A Food-Driven Day Off

Since the end of my stint at Tabla, and the end of my sentence at Naidre's (which added on a false bad note due to some bored people spreading lies and gossip and untrue garbage of exhorbitant proportions) I have been enjoying my time at Hearth, ignoring the sometimes stressful evenings with some of the kitchen staff there, and taking Jordan's advice of searching for inspiration. I decided to use today to do just that.
Allen, Poodle, and I hit Tom's Diner in Prospect Heights for a wonderful breakfast complete with a chocolate egg cream, given to us by Gus, the owner (not Tom... there is no Tom...) and some perfectly cooked eggs (the omelettes at Tom's Diner are always overcooked and spongy), and some great beef sausage that was generously squeezed with lemon. One lovely companion ordered the same, with eggs over-hard, and the other one ordered a plate of crabcakes and grits with a a thin but wonderful remoulade that was pleasantly loaded with Old Bay. One of the crowning achievements of Tom's (aside from the orange slices, ice water, sausage pieces, and hot coffee given out gratis while waiting in line) is the service. We were out in an hour, including our wait in line.
This was followed by a trip to the Fort Greene Park Greenmarket to Wilklow Orchards, the farm I used to regularly work for. We picked up an assortment of heirloom tomatoes, all in their prime, some nectarines (gorgeous and fragrant but in need of a day in a paper bag), a few red and yellow plums, two bright yellow cobs of fresh sweet corn, and the PLUMPEST of blackberries.
All of these things came together in a perfect summer late dinner, despite the humidity and pain of a hot oven and boiling water.

Mixed Heirloom Tomatoes with Mozzarella di Bufala, sel gris, black peppercorn "mignonette", and balsamic vinegar

Sweet Corn on the Cob with coarse sea salt and butter

Plum and Ginger Glazed Pork Chops with Garlic Roasted Scalloped Potatoes and Plum Puree

Romaine Lettuce, Garden Cucumbers, and San Marzano Tomatoes with Blackberry Vinagrette

Fresh Blackberries with Lemon Creme Anglaise

Green Grapes.

each course was washed down with generous glasses of dry rose... ice cold.

Happy Sunday (it's meatball night at Hearth, the best balls in the city),
jp

Jordan's advice....

At the staff meeting last week, Jordan (our chef) gave us a list of the usual "make sure there's a sanitation bucket, no tongs, clean more, don't stand around" and other things that require a reminder and a meeting every few months. But at the end of the list there was a more romantic "this is why we're really here" list of things we should do, which shows me that he is passionate and in love with food like I am, and shows me that I will soon be respected and trusted by everyone over at Hearth, not just because of my work, but also because of the passion we share.
One of the things that struck me was that to "Stay Inspired", and I've been thinking about that ever since. I am looking at the things around me that I eat on a regular basis, my real diet and food that I love. Nothing is more of an almost daily ritual that writing menus. I have decided to learn how to write a menu and experiment by posting my ideas here.

Summer Bar Menu - August 2007

first course:
Canteloupe, Prosciutto, and Parmesan with Arugula, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and Truffle Honey

second course:
white corn and leek ravioli, sweet crab soup, fried scallions, smoked paprika

third course:
seared jumbo scallops, braised butter lettuce, fried yuca, tangerine gastrque, fried cashews

fourth course:
rabbit confit, zucchini gnocchi, \

and time for bed

Two Months Later

Dear Dabdyputs,

It has been two whole damn months since my last rant. A shitload of things both wonderful and terrible have happened. For starts, I called it quit at Tabla, and did so like a crazy person, walking out over spilled chaat masala. Thems the breaks, I say with new found confidence. Twasn't the place for me, and after I decided that (weeks before I left) I began to see that it was just a machine for pleasing, but in a contrived way. And what the people paying twenty five dollars for eight ounces of mahi don't see or care about is that the people taking care of them aren't having the fun they look like they're having, in their cute little hats and coats, soaked through and green with sweat, and overworked and drastically underpaid. I am happy for everyone who has the stamina to keep up with that and enjoy it: the unplanned three hours of extra work, the suprise come in earlies, the sudden ego-based changes in procedure. I threw in my towel and left when a sous chef jumped on top of me the moment I walked in the door the day after a shitty painful root canal. I realized that there is no crying in foodservice, for sure, and will not make excuses for what I did, but I would do it again today. And if they convinced me to come back, I would have done it again still eventually. I bid you so long, Danny Meyerland Corp. That's all I'll say about that.

