staff meal hits and misses

Staff meal, family meal, family, comida. No matter what you call it the food is usually the same. A salad, if you're lucky, something to get some sort of vegetables in your diet. Especially if you're a pastry cook. Some kind of meat since, as someone I used to know put it to me, most of the restaurant prep and line cooks are Mexican and if you don't feed them meat they will go somewhere else to get it since many are working two jobs anyway.

If you work normal-people hours of nine to five you'll likely hit two staff meals of the day. If you come in the early afternoon, depending on the restrictions at the restaurant and your familiarity with the line cooks you may be able to sneak a snack or a free lunch meal. If you plan on doing this and you are a pastry cook it really helps to give out free dessert at the end of the night. Those cookies that sat out for ten hours of service and won't keep? Give em to the line cook you ask for chicken sandwiches.

I had one job where half the pastry staff all day long would ask the line cooks for flatbread and fava bean dip. Food cost pretty minimal for favas, and since we were making the flatbread dough half or all of the time anyway we felt kinda entitled.

For those outside the restaurant industry reading this, family meal is what you feed your cooks and servers before they spend normal dinner/lunch hours on their feet hard at work. From an owner's perspective family meal is also where you use up your scraps. Fish on its last day or tomatoes slighlty gonig rotten on one side. Feed it to the family. There are plenty of restaurants that supplement their cupboard with goods just for staff meal--cheap pasta instead of expensive stuff, rice, ketchup, hot dogs. While staff meal is rarely expected to be great, an inspired staff meal can lift the cooks, servers and busboys to all work just a little harder to make everyone's night great.

You can turn to Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential for a number of truly awful staff meals, or you can call out any restaurant that segregates family meal by day - Wednesday pizza, Thursday sausages, Sunday eggs.

I expected there to be more standouts but in the end the meals that stick out are surprisingly few and far between. Staff meal successes that I can recall include, over various years and cities, from the hands of sous chefs and line cooks and caterers:
Fried rice with vegetables and eggs. While most people loved this one cause we worked at an Italian restaurant and it wasn't pasta, it also had a super low food cost and got rid of any leftovers.

Fish tacos. Same resto. The Mexican prep guys would make hot sauce and pico de gallo and bring in tortillas. You had to get there right on time for this one or you'd get nothing.

Make yr own burrito bar. This actually before my time in Cali. Guac, pico de gallo, cheese, refried beans, salad and meat. Fun, cheap, not too much work.

Thanksgiving leftovers. Multiple places, same agenda - turkey, potatoes, all the sides. A little hard to work after this one.

Sweet-hot chicken wings. A line cook made these super good one day kinda by accident, which unfortunately meant we never got to have them again.

staff meal c noii

why servers should pay attention at line-up and in tastings

true conversation from dinner last night...

me: we'd like to get dessert but we can't decide between the corn crepes with blueberries an the pink peppercorn vacherin with strawberry ice cream
server: well i'd really recommend the vacherin. it's a meringue cookie topped with strawberry ice cream and pistachios and there's strawberries too, and we make the ice cream in-house
me: oh...so you don't make the corn ice cream in house?
him: no, we do, we make all our ice cream in house
me: well how do you prepare the blueberries for the crepes?
him: we render them down in the pan
{at this point i shoot my friend a worried look. i don't believe the word "render" should be used in connection to food unless it's meat. it sounds kinda gross otherwise}
me: how's the lime caramel
him: zesty and delicious

It went on like that for a bit longer before we ordered the vacherin. The server did send us the crepes on the house, which was a nice touch especially since we hadn't complained about any aspect of the meal. Seems like he was just being nice.

Servers don't seem to realize that the restaurant actually makes a lot of money on dessert. Compared to that dungeness crab or rabbit meat the cost to the house of preparing a plate of dessert is very, very minimal whereas the cost of the meat, vegetables and other ingredients going into a main course is vastly pricier. The server, likely, is thinking that $8 on a dessert won't make a lot of money on his tip whereas that $12 app would be a bigger upsell.

