Fraternity Kitchen

Fall

Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

It’s a food porn thing, I know. I opened the boxes of butternut squash and parsnips today and I thought they were beautiful. I roasted them with brown sugar, cinnamon and cayenne and I didn’t tell the guys it was “squash and parsnips.” They wouldn’t understand. But they kept coming into the kitchen to ask what smelled so good. Later, Kyle told me that his dad is going to send some bosc pears from their farm. Bosc pears. I was entranced as he added “there are a lot of great salads you could do. And maybe some special cheeses…” It’s so cute when these guys talk food.

Real Food

Saturday, September 27th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

Last Wednesday I received emails from people who have found my blog. One was from “John,” a fraternity chef at MIT who cooks dinner-only for two houses. No lunch distraction and no whining about “sandwiches again!?” for him. His email was entitled “I like your web page” which thrilled me because of the source…he’s a real chef from only one of the most prestigious schools in the country. He had previously been the Executive Chef at a university cooking for 8,000 students, so I’m sure he’s come across a few horrible mass-quantity creations. Just for kicks, I sometimes search “institutional recipes” to remind myself of why I’m doing this. Recipes like “Day Before Casserole” (less nauseating I suppose than “Day After Casserole”) make me wonder how much canned spaghetti sauce and processed cheese one can take before exploding from the salt content. I will admit that I prepare a couple of dishes containing cream of mushroom soup (I know, embarassing) but for the most part I try to use natural ingredients. When my guys say “I love your food,” what they’re really saying is “I love that you aren’t serving us ‘industrial food-like substances.’”And the truth is, the simplest stuff gets the most praise. In his email, John referred to creativity and a passion for cooking, so I’m hoping he and others out there like him will keep me honest because sometimes it is so tempting to just put frozen lasagna in the oven and go get a massage.

Official Visitors

Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

We had a visit from the fire department today, but it wasn’t like the visits they make to elementary schools where Fireman Friendly shows off his big shiny truck. Johnny gave me the news that “the fire department is here and they’re pissed.” Apparently some of the guys had smelled gas and one of them had called 911, then headed off to class leaving the cook to talk to the officials. Now, I suppose calling 911 and splitting wasn’t prudent, but their hearts were in the right place and really it’s not as if college boys would ever engage in prankster behavior. I didn’t know who exactly had made the call and I felt a little like the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe as I swore to the officer that I just didn’t know who they needed to talk to …”I have so many children I don’t know what to do, I’ll give them some broth without any bread and I’ll whip them all soundly and send them to bed.” Joey takes the cover boy spot today, not because he had anything to do with today’s events, but because he’s been lobbying hard for the role and I didn’t want to push my luck with the firemen by pulling out my camera.

Dinner tonight was Chicken with Sundried Tomato Garlic Crust, a favorite here that I adapted from a Bon Appetit recipe. The first step in the cooking process is to brown the skin-on breasts and when you do 80 of those, it fills the House with the smell of fried chicken. Then while they bake, there’s the heady aroma of rosemary, garlic and chicken-juice soaked breadcrumbs Like pot roast, it’s one of those “can’t go wrong” choices. For the cooks who read my blog (and I learned last night that there really are some), I will post the recipe.

Party Time

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

I know it may surprise those who know me as an intelligent and interesting person, but this picture represents the most exciting part of my day. This fabulous new cabinet arrived to replace the crappy little table that used to hold the cereal containers and that used to regularly go missing for “party games” in the basement. This would happen not only with the cereal table but the food line tables as well (and they are next in line for the cabinet treatment). This missing table thing has been a major tantrum trigger and the 300 lb cabinet is the answer, after finding that even tying heavy duty chains with padlocks around the tables wasn’t enough to stop the theivery. I am reminded of my posting about advice for new fraternity cooks…you can’t change their behavior, so work around it. After giving up on trying to lock my freezer in the basement, I just posted this friendly reminder:

Writing this blog has helped me to keep these things in perspective. One has a choice about how one deals with the little stresses in life like finding a six-pack in the freezer exploded all over the interior when one barely has time to put food in the freezer let alone clean stuff out. One can decide that it’s all just great blog material.

