equally ridiculous behavior; she shouldn’t have come into the kitchen peppering the chef with questions and he probably could’ve found a better way to ask her to come back and pester him when he wasn’t plating dinner for, probably, the most powerful food critic in the country.
In short, I thought it was shocking; but looking back on it, kinda funny.

What’s On My Mind This Week?

I used to grab a bite to eat at this Mexican place on 14th Street that’s owned by Chinese people. My buddy, JD calls them “China-Mex,” and I’ve been thinking of actual China-Mex food. I mean, who says I can’t stuff a burrito full of Beef & Broccoli or eat a Shrimp Lo Mein taco, if I want one…?

It’s Spelled S-T-E-E-Z-E, Part II

2010-05-25T11:23:00.003-04:00

Hey guys, same steeze as before...more kitchen "vehnack," I.e. terminology for you to wrap your heads around...

On-Back: On-Back is usually the second course part of a ticket. Some people say different things, but when I call tickets, I prefer to say, "on-back." For example, "Order-Fire: Two Special App; One Caesar Salad; One Cheese Plate and One Chilled Soup, no Crispy Shallots. On-Back: Two Roast Chicken, One Fish; One Pork; Two Side Rice; One Side Bean and One Side Potato." This is also an example of a non-donkey ticket, because it isn't order-fire, there aren't any weird substitutions and no one at the table has taken it upon themselves to do something strange (read, donkey), like order a Cheese Plate with the Mains or a Side of Potatoes with their starters.

Fire: Fire is the call given when it comes time to start preparing the second courses on a specific ticket. Usually, a waitress will come to the pass and say, "Fire mains on 12, please," although in larger restaurants waitresses will usually input the fire request into the computer and a ticket will come out of the machine.
This isn't always hard-and-fast; however, as sometimes the chef or Expediter will take it upon themselves to fire a ticket. This is usually done if a fair amount of time has gone by and the server has not fired a ticket. It also happens if there are a lot of tickets hanging and none of them are fired. This preemptive firing of a table can ensure servers don't fire tickets piecemeal; i.e. Firing one table in their section and then another a minute later and then another two minutes later.

Fire the Board: There are times when you may have a lot, or just a few, tickets hanging and either the servers fire all of those tickets or again, the chef or Expediter decides to fire those tickets. Calling out to the kitchen that, "the board is fired!" or to, "fire the board," alerts all kitchen personnel that it's time to get live, because all the dormant tickets hanging, now have dishes that need to prepared and sent out. Depending on how many tickets are fired and how many tickets come out of the machine during this time; this time period can also be known as, "a crush."

Dig Out: When you Dig Out, it means that you've had a whole bunch of tickets fired within a short amount of time and you're trying your best to come up on (i.e. compose, plate & send out) all the dishes in a short amount of time. For example, I had to Dig Out on Wednesday night, when I was fired on: 2 Special Desserts; 2 Apple Pies; 1 Mousse; 2 Spinach Salads; 3 Kale Salads; 1 Head Cheese; 1 Side Potato; 1 Special Soup; 1 Special Salad and 1 Market Salad...plus worrying about garnishing and sending out every main course that came past me. Suffice it to say, it's a whole fuckin' lot and even the best of us get behind. And when we get behind, we have to dig out. Long-story-short, you're digging yourself out of the hole you're in.

Hard: If something is working Hard or coming Hard, it means that particular thing is close to being plated. Either, it's a salad about to come out of the bowl, or a chicken about to come out of the hot oven. This call is usually given on a big table as a way to let your line-mates know what's going on, or that they may need to hurry up.

Come On: I will often ask, or be told, “I'm coming on table X.” This means that, that particular table will be coming out soon and I need to have the dishes I'm responsible for, on that ticket, ready to go. Incidentally, this can make for many jokes, as cooks are want to do; such as asking, “Are you coming on those balls for 12?”
“Yeah, coming hard!”
“Oh man, you're fucking gross!”

True Story: A True Story is an answer in the affirmative, so if my chef asks me, “are you done with the blank sauce for the fish, so we can run it?” or, “we’re Eighty-Sixed on the Special, right?” I can answer in the affirmative, by saying, "that's a true story."
Incidentally, this also works for everyday interactions with people; as I have often times found myself answering a question, such as: "you're not really an asshole, you just hold others to the same high standard you hold yourself, right?" The answer to that question...? That's a true story.

What's on My Mind This Week?

Thinking about my end-of-the-night-sandwiches, and how I can explain to you guys what happens when we've got leftovers and my mind runs amok.
Also, a bit curious about the new "restaurant/club" that's opening up in the old Nell's spot (Plumm, for you youngsters), because I kinda feel like restaurants and clubs go together about as well as a bag full of cats!

Well, That’s a First…

2010-05-18T10:41:00.004-04:00

One of my favourite movies, well a movie I really enjoy; is “The ‘Burbs” with Tom Hanks as a suburban cul-de-sac dweller and Carrie Fisher as his frazzled wife. Ray and his two friends Rumsfield and Art get it in their heads that Ray’s new neighbors have killed the previous occupants of their house and possibly the old man down the street…who’s dog has a penchant for pooping on Rumsfield’s lawn. Art even goes so far as to say, “Ray, do you want them to take your family, kidnap them, tear their livers out and make some kind of satanic pate?!?!?”
One scene that always gets me…every time, I wait for it comes towards the middle. Hanks' character, Ray, has just seen one of his suspicious neighbors drive his car down to the sidewalk from the garage, heft a large bag into the trash can and then violently pummel it with a hoe. Ray; equally unaffected and nonplussed; responds by saying, “I've never seen that before. I've never seen anybody drive their garbage down to the street and then bang the hell out of it with a stick. I’ve, I've never seen that.”
Well, the other night I had one of those moments. I was having dinner with my mom and her husband for Mother's Day; yeah, that's right, I'm a good son.
Everything was pretty much your standard fare, although our "bottled" water arrived at our table in opened, in one of those long-necked, Grolsh-style bottles that could've easily have been filled from the tap; and after our waiter brought the bottle of Haut Medoc I’d selected for me to inspect, he disappeared, only to return again with the open bottle. Why he couldn't open it table-side, I have no idea. I'm not accusing them of any funny business (like decanting my nice bottle of wine and replacing it with some donkey bottle of Trader Joe’s Finest), but I did find it a bit odd.
After dinner though, was the real kicker. My mom decided to take her Soft Shell Crab dish home and her husband took the rest of his Bolognese. Several minutes went by and their leftovers did not make a return appearance at the table. As I was getting ready to flag down our scared, college-aged, waiter; he returned and placed two coat check tokens on the table.
“You can use these to collect your food when you leave. Thanks again for dining with us,” he said.
I was slightly confused for a moment. You mean, we turn in these coat check tickets and then we get our food...? Yeah, I've, I've never seen that before. I've never seen a restaurant give me a coat check ticket so I can pick up my leftovers, instead of just bringing them to the table, I’ve never seen that before.

What’s On My Mind This Week:

Cooking dinner for some friends this week, we haven’t seen each other in a while and I’m planning to blow the doors off. This is what I’m thinking of so far: Chilled Pea & Mint Soup; Baby Octopus with Chorizo, Chicories & White Beans; an as yet to be determined Third Course; and a Mixed Berry Trifle with Lemon Verbena Sweet Cream.

It’s Spelled S-T-E-E-Z-E, Part I

2010-05-11T11:35:00.004-04:00

As promised, I'm getting at you with a whole host of kitchen terminology and shorthand that will hopefully let you better understand me when I fire off my run-on sentenced, gerund-heavy rants.
I'm going to do my best, and because there are a great many things going on in my head at any given time I’m sure I’m forgetting some; which is why this post is merely part one…

Steeze: Your steeze can be anything. I think, originally derived from "steeze en place," it was like a cooks mise en place; the necessary food, equipment and set-up that was essential to making it through service as easily as possible. But again, your steeze can apply to anything: your state of mind, your flow, the place you're hanging out at, or the drink in your hand. “You're fucking up my steeze right now!” “We should leave, this steeze is seriously dead.” “This steeze is almost done, I gotta get live on another one.”

Get Live: To get live is to start a project, however; big or small. I have been known to get live on “some Mussel Death,” get live on a beer or get live on writing my prep list.

Prep List: Before you leave the restaurant for the night, and before you've had too many shift drinks to care, you write your prep list. Basically, it helps the morning/prep guy know what he needs to do when he gets to work, so he doesn’t have to spend his first 10 or 15 minutes rooting around your low-boy and the walk-in, trying to figure out what needs to be prepared for the day. Because, let’s face it, that would be a dick move. Sometimes, it’s a judgment call. Sometimes I’ll leave and say to myself, on a Wednesday night, “well, we’ve still got three quarts of Wild Rice left, that’ll probably get us through to Friday,” but more often than not, it’ll go on my prep list because I’d rather be safe than sorry. And no one wants to be making something during service because they didn’t plan ahead.

Dupes / Tickets: Back in the day, before the advent of machines, waitresses had pads they would take down orders on. These pads had a secondary, and sometimes tertiary, layer; so the waitress could keep one copy and the other (the “dupe”) could be passed to the kitchen. The tickets are usually broken up course, and are read off by someone in the kitchen; usually the Head Chef or Expediter. Courses help the kitchen break things up and ease the flow, but sometimes servers and diners work in concert and send Order-Fire tickets.

Order-Fire: Order-Fire tickets are the bane of some cooks, and I know some cooks who prefer to make dishes immediately and get them out. Basically, when a ticket comes out there is usually a first course and a second course. Sometimes, however; everything comes out together and this can be a problem when you’ve already got several tickets hanging and a party of five sits down and orders eight or nine dishes…that’s the kind of thing that can fuck up your steeze.

The Pass: The pass is where plates of food from the kitchen are brought, or in some cases literally passed, before they are wiped clean of fingerprint marks or stray dribbles of sauce and the finishing touches: a sprinkling of chives, a drizzle of lemon oil, some Micro Bulls Blood, a tiny mound of croutons, what-have-you, are added before the plates are given to servers or food-runners and end up in front of customers. As some have said, it is the last line of defense; a final checkpoint to make sure the food coming out is servable.

Donkey: A donkey is essentially a stupid person, or someone that engages in stupid or lazy behavior; although, a smart person can be called a donkey if their actions are those of a donkey. But donkey can also refer to: a ticket, a table or even a dish of food. For example, a ticket can be donkey if the items ordered have seemingly no rhyme or reason to how they were ordered; i.e. “Order-Fire: Caesar Salad, Mixed Nuts, Broccoli Soup, Roast Chicken & Side Wild Rice; On-Back: Ham Sandwich, Roast Chicken, Caesar Salad, Broccoli Soup & Fish Special.” This ticket is donkey because at first glance, it would appear that four people have sat down for a meal and one of those people has ordered a Roast Chicken (usually a main course) as an appetizer, and quite possibly has also decided to order the Caesar Salad as their main course.” Plainly speaking, it means stupid. Just last night (read 2:30 this morning), after I’d gotten home from work, and was sitting on the couch eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of wine while I watched the remake of “The Last House on the Left.” At some point, I said to myself, “okay, I’m done with this donkey movie,” turned off the TV and got in bed.

What’s On My Mind This Week?
I’ve started reading Stacy Perman’s book on In-N-Out Burger, which is really stupid of me; because I’m 2700 miles away from deliciousness!

Famous Last Words

2010-05-02T12:06:00.002-04:00

So I made a lair out of myself when I told you guys I was going to be more proactive about posting and keeping you appraised as to "what the fuck is goin's on?" So what the fuck is goin's on? I've started working the pass in addition to working my station; something I do four nights a week. In essence, my chef has taken it upon himself to cook one dish; one special; a night, and can no longer stand at the pass to finish or wipe down plates. Our other line cook is busy digging themselves out of the order-fire hell our servers have put them in, so that leaves me.
This means that when I used to just make dishes (at our ridiculously busy restaurant) and give them to our chef to finish; I now makes dishes (at our ridiculously busy restaurant), then bring them to the pass, then wipe them down and finish them, then call for hands so the servers can take them to the proper tables. Oh, and I also busy myself with marking and keeping track of all of our tickets (first course fired, first course out, second course fired, &c.). In all honesty, it's really not that difficult: a ticket comes out of the machine, it gets passed to me, I read it off, mark it with the table number, utilize my wonderfully photographic memory to keep track of everything on the ticket and then put it in its proper place on the board.
(I realize, by the way, that most of what I'm talking about: marking tickets, the pass, fired tickets, the whole steez, probably doesn’t make a lot of sense; and that's why I'm going to explain it all in a "Kitchen Venack" post soon.)
So as I said, it doesn't seem like much, but when the restaurant is slammed and there are ten tickets hanging, with either first or second courses being prepared and I'm making some of those first or second courses; it gets a little tough to take the extra few seconds to wipe down or finish a plate or wait for a server to come collect the plates and tell them where to go, or fire the main courses on a certain table...hell, for that matter, to remember how long ago the first courses went out and either fire the second courses myself or seek out the server to see if those second courses can be fired.
I'm not complaining, or trying to make it seem like I'm a big deal because I'm handling the responsibility that I am; I'm just saying that's why you haven't heard from me. But I'm hoping that in the future, you'll be hearing a lot more out of me; hell, I still haven't told you about my crazy sandwiches or my sick, twisted love affair with Durian.

What's on My Mind This Week?:
I'm still pissed about the teammates thing on the first episode of Season 2 of Top Chef Masters. In my humble opinion, Jimmy Bradley and Govind Armstrong would have fared much better separately than they did together. That, and obviously Sam Sifton is still doling stars out like a subway preacher giving unwanted advice. Oh, and I think I'd like to make Steak & Kidney Pie...even though no one I know would ever entertain eating it.

Really, Guy? Really…?!?!?!?

2010-04-01T13:51:00.004-04:00

I would say I'm fairly certain someone has written about this before; and I know for a fact this has been complained about more times than are worth counting...but it's on my mind and now you're gonna hear about it.

The crux of my argument goes like this: "Don't be an asshole!" Sometimes, you go out, you're with your buddies or your little girlfriends or whatever and you're hungry. Maybe you've been drinking, or maybe you want to lay a nice base down before you get drunk...so you decide to grab a bite to eat. So far, I'm right there with you. But you lose me when you walk in the door five or ten minutes before the place is supposed to close.

Look at it this way: the cooks at the restaurant you've walked into at 10:55 have been there; and on their feet; since, probably, 2:30...and they're gonna be on their feet long after you've left (more on that in a moment). The servers and busboys and food-runners have all probably been there since, let's say 4:30. They're tired...everyone's tired. The cooks want to break down their stations*; a job that takes about a half hour to an hour, depending on the kitchen. The front of house wants to wipe down tables, count money, close out the bank, and divy up tips. Oh yeah, the dishwashers aren't totally psyched to still be pulling full racks, loaded with plates out the power washer either. So when you walk into a restaurant, five minutes before they're supposed to close (the hours are posted right on the front door, guy) what you're really telling the staff is, “hey, fuck you guys!” And when the staff feels like you're walking into the restaurant with your middle finger held high, what kind of service do you think you're going to get...? I'll wait...
Yeah, not the best service in the world.

Now sure, if a restaurant closes at 11 on a Tuesday, you should be able to get food until eleven o'clock at night. But if you hung out outside a restaurant every night for a week, I can almost guarantee you could count the number of people who went in there after 10:45 on both hands. It's like walking into Macy's right before they close and asking to be fitted for a new suit. Why would you make the person who’s been working there all day, who’s looking forward to going through their “I do this, this and this and then I can go home” checklist, rush through their job. I guess I’m trying to have you look at this logically. You’d run into a Starbucks right before they closed for a coffee, because maybe you want to be wired until 3 in the morning; you’d walk into a McDonald’s right before they close because the “hamburgers” are already cooked and dehydrating peacefully under a heat lamp, so it takes about a minute to get your food; and you’d walk into a bar (provided you’d even be let in) right before they close for one more beer, but that’s up to the bartender and he or she is going to tell you to “drink up and get the fuck out.” You’d do this because you’d know it’s not going to take too long and it won’t put the people working in a bind; so what tells these asshole diners, “I’m going to walk into a restaurant two minutes before they close and request a dish that takes fifteen minutes to prepare”…?

One quick side note: people who work in the industry should know better. If you work in the service industry and you still take it upon yourself to walk into another restaurant right before they close…or after they’re supposed to be closed and expect to get food and expect to get good service; you’re an asshole! Let’s leave it at that.
So, what I'm trying to say, with my little rant here, is don't be an asshole. Don't be that guy, or that group of guys who walks into a restaurant right before they close and try to get food.

nb: Breaking down a station entails: putting everything you had in a metal 1/9th hotel pan in a plastic quart container before it goes in the fridge; wrapping all perishable goods in plastic wrap and storing them in the fridge or a cool, dry place; changing out any containers with melted ice in them that are currently housing fish or seafood; thoroughly cleaning your workstation (ovens, reach-ins, &c.) with hot water and sanitizing solution; assessing your mise en place and writing a prep list for the morning/prep cook.

What’s on My Mind This Week?:
Still curious about Sam Sifton’s awarding of Stars like Merit Badges, but actually somewhat curious as to where I can find Champale in New York City…yeah, that’s right, I want to try Champale.

Elliott Cooks Rears it’s Not-So-Ugly Head…Again

2010-03-31T13:49:00.002-04:00

So I've been out of touch for a while, and the last image most of you have of me, is my whining like a little bitch about some assholes in Queens and a guy who proved himself to not be a friend of mine.
Well, all that is in the past. And you know what I said to an actual friend of mine when I met him for lunch the other day...? "Who the fuck wants to go to Long Island City, anyway?!?!"

So I’ve been working hard, in a kitchen I love with a crew I like and I’ve been spending my free time either asleep, cooking for friends or on a barstool.
A while back someone got on this site and sent me a message telling me to, basically, quit my bellyaching and get back to telling funny stories and doling out recipes and advice. So that’s what I’m doing. It also helps that I was able to convince myself not to go to my version of Cheers and slowly let the minutes slip into hours and the hours translate into being too lazy and too drunk to take the subway home when I decide to leave.