So, in moving out, I'm moving off into the territory I belong. I am joining Jordan and the boys at Hearth to sling fresh pasta and hatlessly make people groan when they taste the rabbit pappardelle. It is SO freaking good, damn it. There's no way around it. And what I love most is the lack of boiling point in the air, the windows, the open kitchen, and the five hours of prep time before a four hour service. There are two walkin fridges and a walkin freezer, that's all, and they don't do three hundred and seventy seven thousand covers on Tuesday night, either. Just a few scant hours of picture perfect service with enough staff, enough food, and enough sixth pans for everyone.

I am going to Buffalo armed with a cooler, so I will be bringing back homestyle treats to share. Bison French Onion dip, perhaps a chicken finger sub from Jim's Steakout. All kinds of things to eat on the disco fueled trips there and back.

So I am looking forward to my trip and my August 6th start date at Hearth. They have a sweet thing that's like a fryer but with boiling water. I'm sure I'll burn the crap outta my hands and arms by the tenth.

Love and kisses and mondongo
jp

Names of characters have been changed to protect their identity

Anyone who has spent a considerable amount of time with me knows about my trademark insecure flurries of "What if?" and "Did I do something wrong?" and "Will it hurt?". I am my own life's worst and most unfair critic, especially when it comes to cooking. Many pink and orange sunsets ago, in the Nostrand Avenue Boarding House for Spunky Girls and Self-Deprecating Faggotry (NABHSGSDF for short), long before I had burns on my hands and face and arms, I was the house chef. Armed with the bounty of bizarre misshapen root vegetables and spices from the West Indian markets, I would spend hours nearly every day concocting things for dinners upon dinners, and then stand in the kitchen with a plate and a cooking utensil, eat two bites, frown, and then ask everyone in turn "is it gross? does it taste okay? is there enough asafoetida in it because", and so forth. But I digress.
My progress as a cook was always overshadowed by the question "What is it that i'm doing so right?". Every kitchen I have worked in, I have moved up and earned trust with quickness. And now, at Bread Bar, I have been moved to the saute station in two weeks, in spite of the restaurants usual flow of three months of the prep/"float" station. I trained a mere day and a half, followed by an additional two painful days of working with my wonderful Chef-de-Cuisine Ty (a man that you should want to work for and a man whom you would instantly trust and want to do anything for), and then prompty threw myself at a week of 200+ covers a day. Sure it was terrifying, but I made it out of each night barely breathing but alive. I knew I was making it through, but getting a complement or even some encouragement from Tabla is like pulling teeth, and in spite of a hushed "good job" from my sous-chef at the end of service, I had no idea how I was doing. Until Bill.
Bill showed up to his first day of work looking very small and awkward and uncomfortable. A fresh recruit from "the best culinary school in the country" with his monogrammed Misono knife and top-of-the-line chrome plated vegetable peeler, he looked like Gordon Ramsey's wet dream: a small and insecure boy just begging to throw cold proteins into a cold pan and pour salt straight from the shaker. I questioned my cohort Carrie about "the new kids" and she said "I put a disclaimer on him", cracked a brief and forced smile, and went angrily back to rolling her Kadi balls. A feeling of dread crept over me, not unlike the tingling sensation accompanied by vivid phantasms and other paranormal activity.
That feeling of dread has been with me since. Every day it's the same thing. Did you grab your ceviche salmon from the fish walk-in? No. Sorry. Did you take all of the cilantro that was left for you? No. Sorry. Are there more potatoes? No. Sorry. And so forth. Anyone who has held a demading job this century has dealt with the idiot of this caliber. The kind of person whose incompetence exceeds pitiful territory and delves into deserves to be kicked territory. I mean, you couldn't even feel bad to help this kid if you tried. His mistakes aren't so bad as his unwielding dishonesty and fear of getting into trouble. He clearly has no idea how terrible he is doing, and has no comprehension that two nine pans of cilantro don't chiffonade themselves, and that once Brad and Eric and Wayne and the gang from Credit Suisse have sucked down a gallon of tamarind margaritas apiece, they are going to want lamb sandwiches NOW and there is no time to run upstairs for scallions. Or apple cider. Or potatoes, apples, chili peppers, or daikon radish. There is no time to stand still and stare blankly at me while I scream "Lamb sandwich coming to your cutting board NOW". This child just does not belong in a kitchen.
And apparantly, this is more suprising to me than to anyone else. Oh sure, they have all said, there is a constant parade of imbeciles with Food Network dreamss that walk through that kitchen and leave with broken dreams, broken hearts, and $40k in useless debt from cooking school.
This is what it took for me to realize just how much ass I have the potential to kick. It's not there just yet, but since 2000 I have had my hands in the muck of that which is kitchen life, and I have learned that an assortment of sharpies and spoons and thermometers sticking out of one's sleeve does not a good chef make. It's the heart and soul and love you put into your time spent cooking that is or is not going to get you to that special place.
Finally, it's paying the fuck off.

