Now This, I Like

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

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...

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

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…