ZEN!!! Scriptures (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small} dj_zen) wrote,@ 2005-06-06 07:06:00 |
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Long Time No See
Listening: Closer to my dreams. ...
Long Time No See
Listening: Closer to my dreams. I'm goin higher and higher. I ain't gonna sleep. Sometimes you just have to let it go. Leaving all my fears to burn down. Push them away so I can move on.
It's been over a month since I have posted. It's not for lack of trying or lack of anything to say. I wrote a half a post about a few weeks ago, encompassing Chez Henri's first prize win at the Edible Art charity event/competition, and some other personal happenings. The truth is that I have been working about seventy hours a week between the Corporation and the restaurant. The free time that I have had, I have used to rest, to spend with friends and to decompress.
As of late, my life has been pretty damn good. I have been working hard, getting my butt kicked, but it's all in the name of advancing where I want to be in life. There was an across the board menu change at the restaurant, so I have four new dishes to learn, in addition to a number of new sauces. I feel like in some ways, I have taken on some new responsibilities at the restaurant in lieu of some others. Suddenly, I feel like I am considered to be the senior cook on the garde manger station. I get mad amounts of respect from all of the chefs. I am trusted to do things and and to make sure they're done right. It's a good feeling to feel like people in your place of business think that you're doing a good job even when you feel as if you're performing like shit. The don't fault me for going slow when I do. Jarred told me that it comes with time and that if I had been working full time and was six months in, that I wouldn't even be that fast. He says that when you cook for a while, you develope this amazing manual dexterity. I hope I develop it soon, because I feel like I need it.
Also in the realm of the restaurant, the kitchen has finally begun to be scorchingly hot. It's only been up to eighty degrees outside, but the kitchen has just been incredibly hot. I've had to wear headbands to keep the sweat out of my eyes and out of food. I just noticed that I have a heat rash on my shoulders where my chef's coat touched my back. Mark was dripping with sweat yesterday as he was working the grill. I can only imagine how hot it will get in there when the temperature outside reaches a hundred degrees.
On other news, Fester and I ran our second annual Memorial Day Weekend tasting dinner a week ago. This time, though, we added Emeril as a third cook. In attendance were Booch, THE Hustler, Glare Hulk, Harley, Carpenter, Photogenic, Whisper and my brother. The menu was as follows: Duck Rillets served on endive as the passed hors doerves, seared fois gras on port wine poached pears with a port wine and shallot reduction and balsamic vinegar as the appetizer, vichysoisse as the soup, cornish game hen with a vermouth dijon sauce, grilled polenta, grilled baby onion and sauteed fiddleheads as the entree, a selection of three cheeses as the cheese course, a mixed green salad of watercress, peapod tendrils, and frisee dressed with a citrus vinegarette on cucumber carpaccio dressed with a dill dressing and fleur de sel. Our crowning achievement, by far was the dessert. The dessert was a dense sour cream chocolate cake and a lemon panna cotta served with lime whipped cream, raspberry sauce, and candied lemon zest with a chocolate doo-dad as a garnish. It was so amazing. The entire dinner went off wonderfully. I think that everyone really enjoyed themselves.
There was really only one mishap to speak of and it was really all because of me. We had the dinner in the function room of my old building. It's a pretty nice room, but it has one flaw that I neglected to note. The hood above the range doesn't actually venthilate anywhere. It blows in the bottom and out the top, back into the room. Now, as some of you might know, fois gras has a very high fat content, which means that it has a very low smoking point. In order to sear the fois, I have to have a reasonably hot pan. I, being the fois gras chef virgin, had my pans up a little bit too high, so my fois started to smoke immediately. I had three pans going as well. So, the smoke just came billowing out the top of the hood and into the smoke detector, which was hard wired to the entire building's fire alarms and the fire department. So the fire department had to come to shut down the alarm and the whole building was evacuated. I felt like a little bit of a dolt, but both my friends and my fellow chefs at the dinner and at the restaurant assured me that it was fine. But that was the only botched part of the dinner.
In other news, the rest of my life seems to be going fine. Work has gotten easier at the Corporation. I have had more time during the day instead of having all of the most difficult work.