So what can you expect in the coming weeks, ya’know, besides my actually posting on here? Jalapeno & Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies; grill recipes for Summer; awesome Spring produce coming to a market near you; my second Durian experience and taking the sandwich to new and ridiculous heights.

So I’m back. Hope you didn’t miss me too much. But here we go…Funny stories, recipes, complaints, rants, and a new segment titled: “What’s keeping me up this week.” In short, the whole nine yards, a bag of Funions and juice box!

What’s Keeping Me Up This Week?:
I can’t really talk a lot of shit, because I haven’t been to many of the restaurants he’s reviewed; but Sam Sifton seems to be handing out Stars like bars dole out those NYC Condoms…

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?*

2009-12-12T10:30:00.010-05:00

You know what really grinds my gears? Restaurant owners. Not all restaurant owners, just restaurant owners who run newly opened comfort food restaurants in the Hunters Point section of Long Island City, New York in the vicinity of a street…or avenue…or road bearing the number corresponding to New Mexico’s order of admittance to the Union...

You know why it grinds my gears? Because guys like this, let’s call him “24,” make certain assurances about positions to be held, monies to be paid and the timeframe therein. Then guys like "24" disregard these assurances, around the holiday’s no less, and don’t bat an eyelash at replacing people with cheap labor.

You know what else grinds my gears? When guys like "24" say they’re gonna do little things like pay people for their sweat equity, and push back the timeframe and then finally pay someone what amounts to say, $2.5 an hour.

It also grinds my gears when people like "24" don’t even bother to pick up the phone themselves and reach out to people to say, “hey, this is the deal. I know you thought this might be the deal, but I wanted to give you confirmation.” That really grinds my gears.

You know what else really grinds my gears? When people go to parties sponsored by certain review websites and spend their time talking-up certain comfort food restaurants. Telling anyone who will listen they should be excited about the pending opening, not knowing that the wheels are turning behind the scenes to use a person’s ideas and sweat equity and then simply kick them to the curb. I bet it would grind your gears if you offered to ask the Editors of food review websites to drum up interest in the restaurant by writing stories and were then thanked exactly once for your trouble. Not to mention looking like an asshole when you have to explain to all of those people why you're no longer involved or drumming up support for the restaurant like you used to. Well, it grinds my freakin’ gears.

Now I’m not telling you to not eat at (or heavens to Betsy, BOYCOTT) this place owned by "24," who treats people in a less than judicious fashion. But imagine if "24" is willing to treat people he knows like garbage and hire guys he can pay less money (well, actually pay money in the first place, but now we’re getting technical) with perhaps less of a trained eye on quality, then what’s he going to do when it comes to people coming off the street.

That really grinds my gears. But I’m moving on…wiser; and now when I treat someone like crap they can thank 24.

* I know this kind of thing happens a fair amount, but that doesn't excuse acting like a dick. And I'm not the kind of guy to just sit there and say nothing...

Sweeter Sweet Potatoes & Pre-Breakfast Gambling

2009-11-12T11:28:00.016-05:00

Well, Thanksgiving is two weeks away and the one thing on everyone’s mind (well, other than the super classy Little-Miss-I’m-Down-on-Gay-Marriage-but-Cool-with-Sex-Tapes, “new” skin flick, coincidentally surfacing right before her book drops) is what their turkey’s getting stuffed with…get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about a bird.

As I mentioned on Saturday, the last time I celebrated Thanksgiving in Las Vegas, I think I got a little ahead of myself with everything I tried to cook. This time, I’m going to make sure my plan of attack is as perfect as it can be. This however, may prove to be easier said than done considering the other thing that happened the last time I was out there was found myself clutching betting slips in front of the television when I should’ve been in the kitchen. I was up at seven in the morning; not to pull my turkey out of the brine, begin cutting Brussels sprouts or peeling potatoes; but to head over to Red Rock Casino to place a couple bets on the Thanksgiving Day NFL games.

The kind of cool thing about visiting Las Vegas during the winter months; or any part of the West Coast for that matter; is that if you wake up at ten on a Sunday; you can roll out of bed and start watching football because it’ll be one o’clock back East. So that morning, I was awake early; wiping the crust out of my eyes with brine-smelling fingers; and driving down to the casino with BC and my step-dad.

I was too preoccupied with thoughts of the turkey and when to start assembling my Sweet Potato S’Mores to worry about spreads. Okay, that’s not entirely true considering I used to write a pretty dedicated little football blog, so I decided on a 3-team parlay, selecting the Colts over the Falcons, the Cowboys over the Jets and the Lions over the Packers because I didn’t think Favre could cover the spread. Things were looking good until the Packers kicked a meaningless field goal, extending their lead from eight points to eleven and giving me the “Joan Collins Special.”

In the wake of that disappointment, I turned my attention to assembling my S’Mores. I’m not exactly sure when the idea came to me, but at some point I decided I wanted to combine what I thought most people liked about lightly candied yams, with the hint of nutmeg and orange my mother used to make; with the melted marshmallows that top whipped-and-mashed sweet potatoes my aunt makes almost every year.

The night before Thanksgiving I sliced sweet potatoes into thin pieces and quickly poached the slices in a combination of orange juice, brown sugar and orange zest. Then I put them in the refrigerator overnight until I was done donating money to the casino re-beautification fund. Then I crushed graham crackers, and sliced marshmallows for the S’Mores. I placed two slices of marshmallow on each slice of sweet potato and then topped it with another piece; before sprinkling butter and graham crackers over the top and placing the “sandwiches” in the oven. What follows is the S’More recipe I’m planning on using this Thanksgiving, not the one I used a couple years ago. Bear in mind, this is a two-day recipe; with the candying, or braising, taking place the day before Thanksgiving and the assembly of the S’Mores happening the next day. This allows the sliced sweet potatoes to firm up overnight and should make them easier to handle when applying the marshmallows.

Sweet Potato S’Mores

6 Sweet Potatoes, peeled & sliced into ¼ inch rounds*

For the braising/candying liquid:
2 Oranges, juiced and zest reserved
2 Cups, Orange Juice
1 Cup, Brown Sugar
2 TBSP Fresh Ground Cinnamon
1 TBSP Fresh Ground Nutmeg
1/8 Cup, Vanilla Extract

For the S’Mores:
½ Bag Marshmallows or 1 Jar Marshmallow Fluff
1 Cup, crushed Graham Crackers
4 TBSP Melted Butter (optional)

Day 1:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
Dissolve the brown sugar in the orange juice, then bring to a simmer adding the zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla. Simmer for approximately 15 minutes, or until mixture has reduced slightly.
Arrange sweet potato slices in a baking dish and pour orange juice mixture over them. Cover baking dish with aluminum foil and allow to cook in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until sweet potatoes pierce easily but retain their shape.
Remove potatoes from oven and uncover, allowing to cool completely before placing in the refrigerator overnight.

Day 2:
Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees F (although in truth, your oven should probably already be on)
Melt the marshmallows in a microwave-save bowl and place in a pastry bag using a spatula, or simply place the Fluff in the bag (a spoon or small offset spatula can be used if you do not have a pastry bag).
Remove sweet potatoes from refrigerator and arrange half of the slices on a cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil. Spread or pipe marshmallow over each slice, topping with the reserved slices and sprinkling with crumbled graham cracker. Drizzle melted butter (if using) over the top of the S’Mores, then bake for 20 minutes, or until tops of S’Mores are golden.

* Extra sweet potato pieces (from the ends, or pieces too small to use for sandwiches) can be saved for a sweet potato pie or casserole.

If You Want to Help Me, Stay Out of My Kitchen

2009-11-07T14:56:00.004-05:00

Sweet Potato S'Mores, from like Thanksgiving 2007 (?)

The five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are easily my favourite time of the year. The weather has gotten colder, but not oppressively cold like February; the clocks have just been turned back so the days and nights are still not totally out of whack and most importantly…there’s the food.

Last Thanksgiving I was working, so I think it was Thanksgiving 2007, I was in Vegas at my step-brother, BC’s, place cooking dinner for he, my mom, step-dad and a couple of BC’s friends.

I wanted to blow the doors off and cook an amazing meal, a meal they wouldn’t forget and I think I got a bit ahead of myself and probably cooked the meal I wanted them to like rather than the meal I truly thought they would like. My mother had made sure we could get a Kosher turkey in Vegas, which I brined overnight; I made sweet potato S’Mores; a pecan-sage stuffing with pork sausage; a Chicory salad with candied walnuts, Gorgonzola cheese, raisins and a sherry-orange vinaigrette; roasted garlic mashed potatoes; and a bunch of stuff I can’t even remember.

I was definitely a terror in the kitchen. I was young and cocky and basically saw my family members as a hindrance rather than as free labour there to assist me with the peeling of potatoes, melting of marshmallows and washing of Frisée. Being the crazed maniac I was, I carried my behavior into Christmas; where I had everything timed out to the minute…cooking a coursed out Christmas dinner with several dishes, each with multiple components and all of it cooked by me alone. At one point, my mother popped her head in the kitchen and asked if there was anything she could do to help. Now in my defense, I will say that I had planned everything to a T, and knew the minute everything would be ready for our 4 o’clock start time and my mother had been back and forth in the kitchen to ask if we were still on schedule. So when she popped her head in the kitchen around ten past three to ask if she could help; I answered her with the only thing that came to mind, “if you want to help me, stay out of the kitchen until 4 PM when the food’s on the table.” In hindsight, it was definitely not the way to talk to my mother, on Christmas Day, no less…and it got me temporarily banned from her kitchen.

This year, I plan on doing it right. I’ll be in Vegas again, and this time, BC, if you’re reading this…I’m putting you to work! I’m also going to be nice, I’m not going to freak out and shoo my family out of the kitchen, and most importantly, I’m going to listen to their ideas; although I am going to do the S’Mores again.

Next Time: Sweet Potato S'Mores, Playing with Knives & Gambling Before Breakfast

Ditch the Dog, Keep the Baby

2009-11-05T11:33:00.005-05:00

This is just a quick little rant because it’s been a while since I’ve posted something and I’ve got a couple things in the hopper, including a piece about Thanksgiving. But until then, let’s talk about dogs and babies.

About a year ago towards the end of brunch service Dopp and I were standing around looking out at the floor while I cleaned up and seasoned a 30 pound beef shoulder to make a Pot Roast. The couple walked by with a big shaggy dog, looked at the menu box and walked inside. Dopp and I shot the two of them a look that said, “maybe you and your shaggy dog should turn around and go back where you came.”

Look, I’m no Mike Vick; I love dogs and Dopp has two that he used to walk during family meal. But when your dog walks into a place that’s serving food and around people eating, that’s no bueno. So lucky for us, and the couple in question, they left before Dopp and I had to get all “spicy” on them and ask them to leave. But they came back…with a crying baby in tow.

Anyway, I was checking out something on Yelp the other day and read this two star review of a place that I’m not particularly fond of. This chick complained that they made her “tiny Chihuahua sit outside the fence” and that “they didn’t even give our dog a bowl of water!!!!!” Well, heavens to Betsy, they didn’t give Fido a bowl of water? How shameful! Look, it is not the responsibility of a restaurant to provide your doggie with water, when in all likelihood they’re doing you a favour letting your dog in, in the first place. I mean, if you bring a baby to a restaurant, you’re probably going to bring some baby food, right? Are you going to get upset when the waiter doesn’t ask the kitchen for some mashed apples and warm milk? In short, please, leave the mutt at home.

“The Best Sandwich I’ve Had in Years”

2009-10-12T02:32:00.004-04:00

Not my sandwich, but I wanted to give you a picture

Not that long ago, I found myself in the lucky and enviable (according to some) position of being on the proverbial ground floor for the opening of a new restaurant. It was almost surreal, sitting in front of a computer; or in my living room with cookbooks scattered EVERYWHERE; researching recipes, knowing I was putting my stamp on a restaurant menu. Then talking to myself in the restaurant kitchen while I tested, and in some cases re-tested, those recipes. Then waiting like an expectant child with a macaroni painting, as I brought the dishes to the owner for his approval; and more importantly, my own personal validation.

While the restaurant has been open less than a month, I can say that my biggest breakthrough came during my downtime. It was a day in which there were no tastings planned and the workmen had left early, so there was no one to babysit. Sitting in the restaurant office, the prospect of getting another mediocre sandwich from the places in the neighborhood was downright depressing. And then this little voice in my head said: "hey jackass, you're a cook. You've got a kitchen at your disposal and the leftover produce from yesterday's tasting sitting in the lowboy; why don't you do something with it, instead of complaining about not having anything good to eat?!?" And with that, I was upstairs trying to decide how to best quiet my grumbling stomach and appease my mouthy brain.

I took stock of what I had and compared it with what I was in the mood for: I wanted bacon, I wanted the bite of red onion and I was pretty sure I wanted fish.
I had some bonito that I had taken out for a grilled fish dish…that got left off the final list of the 19 things we were given 18 hours notice to buy, prep and cook.
Anyway, I sliced some semi-thick pieces of fish and got some bacon cooking in a pan. I thinly sliced some jalapenos and red onion, then tossed the jalapenos in the rendered bacon fat. I spread some cilantro-lime vinaigrette on a baguette, then layered the fish, the bacon, red onion, jalapenos and some watercress on top. I cut the sandwich in half and brought it back downstairs to feast.

Much to my surprise, the owner of the restaurant was back from running errands and asked if he could have half the sandwich…which he promptly inhaled, and then asked me to make another one.
When he was finished with his second sandwich he wheeled his chair away from his desk, turned to me and said, “that was the best sandwich I’ve had in years.”

What follows is my grilled fish and bacon sandwich, or what I what I have dubbed, "the Elliott Sandwich."

The Elliott Sandwich

6 oz Bonito Steaks sliced into ¼ inch pieces
4 slices Bacon
1 Jalapeno, sliced thin and seeded
½ Red Onion, sliced thin
4 Sprigs, Watercress
Cilanto-Lime Vinaigrette
½ French Baguette, halved
½ oz Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette to follow.

Slice bonito, oil each side then season with salt and pepper. Cook bacon in a sauté pan until crispy, reserving the fat and allowing bacon to rest on paper towels.
Place the sliced jalapenos in the rendered bacon fat and cook until slightly browned.
Place fish on an oiled grill and cook for approximately two minutes on each side, then reserve.
Lightly toast the baguette, then spread the cilantro-lime vinaigrette on each side. Place the grilled fish on the bread, then the bacon and arrange the remaining ingredients on top, covering with the remaining piece of bread.
Slice in half and serve.

Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette

1 bunch, Cilantro
Juice of 4 Limes
Zest of 2 Limes
3 Egg Yolks
24 oz. Canola Oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Cut ends off cilantro and wash thoroughly, as cilantro is usually very dirty. Cut cilantro, leaves and stems, into smaller bunches and combine in a Vitaprep Mixer or blender with lime juice and egg yolks, seasoning lightly with salt and pepper. Turn on mixer and fully blend cilantro with lime juice and egg yolks, then increase speed as you slowly add the oil. When mixture thickens, adjust flavouring and thin with water, if necessary.

Yield: 1 Qt

Photo credit: Janet is Hungry

When You’re Right, You’re Right a/k/a The Beef’s Gone Bad!

2009-10-06T12:35:00.003-04:00

Now, I’m not one to belabor things or fixate or tell you “I told you so” or beat a dead horse (all of you that are currently laughing, stop it!); but on this one, I felt I had to say something.

Back on July Fourth, you may remember I did a little ranting and raving while discussing why I would not be cooking at my buddy’s place. Without rehashing the whole thing, I was adamant in my desire not to make hamburgers with pre-packaged ground beef. There was the obvious taste aspect, but there was also the E. coli aspect which loomed much larger for me. I wasn’t going to get people sick with low quality ground beef, when perfectly good beef could be obtained at the grocery store.

This past Sunday, New York Times reporter Michael Moss published a piece about a 22 year old former dance instructor from Minnesota named Stephanie Smith; who in 2007 ate a pre-packaged hamburger tainted with E. coli. She had eaten a primarily vegetarian diet; but visiting her mother that day she ate a hamburger her mother pulled out of a box, unwrapped and then grilled for her. She did what millions of other Americans do nearly every day. And whether they’re eating pre-made hamburger patties or making patties at home with pre-mixed ground beef, they’re gambling with every bite they take. Slaughterhouses and grinding companies have “unwritten agreements to stand in the way of ingredient testing, and that can directly lead to E. coli contamination. It can get so wide-spread that the company that produced the hamburger that Stephanie ate ended up recalling 844,812 pounds of hamburger patties…EIGHT HUNDRED FORTY FOUR THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWELVE.

I mean, I love a good burger as much as the next guy; but I realize that supermarket ground beef isn’t very good…and it has the added chance of making you very sick or possibly killing you. Most people cite price or convenience as the reason for buying supermarket ground beef, but let’s break it down. The burger that Stephanie Smith ate came from four…F-O-U-R…different sources and from god only knows how many different cows. It was made up of “Fresh fat” (50/50 fat and meat from fatty edges from whole cuts of meat) from Greater Omaha Packing in Nebraska; “Fresh lean” (trimmings from dairy cows and bulls that are too old for feedlot fattening) from Lone Star Beef Processors in Texas; “Frozen lean” (trimmings from grass-fed cattle) from an unnamed slaughterhouse in Uruguay and “Lean finely textured beef” (trimmings warmed and put through a centrifuge to remove fat, and treated with ammonia to kill bacteria). Now read that again and tell think about if that’s something you’d want to eat. The final cost of the Frankenburger eaten by Stephanie: $1 per pound, “or about 30 cents less than industry experts say it would cost for ground beef made from whole cuts of meat.”

Now let’s think about the other side of the spectrum. Labor Day Weekend, I made burgers for the family from a blend of beef as well. The difference was that I called Wegman’s, asked if they could do it for me and then waited while one of their butchers ground two pounds of brisket and a pound of sirloin for me to turn into burgers: two pounds of brisket, from one cow and one pound of sirloin from another cow (or possibly the same cow, but not likely). The final cost of that meat came to approximately $6.31 per pound…five dollars more than Stephanie’s burger, but with the added bonus of knowing where the meat came from (theoretically), freshly ground beef with virtually zero chance of getting E. coli and the added benefit of taste.

