It's a good thing that growing and being allowed to grow on your own is something we are privileged with. In hindsight, I think a lot of people would agree that we were all arrogant, ignorant, selfish, lame and (here it comes) disrespectful coming up as teenagers. And this is definitely something that bleeds through in young adulthood. But! If you have a good head on your shoulders, you realize how grateful you should be of the people who helped you and maintain you along the way.
Let's cut to the part where this correlates to cooking very quickly so I don't sound like quite the drunk softy I am. And this will go in side by side descriptions.
It is currently 3:13 a.m. in the morning. I am sitting at a computer in my parents house in the suburbs of Houston. I just got through smoking a cigarette in my parents progressively modified backyard. At the end of my smoke I threw my cancer stick, as I normally would, in whichever direction and proceeded to head to the back door hoping not to make to much noise. On my way in I stopped. I felt guilty for trashing the, ultimately, microscopic portion of the backyard my dad works to maintain and be proud of.
***Enter food correlation***
Very recently at work I had forgotten to store a rare and exclusive fish properly. For those who identify... it was a scorpion fish. The man who brings our fish to us is a very endearing and extremely knowledgeable Greek (correct me if I'm wrong) named Frikso. We are extremely appreciative of this man at my restaurant for the work, quality, care and love he puts into his work. Not to mention his reciprocation in endearment for our restaurant and the respect with which we handle his product. The beautiful white and meaty scorpion I failed to store properly, turned opaque and ghostly looking, thus leaving it unappealing and not worth serving. While I did catch a well deserved amount of verbal lashings, after a good moments thought, that wasn't my main concern.
I started to think about Frikso and his work. I certainly didn't catch that fish myself. I felt as though I had completely shit on his hard work, sweat and dedication. Granted I don't know if he is the one who specifically extracts the fish from water or not is not the point. While a great deal of restaurants get their fish from large trucks frozen and in lame boxes, we at Stella get ours from a crazy amazing Greek man in hand delivered ice chests from the back of his foul smelling 02' suburban at ungodly late hours of the night. If I need to draw out the reason and rhyme as to why you would need to RESPECT this mans antics, then you probably shouldn't be reading this.
This is just one of the few bigger lessons I'm learning in this game. Needless to say, I haven't stored a fish improperly since, and I also picked up that cigarette butt from the grass in threw it in the proper disposal container.
Love
Jay
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
no clever name for respect.
It's a good thing that growing and being allowed to grow on your own is something we are privileged with. In hindsight, I think a lot of people would agree that we were all arrogant, ignorant, selfish, lame and (here it comes) disrespectful coming up as teenagers. And this is definitely something bleeds through in young adulthood. But! If you have a good head on your shoulders, you realize how grateful you should be of the people who helped you and maintain you.
Let's cut to the part where this correlates to cooking very quick like so I don't sound like quite the drunk softy I am. And this will go in side by side descriptions.
It is currently 3:13 a.m. in the morning. I am sitting at a computer in my parents house in the suburbs of Houston where I was born and raised. I just got through smoking a cigarette in my parents progressively modified backyard. At the end of my smoke I threw my cancer stick, as I normally would, in whichever direction and proceeded to head to the back door hoping not to make to much noise. On my way in I stopped. I felt guilty for trashing the, ultimately, microscopic portion of the backyard my dad works to maintain and be proud of.
***Enter food correlation***
Very recently at work I had forgotten to store a rare and exclusive fish properly. For those who identify... it was a scorpion fish. The man who brings our fish to us is a very endearing and extremely knowledgeable Greek (correct me if I'm wrong) named Frikso. We are extremely appreciative of this man at my restaurant for the work, quality, care and love he puts into his work. Not to mention his reciprocation in endearment for our restaurant and the respect with which we handle his product. The beautiful white and meaty scorpion I failed to store properly turned opaque and ghostly looking, thus leaving it unappealing and not worth serving. While I did catch an appropriate and deserved amount of verbal lashings, after a good moments thought, that wasn't my main concern.