I've gone out on two dates with a girl who I really like. I met her at a benefit and then I saw her at Soul Revival. About a month and a half ago, we started e-mailing. We kept saying that we had to have lunch "sometime" because we worked so close to each other. After e-mailing for a period of time, we ended up having a two hour lunch in Chinatown. I have never had such a good time on a lunch date ever. I've had a number of lunch dates, but in this one, the conversation never dropped. We talked about everything from music to food to art and work. I had a great time. And over the past few weeks, we haven't been able to get together until just this past Friday. We had ice cream, walked around the common and then I walked her home to Central Square. It was a good time and I can't wait to see her again. The only thing is that I can't read her. I have trouble reading women on the whole, unless they're furious with me. I'm just going to continue to be me and hope that something pans out. But bottom line is that I want to see her again.
Lately, I have been trying to figure out what to do with my two to two and a half weeks of vacation that I have booked in August. Airfares are really very expensive right now, and my two friends bailed out of going to Dance Valley with me due to financial and conveniece reasons. So I am at a crossroads as to what I want to do. Ideally, I would run around Europe for a few weeks eating and living on a shoe string. However, I would also consider doing that in Asia as well. I've tossed around the idea of going on an organized culinary tours and even just going to a resort to relax. Regardless, I'll need to relax by then. Working seven days a week for two long probably isn't too good for one's health. I've been thinking about trying to find a restaurant to stage at in Europe for a few weeks. I don't know how feasible that is, but if anyone has any connetions for me out there, it would be much appreciated if I could do a little bit of networking with you.
Finally, it's three in the morning and I have just finished watching the movie Spanglish. I have to admit that when I first saw the trailers for the movie, I thought it was going to be pretty dumb. Adam Sandler tends to do comedic roles that are very slapstick, and the movie itself looked like a chick flick. So, naturally, I saw a mismatch in my brain which triggered the thought "It's gonna suck." I was so wrong. It was a fantastic movie, one that I would consider owning. Adam Sandler plays a chef, which hits close to home, and the plot is very good. There are a couple of key scenes that really were very powerful. I highly recommend this movie. It's a quality use of two hours.
Anyways, it's time for me to go to sleep. Hopefully, it won't be another month before I post again. I miss writing, but when push comes to shove, I would much rather live my life than write about my life. It's a rare thing, where I am so busy and satisfied with my life that I don't necessarily feel the need to blog about every moment of my life. It doesn't mean that I won't write or that I won't try to write. It's just that it's not as big of a priority as it once was. So I hope to hear from you all and I hope you all hear from me in the near future.
Long Time No See
Listening: Closer to my dreams. I'm goin higher and higher. I ain't gonna sleep. Sometimes you just have to let it go. Leaving all my fears to burn down. Push them away so I can move on.
It's been over a month since I have posted. It's not for lack of trying or lack of anything to say. I wrote a half a post about a few weeks ago, encompassing Chez Henri's first prize win at the Edible Art charity event/competition, and some other personal happenings. The truth is that I have been working about seventy hours a week between the Corporation and the restaurant. The free time that I have had, I have used to rest, to spend with friends and to decompress.
As of late, my life has been pretty damn good. I have been working hard, getting my butt kicked, but it's all in the name of advancing where I want to be in life. There was an across the board menu change at the restaurant, so I have four new dishes to learn, in addition to a number of new sauces. I feel like in some ways, I have taken on some new responsibilities at the restaurant in lieu of some others. Suddenly, I feel like I am considered to be the senior cook on the garde manger station. I get mad amounts of respect from all of the chefs. I am trusted to do things and and to make sure they're done right. It's a good feeling to feel like people in your place of business think that you're doing a good job even when you feel as if you're performing like shit. The don't fault me for going slow when I do. Jarred told me that it comes with time and that if I had been working full time and was six months in, that I wouldn't even be that fast. He says that when you cook for a while, you develope this amazing manual dexterity. I hope I develop it soon, because I feel like I need it.
Also in the realm of the restaurant, the kitchen has finally begun to be scorchingly hot. It's only been up to eighty degrees outside, but the kitchen has just been incredibly hot. I've had to wear headbands to keep the sweat out of my eyes and out of food. I just noticed that I have a heat rash on my shoulders where my chef's coat touched my back. Mark was dripping with sweat yesterday as he was working the grill. I can only imagine how hot it will get in there when the temperature outside reaches a hundred degrees.
