The Leftover Foodie

I don't know Chef, I wish I knew...

The other day at my internship I was slicing meat on a newfangled deli slicer, and in the midst of slicing various meats either too thick, too thin, or with an invisible layer of plastic still on it that I didn't see, the head chef, whose name we'll just call "Chef" came up to me and asked me a question.

Now, this is a big deal for a guy so far down on the food chain as to be almost non-existent.  So when he asked me a question, I should have been smart enough to realize that he didn't want me to answer him, he just wanted to say words to someone to show his displeasure in a situation. "I don't know Chef, I wish I knew" was all that was required of me to say, but instead I tried to answer.

Stupid.

Not that he got mad at me or anything, I just shouldn't have answered a question that didn't need an answer.  I mean, it's not like he had just decided to become my friend, and wanted to hear what I thought.  I'm smart enough to know that.  I should have just shaken my head in disbelief and maybe then he wouldn't have been reminded of the fact that most interns are dumbfucks that should never be spoken to outside of "I need those four cases of tomatoes broken down."  Or, "Can you come in on your day off this week?  We need four case of tomatoes broken down."

Not that either of those things have happened, I'm just saying that my purpose for being there is other than answering rhetorical questions that a frustrated, overworked, thin-on-patience-as-it-is super busy chef asks some empty chef's coat standing close enough to him that it registers not who I am, but what I am, which is a guy in chef's whites that should be smart enough to not irk his ire by having the nerve to not only look him in the eye, but then to try an formulate a half cocked, retarded answer...

Are you picking up on the subtle vibe that this was humiliating?

Nothing to do with this story, but almost immediately afterward I was told that the meat was too thick and couldn't be used so I had to throw out an entire salumi's worth of meat and start over.  Then when I did get the slice right, I left a plastic wrap on the meat that I didn't see, and the other big chef came over to help me as I was taking waaaaaay too long, and when he saw that there was a thin layer of plastic on each and every slice, was none too pleased.  I didn't catch exactly how many times he said the words "Dude, why did you slice this with the plastic still on?" as I lost count after about 30, but it was a lot.  Being an intern sure can be fun.

Anyways.  

The point to this story is that although I shouldn't have answered it, or if I did, I should have answered it in a short definative answer (see title of post) instead of a rambling, too-many-details-about-myself answer that he walked away from half way through, but I kept answering anyways, literally offending the people left in the area who hear my answer, (take a deep breath) is that it was a really good question.

He asked me, "Hey, you worked in the front of the house for all those years.  Maybe you can tell me why the front of the house is incapable of doing anything with any soul..."

See title of post for perfect answer.

Maybe I could have said "I don't know Chef, that's why I got out of the front of the house."

That's it though.

Instead I rambled on about how they don't appreciate how easy they have it.  How crazy it is that I used to make so much more money in such fewer hours and didn't realize how much harder the back of house is. 

At this point he left. 

I, however, kept on answering by explaining how the front of the house doesn't put their heart and soul into it the way the back of house does (there were only front of house people in the room at this point) and how the waiters don't care about anything except making money.  

At this point I heard audible groans from my newly never-to-be-friends and realized that Chef had long since departed so I stopped talking.

But the question stuck.

Let me explain for any of you who may not know, that the "front of the house", or Front of House are the waiters, the buss boys, bartenders, managers, Maitre D's, hosts, etc.  The "back of the house", or Back of House, is (obviously) the chefs, cooks, prep cooks, dishwashers, etc.

Again, in case there is anyone reading this blog for the first time and may not know, I had been a waiter for the last 15 years, and recently started culinary school to move to the back of the house. 

So the question of why the front of house can't do anything with soul, is a really interesting question for me.

It sort of goes to the heart of why I wanted to move from being a waiter to a cook.  There really is no soul in the front of house.  

My best theory, which is what I was trying to explain when I answered, is that for the front of the house, being a waiter, or a bartender, or manager or whatever is just a job.  

Usually a waiter (or whoever) is trying to be something else like an actor or writer (or failed comedian).  Maybe they're finishing school, or out of work from another industry that they are trying to get back into or need a break from, but almost no one wants to be a waiter and it's impossible to put your soul into something you don't want to be doing.

Even if you don't mind it, are good at it, and make pretty good money doing it.  You're body is there, but only the fraction of your mind that it takes to remember specials and punch orders into computers is there with you.

This isn't a bad thing necessarily, but in most cases, it's a reality.  

I recently read a book on Le Bernardin in which it says that they only hire professional waiters with no outside ambition other than to be excellent waiter.  

I'd bet you there is soul in the front of that house.  

I'm sure it's the same thing with some of the other three and four star restaurants.  But those are by far the exception to the rule.

I used to think of waiting tables as going to the ATM.  You go, you get your money, and you go home.