Perry

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | daily | No Comments

This is my favorite of several pictures I took of Derek, one of the new pledges. I love the way it just proves that frat boys are a bunch of irresponsible, beer swilling morons.
Perry came to see me today. Before he graduated in June, he had been the VP of the House, a job he once described as “keeping Darlene happy.” I’ve noticed that subsequent candidates for the position pause…they want the title on their resume, the nicer room, the parking spot, but…that dealing with the Kitchen Bitch part. Hmmm. Perry majored in business and is finally realizing that bussing tables at Ivar’s is not a career, so he’s suiting up and submitting to serious interviews. With the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression engulfing us all this week, jobs for business majors should be plentiful. But then what do I know–an English major cooking in a fraterntiy house.

Meat

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

I imagine some of the guys were expecting a picture I took today of them shirtless and buff in the basement to be the cover photo accompanying this post, but no, it’s not that kind of blog. At the end of last year, Rod from US Foodservice showed me a pie chart of our expenditures by food type, and, oh, my imagine that…110% of the budget went to meat. There is nothing (that I know of) that will get these guys smiling more than the smell of searing flesh. When meat hits the flat-top, the scent fills the entire House and they become like my little zombie children. I can do a lot of wrong, but then I can pull out the “meat card” and I’m safe. Tonight I made ginger-soy flank steak (which I once had to explain is soy like the sauce, not like the milk). You know that a hunk of beef is going to be good when you pull it out of the fridge, raw in it’s marinade, and it smells and looks good enough to dive into right there and then without bothering with the cooking part.

Bad Day

Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

Today was one of those days that make me question my sanity cooking at a fraternity. I’m a good cook! I have a degree! My husband is a Microsoft Exec! What am I doing here??? I’m posting this picture of Mike because he is one of those people (and there are lots and lots of them here) who pull me back from the brink. Whenever I think I’ve had enough of this, I QUIT…oh, wait, I couldn’t stop cooking for him, or him, or him. So, on the strictly food front…I created a Creamy Chicken Tortellini Soup recipe today and they went wild for it. Really simple: chicken, onion, celery, chicken stock, seasoning, cream, tortellini. Dinner was Chicken Cordon Bleu (made by someone called Lady Astor, not me), 4 cheese pasta, and Caesar Salad. I didn’t really think about it until I was actually preparing all this that it’s unbearably rich and awfully white, too. Chicken, cheese, pasta…I felt so fat watching that go out that I made myself go to the gym after work, and I didn’t eat a bit of it.
I had a lighter moment in my otherwise bad day when Kirk (my sales guy) brought me an invitation to a virtual food show. A virtual food show. I am going to invite him to a virtual dinner party where we just chat online about the cocktails and yummy food that I didn’t actually take the trouble to prepare for him.

Friday Kitchen Talk

Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

I learned Friday that some of the guys are reading my blog. I find this funny because they’re not the target audience and now I have to worry about having Newman as one of the “cover boys” for the second day running. While he was helping yesterday, Dan sat nearby keeping us entertained. We talked about sorority girls (Darlene’s attitude toward them, Newman’s lack of a consistent relationship with one, Dan’s involvment with a real keeper), the non-existence of privacy in the House, and the perception that I have favorites, which is a misperception; anyone who offers to cut pineapple or who makes me laugh is going to be better received than, say, the person who climbs over the trash bag rather than taking it out. Fridays in the kitchen are the times when I’m the least stressed and the guys are the most animated. It’s also when I’m looking for future menu ideas, so Dan will get his Breakfast Burritos next week.

Moving Back In

Friday, September 5th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

It’s moving-in day for a lot of the guys, but Brian has been here all summer recruiting new Brothers. He was part of my pledge class, by which I mean he was a freshman when I started here. Back then he was my kitchen help and hasn’t forgotten that I made him weigh out each ball of cookie dough so they would have nice, uniform cookies. This was before I learned the mantra, “we’re guys, we don’t care.”

Brian and I were talking about Kyle shortly before he came through the door to hug me and had this reaction to the news that I’ve started a blog: “You What?”
That’s pretty much the reaction I get from everyone.

Kyle’s family are farmers and he treats me to bushels of apples and pears from Eastern Washington in the fall. He’s also a great recipe source, although his Chinese Chicken Salad with raw ramen noodles provoked a rare “what the f*** is this!” from a baffled Brother in the dining hall last year. Even his great Spinach Salad with Strawberries recipe hasn’t erased the memory of the “Ramen Thing.”

This morning, I cooked bacon to freeze for twice-baked potatoes. It was a cruel thing to do, I know. Of all the smells to fill the house with when they’re not getting meal service until Monday. As I was leaving, I ran into Zach who complained pitifully about waking up to the smell of unavailable bacon. Okay, the way he really put it…”I woke up and I could smell bacon and I thought, does Darlene have a surprise for us? and I thought, no, it’s a cruel joke, no bacon for me and so I had to LEAVE THE HOUSE because I couldn’t stand it.”