Wegman's Call-Ahead Ground Beef

Now I’m not saying you’ve got to go out like I did getting ground brisket and sirloin at close to $7 a pound to eat a tasty burger, but there are alternatives to eating crappy pre-packaged ground beef. Go to a butcher, have him grind you a cheaper cut that came from O-N-E cow.

In short, the New York Times expanded upon what I said back in July…be careful about where you get your ground beef. I’m not going to change the way I eat, I’m not going to stop eating my burgers medium-rare and I’m not becoming a vegetarian. But what I will do is refuse to eat pre-made burger patty out of a box or buy pre-packaged ground beef from a grocery store.

Sufferin’ Succotash!!

2009-10-03T10:14:00.004-04:00

Boy, it sure got cold here in the City this week, didn’t it? It was actually a bit cold last weekend when I left the restaurant and went out to Jersey to check up on my mother who seems unable of taking it easy…even in the wake of an appendectomy. Anyway, I went out there to do a little house-cooking and make sure my mom stayed off her feet. I had some ideas about what to cook, but thought better of it.

My step-dad and I took a trip out to Wegman’s, or as I’ve taken to calling it, “The Most Awesome Grocery Store Ever,” to buy some food. He had asked me to recreate a Veal Saltinbocca I had made about a year ago; but because I wasn’t crazy about the pre-sliced veal cutlets in the store (I had brought veal tenderloin which I sliced and pounded myself the last time), we got veal chops instead.

The real fun began when I turned my attention to the produce. I scoured the table with some of the last of the season’s corn on it and thought back to those carefree Summer days when I was a fat, bespectacled kid selling corn to passers-by. Those warm days I was spoiled by my neighbors Butter & Sugar and Peaches & Cream corn…amazingly sweet varieties that in my estimation can be eaten right off the stalk. And at the end of the Summer, if we weren’t already sick of corn, the kernels would be cut off the cobs for succotash and the cobs saved for soup. Wegman’s, unfortunately, had what looked and tasted like Quickie, or possibly Sugar & Gold, Corn, not my favourite, but I thought what better way to make this corn sing than with succotash?

Succotash is, if we’re getting technical, older than America. The Narragansett people’s called it, “msíckquatash” which essentially means boiled corn; and it was referenced in Roger Williams 1643 guide to interacting and understanding the native peoples: A Key Into the Language of America. And succotash, is as varied as there are people to interpret it. Traditionally, it is made from corn and lima beans, but other beans can be substituted for the lima’s and additions can be made; with the one constant being fresh corn. My father’s mother used to make succotash at all family gatherings, hers with corn, lima beans and white onion, as well as a healthy addition of cracked black pepper.

Today; while I’m on my way to the Chile Pepper Fiesta and before celebrating my grandparents sixty-first anniversary and my great-aunt’s eighty-fifth birthday; I’m going to share this particular succotash recipe with you. Bear in mind that this is merely a guideline, because I was more interested in utilizing the corn and making sure my mother’s other vegetables didn’t go to waste in her fridge. You can also feel free to add some butter to this recipe (as I did) to enrich the taste of the vegetables.

Early Autumn Succotash

5 Ears of Corn, Kernels removed
1 Cup Sugar Snap Peas, blanched & shocked
1 Cup Baby Carrots, halved
2 Medium Tomatoes, medium diced
½ Red Onion, sliced thin
½ White (or Spanish) Onion, sliced thin
2 oz (or slightly more) Olive Oil, not Extra Virgin
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Place one ounce of oil in a large skillet and allow to warm. Add onions to pan and slowly begin to caramelize them over a medium flame, stirring so as not to burn them or brown them too quickly; approximately ten minutes.
Add carrots to pan and occasionally stir, cooking until carrots begin to slightly soften.
Add corn kernels and peas, as well as more oil if necessary; tossing ingredients well to combine. Cook for approximately five minutes (or to desired doneness of corn), then add the tomatoes, tossing gently so as not to crush the tomatoes.
Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Serves 6-to-8

I’m Oxidized Metal These Days…

2009-09-27T11:18:00.002-04:00

So I’ve been cooking with my buddy Dopp recently, getting a project of his off the ground. The difference, or one of the differences is that this time I’ll be working in the kitchen as opposed to simply designing the menu. It’s been a while since Dopp and I have been in a kitchen together, equally motivating and giving each other hell. We’re at the recipe testing stage, so there isn’t necessarily the sense of urgency that comes with a busy Saturday night; but that doesn’t mean the food still can’t taste good.
But the other day, Dopp was watching me small dice some jalapeno for some Jalapeno-Sweet Corn Fritters and said, “man, just how rusty are you?” And you know what? I am rusty. I’m out of practice and it pisses me off. For the better part of 90 days, I was researching recipes, testing them and looking into buying kitchen equipment, supervising workers and doing about a dozen other things.
Now, I’m not making excuses. It’s my own damn fault. Cooking, like anything else is a skill and like all skills you need to keep them up and practice them, so you don’t regress. The funny thing is that I think since Dopp and I were last together in the kitchen, my food-knowledge has grown, my palette has improved and System D skills are in top form. But I’ve let myself get complacent and that’s unacceptable.
When I got into this business, I didn’t just want to be good. I wanted to be better, hell I wanted to be the best. I got to where I am through a combination of skill and some lucky breaks. But I was able to capitalize on those lucky breaks because of my skill and when I was designing a menu for a place I forgot that.
Well, that changes today. I’m picking up onions, carrots and potatoes and having myself a little Knife-skills Workshop in my kitchen. The one good thing about me is that the motivation I need is directly related to someone telling me I can’t do something or getting called out for not living up to my potential. So I’m putting Dopp in notice…come tomorrow, I’m going to rock out with my Santoku out!

Peanut Butter Frosting, a Glass of Milk & Jelly Everywhere

2009-09-21T11:40:00.004-04:00

I have, shall we say, trouble letting go of things sometimes (it’s still eating at me that I missed going to Picnick, Smoked last week). Usually, when I get an idea in my head, it stays there until I do something about it. Recently, the idea that had been rattling around my head was trying my hand at a peanut butter and jelly cupcake. I wanted people to bite into it and be reminded of their childhood, considering just about everyone I know grew up eating, and liking, peanut butter and jelly. Except for one friend of mine who told me he likes peanut butter and likes jelly, but doesn’t like them together in sandwich form…which is almost as inexplicable as saying, “I like bacon and I like cheeseburgers, but I’d never put bacon on a cheeseburger!”

For most of the week, I tried to figure out the best way to go about implementing my plan. After all, I’m a cook; I’ve never even professed to be a pastry cook…let alone someone who enjoys baking all that much. Cooks and pastry cooks are like right-brain and left-brain people. Cooks like the fast-paced life behind the hotline; the constant tension that comes with having to spring into action and start cooking at a moment’s notice; and the pressure that comes with picking up thirteen dishes on five different tables in the middle of a busy Friday night. Pastry cooks, on the other hand, seem to be a serious sort. They (the one’s I’ve known at least) wake up early, not late; their jobs take time and are about attention to detail, not-so-much about improvisation. Pastry is like a science; your measurements have to be precise because if you throw a tablespoon of baking powder into a cake recipe instead of a teaspoon, you could have a problem. Cooking is more fluid; if I add an extra cup of maple syrup to my turkey brine, it’s not the end of the world. Nonetheless, I thought I’d roll the dice, because I’m not going to admit defeat…even when it comes to baking.

Cupcake Mountains...near the Caucasus

My PB&J cupcakes came out moist; but a bit on the dense side, almost like a tiny pound cake. I’m going to work on perfecting the recipe, but since Dopp & I might be putting the finished product on a menu somewhere down the line, you’ll have to make due with this one. This recipe is also a bit on the messy side, since it involves making a peanut butter frosting and then squirting grape jelly into a baked and cooled cupcake…seriously, it looked like a bomb went off in my kitchen. I have been told however, that the finished product was: “yummy,” “delicious” and apparently, “really tasty.”
Oh, and I am well aware of how funny it is that I got fixated on making cupcakes considering how much I despise the current over-proliferation of cupcake places dotting New York City; and generally don’t really like sweets.
So settle in, make your cupcakes, then pour yourself a tall glass of milk.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, plus 1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¾ cup milk
1 cup grape jelly (You can use any kind you want, I went with Welch's)
Peanut butter frosting, recipe follows

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Line a cupcake pan with paper liners and spray them with nonstick spray and set aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt over a large piece of paper. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with a hand mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, the egg yolk, and the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Pour in the milk and continue to mix until smooth. Pick up the paper with the dry ingredients and gradually pour it into the wet ingredients, continue to mix just until blended.
Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared cupcake tins, about 3/4 full.
Bake until the tops of the cupcakes spring back to the touch and are not too golden; about 20 minutes (took closer to 28 in my oven).
Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, and then allow to cool completely on a wire rack before filling, frosting or decorating (might be a good time to get started on the frosting and filling your squirt bottle, no?).
Fill a squirt bottle (or piping bag with the small nozzle tip) with the grape jelly and screw on the cap. Carefully insert the tip of the squirt bottle as far as it will go into the top of the cupcakes. Gently squeeze about 1 tablespoon worth of jelly inside of each. Ice the tops of the cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting to cover.

Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup smooth peanut butter (I went with all natural, because that’s what I grew up with)
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups confectioners' sugar*
1 tablespoon milk

Beat the butter, peanut butter, and cream cheese with a hand or standing mixer on medium speed, until light and fluffy. Slowly add the confectioner's sugar and continue to mix until the frosting is smooth, mix in the milk and continue to mix until it reaches a good spreading consisting.

Yield: 2 cups

* Again, because I’m not really a fan of really sweet things (I’m looking at you Crumbs!!), I used closer to 2 ¾ cups of sugar.

Crackin’ Wise, Eggs & Apparently Crab Shells

2009-09-16T02:21:00.008-04:00

I’ve actually got a lot on my plate right now. So this is more like a long update, with a promise to fill you in later…and maybe a recipe if you ask nicely…while I scare up some material.

My uncle got married on Friday (big ups to him!) and among the foodstuffs floating around Galapagos were cupcakes from Crumbs, his favourite; which got me thinking. I also just got back from Jersey, where I was cooking and taking care of my mom. She had an appendectomy a following the wedding (she’s fine, thanks for asking) and like any good son would I went out and cooked for her and tried to make sure she stayed off her feet…which is virtually impossible for her to do. I made some banana bread and some Chardonnay-poached Salmon with a Butter & Herb Sauce for she and her husband, which they both enjoyed. I also decided, I think on the train ride back, that I was going to make Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcakes; mainly because I’m curious as to how they’ll turn out (I had asked for feedback from someone, but apparently she couldn't be bothered so I'm going to mad scientist it).

Before I can get cracking on the cupcakes though, I’ve got to head out to Long Island City to meet my man Dopp, that’s right, he’s back! He and I are going to do some recipe testing, and probably a lot of eating. From there, I’m heading to the New Deal Supper Club for some raw food courtesy of Rabbit Mafia. I’m an unabashedly, unapologetic meat eater and cooked food eater, so an evening of raw food that’s primarily vegetarian should be pretty interesting for me, to say the least.

So in the next 36, or so, hours: I’m dropping by the Picnick, Smoked truck for some tasty pulled pork; recipe testing, possibly some ceviche, possibly some fried chicken; making cupcakes; eating like a commie (I kid) and then telling all of you about it.
Until then, here’s a crab cake recipe to tide you over; because apparently you asked nicely…

Crab Cakes with Roasted Red Pepper Mayo

1 pound – Jumbo Lump Crab Meat
1 Red Bell Pepper, small dice (after roasting)
½ Red Onion, small dice
1 Habanero Pepper, seeded & minced
3 Tbsp – Mayonnaise
1 Tbsp – Dijon Mustard
2 tsp – Smoked Paprika
2 Eggs, beaten
Salt & Pepper, to taste
1 Box – Panko Bread Crumbs

Roast the red pepper over an open flame (or in a 350 degree oven) until the skin blisters and begins to turn black. Place in a metal bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let steam for approximately 20 minutes, then remove the skin using a paper towel, being sure to reserve as much oil as possible. While the red pepper is steaming, combine: crab meat, red onion, habanero, mayonnaise, mustard and smoked paprika, mixing lightly.
Once the red pepper is diced (reserve the other half for the Red Pepper Mayonnaise), mix it, the reserved oil, the beaten egg and approximately 4 tablespoons of the Panko into the crab mixture, mixing again to incorporate everything (The mixture should be wet, but not so lose that a small patty will fall apart in your hands).
Pour a good amount of the Panko on a large plate, then form crab mixture into small or large patties and dip each side in the Panko; placing the formed patties on a sheet tray or cookie sheet. Place the tray with the formed patties in the refrigerator for approximately 30 minutes to let the patties firm up and pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place a small amount of canola oil in one or two sauté pans and remove the patties from the refrigerator. Heat the oil on medium-high heat and brown the crab cakes for approximately 3 minutes on each side. Then place pans in the oven and allow crab cakes to finish cooking, approximately 8-to-10 minutes.
Remove pans from oven and using a fish spatula remove crab cakes, placing them on a paper towel.
Serve with Roasted Red Pepper Mayonnaise.

Yield: Approximately 16 1.5 Oz. cakes

Roasted Red Pepper Mayonnaise

1 Large Red Bell Pepper
½ Small Red Bell Pepper, minced (optional)
½ Habanero Pepper, seeded
3 Egg Yolks
24 Oz Canola Oil
2 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
Salt, to taste

Roast the red pepper over an open flame (or in a 350 degree oven) until the skin blisters and begins to turn black. Place in a metal bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let steam for approximately 20 minutes, then remove the skin using a paper towel, being sure to reserve as much oil as possible. Cut and seed the pepper. Combine the red pepper, reserved oil, habanero and egg yolks in a Vitaprep Mixer or blender and blend until smooth. Season with salt and while the unit is running, add the canola oil in a slow, steady stream. Start the unit on a medium setting, turning it up higher when the egg yolks begin to emulsify the oil.
Taste for deliciousness.
Fold in minced red pepper, if using.

Yield: 1 Qt

One Nut, Two Names & a Day Off

2009-09-07T01:50:00.008-04:00

"Thinking I need to stop making chocolate-hazelnut semi-freddo just because I can."

That was my Facebook status update on Thursday night. I wasn't home, I wasn't thinking about being home and then all of a sudden, the image of a frost-coated spring form pan lined with plastic wrap and filled with a mysterious milky-white substance popped into my head.

In the wake of my cornmeal, and subsequent muffin, experiments I had some left over hazelnuts, as well as some eggs & heavy cream I'd picked up when I got the nuts.
I could say it was a surprise, "oh me oh my, look what I'm doing with these filberts! Lawdy, lawdy!" (not sure why I'd sound like Gina Neeley, but whatever) But in truth, I knew exactly what I was doing. I'd planned on having extra nuts and I'd planned on making a semifreddo...the homemade "Nutella," however, was a welcome surprise.

Here, I feel I should mention that I, like George Costanza, “love how there are two nuts that are named after people…Hazel and Filbert.” Technically speaking, George was wrong; as the nut itself appears to be the filbert (Corylus maxima) that comes from the hazel tree. Why it is that the names are virtually interchangeable is beyond me.

Anyway, what I’m throwing at you…when I should be in bed, considering I’ve got to be up early and on a train to New Jersey for a Labor Day Grill-Fest…are recipes for semifreddo and a homemade hazelnut spread. The semifreddo recipe is a good one because it’s versatile; takes about four hours to make; and I’m guessing if you’re like most people who doesn’t own one, it beats buying an ice cream maker for frozen desserts.

The hazelnut spread (slash Nutella) is my own twist, mainly because I went a little nuts with the hazelnuts in the semifreddo and had to beef up the spread with some chocolate-mint sauce from Robert Rothschild Farm I got, who knows, somewhere.

One more thing. There’s an easy way and a hard way to make the semifreddo…you can either toss the cocoa powder into the mix or you can heat the cocoa powder in the heavy cream, then let the cream cool down. And I mean, seriously cool down because you’re going to be whipping that cream later. I’m giving you the easy version and trusting you can figure out how to let cream cool on your own.

Chocolate-Hazelnut Semifreddo

¾ Cup Hazelnuts, blanched, toasted & cooled
1 Cup Sugar
2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
2 cups Heavy Cream
¾ cup Egg Whites (decent brown eggs should yield about ¼ cup of whites, per egg)
¼ tsp vanilla extract

Grease a 10-inch spring form pan and line with plastic wrap or parchment paper.

In a food processor grind the hazelnuts, 3/4 cup sugar and cocoa powder together, pulsing to avoid over blending so it does not become a paste (but you’re going to have to work really hard to accidentally make hazelnut butter).
Whip the cream using a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or a hand mixer, until it holds fluffy, soft peaks. Transfer to the refrigerator.
In a clean dry (preferably copper) bowl, whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the vanilla extract and 1/4 cup sugar and continue whipping until glossy and stiff, about 30 seconds more.
Fold into the whipped cream, then fold in the ground nut mixture. Spoon the mixture into the spring form pan. Smooth the top.
Freeze at least 4 hours or overnight*.

* I suggest overnight, because everyone’s freezer is different. My freezer might as well be a blast chiller, but yours might suck, so plan ahead if you’re making it for a party.

Homemade ~~Nutella~~ Hazelnut-Mint Spread

1 Cup chopped hazelnuts
¾ Cup Powdered Sugar
¼ Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
2 Tbsp Chocolate-Mint Sauce (conversely, you can infuse your oil with the mint)
1/8 Cup Canola Oil

Place hazelnuts in the work bowl of a food processor and process until nuts start to clump together in a ball, approximately five minutes.
Add the powdered sugar, cocoa powder and chocolate-mint sauce (if using), and process again for 2 to 3 minutes, until the mixture turns dark and the ingredients are well combined.
Slowly drizzle in enough oil to make a spread.

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 weeks.

Next Time: Labor Day and whole bunch of shout-outs...La Rabbitnostra, Smoke on Wall Street & some Brooklyn Juice Guys.

By the way...Happy Labor Day!

When Life Gives You Bad Corn, Make Cornmeal

2009-09-03T02:42:00.010-04:00

When I was growing up, my parents always used to tell me, “never look a gift horse in the mouth.” Well, a couple days ago I did. Someone, I won’t say who; but someone gave me the worst…absolute worst corn I’ve ever had in my life. I had grand plans to make a corn consommé; extracting the flavours from the cob, cooking the kernels and even attempting to clarify it with egg whites; but once I started to shuck the ears I knew it wasn’t to be. The ears reminded me of the dried multicolour maize my father has adorning his mantle.