What the average server does not realize is that most people get happier when they eat dessert. They relax, they linger and they're in a more generous mood when they're putting that tip out. Plus, the dessert money does add to the bill. It's the role of the server in this course more so than others to really sell the food. Whereas you might sit down in a restaurant and "be in a fish mood" and have two choices, you'll not likely be "in a pie mood" or "in a bread pudding mood" when it comes time for dessert {chocolate mood, maybe? but there'll always be warn choco cake for you}

Patrons are often more indecisive when it comes to desserts and they'll look to you, lil server. Do them, do your tip, do your boss and do the kitchen a favor and steer them toward something that'll taste really good. Do you need some tips on how to do this? Ok, well for starters:
1. Don't tell them to get the last thing the kitchen put up for you at line-up because it's the only thing you remember the taste of. This is silly. If you tried something new and it was awesome, that's fine, but if you can only remember the one thing then you're not doing your job because there's likely 4-5 other menu options.
2. Learn a new vocabulary. Words like "render" and "zesty" and (yes, even) "housemade" don't actually communicate anything at all. They don't tell me what it's going to taste like. Tastes like homemade? Great! For these prices I'd hope you actually make it. Seriously...
3. Learn how to describe something unique about the option. I should get the vacherin because you make the ice cream in house and it's got strawberries in it? Would you urge me to get the heirloom tomato salad because it contains purple tomatoes? Would you have me eat the scallops because they're pan-seared?

What you can do is say "our crepes are made fresh to order" {which they're probably not} or "the blueberries have an awesome flavor right now" or "the vacherin is coming off the menu soon so you might want to try it." Do you see how these phrases are different? They communicate something to me. A freshness, a quality, even a sense or urgency {try it NOW, it's going AWAY}. If nothing like this comes to mind and someone asks you to help them choose between two options, tell them why you like A and why you like B. Here's an example: "I love how crispy the meringue is, but the corn ice cream is unbelievable and you should really try it."

Bay Area pastry chefs just can't catch a break?

Tough times to be a pastry chef. Not only are patrons tightening their belt (and their budget) when it comes to fine dining and desserts, but this morning Michael Bauer kinda called you boring.

Part of the reason is that my expectations are low writes MB after admitting that he routinely gives restaurants with poor dessert choices 3 stars, giving GMs, head chefs and owners the impression that it doesn't matter who's making their pot de cremes and seasonal fruit galettes.

It's also challenging to review desserts, claims MB, because those darn restaurants could be bothered to send him a menu. Do they even give him the PC's name? From the blog:

When we call for menus each week for restaurants I'm reviewing, we have to specifically ask for a dessert menu, otherwise there's a 50-50 chance we won't get one. Even now we sometimes have to call again, which suggests that many restaurants aren't invested in the sweet course. That's probably the reason I see many unbalanced offerings: too many creamy puddings or too much chocolate, for example. I can't even estimate how many restaurants I've been to that have an ice cream component in every dessert.

This isn't the first time MB's complained about the sweet fare out here.

My suggestions for the Bauer? Well, I'd love to see him champion the desserts we DO have. Imagine if he were using his powers of suggestions to offer up examples of success rather than lambaste the options? Also, it seems like Bauer's talking to chefs about desserts but no one's talking to the diners. Chefs are picky. Chefs want to play with toys. Chefs have been making creme brulee for their entire damned career and probably want something new. True. I support all of that.

But let's flesh out the idea that Bay Area people aren't some bizarro boring-dessert lovers, shall we? I mean, Creme Brulee Cart man seems to be doing pretty well.

And let's take a second to think about the many fine bakeries in this city who do offer something a little more interesting. The continued success of places like Kara's Cupcakes proves that people will go out of their way to pay a little more money for an item that's organic and tasty (though they could use some new flavors!)

one more

oops...i forgot to tell you the best story in that last post! in a way it's about hustling, too, and in a way it's strange and sad, but i find i keep turning it over in my mind.

i have never been the sort of person to look outward for inspiration for stories, but this one, there's something about the mystery in it that i might just borrow it one day.

so, a while back i ran into someone i used to cook with. we chatted about workplaces and he gave me the rundown on who was still working at the restaurant {turnover. always} and who had moved on.

a skinny slip of a cook with intense eyes and a quietly cocky manner simply disappeared. he was married {i thought he was gay...eh...} and he left. left work. gave no notice. skipped town or not. changed the phone number or not. vanished.

i wonder if he took his possessions, his knives, his bicycle, his chefwear. i wonder if he's returned. in my mind he's on the line in some distant city, but what thoughts are possibly going through his head as he flicks the saute pan?

on a different note: i worked 32 hours in the last 3 days. give or take.

on a related note...i'm kinda totally in love with editing my manuscript. it's so scary and so wonderful. part of me wants to tell everyone i know and part of me wants to keep it all to myself. i know it's a very, very long process and i know there will be so many moments when i hate it and am discouraged and think i am not so good at this and want to go out into the world and do something else. but for right now it's such a rush...familiar yet totally not. i'm trying to trust it--the process, the voice, my skill, something. it makes me want to call up writer friends and have long intense conversations. it's somehow made writing feel new again.

