Done

After some lengthy consideration I informed my chef that I’ll be working through to the end of the year and then I’m done, with my last day being New Years’ Eve (not a bad last day if you ask me).

I currently have nothing lined up but am not too worried about it.  There are certainly options closer to home that I’ll be visiting in the next few weeks to drop off my resume at.

My breaking point came last week with the unilateral decision by the owner to water down the menu while also informing us that we have to cut all the line cooks down to 4 shifts per week.  For October we ran a 26% food cost and a labor cost in the 10-13% range, both of which are well below the industry standard (especially the labor cost, and we’re being asked to cut it even further?).

There’s not much left to cut other than the soul out of the restaurant, which is clearly happening already and is a sad thing indeed.  I can’t be part of purchasing pate from D’Artagnan because we don’t have the time (or staff) to make our own.  Not that it’s happened yet, but chef has threatened to do so as a big ‘fuck you’ to the owners.  And I can’t fight his battle, no matter how noble it is, because I have to devote my energy to being a better husband and dad.

But right now I’m still focused on my job, finding a new one as well as enjoying Thanksgiving and trying to enjoy the Christmas season for all the right reasons (instead of the consumerism that has taken over our culture).

A bad sign

The owner of the restaurant I work at is about to dumb down the menu. 

Pommes puree is about to become mashed potatoes, lentils de puy will just be lentils, sauce bordelaise will interestingly become veal reduction (despite the fact it isn’t, but I guess that’s beside the point).  No more beurre blanc, beurre noir or maitre d’hotel butter.  And the most laughable is the deletion of the the phrase “du jour”.  Really?

I know business is a little slow but it’s not like we’re bleeding money.  And if they hadn’t noticed, this country is still in the midst of a deep recession, despite what adminstration officials may crow.

I can only think these changes will alienate our core customers, as they already alienated most of the kitchen tonight.

And finally, it’s not as if I needed another reason to leave, but this is the final straw. 

It’s unfortunate really, but ultimately it’s the owner’s money and he can have the menu say whatever it is he wants, no matter how wrong he is.

Black box dinner – 11/16/09

The ingredients

 

Clockwise from upper left – taboule, red kuri squash, Bosc pears (I believe they were Bosc), seafood herb pack, four four-ounce portions of sockeye salmon, 12 Gulf coast shrimp (shell on), purple sweet potatoes and baby carrots.

Thought process

I really had no idea at first as to what to do, but was happy with the seasonality of the ingredients.  I knew I wanted to poach the shrimp, so headed to the freezer to get some nage out (to which I eventually added celery, the carrots pictured, parsley & chervil stems, star anise and shrimp shells, boiled for a while and then strained). 

For the salmon I was initially going to make a roasted carrot and cream sauce, but that’s too similar to a sauce we have at work, so I decided against it. 

I also knew we had the ingredients to make a modified Romesco sauce, so I set about roasting a red pepper and an onion, along with some almond slices and macadamia nuts.  Sure, Romesco calls for hazelnut, but not having that I decided to substitute the macadamias.

I also got to work on making the taboule, since I knew this would take some time.  To the taboule I added some diced pear, chervil, parsley, Banyul’s vinegar, salt and pepper. 

At this point I got the idea to make a poached pear dessert since I had two and a half pears left over (plus some homemade vanilla ice cream in the freezer).  For the poaching liquid I used some sauvignon blanc, water, sugar, two cinnamon sticks, 3 cloves, some black peppercorn and white balsamic vinegar.

I was still at a loss as to what to do with the squash, torn between dicing then sauteeing it and adding it to the taboule or making some sort of a sauce out of it.  Once the red pepper and onion were done roasting I decided to roast the squash in the oven so that I could eventually make a sauce out of it for the salmon.

And I still had those pesky purple sweet potatoes, to which I eventually sliced thin and roasted with some vegetable oil.

So here’s how it came together:

The Dishes

Poached shrimp, Romesco sauce, purple sweet potato

I served the shrimp on top of the Romesco and purple sweet potato.  I was really happy with the way this came out considering I had no idea how the sweet potato would play off the shrimp and Romesco. 

