Archive for September, 2009
Golden Moments
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | daily | 2 Comments
I stayed at work late last Friday to make chorizo and I churned out a whole five pounds. It was great but five pounds is about enough to make breakfast for Sal and Big, with the other 70 guys empty-plated and long-faced. I’ve learned over time that some things are a huge effort for the payoff, while other things are quick, easy and infinitely better than the convenience product. Salad dressing, soup, and lately I’ve discovered, salsa. I always have the stuff for it on hand and making my own means I can offer up a different variety every time. Today it was habanero and pickled garlic. But hors d’oeuvres in particular are a real problem…both hard to make from scratch for a crowd and usually horrible when purchased ready-made. So I was ecstatic when, having ordered some samosas Rod recommended, I discovered that not only were they completely natural and authentic, the sort of thing I’d make and freeze myself, but then…my phone rang at work and it was the woman behind the delicious things, an actual human being, asking me what I thought of her company’s product. “Really?” I asked, incredulous, “you’re the creator?” I’m all about a closer, more personal connection to my food, a less Tyson-Kraft-Monsanto sort of fog, so this was a golden moment. So many positive, upbeat things are happening at work that it’s becoming a liability. A real blog killer. Like when Brandon the Freshman interrupted a conversation between Badley and me to ask if I needed anything, any trash taking out, any thing cleaned… I just looked at Badley dumbfounded and said, “We need to write down this date.”
Food Nerdery
Monday, September 28th, 2009 | daily | No Comments
Kirk thinks he wants to return to being my sales guy, but he’s having selective memory loss about how annoying a customer I can be. When it comes to food matters, I can be like that irritating kid in the front row of class raising her hand constantly. My new guy John got a heavy dose of this over the weekend when I asked what should have been a simple question, but which turned into three days of sarcastic emails: how can I get orange potatoes, which I (correctly) call sweet potatoes and which his company insists on calling yams? And it would be okay if they were just consistenly wrong so that I knew that if I ordered yams I’d get the orange things, but what really had my knickers in a twist this weekend as I was placing an order was that I found out they were now calling everything “sweet potato yams.” Which is like calling something “green red peppers” or whole wheat white bread.” Then today, John innocently asked if I could help him out with a sales competition to win a Wii by ordering a bunch of Kraft macaroni and cheese microwavable packets. Clearly a request from someone who missed my blog post “Kraft is Crap.” “Are you kidding?” I responded, “I’d rather buy my guys a dozen Wii’s than serve that trash.” He was crushed and read my email to his boss. But Rod just laughed, because Rod knows a little history; there was this one time when I tried to pass that off to my guys for end of exam week dinner. And when I did that, I could hear the response from the other side of the house, “WHAT THE F*** IS THIS?”
A Beautiful Thing
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | daily | 4 Comments
I know you can’t see my expression here, so I’ll just tell you that what I’m thinking at this point is that next summer, I’m going to a pig farm to learn pork anatomy. For those who think I’m a total narcissist, this is the blog post where I point out my own screw ups. (When one angry reader called me self-centered and narrow-minded, my husband assured me I’m self-centered and broad-minded.) I won’t bore you with how this stupidity came about, but at 1PM I realized that my 20# hams were not going to be tonight’s dinner without some surgery and so I pulled the pretty blazing hot things out and proceeded to hack them to death. But this is the joy of cooking for hungry frat boys…first, no matter what, if you tell them that’s how it’s supposed to be, they believe you. And second, when Brian saw me cutting into that crackling at 4:30, he told me it was a beautiful thing.
Fabrication
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009 | daily | 6 Comments
Brian didn’t want me taking his picture looking like he just rolled out of bed. Which he had. At 1PM. And he probably didn’t want to be on the blog, but too bad because he was blocking my parking space this morning. My husband says I should turn my inventory of pictures of the guys into magnets that I can then stick on their common fridge. Then they’ll all know who’s on my shit list and who is the current darling. I hesitate to publish how last night went for me because it’s creepy and I’ve had one reader who I’m pretty sure was unstable, so I hate to encourage any more crazies, but last night I dreamed that I was fabricating live human beings. And for those unfamiliar with the term, it means I was expertly cutting them into their edible parts. The weird thing (okay, it’s all hideously weird) was that they were perfectly happy to have me taking a boning knife to them. This is called work interfering with life in the extreme. I only remembered the dream when I was breaking down a dozen whole chickens today for Friday’s Pho and explaining to the guys what a production this all was for soup. This is how it is with scratch cooking for a fraternity; what takes three leisurely hours for a few friends takes a dozen pots, four days and graphic nightmares when done for a crowd.