it ain't where i been/but where i'm bout to go

cooks are all hustlers. if you work in a kitchen long enough, you become one. {i'm not implying we all start out that way}

maybe it's because kitchens are such transient places, and we meet at the intersections between revolving doors, the borders of stations, in the walk-in.

i've been running into cooks and other restaurant i used to work with over the last few days. the questions are always the same:

where are you working now? or me? how's that going for you?

they tell me about the jobs they want/need/left/think i should get, or vice versa. they tell me about the other people that have moved on, ask who i am still in touch with.

cooking is a tiny community in this town, and a cook worth his salt usually has his ear to the pipeline. maybe he's pulling doubles working for his friend's new place, or he knows they're hiring, and hey, you need a coupla shifts? he'll hook you up. maybe he's afraid his gig is gonna go south, and he needs the hookup.

hey, you know this place? oh i saw their ad on craigslist. you should apply.

hey, i need a good pastry person, did that girl you used to work with find something?

it's the hustle. in an unlevel playing field, information is currency--especially in this economy--and so we trade it in whispers on street corners, sliding back from the group to catch up before moving on separately.

i'll call you we say. or i'll stop by. in through the back door.

i get phone calls, occasionally. people trying to pass on information or pick up information, people trying to hustle me into something that suits us both. there's no meanness about it. it's just the game. in this town.


bacon n eggs by orin optiglot

boredom in the kitchen

I was talking to a fellow cook today about boredom. I kept checking facebook every five minutes. and twitter. I was so bored.

I'd had a pretty busy today at work before heading over to sweat a few more hours in someone else's kitchen, and a lot of orders to fill. Logically, there wasn't cause to be bored. Monday things are pretty slow, I can expect to have a short day, and since it's the end of my work week, I should expect that most things that need to happen that week have happened. I expect Mondays to be boring. But Friday...Friday would be my busiest day even if I didn't have somewhere else to be after work.

Part of it is being alone. No one to talk to. Part of it is the nature of the job.

A former line cook friend told me some time ago that if I was going to continue cooking, I needed to get used to boredom. I am sure this was in response to my complaints about having to work service during a slow night/month/season. I never liked working service (but that's another post), not least because--especially in an open kitchen, where you are constantly being watched--there is not a lot that you can do. Sure, you can start infusing that spice for an anglaise, but who is going to stand there and cook it for you if you get a ticket? Working service is, literally, waiting for the printer to spit out your tickets. Working in pastry, you are the wallflower of service, the last asked to dance.

I wanted to be busy all the time. Cakes in the oven, dough to sheet, chocolate melting over a double boiler and an infusion going. The kind of busy where you leave at the end of the day and realize that every single person eating dessert that night will be eating something that you made. You're exhausted and energized.

There'll be times when you're just chopping stuff for two hours, my friend said. Hulling strawberries. Because it needs to be done. You're going to be bored and that's part of the job.




pans by cseanburns


I shouldn't be surprised at boredom, but somehow I constantly am. Another cook once said to me that it's only after you pass through that phase {actually, in her words, it was only after you'd spent a year somewhere, but some places have steeper learning curves than others} that you begin to see under that layer to everything else going on, and you learn so much more. Take your pick of advice; get back
to me on it.

kumquats by orphanjones

the recession, thomas keller , and frank bruni

I had it on word a couple weeks ago that the French Laundry had started calling concierges in the city to let them know that Laundry reservations were available for interested clientele. Today SF Eater posted a link to an opentable Laundry resy.

In the diners journal today as well, Frank Bruni mentioned that Per Se isn't doing two full turns these days.

Ominous times upon us all. Do go the the Laundry or Per Se, if you haven't. Absolutely incredible.

In a related NYT aside, Bruni has posted several articles recently about tipping in the service industry. Personally, I tend to tip 20%, minimum 18%, unless something is wrong. Bruni's point today is that restaurants don't pay their employees enough, so it's the customer's contractual obligation to tip so that the server earns a living wage. Californians aside--where servers and bartenders make minimum wage of not more (quite often, actually, they make the same as your local line cook)--that is true. Servers do not make a living wage. But you know what, Frank Bruni? Cooks don't make a living wage. Hosts don't make a living wage. Neither do bussers, dishwashers, barbacks, baristas, night porters or sous chefs. And while the servers do tip out the bussers and the bar staff and sometimes even the dishwasher, the entire back of the house is scraping by.

Twice that I can recall some generous patron at the fancy restaurant tipped out the kitchen. At the East Coast Grille, diners have the option of buying a 6 pack of PBR for the line. at the Bi-Rite Creamery, all tips are split with the kitchen.

