holy hell, it's like two degrees outside

I found a few interesting things in the Strip today, the first being tripe, which I haven't done since back in school, and the second being Polish blood sausage (kiska). The tripe's on the stove right now. It's got to be blanched hard first and then rinsed, and then it's simmered for several hours until it's reached a nice gelatinous texture. The last time I had it was at work, when a co-worker made menudo, and it was way too tough, so I'm going to see if I can't improve on that effort. I'm making something like menudo but I'm probably going to throw in a few fennel bulbs too. If all else fails, the blood sausage is absolutely sublime. I was searching for French boudin noir and ended up finding something like pork sausage bound with beef blood, made by some rural western PA company.

Hopefully the menudo I make will be like most, and cure this stupid head cold I've got. Being sick is horribly annoying.

(edit: holy shit, I spelled menudo wrong. Whatever I was sick with, however, has been cured by the power of beef stomach and blood sausage.)

This pizza's got artichoke hearts, olives, roasted peppers, smoked mozzerella, goat cheese, and prosciutto on it--the sauce, and whole wheat crust, are from scratch.

bury the past, rob us blind, and leave nothing behind

I'm getting ready for a very important scrabble match. I've been reading the dictionary for weeks, building an impenetrable defense of "quarks" and "phlegms". I am unstoppable.

Really though, I'm at the Quiet Storm Coffeehouse on the edge of Garfield, waiting for my opponents. This place is charming, and might actually be worth coming to more often if the coffee didn't taste like old socks. They used to have live music on Fridays and Saturdays, making it one of the only local venues accessible to someone my age, but they quit awhile back for no good reason. It's actually a little awkward sitting in here right now, since the last time I was here was with a photographer I dated for a short period of time, but had absolutely nothing in common with. It was like, I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?" And she said, "What?"




This is such a hipster joint, but it's so out of place. I mean, it's really in a bad neighborhood.

It feels good to be working out regularly again. I mean that in a sort of mentally fulfilling way, since in reality my whole body hurts right now. But I feel pretty good, and my incline bench is, like, 205. That makes me a man, right?

Check this shit out:

We roasted a pig's heart. It was awesome--you stuff the ventricles with onions and herbs. The meal, of course, holds endless potential for puns.

mmm, carrot cake cupcake.

yargh!

Tired of being busy. Isn't January supposed to be a slow month? Saturday, we did 140 people between five and 9:30, when we sat our last table. We sold 77 ten year anniversary menus. My whole body hurts. And just when I start to lose it, ranting about needing a vacation, I find myself really enjoying working saute on a busy Monday night. There's got to be something wrong with me.

Speaking of vacations, I've almost worked at Soba for a year. And once I hit that milestone, I get five days of paid vacation! Literally, last night was the first time I ever read the corporate employees' handbook. I didn't really even know it existed.

In any case, it's wok tonight, and the stove again tomorrow, and then two days off. I'm going to eat and cook and sleep, and maybe go to the art museum. The only responsible thing I have planned is to send in my rent. Oh, and scrabble tomorrow.

I need to go to the coffeehouse more often, it's the only time I ever write.

~kickass

love!

I don't know if I wrote about this recently, but I had a muffalletta last week at a place in the Strip called Cafe Richard that was like a message from God, saying, "You always knew I was by your side." I ignored that--it was just the olives and pesto talking--but for anyone who has ever read this blog, it is reason to come to Pittsburgh. I strongly feel like a better muffaletta couldn't be had in New Orleans. Then again, maybe I'm just longing for a trip to Louisiana. I also made beignets last week at the restaurant (where else can I use a commercial deep fryer for them? I don't even have a dutch oven!).

I'm sitting inside Crazy Mocha in Oakland right now with my laptop, coffee at my left and courier bag laced with band names and political motifs at my right. I feel like a real live hipster, and I'm even dressed like one--Chucks, hoodie, artsy t-shirt. But even if I am a hipster doofus, I do maintain that my credentials are in order. I'm not a wannabe socialist going to a liberal arts college on my parents' money. I'm a hard-working scenester, damn it, and I eat meat!

I'm buying a pig's heart today, after I make another enlightenment to Sandwich Nirvana. Tonight, Diane (this girl I'm dating, who might be awesome, verdict's still out) and I will trim it, stuff its arteries with herb butter, and then roast it, in order to practice for the Valentine's Day feast we'd planned. I really don't know what to expect. I mean, chicken hearts are good, but that's about as far as I've ever gone. What if it's tough? Would it be better braised? It makes me kind of sad that we didn't do more crazy shit like this at the school, not just classical French that everyone's eaten like fucking Tournedos Rossini, but more tripe and kidneys and calves feet and... rillettes. We never even made rillettes. That could be a good book title.

On that same subject, Wholey's in the Strip rocks. Aside from being a famous fish market, their meat department is noteworthy as well for its wide selection of, well... interesting items. They have tripe of several varieties, beef liver, lamb kidneys, pigs feet, hearts, et cetera, but they even freaked me out a bit the other day when, in the "pig parts" section, there was a whole pig's head, wrapped up on top of a little Styrofoam tray, right next to the pork chops. I considered buying it, though even I don't have any recipes for the whole damn head, but then I realized my freezer is already chock full of oxtails and chicken stock.

