People-watching is really fun, by the way. I'm sitting in the 61c just watching the world go by--people are so fascinating. Right now there's a girl outside walking with a pizza in the box and a slice in her hand, very New Yorkish. A bike messenger dropped off his last package here and is having a cup of coffee outside.
I don't know where to live. It's overwhelming. Pittsburgh has so many small, cute neighborhoods and so many of them are convenient to my job.
Monday, August 27, 2007
extra special
So, my temporary living arrangements are working out pretty well for me. Bear and I have a much stronger working relationship now that I've asserted my whole alpha male deal (I am now walking the dog, vs. the do walking me). Also, I've used the gas stove once already to cook a decent meal.
I got my security deposit from my last landlord (finally!) and I'm finally caught up on all my financial bullshit enough to put a security deposit down on a place if I manage to find one. I think I'm going to live by myself again if I can find the right place. I need plenty of space to be the slob that I am at heart.
In the basement of this place is an old Trek carbon road frame, complete with Campagnolo components. It's got no saddle or pedals, but there are cobwebs on it and the chain is rusted out. I'm trying to find out who owns it so I can buy it... the damn thing weighs less than 20 pounds. If I could build it up with the better parts off the Concord, I'd have a fucking racing bike.
I got my security deposit from my last landlord (finally!) and I'm finally caught up on all my financial bullshit enough to put a security deposit down on a place if I manage to find one. I think I'm going to live by myself again if I can find the right place. I need plenty of space to be the slob that I am at heart.
In the basement of this place is an old Trek carbon road frame, complete with Campagnolo components. It's got no saddle or pedals, but there are cobwebs on it and the chain is rusted out. I'm trying to find out who owns it so I can buy it... the damn thing weighs less than 20 pounds. If I could build it up with the better parts off the Concord, I'd have a fucking racing bike.
Friday, August 24, 2007
wooo!
I get to housesit a friend of the bistro's for a week. And she has an adorable dog, big Chow named Bear. I'm kind of excited.
I don't have time to go into detail, but the other day at Legume I made headcheese (with, yeah, a head), braised a pig's heart, made sauerkraut, canned vegetables, and did a bunch of other awesome stuff. There's so much good food there right now. We're curing our own pancetta.
I don't have time to go into detail, but the other day at Legume I made headcheese (with, yeah, a head), braised a pig's heart, made sauerkraut, canned vegetables, and did a bunch of other awesome stuff. There's so much good food there right now. We're curing our own pancetta.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
and on that note...
I guess I'm single now, and in need of a new place to live within the next few months.
Man, I saw that coming like some kind of crazy motherfucking prophecy from god.
I'm not crushed, I guess, but this doesn't really fit in with my lifestyle too well. Now I have to sleep on the couch or in the basement (which is actually the house's fourth bedroom and fairly large, so it's not the end of the world). And that girl really enjoyed my cooking. It's going to be hard to find that again.
Ugh. I'm going to go ride my bicycle. But I won't do it angrily. Last time I did that I ended up with a lasting leg injury and a ripped kevlar tire.
Man, I saw that coming like some kind of crazy motherfucking prophecy from god.
I'm not crushed, I guess, but this doesn't really fit in with my lifestyle too well. Now I have to sleep on the couch or in the basement (which is actually the house's fourth bedroom and fairly large, so it's not the end of the world). And that girl really enjoyed my cooking. It's going to be hard to find that again.
Ugh. I'm going to go ride my bicycle. But I won't do it angrily. Last time I did that I ended up with a lasting leg injury and a ripped kevlar tire.
don't smoke pot in my fucking restaurant!
What's up with the worship of Pabst among bike punks? I honestly don't get it. I mean, hooray for cheap, unpretentious beer and all if that's what you're into, but you'd think a bunch of kids who claim to be saving the world through the boycott of gasoline would have decent taste in booze. What ever happened to sophisticated revolutionaries? George Washington enjoyed fine sherry, not moonshine.
I don't know what brought that up.