While it's true that a server's hourly wage isn't enough to live on, at the end of the day any front of house employee is making more money (per hour, per week, per year) than most back of house employees. If restaurants were to start passing the cost of paying a livable wage onto the customer with higher entree costs (and if you're getting good meat, it's expensive. for the curious, dessert is a great food cost item because butter and sugar and, yes, even chocolate, are a lot cheaper to turn into a $9 dessert than a good cut of lamb is to turn into a $25 entree), a nation of diners would rise up in protest. I am sure of it.

What would your $25 entree really be worth if every person who contributed, from the farmer all the way to the server, were paid a livable wage, and benefits?

eating: bad for you

It's a dangerous world out there these days. After receiving a series of complaints from diners feeling "unwell" Heston Blumenthal has temporarily closed the Fat Duck (via diners journal).

And, last week, Payard failed health inspections and was shut down for a couple days.

For a bit of good restaurant news via SF Eater, my favorite local restaurant Aziza was re-reviewed by the Bauer and given a 3.5 star rating. Mourad's food is so special, and the cocktail menu is always an exercise in interesting pairings. I find it interesting that MB comments on the white plates because, for me (unless it's changed recently) it's the beautiful Heath plates that I recall.

While there are some things I'd love to see updated, like the pastry bag squeeze-piles of dips for the flatbread mezze, the flatbread itself is pillowy and perfect, and my main courses have always been interesting, flavorful and complex.

MB's review was less flowery than usual, but leaves such nuggets as the following: "a neat pile of berries and a smear of purple sauce resembling the tail of a comet. " Oy.

a native's guide to boston

having spent the vast majority of my life in the great state of massachusetts, I am not going to tell you to do the Freedom Trail, Faneuil Hall, or any other such historical-interest thing. I can advise on where to eat, what the locals do, and how to understand them. Above all, it's best to keep in mind that New Englanders tend to keep their business to themselves and expect you to do the same. First rule of New England: Connecticut doesn't count. Neither does anything south of New York.

Should you find yourself in Boston, you can and should do the following:

museums:
*the Museum of Science is a very fun place, as is the New England Aquarium. Singlehandedly either could beat the Cal Academy of Sciences to a bloody pulp, but among the many things to enjoy count an amazing three story tank with tortoises, large sharks, and awesome fish, a retro electricity show, chicks hatching live, snake handlers, tons o' taxidermy, an otter tank, and neat views.

* the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is most famous for having Rembrandts + a Vermeer stolen and never recovered. That said it's got an amazing courtyard, great wallpaper, unique furniture, and this incredibly intimate feeling that most other museums don't.

* the MFA...I've seen and re-seen their permanent collection, which is pretty heavy on Impressionist and early American works (Winslow Homer, etc.). I still love the MFA. Their special exhibits are usually awesome also. I've seen over the years art deco, Monet, John Singer Sargent, Herb Ritts, el Greco-->Velasquez, David Hockney, the quilts of Gee's Bend, and many other exhibits.

places to eat:
*Clio (Hynes Convention Center): ken oringer. boston's foray into molecular gastronomy
*The Butcher Shop + Stir (Back Bay): barbara lynch's charcuterie and cheese shop + cookbook bookstore.
*No. 9 Park (Park St.): Barbara Lynch's original restaurant
*Oleana (Central): Ana Sortun is amazing.
*Sofra: Ana and Maura's bakery. The cookies are just incredible, and I'm not a cookie person.
*Clearflour: one of the three good bakeries, this one specializing in bread and laminates doughs.
*Hi-Rise (Harvard): my favorite of the three good bakeries, with delicious sandwiches. Do get the toast basket for breakfast and use lots of maple butter. The corn bread is excellent. If in Harvard, sit upstairs with coffee and food and feel like you're in an old timey schoolhouse.
*Sibling Rivalry (Back Bay): the brothers Kincaid duel different riffs on a shared item (a protein or veg). Everything I've had there had been quite good, and they used to have a rockstar pastry chef.
*Tealuxe (Copley/Harvard): tea and crumpets.
*Pinocchio's (Harvard): zucchini sicilian pizza, i miss you so terribly much!
*East Coast Grille (Central): now that Green St. Grille has taken a turn for the worse, East Coast reigns supreme for Carribean food, plantain goodness and fish. It gets very crowded and takes no reservations.
*Ten Tables (Stonybrook): it has only ten tables. i've heard nothing but good things.
*Craigie Street (Harvard): snooty waiters, fine French food.
*Darwin's (Harvard): sandwiches + soups for the 02138 intellectual. The Hubbard Park remains my fave sandwich, and do get some cape cod potato chips on the side.
*Redbones (Davis): pulled chicken sandwich with sweet sauce + mild sauce, and corn fritters with the bar regulars, a pint of something from the thirty beer wheel...this place sustained me through grad school!
*Helmand (Lechmere): Afghan pumpkin, eggplant, breads and delicious sauces. Get the meat, if you want, but it really isn't necessary.