So there I was in my kitchen, casting about for what to do. I tried making a corn stock and then a soup, both of which worked about as well as the plot of an episode of It’s Always Unfunny in Philadelphia. Once I strained the corn pulp out of the soup and tossed it in the freezer, I decided that what the hell, I’d try to make cornmeal. I spread the pulp on some tinfoil and threw it in the oven at 225° F for about four hours, then let it rest in the oven overnight. When I woke up, I put my roasted “corn flakes” in the food processor and ground away, until I had a coarse yellow powder that J. Peterman probably would’ve mistaken for Yam-yam.

It took me still another day to figure out what the hell to do with my newfound cornmeal, but yesterday morning I got myself some hazelnuts and a banana and decided that banana-hazelnut muffins was the way to go. I even tossed some raisins in for good measure; and so far, I’ve gotten good reviews. Here’s the recipe if you’re really interested I’ll give you step-by-step directions on making your own cornmeal. Hell, you never know, the Mayans might be right!

Either way, I suggest serving these bad boys with butter and jelly, fresh and steaming out of the oven.

Banana-Hazelnut Corn Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
½ cup hazelnuts
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 ripe bananas
1 egg, beaten
¼ cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
1 handful of raisins (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400° degrees F. Grease muffin pan or line with paper muffin liners.
In a food processor grind the hazelnuts and sugar together, pulsing to avoid over blending so it does not become a paste.
In a large bowl, mix together corn meal, flour, sugar-nut mixture, baking powder, salt and raisins (if using).
Then blend eggs, bananas, milk and butter together in a blender and fold into dry ingredients, stirring to combine (more flour may be needed, if the dough appears wet).
Spoon into muffin tins and bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Yield: 12 muffins

Next Time: Bunnies, Italian (Sort-of) Ice Cream & possibly Homemade Nut Butters…oh yeah, and Labor Day.

Thumbs Up From “the Swedish Guy”

2009-08-31T19:01:00.006-04:00

Everybody likes validation, right? I mean, is there anything better than the day when your boss tells you, “hey, you’re doing a good job”? It’s not going to kill me if my boss doesn’t say anything, although eventually you get the feeling you’re just going through the motions without feedback, or even worse, you start to think your boss hates you almost as much as Anderson Cooper hates Heidi Montag and just doesn’t care enough to even yell at you. But if there’s gonna be feedback, I like the non-yelly, non-screamy variety.

When I was working in the West Village for “the Swedish Guy” I had a pretty interesting chef de cuisine. Obviously, when you’re trying to run a restaurant empire, even a small one, you need have people minding the store for you so you can do things like hit investors up for money or make television appearances. Interestingly enough, he went outside to get his chef, but that’s not important. What is important is that the chef he hired was a little, um, emotional. To say she wore her emotions on her sleeve would be an understatement; she wore her emotions on her crisp white chef’s coat in fucking Technicolor! One day she flipped out on the entire kitchen staff, the GM and a poor reservationist who had the misfortune of wandering by; and told everyone that if they didn’t want to work there, we could all get the hell out…no one left. We were, or should I say I was, a little more confused a couple hours later when she walked into the prep kitchen, put her arm around me and asked how I was doing and if everything was okay with me (um, yeah, feeling great with maybe a touch of bipolar).

I know it takes all kinds in the kitchen, but most people (especially head chefs) end up on one side of the spectrum: either they scream and yell and act like lunatics or they’re pretty even keeled and realize you “catch more flies with honey.” Chef Lithium ran the gamut from both sides, so you never knew what to expect from day-to-day, hour-to-hour. I guess you could say she was more dangerous than typing “Jessica Biel” into my Firefox nav-bar.

So one night, the Swedish Guy showed up while I was prepping and asked for a little help for a television appearance he was getting ready for. Considering I had a light day (meaning I’d gotten done everything I needed to get done) I was more than happy to help him out. He and I got down to business and when he stepped out to take a phone call, Chef Screamy swooped in like an angry gaggle of crows to ask what the hell was wrong with me listening to music while the Swedish Guy tried to get work done? I didn’t see it as a big deal because before she came in and started her yelling; I’d stood across the steel table from him while he nodded his head along with the music as he perfectly…and I mean perfectly diced pumpkin.

Later that evening, I was plating appetizers during an especially busy service. I was picking up Yellowtail, a Lobster Salad, a Mixed Green Salad, Tabbouleh, Oysters and about five other dishes during a Friday night and word had apparently spread that the Swedish Guy would be there, as we only got busier as the night wore on. I was also running between my station and the grill helping plate the shrimp app and the duck salad because my sous chef was super cool and was smart to occasionally put me in the weeds to help me learn to maximize efficiency. The Swede was downstairs finishing getting ready for his television appearance and I was trying to ease into service. Around 8:30 a big ticket (like Alaska big) came out and I, and the rest of the kitchen, furiously got to work.

Things were going well until Chef Screamy turned around from the pass to see me plating somewhere around dish number seven of the ten (I think it was a Lobster Salad), or so, I was responsible for and had a grand mal flip-out. Seriously, it was a tantrum of epic proportions, complete with choice phrases like: “that looks like shit,” and “I’d be embarrassed send that out,” and “you’re so goddamn slow I’d have you re-plate it, but there’s no time.” At some point during the yell-fest, unbeknownst to me or Chef Screamy, The Swedish Guy had made his way back into the kitchen. He’d quietly been surveying things from the corner and before the dish went out, he walked over and took a look at it. I held my breath, the waiter cowered against the wall, Screamy fumed, arms folded across her chest (and in retrospect this entire exchange probably took place in about four seconds), the rest of the cooks paused. The Swede looked at my dish, looked me square in the eye and nodded his head. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. His silent implication was clear: nice job, keep doing what you're doing.

I gloated internally for the rest of the night and every day after that.

Next Time: Making the best of a bad corn situation.

Picture: Courtesy Sesame Street

French Toast, Eggs Benedict and Other Small Tragedies, Part II

2009-08-29T15:00:00.003-04:00

Last time I gave you a recipe, this time I’m going to give you a couple recipes…for disaster. All kinds of funny stuff happens in the kitchen, especially during brunch service when everyone working is tired and everyone sitting in the dining room is too damn chipper…or hung over or drunk or high…for their own good. Or maybe it’s not so much that funny stuff happens, but that you’re so miserable you just have to laugh. Originally, I was going to give you a bunch of brunch stories, but I realize brunch is just too long/funny/sad to throw at you all at once. Instead, here are the first few shots across the bow, for I hope will be a series of procrastination inducing stories. As always, the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

When I was working at the East Village gastropub with Dopp (my boy Dopp, that I’ve told you about? My “white doppelganger”? Okay, whatever, I’ll tell you about him later), we had this bus boy who knew it all. When he wasn’t slouching against the coffee station, texting; he was hovering around telling us how to plate dishes, complaining about running simple errands (such as: “I’m trying to pick up five tables here and you’re standing around eyeing a half-eaten piece of chocolate bread pudding, can you please get me a quart of heavy cream?”), marking tables or running plates to the wrong tables because he wouldn’t wait for us to tell him where things were supposed to go. Anyway, one of our brunch menu items was French Toast which we served with maple syrup in a shot glass. So a couple weekends in a row Dopp & I noticed he was running plates of French Toast to tables with the shot glass balanced precariously at the edge of the plate. Dopp and I told him numerous times to carry the shot glass separately so it didn’t wobble off the plate and onto the floor; but he knew better and continued to do it. So one Sunday he scooped up a plate and ran it to a table. A few moments later, there was some commotion in the dining room and Mr. Know-It-All came running back into the kitchen looking for napkins and a wet towel. In his infinite wisdom, he had ran plates to a table and held the plate with the French Toast in his hand while he set down some Polenta & Eggs…moving his hand slightly, the shot glass fell (I imagine in slow motion) onto the table, spilling its contents all over the white-Miu Miu-pantalooned lap of a young lady who was there expressly to break up with her boyfriend. You ask how I know she was there to dump her boyfriend…? Because she wrote about it on Citysearch or Yelp or somewhere the very next day. Just goes to show you, you should listen to the guys in the clogs and white coats…we know what we’re talking about.

When I was working in the West Village (not with “the Swedish guy”), I worked brunch on a super small line; cranking out frittatas and sausage and broccoli rabe. It was what you would call a hotspot and as a result we used to get all kinds of people in there: Dr. Evil, the Green Goblin, Sally Heap, Liz Lemon’s boyfriend, Darla Marks, and others.
So one day a certain Lady Editor of a certain famous magazine came in with the Green Goblin and some friends and orders brunch for six: frittata, sausage, salad, broccoli rabe, pancakes and polenta. The waitress also asked that we make a separate frittata with very little salt, withhold sausage and make a separate rabe with no chili flakes for the Lady Editor, as she was apparently not in the mood for eating meat, didn’t like spicy food or salt. If you’re keeping score at home: “picking up, frittata for five; frittata for one, no salt; sausage for five; salad for six; polenta for six; rabe for five, straight up; rabe for one, no chilies; pancakes for six; heard.” Now, my chef and I were friendly, but not friends and while we got along well, we did not see eye on eye on one major kitchen issue: the use of salt. Now, anyone who knows me knows I love me some salt, but this guy worshiped at the Church of Salt! Nothing was ever seasoned well enough to his liking. Any time he tasted part of a dish I was plating, the problem (in any) was invariably lack of salt.
So I started picking up the order and Chef Salty came upstairs and after some back and forth about why I was making two different frittatas for a table of six; I started plating. Guess what happened? “More salt.” Same thing with the rabe…more salt. I noticed Greeny looking over wondering what was going on and where his frittata was. Long story short, the solo frittata came back for being too salty and I had to pick up the rabe three times before it was “right,” all of this to the seeming amusement of the Lady Editor. When it was all said and done, with Chef Salty back downstairs and Greeny and the Lady Editor on their way out, she leaned across the bar and said, “thanks for trying.”

Next Time: The Biggest Compliment I Ever Got

Somewhere Down the Line: More brunch stories

French Toast, Eggs Benedict and Other Small Tragedies

2009-08-23T11:04:00.004-04:00

I hate brunch. Or rather, I hate cooking brunch. I would even go so far as to say that brunch is the bane of the existence of the culinary professional. Whether you are a cook, a hostess, a bus boy or dish washer every weekend when you come in it sucks out a little piece of your soul. Look, I don’t; and I haven’t met a cook who does, hate cooking scrambled eggs, bacon, French Toast, pancakes, omelettes and whatnot; hell, I even like going to brunch. It’s just that I don’t think there are any cooks out there who enjoy cooking a busy dinner service on a Friday or Saturday night, getting home at two in the morning and then waking up six hours later, to drag ass back into work and cook that stuff for six hours when you’re bleary-eyed, your mouth tastes like Makers Mark, cigarettes and shame and you’ve got a strange pain in your side you know wasn’t there nine hours ago.

Every time I’ve said, “if I never have to cook brunch another day in my life, I’ll die a happy man,” I get a knowing nod and a shrug from the cook I’m talking to. Almost as if he or she is saying, “yeah, I hear ya, but brunch is a necessary evil; so just suck it up and deal.” Many a Saturday and Sunday I wake up hating myself because of what I’ve done to my body and brain the night before and then stand over a hot stove scrambling eggs, pulling omelettes out of Salamanders, frittatas out of ovens and French Toast off of griddles…a zombie in checkered pants and a white jacket.

Last weekend, I had an opportunity to cook brunch more to my speed. I found myself in Hoboken visiting my old roommate, who through no fault of his own, has been fully domesticated with a dog, girlfriend, apartment combo. He’s come a long way from the booze chugging, skirt-chasing guy I remember from college; he’s grown up, he’s grounded, hell, he’s fucking responsible…and I say that in a good way. So we decided to catch up on one of the free weekends he’s probably had in months and hit some of the bars in Hoboken. I won’t waste your time talking about Hoboken; but suffice it to say, I care about Hoboken about as much as I care about the Rebecca Gayheart ~~sex~~tape. (NSFW)

Sunday morning, we went out and got a loaf of whole wheat bread, some heavy cream, bacon and eggs and then I loosed myself on my buddy’s kitchen. I mixed the eggs and heavy cream with some of the leftover buttermilk from the fried chicken I had made the previous night (not the same buttermilk I soaked the chicken in, c’mon!) and added a couple ounces of bourbon for good measure. Then I got to work cooking my bacon and saving the rendered fat to cook the scrambled eggs in. When it was all said and done, my buddy and I feasted while watching ESPN and discussing the merits of feeding bacon and eggs to a twelve pound dog. I’m including my recipe for the Buttermilk-Bourbon French Toast, just bear in mind this recipe isn’t winning any diet awards. It will, however; cut down on your sugar; because I never saw the need to put sugar in something I was going to cover in Maple Syrup ten minutes later. In addition, it does benefit from healthy whole wheat or filling brioche as opposed to useless white/Wonder Bread (which has a tendency to fall apart like Phil Mickelson at Torrey Pines). Just remember to watch your heat. I personally like my French Toast slightly crispy on the outside, but you don’t want it taking on a whole lot of colour beyond a nice burnished gold.

Buttermilk-Bourbon French Toast

Toast Batter
1 Pint – Heavy Cream
½ Pint – Buttermilk
3 oz – Bourbon
3 Eggs
Cinnamon & Nutmeg, to taste

8 slices of Whole Wheat or Brioche Bread
4 oz – Unsalted Butter

Place an oven-safe plate in the oven and pre-heat to 200 degrees F
Whisk eggs in a large bowl with heavy cream, buttermilk and bourbon then combine with cinnamon and nutmeg. Melt butter in a sauté pan or skillet over medium heat. Soak bread, on both sides, in batter then place in pan and cook until lightly browned on both sides. Remove slices from pan and place in oven until all slices are cooked.

Yield: 8 pieces of French Toast

Bought, Paid for & Cooking…for Vegetarians!

2009-08-12T15:38:00.005-04:00

I know I was supposed to write this a few months back, but considering I had to actually undertake the “date” before I could write about it, things got pushed back. I’ve been a busy little cook recently and unfortunately had to push the date back a couple times. Anyway, here we go…with a Quinoa Salad, to boot!
You know that scene at the end of Groundhog Day when Bill Murray rolls over and is surprised to see Andie McDowell lying in bed next to him…? And then he asks her why she’s there and she says, “I bought you, I own you.” That line always made me laugh, in an uncomfortable sort of way. My good buddy from Berkley and I used to joke about those words coming out of her mouth with her Southern accent and the strangely uncomfortable feeling it would give me. Anyway, I joined the overactive, overexcited digital high school that is Yelp a couple months back and have been writing reviews and attending their “parties” and defending myself against the many word twisting, antagonistic fussbudgets that seemingly spend the better part of their lives “helicoptering” the site. They're not all bad, and they do try to do some good; especially the people in charge. They hold little parties for their “Elite” members, which is basically a reason to get drunk and hook up and hold other events.

One such event was a Silent Date Auction for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of New York. Now, I’ve lost two grandparents to Lymphoma, so I thought that if nothing else it would be a nice gesture to help raise money for a good cause. Seeing as I’m more of a, “how can I help you with my time?” kind of guy, I decided to offer my services, via food. The bidding was going well, okay pretty well and I was excited that I might get a chance to cook for one of the people I actually knew. Then came the day of reckoning and the name I expected to see next to my name, in the “win column,” was different. So I reached out to her (or actually, she reached out to me…I was a busy boy) and congratulated her on her winnings and then asked if she had any food allergies or perhaps if there was anything she was unwilling to eat. And then it came, like a piano falling on Daffy Duck’s head…she was a vegetarian. Now, those of you that know me know I do not suffer vegetarians lightly, so I was in no mood to cook or assemble something that didn’t have parents. Hell, just the other day I walked past a guy who passed Maoz Vegetarian Café to hear him mutter, “commies.” Oh wait, that was me. Anyway, I was fresh off of cooking at a dinner party with a menu that included: Fried Chicken Breast Strips; Thai Beef Salad and a Corn Salad with Chicken Sausage. Not to mention, I had seriously pushed for making a bacon vinaigrette for the salad, but was vetoed.

So while I was cooking Friday night, I was mentally cheating on my dinner companions trying to figure out what the hell I was going to cook the following day. And it came to me quite easily. I set aside a small amount of the Corn Salad, sans the chicken sausage; as well as some of the Peach Crumble, then ate dinner, threw my orange clogs on and tried to figure out my next move.

When I woke up in the morning I found that the quinoa I had brought to my friends house had been cooked, drained and was sitting neatly in the refrigerator. I was working on borrowed time (probably because I made some questionable decisions with my orange clogs on and got to bed late), so I made my way to Whole Foods; with a Solo cup full of quinoa in tow to do my shopping. I decided on a different salad, but one with protein that most vegetarian meals lack or mask with things like beans and whatnot. Quinoa has got a little more than four grams of protein per ounce, which is pretty substantial for something that never had cute ears or a family. So like a tornado, I picked up a plum tomato, a cucumber, some black olives and a red onion; and knew I had mint and feta cheese at my friends place. Then I hightailed it back there, and got to mixing.
Then I put my vegetarian meal in some containers I “procured” from Whole Foods and was on my way to the Belvedere Castle.

Turns out, she was a fan of charity:water, the wonderful organization started by a good friend of mine and even had a charity tote bag; so she scored a few more points for vegetarians everywhere in my book.When it was all said and done, she professed the peach crumble delicious and the corn salad super tasty, but spent the majority of the time eating the Quinoa Salad.

Mediterranean Quinoa Salad

3 Cups, cooked Quinoa
1 small Cucumber, skin on small diced
½ Red Onion, small diced
1 Plum Tomato, small diced
1 Handful, Grape or Cherry Tomatoes
4 oz., Sliced Black Olives
4 oz., Feta Cheese, crumbled
20 Mint Leaves, chiffonade
2 oz., Red Wine Vinegar
2 oz., Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste

Combine all ingredients except oil and vinegar and mix well. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, but more pepper; as the olives and feta will be salty. Then dress with the oil and vinegar and mix again.