Good luck, Bill.
May you cut, burn, slice, dice, and brunoise yourself into oblivion and do so quick. The boats are leaving, and you don't want to get left behind, and no you can't borrow the teeth from my mandolin.

ever.again.

love
jp

the beginning for me

Three and a half weeks ago, I walked into a new job at Tabla, Danny Meyer and Chef Floyd Cardoz's fabulous walk into Indian territory. As far as I know, it is in a class all its own. It appears wonderful and a place-to-be-seen in the eyes of the restaurant scenesters and the press alike. I didn't expect that it would be as shiny and tasty on the inside as it is on the outside. Thankfully I have been proven wrong.
For starters, it is busy. All. The. Time. I walk in at 2:45 and it's busy. I get my toold together and go back to the Bread Bar, and it is still busy. Now that I have a third of the food we make under my belt, I have to stop what I'm doing and help my quit little firecracker of a line cook friend Emily plate this and that. I then go back upstairs, pack up everything I need as fast as I possibly can, send it down on the elevator (with a jog to the office for a key). I/"We" unpack everything, put it aside, and cut and refill and reheat and assemble like crazy until our sous chef (whose patience and precision and willingness to help and make everything perfect I cannot even calculate into how much I have learned from him) comes down, and givesw a stern lookover at everything. Nothing is ever perfect the first time at Tabla, so the next hour is spent correcting mistakes.
Then, folks, I promptly bend over and let the afflent folks of En Why See give my ass a stern kicking. And I kick back as best I can. Today I learned a boatload of "pointers" from my Chef-De-Cuisine, which I absorbed as best I could between Beef-Frys, Lamb Sandwiches (4 of which were fired and plated and then thrown out, remade, and sent out in a period of 20 minutes), Chickpeas, Kalonji's, and other gibberish.
I am terrified of fucking up the rice tomorrow, running out of Kadi Sauce again with no one to help me, screwing up the Lamb Sandwiches, and just about everything else. But I will swallow my anxiety, jump in, and send out every damn plate with complete perfection.
So if you want to get ahold of me, try me there.

Love, Johnny

done.

i'm done.
period.

i don't know my grade. but i finished, got my big tall hat, went to Toad Hall, and i'm done.

D-O-N-E.

I won't go into any gory details.
The three judges who had my dishes LOVED my grouper dish... they even said it was the best dish they had all night. yesssss.

All of the haywire-ness was followed by some generous drinking at Toad Hall.
I had an irish car bomb, a sierra nevada, a shot of Jaeger, a guiness, and a bastardized car bomb that was just Jameson and Guinness. I really truly almost puked at the bar while the Jameson hit my throat, but kept it down.

Chef Martin and I tipped over a whole tableful of drinks onto the floor... complete with an uncomfortable silence and cheers from the rest of the bar. Shards of glass, a broom, and a mop. The whole deal. I called it quits on the alcohol after that and sat with Chef Martin, Chef Janet (cute as a button), Chef Bear, and Cody. We talked about sauerbreaten, guinness, and the drug habits of the other FORMER chefs at the school. It was everything i had holed it would be. I wanted to stay later, but I am glad i'm home now, writing and smoking a marlboro menthol light. Amen.

Things i've learned about the kitchen life:

1) Be ready to poop in really uncomfortable places. Inconveinient. Obvious. But you gotta go. Table 5 will be fired in 5 minutes, and to be honest, you really don't have a choice. Go while you can and you'll camp happier in the end. Everyone does it.

2) Shut up. Listen. Take every critique seriously, but with a grain of salt. They're right, and listen to what they have to say, but you weren't completely wrong either. Use it to your advantage. And if you know you done fucked up, take it with pride and block out the world. Just suck it up and apply the right tidbits when necessary.