places to get ice cream, and coffee:
*Herrell's (Harvard): if they have bourbon vanilla or chocolate peppermint, do indulge. The others flavors are delicious also.
*Toscanini's (Central): more purist than Herrell's (the inspiration to Ben and Jerry), people quite like the hazelnut.
*Christina's (Central): They serve malted vanilla. What more can I say? Christina's supplies plenty of restaurants (including Harvest) with fine quality ice cream.
*Espresso Royale (Copley/Hynes): your best option on Newbury, imho.
*JP Licks (Hynes/Stonybrook/Davis): my favorite for a long time was the oatmeal cookie froyo with caramel sauce. delicious. One day I was lucky enough to sample noodle kugel ice cream.
*Diesel (Davis): grad school writing dates, bright colors, and sceney lesbians.
*Dunkies: an institution that must be honored.

etc:
*The Boston Public Library (Copley) has a beautiful courtyard, John Singer Sargent murals, and now you can eat there, too.
*The Public Gardens/Boston Common (Park/Boylston/Arlington): Make Way For Ducklings + The Trumpeter Swan = YA classics.
*Fenway Park (Fenway/Kenmore): needs no introduction or explanation. Believe.
*Mt. Auburn Cemetery/Forest Hills Cemetery: Frederic Law Olmstead's cities of the dead.
*Arnold Arboretum (Forest Hills): sometimes rambling, sometimes manicured, always lovely.
*the Longfellow House (Harvard): lovely colonial house, nice gardens, vintage poet.

There are entire cities left uncovered. Harvard as an Educational Institution/Necessary Evil, or any other place of education, is unmentioned. JFK library, ditto. I make no mention of Allston, Brighton, Brookline, Southie, Dot, Roxbury, Chinatown, the North End, the suburbs, the beaches, the shopping, or the nightlife, though Somerville, JP and the South End do receive scant mention.

A couple of final tips:
1. the drivers are crazy.
2. the pedestrians are crazy.
3. dunkies is frequently a navigational tool.
4. don't mock the accent.

i have a reservation at per se for my trip to nyc in january! there is a slight chance my mom will say she's not paying THAT much money to eat lunch, and we won't go after all, but i hope not because she basically said if i could get us a resy, we could go.

they were actually the sweetest, nicest people to talk to on the phone. the reservationist i got was so happy i lived in sf, which led to to confess, "yeah i work in the industry, actually at {the restaurant} and all you guys have been coming in lately, jonathan was in a while back, hollingsworth was just in, etc, etc"

they asked up front about any dietary restrictions, etc. i said we might get the vegetables menu, because we're both picky about meat, and that was it. it's great that they ask. i don't think they ask at my restaurant. some people overprepare and tell the reservationist, but then we get lactose-intolerant vegetarians who claim to be vegan and then ask to have the chocolate dessert with ice cream (dairy + eggs).

the big question, though...what am i gonna wear?

UPDATE: the mom says yes. i'm going to per se! ::does little dance around kitchen while banging out another round of marshmallows::

walking sleep

so michael laiskonis just wrote

I've often said that the day you don't feel that pit in your stomach as you walk into work, that's the day to start looking for a new job.

and it seems that several of us are taking such stock lately.

where am i? what am i doing here? is this the right time? how exactly did i get here anyway? what can i do next? how could i have made this better? how can i make [this person] do [this necessary thing]? these are the questions that plague us while we dice, saute, roast, bake, hunt for the chinois.

is it best to cook wholly focused on that one thing. or five things, should you be capable of managing cookies and custards in the oven, a pot of dairy infusing and a caramel at the same time. {this of course implies that you have oven space and working burners for multiple projects, nevermind pots} when you are not focused you make mistakes. your pot of milk boils over and while cleaning up the spill you burn your tuiles in the oven. i find myself working with some people who can only do one thing at a time and it reminds me of when i used to work that way.

and i am so glad that i do not work that way any longer.
and i am so glad that i have the presence of mind to multitask and still hold it down (not only the what/where but the what/now).
and, yes, i still do stupid things but i admit them freely. today my pot of cream boiled over while I was organizing my jars for pot de cremes, and i was pissed that it boiled over, because i had been keeping my eye on it, but i had the presence of mind to taste the cream (was it scalded? did it taste burned in any way? no, so continue) and then measure it (7.5 cups is no longer 8 cups, so correct and proceed).