Anyway, life in Pittsburgh is rainy as usual. Business at the restaurant is picking up, which I hope will be the end of our slow spell. Ever realize how the only thing worse than overwhelming hard work is the complete and utter lack of it? Being bored as a restaurant cook is the worst, especially when you're at a small enough place to care about its well-being. Not only is your source of livelihood losing money, but once you've peeled the entire case of potatoes and cut mirepoix for the next two weeks, there's literally nothing to do at all. It's similar to what I felt like in high school, actually; a sort of "I'm done with this test, can I get the fuck out of here now" mentality.
My weekend has been kind of boring. I've done almost nothing, aside from baking cupcakes and bread, and watching the entire two seasons of The Venture Brothers (as well as The Godfather and a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm). Part of me knows it's good form to get some rest and feel refreshed after a long week of work, but I would've loved to ride across the Birmingham Bridge faster than traffic and pick wild grapes on the south side. Speaking of which, I picked a bunch of wild grapes two weeks ago, and made wine. It's sort of like a Beaujolais with too much acidity, but actually not bad. I just need real wine yeasts (I used brewer's and the wild yeasts on the grapes) and a better method of getting the sediment out of the juice at the end. If all this rain hasn't flooded the riverbank I'm going to go back when there are more ripe vines.
I don't know if I still enjoy living in this house or not. It's a nice place, yeah, but it's beginning to feel a little too suburban, or the fact that there are too many people living in it, or something. I feel weird about the whole situation right now. Maybe it's like when I lived in Texas and visiting New York has ruined my perception of my lifestyle here for me. It's strange. Being sous at the restaurant is the best job that could ever happen to me at this point in my life. I'm really happy with that. But as tough as it is, I kind of want the rest of my life to be more spontaneous.
I'm just spouting bullshit, considering I'm capable of being as lazy and boring as anyone else. I just spent two days almost exclusively on the couch. It's true that people don't ever truly change--I'm just like I was in high school, overthinking my life when I'm even the least bit dissatisfied with it.
But there are cupcakes on the counter.
I don't know what brought that up.
Anyway, life in Pittsburgh is rainy as usual. Business at the restaurant is picking up, which I hope will be the end of our slow spell. Ever realize how the only thing worse than overwhelming hard work is the complete and utter lack of it? Being bored as a restaurant cook is the worst, especially when you're at a small enough place to care about its well-being. Not only is your source of livelihood losing money, but once you've peeled the entire case of potatoes and cut mirepoix for the next two weeks, there's literally nothing to do at all. It's similar to what I felt like in high school, actually; a sort of "I'm done with this test, can I get the fuck out of here now" mentality.
My weekend has been kind of boring. I've done almost nothing, aside from baking cupcakes and bread, and watching the entire two seasons of The Venture Brothers (as well as The Godfather and a few episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm). Part of me knows it's good form to get some rest and feel refreshed after a long week of work, but I would've loved to ride across the Birmingham Bridge faster than traffic and pick wild grapes on the south side. Speaking of which, I picked a bunch of wild grapes two weeks ago, and made wine. It's sort of like a Beaujolais with too much acidity, but actually not bad. I just need real wine yeasts (I used brewer's and the wild yeasts on the grapes) and a better method of getting the sediment out of the juice at the end. If all this rain hasn't flooded the riverbank I'm going to go back when there are more ripe vines.
I don't know if I still enjoy living in this house or not. It's a nice place, yeah, but it's beginning to feel a little too suburban, or the fact that there are too many people living in it, or something. I feel weird about the whole situation right now. Maybe it's like when I lived in Texas and visiting New York has ruined my perception of my lifestyle here for me. It's strange. Being sous at the restaurant is the best job that could ever happen to me at this point in my life. I'm really happy with that. But as tough as it is, I kind of want the rest of my life to be more spontaneous.
I'm just spouting bullshit, considering I'm capable of being as lazy and boring as anyone else. I just spent two days almost exclusively on the couch. It's true that people don't ever truly change--I'm just like I was in high school, overthinking my life when I'm even the least bit dissatisfied with it.
