what can i say after 3 months? a recap is clearly in order. i am nearly done with my second quarter and couldn't be happier about it. i love my chef - K.G. (think kejji) but i will be really glad to be done with quantity cooking. my 2 partners have been good - i like them both as people, and while we are perhaps not the best of communicators, i'm so glad i ended up with able, funny guys. things could have been vastly less fun. the highlight week for me was student lunch week (2 weeks ago.) we each took a day and made what we wanted for 60 of our fellow students. the other two acted as sous chefs, and it was really fun to be creative...for the first time - maybe ever, i enjoyed having leftovers to work with. one of our tasks was to serve leftovers from prior days, both to avoid wasting food and to have enough food available for student lunch. i liked the challenge of left over spaetzle. (saute in brown butter and add a pinch of nutmeg.) very fun. for my day i braised a massive pork shoulder and made a barbecue sauce for pulled pork sandwiches. i was pleased with the results and the response.
wow i just had an interlude...rob has a client here (stanley is currently sacrificing the walrus in his honor - yowling outside the guestroom door, walrus firmly in cheek). in any event, i've been on the verge of the giggles all day today - i'll get to some kg-isms later, but when the client came in and started talking about his work as a "compassionate listener tm," saying things like, "and it's really more of a shadow expression" i might have had to bite my lip so hard it's bleeding. nice guy - complete freakshow.
so back to 2Q. lowlights - last week as "sous chef" which is basically my worst hell as an admin - every day for a week. skirt the table with those plastic pegs that you have to jam on the table to make fit. nurse sore thumbs for remainder of day. hunt for soup bains which are invariably in the dish pit, crusted over with obscenities like cream of wheat and yesterday's chili. why must it be black? mise out the seafood fetuccine ingredients and bring them to the dunderhead making it. beg her to be out on time. haul 90 buckets of ice from 4th Q kitchen to the line. repeat. issue gentle reminders about the time to people making food at 11:05. re-issue reminders, less gently, at 11:14. ask people to clean up. ask people to stop prepping for the following day and *please* clean up. demand that people seriously clean up immediately. try not to burn self on large bain. fail. clean up exxon valdez II in massive kitchen bain (big ol hot water bath in a stainless sink which we use to keep hot things hot) when large bucket of clarified butter spills into it and jenny comes over with look of sympathy (mixed with mild disgust) to say, "um, something's wrong with the bain." continue to clean bain intermittently all afternoon. finally drain at end of day and really clean. discover nearly a quarter's worth of...buildup beneath the grates. whimper. scrub bain with fervor of joan crawford. drink heavily.
quantity cooking is kind of a tragicomedy. where else could i pay for the privilege of making elotes con queso. elotes con queso, for the uninititated, is cheesy corn bake. it's a huge corn crispy treat. oh, and it's made with frozen corn. for some reason that dish stands out to me as an emblem of my time in 2Q kitchen. which is not to say that i did not also get my deep fry on. because i did. i made eggplant parmesean, of which i would have been somewhat proud had i made the sauce and sliced the eggplant. i did neither of those things. i also made goujon (sounds fancy - it's french for fish sticks) i would have been pleased with them had i broken down the fish. i did not - it was filleted. but damn, do i ever have my 3 step breading technique nailed. so is that part the tragedy or the comedy - read on and decide. there's one girl in my quarter of whom i've been quite envious. she's gotten to break down fish, massive bone-in pieces of meat and has made some interesting dishes - ok - whatever, sweetbreads are neither sweet nor bread, but it's new and i'm jealous. it's not that i think she's now "ahead" of me or that i'm ahead of her, but i'm jealous of the opportunity she's had. then the week we were on student lunch she brought something out to the line she referred to as eggplant parm. it was alarmingly oily. as we were bagging it up for the homeless (and for that i am truly truly sorry) i realized that it was not breaded. she'd tossed sliced eggplant directly into the deep fryer and was slightly amazed that they'd ended up oily. i think there's some irony in all that somewhere. there is definitely some tragedy, however.
kg. picture if you can a man of indeterminate age. slight. half taiwanese, half japanese. when not in his toque, he favors mom jeans (maybe slightly pegged, perhaps a whisper of acid in the wash.) his casual look is finished with a black henley, and painstakingly smoothed (spit shined) hair. in short, a man to worship slavishly. he is also a complete bad-ass. master ice-sculptor. 20 year veteran of teaching. competitive chef who's won many competitions. this is a man who can break down a piece of meat three times his size in 2 minutes. his paring knife cuts like a scythe. he manages to be clinically precise, yet respectfully gentle while jamming his hands into the seam of a 30# round and ripping out the eye. *he* is magical. he speaks excellent engrish but sometimes perhaps has trouble conveying his point. i like to think of him as a bit poetic. test today, "true or false...duchesse potato should be fairly moist before piping." oh kg. what does fairly mean? it's one of countless absurd questions. sometimes nuance is lost. sometimes, it is not. today in the sandwich lecture: "soft buns
maybe that's why they like the soft buns. " "lay them side by side...oh boy... side by side..." it seems that my sweet, spit-shined papa is a bit of a perv. hard to know whether to be further endeared or mildy alarmed. i bet you know where i stand. good to be back. i'll weigh in on the whole COD (chef of the day - final project) phenomenon when i've seen more. i've been thinking about mine and i think i have a theme. if i can pull it off without it being too precious, i think i'll be really happy with it. winter white is what i'm thinking...could be cool. it just kind of popped out of my mouth yesterday, already half-formed. i gave it a little more thought today and am close to having a menu. i see a lot of thumper in rob's future. i think i need a flexible boning knife!