I was/am a good waiter that has worked in some really good restaurants, but the ones I preferred were the ones that you could give the least amount of yourself to, but still make okay money.  And that was specifically because I didn't want to give my soul to waiting tables.  It was a job, I was saving my soul for my writing or comedy or whatever.  

The back of the house on the other hand, at least the back of the house in good restaurants (I'm not talking about the fry guy at Hardee's here) are there because they want to put their souls into it.  You don't work 100-hour-weeks at $8-$10 an hour for years and years on end if your heart and soul aren't into something.

One of the biggest surprises for me in this transition has been not only how much harder it was than I thought it was going to be, but how working in a kitchen with a bunch of other people pouring their souls into cooking food that is inevitably going to be shit and pissed out, makes you want to work harder and be better as well.  It's not competitiveness necessarily, although that's a big part of being in a kitchen, but it's more of an environment that demands perfection, and you either deliver, or you're gone.

It's fun to be in a kitchen like the one I'm in.  There's defiantly a slight fear-of-god aspect to not have the sous chefs or worse the chef-chefs yell at you, but there seems to be a genuine desire by (most of) the people who work there to do a really good job.  It's expected.  It demands the heart and soul of everybody there and if you can't deliver that every shift, you won't make it.  That's just not true of the front of the house.

As a waiter, I wanted to be good enough to make the most money, or have the highest sales.  I was one of the top dogs at the places that I worked at because I was fast and knowledgeable and got good tips. But I never had to put my soul into it.

As an aspiring cook, I'm the slowest and least knowledgeable person there, and literally the lowest guy on the totem pole, but I have to put my entire soul into it.

Guess which one I'm happier doing?

If you need me, I'll be in the basement breaking down four cases of tomatoes...

n*

I Wanted This?

Last summer I worked two, occasionally three days a week and made anywhere between $450 to $600-ish in less than 20 hours a week.

This summer between school and my internship I work 6 days a week and make ZERO dollars in just under 50 hours a week (generally).

Last summer I strolled the city streets, watched lots of movies, read a ton of books, and spent many long weekends out of town, where I'd usually "rush" back into town on Tuesday, just in time to start my grueling schedule of Tuesday and Wednesday night.

This summer I get a monthly Metrocard, and I make it my bitch.

It's generic the difference a year makes...

Last summer I was also a lost miserable soul (career wise) looking for anything outside of the restaurant industry to believe in.

I found that something, strangely enough, further in the restaurant industry, specifically in the kitchen of the restaurant industry, where my "calling" was waiting quietly for me to put down the wine key and pick up a knife.  

Even with the long hours, no pay and mind-numbing amount of accrued debt, I still feel a billion times better about myself now than I did around this time last year.

So I apologize (again) for my seeming lack of recent effort on the blog, but when I say I've been really busy, I mean I've been really busy...

So to keep those of you who care up to speed on my life developments I offer you this, my one free hour this week, in which I'll try and describe the many changes happening internally and (externally if you count cuts, and new weird callouses on my hands)...

First school:

School has been going great.

In addition to the new friends and new recipes I've been making and learning respectively, I've actually been getting good grades and (thus far anyways) perfect attendance.  98 on my last evaluation, which is pretty good considering I feel that I still have a lot of areas I can improve in (mostly cleanliness, and efficiency, my flavors and techniques are pretty solid for the still-pretty-new-in-the-game stuff that we're learning).

So while there are certainly frustrations and feelings of being held back by the curriculum and the level of skill in some of (but by no means the majority of) my classmates, I've realized that I have to keep my eye on the prize and concentrate on doing a good job now, but definitely looking forward to the more advanced levels.

If I get around to it, I'll throw in a couple of pictures of some of the better looking things I've made in class...

here:  

This is a trio of Spanish Tapas served "American" Style (admittedly the plates used for our "plating lesson" left more than a little something to be desired).

It's a Flounder fillet flash-cooked in a salamander and dressed with a garlic and guindillas pepper oil with a splash of sherry vinegar- Catalan-style spinach with apples, raisins, and toasted pine nuts- and Patatas Bravas...

Part Two:  My foray into the back of the house.

The bigger and more back-pain-causing news is that I started interning at a really great restaurant last week.

I honestly figured that the low pay of, along with the impression of "not needing to be highly intelligent in order to fulfill the job requirements of" a line cook, combined with my connection to the restaurant would land me a sweet $8-$9 an hour job somewhere, just by "wanting to".

Several phone calls and exactly as many "no, sorry's" as friends I have in the industry really opened my eyes the the complete bafflement of how hard it really is to get a job in a good kitchen.  

Despite the embarrassingly low pay, and the intolerably long hours, a "lowly" line cook job requires a lot of skill and knowledge that people in good restaurants won't give to someone with little or no experience.

So after many more inquiries and phone calls, I finally got two opportunities to come in and do a kitchen trail for "entry level line cook" positions.  Turns out "entry level" means "less than three years, but more than one."

