Limelight, trying to rhyme tight

The eyes are upon you. They sit and stare with the occasional utterance of a question, and most of the time they just watch. Some will stare. Others could give two shits. “Don’t these people understand what we endure to bring them a plate of food?” I question. We suffer for their pleasure. We trade sacrifices for sustenance. Cooking for a person is one of the most selfless and humbling gestures. We put everything on the line for less than slave wages to ensure a great dining experience. I take heed in this thought process for it breeds resentment, but cannot help at times feeling like exploding into a ball of flames as if I was just used to deglaze a hot skillet. In the heat of battle there really is no escape. I feel as if I’m a caged animal, being helplessly pointed and gawked at. “Ignore them, stay in your zone” I say.

I know that line cooking is just one facet of part of becoming a chef, and that in order to be a great chef one must also know how to truly interact with customers. For now, this has been one of my greatest struggles. I am slowly learning how to manage myself better with the face to face interactions. I appreciate every customer who comes and eats our food. If it were not for them we would not have no jobs, no audience, and no canvas. Becoming a chef is about being in the spotlight, and until that light is center stage, the only thing there will be the eyes.

Mexican Slang of the Moment:
“la neta” translated “the truth” or “freal” or “word”
Example:
Me: “Did your cousin really have sex with a donkey in the fields?”
Mexican: “Neta!”



















Some Red Wine/Sexy Sunset/Blood'cates/Beautiful Burger/Beet Salad/Creepy Message in Mayo/"Chees"/Roast Beef Location/

Wednesday Test Kitchen

What is Wednesday Test Kitchen? Is it progressive madscience? Regressive sanity? Is it more gels, spirals and foams? Who takes part and where? It sounds private, exclusive, even forbidden. It sounds like a geeky invite-only Magic party. The Truth is Wednesday test kitchen is just a time when we can cook for ourselvs. There is no grab-ass, no tickets, no allergies, and nothing on the fly. We try new recipes and ideas, discuss everything from technique to the biz and more often than not there's an abundance of good booze, better ingredients and awesome grass which ulimatly makes for a great meal. It's OUR time.


















To Drink: Knob Creek Bourban/Bitch Creek ESB
To Eat: Chinese Black Skin Chicken/Okinawa Purple Yam Dumpling/ Wolfberry/ Bok Choy/ Poured Aromatic Broth

Mexican Slang of the Week
"Te Lo Lavas!" Literally translates to "You wash it!"
Youth slang referring to the "washing of ones' genitalia"
generally speaking; meaning "stay frosty"

Back to the Basics

Oxtails/Good Sear/ Birch Beer

Onions and Garlic/Cueritos

Blood Sausage/Finished Braise/Cheese Whiz

"Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food."

Hippocrates




OK so it's finally after the holiday season and everyone is back to the same old grind. I'ts a stressfull time for us all, but especially tough on the Industry folk- the family get-togethers, buissness parties, restaurant promotions, etc etc. Thanks to an old floor needing some revamping at the restaurant we all scored a few days off. Much needed time to heal wounds, rest and regroup and of course time to get back to the basics... home cooking. Between working two jobs and a crazy schedule I haven't had much time to cook at home. I was glad to catch a few days/ nights off. Had some good time to sleep, eat, sleep some more and even get in a few nice rides on the ol pedal pusher. Monday night I had a grip of Mussles and Clams and invited a few friends over. I intended to make a nice white wine tomoato broth with citrus , herbs, butter and the like but once again the bloody electric stove bent me over and sonic- reduced my liquid leaving a nice 10w-40 looking sauce and a nice aroma of burnt hair, and a bitterness that left us all looking like the keystone light guy.

The next night I needed to redeem myself. I couldn't go out like that. I felt defeated and needed la revancha. So I decided to cook my Birch braised short rib recipe, and instead of short ribs, I settled for some nice oxtails. I grabbed some nice sour oranges off a tree by work, bought cinnamin stick, mexican basil, onion, garlic and a bottle of Pennsylvania Dutch root beer. This stuff is the best. Although its made in Pennsauken NJ, and which isn't exactly Amish country, this stuff is the king of root beer. More of a birch flavor ( as the name suggests) it is much more an herbacious flavor than regular root beer with a nice red hue. If you dont reside in the Delaware Valley, you can't get it and the closest comparison would be IBC root beer. Dont even think of using MUG. Anywhoo I started out searing the oxtail first dusted with cornstarch, salt, pepper, and paprika, which gives a nice hungarian style aroma. Next I removed the seared meat, reserving any juices as well. Wiped the skillet clean sauteed onion and garlic with a little butter. Once they were good and translucent I added mexican basil, orange zest, re-seasoning with salt and pepper, and sauteed a few more minutes. Next put the meat back in, add birch beer, juice of one orange and left over peels, cinnamin sticks, beefstock, more herbs, reserved juices, cover and set in oven to BRAISE. 3 hours @ 350F. Make sure if your cooking this to check every so often if you braising liquid gets low, and if it does add more stock. Added to the dinner was some nice BLOOD SAUSAGE, some corn and egg noodles. Also I had a chingadera of cueritos. These are cooked pork skin in a light vinger brine with jalapeno and carrot. They have a wierd texture and are not nearly as flavorful as the one you might get in taco form, but between the blood sausage and the cueritos, I had a satisfying fix of pork appetizer. The braise came out nice, with a nice savory flavor from the birch beer and cinnamin. The meat was fall off the bone tender with a wonderful gelantounus flavor. I think I could have used less soda and a little more beef stock. Any more cinnamin would have been overpowering and I think next time I will use a half a stick and maybe add some bay leaf.