Baconless Zach

First Delivery

Thursday, September 4th, 2008 | daily | No Comments

When I was putting all of this in storage today, I came across almost an entire case of cornstarch that I ordered two years ago. What was I thinking? I suppose somebody somewhere can get through 24 boxes of cornstarch, but I know I won’t in my lifetime. I learned the same lesson about a whole case of celery when I found myself looking for recipes using it as the main ingredient. Celery and tofu salad was a huge hit with this crowd I can tell you.

This is James, a driver with US Foodservice. He’s fairly new to the company and hadn’t been to visit us yet, so it took him a few minutes to appreciate my sense of humor. He said it was okay for me to take his picture (after I already had). I was going to take a picture of the truck, too, but I think he was getting a little scared of me. Hearing I was starting a blog about working here seemed to make me seem slightly less crazy, but he didn’t believe me that it’s a serious food blog.

So just to prove it, I have posted next week’s lunch menu, with a couple of the recipes included.

Newbies

Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 | daily | No Comments

We have a nice big group of impressionable freshmen pledges joining the House this year. I met a few of them today and I don’t think they’ve been sufficiently warned about me yet because they were all smiles. The last 4 on the roster get assigned kitchen cleaning duty, which makes them hate me. But it’s not my fault. Their adult advisor, who is not exactly thrilled about my new pastime as a blogger, has asked me to teach them what they need to know and do to keep me happy. I’ve never actually been able to tell 20 plus young men what to do to keep me happy and I think it’s too great an opportunity for a blog post, so I’m going to make it a page all by itself. That way they can check it periodically when they’re sitting there wondering, “what can I do for Darlene today?”

The person who was best at keeping me happy graduated in June. It was strange to go into work today and know I won’t be hearing Perry yelling “morning Darlene” from his room upstairs every day. He would tell me the House gossip and I would tell him how to live his life. If all these freshmen could be like him, but then, ahh, they wouldn’t be the unique darlings that I know they will be.

Private Chef vs. Fraternity Chef

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 | daily | 1 Comment

I was a private chef before I was a fraternity chef. It was cleaner in that billionaire’s Dallas estate and “private” probably looks more impressive than “fraternity” on a resume, but everything else about the job was horrible. My employer was under investigation for bribery of public officials, his wife was a pill-popping, self-absorbed social climber, his children were monsters and the live-in nannies (yes, two nannies for three children) were the most self-important, food-phobic nobodies I’ve ever had to feed. It was soul-killing work that ended when I had to undergo radiation treatment and they posted my job on the internet without letting me know. Nice. I realize that my experience was extreme, but I’ve yet to meet or hear of a happy private chef.

I’m paid as well here as I was in my former job and much better than I would be working in a Seattle restaurant. Even a good one. I know because I’ve interviewed several times when I’ve felt maybe I should get a “real” job. As a private chef, you’re a slave. I had to work December 25 for my former employer and there wasn’t just a lack of a bonus, there was a lack of a “Merry Christmas.” When they have house guests, you get to be the 24-hour room service wench. For all it’s quirks and lack of cache, being a fraternity chef is the best cooking job going.

tips for new fraternity cooks

Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 | daily | 2 Comments

Cooking for 18-22 year old college men is the easy part; they’re grateful for anything that doesn’t come out of a foil pouch. But there are a few things that make being around 18-22 year old college men as their cook a less exasperating task:

1. Forget about presentation. I finally stopped trying so hard to make the food look picture-worthy when a freshman told me “we’re guys, we don’t care.”
2. Pick your battles. There are a million things that will drive you crazy about this job if you’re used to a sanitary, professional kitchen with trained staff. There will be signs of bad behavior from the night before, there will be condom wrappers in the oddest places. There will occasionally be vomit on the wall outside the kitchen which they will assure you “had to be from a girl.” I have reduced my battles to this: Stay out of my kitchen when I’m not there.
3. Don’t think they’ll change their behavior. They won’t, so work around them. I have a locked storage area that only I can access because they will open that #10 can of ketchup at midnight to get a tablespoon for their one burger and leave the can on a table to be knocked over by a drunk coed. They will.
4. Don’t try to be liked, go for respect. They’re like puppies and if you don’t train them with a firm hand, the job will be hell.
5. Thicken your skin and remember you’re the grown-up.