Awesome, I have zero.

So cutting to the old proverbial chase (one of my favorite chases to cut), let's just say that I was offered an opportunity to do an internship at a restaurant with a great pedigree, thus giving me my first official "job" in a kitchen!

It's a funny thing going from the front of the house to the back of the house.  As a waiter we viewed the line cooks basically as monkeys in the zoo.  They were fuck ups that were too lazy to do anything else with their lives, and that's why they were working 100 hours a week for peanuts, while us big bad, awesome waiters were making 10X as much as them in a third of the time.  

We would even laugh at them when they complained about it.  

We thought their job was so easy and basic that we would dream of the simplicity that working the line seemed to entail.  

Chefs were to be respected, but cooks were lower than bussers in terms of how restaurant hierarchy went. 

However, about 8 years ago my opinions of bussers, and therefore line cooks, changed forever, and I vowed to never think I was better than anybody else because I was a waiter and they were "just" a busboy or runner (or dishwasher, or porter, or host, or manager, or anything).

I was put in my place by a busser who was working a lot of double shifts at a restaurant I was working at because he needed to fix a pump that had broken in the pool of his house in Venice, Italy.  

Yes, that Venice, Italy...and yes I said pool.

Turns out this "just busser" was living and working in New York for a few years to party and hang out before he went back to his insanely wealthy family in Italy.  I've also worked with bussers that were doctors or lawyers in their home countries.  Most of them send money home to their families and will retire and live great lives in a few short years, while I have nothing to show for my many years of making twice as much as them except a huge beer gut and an impressive music collection.

So I never underestimated line cooks after that, nor did I disrespect their life choice, but I never really got how impressive it was either. 

Let's be clear here and know that I'm not talking about all line cooks in all places but really good line cooks in really good kitchens in really good restaurants.  

They do a lot more skilled work than anything I've ever done as a waiter.

As a waiter, we complained about setup or sidework that took 20-30 minutes.  

Cooks come in 4-5 hours before the dinner shift starts to set up the food for their stations.

The "entry level" position in the hot line of a kitchen is garde manger.  A garde manger basically does salads and cold apps.  What that means is that one cook has to come in and cook every single vegetable and tear every piece of lettuce, not to mention make whatever sort of whatever that the restaurant has for appetizers on the menu.

It's not "rocket" science (lettuce joke!), but it is a lot of work that has to be done in a short amount of time so that he or she can go up and start "really" working making all the salads and cold apps for every person that comes into the restaurant that night.

200-300 covers later, that ends up being a lot of "just salads and appetizers."

It's impressive.

It's difficult.

It's repeated in every station up and down the line depending upon how big the restaurant is.

So my job as an intern has been to be everybody's bitch.  If someone needs beets cut for the beet app, I'm cuttin' 'em.  Someone needs baked potatoes peeled and cut in to little "rustic sized" pieces?  I'm peeling baked potatoes with a knife and breaking them into rustic little bite sized pieces.

It's grueling, it's rewarding, it's educational, and above all else it's tedious.  I call my job as an intern tedium ad nauseam.  

In addition to helping every single cook there that needs help with exciting things like filling two quart containers with picked thyme (that's thyme leaves with no stem, and two quarts takes at least a couple hours to fill).  Or there have been gallons of tripe stew that needed to be portioned off into exactly 230 gram servings (where I have to be sure that each one gets about the same amount of carrots, tripe, and sauce).  As time consuming as these are, I've also been getting fun little "projects" from the sous chefs like peeling the skin off of hundreds of roasted peppers and then cutting them into not too big, but not too small pieces.  Or my new personal nemesis; cases of tomatoes that need to be cored, scored, boiled and then shocked, peeled, cut in half, scoop the seeds out with a fish scaler and then arranged on a sheet pan...

It takes hours.

Mind you this is in addition to all of the things I'm doing to help the other cooks for service, so this usually turns my scheduled 10 hour day into a 12 hour plus day...

Also, remember I'm doing this for free.

Now you might think that I'm telling you this to garner sympathy or to complain and say that it isn't fair. But I assure that I am not.

I knew exactly what I was getting into, and as tired and sore as I may be, I love every second of it.

As much fun as school has been, I've always known that the real education was going to come from the mountains of potatoes (or tomatoes in my case) that I'd be peeling and the thousands of tiny cuts I'd be getting on my calloused-in-weird-new-places hands.  

This is where chefs are formed.

This is where you learn that your knife can make cuts that you didn't know it, much less you, could make.

This is where the scars and burn marks start collecting that say "I am a cook, you may not respect that, but everyone else with these scars and burn marks does, and those are the only other people whose respect I care about."

