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 bistro

So, after a brief introduction to the world of grocery store cooking, I decided it's not for me. Yes, I quit Whole Foods. Despite the excellent pay, awesome benefits, friendly people, ridiculously simple work, et cetera, it was just sort of lame--and by lame, I mean cafeteria hairnet lame. I made a thousand pounds of coleslaw and pasta salad. I roasted some sweet potatoes. I used a tilt skillet. It felt, once I had learned the locations of ingredients and equipment in the kitchen, like I had given up. Like I had signed my life over to the big corporate healthcare plan in the sky, and I would never have to bleed, sweat, or work a late night again.

I can't do that. I told them, Wednesday morning, that I am a cook.

And now, it seems like even that's in the past. I am now the sous-chef of Legume Bistro in Regent Square. I have a kitchen, not a station. I have a menu instead of a carbonized saute pan. There is also the nice salary issue, as well as the restaurant being closed a few weeks out of the year--so it's time to develop my vision of food, thirty covers at a time.

I've got to go come up with a few new dishes.

Painted the frame matted black and shiny red yesterday, put black bar wraps on, and a new chain. Rear brakes are still out, I think I may wait to get a whole new set and cable rather than keep fiddling with the old ones. It sounds dangerous, but I've been riding with my front brakes only for quite awhile in the city, and most of your stopping power should come from the front anyway.

I wish I could post a picture of the bike, but my camera is irreparable. Best Buy said it had "water damage", which makes no sense. Maybe I'll stick to my 35mm for now.

cha-cha-cha changes

Finally quit my job. The chefs are very supportive, and I've got a great reference at Soba. They're good people. But it still felt great to get the fuck out. Anyway, I guess the ninth is my last day.

I'll be working as a prepared foods cook at Whole Foods from now on. It'll definitely be nice. If you work there, aside from other benefits, you get a 20% discount from anything you buy there, all the time. I'm even going to have health insurance, dental, vision, etc... The idea of being financially stable as well as covered if I ever fall off my bike and break more bones than I can ducttape back together is very comforting.

Also, Trevett at Legume bistro in Regent Square may be my new best friend. He treated Diane and I to a free meal on Friday, and it may have been one of the best food experiences of my life. I felt drunk after that dinner, especially considering he sent out way more food than we ordered. The place is beautiful--it's the size of my old apartment, and looks like somebody's dining room. They give you coffee in little French presses. The food is fantastic and tastes like somebody really cares. I'll probably be helping out part-time, because he's getting some serious business.

There's a good chance I'll be doing the occasional job for Big Catering, too. Those people like me, and it's always wise to keep your foot in the door. Plus, the money from those gigs is unbelievable--the one last Saturday was 110 plus tips for 525 people, for six hours of work.

Riding a bicycle is still so much fun for me. Last night I went for a 20-mile ride around the immediate area, and rode down the steepest fucking hill in the city at 50 miles an hour. It was such an incredible rush to do that--I let go of all the crazy shit that's going on in my life, as well as worrying about my bike's derailleur moving into the spokes, and just held onto my drop bars for life.

I was obsessed with getting a much lighter chromoly bike for awhile, but it can wait. The Concord feels ten times smoother with the new rear wheel I put on it, and I ordered a seven-speed freewheel and an extractor yesterday so I can replace the old sprockets and bearings. I'm also thinking of painting the frame red and black.

yowch

So, after a pretty rough crash on Ellsworth Avenue last week that left my bike and body with various mechanical problems, I've been stuck riding one hell of a frankenbike. My rear wheel was totalled--bent, spokes broken, but luckily no damage to the cassette, dropout bar or derailleur--so I took apart a 40 year-old Sears Free Spirit to create a rolling frame that I could get around on. My Concord now has a 27-inch wheel in the front, and a 26 in the back, both different widths. The six-speed freewheel was replaced by a five, so now if I overshift, my chain goes into the axle. But it works, and despite the crumbling Continental tire on the back end, I'm still rolling around the city keeping up with traffic. The bike, however, which used to be a big, heavy, steel sonofabitch to ride, is now even heavier. Tomorrow I'm going to my faithful LBS in Squirrel Hill to buy a new wheel, which will be cheaper than I imagined.

Oh, and the garden is coming along beautifully. I've got about 13 tomato plants, zucchini, corn, peas, broccoli, herbs, greens... it's amazing what you can fit into a space so tiny.

I'm really excited about planting my garden. I'm going to do it tomorrow on my day off. I got a hoe and seeds and everything!

crepes suzette

I haven't written in awhile I suppose. Things are busy. While the job search hasn't gotten me anything yet (small bistro job didn't come through for me), I do have a place to live now. I'm moving in with Diane later this month, and I'll be there for the summer, if not longer. Rent's going to be cheap and it's going to be fun--big kitchen, big house, big backyard for me to till and start a garden in. Seriously, I'm going to grow tomatoes and shit.

I guess I'm going to stick with the corporation for a few more months. Every day I stay there is another day that makes me look good to future employers anyway, so I may as well put up with it as long as I can. It's just rough sometimes. Saturday was 150 people, which certainly isn't the worst day we've ever had, but it was tough, cooking dinner long after close and then cleaning that beast of a kitchen. Soba doesn't have slow days anymore. Every staff meeting we have there's always talk of the most profitable year we've ever had, but strangely enough, they say the labor cost is too much to handle, so they can't give out raises. When I got my six-month review last year, they bumped me up two dollars, which didn't exactly move me to another income level, but it got me out of indentured servitude. Recently a few guys have had their reviews, good, valuable members of our crew who are doing good work, and the management basically told them they were shit out of luck. It makes me feel sick that I'm broke, and making more than them, and we're all working ourselves to death.

Nevertheless, I feel like I'm in less of a state of depression/career/apartment crisis at this point. I could be doing worse at some hellhole Pittsburghese Italian joint. This is all going to come back to me.

I'm going to go ride my bicycle. I'm training for the Cleveland thing, although I admit it'll still be at least a month before I can do it. The bike needs a little love before I'll trust it that far, but I've got some free parts coming my way; namely newer brakes. The ancient Dia Compe calipers aren't so good in the rain, and probably 85% of my stopping power comes from the front one.

I was paranoid recently I had a crack in the frame, or a bad bottom bracket, which turned out to be nothing. My crankset was making an awful creaking noise and it turned out to be a loose nut, so I finally quit being a cheapass and bought a 3/8 rachet and a 14mm attachement to take the whole bottom end apart, clean it, and put it back together much tighter than the previous owner had. Even still, I'm looking at getting a brand new Campagnolo crankset on ebay for a few bucks that might make for a smoother ride and gear ratios that'll be better for what I'm doing. All I'd like to have after that is a new six-speed cassette, but they're somewhat hard to find.