I don't really want to go back to work tomorrow. Why must life be such a pressing issue? I love all the hard work, the food, clatter of pans and hot sizzle platters and wok tools, but damn is it hard to get time to myself! I'm a workaholic. Someone told me the other night that maybe I should just take it the fuck easy every once in awhile, and I suppose that's a good idea. When I'm not working, I kill myself at the gym and then feel lethargic the next day from muscle soreness. I'd love to take a vacation, and I'm really due to take another trip down South, but I kind of want to just escape to some foreign city by myself sometime, too. Just up and fly to Seattle or New York one Tuesday morning.

Another reason to come to Pittsburgh, and also fitting in with the hipster thing: CoCo's Cupcake Cafe. A few doors down from Soba on Ellsworth, the place recently opened up and is trying to make cupcakes a lifestyle, sort of a revolutionary movement. Of course they're immersed in the yuppie organic slow food thing that people like me both appreciate and get really pissed off about, but fuck those cupcakes are good. They really are made right from scratch, down to the very, very authentically made buttercream. They've got a few different kinds every day with catchy names like "The Audrey" or "The Ellsworth", and the place has become my new favorite place to go before--and amazingly, after work. CoCo's is the only bakery that I've ever known to be open until 12:30 in the morning on Friday and Saturday nights, and a chocolate cupcake with buttercream icing and little dried red currants on the top can be an uplifting thing for a burned out line cook from down the street. So, embrace the cupcake lifestyle with me!

I'm off to go get a sandwich, bitches.

I love life.

In the past three days, I have cooked over 160 filets. Only one of them was sent back. Soba's ten year anniversary menu is trying to destroy me, but I won't let it, because I am a huge badass.

I am, however, very badly burned all over my hands and arms, and exhausted. Tomorrow I'm going to show up ridiculously early again, cut up two 50-pound cases of potatoes, and cook some very, very nice food. Then I've got two beautiful days off in a row.

It's pretty nice to not have a big, clunky PC making noise in my apartment anymore, though it has made me more conscious of my refridgerator's ancient compressor. I'm slowly parting it out on craigslist (a very helpful resource right now, since I've got only a few dollars to my name due to the break in the pay period for the new year), so hopefully I'll have the whole machine out of here soon. I don't know why, but it's just nice to think that I don't have too much stuff bogging my life down--if, and probably when I move out of here in the summer, I don't want to haul tons of shit around. Last time around, every one of my material possessions fit into a Plymouth Acclaim.

Actually, now that I think about it, it's really crazy to think it's January already, and my lease on my first apartment will be up in five months or so.

Well, all has returned to normal around here. Bills paid, I was somehow left with an exorbitant amount of money in the bank this month, so, I bought a computer. One of those new-fangled laptop computers, and with Windows XP on it, too! Apparently I can take this computer anywhere I want to, unfold it, and use it just like my old one, which lies sadly disassembled on the floor. For those who didn't know, the old machine turned off and didn't turn back on sometime on Christmas Eve.

Sterling called me the other day at work at asked if I was in Austin to visit, or if I had already left. I do remember, some time ago, mentioning to several people down South that I'd try to visit in January, maybe after the New Years' Eve four course tasting menu had been dealt with. Unfortunately, that just never materialized. While most other restaurants are cutting labor and shortening their menus for the slow season, we're just about to get our asses kicked a little bit harder than last time. A ten day festival with three special tasting menus, commemorating Soba's ten year anniversary, as well a Chinese New Year menu, and then Valentine's Day, is very near. The bottom line is, maybe after February. I miss all of you dearly, but I've just got too many steaks in the oven right now.

The New Years' Eve event, by the way, was an incredible success. We did 182 covers, mostly of the special menus, and without too many problems. My most fond memory is before service, at one in the afternoon, when we all went out to the bar to discuss our game plan. Everyone was very grave, speaking in low voices, still hoarse from the previous Saturday night of service, about "having enough pea shoots and taro chips," and "the Sri Lankan potato soup, what will be the garnish for that?" as if we were preparing to go into battle. Sauces were heated, carrots were julienned, and rice was cooked off. I may have eaten a piece of pizza. My life, friends, is a very serious affair.

I have a horrible laceration on my left hand, below the thumb. I'll not go into great detail or put up any photographs, but let's just say, for sake of awareness, that you should never throw away the lid to a can unless you put it inside the empty can. I spent two hours of service Saturday night at Shadyside Hospital getting stitches because I was sliced open like a soggy baguette while taking out the trash. I then left the hospital, stopped in at the Coffee Tree on Walnut for a hot Americano, dirty chef's whites, bandaged hand and all, and headed back to work.

I must stop here, but I will say that this laptop I've got is truly awesome. And it should be, especially since I am absolutely fucking broke now!

More later, on oxtail stew!