But there are cupcakes on the counter.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
back in the real world
All right, so I'm back on the air. I didn't mean to neglect my ongoing memoir. It's actually very important to me to look back on it after several years. But those who still read will understand that I have the same fairly good excuse that I always do--too much work.
The restaurant is going well. Right now, I'm in the middle of a full week off. To have one of these without planning ahead for a year is a remarkable thing, but as it turns out, the bistro is just closing for several days out of the year, much like a normal workplace. There are rumors that we won't have to work Thanksgiving, or even New Years.
I finally feel like I'm getting good. Or at least that I have a fucking clue.
At the goofy martini bar downtown, I made my first stupid mistakes. I got strong and became accustomed to the hours while I went to school and worked full time.
At Soba, I got fast. My entire life began to revolve around efficiency, around becoming a machine that did not feel pain. I learned how to create a System to make impossible things happen on the fly, I learned dirty tricks of line cooks everywhere to cover my ass if I fucked up. I learned that, even if you have a forgiving chef, you can only learn from so many mistakes and eventually, somehow, you have to become indestructible (or at least make yourself look like you are).
At the bistro, the moves, the intimacy with your equipment, and the timing is out of the way. Now, for the first time since school, I'm finally learning more about how to actually cook food. I can safely say that during the short time I've worked at Legume, I've learned more than I ever did about ingredients than at Soba (possibly because the shit we put on the menu at Legume actually makes sense). Now, I can cook a chicken. I can blanch green vegetables. I can skin a side of salmon, trim it, and portion it, and I know how to brine something. I know how to make escabeche and I know how you're really supposed to make risotto.
Don't get me wrong. I'm still an amateur, and even if I'm a sous-chef I've got a long, long way to go. I'm working on parts of a restaurant that I never even knew existed--I'm charged with creating an inventory system, delegating responsibility to people, helping with the hiring process, ordering, et cetera. The chef and I sometimes start our Saturdays at 9:00 A.M. at the farmer's market in the Strip, buying the product that turns into the menu. Even aside from the benefit you can take from knowing the farmers you get your food from, seeing ingredients move from market to plate makes me think about cooking in a completely different way. Actually, everything about the restaurant makes me think differently. When I first got there for a trial run, I felt like I was in a completely different universe.
Speaking of which, I told you that Whole Foods is a fucking soulless place to work, right?
Our dark week couldn't have come at a better time. The weather is hellish right now (I hear there were tornadoes in Brooklyn), and everyone is on vacation for the summer, so we were on the verge of losing money due to inactivity. Plus, I was burned out like a lightbulb. I've been doing little else than sitting on my couch, watching pointless television. I found myself so intellectually bankrupt after the past month or so that I actually watched the Alien vs. Predator movie. God help me.
I did go to New York City recently. Diane and I took the roadtrip and spent about two days up there. Although we're not trying to drive in Manhattan again (the Concord is coming with me next time), I would have been content with wandering around that city for two straight days. It's such an amazing place. When I went the first time with the choir, I fell in love with it and dreamed of living there someday. People have told me I'll change my mind if I get more personally involved with the chaos of the city, not to mention the existence of crime there as opposed to the wildly exaggerated evil lurking in Pittsburgh's "bad neighborhoods". But the chaos is what I love. In a city that competes so fiercely for space, there's something fascinating in every square inch. We went to an underground record store that was as big as my first job's hot line.
We also went to Tom Colicchio's Craft, where I spent a month's rent on foie gras, quail, halibut, risotto, braised mustard greens, and panna cotta, as well as the best cheese I have ever been able to eat. The food is hard to describe as anything other than genius, unpretentious, satisfying, and, coincidentally, an amazing work of craftsmanship.
After I hit a deep pothole and skewered some spokes through my front wheel, my bike is finally back on the road. I bought new alloy wheels and Bontrager kevlar tires, and finally fixed the brakes, sticking with my philosophy of fixing an old bike rather than buying a new one. Plus, I really like my old friction shifters and the sticker on my top tube that says to ride a fucking bike. Before the weather turned sour I had plans to ride to Cleveland this week, but now I'm saving that adventure for another week off.
