Feeding My Passion

I actually have a Friday off, which is very nice, but I have to run up to St. Joe to have lunch with my boss. He, Tom, Brandon, and I are going to eat at Ban Thai, the new (and only) Thai restaurant in the area. I had eaten there before by myself, and it was interesting. The place is tiny, which means the kitchen must be the size of a broom closet, and they’ve just opened in the last month and a half. They been very busy ever since they opened, so they’re learning all the things they need to work on, just as we did at the Buddha.

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For the latest Cooking with the Diva segment, I did my all-time favorite dish, Vietnamese catfish with caramel sauce. Here’s my written introduction to it on 98.3 The Coast’s site:

While name of the dish is intriguing, that’s nothing compared to how it tastes! Vietnamese caramel sauce feels barely related to what you put on your ice cream. It’s much, much darker, almost black, and because it’s so dark, it’s actually bittersweet. When you simmer catfish in it with a few other ingredients, you create a rich and seductive dish that almost everyone falls in love with. With a few minor variations, you can also use the same sauce and technique with chicken, shrimp, and pork with equally impressive results. The flavors are intense, and you’ll want something to soak up every drop of the finished sauce, so serve it with rice.

Ingredients
Caramel sauce (sugar, water, shallots, garlic, fish sauce, vegetable oil)
Catfish fillets
Scallions
Ground black pepper

Given that little list of ingredients, the complexity you get from that little list is stunning, definitely worth a try, whether you make it or order it! The best method for making caramel sauce base (sugar/water caramel) I’ve found so far is in Into the Vietnamese Kitchen by Andrea Nguyen. It’s worth the price of the book just for that alone since the caramel sauce can be tricky. And the rest of the book is outstanding as well, I’ve cooked from it many times and have always been happy with the results.

Video after the jump.
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I’m doing another radio/video cooking thing today, this time I’m making Vietnamese catfish with caramel sauce, probably my all-time favorite food. The recipe is very simple, so I’ll be explaining the ingredients again, just like with the pad thai. There aren’t too many exotic ingredients, just the fish and caramel sauces. I’ll also be talking about the catfish a bit, especially since many people still think of it as a dirty fish that tastes gamey.

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Last week, after working half of my (long) week at the front of the house, I’m back in the kitchen. I’m still pulled out of the kitchen to help servers at the front of the house. I’m also a de facto assistant manager when Brandon and Amy (the assistant manager) aren’t at the restaurant, which lately has been quite often. So when the servers need anything, like change from the cash box, or need something discounted, or need a manager to talk with a guest, or a vendor is making a delivery and needs to be paid, or or or…whatever. So I can get pulled out of the kitchen a lot, and that’s got to drive Tom a little crazy.
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Brandon is going to a wedding this weekend, and he wants to get most of the tiling done at Tulips before he goes, so I’m covering for him at the front of the house…A LOT. I’m praying Amy, the other FOTH manager, is scheduled a lot as well so I can get back into the kitchen or just have a break.

I attended an 8-hour food safety class with Tom, Brandon, Jeff, and Tim, and we took a test to get our ServSafe certification. (We’ll find out in 2 weeks, but we’re all pretty confident about it since the instructor was great, the fairly easy test, and the pass bar set fairly low.)

Yesterday I didn’t need to be in until 4p, but I volunteered to come in at 9a so Brandon could get started early on the tiling. I was there until 10p.

Today, same thing, 9a-10p.

Tomorrow, 10a-close (11p).

Friday, noon-close (11:30p).

Saturday, 3p-close (11:30p).

Sunday, 3p-close (11p).

Then on Monday I have a Tulips tasting at 3p.

And then I would like to pass out until the afternoon of the next day.

The Krasl Art Fair was weekend before last, and we were pretty damn busy then. I think we were busier than during July 4th weekend, and I’m very glad I left fairly early since many of my kitchen-mates stayed up late to party at the restaurant and suffered at work the next day. It was definitely a fun and intense weekend.

But then there was the Venetian Fest last weekend. Read more »

I’ve got close-to-open shifts today/tomorrow and again Monday/Tuesday, and potentially Tuesday/Wednesday and Wednesday/Thursday (This means I could be working from open to close Tuesday-Thursday.). Then I’m working 4 to close Friday and Saturday, off Sunday. Total hours for the week will probably be about 63 hours.

The other interesting thing about this week is that I’m going to be training at the front of the house. Read more »

This is my first day off since last Friday, so 7 days in a row. Not all of them have been 8 hour days, but it’s been a little while, like probably since March, that I’ve really worked in a kitchen, and since late last year at the Buddha that I worked close to 40 hours a week.

I know Jeff, Tim, and Dan have all worked  7 days a week at Port 412, more than 40 hours a week, and that Brandon and Chef Tom are exhausted with the number of hours and jillions of things they have to think about everyday during this time of the year.

And I know this is only the beginning of the madness. Once Tulips opens, I’ll be there 7 days a week, all day long, getting my butt handed to me, every single day, for probably the first couple of months.

That being said, I’m tired, and I hope you forgive me for all of the typos and grammatical errors I’ve made. What I really need is to do some yoga, rehydrate, and run some errands, chief among them being a trip to Staples or Office Max to get a day planner since my schedule has gotten much more complex than a simple list of the hours I’m supposed to be working. And I need to drop laundry off. Luckily my apartment is pretty clean as I had anticipated craziness once I started working for John, so I spent a full day finding stuff to donate, tossing a lot of stuff out, and filing all of the stuff I needed to file. It was the first time in a loooooong time I’ve actually filed papers. Amazing, isn’t it! I was tired of stressing about it, always thinking that I needed to do it and needing to know where all of my papers are. Aaaaah, feels really, really good, and it wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. Cleaning up and getting organized never is.

It’s been a very interesting week so far with the cooking radio show/video recording on Tuesday and the cooking class at the St. Joe library last night. Port 412 was doing a breast cancer fundraiser last night, “Burgers for Boobies,” a very fun and tongue-in-cheek way to raise money for the cause. Those who donated at least $2 got a full Port 412 hamburger, which is quite delicious, let me assure you. So the place was packed to the bra-strewn rafters and the kitchen was pumping out burgers like mad. Read more »

Holy smokes people, it feels so weird when I watch myself doing the pad thai demonstration (after the jump) on Tuesday. As for my awkwardness, my only defense is that it was my first time doing something like this on camera.

I’m sure I’ll be twice as awkward the second time.

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