Seared Sockeye salmon, taboule with pear, roasted red kuri sauce, chervil

The sauce for the salmon was pretty easy to make – roast the squash, puree it with some cream then thin out with some of the poaching liquid from the shrimp.  For the salmon I just sauteed it in a cast iron pan to rare to medium rare.  Sockeye fillets are so thin and dry out so fast that I didn’t want to have it overcook, so I just cooked them on the stove top for maybe 2-3 minutes.  And the taboule worked pretty well for the dish, offering a nice flavor and texture contrast.

Poached pears with vanilla ice cream

There’s not much to be said for the dessert – simple yet delicious.  The only thing I’d do different would have been to save the seeds from the squash to roast/candy them to have some crunch with the dessert. 

All in all I was happy with the way things turned out though, as I think everyone else was.  The whole cooking process took no more than an hour and a half, proving that you can make really tasty meals at home in not that much time.  If I’d have known in advance what I was going to be given I probably could have had things done inside of an hour.

2009 – The year I discovered the IPA

My first job out of college – way back in 1997 – was at some shitty company whose acronym was IPA, so I was always going to be reluctant to the idea of a beer bearing the same initials.  Oh how long I’ve denied myself, because in my opinbion there’s not a better style of beer on the market.

I think my real introduction was at the Carolina Brewery in Chapel Hill, days after we moved here.  On repeat visits I’d try out there various drafts but always returned the their Flagship IPA. 

When I went to San Diego I was already on an IPA kick, and little did I know that southern California was home to so many breweries.  I was further introduced to the IPA by falling in love with Green Flash and Blind Pig by Russian River Brewing Company.  Interestingly enough I didn’t have the Stone IPA while out there – that was a more recent discovery I had here in Chapel Hill.  I was able to find the Green Flash on a visit to Tyler’s Tap Room but on a subsequent visit it was no longer on the menu.

Ultimately I enjoy the rich flavor – I suppose the hoppiness.

For a history of the IPA, click here.

And if you’re interested, I currently have the Sweetwater and Lagunitas stocked in my fridge.

Instead of bringing the wine, why don’t you bring the food?

For some time now, Erin and I along with another couple have discussed the idea of me cooking dinner for for the four of us using a black box/Iron Chef (without the competition) type set up.  The idea is that they’ll bring the ingredients, hand them over to me, and I’ll cook.  Of course I’ll have no clue as to what the ingredients are in advance.

The rules are pretty straightforward – I can use anything we have in our pantry, fridge and freezer.  Which reminds me – I need to buy some butter.

The first of these nights will be next Monday, and I’m looking forward to it.  Hopefully there will be some interesting stuff to work with.

The worst decision I made this year

Back in the late spring/early summer period Erin asked me if I was interested in the sous chef job that was open at that time, or if I would ever be interested.  At the time I replied no for a couple of reasons, the first being that the structure of the company is more corporate, with layers of management – a scenario I know hasn’t worked out for me in the past.

A few later I was approached about the sous chef job after I’d already had a discussion with the chef about it.  I was tired and worn down at the time - Erin was still in the hospital with postpartum depression at the time, we clearly had mounting medical bills and I’d already missed a couple of weeks of work while on an hourly rate.  So I agreed to do it.

After two and a half months of being a sous chef I can say firmly I just don’t like my job, for all of the reasons I thought I wouldn’t.  It’s not that I don’t want to be a sous chef or more, it’s just not for this company or at this restaurant.

I recognize the fact that bullshit is going to exist wherever I end up, but I’m done with the fact that I get reprimanded for shit that happens on days when I’m off, or for shit well out of my control, especially when the other sous chef hears none of it.

Another thing well out of their control is that I’m tired of the commute which has turned into a 30 minute drive of dread.  All I can wonder is what am I going to walk into, what didn’t somebody do or what has someone fucked up.  Or are 150 people all going to be sat at once while I’m on expo (which happened to me this past Friday without any warning). 