Mexican Slang of the Week

"chingadera/o"- "fucker"

Is used to call an object of unknown or forgotten/incorrect name. Can be used for people as well. The root verb being Chingar, literally "to fuck". Has a myriad of applications just as the English counterpart applies.

Christmas Wish List

I think as Americans we take a lot of stuff for granted. Our Freedom, Our Job, Our Family, Our wonderful heath care reform, Pop Music, Peanut Butter and Jelly, Telemundo, and most importantly the myriad of foods available to us around the holiday. We eat our faces off for a few days, drink like Indians and then feel guilty for it come New Years vowing that our "resolution" is to hit the gym. In true American spirit I too eat and drink this way year round, which is why I'm posting a fully detailed list appreciating everything I've consumed this Holiday season, without nutritional facts, organic endorsements, or warning labels. Feliz Navidad!

In some chronological order:

Snyders hard pretzels and ham for breakfast (mustard)

Lunch @ Nopalito in SF- Fish Taco, Blue Corn Casadilla, Chicken Enchiladas with Mole Negro

Strong Banana tasting beers @ Toranado in SF

Heavenly Veal Sausage from German Lady

Blue Blottle coffee

Family meal @ INCANTO Pork Loaf, Potato wedges, Apple Sauce

Chef Chris' 7 fishes dinner with macaroons for dessert

A bearclaw

Jim Beam Rye

Christmas dinner @ Rigoberto's #2 chicken enchilada, chilaquiles salsa rojo, rolled cheese tacos

Ham for lunch (mustard)

Bulleit Bourbon

Stella Artois

30 to 40 red vines

Chicken Shwarma @ MAMAS BAKERY

bud light (may i emphasize no caps)

Jalapeno Poppers @ RedFox

Some Red Wine

Burritos with corn salsa @ INDIGO

More Ham

Faint memories of a grip of cookies, chocolates and cakes of sorts...

Mexican Slang Of the Week

Expression:

"A huevo!"- A derivative of "A huevo que si!"

which is a slang version of saying "Claro que si!"

meaning "Of Course!"

-"huevo" is "egg" in Spanish. Young males use "huevos" to refer to their testicles.

Adrenaline Junkies

I was probably around 10 years old and it was those dog days of summer where the heat was getting to us and whatever "cops and robbers" game we had been playing started getting old fast. Next thing I knew we were dumping gasoline all over the trucks and wheels of this skateboard. I can remember lighting that fucker up and trying to ollie over my bike. Much to my inability the flaming tony hawk board went flying into the shrubs lighting them on fire which, in turn lit the metal gas can on fire as well. Always preparing for the worst (yea right we were probably smoking pot too) we had a bucket of water ready for such a miscue. We dumped the water onto the shrubs and into the gas can, extinguishing the fire. Simultaneously my neighbors' father came out of the house, and shouts "No wonder my lawnmower has been running shitty, you assholes have been putting water in my gas!"

Close call.

This got my wondering though. We played with fire... A Lot. All of my fondest childhood memories, at least the misbehaving ones, involve fire. And come to think of it I always had an obsession with knives. There was always a certain kind of adrenaline rush back in those days like doing something "bad" and getting caught would certainly mean a few lashing off Dad's belt. It's no wonder I love life in the kitchen. As far back as I can remember this is the kind of shit I've been cool with. Now I've finally reached a point in my life where I've wised-up and began to channel this energy into something I like doing. I still crave that adrenaline rush. I need constant mind stimulation. Constant flow pumping through my veins as if I just jumped out of a plane. Cooking on the hot line is my flaming skateboard. I Need it. I crave it. It satisfies my very being. It can be very fucking stressful at times. It physically beats the shit out of me daily and I like to think I'm a tough mother fucker. The truth is I think all cooks, anyone working in the trenches is an adrenaline junkie. There has been something in our life leading up to our choice to cook that satisfies the empty gap. There is something about that rush that is purely addictive. Sometimes this can be dangerous. It's hard to shut off. But our ability to harness this power inside ourselves is one of the very unique things that makes us cooks.

Slang of the Week
"Guango/a"- A loose asshole (meaning you take it in the ass)
Eg: "Tienes guango?"

Bienvenido!

Welcome to my blog ladies and gents! I would like to take the first post to get a few things off my chest. First and foremost I intend this blog to be funny and lighthearted. It may, at first glance, appear to be poking fun at certain groups of people, places, or things. This is actually TRUE. But the truth is I have a great respect and appreciation of everything I will be posting about- the FOOD, the people who stand to my left and right in the TRENCHES, and even those pesky customers who cause a great deal of stress in our lives. This blog is not going to pursue "Culinary Perfection" or anything much related to the molecular gastronomic movement. I do, however, want to include very relative and useful Spanish slang. I want to share all I have gathered in my experience working kitchens because, after all, most of us don't know the half of what is going on sometimes. I will share derogatory, foul, and downright insulting language. I can guarantee that some of this, if used in the wrong place, will get you kicked in the nuts. Furthermore I'd like to say that I am not a trained professional in the Spanish language nor do I posses a degree of any sort. I also want to chronicle my culinary adventures from week to week, including pictures and some genuine Philly shit talking. I have some cool ideas for upcoming posts so stay tuned and check back for more!
Lastly I'd like to give a shout out to a few SF bloggers, who over the past year have helped me keep the motivational fire under my ass !
linecook415
hotfoodporn

THANKS!!

Word of the Week
"Guay" or "Wey"
-the English equivalent of "dude" which is used at least once every sentance.
EG: Como estas wey?