I started to think about Frikso and his work. I certainly didn't catch that fish myself. I felt as though I had completely shit on his hands and his hard sweat and dedication. Granted I don't know if he is the one who specifically extracts the fish from water or not just yet is not the point. While a great deal of restaurants get their fish from large trucks frozen and in lame boxes, we at Stella get ours from a crazy amazing Greek man in hand delivered ice chests from the back of his foul smelling 02' suburban at ungodly late hours of the night. If I need to draw out the reason and rhyme as to why you would need to RESPECT this mans product, then you probably shouldn't be reading this.
This is just one of the few bigger lessons I'm learning in this game. Needless to say, I haven't stored a fish improperly since, and I also picked up that cigarette butt from the grass in threw it in the proper disposal container.
Love
Jay
Let's cut to the part where this correlates to cooking very quick like so I don't sound like quite the drunk softy I am. And this will go in side by side descriptions.
It is currently 3:13 a.m. in the morning. I am sitting at a computer in my parents house in the suburbs of Houston where I was born and raised. I just got through smoking a cigarette in my parents progressively modified backyard. At the end of my smoke I threw my cancer stick, as I normally would, in whichever direction and proceeded to head to the back door hoping not to make to much noise. On my way in I stopped. I felt guilty for trashing the, ultimately, microscopic portion of the backyard my dad works to maintain and be proud of.
***Enter food correlation***
Very recently at work I had forgotten to store a rare and exclusive fish properly. For those who identify... it was a scorpion fish. The man who brings our fish to us is a very endearing and extremely knowledgeable Greek (correct me if I'm wrong) named Frikso. We are extremely appreciative of this man at my restaurant for the work, quality, care and love he puts into his work. Not to mention his reciprocation in endearment for our restaurant and the respect with which we handle his product. The beautiful white and meaty scorpion I failed to store properly turned opaque and ghostly looking, thus leaving it unappealing and not worth serving. While I did catch an appropriate and deserved amount of verbal lashings, after a good moments thought, that wasn't my main concern.
I started to think about Frikso and his work. I certainly didn't catch that fish myself. I felt as though I had completely shit on his hands and his hard sweat and dedication. Granted I don't know if he is the one who specifically extracts the fish from water or not just yet is not the point. While a great deal of restaurants get their fish from large trucks frozen and in lame boxes, we at Stella get ours from a crazy amazing Greek man in hand delivered ice chests from the back of his foul smelling 02' suburban at ungodly late hours of the night. If I need to draw out the reason and rhyme as to why you would need to RESPECT this mans product, then you probably shouldn't be reading this.
This is just one of the few bigger lessons I'm learning in this game. Needless to say, I haven't stored a fish improperly since, and I also picked up that cigarette butt from the grass in threw it in the proper disposal container.
Love
Jay
Monday, August 15, 2011
Time is on the other side
I had always been slightly informed about just how demanding the culinary industry can be from mentors, peers, books and the like. To know what it is and how it is are two completely different things. When you first start out, you can try to blend two lives together. There's your work life and your outside life. And it does work for a while. But the farther down the rabbit hole you go, the more your outside life fades and your work life is at the forefront. This is not to say that this doesn't happen in other career paths or other peoples lives, but I'm most confident when I say that rarely will you find other industries that demand as much time, attention, and dedication.
