the slacker files
ok, i've been remiss. i've got to figure out a way to plan this into my day at least a couple of times a week. can i jettison wretched ray and her burger fiestas? i bet i can.
rob and i had dinner last night with the lovely jenny and her quietly passionate husband anson. we went to lark and ordered to our heart's content. 2 pinots and a bottle of sparkling later, rob confessed that he was drunkish. who can blame him? somehow i felt fine, but i'm sure i wasn't the clear bell i imagined myself to be. best dish of the night to me was definitely the bass. striped? black? sea? striped, i think. served with coins of fingerling and leeks. the coins looked like hearts of palm, but provided pleasing firmness. the creamy leeks addded a little sweetness and the crispy-skinned bass the perfect salty crunch to offset the mild flesh. i'd definitely have that again.
other hits - pork rillettes (and thank you to jenny for the intro to rillettes a few weeks ago. there's no turning back it.) it was rob's favorite. he just swung in and told me, but i knew last night when it disappeared from his plate in 12 seconds. i also loved the guinea hen bolognese, which rob and i have had before, but just had to have again. there is really nothing that beats the texture of good fresh pasta, particularly thinly rolled, wide cut pasta. this was three overlapping sheets with a lovely sausagey sauce. rob and i commented the first time how un-poultrylike the texture of the bolognese seemed. almost as though they ground the guinea hen and moved on from there. whatever the technique, the effect was pleasing,
spanish anchovies are always a favorite of mine, and the salad, kind of an escabeche, that accompanied them appealed to my love of all things vinegary. we had a ragout of wild boar with porcini and great northern beans. i thought the beans were a little firm, but the boar was lovely and tender. i've been leery of fresh porcini since my vegetarian thanksgiving and the great mushroom gravy fiasco. i'm pleased and relieved to discover that fresh porcini are silky, herbaceous and mild - nothing like their dried cousins which to me taste like a hallucination in the making. also ordered was elk crepinette - not all that impressive. caul fat, as i understand it, is designed to melt slightly and basically bard (oh yes, i said bard) the meat. i thought the interior was (still) a little dry and maybe too gamey/livery tasting for me. sauteed mushrooms, which we've had before and liked, needed something. anything. more salt...thyme, sherry, a shallot...bueller? the last thing i remember was a rosti potato topped with creme fraiche and sturgeon caviar. it's delicious. it's perfect, and i love it - but come on, sundy - it's a hashbrown.
desserts were not that good, which is very unusual in my experience at lark. we had a bay leaf flan with almond biscotti, a pear tarte tatin and some kind of fruit crumble with buttermilk ice cream. i confess that i love buttermilk ice cream and crumble topping to blindness, so that was my favorite, dispite having no clue what the fruit was. apple huckleberry? was there pecan? no idea. the tarte was doughy to me. maybe the pear was too ripe or the puff was underbaked, but i didn't get the 3 distinct sensations i like in a good tatin - firm, flaky and sticky. i just got the sticky. i really have no love for flan, but the bay flan worked - especially with the biscotti. something floral popped out with the biscotti that was missing without it. flan is still baby foodish to me, but i admire the creativity and the deliberate role of the biscotti. no incidental biscotti. (great band name)
it was great to finally meet anson. after hearing so much about someone, it's fun to see dimension. hopefully they're not packing for canada or changing their phone number and we'll get to know them better.
other tales of the week...yesterday was my first day back in the first quarter kitchen after almost a month. naturally i was sent to clean out the drip pan from the grill. good thing i'd just washed and ironed my chef's coat. i also peeled and seeded bell and ancho peppers and chiffonaded some cabbage. oh, sorry, am i boring you? take a number.
the rest of last week was spent in the dining rooms of square one and one world. most of my lessons were in what not to do, which might explain why the week felt so odd...kind of negative and disconnected. i thought it was the dining room atmosphere, which is always fraught with gossip and drama and pettiness, but i think it was more than that. my examples of student leadership, customer service and teamwork were all appallingly bad this week. how long can i cling to the positive when the only useful thing i learned was how to fold a napkin like a bishop's hat (ish)? other key lessons included who to avoid in 4th quarter kitchen (honey - you are not funny, just mean and bitchy - learn the difference before you enter a real kitchen or learn how to duck), how to manage fifth quarter students who think that the green napkin they tie so rakishly around their neck gives them licence to be snappish to customers and classmates alike, and that frenzy begets frenzy - never efficiency. i'm glad to be getting back to our kitchen. as insular as it is, i have purpose there. i'm looking forward to contributing to the bounty of prep that gets wheeled down to 2Q kitchen every afternoon.
i think i might have a job too. i'm a little hazy on details, and it may well end up being a twice only thing, but i'm hopeful that it will turn into something (perhaps flexible) that i can do a couple of times a week. it's at city catering - the company that caterered patti and greg's wedding. i really liked the owners when i went to patti's tasting with her, and one of my classmates works there and likes it, so i asked him to see if they were hiring. lisa, one of the owners emailed me back and told me they were looking to staff a couple of upcoming events at nordstrom stores. i'm a little unclear about details, but i think it's a lot of plating of pre-prepped food - but i'm not sure - haven't seen a menu.
today is rob's birthday and we're going to ovio. i see oysters and champagne in our future, but now i've got breakfast to make. anyone know the number of strips in a rasher?