Taste Off
Monday, September 21st, 2009 | daily | No Comments
Newman came by today, his last visit before he flies to Germany, and he is one of those food lovers who have made the effort worthwhile for me for three whole years. There are a million reasons to take shortcuts in this job and I completely understand the cooks who are faced with insurmountable logistical problems that force them to take that route. But, as crazy-making as it can be, there are more good reasons to do the kinds of nutty things I was doing today. Like roasting and grinding dried ancho and chipotle chilies to make chili powder for homemade chorizo. The aroma was just incredible, so warm and wonderful that you just knew whatever that was going into was going to be amazing. And never mind that the chile dust nearly killed a few of us who inhaled. It made you want to cook. It made cooking not seem like a chore but like recreation. Bob the new chef here who’s trying to learn from me came to help out again today and I got the feeling that I was causing more anxiety than comfort, but what I wanted to say is, “not everyone is as crazy as me.” You can do this job quite well without being so utterly food-obsessed that when your food sales guy sends you info on his company’s latest great product, which just happened to be chorizo, you send an email saying, “I’m grinding my own pork shoulder and I’m roasting my own chilies to make my own chorizo, thank you, and we should just have a taste-off.”
Shoe Bandit
Friday, September 18th, 2009 | daily | 1 Comment
“Did you put something in the brownies?” Rod from US Foodservice asked me when he paid a visit today. He was looking at the enormous tray of them in my arms and I must have looked puzzled because he went on to tell me that there were two cops at the front door chatting with some of the guys. We’d had an intruder right before I arrived for work and it was now noon, FIVE hours after all our lives were in danger. “Well about time,” I huffed. The home invader had been spotted by Daniel wandering the halls stealing shoes, an act so weird that none of us really knew what to say. And apparently we were the third house to fall victim to the shoe bandit. But other than that little Friday drama, this has been an extraordinarily smooth and positive Work Week, summed up beautifully by Pledge Richard here. I’m happier than I’ve been in 3 years and, not that I’m synical or anything, but that just makes me wonder what horror awaits me next week.
Shadow Chef
Thursday, September 17th, 2009 | daily | 5 Comments
“Oh, so you think it’s a good idea to show him your potty mouth?” This is how my sales guy responded when I asked him where my delivery was and pointed out that, because I have a new fraternity chef shadowing me, today would be a good day to impress. And, okay, I did use slightly more colorful language when I inquired into the whereabouts of my truck. I love dealing with vendors who feel completely comfortable talking to me like that because then I know they’re real and that they actually may not be full of shit everytime they open their mouths. The picture is of Bob, the new chef in question, and if I didn’t scare the crap out of him today, he’s going to be fine. I made him work hard because, let’s just be blunt, if someone wants to hang out in your kitchen all day learning from you when you’re cooking 140 plates in a shoebox, they better be prepared to be of use. And he was of great and cheerful use.
Decent Shit
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009 | daily | 7 Comments
It’s a picture from my transforming summer farm experience where I have this expression that seems to say ”I don’t know, Karen, you’re classically trained and all and you wrote a gorgeous book and you have a cool job, but I can cut up a chicken, too.” And there’s Leslie to the side of me so obviously not paying attention at all. Leslie started working for me on Monday. She’s a food writer, a restaurant critic and she’s just helping me out for a bit. And when you have a person like that working for you, there’s sort of a bit of pressure to cook decent shit. I mean, you can’t be asking her to place the prefab chicken cordon bleu on the sheet pans, you’ve got to be having her helping you make pesto or something. With organic basil. I was having her help me today with the “Creamy Grits with Goat Cheese and Sundried Tomatoes” (a Bon Appetit recipe) and she said, “remember when goat cheese was in everything…it was just THE THING?” “And sudried tomatoes,” I said, laughing at the pile of them in front of her. Okay, it’s a retro 80’s recipe, but the guys went wild for it. I knew this when they were coming back for seconds and it wasn’t for the flank steak…it was for…”what is that stuff?” “Grits,” I said. “Or Polenta…depending on how much you want to pay for it.”
Better than G&T’s
Monday, September 14th, 2009 | daily | 2 Comments
I didn’t want to go into work today. I admit it. The first day of cooking for the fall quarter…70 plus ravenous guys, it’s just frankly terrifying. I was up at 4:30 this morning watching my cats roll around and when I told my husband I wished I could just do that, he said “No you don’t. You’re doing what you want to do.” I had heard a rumor that Sal was on a mission to be my favorite this year and so when he stopped by and saw Brian voluntarily peeling carrots for me, I couldn’t resist. “He’s trying out for cook’s pet,” I said, “and I hear you want to audition, too.” But Sal is way too cool for that. He’s just sure it’s locked up. It was a long day, a totally mentally and physically exhausting exercise. But the number of guys who said “thank you” and ”glad you’re back,” and Collard greens!!!! I can’t wait for jambalya and collard greens!” Well, that’s way more jolly than sitting at home sipping G&T’s watching Food Network.