Serves 4-to-6

Oh Sweet, Corn!

2009-07-28T02:18:00.006-04:00

When I was growing up, I used to spend my Summer’s in Massachusetts with my dad and because my dad wasn’t one to have his son sitting around the house all day reading books (which was okay for him, but hell, he’d been putting up with snotty college students unable to conjugate their verbs for the previous nine months), it fell on me to get a job. Now, to say I was a lazy little kid might be going a bit too far; but I was definitely a fat little kid. I liked my books, I liked my Devil Dogs, I liked my Tastykakes, I liked hot dogs with ketchup on them and ice cream sundaes from Friendly’s piled high with Reece’s Peanutbutter Cups, hot fudge, peanut butter and whipped cream…yeah, I was a fatty! Anyway, I wasn’t really into things like running around outside, or the joys of salad, and I definitely wasn’t psyched when my dad told me I’d be spending my almost my Summer selling corn by a roadside.
I brought home so much corn that Summer, by dad and step-mom were sick of it by early August and asked my neighbors (my bosses) nicely please stop sending me home with as many ears of corn as my fat little arms could carry…it didn’t work. Looking back, I’m glad they didn’t listen; because I now have an appreciation for what truly good corn is supposed to taste like. And every time I have a really good ear of corn, I remember those Summer’s in Hadley, Massachusetts selling ears of corn by the dozen. Good corn, really damn good corn, can be pulled off the stalk and eaten raw right there in the field; sweet and delicious, with sticky corn-milk running down your chin.
But I digress. A couple weeks ago, after the fun I had with the garlic scapes, I came across an article in the New York Times by Martha Rose Shulman about corn soup, or more pointedly, about fresh corn and finding inventive things to do with it when its in season. Her corn soup recipe was good, but not exactly what I was looking for. She suggested pureeing the corn along with the other ingredients and then adding a small amount of fresh corn to the finished product. My soup varies slightly with the addition of some roasted jalapeno for heat and a lot more corn, turning her soup into slightly more of a stew. But she did make a corn stock with the cobs, which I liked because it added extra corn flavour to the tasty soup. I had to employ a little System D (if you’re not sure, wait and I’ll fill you in) when making my soup because the Robot Coupe and VitaPrep from the restaurant had been spirited away by a good friend who needed it very much.

Incidentally, she owes me after I found the parts to the Robot Coupe in a Sky Vodka box, but that’s also a story for another day. And I’ve simplified this recipe guessing you’ve got a blender at home. So this soup recipe is basically Shulman’s with the addition of some fire-roasted jalapeno for spice and not as much corn pureed into the soup mix. And if I could just add, that when it was all said and done the verdict on the soup was, “you’re the man!” so, ya’know, maybe I know what I’m doing here.

Spicy Corn Soup

For the stock:
The cobs from 3 large ears corn
1 small onion, quartered
1/2 pound carrots, sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 quarts water
Salt to taste

For the soup:
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 small or 1/2 medium sweet onion, chopped
Salt, preferably kosher salt, to taste
Kernels from 2 ears corn
1 large jalapeno, fire roasted

For garnish:
Kernels from 2 ears of corn

Make the stock: Combine the corn cobs, quartered onion, carrots, garlic and water in a large soup pot, and bring to a boil. Season with a small amount of salt (you will be reducing this broth, so don’t salt fully at this point). Reduce the heat, cover and simmer one hour. Strain and return to the pot. Bring to a boil, and reduce to 5 cups. (There are 4 cups in a quart, so you’re basically looking to reduce your broth almost by half). Taste and adjust seasoning.
Fire-roast your jalapeno while the broth is reducing, so you can slice it and add it to your soup items.
Heat the oil in a heavy soup pot, and add the onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring, until tender, about five minutes, and add the corn kernels and jalapeno. Cook gently for about three minutes, stirring, and add the stock. Bring to a simmer, cover and simmer over low heat for 30 minutes.
Transfer to a blender in 1 to 1 1/2-cup batches, taking care to cover the top with a towel to avoid hot splashes, and blend the soup until smooth. Put through a medium strainer, pressing the soup through with the bottom of a ladle or with a spatula, and return to the pot and add the remaining raw kernels. Heat through, taste and adjust seasonings.
Ladle in stew, and serve.
Yield: Serves four, or about one quart.

Jowls, Scapes & Crafty Farmers

2009-07-14T15:59:00.006-04:00

Last Friday I walked over to the Union Square Greenmarket to clear my head from the countless hours I spend in the restaurant, poke around and possibly pick up some goodies to play around with. I did a quick walk-through, turning North through the park winding my way past the various purveyors and farmers selling their fare and trying to undercut each other while still trying to turn a profit: on this side, Kirby Cucumbers $2.60/lb; down the row from him, Kirby Cucumbers $2.25/lb; and around the corner Kirby’s for a scant $2/lb. My plan was to walk down the Blue Water Grill aisle that runs parallel with Union Square West and then turn down the 17th Street aisle, continuing down to the end of the market.
Most of what I saw was your standard farm fare for mid-July: peaches, cherries, a few berries, corn, the aforementioned Kirby’s, and one vender brashly selling tomatoes…next week maybe (the Rutgers and Ramapo varieties both taking nearly 80 days to reach maturation. Not to mention all the rain from June could lead to a late blight which could wipe out crops across the state. Anyway...). Then there were the few expected surprises such as garlic scapes, some small Summer squashes and herbs of all kinds; Licorice-Basil, anyone…?
As I walked from stall-to-stall and chatted with the farmers, a thought popped into my head: showing up at the Greenmarket in your whites is just ridiculously pretentious. Most people would probably think you looked silly any other chefs would probably curse you under their breath and the farmers don’t produce enough crop to start acting like “purveyors,” supplying restaurants with pounds upon pounds of garlic scapes or culantro to have them falling all over anyone wearing a chefs coat.
Anyway, I didn’t see anyone being pretentious and continued poking around, practically laughing in the face of one farmer who tried to sell me garlic scapes for $8/lb. These might be salt of the earth people, or at least saltier than I am being a cityboy and all, but they’re still business men & women at the end of the day. Two Friday’s ago a buddy of bought garlic scapes at the Greenmarket for $2/lb, last week a magazine apparently published an article (that I’m still trying to locate, by the way) about the “hottest chefs” using garlic scapes at the “hottest restaurants.” And by this Friday, the price had risen by $6/lb, which if my high school math is right, is about a 300% increase in price! Instead of laughing at him, I moved on and found a guy selling tightly spiraled scapes in square pint containers that seemed to weight around ¾ of a pound, for $3 each. I also picked up some of the aforementioned Licorice-Basil, and a small pot of cherry peppers and culantro, cilantro’s more potent Mexican cousin. Then the piece de resistance: a beautiful 2lb piece of Pork Jowl.

I practically skipped back to the kitchen.
So what the hell was I going to do with this stuff? I decided to give the plants some water, bias cut the scapes for something…and then smoke and braise the jowl for empanadas. I set up my smoker

and popped the jowl inside. Then I got my braising liquid going, deciding to first reduce it and then add beer before throwing in the jowl. An hour and a half later, I pulled the jowl out of the smoker

and slid into the water, covering it with beer. Then into the oven it went. When I took the pot out, the jowl was practically falling apart…and my jowls were trembling with anticipation. I pulled a small piece off and popped it in my mouth, my cares and worries melting away as the meat melted in my mouth.
Once the jowl had cooled, I pulled the skin off for cracklins, cut the meat into small pieces and tossed it in a sauté pan with my previously cut garlic scapes. Once crispy, the steaming filling went into my empanada dough and the whole thing went into the oven. My reviews were good. My favourite local drunks and my favourite local drinkery raved about them. My bartender buddy around the corner was less kind, but appreciated the free food.
Since then, the remaining garlic scapes took a trip to my mom’s place in Jersey, then came back to the City with me and are currently going to waste in my fridge…and I’m hating myself a little bit because of that. Hopefully tonight I can do something with them before they turn…I’m a little garlic scaped out at this point, so maybe pickled garlic scapes? We shall see.

Explosions of Beef on the 4th of July…

2009-07-04T15:29:00.003-04:00

So it’s been a while, hasn’t it? Over a month, goddamn! Well, I’ve been a busy boy (working on some semi-Top Secret stuff); a very busy boy. How busy you ask? Well, I’ve worked thirty-three of the last thirty-four days…THIRTY-THREE out of THIRTY-FOUR; even as I sit here writing this, I do it from work. To that end, you know what pisses me off to no end? People who can’t perform simple tasks and people who complain about how busy they are, when in all actuality, they have no idea what it means to actually be “busy.”
Maybe I’m taking myself too seriously. Maybe I’m just tired because I’ve been working so damn much. I find myself snapping at people and find that my already somewhat short fuse, has gotten even shorter. Either way, I think I’ve got good reason to want to, “put a bullet between the eyes of every panda that wouldn’t screw to save its species…to open dump valves on oil tankers and smother all the French beaches I’d never see…I wanted to breath smoke.”
Let me preface this next statement with something a new friend of mine told me yesterday, “stop being such a burger snob, go to Western Beef and cook some burgers,” now I let you decide whether he’s right or I’m right.
Every year for Independence Day, for maybe the past four years, I’ve gone to a buddy’s place and cooked burgers and wings and whatnot before everyone goes up to his roof and watches the fireworks show in the East River. As my palate has changed and my knowledge has grown, I’ve gotten (shall we say) “fancier,” and tried to be more cognizant of things like: the freshness of my ingredients, the quality of my meat and above all giving the people there an experience they won’t soon forget. Fireworks are nice to look at, but people remember when you make them a Pork and Beef Burger, stuffed with Gorgonzola and Bacon.
As I’ve become more in tune with what I put in my body and what I put into other people’s bodies, I’ve started steering myself away from things like pre-packaged ground beef in grocery stores and prefer to instead buy freshly ground meat; preferably at a place where I can watch a guy in a blood stained apron grind it right before my eyes. Why, you ask? Well, because pre-packaged ground beef gets ground in a meat processing plant in god-knows-where and a single package of beef at a supermarket might contain meat from approximately thirty different cows…if you’re lucky. Why is this a big deal? Well, because in addition to the nasty bits from two dozen cows your package might also contain some really not-so-nice things like: “Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Campylobacter jejuni, Listeria monocytogenes, and Staphylococcus aureus.” The biggest danger is E. coli, and this is directly from the USDA website:

E. coli O157:H7 can colonize in the intestines of animals, which could contaminate muscle meat at slaughter.
O157:H7 is a strain of E. coli that produces large quantities of a potent toxin that forms in the intestine and causes severe damage to the lining of the intestine. The disease produced by the bacteria is called Hemorrhagic Colitis.

So freshly ground beef might cost a little more, but I have the added benefit of not pissing out my ass from eating shitty beef.

Whew, that was a lot!
So I asked my buddy to drop by Ottomanelli’s, on Bleecker, and have them grind 2 ½ pounds of beef brisket and 1 ½ pounds of chuck steak. I love the Ottomanelli’s guys, they’re super friendly and they always take care of me. Seeing as I wasn’t able to take Thursday or Friday off, and knew that I’d be working today, I asked my buddy to do me one favour…go to Ottomanelli’s and pick up the aforementioned quantities of beef. That’s it, one favour that did not involve the movement of Heaven or Earth. I even offered to call ahead and let them know he would be coming as my proxy. Wednesday, after my e-mail, I started to receive the first bit of blow back: questions about price and the exact location of Ottomanelli’s. Then, all day Thursday goes by, sun rises, sun sets and he hasn’t picked up the meat.

Him: “Why can’t we just use stuff from the supermarket?”
Me: “Because it tastes like shit and has the potential to make you sick.”
Him: “C’mon, can’t be that bad.”
Me: “I’m not risking getting people sick with my reputation on the line. Go to Ottomanelli’s.”

Friday rolls around, sun rises, sun gets high in the sky and there is still massive resistance to picking up meat that won’t make everyone sick. Mind you, by this point I have spent approximately 22 hours inside a restaurant and my patience in the face of this resistance is beginning to seriously wane. I update my facebook status, now full of visceral hatred (five of my friends agree with me, by the way), but like a fool, hold out hope. Perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel after all. I am informed there is a problem with his phone and he will be driving into the City to have it looked at; perhaps the meat can be picked up on the drive? This seems reasonable, considering google Maps tells me it’s only 3.9 miles from his place to Ottomanelli’s. I take a deep breath and smile. Calling Ottomanelli’s, for the fourth time in two days to let them know someone is coming by to pick up the meat I have requested. Things; however, take a turn for the worst when I find myself on the phone with him; standing in the bathroom, my head resting against the wall, my eyes closed, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of my nose; resisting the urge to throttle any and everything within reach; as he explains he’s saddened by the present condition of his phone and was unable to make it to Ottomanelli’s. I am saddened by the sheer laziness of a person who can’t undertake a simple fucking task such as picking up four pounds of ground meat, when they have seemingly done NOTHING for the past two days.
I make one final attempt this morning, as I stand in front of the stove, the hood-vents whirring above me, tongs in my hand and a red bell pepper popping, sizzling and whistling at me as the flames lick its surface. I text the address of an Italian butcher shop in downtown Brooklyn, perhaps the meat can be picked up there? “You don’t even need to leave Brooklyn,” I not-so-jokingly add. My phone rings with, first a sob story about the phone (which seems to be working well enough to place phone calls), followed immediately by news that a mutual friend has just arrived from Spain and then more resistance, with a compromise offered in the form of a “butcher shop” in his neighborhood where the meat can “probably” be picked up. I quickly think to myself, “I don’t remember ever seeing a butcher around there, I’m not even sure they’ll have brisket or if they’re even open today; and furthermore my buddy wouldn’t know an actual butcher shop if it sat on his face! And any place he is calling a butcher is probably a shitty-ass deli. Just because they have a meat slicer doesn’t make them a butcher.” I close my phone, not-so-quietly cursing his name, and go back to roasting my pepper. My phone rings again, but this time I am an in the middle slicing a pepper I roasted yesterday into a fine julienne, in preparation for folding said pepper into my Roasted Red Pepper Mayonnaise; not to mention I am in no mood to talk on the phone.

So am I a burger snob or is my buddy a lazy douchebag who can’t perform a single task asked of him? Personally, I think I’ve got every right to be pissed off.

Hello Horseradish, My Old Vodka - Part II

2009-06-02T03:04:00.003-04:00

I know I was supposed to have this up on Friday, but I’m not a total alcoholic and I’m not really one for drinking vodka on a random night in the name of “research.” Okay, that’s not entirely true, I did make myself a Bloody Mary a few nights ago just to try it; but I wanted some friends to try my creation before I told the masses about it.
On Friday, I met a friend of mine and we got to talking about her travels (she’s a jet-setter) and about spicy foods. Talk of spicy food tuned to talk of spicy drinks and I told her about my jalapeno-horseradish vodka experiment. Which of course, turned to talk of brunch because what goes better with brunch than a Bloody Mary? Anyone who answered a Mimosa is not a true fan of brunch or drinking. In my estimation, any Champagne “worth” mixing with orange juice and giving away in unlimited quantities is probably not worth drinking anyway. After that, it seemed like only a logical conclusion that Bloody Mary’s should be part of our future. Sunday, I turned up at my aforementioned beautiful Australian friend’s, toting my light green bottle of vodka, for Blood Mary’s with a sprinkling of brunch. We invited our other friend who had named my scallop dish and were joined by…I’m not really sure what to round out our quartet.
I filled a glass with some ice and poured my vodka about a third of the way up; I added some V8, a squeeze of fresh lime and a dash of Worcestershire Sauce. The Bloody Mary was perfectly spicy…at least for three of us, and we were in agreement that the addition of more Tabasco would’ve made it entirely too spicy. The spice from the jalapeno and the bite from the horseradish melded perfectly with the tomato juice and the lime juice and Worcestershire rounded everything out.
Then it was on to brunch itself. I grilled a couple chicken breasts and sautéed some shrimp with some of the vodka marinated jalapenos left over from infusing. Then I grated some lime zest over the shrimp and jalapeno mixture and transferred it to a bowl. My sauces made an appearance as well. I had made three different dipping sauces for baked chicken wings: Mango-Lime, Chocolate Mole & Habanero. The Mango-Lime sauce worked wonders on the shrimp, while the Chocolate Mole and Habanero sauces were amazing on the chicken.
We feasted and drank Bloody Mary’s until it was agreed upon that one can only drink so much vodka before the sun goes down; so we switched to wine.
In all, I was impressed with the way my jalapeno-horseradish vodka turned out. On it’s own, it packs a serious punch and has a gift that keeps on giving in the form of a burn that irradiates down your esophagus. But when combined with tomato juice and lime juice, it takes on a whole new dimension. I’m trying to figure out what else I can do with the vodka, a spicy Martini comes to mind, but I’m not sure what else. Until then, my light green experiment will sit in my refrigerator waiting for another reason to find its way down my throat.

Next time, cooking for a vegetarian who bought me…for a good cause.