rob and i had dinner last night with the lovely jenny and her quietly passionate husband anson. we went to lark and ordered to our heart's content. 2 pinots and a bottle of sparkling later, rob confessed that he was drunkish. who can blame him? somehow i felt fine, but i'm sure i wasn't the clear bell i imagined myself to be. best dish of the night to me was definitely the bass. striped? black? sea? striped, i think. served with coins of fingerling and leeks. the coins looked like hearts of palm, but provided pleasing firmness. the creamy leeks addded a little sweetness and the crispy-skinned bass the perfect salty crunch to offset the mild flesh. i'd definitely have that again.
other hits - pork rillettes (and thank you to jenny for the intro to rillettes a few weeks ago. there's no turning back it.) it was rob's favorite. he just swung in and told me, but i knew last night when it disappeared from his plate in 12 seconds. i also loved the guinea hen bolognese, which rob and i have had before, but just had to have again. there is really nothing that beats the texture of good fresh pasta, particularly thinly rolled, wide cut pasta. this was three overlapping sheets with a lovely sausagey sauce. rob and i commented the first time how un-poultrylike the texture of the bolognese seemed. almost as though they ground the guinea hen and moved on from there. whatever the technique, the effect was pleasing,
spanish anchovies are always a favorite of mine, and the salad, kind of an escabeche, that accompanied them appealed to my love of all things vinegary. we had a ragout of wild boar with porcini and great northern beans. i thought the beans were a little firm, but the boar was lovely and tender. i've been leery of fresh porcini since my vegetarian thanksgiving and the great mushroom gravy fiasco. i'm pleased and relieved to discover that fresh porcini are silky, herbaceous and mild - nothing like their dried cousins which to me taste like a hallucination in the making. also ordered was elk crepinette - not all that impressive. caul fat, as i understand it, is designed to melt slightly and basically bard (oh yes, i said bard) the meat. i thought the interior was (still) a little dry and maybe too gamey/livery tasting for me. sauteed mushrooms, which we've had before and liked, needed something. anything. more salt...thyme, sherry, a shallot...bueller? the last thing i remember was a rosti potato topped with creme fraiche and sturgeon caviar. it's delicious. it's perfect, and i love it - but come on, sundy - it's a hashbrown.
desserts were not that good, which is very unusual in my experience at lark. we had a bay leaf flan with almond biscotti, a pear tarte tatin and some kind of fruit crumble with buttermilk ice cream. i confess that i love buttermilk ice cream and crumble topping to blindness, so that was my favorite, dispite having no clue what the fruit was. apple huckleberry? was there pecan? no idea. the tarte was doughy to me. maybe the pear was too ripe or the puff was underbaked, but i didn't get the 3 distinct sensations i like in a good tatin - firm, flaky and sticky. i just got the sticky. i really have no love for flan, but the bay flan worked - especially with the biscotti. something floral popped out with the biscotti that was missing without it. flan is still baby foodish to me, but i admire the creativity and the deliberate role of the biscotti. no incidental biscotti. (great band name)
it was great to finally meet anson. after hearing so much about someone, it's fun to see dimension. hopefully they're not packing for canada or changing their phone number and we'll get to know them better.
other tales of the week...yesterday was my first day back in the first quarter kitchen after almost a month. naturally i was sent to clean out the drip pan from the grill. good thing i'd just washed and ironed my chef's coat. i also peeled and seeded bell and ancho peppers and chiffonaded some cabbage. oh, sorry, am i boring you? take a number.
the rest of last week was spent in the dining rooms of square one and one world. most of my lessons were in what not to do, which might explain why the week felt so odd...kind of negative and disconnected. i thought it was the dining room atmosphere, which is always fraught with gossip and drama and pettiness, but i think it was more than that. my examples of student leadership, customer service and teamwork were all appallingly bad this week. how long can i cling to the positive when the only useful thing i learned was how to fold a napkin like a bishop's hat (ish)? other key lessons included who to avoid in 4th quarter kitchen (honey - you are not funny, just mean and bitchy - learn the difference before you enter a real kitchen or learn how to duck), how to manage fifth quarter students who think that the green napkin they tie so rakishly around their neck gives them licence to be snappish to customers and classmates alike, and that frenzy begets frenzy - never efficiency. i'm glad to be getting back to our kitchen. as insular as it is, i have purpose there. i'm looking forward to contributing to the bounty of prep that gets wheeled down to 2Q kitchen every afternoon.
i think i might have a job too. i'm a little hazy on details, and it may well end up being a twice only thing, but i'm hopeful that it will turn into something (perhaps flexible) that i can do a couple of times a week. it's at city catering - the company that caterered patti and greg's wedding. i really liked the owners when i went to patti's tasting with her, and one of my classmates works there and likes it, so i asked him to see if they were hiring. lisa, one of the owners emailed me back and told me they were looking to staff a couple of upcoming events at nordstrom stores. i'm a little unclear about details, but i think it's a lot of plating of pre-prepped food - but i'm not sure - haven't seen a menu.
today is rob's birthday and we're going to ovio. i see oysters and champagne in our future, but now i've got breakfast to make. anyone know the number of strips in a rasher?
posted by the pieces @ 10:51 AM
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