in a way i'm glad my cream boiled over a bit. i'm somehow in the position currently of trying to teach several people lots of things. it's challenging enough to be mindful of what their backgrounds all are and their skill sets, and then temper my tone or advice accordingly (like, please don't ruin that dessert for service, k thx). if i can see where i came from (yes and sometimes we need a reminder) then i can hopefully be compassionate with these people i am guiding.

because i want to be compassionate. underneath the crusty exterior. and it's hard when service is coming on or when someone commits to making a mistake and fesses up afterward (because there's that moment when you're looking your your mise, and you're thinking something isn't right, and you can decide to go ahead or you can decide to ask a question, and you don't wanna ask a question cause you made this yesterday and you've asked 20 questions today already, and so what are you sposed to do?).

it's hard when you want someone to tell you your impulse is right. it's hard when you have to tell someone their impulse is wrong, that you know they thought about it but they could have made a more informed choice. because you know they can't just think like you. because you know the reason they ask the 21st question is that they want to think like you. i've been the one so many times, saying but...but...but as if my logic, wrong though it be, is going to win me brownie points for having given a second's thought to the matter at hand.

i'm not saying i don't get it wrong any more. no, not at all. but i am glad to be where i am.

ganaches, may-november

i remember the first time i was asked to make a ganache flavor for the handmolds we do at work. i perseverated over it. should i just make some basic ganache, a 1:1 part cream and chocolate emulsion? should i add some butter to enrich it and how much? what sorts of fillings did we do in culinary school? i dutifully looked through my notebooks, copied out a recipe for some earl grey ganache (we're not allowed to use in-house tea) and substituted chicory for a honey-chicory ganache. i keep track of what we do at work and developed the following list of ganaches for handmolds or for truffles that i have made over the last six months. of course i don't make all the ganache so this is merely a sample of what's been offered. i have always enjoyed the process--i usually like anything where i have an ounce of choice--but lately i've been getting tired of the process as i don't like to repeat something, though i do and have. we're pretty low on liquor options and don't necessarily get a lot of new spices, and certainly are not special ordering something only for this purpose. i was originally going to post this and ask for suggestions of new flavors. recently i found out we're cutting back on our chocolate migniardise selection (is it the economy? is it too time consuming? ). so i guess this is in remembrance of its frequency. unless otherwise noted, ganache was made with 62, 6 or 70% valrhona. jivara lactee or ivoire otherwise.

molasses-pecan
white chocolate nepotella
white chocolate lavender
espresso
salted almond
white chocolate cardamom rose
candied pistachio
milk chocolate rosemary
white chocolate pink peppercorn
rum
orange-lavender
hazelnut
malted milk chocolate
honey
honey-chicory
white chocolate vanilla-verbena
star anise
cinnamon
milk chocolate peanut butter
rum-ginger
cardamom
vanilla-coffee
vanilla-rum
amaretto
milk chocolate lavender
grapefruit lavender
chili orange
vanilla fleur de sel

mistakes

i accidentally made granola bars today.

i accidentally made granola bars because i was mixing the granola dries with the melted butter/maple syrup in the hobart, because boss 2 prefers it that way rather than by hand. everything incorporated and then she told me to let it hang out, keep paddling. we were commiserating over the color of my meringues (still figuring out the new ovens at job 2,) when she all of a sudden yelled STOP. apparently we'd started creaming the melted butter and the brown sugar in the granola, in the process crushing the oat bits and making something too broken-down to be called granola.

i pouted. she laughed. they've actually been after us to make granola bars, she said. roll it out on sheet pans, we'll bake it. it'll be great, you'll see.

It Will Be Great Tonight When I'm Not Here Anymore, I said. Yeah I'll Laugh About It Then.

we didn't have oven space to bake them off till right before i left, so i'll see them in a couple days. it was that sort of a day. the sort of day when every diner decides to order the same dessert that you have, oh, eleven of, because you have thirteen ramekins all day. the sort of day when you're baking extra cookies in the middle of service, when you're peering at meringues that have spent all of ten minutes in the oven saying are they brown? do these looks brown to you? how could they, how could they possibly, the oven is BEYOND low it's basically OFF.

i ping pong between a restaurant with a weekly rotating menu and a new (like, bauer-spotting time) restaurant and so every day is a new calibration of what/where. it has been an interesting if thoroughly exhausting couple of weeks thus far.

things to look forward to:
doughnuts. soon-ish.
day off!
actually having time to go return my library books at the library
delicious banana bread for breakfast

list

financier batter
raspberry truffles
bake off custards
chocolate bread pudding
chocolate sformato
yogurt and pomegranate bombes
roasted pears
olive oil cake
cheesecakes
elderberry sorbet
orange-vanilla ice cream
banana ice cream
tart do
lemon verbena semifreddo

blueberry jam

That was the fun project for today. I'm not sure whether it was so satisfying to make because the color is really gorgeous, or because the texture is fun or just because blueberries are sentimental to me, but there you go.

