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.
3 comments:
That MY boy....
Keep on cycling AND writing. I really miss your writing!
My helmet order came back as backordered from Performance Bike -now on my worthless vendor list!
Girls... read 'em and weep (get in line and be nice...)
Take Care and all that stuff the Keillor says.
NETmom
I went back and read through your last few posts, they're insanely compelling. If someone was to ask me what my favorite piece of modern literature was, I'd say, "John's blog." I enjoyed reading the post about joining the Whole Foods network, and then stating later that it sucked horrendously.
I'm also starting to slowly get an idea of things I do and don't like in my particular field, having worked at three very different companies now. I told you that Mark wants me to inherit Seavers Design back in Houston after I get my architect's license, right? So I'm trying to gather ideas and philosophies about the line of work that I can apply to a company that I would be in charge of. We're creating a new website in concert with Nick Jackson, hopefully launching it in just a few weeks, and I have a proposition for you. We really want it to be a little bit more of a cultural experience as opposed to a simple comic strip, and wanted to include some kind of post of yours that updates no more than once a week. We've already incorporated an aspect of that in the design, and we could discuss what that would entail at a later time, if you're at all interested. And keep writing man - you'll have enough material soon to publish your blog as a book within a few years. I'm really not a big fan of reading much, but your writing is quite captivating. Now you've made me hungry and I must go and cook something for dinner. It's funny though, since no one's here except for me over the next two weeks, I don't feel terribly compelled to cook anything if I'm the only one that's going to enjoy it.
So glad you're finally resting! I mean, those little weekends and vacations to Texas just didn't cut it for the amount of work you've been putting in over these last couple of years. Enjoy your peace and keep on keeping on.
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