I may not be getting paid while I intern, but I'm gaining knowledge that I'll have for the rest of my life, and when I do finally transition into that glorious world of being paid slightly above minimum wage, I'll have a slew of "when I was an intern" stories that every cook loves to tell when sitting around a (cheap) bar after work trying to drink away the pain of standing over a tiny area prepping their stations all day because the new intern isn't even close to as good as they were when they were an intern...

It's great to be a part of one of those traditions that will never die.

Hakuna matata, mother fuckers, circle of life and all that...

n*

My Heart Bleeds Finely Crafted Metal

Even since I was a kid, I've always loved knives.

Yes, my father was in the Army so maybe I was predisposed to like all things "death-y" but as cool as guns and missiles and cannons and tanks and F-14's are, I've always had a special-kind-of-boner for knives.

I mean, what non-idiotic kid didn't think Snake Eye was the coolest GI Joe?

He was a fucking Ninja.  

I mean, come on...

Before I scare anyone into thinking I was some death bent weirdo kid with random bones and posters of weapons in his room, let me assure you that I didn't stab things or torture animals or anything.  

I just always liked the way they looked and the magic way a sharp knife cut innocent things like tree branches and sisters...

Probably Rambo had a lot to do with it as well.  I thought survival knives were pretty cool for a good portion of my life.

Even before I decided to do it for a living, I was always the one waiter that was in the kitchen buying knives from the reps of whatever company was there.

So it isn't totally surprising to me that I managed to love the only other profession/hobby outside of "pirate" where knives are worshiped as much as they are in the kitchen.

So when Korin did a knife sharpening demo at school a couple weeks ago, I was powerless to resist the undeniable power-over-me allure that multiple really sharp knives have, and I got a pretty sexy new chef's knife.  You know, cause I'm a "chef" now.

So here it is, my new best friend...

   

I can only assume that this means "awesome new knife" in Japanese...

I'll admit that it's a little bit ridiculous to put a picture of an Asian knife on a bamboo cutting board.  I mean, what exactly am I trying to say?  "Look how Asian I am?"  

It's a pretty knife though...

And one more time because it might be the coolest picture ever...

 

So will it cut my hand or fingers off?  I don't know.  More than likely I'll do something stupid like drop it, or mess it up beyond recognition when I try, feebly, to sharpen it.  But I love it.  And when you love something, sometimes you drop them and break or chip their blades.  That's what love is.

Sadly, I have to go.  There's a "pretend to be a chef for a day" opportunity that I'd be retarded to be late for...

So until next time, enjoy being jealous of my knife.

Loves and kisses,

n*

Spring Means... (At Least It Used To...) Part Three: Newly Obtained Culinary Skills Unleashed

Chicken.

Always cooked it, never really knew how to take it apart.

Well, one level of culinary school fixed that up real good and now I can quarter, halve, truss with a needle or just a thread...  I can do all sorts of nasty things to chickens I couldn't do before.  

And I love it!

There's something primal and sickly satisfying about taking a backbone out of a whole bird...  All those bones and cartalidge are no match for a sharp ass knife and a dude (or dude-ette) that knows how to work it. 

So it was particularly satisfying to not only take apart a bird, but then to be able to ghetto rig a grill to cook it on which put me in a rare pantheon of manliness that few douchey city dweebs like me get to experience that often.

Picture #1:

See how great that looks, all cleaned up and what-have-you.

So the coals were so perfectly burning from the shad bake that it seemed a shame to let them go to waste, so instead of grilling on the grill, I made this over them:

I shoveled the coals into a pile and put a rusty old grill top on top of some stones and then cooked the chicken on it...

Was it good?

It was chicken, who cares?

And thus ends the epic adventure that was this post...

Now that I've written it I can rest assured that the internet will take over and fix the Shad problem, and we can expect "back to normal" levels next year... 

Thanks internet...

See you next time when I do something I haven't really done on this blog for a while and "cook."

We'll see how that goes...

See you then, and enjoy the nice weather (if there's nice weather where you are, if not then...  hope it gets better?)

Have good Memorials...

n*

Spring Means... (At Least It Used To...) Part Two: Talking The Plank

Hi friends...

So let's jump right into it, shall we?

When I left you last we were discussing the fate of our friend the Shad fish.

Not good, I'm afraid...

Not good at all...

But despite that, it doesn't mean we should ruin a perfectly fine day, right?  So let's cook some of those f-er's up and eat 'em, right?  (edited for the world wide web's audience)

One of the reasons that Shad is not widely known is because of it's being notoriously difficult to fillet. The Native Americans called it an inside-out porcupine because of all the crazy bones inside of it. There was an interesting-if-not-a-little-too-long article written recently by Peter Hoffman, the chef of Savoy restaurant (and personal friend of Chris') in Edible Manhattan (hyperlink is to the article) that goes into a lot more detail about the history of Shad, and recounts his tales of fishing for them.  Worth a read if you're interested in these sorts of things.

