tasty adventures

Man, here's to red bell peppers, cremini mushrooms, garlic, onions, and tomatoes with eggs at 2:30 A.M.

yeah yeah, cook stuff

Had lamb chops with a roasted garlic-infused balsamic molasses reduction tonight. It sounds fancy, but it's evidence of what you do in college dormitory cooking; deglaze your pans and infuse your oils with whatever the hell is on top of the fridge. A two-dollar lamb shoulder chop just happened to be in my freezer, and when I took my saute pan out of the oven to remove the medium-rare chop, I just happened to see some molasses and balsamic vinegar. It turned out very nicely despite the ugly brown color; fresh roma tomatoes, bell peppers, and sweet yellow onions accompanied it. I would've had a starch but everything has been eaten.

On that note, I actually bought two lamb chops but when I looked in the freezer tonight, one of them had been removed from the package. Whoever did this didn't seal the other one back up and it got freezer burn, which is why I cooked it with tomatoes and vinegar. Amazingly, a lot of moisture ended up going back into the product that way. I sauteed the vegetables, then made an empty space in the middle of the pan where I put tomato slices, and then the chop on top. I finished the whole thing in the oven, and then made the sauce on the range. I figured if I elevated the meat from the oil, it wouldn't sear and get crispy but rather get kind of steamed from the tomatoes.

Sorry, this was really cool-looking, but I left my camera at Ashley's place this morning. I have to get pictures of the saute pan I used for this up here, too--it's a brand new Calphalon ten-inch tri-ply stainless with an aluminum core. It was only 30 freaking dollars. I feel like a consumer whore for buying housewares on Black Friday, but damned if it wasn't worth it. You'll agree once I get some before/after pictures of what I cooked on before--ancient teflon-coated saucers that you could probably fly like a kite.

Dyed my hair completely jet black today. Looks pretty neat.

Won't be moving to the Northside after all. One of my potential housemates has been forbidden by her overprotective parents--they think she'll get shot/raped/robbed by the vicious criminals that live next to the grocery store. I don't know what's up with people; you've got to fucking live a little to live, and right now I'm living in a windowless, overheated, flourescent-lit chicken coop.

But it's not really all bad. I'm really enjoying life up here, and all this means is that it'll keep on going the same way. Except now there's snow and Christmas and awesome holiday shit. It's going to snow tonight and tomorrow. I've got the weather channel bookmarked so I can know exactly when it starts because I want to see these "snowflakes" falling out of the "sky" that the natives here speak of.

I bought some cheap lamb shoulder chops at Giant Eagle tonight. As I lack a grill, I will probably pan-fry these in one of my nice cast-iron skillets. I might debone them and tenderize them a little bit too, but I'm not sure yet. Either way, something really hardcore awesome is going to happen Saturday, my (first and probably last ever) day off, and it's going to involve lamb chops.
I gotta find out who's doing this graffiti. It's just awesome.

Closing again tomorrow. Friday is going to be a rough night. It's the annual "Light-Up Night" at Market Square and 50,000 people are supposed to watch this event where they light up all the Christmas decorations at once, effectively beginning the winter season. That's nice and all, but at the restaurant we are going to get absolutely hammered. And I just know, somehow, that the crowd will not be the easily-satisfied burger and fries football crowd, nor the after-show crowd that comes in for dessert and lots of alcohol. Our customers will probably consist of suburban families that drive the suburban downtown n'at once a year--it's the crowd that thinks they know something about food when they order their well-done filet mignon and the "Homemade Mashed Potatoes" which we receive in solid frozen brick form from a big truck that comes once a week with gravy ladeled right out of a dusty #10 can. Anyway, tomorrow and the next day are going to be tough, but for the first time in months I'm going to have an entire weekend during which I will be responsible for doing absolutely nothing.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!

Work in 20 minutes. Damn the Steelers and their "football". I wish to have nothing to do with the dilly-dallying of Pittsburghers on their way to the Big Game. But I must--we're open on home game Sundays, so I have to put in five hours on my usual day off. But it's all good, because I've got next Saturday off. A whole Saturday. It's never happened.

We got slammed yesterday at work, but handled it pretty well--nothing thrown against the wall, no one's job lost. Today will probably be worse anyway. This place is truly a sports town with a drinking problem and Olive or Twist is literally on the way to the damn stadium.

I've been delving into Dante's Inferno (the Longfellow translation) lately and greatly enjoying it. It's wonderful to be able to just read a classic without rending it to pieces for extra credit. I'm truly glad I didn't have to read this in AP English, because I think it would've been ruined for me. Also, I got a sweet-azz hardback copy for eight bucks at Barnes and Noble. The thought of being called an Arch-Heretic after death is pretty sweet, I must say. I think after work I'm going to the Southside as I too often do to read more about hell.

~si est dolor, meus.

cooked some pigs

New uniforms. Allright. Way schway jackets with my name on em and new checks. It's amazing how fast you fuck up these chef's jackets--to have new ones for ruination is delightful. With my luck, I'll hack into an explosive beet tomorrow and look like I'm right out of Saw 2.