Hello Horseradish, My Old Vodka - Part I

2009-05-22T16:34:00.005-04:00

Those of you that know me, or maybe I should say those of you that knew me, know that I am a fan of vodka. In college, I used to pray to the vodka gods; but that usually left me praying to the porcelain god later, so I put a stop to that. Even though I’ve curtailed my vodka intake, I’m still fascinated by flavoured vodka. Not Absolut Apeach or Stoli Blueberi, but slowly infusing the flavours of real fruits and vegetables and spices into vodka create something entirely different. A few years ago, I made Apple-Cinnamon vodka during the cold Winter months and thought it would be a great sipping drink, or something you could use like Spiced Rum. I didn’t know what I was doing and the Cinnamon sticks turned my vodka a deep red colour and made it pretty damn spicy. Tasty too, but spicy.
Well, last weekend I was out with a lady friend of mine when the mood for Bloody Mary’s struck us. Seeing as procrastination was the Secret Word of the Day, it took us a while to reach cruising altitude and by the time we went in search of a liquor store able to supply us with vodka for some Bloody merry Mary making we were out of luck. Strolling down the street, we happened upon a bar, walked in and inquired as to the Bloody Mary situation…they had them. The bartender was training and the tomato juice in the bars lowboy (it’s the refrigerator near the bartenders feet) resembled Campbell’s Think-n-Chunky, so she had to go run to the kitchen to get more. Then she had to learn how to make a Bloody Mary (I know). The she had to find a spoon to add the bottled horseradish. The she had to figure out how many dashes of Tabasco did they get, “was it three or was it six?” Then she had to let our drinks sit under the Guinness tap for another minute while she confirmed that she should add a hint of Guinness to the Bloody Mary (“I asked you to give me a refreshing drink…you could fall in love with an Orangutan in that!”), which she was in fact supposed to add. We finally got our drinks; which the girl, who had been working at the bar about an hour longer than we’d been inside it, had already proclaimed to be very good; so apparently there was little reason for us to confirm that fact?!?!? We toasted and sipped. My first thought, as a half-dozen little pieces of minced bottled horseradish shot up my straw and into my mouth, was there’s got to be an easier way.
We left the bar and by this point, my wheels which had been turning were starting to burn rubber. My thinking was: instead of adding Tabasco and grated horseradish root to a Bloody Mary, couldn’t you just infuse the essence of those things into vodka? Granted, it would be a more time consuming process, but wouldn’t the end product be better? And if you know anything about me, you know I’m the king of the time consuming process. Why roast the pork butt for five hours when we can slow roast it for twelve…? I just think some things taste better with time and care.
The next morning, I woke up and went to my local liquor store. Incidentally, I’m sure I’m just the kind of guy they want in there, first thing in the morning…unshaven, hair a mess and inquiring as to the price of vodka. With my vodka in hand and a shify parting look from the guy behind the counter, I went to the food co-op and bought four of the fattest, Camryn Manheim off-the-wagon, Mexican jalapeno peppers I could find and went back home grinning like a mad scientist. Then I went about the rest of my day before finally coming back home with some horseradish root in hand. Working quickly, I washed and halved the jalapenos and cut a five inch section of horseradish from the root. Then I peeled it and sliced it into quarter-inch pieces. I dropped everything in the large glass pickling/infusing jar I have and poured the bottle of vodka over the top. I sealed the lid and went to bed.
Over the course of the next couple days, I kept half an eye on the jar and the colour of the vodka; which remained fairly clear…up until day four, when my vodka began to take on a greenish tint. Then on Saturday morning, I tasted and strained my vodka. The initial punch from the jalapeno, or what I thought was jalapeno, was quite startling; but I felt the flavours to still be not quite complex enough and decided to add more horseradish and let it infuse some more. I saved my jalapeno halves, put the old horseradish, as well as another six fresh slices in the jar and topped it once again with vodka. By the time Tuesday rolled around, it was ready. The vodka has a spicy quality from it that, in my estimation, is more from the horseradish, than the jalapeno. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t spicy, it just means there are two distinct kicks and I see how someone could just taste spice and declare the vodka undrinkable. So what now, you ask? Now I put my plan into action: making Bloody Mary’s, hoping that all I need to add to my drink (besides the tomato juice) will be some Lime Juice, Worcestershire Sauce and some Celery Salt.

Next time, Part Two.

Update (8/20/09):
Thanks to the Infusions of Grandeur guys for help with the vodka.

Yankee Stadium…Tastiness?

2009-05-15T13:36:00.003-04:00

I love going to Yankee games. I especially like getting free tickets to Yankee games. But I feel like every time someone gives me a ticket to a game what they’re really giving me is a bill for about $50 bucks. The reason behind this is that once I’m at the Stadium, I’m a sucker for a fat guy in a blue polo shirt toting a bag full of beer. Not to mention, what would an ice cold beer at the ballpark be without a hot dog (and a couple more beers) to go with it? Since the beginning of this new season I’ve had the opportunity to go to two Yankee games and have started to eat my way around the Stadium. I also figured that with all the options available, I’d be doing myself a disservice if I simply settled on a hot dog (which are Nathan’s now) and a Pepsi (no longer Coke). Speaking of the changes, I got into it with one of the vendors on my second trip when he tried to tell me that they’ve “always” had Pepsi at Yankee Stadium. To which I responded, “no, not this brand new stadium, the old one.”

Anyway, on my first visit, I made my way down to the area behind home plate and watched one of the butchers from Lobel’s slice up from flank steak. Actually, I bought a beer from one of the beer men, then tried to find my seat…then went to Lobel’s, beer still in hand. I handed a Twenty to the cashier, waited for my five dollars change, and watched a man I will call a demi-butcher, slice prime rib and place the slices into a jus. My eyes grew wide as I watched him slice and then I must’ve forgotten where I was for a moment; because I asked him, “could you cut me some pieces from the end please?” Then I turned to the guys behind me and said, “fat is flavour.” The demi-butcher looked at me like he was dismissing a crack addict who’s stumbled into a vegan restaurant asking for a ham sandwich, and said, “yeah, they’re in there.”
Despite his lies, the woman assembling the sandwiches was very nice and hooked me up with some extra meat. I hightailed it back to my seat; just in time to see Joba serve up a tater ball which sailed past me and into right field; sat down and dug in. Imagine my surprise when my first bite of this sandwich I’d heard so much about was rather dry. And I was further surprised when I opened the two little condiment containers and found horseradish in one, and chopped olives in the other…can a brother get some spicy mustard? Damn! I ate my dry sandwich anyway, dumping the olives and horseradish on it so it could taste like something. I wasn’t particularly happy but in all likelihood I’d order it again.

My second trip to 161st Street and River Ave, I wised up. I’d seen the long lines for the Carl’s Steaks stand on the main level and decided that my belly was already full of Lobel’s beef and I wasn’t going to drop $11 bucks on a cheesesteak I knew wasn’t going to be as good as Philly. Wait, did I say “wised up”? I meant drank more. Because I realized you can buy souvenir cups that hold 24 ounces for $10 bucks at the concessions, as opposed to 16 ounce beers in the stands for $9, I happily shelled out the extra buck for 8 extra ounces of lukewarm liquid gold. Perhaps my judgment was a bit impaired, but I got my wander on and found another Carl’s Steaks on the third level, this one with a much shorter line. I ordered my steak the only way anyone who’s ever been to Philly orders a steak: Whiz-wit (Cheez Whiz and sautéed onions), but sadly they were out of onions. Still, I settled back into my seat and enjoyed some artificial cheese soaked goodness. At $10.75, a cheesesteak from Carl’s might give you the most bang for your buck. The next time I come to the stadium, I’m going to find the Boar’s Head Deli people are raving about and spend $12 bucks on a sandwich I could get for half that two blocks from the stadium.
All in all, the new Yankee Stadium might get its ass kicked by the old Stadium when it comes to character, but the new one’s got a leg up when it comes to food…but you still won’t catch me eating any sushi there!

Next time, I sacrifice four jalapenos and some horseradish to the vodka gods…

Cold Tomato Soup...? Not Exactly

2009-05-08T12:31:00.004-04:00

When I was living in Spain, I spent my entire Summer exposing myself to foods I’d never heard of and pointing to things I couldn’t understand on Salamancan menus. You didn’t know that, did you? Yeah, I lived in Spain for an entire Summer when I was sixteen years old…probably the best thing I could’ve done from a growth perspective. Granted, I’d already spent two years away from home learning the ways of the WASP in Eastern Massachusetts; but even then my parents were relatively close-by…not an ocean away. I got over it, I enjoyed the hell out of Spain and ate some of the best food I’ve ever eaten.
Most of my stories about Spain, or at least the one’s I tell my friends, focus on the drinking side of things. When you’re sixteen years old and you’ve grown up in the contradictorily Puritanical United States, being in a place where you can legally buy alcohol and cigarettes is kind of a big deal. But pouring booze down my throat wasn’t the only thing I did that summer, I also ate a lot. I tried to sample everything, but I sustained myself on a handful of items: toasted jamon y queso sandwiches from the corner shop near my school; late-night churros from a roadside stand, with the most amazing chocolate dipping sauce; Long Island Iced Teas and white sangria from the Litro Bar; and Paella from a little restaurant off the Plaza Mayor. The Litro Bar was probably my favourite. Hidden on a narrow street, they served litre’s of just about anything that could get you drunk…for cheap! My girlfriend at the time, was fond of their Long Island Ice Tea, while I preferred their White Sangria or gin and tonic. Inevitably, I would finish my drink and then have to drink half of hers because, well, girls who weigh 100 pounds aren’t really big drinkers. That meant that after my 10 o’clock dinner, with my belly full; by midnight or one I was feeling no pain and had my dancing shoes on.
The two things that stand out from Spain…besides those churros…are carafe’s of white sangria and chilly bowls of gazpacho. When I lived with my host family, Monday’s were Gazpacho night. My host mom basically ran a rooming house with her apartment and her sister’s apartment a block away; that meant about seven or eight students sitting down to dinner…Gazpacho is cheap to make and when paired with some crusty bread can be pretty filling. The other thing that stands out is walking into a restaurant and ordering a sangria. I think I’d been in Spain for maybe a day or two and at the time knew virtually nothing about food. So when the waiter returned with some golden coloured liquid in a glass with fruit and ice floating in it; I was confused and called our waiter over to the table. I asked him, “I ordered a sangria, why isn’t it red?” He barely broke stride as he passed by and gave me a quizzical look, “es verano,” translation: it’s Summer, stupid. Since then, I’ve tried to approximate that sangria, that same crisp sweetness I first tasted sitting outside that little café with my bowl of paella.

A couple weeks ago I had Spain on the brain and made gazpacho and white sangria for some friends. My white sangria recipe is a variation of Rosa Mexicano’s with some elements of what I remember from Salamanca thrown in as well; but sadly, it’s a secret. My advice would be to start going to Rosa Mexicano, befriend the bartender and ask him nicely to give you the recipe…being able to speak Spanish helps. I will, however; give up my gazpacho recipe. It’s slightly spicy, and crisp, with a flavour that builds over time. Heirloom tomatoes are tasty and everything, but there’s a time and a place for everything and that place is not in gazpacho. I prefer plum tomatoes for their sweetness and general taste; I also don’t use as much water in mine as most recipes call for, because I don’t want my soup diluted and feel that the extra water doesn’t allow for the same change in terms of complexity of flavour. I think a little tomato juice or V8 is a better way to go, as are the addition of cucumber and jalapeno.

Gazpacho

6 Plum Tomatoes, peeled, but not seeded
1 Cucumber, seeded, but not peeled
1 Red Onion, diced
1 Jalapeno, halved and seeded
2 Cloves Garlic, peeled
½ Cup Crusty Bread, small dice
12 oz – Tomato Juice
4 oz – White Vinegar
Juice of 1 Lemon & 1 Lime
2 Tbsp Cayenne Pepper
Salt & Black Pepper, to taste
¼ Cup Cilantro, minced

Chop all vegetables into medium pieces and combine in a blender, food processor or soup pot. Blend vegetables, or puree with an immersion blender; then add bread, tomato juice, vinegar, cayenne and continue to blend. Season with salt and pepper to taste (Initially, the soup should be not overly spicy, and crisp from the cucumber and maybe a little salty. As the soup sits, the flavours should begin to change and the soup should begin to get more spicy.).
Pour gazpacho into a serving bowl, garnish with cilantro (if using) and serve with more bread.
Serves 4-to-6.

Next up: How to most effectively waste your money at the New Yankee Stadium.

* Those of you with an Eagle Eye might notice diced orange bell pepper in the picture. That's because its an old picture, and I didn't take a picture of the gazpacho from the other day.

Banana's Unholy Union

2009-04-30T11:23:00.006-04:00

I’m a big fan of grilled cheese. Hell, I’m a big fan of just about anything that can be put between two pieces of bread, kissed with a little butter and heated to crispy perfection in a hot pan. There is something comforting about a tasty filling folded between two pieces of grilled bread that brings me back to a simpler time in my life.
So I was sitting at home one morning and wasn’t really in a breakfast mood…I’m usually never in a breakfast mood (years of wrestling screwing up my brain). Anyway, protein seemed like the way to go and peanut butter seemed like it should be my protein of choice. I love peanut butter, ever since I was a little kid. But not Skippy or Jif or any of that processed crap. I like Smucker’s, all natural peanut butter; the kind you have to stir with a knife to incorporate the oil that rests on top into the ground peanuts themselves to actually create the peanut butter. Now, the do-it-yourself thing isn’t for everyone and maybe that’s what turns some people off; but I’d rather stir my peanut butter for a minute the first time I open the jar rather than be disappointed every time I open my jar because my peanut butter tastes like peanut flavoured sugar. Anyway, that’s what my mom used to make her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with: Smucker’s Peanut Butter and Goya Guava Jelly on whole wheat bread. The guava jelly brings the sandwich to a whole new level and it has a sweetness and unctuousness that regular old grape jelly could never replicate. It doesn’t taste like sugar between bread, like you may be used to, but the flavour of real peanuts and guava is unmatched.
To that end, I got some bread out of the fridge, grabbed the jar of peanut butter and the jelly. Halfway to the kitchen table I realized I needed some potassium, cause ya’know, its good for ya. Grabbing the banana made me think of the Nutella and banana crêpes I made for my step-father a few weeks back. I was never a fan of the Nutella and banana crêpe when I would go to this awesome little crêpe place on St. Mark’s with this former model friend of mine. Having spent time in Europe, she learned to love Nutella and since she’s moved away from New York I’ve given Nutella a second chance (absence makes the heart grow fonder, eh?).
So there I am; sitting at the kitchen table with two pieces of whole wheat bread, all natural peanut butter, jelly, Nutella and a banana; and it hits me…grill! Assembling my sandwich, my homage not only to Elvis, but also to my Cuban grandmother and to snooty Europeans everywhere, I had to smile. The gooey mess is only enhanced by the banana and the guava jelly makes this decadent amalgam something that should not be missed. And just for the record, I feel a little silly including a recipe. It’s a sandwich, not a Muffaletta. And remember you’re not melting any cheese here; you’re just aiming to brown the bread a bit and slightly warm the filling.

Banana’s Unholy Union

2 Slices Whole Wheat Bread
All Natural Peanut Butter, preferably Smucker’s
Guava Jelly
Nutella
1 Banana, cut into ½ inch slices
1/2 oz. Unsalted Butter

Spread peanut butter on one piece of bread, then spread Nutella on the other piece. On the piece that you have spread the Nutella, spread with the jelly (the Nutella sticks to the bread a little easier and its easier to smooth the jelly over it than it is to smooth over peanut butter) as well. On the other piece, arrange the banana slices so that they nearly touch and cover the entire piece of bread. Press pieces of bread together and melt butter in a sauté pan. When hot, press sandwich into pan and cook until slightly browned, then flip and brown other side. Remove from pan, cut in half and serve.

Tastes Like Spring

2009-04-14T00:55:00.003-04:00

Last Monday, I cooked dinner for some friends of mine. It’s been a while since I’ve seen these beautiful ladies, so I was happy enough just to be there; let alone working on something new. Sitting on the train, I thought to myself (and sent the subsequent text message), “I feel like scallops.” The responses told me that scallops were the way to go, and every guy out there knows better than to promise a woman, let alone two, scallops and show up with krill. So as my train hurtled towards Union Square, I racked my brain as to what I was going to pair my scallops with. I still had no idea what I was going to do about a main course, but it was going to seven, I had two hungry ladies waiting and hadn’t even looked at a scallop.
The day was warm and I was thinking about Spring…and I was also thinking about a dish I’d had with a grilled quail served over a crunchy salad. My only lament was that seeing as it was quail and I had to lift out the tiny bones during my meal. I wondered if I could recreate the same dish, but with seafood and a nice contrast between the tart crunch of the salad and the sweet softness of the scallops. I got to Whole Foods and checked out the scallop situation. They didn’t have any Diver Scallops, but had some nice Bay Scallops that even though they looked a little small for my liking, still looked fresh. I had a lot of fun while I pointed at individual mollusks for the fishmonger to pick out for me. At one point, I turned around to look at the two people waiting on line behind me; they both had the same look on their face: “who is this asshole with the knives on his back?” I finished up, got the rest of my things (I decided on Carbonara as our main course, by the way) and went to make dinner. I made the scallops, I put them in front of my two lady-friends and waited. They both dug in, and declared it delicious, and then one of them took another bite, closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair; she paused and then she said, “mmm, tastes like Spring.”

Pan-Seared Sea Scallops, with a Bitter Orange Sauce served over a salad of Cucumber, Red Onion, Fennel & Crispy Potatoes

12 Diver Scallops
1 Medium Cucumber
1 Medium Red Onion
1 Bulb Fennel, fronds reserved
2 Medium Red Bliss Potatoes
4 oz. Wheatberry
4 oz. Barley
1 oz. White Wine
4 oz. Orange Juice
4 oz. Butter
Red Wine Vinegar
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper, to taste
Sugar, to taste

Small dice cucumber, red onion, fennel and combine with the wheatberry and barley to form the salad. Scrub potatoes and cut them into medium dice. Par boil potatoes, drain and dry them on a sheet tray. Pour two ounces of oil in a sauté pan and cook potatoes over medium-high heat until golden brown, reserve separate from salad.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a clean sauté pan. Season scallops with salt and pepper and place in hot pan. Sear scallops on both sides until golden brown, then place pan in oven and roast scallops for approximately seven minutes, or until cooked through. Remove scallops from pan and allow to rest on a plate. Deglaze pan with white wine, then pour in orange juice. Season with salt and sugar and allow to reduce until just before nappe.
While sauce reduces, season salad with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil to taste; salad should be sweet and tart. Spoon salad into a small bowl and scatter potatoes around outer rim. Place scallops on top of salad and spoon sauce over them. Garnish with a fennel frond and serve.
Serves four.