These particular fillets were not boned by Chris, but this is the way that he has been best known for cooking them over the last couple decades or so (see link to article at bottom)...

What he does is plank them on cedar boards with strips of bacon across them (as you can see), and then gets a line of coals going to cook them.  These boards are handmade and built to flip and turn them to cook the fish evenly while imparting the flavor of the wood and smoke from the coals (even though I'm sure more flavor comes from the exposed parts of the plank that burns and smokes than from the flavorless charcoal nuggets that people swear by for some uneducated reason...)

Here's a bunch of photos that I took...

And that's about it for the old Shad Bake a 'la Letts...

Smokey, sweet, salty, and meaty all at the same time, with the toothsome almost jerky-like pull of the outside of the fillets combining with the soft, creamy texture of the inside, these fish have a loyal fan base for a reason...

Here's an article I found online from 1987 quite randomly about Shad, starring who else but Mr. Christopher Letts... 

Anyways, if you get a chance to attend one this summer, consider yourself lucky, it may be one of the last times you get the chance until we figure out what's happening and how to stop it...

Next time we get to see Part Three of this post where I ghetto rig a grill, it's far less exciting, or educational, but, hey, it's a post, right?

See you then...

n*

Spring Means... (At Least It Used To...) Part One: The Lecture and The Backstory (i.e. the boring stuff)

As much a I try and pass myself off as a non-city boy, let's face facts here and admit that I've either lived in or directly outside of a major metropolitan area for more than half of my life, including the past 15 consecutively...

I can hardly consider myself Natures Son with numbers like that.  

Now, admittedly, I pine for more nature in my life.

I've often stated that I feel stuck in New York and wish more than anything to escape to a more nature-friendly major metropolitan area in California or, say, Basque Country.  Anywhere else with less than 10 million people stuck in a bee hive would do.  Take your pick, I'd rather be there...

But one of the things that I've come to realize more and more with each passing year-in-purgatory spent in New York, is that first of all, the city is not the center of the universe as most New Yorkers like to imagine it is.  And second, that there is a full, nature-rich history just out our back door, and most of us are too self absorbed to realize or care about it.

Case in point:  The Shad fish.

Before, say...  6 1/2 years ago, or whenever it was I met Liz, and therefore her parents, I had never heard of Shad fish.

Most people haven't.

Most of the people that I speak to, even in the restaurant industry, have never heard of it.

In fact, we recently had a demo at school given by Andre Soltner where he made Shad Roe, and very few people there had ever heard of Shad Roe, much less eaten it.  This was at a culinary school filled with future and working chefs... 

Turns out that it, like many other things that most of us city folk don't pay any attention to, is an important player in our "beloved" city's Natural History.

Much like Salt Cod was a key component in, though not often talked about in regards to the discovery of North America by the Basques centuries before John Cabot claimed Newfoundland as both "new" and "found" by him, Shad is a key component in, though not often talked about in regards to the history of our fledgling Nation, and New York City.

Don't believe me?  Well, read this.

So what's my point with all of this?

Well, it's amazing to me that 20 minutes past the city there are whole histories unfolding, and a good majority of us aren't even aware of them.

What's worse is that that these histories are disappearing right in front of our faces, and most of us don't even care.

The Shad fish, one of the most important fishes in our Nation's history, is almost gone, and most of us never even knew it was there in the first place...

Isn't that a little bit sad?

We've become so dependent on not knowing our food sources or caring where where our food comes from that most of the oceans and rivers are almost extinct and we don't even stop eating the most endangered of the fish, despite being warned repeatedly by the fishermen and Agencies that care.

Springtime used to mean great Shad runs that would feed thousands of people and was marked with great festivals and celebrations.

This year the people who buy the fish for the few remaining celebrations aren't sure there is going to be enough fish to have more than a couple.

What's worse than even that is that it may be too late to do anything about it.

Between pollution and over-fishing, the Shad are pretty much gone, and no one really knows what happened to them, much like the Atlantic Cod.

So.....

With that in mind, here's a fun springtime post about a Shad bake that I attended recently!!!

I swear I don't sit down intending to write these doom and gloom posts, but there's something inside me that needs to get out I guess...

So, Shad Expert Pretend aside, I went to my first Shad Bake probably about 6 years ago.  In a frequently increasing coincidence in my post lately, Chris Letts, Mr. Environmental Educator/Sous Chef himself, just happens to give spring and summer Shad Festivals as a pretty big part of his "environmental educating" for the Hudson River Foundation.

 

Back then there wasn't often a thought of not being able to get enough fish.

This wasn't that long ago.

So these are fun family affairs that are thrown up and down rivers along the East Coast, and there's usually some educating, there's always some fish to eat, and more often than not, a good time to be had (usually) down by a river.