On other news, Fester and I ran our second annual Memorial Day Weekend tasting dinner a week ago. This time, though, we added Emeril as a third cook. In attendance were Booch, THE Hustler, Glare Hulk, Harley, Carpenter, Photogenic, Whisper and my brother. The menu was as follows: Duck Rillets served on endive as the passed hors doerves, seared fois gras on port wine poached pears with a port wine and shallot reduction and balsamic vinegar as the appetizer, vichysoisse as the soup, cornish game hen with a vermouth dijon sauce, grilled polenta, grilled baby onion and sauteed fiddleheads as the entree, a selection of three cheeses as the cheese course, a mixed green salad of watercress, peapod tendrils, and frisee dressed with a citrus vinegarette on cucumber carpaccio dressed with a dill dressing and fleur de sel. Our crowning achievement, by far was the dessert. The dessert was a dense sour cream chocolate cake and a lemon panna cotta served with lime whipped cream, raspberry sauce, and candied lemon zest with a chocolate doo-dad as a garnish. It was so amazing. The entire dinner went off wonderfully. I think that everyone really enjoyed themselves.
There was really only one mishap to speak of and it was really all because of me. We had the dinner in the function room of my old building. It's a pretty nice room, but it has one flaw that I neglected to note. The hood above the range doesn't actually venthilate anywhere. It blows in the bottom and out the top, back into the room. Now, as some of you might know, fois gras has a very high fat content, which means that it has a very low smoking point. In order to sear the fois, I have to have a reasonably hot pan. I, being the fois gras chef virgin, had my pans up a little bit too high, so my fois started to smoke immediately. I had three pans going as well. So, the smoke just came billowing out the top of the hood and into the smoke detector, which was hard wired to the entire building's fire alarms and the fire department. So the fire department had to come to shut down the alarm and the whole building was evacuated. I felt like a little bit of a dolt, but both my friends and my fellow chefs at the dinner and at the restaurant assured me that it was fine. But that was the only botched part of the dinner.
In other news, the rest of my life seems to be going fine. Work has gotten easier at the Corporation. I have had more time during the day instead of having all of the most difficult work.
I've gone out on two dates with a girl who I really like. I met her at a benefit and then I saw her at Soul Revival. About a month and a half ago, we started e-mailing. We kept saying that we had to have lunch "sometime" because we worked so close to each other. After e-mailing for a period of time, we ended up having a two hour lunch in Chinatown. I have never had such a good time on a lunch date ever. I've had a number of lunch dates, but in this one, the conversation never dropped. We talked about everything from music to food to art and work. I had a great time. And over the past few weeks, we haven't been able to get together until just this past Friday. We had ice cream, walked around the common and then I walked her home to Central Square. It was a good time and I can't wait to see her again. The only thing is that I can't read her. I have trouble reading women on the whole, unless they're furious with me. I'm just going to continue to be me and hope that something pans out. But bottom line is that I want to see her again.
Lately, I have been trying to figure out what to do with my two to two and a half weeks of vacation that I have booked in August. Airfares are really very expensive right now, and my two friends bailed out of going to Dance Valley with me due to financial and conveniece reasons. So I am at a crossroads as to what I want to do. Ideally, I would run around Europe for a few weeks eating and living on a shoe string. However, I would also consider doing that in Asia as well. I've tossed around the idea of going on an organized culinary tours and even just going to a resort to relax. Regardless, I'll need to relax by then. Working seven days a week for two long probably isn't too good for one's health. I've been thinking about trying to find a restaurant to stage at in Europe for a few weeks. I don't know how feasible that is, but if anyone has any connetions for me out there, it would be much appreciated if I could do a little bit of networking with you.
Finally, it's three in the morning and I have just finished watching the movie Spanglish. I have to admit that when I first saw the trailers for the movie, I thought it was going to be pretty dumb. Adam Sandler tends to do comedic roles that are very slapstick, and the movie itself looked like a chick flick. So, naturally, I saw a mismatch in my brain which triggered the thought "It's gonna suck." I was so wrong. It was a fantastic movie, one that I would consider owning. Adam Sandler plays a chef, which hits close to home, and the plot is very good. There are a couple of key scenes that really were very powerful. I highly recommend this movie. It's a quality use of two hours.
Anyways, it's time for me to go to sleep. Hopefully, it won't be another month before I post again. I miss writing, but when push comes to shove, I would much rather live my life than write about my life. It's a rare thing, where I am so busy and satisfied with my life that I don't necessarily feel the need to blog about every moment of my life. It doesn't mean that I won't write or that I won't try to write. It's just that it's not as big of a priority as it once was. So I hope to hear from you all and I hope you all hear from me in the near future.