Beware, the Little Birds…

2009-04-06T17:45:00.002-04:00

You can file this under the category of: Kitchen Stories My Buddies Told Me.
As you know, I have a love and interest in all foods…if it can be cooked (or in some cases, not cooked), I will eat it. I don’t think we need to rehash the bull penis story or the time I ate crickets and grasshoppers (oh yeah, they’re different), but I’ve been trying to get my hands on some Ortolan, to no avail. If you’re curious, the Ortolan Bunting is a very small bird in the Finch family, primarily found in Europe and Western Asia. Now when I say very small, I mean they’re tiny and as legend would have it can be eaten whole…bones and all. Sadly, they are now illegal to sell, but not to consume, in most parts of Europe; and I am met with mostly shock and horror in my inquiries around New York City. So a couple weeks back, I was talking to this Chef about Ortolan’s and he told me this story.
His buddy, let’s call him Matty, is taking some time away from the kitchen and decides to head out to Italy to spend time at the nicely appointed Tuscan Villa of a “Countess,” overlooking the Tyrrhenian (cough, Mediterranean) Sea. Now, Matty’s a bit of a tough guy, maybe a little rough around the edges, thick Boston accent, tries to never miss “the Sawx;” the kind of guy who brings Southie to you, but I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call him uncouth. Anyway, Matty’s got this hookup at the Villa and nobody knows how he pulled it off, but he’s going to see the Countess. Incidentally, word is he needed to take some time off; changing jobs, sleeping with his buddy’s wife, lost out on those choice Green Monster seats at Fenway, hiding from the mob; all were plausible explanations.
So Matty gets to the Villa and spends a couple days with the Countess, just the two of them and her servants or whatever, eating and drinking and; to hear him tell it; going at it like Spider Monkey’s. Although word on the street is that any girl who would willingly sleep with Matty has lost more than her self-respect. I’m off topic. Back to the story at hand.
The French would call it a Salon, a gathering of like-minded people eating and drinking and resting and eating and drinking some more. Matty probably called it a “rager” and got a pat on the head from the Countess. Well, whatever it was, the she was having one at end of the week. The day of the Salon, Matty and the Countess slept in and then spent the early afternoon lounging in the Tuscan countryside before making their way back to the Villa to rest before things got out of hand.
Around late afternoon, the Salon begins and course after course is paraded out for Matty, the Countess and her guests. There are cheeses and Prosciutto Toscano and White Truffles and Osso Buco and crispy-fatty ducks and a suckling pig and steaming breads and panna cotta’s and custards and something on fire in the corner and pig, but this one is stuffed with deliciousness and more and more and more.
Later in the evening, the servants come out with trays laden with small golden-brown lumps. Matty, who has been eating and drinking most of the day is feeling no pain and sets his sights upon an unsuspecting servant toting a tray. He walks over and surveys the tray. Sitting on it are tiny bird carcasses, tiny to the point of making a Cornish Hen look like a Christmas Goose. Matty asks what they are, but due to Italian and Boston-Southie-English being in no way similar; some things are probably lost in translation. All he is able to understand is something that sounds like, “fino” or “fico,” and that was good enough for him. He reached for a small glistening bird and just as he did, the Countess swept past him like an apparition and whispered to him, “beware of the little birds, they can be a bit much for some people.” Matty turned to her and simply said, or slurred, “K’mwon!” as she floated away to talk to one of her lounging guests.
He put the tiny bird in his mouth and bit down, a little surprised by the bones still inside; but he ate the whole thing and washed it down with a half a glass of wine. He wandered around some more, but his mind kept coming back to those delicious tiny birds and eventually he came back to the table where they were and ate a second and then a third and then a forth…and then he lost count. Winded from his gastronomic sprint, he slumped down in a chair nursing a bottle of wine to ease the pain in his swollen throat. The Salon wore on and things slipped into a kind of grey area for Matty and he found himself wandering the upper floors of the Villa. He stumbled from room to room, toting his wine bottle like a five year-old would a lunchbox, and saw many party goers in various stages of coital activity.
A short time later, tired of making the upper floors his own personal National Geographic Channel, he endeavored to go back downstairs…but something was wrong. It didn’t take long for him to know what that telltale warm sensation radiating from the pit of his stomach meant. He made his way to the balcony to get some fresh air, leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette and finished his bottle of wine. “K’mwon, Matty, ya beddah den dis. Keep it tagedah,” he told himself. He took a couple of long deep drags and started to feel a little bit better. He closed his eyes and tried to fight it, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle. Then he heard the voice of the Countess from somewhere behind him and thought to himself, oh please no. He felt the cigarette drop from his hand and started lurching forward until he made his way to the edge of the balcony. Leaning over the edge, his vision blurry, his mouth acrid, he heard the Countesses footsteps behind him; and she reached him just as he erupted like Vesuvius onto the few terrified party-goers who had decided to take their cigarettes on the patio. Like a clown car, it just kept coming and coming until Matty collapsed in a heap, practically convulsing. He wanted to speak, but there were little bits of bone stuck to his tongue. Through his watery eyes, he could see the Countess was still standing next to him. He looked up at her, and she smiled. Then she bent over and patted him on the head and said, “I told you to be careful of the little birds…”

Chocolate by the Rip-Off Artist

2009-04-02T02:41:00.005-04:00

This originally appeared as a review in Yelp, and while I suppose I could use the actual name of the (and I use the term in the loosest possible sense) restaurant; since you could just get on Yelp and look through my reviews; it’s probably just easier if we go with an alias.
This story takes place over a year ago when I was still dating “that girl everyone hated,” we’ll call her: Cindy. Seriously, not a single one of my friends liked her; but she was hot and she was tiny and I’ve been known to be somewhat superficial from time to time, so that was fine with me.
Anyway, this takes place when she and I went to Ben Miller, Chocolate by the Curly Haired Rip-Off Artist. We went twice and the second time was even worse.
So the first time around, Cindy and I went in shortly after they’d first opened their Union Square location. We waited to talk to a hostess for about five minutes and then were told if we wanted a table, we were looking at about a twenty minute wait. We figured, okay fine; your restaurant just opened, you serve all things chocolaty, its nice outside, there are tons of couples here, my girlfriend and I will go smoke a butt and make fun of skateboarding hippies in Union Square Park for a little while.
When we got back to the restaurant and were finally seated Cindy and I sat there taking in the scene and staring at the menu...the full menu and we both decided on some drinks...ones with alcohol in them. The only problem, our waiter informed us, was the Curly Haired Rip-Off Artist hadn't been given his liquor license yet (maybe the kind of thing he'd want to put on his menu or notify people of when the walk in the door); so our options were smoothies or non-alcoholic beverages. Yeah, that’s what I want when I come to a restaurant looking for chocolate…is a smoothie! So then she and I decide, okay we’re not total alcoholics, we don’t need to have drinks to have a good time; we'll just split the chocolate fondue. Problem #2, our waiter informs us, “actually, we don't have the stuff to make our chocolate fondue yet.” Excuse me? You don’t have the stuff to make chocolate fondue? Forgive me for asking a seemingly obvious question but there is chocolate as far as the eye can see; and beyond that all you need is a bowl above pot of boiling water, and something to keep it warm. Our waiter shrugged at me and it was at that point Cindy and I decided to leave.
We went back several months later, after we’d broken up and in fairly quick succession gotten back together; much to the respective joy and chagrin of all my friends. We were going to see a movie at the Union Square Stadium 14 and had about an hour to kill, maybe a little more. We walked across the street and stood outside for a minute, the two of us looking at each other with the unsaid, “remember what happened here the last time,” passing between us. But we checked our watches and figured we had plenty of time to get a drink and share some fondue, right? Well, maybe not. We waited about fifteen minutes for a table, were seated and didn't even SEE our waiter for at least another ten minutes. Cindy and I decided we’d order exactly what we attempted to order our first time around: a Sergeant Peppermint Chocolate Martini for me, a Falling in Love Martini for her (we were so cute) and a Chocolate Fondue to share. Then we sat around and waited for our waiter…and waited and waited. When he finally showed up, and we ordered our drinks...with alcohol in them this time…and our chocolate fondue; it was at least twenty minutes before we got our drinks (if you're keeping score at home that's forty-five minutes gone when we originally had about an hour and change to spare and nothing to show for it but a drink we hadn't even started).
We inquired as to the status of our chocolate fondue, considering it doesn't take all that long to melt some chocolate in some milk or cream or whatever and cut up some fruit. He told us he'd check and by “check” he must’ve meant stand by the kitchen door and wait until it was ready because about ten minutes later, with our movie starting in another ten minutes, our fondue finally showed up. We tasted our Chocolate Fondue…the Chocolate Fondue we had waited months to taste and how do I put this besides simply saying that it sucked and we left? Ah yes, our Chocolate Fondue was more tasteless than your friend of five years waiting less than 24 hours before he jumps into bed with the girl who’s just broken your heart.
So Cindy and I dropped some money on the table and walked across the street to the theatre. Oh, and because it took so long for us to get our drinks and awful food we got to the movie after the previews had already started and had to sit on the stairs.

Mutant Tomatoes, Melty Cheese & Mean Ol’ Peppers

2009-03-30T19:59:00.005-04:00

A few weeks back I decided to finally do something with the half a box of cherry tomatoes I’d had sitting in my fridge for about a month. I shit you not, I got those tomatoes back in January when Dopp and I were doing a tasting for the owners of our old restaurant…helping them style out the menu for their new place even tough they had no plans to take us over there. Anyway, those tomatoes sat in my fridge for weeks. I just never seemed to have a chance to do anything with them. Finally, I decided to shit or get off the pot and pulled them out of the fridge.
I had grilled cheese on the brain. Actually, I had, had grilled cheese on the brain ever since I went to visit my aunt (keep her in your prayers, if you wouldn’t mind) and she had given me some aged Gruyere, some smoked Gouda and a little hunk of goat cheese that didn’t make it back to my house. The cheese, like the tomatoes, sat neglected in my refrigerator…but not for long. One day, everything fell into place like the long rectangular piece in a game of Tetris. I took the tomatoes and poked some holes in them and got them on a sheet tray. I took a jalapeno (also from that tasting, and yet someone perfectly okay), sliced it thin and then crisped it in a little bacon fat. I set those aside, checked on my tomatoes and got the bread, the cheese and some ham out of my fridge. Now, I should mention that usually I like a grilled cheese sandwich on white bread, but since I’ve branched out into eating less traditional grilled cheese sandwiches, i.e. multiple cheeses, meats and or vegetables; I’ve found I like a heartier bread with a little more taste like a whole wheat or a Ciabatta. Now maybe technically, it’s not really a grilled cheese anymore, but then again, maybe technically I don’t really care what you think.
With my tomatoes sizzling and popping in the oven, I buttered the outside of two pieces of bread and started slicing my Gruyere and smoked gouda. I layered alternating pieces of cheese (Gruyere, then smoked gouda, &c.) across the bread, then put some of my thinly sliced ham across that. I pulled my tomatoes, fired to perfection, out of the oven and cut them in half. The tomatoes and the jalapenos went on next, followed by another slice of ham, more jalapeno & tomato, finally more cheese; and then obviously covered the entire thing with a second piece of bread.
Now remember that bacon fat that jalapenos crispified themselves in? Well, I kept it in the pan, because why the hell not? Spicy bacon grease to help flavor some grilled cheese? Why the hell not! So I added a little butter to my pan and got to work. I started the sandwich out on a high flame, got some nice colour on the outside, gave it a press, lowered my heat, flipped over my sandwich and domed it. As I understand it, or what I learned watching the irrepressible Bobby Flay on his show “Throwdown!” is that “doming” helps melt the cheese in your sandwich.
Essentially what you do is cover the entire sandwich with a bowl…to create a “dome,” and use the trapped heat inside to speed the cheese-melting process. Interestingly enough, after years of making grilled cheese sandwiches I’d never seen anyone dome a grilled cheese until I saw that episode of “Throwdown!” A buddy of mine from New Jersey knew all about it when I cooked at his place and made one for his girlfriend last Summer. The people Bobby beat in that episode had their store in New Jersey…maybe it’s a Jersey thing. I’d love it if someone could shed some light on this for me.
Anyway, I pulled the bowl off and got my grilled cheese on a plate. When it was all said and done, I can say that I had one of the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had. Now before you jump down my throat about tooting my own horn, let me just say I think it was more a combination of the two different cheeses, the jalapenos, roasted tomato and the ham; than anything I did. It’s also a little strange, because like I said, those tomatoes had been living in my for somewhere in the neighborhood of over a month before I did anything with them and they were no worse for wear. So, ya’know, maybe those hothouse tomatoes, that are full of hormones and less natural than Jenna Jameson are good for something after all. Nonetheless, I’m thinking about making one right now.
Next up, I take on a certain hairless gentleman and his South American grown confection...

It’s Not Delivery, It’s Disaster

2009-03-03T12:06:00.003-05:00

This piece is about ordering food and due to the embarrassment it may cause the company and the fact that they have attempted to placate me with a coupon and the fact that this headache is still ongoing for both them and for me; I have changed the name of the company to protect the guilty.
Even though I’m a professional cook, sometimes I don’t want to be bothered with cooking at home. I mean, I spend about an average of fourteen hours a day, five days a week away from my house; the last thing I’m interested in doing when I get home or when I wake up in the morning is spend more time next to a stove. Sometimes, I’ll make myself food, freeze it and heat it up when I’m feeling hungry; but for the most part my refrigerator contains condiments, water and the occasional beer…but I’m pretty much a wine drinker. Anyway, I’m much more likely to go get myself food rather than make it at home.
I live in Brooklyn and as much as some of my friends might try to compare it to beautiful downtown Tunguska, Siberia; it doesn’t actually take me three hours to get home and I actually do have options when it comes to what I want to eat. Because, in many ways, I am a wonderfully predicable creature of habit I usually end up going to the same places, ordering the same things and eating: General Tso’s Chicken, with white rice; a Chicken Burrito with the works, Habanero sauce and some fried Plantains; and occasionally a Sausage, Mushroom and Spinach Calzone. However, there are times when (its raining or snowing or I’m tired) I don’t feel like making the walk to one of the places I can get my food fix and in those times I end up ordering food. Usually, I end up ordering pizza because I have this crazy notion that the guys who work at the places I get my food from know my face, but don’t know where I live and the food will taste better if I show up in person, rather than waiting for it to come to me.
I usually (read, maybe once every eight weeks) order from Papa John’s and in some cases this other pizza chain, let’s call Triominoes. I know Triominoes isn’t very good, but when you’re tired and you’re hungry and the only effort you want to expend to get your food is making a phone call and answering the door, you take what you can get. So one night, a few months back, I was especially hungry and decided to order from Triominoes; and having recently seen a commercial of theirs touting their oven-baked sandwiches and how they were hot and tasty and beat Subway or Quizno’s or whatever in a nationwide taste-test and how they tried to get your food to you in thirty minutes or less, I figured what the hell.
So I got online, ordered my food and waited…and waited…and waited some more. I thought this was a little strange, especially considering Triominoes website has a feed that tells you what is happening to your food: when it is being made, when it goes in the oven and when it leaves the store on its way to you. I placed my order around 7:05 on a Sunday evening, the Triominoes website said my order left the store around 7:30 (missed my thirty minute window, but whatever) and I was confident I’d have my food in time for the Simpsons. The Simpsons came and went, and a second episode was half over when I decided to call the store and find out why the website said my order had left the store but I was home without food going through my cupboards like a crackhead digs through the trash behind Kate Moss’s house.
The person I spoke with told me the driver had other deliveries to make and that I would get my food shortly. My idea of shortly is about five minutes, but apparently the driver and person at the store had a different idea. Shortly before 9:00, the delivery guy finally showed up with my cold order in tow.
I opened the box to my oven baked sandwich and pressed my hand against its cold, clammy exterior; looked my gelatinizing wings and put my warm Coke in the freezer. I attempted to reheat the cold food and called Triominoes again, only to hung up on…twice. I ended up eating my cold food, because I was hungry and I ended up getting mildly ill, probably because I ate food that sat in the back of a car or under a heat lamp for the better part of two hours before being delivered to my door. When it was all said and done, I sent a complaint to Triominoes and waited…and waited some more. Currently, Triominoes has attempted to placate me with a singular coupon for a free large pizza and a bottle of Coke; and they claim that someone will be contacting me with a formal apology; but considering it took nearly four months and several phone calls and letter for them to even send a measly coupon, I’m not holding my breath. But what does it say about a company that will disregard not one, not two and technically not even three written complaints by a customer and then sees fit to call it all even by sending a coupon for a free pizza?
In short, if you’re going to order a pizza make sure it’s not from Triominoes, because from what it seems like to me they care more about besting their competitors and less about their customers. But never fear Triominoes Pizza, your secret identity is safe with me.