Chris has become synonymous with these things up and down the Hudson, and it's been a great pleasure to go to them and help out in some way, or just bring a kid or a dog or two along to hang out and see Pappa at work.

If you can make it to one, I obviously recommend it, especially if it's one of Chris'.

This day, however, Nancy forced him to impress her friends for her by having one in the driveway of their home.

Mission Accomplished.

I even got to use the coals for my own devices, however more chicken-y they were.  And you'll get to see these exploits next time, as something tells me if I want to sell this story, I'm going to have to disassociate it with the albatross of a bummer that this first half has been...

So fear not, intrepid reader-o-mine, I got a bright and sun-shine-y day right around the corner...

In the meantime, just, you know, think about what you've done and all that...

Loves and kisses,

n*

Happy Mothers Day*!!! (* And Birthday Sage!)

Two years ago today (May 11th) Sage Alexandra was pushed out into this world by her loving and womb-possessing mother...

So what better way to say Happy Birthday than to asterisk it on to Mothers Day and make a post of it, thus earning me the coveted two-for-one brownie points?

So...

Happy Mothers Day Liz!

And Happy Birthday Sage!

I'm sorry that we're tacking your birthday "party" onto not only the Mega-Mother's-Day celebration in Prospect Park yesterday, but then onto another kids birthday party that he's already having, and we are planning on telling you that it's for you as well...

It must suck being the second child.

But I can honestly say that she isn't loved any less that the first.

She just gets shittier birthday parties.

Oh well...

Liz, Sage...  Congrats, I love you both and am so proud and honored to be associated with the both of you...

(And yes Thalia I love you, too...)

Kiss, kiss...

n*

What Did I Get For My Birthday This Year? Dead Pig, Baby... Dead Pig...

So as I enter into my thirty-fourth year of life on this planet I'm compelled to look around and take stock of the important things in life, and to place value on long-standing fulfilling, uh...  fulfilling things(?), and further whittle away to what really matters while shedding all that doesn't matter until hopefully one day, I can become the man that I am supposed to be, without the excess, uh... excesses(?) and live my life as fully as possible, surrounded only by the things that make me the happiest, and shunning forevermore the frivolous, uh... frivolous things(?) of my youth.

With that in mind you would think my life should at least be whittled down into "pretty good" shape by now, and in my defense, it's (barely) starting to be, which is fine, but hardly anything to be proud of...  

I mean, I realize of course the embarrassing number of people who have accomplished so much more than I have by this time in their lives, but all I can think to do is sarcastically pat them on the back and remind them that we're floating through space on a thin layer of rock that's sitting on top of billions of tons of lava in a universe so big and massive that people have to invent make-believe-invisible-superhero-things-that-suck-at-doing-anything-about-anything to explain it to their small uncomprehending brains.  

That, and more than likely when this is all said and done, all of their (or our, for that matter) petty accomplishment won't really mean much if an asteroid extincts us like it did the dinosaurs, or the Earth decides she's had enough and shakes us off her like the fleas-that-we-are-to-her...

 

Apart from that though...  Great job!

The truth is, that I'm me, and I like being me.  

I'm pretty happy with my progress through this sham-we-call-life.  

In fact, one of the things I'm most proud of is the fact that I haven't bowed to Society's insistence on assimilation into the rank-and-file hordes of menial humdrummery, and despite the irony of having had mostly menial-humdrum jobs throughout my life, I've somehow managed to stay "me" and haven't ever been tempted by the seductive allure of the Meat Grinder that Society calls "American Life."

Even on my worst day of waiting tables, I still would have rather been me than one of the empty suit Wall Street douches that I was waiting on, or any one of the other rat-racing, money-obsessed, soulless-drones-of-the-vast-majority that make up 97% of this city.

Maybe my defense mechanisms are just-that-great, but I really like being me. 

Honestly, I would only trade places with a handful of people in this world, and those are mostly just people who get to travel with the Redskins to all of their games, and watch them from the sideline with no discernible responsibilities other than high five-ing the players as they come off the field...  

Oh, and Paul Bettany...

So where is all of this going?  And what does it have to do with food?

Well, after thirty-three years I've whittled away most of the things that aren't really that important, and left standing near the top of the not-obvious-stuff-like-my-health-and-family pile is my good friend Mr. Pork....

So imagine my surprise and pure pleasure to receive this as a birthday present:

Yes, my friends... 

Behold the power of dead Spanish pig...

Obviously if you know me, or read this blog often, you are well aware of my obsession with Spain.

"Get in line!" 

I know...  But what I love the most about Spanish food is the ratio of simplicity to superiority of product.  

Case in point:  Ham.

Most Cultures have ham.  We do here and America, and it can be fantastic.  Italy does, and it's pretty great.  France, Poland, Germany, China...  

Pig is pig, and it's delicious almost anywhere you go and anyway you have it.  

But Spain and Spain alone knows how to elevate the the same animal available to anyone else, and make it something special.