I also processed some black raspberries for candy making, made nectarine and pluot sauces, did a sponge cake, semifreddo, made a ganache

(and it broke, but i now know how to fix it, which is very rewarding)

everpresent chocolate cookies and pastry cream, and prepped and organized lots of fruit.

we have a lot of currants. I am not sure what to do with them, but they are really exciting to look at.

True to form, I got black raspberry puree all over my coat as I tried to get it through the strainer. But at least tomorrow I can go in, make candy, and not get messy. There will be ice cream stuff to do, another cake to make, custards to prepare.

I always try to spend some extra time doing inventory on my first day back after a couple days off. Going through the ice cream bases, chocolate stock, nuts, fruits and doughs, because I know by now it's best to have a clear idea of what the week will look like.

it's going to be a long summer

it's going to be a long summer.

i'm working a five-days-in-a-row schedule. with saturdays off! and nights! which is to say, strange.

it's cool today but it's been hot and the garden has been wilty. the tomatoes flowers are ready to burst into lil tomatoes. the lettuce is loving the cool and is starting to grow.

i've spent an hour on each of the last two days trying to get the damn taylor at work to, like, work. i'll spin a base, ten try to rinse out the machine and it won't turn back on. there's no manual, of course. i took it apart 4 or 5 times. rinsed and cleaned every part of it. made sure the inside wasn't icy, or cold. some time later, say about an hour, the taylor will decide to work again. i'm not sure if there's some little thing i'm not doing right (which wouldn't make a lot of sense, but still could be) or if there is something broken with it.

i had a bonfire until 2 the other morning with the upstairs neighbors and the boys from the band, and c. crispy-toasted marshmallows, beers, and the dogs running around underfoot. too little sleep after a long hot day. it's going to be a long summer.

the kitchen was so hot. cooler, now. the freezer broke, was down for a day, and is fixed. more things are changing on the menu and we almost ran out of peaches today. i'm not sure when specifically the menu is changing which leads me to wonder what to make/not make tomorrow. but i should eat. and get things done. the garden is watered. the sunset's fogged in.

CH rant

is this why pastry chefs get the shaft? In a long review of Epic Roasthouse the original chowhound poster can only describe the dessert in the most vague terms--a butter cake, with caramel sauce. Apparently the dessert was delicious, and its taste still in the poster's mind days later, which is the goal, right, in preparing delicious desserts, but the level of description brought to the other courses was utterly lacking with respect to the last course.

Dessert. Really not an afterthought for some of us out there.

Searching around for info on the "butter cake" I find it's an almond brown butter cake with toffee sauce and blood orange curd. Their desserts actually seem quite pricy for the number of components on the plate!

What is the contract between sweet chef and sweet eater? Do we owe them better food, more diverse food, something more than warm chocolate cake and vanilla creme brulee? Do they owe us more understanding of the tricks up our sleeves, the various items of our trade, the difference between a sponge cake and a butter cake, a creme brulee and a pot de creme and a panna cotta? When will we get the same level of rapt prose discussing our endeavors as that given to any number of garde manger items, main dishes, etc?

the paco jet

is it overrated? is it wonderful? I've had a couple conversations recently about this thing and, for me, I kinda have a hard time respecting it...

At Oleana, Maura had a pacojet because chef Ana saw one on her kitchen tour of WD-50, I think it was, and determined they needed to get one. She used it for sorbet, but spun her ice creams upstairs in the office, in this old and crotchety machine they got from Toscanini's when they first opened.

{this, in itself, is commentary enough on the boston scene...everybody knows everybody else, and they are generally sort of helpful in a noncompetitive way....like, say, when you're deciding to open a bakery, too, why not get information from the owner of the (arguably) most successful bakery in town? the sf scene is, shall we say, different.}

Maura was particular about using the pacojet only for sorbets, but was vague as to the reason why. I next encountered the pacojet on a trail back in September, where I had to re-spin all the ice creams for service and was slightly terrified I'd break the thing.

I do hear that by using a pacojet for ice creams, you've got to change the nature of your base and stabilize the fuck out of it. Which feels intrinsically wrong to me. Not to mention that the cannisters are so damn small (and kinda quenelle-unfriendly, I'd say).