I’m standing in Five Guys, Wearing an In-n-Out Burger t-shirt

2009-02-16T17:11:00.005-05:00

I like a good burger as much as the next guy. Actually, that’s a lie; I love hamburgers…good burgers, really good burgers, cooked medium-rare, that have a great meat-to-fat ratio so the juices and the perfectly melted cheese create a wonderful amalgam that slides off the edges of the burger, onto my fingers, but never makes it to the plate. I like nice round burgers that aren’t too hard and aren’t too soft, with a good bun, but one that doesn’t outshine the main attraction. In simpler terms, I worship at the Church of Hamburger.
I’m not the first person to write about burgers and god knows I won’t be the last; but I at least want to make a claim for some of my favorite burgers. I used to make the claim of X Burger Place has the “best burger I’ve ever had,” but I realized it’s nearly impossible. I could sit here and try to tell you that I’ve got a better palate or that I’ve tasted some of the freshest perfectly fatty beef turned into a burger and that I have had the definitive greatest burger ever. But then tomorrow I might end up in some little dive bar in Downtown Brooklyn, or Forest Hills, or Washington Heights eat there burger and have my theories blown to hell. Meat changes, recipes change, maybe you drank too much wine last night and your taste buds got fucked up, maybe the guy who was making your “awesome” burger at the Burger Joint last Thursday night isn’t there when you walk in with your best friend from college on a Sunday afternoon. And the whole walk over you’ll be telling her about how amazing the burger was; and then you’ll order and the guy’s not there and the stars won’t align and the wind will change and she won’t have the heart to tell you that it’s decent but that she could probably get one just as good at Bartley’s on Mass Ave.
If you asked me two years ago, who made the bust burgers in the City I wouldn’t have missed a beat and told you Corner Bistro had cornered the burger market (no pun intended) and that all others were imitators, impostors and ill-equipped to wrest the title of “Best Burger” from them. Now, I’m not so sure. I still think they are among some of the better burger places in the City, but I can’t call them the best (even though if you check my Yelp page you’ll see then ranked number one).
All of this started, by the way, because I got into an argument with a friend of mine about Five Guys Burgers. He claimed they were fantastic, while I said they were no better than a dressed up cafeteria burger. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not even the best fast food burger I’ve had. That honor goes to California’s In-n-Out Burger. No other fast food burger comes close to the burgers I’ve had there…not by a long shot. A quick word on Five Guys though: What is the big deal? Seriously, somebody tell me, because I just don’t see it and these fuckin’ yelpers are going gaga! I’ve tasted their burger patties and yay for me,

I can put jalapeños and relish and green peppers and barbeque sauce and grilled mushrooms on my burger, how awesome! As far as I’m concerned, a burger should be about the burger, not the toppings. Once you throw all that crap on your burger, how are you supposed to know what the meat tastes like? I don’t know how anybody with a good palate who can honestly say that Five Guys Burgers are the best in the City. Seriously? It’s a fast food burger, it’s a step up from Wendy’s for Christ’s sake. I know I’m ranting a bit here, but I’m a little upset (and my buddy Dopp agrees with me on this one) that every asshole with an opinion and an appetite can get on yelp or citysearch or where ever and pontificate about food when the large majority of them don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. I don’t know, maybe it’s the econo-sized peel-n-eat peanuts people can reach their grubby fingers in while waiting for their food that everyone likes so much.
Good burgers are about consistency. A “good burger” isn’t the one you had once that knocked your socks off and then was just okay the second time around. A “good burger” isn’t a one that you pile high with toppings. And above all, a good burger has nothing to do with your choice of curly or sweet potato fries or a gluten-free bun or the surly waiter who sassed you. A good burger is the one you can rely on, the one that no matter what day of the week or what time of day, tastes virtually the same as it did the first time you bit into it.
As a matter of fact, all this talk of burgers has gotten me thinking (read, salivating), and tonight; I’m heading in search of some ground beefy goodness.

photo credit: chowchowchow - flickr

Turn Down the Music, Keep the Lights Low…but Leave the Bottle

2009-02-08T23:15:00.004-05:00

I can’t speak for every single cook out there, but I know I can speak for a lot of them when I say that after a busy dinner service the last place we want to end up is in bed. You can’t pull the emergency brake in your car after you’ve been doing 80 and just like a car, we need to shut down the machine slowly. We’ve been running around, on our feet all day and now that we’re finished we need a drink; but we’re not heading to a club, we want to end up somewhere dark and dank, and preferably in a state of disrepair.
I have a friend who, and god love her (and I do, she’s great…except when she’s inviting me to Chelsea), continually invites me to Pasha and Home/Guest House and Bungalow 8 and Cain and a whole slew of other West Side/Chelsea super-clubs packed with wanna-be Mafioso’s from Jersey, fake-titted 19-year olds from Long Island and enough man-tanned-tip-frosted men to make Boy George blush. Call me crazy, but when I finish a particularly busy dinner service and I’ve been on my feet for eleven hours and I stink like Kevin Smith after a spin class; the last place I want to end up is inside some airplane hangar, munching four tabs of X, trancing out in a tank top and two glow sticks, holding a $22 drink and yelling in the ear of the person next to me because the music is too loud.
Instead, I like to spend my nights at the dark end of a dark bar. Where the bartenders all know me, usually there’s no bouncer to squeeze past and no jerk-off with a clipboard and an undeserved sense of entitlement. I can walk in the door of my old haunt, take a seat and either have my usual (Maker’s Mark on the rocks) placed in front of me, or have the bartender ask me if I want something different…to which the answer is almost always, no.
Why spend money and deal with hassle, when you can end up in a place where the booze is cheap, the conversation is (when it’s not nonsensical and rambling) usually equal parts snarky and intelligent, and the doors don’t close until the bartender says so. As far as I’m concerned, that’s where the real fun is anyway. Because in an environment like that, you truly never know what’s going to happen. I know I’m walking out of Cain with at least $140 fewer dollars in my pocket than when I walked in there, I know that! But I have no idea what’s going to happen when I walk in the door to one of my favorite haunts. I have on many a night, walked into my 5th Street bar, intending on, “only staying for one or two drinks,” only to peel myself off a friends’ couch the next morning…or worse. But in the hours I should’ve been sleeping, I probably met: a movie star, an author, a bona fide drunk, a circus midget, college kids, a chef, a stripper, a line cook, a business man and a gentleman who has a “cash business.” And I probably also learned a few things I didn’t know before. Things I wouldn’t have learned standing packed like a sardine, drinking a cranberry with a splash of vodka and listening to the thumping sounds of DJ Suchandsuch.
I’m sure I sound a little like a cranky old man…“just nod your head and give him his can of Metamucil”…but a cooks work is hard work. We age ourselves enough without having to deal with the added pressures of Clipboard Nazi’s, snooty bartenders and nosy bathroom attendants. Yes, thank you for turning the water on for me and squeezing soap into my hand and handing me a towel…perhaps when I have to go again you can unbutton for me! I deal with enough crap that makes me a little nuts during my day, so I’m not putting up with much of anything when I leave the restaurant and sit at a bar.
So if you’re looking for me, or my buddy Dopp (you’ll be hearing about him, I promise), you can skip the West Side clubs and seek out some place small and dark. We’ll be the guys sitting under the flickering light bulb; hunched over a glass of bourbon and vodka, respectively; while we argue the merits of braising over baking and ranting about a “screwed up” ticket that came out of the machine seven hours ago…eager to do it all over again tomorrow.

I’m a…Culinary

2009-02-03T23:45:00.002-05:00

So a few months back I was stopped by some of New York’s Finest on my way to work. For quite some time now, I’ve been talking to both chef and non-chef friends of mine about what one should do in just such a situation. There are something like 8 Million people in New York City and an innumerable amount of restaurants, some opening, some closing and some thumbing their noses at recessions as easily as they do at fannypack-wearing tourists. With these restaurants, obviously come an army of cooks. The men and women who keep odd hours, stand on their feet all day, pickle their livers and partake in various other “extracurricular activities.”
Many of these cooks take their knives with them, to and from work. And you’ve got to figure, that sooner or later, one of these people is going to be stopped by members of the Constabulary to perform a “random” search of a person with an oddly shaped oblong bag on their back. What do you say when you take the bag off your shoulders, lay it on the table, open it up and the cops see forty inches of sharpened steel sitting in front of them? Well, here’s one possibility…
I was heading to work one day, talking to a buddy of mine who lives in LA, and not really paying attention to much else. I made my way through the subway station doors, busted out my MetroCard and was almost about to swipe when I actually registered the authoritative voice booming out, “EXCUSE ME! EXCUSE ME!” from somewhere behind me. I turn around, still on the phone mind you, and see two Boys in Blue beckoning me over to a plastic table. I walk over to the table, probably a little too nonchalant, and ask them, “hey what’s going on?” and then into my phone, “no, not you I’m getting stopped by the cops right now…no, its cool, I can talk.” The officers proceed to tell me they have selected me for a random search and ask me to remove and open my bag for them. I say into my phone, “hang on a sec, I gotta take my knives off, the cops wanna see them.” At this point, the two of them exchange a brief quizzical look as I ask my buddy to hang on, and lay my knife bag on the table.
As I unroll my knives, with my phone still cradled between my ear and shoulder, I look to the cops and say, “look, officers, I’m a cook. These are my knives and I need them for work.” The cops look at my knives, they look at each other, they look at my knives again and sort of shrug. Then one of them says to me, “oh, okay…so you’re a…you’re a culinary.” I look at the two of them, roll my knives back up, sling them back over my shoulder and say to them, “yes, I’m a culinary.”

Say Hallo to my Vine-Ripen’ Frien’!

2009-01-30T12:50:00.007-05:00

So the Super Bowl is around the corner and there are few things I like more than a party where guys can kick back with some burgers, beers and of course some good old American football. Seeing as this is the Super Bowl, the name of the game is go big or go home, so I’m thinking: an ungodly amount chicken wings, enough chili to feed the Dallas Cowboys, enough nachos to simultaneously clean out Mexico and Wisconsin and obviously enough beer to make the town of Killarney blush!
One of the things I’ve especially been thinking about; is what to do about making guacamole. I try to cook locally when I can, but there’s nothing local about guacamole. The best avocado’s come from Mexico or California and so do the peppers. During the Summer months, I can get great tomatoes, but it’s almost February and I’m in New York City! I’ve been checking the wall of this little Facebook group I’m in with some fuckin’ shoemaker in there prattling on about Heirloom Tomatoes and how wonderful they are. I’m like, “that’s awesome dude…I didn’t know farmers in New Jersey and Long Island could break the frozen fucking ground back in November to plant tomatoes so you could get fresh one’s in your guacamole come February…douche.” You know what, I take that back. Maybe he’s not a shoemaker, maybe he’s got like a dealer or something. Like the Tony Montana of tomatoes. Sitting in some brownstone in Harlem watching a closed circuit camera with a feed to some huge indoor field while, women naked from the waist up and wearing surgical masks pick huge, plump, juicy Heirloom tomatoes and place them on a conveyor belt that takes them to a plane where they're flown directly to him in little kilo bricks!
Anyway, I’m going a different route this year. I’m going down to my local grocery store and buying a can of Diced Hunts Tomatoes. I’m going to drain them and mix them in with my avocados, peppers, red onions, &c. The way I see it, why the hell am I going to buy some “vine-ripened tomatoes” at Whole Foods, or where ever, that were grown in a hothouse in California and shipped across the country; when I could buy a can of tomatoes that were in season when they were picked, vacuum sealed and left on a shelf for me to buy? Seriously, you’d have to be on crack if you tried to tell me that a tomato; grown out of season in a hothouse; would have more taste than a fresh tomato that was flash steamed and vacuum sealed. Also, I prefer red onion to plain old white or Spanish onions; I think they’ve got more complexity of taste. I like my guac a little on the spicy side, so I tend to go with a couple jalapeno peppers, but if you’re a Nancy just remember that a half ounce of Chili powder or Cayenne equals about one jalapeno pepper. By the way, you’ll notice I’ve left the seeds in the guacamole; it makes it a little tougher to scoop, but the seeds will help keep your guac fresher than all the lime juice in the world. Not to mention, tossing a bunch of lime juice in your guac will just make it taste like Tequiza and let’s be honest, nobody wants that. To that end, here’s my 2009 Winter Guacamole recipe.

Winter Guacamole…with balls…and a can

Ingredients:
3 – Haas avocados, halved, seeded and criss-cross cut (seeds reserved)
1 – Lime, juiced
½ - Medium red onion, diced
15 ½ oz can – diced tomatoes, drained
1-to-2 – Jalapeno peppers, seeded and minced
2 Tbsp – Cilantro, chopped
½ tsp – Ground cumin
Kosher salt, to taste

Directions:
Scoop out the avocado pulp into a large bowl and lime juice, toss to coat, then add seeds. Fold in the red onion, tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, garlic. Then mix in the salt and cumin. Let sit at room temperature in a cool dark place, covered with plastic wrap, for 1 hour and then serve.

I’m also a fan of Nachos and Chili, but I’m not going to waste my time, or yours, telling you how to assemble nachos, and chili is best left for another day (because we’re going to get into a whole discussion about beans versus no beans and Texas versus Mexico Chili…it’s gonna be exhausting). I will however, give you a recipe for some awesome chicken wings. Or maybe for that matter a couple variations on chicken wings. Again, Elliott likes his chicken spicy, but you can cut down on the peppers or hot sauce if you’re making yours at Shady Acres Nursing Home…

Chickadee China the Chinese Chicken...Wing

Ingredients:
Between six and eight lbs of chicken wings
1 Thai or 2 Habanero Chilies, seeded and chopped
4 Tbsp – Fresh Ground Ginger
4 Cloves – Garlic, minced. One clove reserved
½ Cup – Soy Sauce, halved
¼ Cup – Honey
2 – Limes, juiced and zest reserved
4 – Scallions, thinly sliced
4 Tbsp – Sambal Oelek or Sriracha

Directions:
Combine chilies, ginger, 3 cloves of garlic, half the soy, honey & lime juice in a food processor and pulse into a paste. Place marinade in a zip lock bag with the chicken and coat evenly. Allow to marinate, refrigerated, for at least 4 hours.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and allow chicken to come to room temperature. Place on a lined or greased baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, combine remaining ingredients (garlic, soy sauce, lime zest, scallions and Sambal Oelek) in a small sauce pan, over medium-to-high heat and allow to reduce by half. After 20 minutes, remove chicken from oven and brush with sauce. Raise temperature to 400 degrees and continue cooking until chicken is cooked through, about twenty minutes. Use any remaining sauce to toss the chicken in when it is finished.
Note: Chicken wings can also be deep fried, which will cut down on cooking time, but will obviously be less healthy. If you decide to deep fry, then follow the instructions up to the marinating stage, then simply toss the fried wings in a large wok or sauté pan with the ingredients, then serve.

My other chicken wing recipe is much simpler. Get yourself a bottle of Frank’s Red Hot, about a half a stick of butter, a half cup of brown sugar or molasses. In a large pot, combine the butter and sugar and cook until gooey, then add the hot sauce. Reduce and add your already cooked chicken wings. Reduce as much as you like, then serve with Blue Cheese, Ranch or the dressing of your choosing.

So there you go, chicken wings and guacamole. After all, what else do you want to eat while watching the Super Bowl? Duck L’Orange? Pâté de foie gras on Toast Points? Easy Mac? No, you’re eating sloppy, fatty, tasty stuff you can hold in one hand while you hold a beer in the other.

When I Cook at Your Place…

2009-01-15T23:57:00.002-05:00

Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I’ve been knocked on my ass by an incredibly nasty stomach virus. I’ve been spending my days going from the bathroom to the couch and back again, eating chicken soup and drinking ginger ale. Let me tell you, I like ginger ale, I think it’s pretty tasty stuff, but fuck man when that’s all you drink for five straight days you want to shoot yourself. I’m also whacked out on an interesting little cocktail of Immodium A-D, Kaopectate and Anti-Nausea medication. Anyway, I’m a little on edge…because I miss chewing food and this popped into my head because I was recently invited to dinner at a friend’s house, where some people she knew would be doing the cooking.
I love nothing more than going to one of my friend’s homes and making an amazing meal. It gives me wonderful pleasure feeding people, which is why I started down this path in the first place. If I’m cooking at your place, chances are you’re a friend of mine or if you’re especially lucky one of my friends has co-opted me to do some cooking for you. In either case, I’m there because I want to be there and because you’d like me to make a great meal (and probably impress the hell out of people); whether it be for a small gathering, a dinner party or a New Year’s blow out. Now when I say, “I” and “me” I don’t mean me in general, I mean all professional cooks who have ever gone to a friend’s home to cook a meal.
We cooks are a generous bunch, but we’re not exactly a wealthy bunch; but I feel some people still don’t quite get it. One thing that has always surprised me is that some of the people I know (not all; and those of you I’m not talking about know who you are; and you’re awesome) seem to almost take for granted that they can make a phone call and have a classically trained chef cooking in their kitchen 24 hours, or in some cases minutes, later. I show up, my arms heavy with groceries, my knives on my back and my wallet a little lighter from the proceeds of those bags. I unpack my tools and the food and usually get to work. I stand by a stove or a kitchen counter chopping, mincing, mixing, sautéing, broiling and generally trying to stay an engaged member of the conversation, but forgive me if I’m trying to sweat the small stuff like, ya’know, making sure the food tastes good or no one finds a fingertip in their soup!
Just because I say I think it would be fun to cook at your place when you invite 20 people over, doesn’t mean I’m down to do the shit for free. I’m sure I sound like a prick, but look at it this way: what would it cost you to hire a personal chef, have them come to your home, plan a menu, reimburse them for groceries, and then have them cook for people in your house…pretty steep eh? I mean, if I had a buddy who was an Accountant, I wouldn’t call him over every March, ask him to “look at” my taxes and then send him home with a handshake and a pat on the back. You get me for free; but you really shouldn’t, and I’m too much of a nice guy (read: sap) to directly ask friends of mine, or their friends to maybe pony up a little cash for my hard work. I’m not saying that every person who walks through the door to a dinner party, or whatever, needs to press a Sawbuck in my palm. That’s the hosts responsibility to pull me aside and say, “hey, thanks for doing this, what do I owe you?” In most cases, I’m not going to pull the receipt out of my pocket and hand it over but I’ll be happy you asked and I’ll ask for a little something. You’ve just got to understand where I’m coming from, when its all said and done if I’m going to leave your place tired from cooking on my night off, with my wallet a little lighter and maybe a little booze on the brain; I’m probably not going to be smiling as much as you are if I walk out of there with nothing more than the momentary press of your palm against mine.
In short, don’t take your friends who are professional cooks for granted. Your friends who work on Wall Street or for Prada or 1-800-Flowers or a Cosi or whatever, take them for granted, I don’t care. They didn’t make the sacrifices us cooks made, to work long hours for little money. We’re having fun, this is after all, what we signed up for; but there are times when it can feel like (and I know I’m not alone) that fun we’re having is being taken advantage of.
Maybe I’m just cranky because I haven’t chewed solid food in four days and my toilet seat knows me better than my pillowcase, but I know what I know. And right now, what I know…besides knowing I want a juicy burger like nobody’s business…I know that the next time one of us comes to your houses don’t let us leave with just a handshake.

Power Through

2008-11-24T03:33:00.000-05:00

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

2008-11-22T04:14:00.001-05:00

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

2008-11-14T12:47:00.000-05:00

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!

2008-11-06T02:23:00.002-05:00

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

2008-11-04T22:26:00.001-05:00

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

2008-10-29T01:39:00.002-04:00

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

2008-10-28T00:16:00.001-04:00

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

2008-10-15T16:45:00.003-04:00

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...

2008-10-15T02:44:00.004-04:00

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!

2008-10-06T12:34:00.002-04:00

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!

2008-09-29T20:05:00.003-04:00

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

2008-09-27T23:47:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-23T01:24:00.005-04:00

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

2008-09-18T18:36:00.003-04:00

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…?

2008-09-17T16:39:00.001-04:00

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

2008-09-16T14:16:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-16T14:12:00.001-04:00

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

2008-09-16T14:11:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-16T14:01:00.000-04:00

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

2008-09-16T13:53:00.000-04:00

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.