I know there are specific breeds involved here, different climates and vegetation, and a whole list of other factors, but when it comes down to it, Time is the biggest difference.  

Spain is unique in that it will wait a full year or two longer than everybody else for a better product and maybe I'm biased, but I think it's worth it.

I mean look at this:

Serrano isn't even their best ham, and it's already better than anything else anyone else does...

What's better than that?

That's the 'Pata Negra' Jamón Ibérico, probably the single most delicious thing in the world, and it's just a pig leg with some salt on it.

I mean that's a good simplicity to superiority of product ratio if I ever saw one...

Apart from the hams, the sausages and by-products of the ham are pretty delicious as well.

This chorizo is one of the best things ever:

Maybe it's because it comes so thinly sliced, but the flavor is just popping, so much so that even Liz liked it (I know!  I know!!!).

There's this ridiculously delicious lomo, which is dry-cured pork loin (I wonder if I like that?):

And then the crown jewel of the bunch...  

I mean, come on!  Look at that fat!

I seriously get such a foodie-boner just looking at it...

Ibérico de Bellota, this is the...  Well, here read about it yourself.

This is all from La Tienda, one of the best websites to get Spanish food from. 

I'd like to sincerely thank Chris and Nancy (again...  Boy you guys sure are becoming quite popular on this blog...) for this birthday present, and although I refuse to share the hams with anyone else, even Liz (I know,  I know...), I'm sure you'll believe me when I tell you how amazing they are, and how much I really love this and the thoughtfulness that went into it.

One of the best parts of being an Atheist for me is that without the security blanket of a "Heaven" where everything is supposedly so much better than this supposedly-so-crappy-according-to-religious-people life awaiting us after we die, is that it places a more significant importance on "now" and "today."   It's amazing how much better food tastes and how much more fun life can be when you're not waiting for the "ultimate reward" that Heaven promises (with no real promise of Heaven mind you), and it forces you to realize that there are a million reasons worth living for your children, your family or friends to something as simple as a great book or movie, a great trip, a great day doing nothing alone, a great piece of ham, a bottle of wine, you name it...  

If you can't find happiness in simple pleasures, then you're never going to be happy at all, no matter what somebody else tells you.  Because apart from the the best days, and the worst days that seem like they really define our lives, life is full of sublimely happy simple pleasures, if you want it to be...

If I've learned nothing else in my thirty-three years of life-so-far it's that Life is as great or as shitty as you want it to be.

In my mind if this is "all we get" (as if it's not enough), it's a great comfort to be able to share it everyday with the people that I get to share it with.  

Past, present, and future...

Here's to (hopefully) the first third...

Cheers!

n*

  

 

I Refuse To Use "Hook" As A Pun In My Title...

This should be a quick one, but I finally made the quasi-urbane-foodie pilgrimage to the Redhook Ball Fields this past Saturday.

Yes, it was great.

Yes, it was cheap.

Yes, I ate a lot.

No, I don't speak Spanish.

So, did I do it right?

Only if you consider this the first of what I hope are many trips.

I got lucky this trip in that it was too-hipster-early and too-Manhattan-rainy, so there were no lines when I got there.

I just had no idea how to "do" it, so I went with my smarter-than-me gut on this one and just ordered the first "pork" related thing I could find.

I found the one place with a line and ordered a combo platter of Fried Pork and Yucca...

It was huge.

It was delicious, but it needed sauce...

It also needed a drink...

There we go...

That drink is a very good/Spanish-y Horchata... Hey, if I'm gonna do a "theme," I'm gonna do a theme...

Now, please don't think that I came all the way out here for one, albeit yummy, lunch.  

I really have no good reason for not having had been here before other than it's insanely far away from my house and I rarely get the opportunity to spend a couple hours alone on the weekends since the advent of children.

Not good enough I know.  Especially since I honestly didn't think that the Ball Fields were as far away from my house as they are...

Oh well, I'm here now, so I'm going to eat.

So after realizing my error-in-ordering at the truck I ordered the pork from (it was too big for anything other than an entire family to eat all day, and it wasn't what people were in line for), I went back and ordered the thing that all those gringos were in line for, the pupusas.

Having just eaten a families worth of pig, I opted for the "cheese only" version, but there are a lot of other options for the less-than-over-filled stomachs out there...

The sad part of this story (and the only reason this is such a short post) is that while I was waiting for my papusa and cashew fruit drink to be made I got the "we're bringing your children home" phone call from old Grandpa and Grammy, which meant that I had to eat and not-quite-run.

It took me 45 minutes to get home, and I was walking as fast as I can (and those who know me, know that that is pretty fucking fast).

That's why I had never been to the Redhook Ball Fields.

Here's my lunch #2:

Here's my artsy "ball fields feel" shot:

Here's the obligatory "BQE" shot:

Here's a picture of my new haircut...