Now check this out:





The pork rotation, consisting of:

Proteins:

A - Grilled Pork Chop, Robert Sauce
Roasted Pork Loin w/ Honey & Thyme Glaze

B - Pork Bostonian
Sauteed Medallions of Pork w/ Apple and Caraway (my item of the day)

Entrementier:

A - Green Beans w/ Curry Emulsion
Small-Diced Beets w/ Horseradish Butter
O'Brian Potatoes
Barley Pilaf

B - Duchesse Potatoes
Angel Hair Pasta w/ Pesto
Tourne Carrots
Sauteed Spinach

Aside from fabrication of monstrous hunks of pork, I've been relaxing on my days off. I read Kitchen Confidential again, which is still about 60% of my inspiration to become a professional cook. Bought a hardback copy of Dante's Inferno today and started that. I cannot describe how nice it is to enjoy classic literature without picking it to death for extra points on your GPA. I can interpret the meaning of the poetry--whether it's a treatise on morals or theology or just an adventure in a really grotesque Hell with pointless Christian symbolism (like many a good anime)--any Goddamn way I want to.

So I've been at the Beehive in the Southside some more, and today I walked around Oakland, the university town. Pretty cool up there, but not my scene as much as East Carson. I went to Prana just to see if the regular coffee brewmasters were around, but it's changed into a local hiphop venue. It was destined for that, I think, due to it's location--right at the end of a row of really sleazy nightclubs. Ironically, I saw the chick who served me Kona at 2 AM awhile back at the Beehive, which is, I guess, just better.

holldandamnit

I hate Hollandaise. It is nothing more than pure liquid fat emulsified with cholesterol. The sauce tastes like its ingredients--barely-cooked egg yolks and clarified butter. A perfectly seasoned Hollandaise (with the traditionally complex flavors of salt, pepper, and lemon juice) still just tastes like glace de atherosclerosis to me. It makes okay small sauces like Bearnaise or Maltaise, but by itself it is truly disgusting--one of the classical French items I will never understand. I have thus far consumed the stomach lining of beef as well as tongue as a student of this school, and several varieties of inner-ripened cheese so powerful in flavor and aroma they can clean out your sinuses. But I'm just not a Hollandaise man. And it is a pain in the ass to make--add the butter too fast and you've got to start over again, and you've got to have forearms like George Foreman to stand making any more than about 12 ounces by hand. If I were creating a menu and absolutely had to have Hollandaise on a dish, I would get with the times and make it in a damn robot-coupe like any emulsified salad dressing. I mean, Jesus Christ. It's JUST MAYONNAISE WITH DIFFERENT OIL.

That said, meats class kicks ass. Observe:

The veal rotation. A three-day stage of this class consisting of a set menu:

Proteins:
A: Saltimbocca alla Romana
Sauteed Medallions of Veal w/Shiitake Mushrooms & Marsala Sauce

B: Pan Fry: Veal Romano
Veal Schnitzel, Vienna Style

Entrementier (side dish crew):
A: Asparagus w/Fucking Hollandaise
Tourne Carrots
Cauliflower Polonaise
Risotto alla Parmigiana

B: Cauliflower simmered in Saffron Chicken Stock
Julienne Snow Peas & Red Pepper
Oblique cut Carrots
Herbed Spaetzle

Each day, there are three teams of people: two protein groups, which are in charge of the four veal dishes, and an entrementier team, which handles the veg/starch menu. Yesterday I had the Veal Marsala, and today I worked entrementier, handling the risotto and asparagus. Risotto is something of a specialty of mine: I like to be an asshole and brag that I had the best one in soups awhile back, which was for no reason other than the fact that I have a hopeless cooking addiction and had been, for practice, stirring away at Arborio rice in the dorm weeks before we were ever taught the method. I am still an asshole. The one yesterday sucked, and today Chef grabbed some.

Every day there are thirteen display plates made through two assembly lines--three of each protein and one vegetable plate prepared by the sous-chef. The trick to all this stuff is time management.We come into class at 9:30, and if we're lucky, the people assigned to storeroom aren't hangover and have arrived early with the order. We fire up the kitchen and sit down for Chef to tell us our meal assignments, and then we break, aiming for service at 11:15, which means service--not getting shit out of the warmer and finding serving spoons. Plates should be on display for analysis at 11:15 sharp or there's no chance in hell of really eating anything we've made (and then we have to take the risk of foodborne illness in the cafeteria for lunch). This is a different style from the first two cycles. We don't stand around waiting for water to boil while talking about where the party's at this weekend, or put four starches and some chowder on the table and then sit down for a nice, relaxed meal. This feels like my job; plate presentation is emphasized, as well as nutritional balance (sort of, at least there's protein, starch and veg), and cost-effective conservation. As Chef says, eating is optional--tasting is mandatory.