But then that just raises another question. What's the best quantity to produce ice cream in, for a restaurant setting. At Sonsie we'd spin about 6 quarts in some tiny ic maker with a continuous freeze chamber. So all day it'd be spin the ice cream, keep checking on it...bust out other stuff....check the ice cream, spin more ice cream...and by the end of the day we'd have gone through the batch of base. Now we spin probably the same amount, 4-6 quarts I'd say, and that goes into 2 or 3 containers and takes not-very-long to spin. and generally gets used up I'd say in about 2 weeks' time, maybe more. Hard to say.

And that just brings up another question. How does the freezer affect taste? The constant tempering and re-tempering, does it affect the quality of the ice cream? After a week or after a month? I taste all our ice creams fairly often (if not daily) because I'll use any excuse to eat ice cream and I notice sometimes the texture is different to work with/quenelle. But not the taste.

It's sort of hard to meditate on ice cream and not be able to eat some right then and there. {I have, literally, NO FOOD, in my house. like, coffee beans and half a lemon.} Perhaps tomorrow after I look at yet another apartment, I shall take myself to Maggie Mudd.

rhubarb

It wasn't strawberries this year that made me kick-start giddy into spring. It was rhubarb. We were tasked to come up with a dessert special, maybe a crisp, and suitable ice cream was made. We all brought cookbooks...rhubarb the great unknown, the pinkish vegetable, the first blush of spring. I was the only one who'd used it before.

I had never thought to peel rhubarb before but my coworker (who must've read it somewhere) told me to do so, and I had another stupid moment as I chopped the peeled rhubarb, a body memory return to last spring and the mountains of rhubarb I used for crisps and whatnot at Frog Hollow. The slices would always stick together by this fibrous membrane, and I'd curse it out and hand-separate them (or not, mood depending). But it never, ever, occurred to me to peel the thing. Genius.

So it was the body memory that got me, and then the smell. A rough earthy smell, a green smell. Not a perfume, nothing sexy. A smell of spring and beginning. It took me back to the Oakland days, to when I knew nothing and no one here. To how great it felt to finally be on my own in a kitchen and playing with whatever produce was on hand, plus the flip side of that, ignorance, the thousands of unanswered questions and uncertainties and things-left-to-learn.

Rhubarb...it smelled so new again. And like a thousand old things I'd left behind.

Maybe because of the rhubarb, maybe not, but the rest of the night was great. I was working both stations and getting enough garde manger tickets that the board was getting filled up and I needed to work quick and clean and wipe...and when the intermittent pastry ticket it was time to turn around and tend to the cakes, custards, sauces. We had a good number of dessert sales, too, and though I gave my coworker a 20 minute shot at the station because she missed it (and went off to consolidate walk-in stuffs), on the whole I was into service and had a really good rhythm going.

The whole night was like a gift. A reminder of what I am here for. I love working with food. I love the excitement and possibilities of a new dish. Especially a dish like crisp is so fraught with memories for me. I thought back to all the FH crisps that were too soggy or too stiff, the parade of peach and nectarine varietals, the experience of making 9 months' worth of crisp and having to guess the right amount of starch to balance out the liquid from the fruit. I love my coworkers. It feels like we've all been here for so long, but really it's been the blink of an eye. In September, I stood in the Oleana kitchen nervous to go back to SF and start a restaurant job with serious people and Maura said to me that all restaurants weren't like the ones I'd worked in. She promised me there were good restaurants and good people, and when you see it? It's seductive. You can try to explain it to the other people in your life, those who aren't in the industry, but they won't get it.

kitchen lit

I'm almost finished reading Marco Pierre White's The Devil in the Kitchen and I'm really enjoying it. However, for a book whose title promises sex pain AND madness I'm not finding much of any of that. He's got a temper, sure, but in the book he's very quick to explain that the verbal outrage is directed at the act, not the person. Temporary in nature. And, sure, at the time that doesn't make the verbal slap feel any better...but it reads like just another day in some chef's kitchen.

It's strange to say but he seems almost normal to me. He concentrates on describing his effort to achieve 3 michelin stars and picks away at that thorn in our side, consistency. How to achieve the same presentation with 40 diners a night as with 100? How to serve the sort of meals he wants to be serving in a small kitchen?

I remember the first time I read Kitchen Confidential I thought Anthony Bourdain was totally insane plus sexist. No One Really Does That, I was convinced. Now it's another day in the life.

Change and consistency, two sides of a coin. As much as things are supposed to be consistent, there's always change. You have to be ready to work with what you've got even if sometimes it's next to nothing. I made croutons today with a baguette because we were out of olive bread and I sold 2 out of 3 orders of what I had to start with...the flavor and the shape were compromised but something's better than nothing, even as backup. Pastrywise, we're such big planners that we tend to not run out of anything at all, but it's nice to be in touch with the idea of being flexible during service.