3) Time is of the essence. Take it seriously, but not so seriously that you choke. You have JUST ENOUGH time, no more and no less. Use it as best you can, and if you fuck up, Entremetier probably has something nice they can send to the table for free to quell their hunger. But keep on top of your game and you won't have to resort to that.

4) Everyone is your friend. You're all under the same roof, and you can't leave early, so help your friends. And they will most certailny help you. Share a sixth-pan with garde-manger the first time they ask and they'll hook up the sizzle plate love as necessary. They'll also be sure to remember that you were an asshole and said NO if you chose so, and never ever ever let you forget it.

5) Your chefs are people too. They've had bad days, stupid days, drug problems, parents, school, not enough sleep, boy/girl friends, wives/husbands, rent, bills, and life in general, too... just like you. It's so easy to forget, but you'll see. Just buy them a drink when they show up with no warning to the bar and make them feel good. They'll return the favor.

6) Always say yes when someone asks for a smoke. They probably need it more if they're asking. Cut them a short and go back inside to cover their ass. Just do it. They'd do it for you. This also applies to nonsmokers.

7) No whistling in the kitchen. It's bad luck. Chef Candy said so. And if her word isn't gold, then nobody's is. Trust me.

8) Always say yes when invited out for a drink. Even if you're too tired and have to work a lunch shift the next day. Just have one, or opt for soda and lime. But go. The best conversations and the most valuable information comes from someone with a bourbon on the rocks in one hand. You might even tip a table with Chef Martin in the end.

9) There is no crying in foodservice. This was introduced to me by an ex-friend and then reinforced word-for-word by Chef Candy, which makes it hold true forever. Keep your trap shut, endure the screaming/yelling, and do it better next time. It's just food, after all, and you'll have all day tomorrow to make good on your mistake. Just hold your head high, accept that you fucked it up, and resolve to work twice as hard from now on.

10) SMILE. Laugh in the face of table 7's request for no onions in the sauce, do it with a big grin, and speak horrible curses under your breath through your teeth that no one can hear, and hole for the best. Even in the midst of the serious, lives-hanging-in-the-balance-ness of the kitchen, nothing REALLY matters, and life is too short to suck, so make the best out of your sautoir and ladle, and with a smile, sauce and veg that butterless and empty plate as requested and do it with pride.

Otherwise, we might as well give in to the Burger King Empire.

Hallelujah, and Holy Shit.

Love
johnjohn

While you're listening to Smooth Jazz....

You enter. The sounds of clinking glasses and forks twinkle invitingly through the air. You are greeted by a heavily perfumed woman, her hair twisted into a french braid, and a large, brown clip adorns the top of her head. Cheryl promptly takes your coats in exchange for a ticket, and whisks you into a large, burgundy dining room. You can smell the Alfredo Sauce and A1 Steak Sauce wafting from the tables around you. The clientele are middle-aged, most of them done up in their finest, elated, as they sop the remnants of their roasted portobello and red pepper salads. It is, in Buffalo, the high life.

But as Cheryl kindly produces busboys with water, napkins, and bread, she continues on to the typical double doors to the the kitchen. In there, she is greeted by the rap music playing by the dish station, the bursts of steam, the sailor-like lingo of the teenage dish dogs. As she passes by the line, classic rock is blaring a few octaves below the expediter, who is using "direct" tones in getting what he needs NOW or more often, 5 MINUTES AGO or YESTERDAY.

A gripe I have with the "real kitchen" in Manhattan is the lack of music. People here are used to silence while scrambling. My chefs have claimed it helps concentration. I beg to differ. On the rare occasion that the cussing and demanding halts momentarily, it would be nice to hear a little more than the silent tears we're crying into our beurre blancs. I see I have been more than dramatic.

In the spirit of claiming that the whole world is not this way, as a reminder to myself and a promise to others who firmly believe in the importance of silence, I'm sharing my list of the songs that all the Cheryls of the world are hearing in kitchens all over Buffalo.

Oh, and Cheryl, wipe the lipstick off your teeth. Good girl.

Here are the top 10 most likely to be heard in a Buffalo, NY kitchen. In no particular order.

With Love, JP

1. "You Shook Me All Night Long" - AC/DC
2. "Tush" - ZZ Top
3. "Money" - Pink Floyd
4. "Barracuda" - Heart
5. "Ramble On" - Led Zeppelin
6. "TNT" - AC/DC
7. "Paint it Black" - The Rolling Stones
8. "Killer Queen" - Queen
9. "Benny and the Jets' - Elton John
10. "Bad Company" - Bad Company