Like Newman
Friday, September 11th, 2009 | daily | No Comments
I just heard from Newman, who will soon be leaving the country, and as we all know, there can be only one Newman, but this picture reminds me of one taken of me with him when I was very green. I’m so much wiser now. And scarier. Although clearly freshman Brandon is so unintimidated that he brought his mother to meet me and shared the blog with her. The letter that I had Badley send to all the incoming pledges seems to have had an effect–the effect of making them aware of what to avoid and giving them an understanding that I can be fun to be around, warm and loving…when my head isn’t about to explode. Newman understood this so well that he knew just exactly how far he could go, and not a millimeter further. “This year I’m adding to my list of things that piss me off,” I told some of the older guys as I prepared made-to-order omelettes. “Waste. If I see you throwing half this omelette away, I’m just going to kill you and be done with it.”
Too Cruel
Thursday, September 10th, 2009 | daily | 1 Comment
James was about the fifth person to come into my kitchen today to do totally annoying things like heat up canned chili (gag) and slice vegetables directly on my (previously spotless) prep tables. I’m back, but I’m not cooking yet because I’m supposed to have a couple of days to reclaim my kitchen, cleaning and restocking. But really I’m here to babysit and take endless texts from Badley saying things like “why haven’t you posted now that you’re back at work?” Like he’s paying me to write this blog instead of paying me to do the crazy shit that I just happen to write about. I had told him I’m planning to plate dinners this year to cut down on food waste and he sent me this little missive: “I’m still a little wary. I like to pile a huge mountain of meat on my plate and little veggies. Will the meat portions be huge?” Later in the day, a new fraternity chef came by. He’s never done this kind of job and wanted to get some tips and advice and while I did consider it, I did not give him the URL to this blog. It just seemed too cruel.
My Own Air
Monday, September 7th, 2009 | daily | 6 Comments
He didn’t exactly put it this way, but the tone of Matt’s email to me a couple of weeks ago warning me that he’s my second gluten-intolerant customer was that “this is going to hurt me way more than you.” And it’s not so much the fact that he can’t enjoy my macaroni and cheese, quiches, lasagnas and homemade biscuits. It seemed to be more about the liquid substance he’s barred from. So now, on top of recently learning that I will have over 70 guys this year, I will have to prepare separate choices for these two. But it’s okay, I told him, “It’s a challenge and it’s my job.” Still, I was relieved to get approval to hire assistance and thrilled to find that my help is going to be Seattle food writer Leslie Kelly. She was at a dinner party last night hosted by fellow Quillisascut Farm School alum Ellen, and when I said I needed to hire some help, she offered herself up. And not like a sacrifice either, but like someone to whom I was passing out private suite tickets to the Mariners. My husband was amused by these new friends of mine, these people at least as food crazy as me. I brought home-cured salmon, an appetizer I was sure would delight and impress. But Ellen makes her own marachino cherries for cocktails. Ellen makes her own bitters for cocktails. Ellen is currently curing duck proscuitto. She’s inspiring, and while I know that with at least 70 mouths to feed, I have to be realisitic, I also want to be that kind of frat cook who, as my husband put it “makes her own air.”
Positive Reinforcement
Friday, September 4th, 2009 | daily | No Comments
There’s a joke amongst some of us that a bunch of Cougars (and I’m not talking about the four-legged beast that’s supposedly on the loose in Seattle right now) check out this blog specifically to see pictures of cute guys. So for them, I sort of wish I’d captured a photograph of freshman Brandon who stopped by as I was assembling and installing these compost bins. He’s for sure cuter than these things, but to me, because I’m weird that way, this picture is exciting enough that when my husband asked me about my day, they were my highlight. Brandon is an example of the sort of pledge I instantly love. He saw me dirt-crusted and sweaty and didn’t need to be told that I could use an extra hand to “screw the insert and the outer cone into the basket,” an instruction more easy to read than to execute. And he jumped right in to help. I know the older guys enjoy their power over the freshmen, but I’ve never been comfortable with that. I like to see who has the brains and the bravery to step into my world motivated by their own free will and I’m never wrong about this…they are always the best guys in the house. “When’s food starting?” Mike asked as he watched Brandon the freshman work. “Well, that depends on how clean I find my kitchen when I come back next week.” Positive reinforcement.
Less So and More So
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 | daily | No Comments
I pickled these peppers today and are they not just glorious to look at? Okay, the photography isn’t great, but I promise, they are a wonder to behold. The pickling brine was so good that when I finished filling the jars and had some left over, I was spooning the remainder into my mouth lustily. The recipe is from the September issue of Bon Appetit and you need to just run out to your local farmers’ market right now and get the stuff for these. This is my last week of summer break before I head back to the fall semester, a time when I savor the opportunity to do things like pickle peppers, make butter…and arrange necessary appointments. I had one with an allergist yesterday to try to determine why I, of all people, have a severe, chronic inability to swallow at times and he asked me what I do for a living. “I cook for a fraternity at the UW,” I said, a sentence that even after 3 years, I have not been able to get out without laughing. Usually the questioner asks me to repeat myself, sure that he misheard. “What is that like?” the fresh-faced resident asked me and I knew he was not too far off from his college days. “About what you imagine,” I quipped. “Only both less so and more so.”
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