The restaurant is going well. Right now, I'm in the middle of a full week off. To have one of these without planning ahead for a year is a remarkable thing, but as it turns out, the bistro is just closing for several days out of the year, much like a normal workplace. There are rumors that we won't have to work Thanksgiving, or even New Years.
I finally feel like I'm getting good. Or at least that I have a fucking clue.
At the goofy martini bar downtown, I made my first stupid mistakes. I got strong and became accustomed to the hours while I went to school and worked full time.
At Soba, I got fast. My entire life began to revolve around efficiency, around becoming a machine that did not feel pain. I learned how to create a System to make impossible things happen on the fly, I learned dirty tricks of line cooks everywhere to cover my ass if I fucked up. I learned that, even if you have a forgiving chef, you can only learn from so many mistakes and eventually, somehow, you have to become indestructible (or at least make yourself look like you are).
At the bistro, the moves, the intimacy with your equipment, and the timing is out of the way. Now, for the first time since school, I'm finally learning more about how to actually cook food. I can safely say that during the short time I've worked at Legume, I've learned more than I ever did about ingredients than at Soba (possibly because the shit we put on the menu at Legume actually makes sense). Now, I can cook a chicken. I can blanch green vegetables. I can skin a side of salmon, trim it, and portion it, and I know how to brine something. I know how to make escabeche and I know how you're really supposed to make risotto.
Don't get me wrong. I'm still an amateur, and even if I'm a sous-chef I've got a long, long way to go. I'm working on parts of a restaurant that I never even knew existed--I'm charged with creating an inventory system, delegating responsibility to people, helping with the hiring process, ordering, et cetera. The chef and I sometimes start our Saturdays at 9:00 A.M. at the farmer's market in the Strip, buying the product that turns into the menu. Even aside from the benefit you can take from knowing the farmers you get your food from, seeing ingredients move from market to plate makes me think about cooking in a completely different way. Actually, everything about the restaurant makes me think differently. When I first got there for a trial run, I felt like I was in a completely different universe.
Speaking of which, I told you that Whole Foods is a fucking soulless place to work, right?
Our dark week couldn't have come at a better time. The weather is hellish right now (I hear there were tornadoes in Brooklyn), and everyone is on vacation for the summer, so we were on the verge of losing money due to inactivity. Plus, I was burned out like a lightbulb. I've been doing little else than sitting on my couch, watching pointless television. I found myself so intellectually bankrupt after the past month or so that I actually watched the Alien vs. Predator movie. God help me.
I did go to New York City recently. Diane and I took the roadtrip and spent about two days up there. Although we're not trying to drive in Manhattan again (the Concord is coming with me next time), I would have been content with wandering around that city for two straight days. It's such an amazing place. When I went the first time with the choir, I fell in love with it and dreamed of living there someday. People have told me I'll change my mind if I get more personally involved with the chaos of the city, not to mention the existence of crime there as opposed to the wildly exaggerated evil lurking in Pittsburgh's "bad neighborhoods". But the chaos is what I love. In a city that competes so fiercely for space, there's something fascinating in every square inch. We went to an underground record store that was as big as my first job's hot line.
We also went to Tom Colicchio's Craft, where I spent a month's rent on foie gras, quail, halibut, risotto, braised mustard greens, and panna cotta, as well as the best cheese I have ever been able to eat. The food is hard to describe as anything other than genius, unpretentious, satisfying, and, coincidentally, an amazing work of craftsmanship.
After I hit a deep pothole and skewered some spokes through my front wheel, my bike is finally back on the road. I bought new alloy wheels and Bontrager kevlar tires, and finally fixed the brakes, sticking with my philosophy of fixing an old bike rather than buying a new one. Plus, I really like my old friction shifters and the sticker on my top tube that says to ride a fucking bike. Before the weather turned sour I had plans to ride to Cleveland this week, but now I'm saving that adventure for another week off.