Before you assume that I'm bitching about how much I don't get to spend time to myself and what not, allow me to stop you there and reaffirm that I acknowledge this to be a fact and that to be the best and to fully satisfy ones needs to put out a product you can be proud of, theres no choice but to be fully dedicated. Now, while it does sometimes seem overly consuming, it is equally as gratifying to study and be knowledgable on food science and the way foods interact with eachother. If you ask my mom, I never used to study in school. I never thought there was a point to it. Although I would sound cooler at a coffee shop round table talking about history and politics, that wasn't something I necessarily gave two shits about. With food... its just different. For the first time, I'm not learning to try and impress someone or to pass a standardized test. I'm actually anxious to learn for my own betterment and so as not to hit mental road blocks in my everyday work and to be able to experiment. It's in this endless blazing inferno of knowledge that is the culinary world, that I think a lot of my time goes. It might be sitting around with my cook friends with billions of bottles of booze ranting about braising techniques, oven temps and results, types of fish etc.. It could be digesting hours of books that you cant take your eyes away from, or just staying after work off the clock to learn and discuss how to do some shit. One of my best cook friends put it to me this way, "If you really want to cook, be ready to put your head down, not look up and not regret all the things you didn't get to enjoy". It reminds me most of the first time I dove off the board into the deep end of the neighborhood pool. Head first into the deep end trusting that the skills I've learned will bring me up for a breath of air. Triumphant.
I've been happily employed at Stella Sola for about 3 months now. I've learned a great deal about pickling. The possibilites are endless! My favorite thus far is the solution we use for asparagus. I'm not sure that I have it down exactly to the T. But that's the point, you don't have to.
1 bunch Asparagus
3 part white distilled vinegar
2 part water
1 part sugar
black pepper corn
dill
fennel seed
cardomom
jalapenos
shallots
bay leaf
Adjust all spice levels to your taste. Bring all ingredients minus asparagus to a rolling boil. In a deep container with enough head room to cover the asparagus with about 3 inches head room, pour the hot liquid over the asparagus through a china cap or seive to keep out all the used up spices. weight down the asparagus with a few plates or something big and heavy enough to fit in the container and cover up. let it cool down to room temp on its own. done! Makes a dope substitute for pickles on a barbecue plate or use it for whatever.
Before you assume that I'm bitching about how much I don't get to spend time to myself and what not, allow me to stop you there and reaffirm that I acknowledge this to be a fact and that to be the best and to fully satisfy ones needs to put out a product you can be proud of, theres no choice but to be fully dedicated. Now, while it does sometimes seem overly consuming, it is equally as gratifying to study and be knowledgable on food science and the way foods interact with eachother. If you ask my mom, I never used to study in school. I never thought there was a point to it. Although I would sound cooler at a coffee shop round table talking about history and politics, that wasn't something I necessarily gave two shits about. With food... its just different. For the first time, I'm not learning to try and impress someone or to pass a standardized test. I'm actually anxious to learn for my own betterment and so as not to hit mental road blocks in my everyday work and to be able to experiment. It's in this endless blazing inferno of knowledge that is the culinary world, that I think a lot of my time goes. It might be sitting around with my cook friends with billions of bottles of booze ranting about braising techniques, oven temps and results, types of fish etc.. It could be digesting hours of books that you cant take your eyes away from, or just staying after work off the clock to learn and discuss how to do some shit. One of my best cook friends put it to me this way, "If you really want to cook, be ready to put your head down, not look up and not regret all the things you didn't get to enjoy". It reminds me most of the first time I dove off the board into the deep end of the neighborhood pool. Head first into the deep end trusting that the skills I've learned will bring me up for a breath of air. Triumphant.
I've been happily employed at Stella Sola for about 3 months now. I've learned a great deal about pickling. The possibilites are endless! My favorite thus far is the solution we use for asparagus. I'm not sure that I have it down exactly to the T. But that's the point, you don't have to.
1 bunch Asparagus
3 part white distilled vinegar
2 part water
1 part sugar
black pepper corn
dill
fennel seed
cardomom
jalapenos
shallots
bay leaf
Adjust all spice levels to your taste. Bring all ingredients minus asparagus to a rolling boil. In a deep container with enough head room to cover the asparagus with about 3 inches head room, pour the hot liquid over the asparagus through a china cap or seive to keep out all the used up spices. weight down the asparagus with a few plates or something big and heavy enough to fit in the container and cover up. let it cool down to room temp on its own. done! Makes a dope substitute for pickles on a barbecue plate or use it for whatever.
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