There’s plenty of restaurants considerably closer to our home that are just as good (and in some cases better), and honestly I just want to see more of Erin and Nate right now.

Fortunately the situation isn’t anything like it was a year ago for me when I had to escape the asylum I was working at that then.  The food is good and the line cooks I get to work with are, for the most part, good people.  If I was still at the line cook level I could stay for a while longer, but as a sous chef I’ve gotta go.

Playing Dad at work

I’m slowly beginning to dislike Wednesdays.  They’re my first day back after two days off, and my day starts at 10:45 and ends about the same time 12 hours later.  And for both shifts I’m expo.

But yesterday may have been the most annoying, until I crossed over and worked the line because we had some big parties.  For a while during the evening service I was dealt the usual barrage of inane bullshit questions.  Like “I have a customer who wants a quiche Lorraine, can we do that?”. 

“No”, with a shake of the head without even looking up was my response.  After dealing with shit like that for an hour or so I was then informed that the bartender had cut herself and was told/requested to go deal with it.  She was in the office and cut herself with a serrated knife.  At first it looked pretty bad, really bad in fact.  But I got her to wash her hand off and as it turned out she cut through two of her fingernails.  No doubt extremely painful, but that’s what nails are for.  I made her sit down in the office so she wouldn’t pass out while I wrapped her fingers in bandaids and then gave her some finger cots for the rest of her shift (from my own supply since the restaurant I work at doesn’t have a first-aid kit – what the fuck is that by the way?)

After dealing with the bartender’s fingers, we fortunately got busy enough that I had to jump over and assist on the line.  Thank god, I was so sick of hearing my own name at this point and was all too happy just to work the line.  So that’s what I did for a while, until it died down some and then I was fortunate enough to place orders and do some adminstrative stuff so that I didn’t have to stand around and handle bullshit questions.

And now I’m gearing up to expo tomorrow night, only this time we have a full line and there’s no way out of it.

Time change

Parents and pet owners are all aware of this, but the time change is really not much fun, especially with a 3 month old, a dog and a cat.

This morning all three were up and at ‘em at about 4 in the morning, each looking for their breakfast.  Erin was so tired that she buried her head under a pillow, which left me to deal with it all.  

The animals dealt with things far better than Nate, who was having none of this “I’m so tired, just wait one more hour”.  He wanted to be fed, now.  So I fed him while the animals looked on at the injustice of it all, no doubt wondering “Where the fuck is mine, asshole?”.  And then he spit up all over my shirt before going back to sleep.  Nothing says “Thanks Dad” like fresh spit up.

Everyone survived the morning however, though I can’t say I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning.

An interesting scenario

I just read this article in the Chicago Tribune about a guy who (2 years ago) was given the wrong sandwich by Jimmy John’s and went into anaphylactic shock.

The article fails to point out whether or not they customer informed Jimmy John’s of his allergies – a crucial piece of information.  If he did inform them then clearly they were neglectful and should cover the his medical expenses, to say the least.

However I’m of the mindset that if he didn’t inform them of  clearly a very serious food allergy and stupidly put a sandwich into his mouth without examination, then he’s at fault and no payment should be made.

I work at a restaurant that each day has at least one customer with a food allergy walk through the door that we’re made aware of.  Once we’re made aware of an allergy, clearly the onus is on us to not send the customer to the hospital, even if that means that there are only a handful of menu options available.

In this case I tend to think that the customer is at fault for not notifying the restaurant of his allergy.  At most he should get a refund for having the wrong sandwich delivered.

Breakage

The funniest thing I’ve seen in a while is a sign at work informing the front of the house staff that if they break it, they buy it (when it comes to wine glasses).

The restaurant has been open for just about a year now, and they break on average 3 wine glasses a day – that’s nearly 1100 wine glasses that have been broken.  One of the main culprits is one of the back waits who has been known on more than one occasion to wipe out 10 or 20 at a time.  The guy may as well take out a loan if he wants to continue working there.

And you know what?  The new policy is working.  I’ve worked three nights in a row now and not one glass has been broken.