Feeding My Passion

I just gave my two week notice today.

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Friday night, October 2, marked the end of another phase in my life. It’s been a difficult few of months, years really. At this point, after a painful breakup and the realization that I’m not ready to run a kitchen despite my best efforts, I’m exploring my options.

First, it’s time to finish my degree. After that, I have some direction, but no real purpose yet. I think those are two very different things, the former having to do with the mind, the latter to do with the heart. For me, the heart is much more important, essential for living long term.

Stay tuned…

So yesterday I wanted to catch up on my blog and correspondence, but the cold has me down a bit, so I watched Lonesome Dove, the wonderful miniseries very faithfully adapted from Larry McMurtry’s, Pulitzer-Prize-winning book. I’ve bought the 2-DVD set twice it’s so good. Well, maybe it’s 3 times, since I’ve been moving around so much and lost 2 copies. I need to think about getting a Netflix subscription again once I have some time and money since they have a HUGE selection of stuff hard to get anywhere else, especially when you’re not near a big city. I did see Food Inc. at the great little art-house theater that is literally across the street from me. Somewhat like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma in screen form, it was an interesting and sobering look at the food supply, and how it’s become more and more like a factory, less and less humane to both animals and humans.

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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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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.

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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Servers and cooks have difficult jobs. I’ve hosted at Brewster’s in New Buffalo, Mich., which is a very busy restaurant, so I’ve dealt with the public and the servers a lot. But I haven’t really ever been a server, so I won’t pretend to know and understand more than I do. I’ve spent much more time in the kitchen, and I know that one of the things that drives me and every other cook I know nuts is when hot food sits dying in the “window,” ready to be picked up but cooling off, or just sitting there under the lamp.

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Due to my not working at Port 412 yet, I wasn’t really in the loop when it came to the management team’s day together. Brandon wanted to play golf, Tom’s vote was for fishing, John, the owner, thought we’d be going to his cabin and talk shop and have some fun. So what do you think we did?

If you guessed “None of the above,” you’re absolutely right!

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