And here's a couple "look at all the pretty trucks" pictures:

And, yes I got some chicharrones...  

Now will someone please tell me where to get the non-gringo-sanctioned food?  

Where are the guts and nasty bits?

Do I have to go with an in-the-know hipster/foodie, or can I get away with a Spanish speaking friend or two that don't mind going at the ungodly hour of noon?

I'll find out.

Even if it means I have to go 30 times and learn Spanish over the summer...  I'll find the real food...

And even if I don't, at least I'll have the two hour-long walks to digest and work off my noble attempts with... 

Speaking of which, does anyone want to go to the Redhook Ball Fields this weekend?  I'm thinking early, and the more Spanish you speak, the better.  

Non-pork eaters need not apply.  Unless, of course you're name rhymes with "smiz blumblinner" then you can come (I know...  I know...)

Thanks a brunch!

n*

The One (post) That (almost) Got Away... -or- (I like parentheses) Part Two: A Dead Fish Tails No Tails

Okie dokie...

So, where were we?

Ah, yes, I remember.  I had just made my 2-year-old kiss a dead fish because we all thought it was funny...

That's right.

Borderline child abuse aside, these fish are ready to go, so let's join them, shall we?

  

The name of this game is SIMPLE.

These fish are fresh, they're gorgeous, their friends are just starting to wonder what happened to them, so why mess with that?

So we scored them, rubbed them inside and out with a spice rub (a new-to-me one, Konriko "Dry Mojo" that has salt, pepper, garlic, cumin, onion powder, orange and lime zest, and thyme I believe) and stuffed the cavities with limes and cilantro.

That's it.

Luckily for me, on these too, too few occasions that I get to cook fish, I usually have a pretty decent sous chef helping me through the fishier parts that my city-boy self has yet to be able to understand.  

He, being a former professional fisherman turned Environmental Educator for the Hudson River Foundation, has a lot of knowledge when it comes to things that live in water, and I'm sure that even a $40K culinary school education still won't even get me close to the amount of wisdom this fine gentleman has accumulated over the years about how to prepare fish (even though I'm sure I'll be able to make snobbier cream based French sauces able to cover up not-so-fresh fish since he would never bother with anything less than fish he either caught himself, or unless he knows the guy who caught the fish and his family by name).

 

Here he is, my special little guy, my almost-personal gardener/cleaner of fish/grower of flowers named after my children/pickler-of-shad.  

Master of the Hickory-wood-burning Weber Grill.  

Champion of Bald Eagles and their less noble but no-less-loved-by-him smaller feathered friends of all kinds (except cormorants), not to even mention the Hudson River, our original-most-important river in the country that he dedicated his life to.  

A worst-nightmare to any squirrel who has the misfortune of setting its sites on his bird feeder (I've yet to have tried it, but he assures me that squirrel liver is better than chicken liver, and a braised squirrel is a "dead" ringer for a super tender, but even-more-flavorful-than rabbit.).  

Always eventually grumpy, madly-in-love with his wife and my children (I'd guess he likes Liz and I okay as well), and the compost-er of all of our poops...

Mr. Christopher Letts aka Uncle Grandpa, or Poppa to the kids...

Here he is preparing a mackerel ceviche while I prepare the more attention-grabbing whole grilled fish...

Nice try Chris, but you're going to have to do better than that to steal my thunder...

Anyhooo...

Here are the fish, seasoned, stuffed, and scored awaiting the next part of their even-further fate...

Mr. Fish, meet Mr. Grill (I hate gas grills but that was all there was, I mean, we are talking about Florida here...) 

Here's a good shot of the stuffed cavities.

Okay, well maybe not "good" but you know...

Meanwhile (for the sake of this post) I made a salsa of tomato, red peppers, onion, cilantro and green apple.

Here's a couple "fish grilling" action shots for people who like multiple angles of the same thing...

Here they are done...

All dressed up...

And that's the last picture I took before they were ravaged by a bunch of hungry animals...

By the way...

How was that leftover chicken, Liz?

Nice and dry?  Still a little cold in the center?

Hummm?

Was it good?  A little chewy, but still "okay"?  

Better than nothing, was it?

That's right...  Yum, yum...  Eat your leftover chicken from two nights ago...

Well...  I guess like is usually the case, it saves more for the rest of us...

This was a good one too...  

I finally "see" why people like the eyes.  I usually eat them to gross out whoever I'm eating with, but find them to be mostly a slimy, mushy, gelatinous mess, but these were flavored and charred and they were delicious...

I guess, like most things (I'm finding), it's one of those things that are better when you do it yourself.

I'm not going to "fish" around too much for more puns to use to get out of this thing...

So "sea-turtle"-loo, I hope you "shad" a nice time, and don't forget to "halibut" a nice day...

"Smelt" 'ya later...

n*