February 2012
1 post
growing
keeping my head above water has been my primary goal since starting my life as a sous, but now that i’m a couple of months into the job i feel ready to pay attention to things other than mere survival. the dream as a young cook is always to put your own stamp on the food, whether specials or menu items, it’s a porny fantasy to create a dish that people pay for and hopefully...
January 2012
1 post
December 2011
5 posts
the top ten new musics of 2011 in alphabetical...
colin stetson - new history warfare vol. 2: i’m unafraid to admit that other people know more about certain things that i do, though it wasn’t always this way. so, when a former boss of mine extolled the virtues of “jazz”, i started sampling around hesitantly. i latch onto brass, and lean towards melody, but this guy absolutely mangles the saxophone. i used to listen to...
christmas
christmas day is the one day that most people around these parts agree that it’s okay to unwind, and for that reason i love christmas. hustle breeds hustle to the point where people feel guilty when they aren’t, even if they are justifiably exhausted. my brethren in the service industry deserve a day or two to kick back and not have to worry about a restaurant and its patrons. the...
kitchens are dangerous
i’ve never been much of a cutter. instead, i burn myself. this is my way of getting to know the physical space of a restaurant kitchen: i bumble about, sentimentally clinging onto old habits and previously enjoyed repetitive motions, occasionally brushing against something very hot. it’s a bizarre way, but it is my way. i’m six days deep into my new position in a different...
onward and upward
a while a go i was approached with a potential opportunity, the kind a cook cooks for. i was asked by the boss if i would be interested in climbing the ladder a little bit, from the cook rung to sous chef one. i excitedly admitted that i wanted to take the step, and then i waited to hear word of the when and where variety. now i know those things, and it is officially in full swing.
i recently...
November 2011
7 posts
goodbye roma
i arrived in their hands a wounded, embittered shadow of the person i try to be. somehow they saw something they wanted to keep around, so they did. that was at the end of july, and now four months later i find myself setting my alarm clock for pretty fucking early for one more time. tomorrow is my farewell shift at campagnolo roma, and on wednesday i’ll be found at campagnolo wearing my...
time
cooking and time are married and divorced all at once. good food usually takes time to make, but often i feel as though there just isn’t enough of it to go around. the ability to manage a clock is perhaps what separates me, a professional cook, and someone who is cooking at home. preparing one thing at a time would guarantee the best results, but it isn’t a fiscally sound way of...
1 tag
top five: ways to recover from the work week
right now, just this second, i have decided to start doing top fives. i’m a cook, so i fucking love making lists, so it makes sense for me to do this here. this is the internet, so i’m allowed to do this. i’m also allowed to stop writing them without notice. you, as it stands, are allowed not to read these things.
number five: watch some stories
movies are good. television...
testing
i’m an idea guy. i struggle to bring them to life. i am working on it.
i could use a heavy dose of patience, which is absolutely a required trait of any cook who wants to graduate from taker of orders to giver. i want my concepts to actualize immediately, and it doesn’t always work out that way.
there are blessings in my life right now: one, i’m afforded the time to tinker...
wine
a recent article in the atlantic, i think, pointed out that people, even experts, don’t always know what they’re talking about when it comes to wine. some experiments took place that really exploited the shortcomings of the human mind, and unfortunately exposed some people for being pompous. with food and drink, i try and categorize things as either good or not, with most things...
October 2011
7 posts
two fridays
there is life after work, and in this business of food and cooking it can be easy to become obsessed with the job. it is a fine line between attention to detail and obsession, and it’s best to come no closer to the latter than to tiptoe on that line. so, with that in mind, i can express just how much i enjoy my friday: a lot. i had a wonderful teacher in elementary school who would lay out...
peace.
there are many reasons to drink beer with friends. when it happens i can always count on the presence of laughter and shop talk. sometimes, however, opportunities arise. last week i was offered the opportunity to visit the okanagan for secret reasons. i gladly accepted and soon found myself en route to the interior. the last time i did that drive i was 14 years old, sitting beside my father in a...
cooks
somehow, as if by witchcraft, i managed to get together with a bunch of my friends last night. this is rare because we’re all cooks, and i don’t usually see any of them one on one, let alone all at once, because we’re usually busy playing a little game i like to call “cook the food”. i’ve always been open about the fact that the people i’ve met and will...
nerd alert: aeropress
that right there is an upside down aeropress, a highly recommended and affordable coffee gadget i picked up at elysian coffee on west broadway. i’ve been eying one of these up for a while, but finally caved and got one plus a reusable metal filter for about fifty bucks. this is the latest addition my growing stable of coffee nerd gadgetry, which now includes a hand powered burr grinder, a...
a guy, a girl, and a dirty burger
yet another topical photograph taken months ago. this is a post about being a cook and having nights off, and that is a marriage proposal directed at swedish twins who also happen to be hockey wizards. there simply aren’t any dots to connect. thousands of years from now, when the future people are rummaging around on the internet, they may stumble upon my little square and wonder what it...
the return of (real) sports
tonight we turn the page on last season by starting all over again. for now, i’ve got evenings off, and that will afford me precious time to micromanage my championship fantasy hockey team, the bearded ladies. there will be beer, and friends, and shouting, and cheering, and a whole gamut of things that people do in this country when men on skates hit one another and go real fast. this time...
couch
a good couch is invaluable. it is the refuge of the exhausted, unshowered, post-work version of myself. it’s where i unwind. it’s where i nap, something i do plenty of now that i work at 7am five days a week. it’s where i write, and watch tv while i write. it is where i hang out with my girlfriend. i watch my shows and she waits for them to be over, at which point we watch her...
i went to seattle
i have strong feelings for vancouver and victoria, so it makes sense that a place like seattle would tug firmly on my heart strings. it has a geography similar to victoria (lots of water) without the old people, and a progressive food culture somewhat like vancouver’s, but better. beer is everywhere, too, and it is affordable to drink very well. noticed that everything is bigger there,...
September 2011
14 posts
a place to call my own
when i was attending the third level of schooling for my apprenticeship, i remember the chef instructor asking how many of us wanted to open our own restaurants. i think each of us excitedly raised our hands, and then he proceeded to warn us explicitly about the dangers of doing such a thing. i’m not sure it deterred anyone, though, and ever since i have been building up and tearing down...
american beer
i grew up with the completely unfounded concept that canadian beer was inherently better than that which was brewed by our neighbours to the south. i have since grown up, and now realize that ideas like that are half cooked. the craft beer movement wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the efforts of a few concerned american citizens, and consequently, i wouldn’t be enjoying the...
bang bang
bear with me. i try and use pictures i take for all of these posts, so it holds that they won’t always be relevant. in this case, when i’m writing about an entire dining room bringing the thunder at the same time, it’s hard to take a moment and snap a shot. actually it’s impossible, so that’s what words are for.
expecting things to go smoothly all the time is...
the notebook
i try and keep a notebook around at all times. whether i’m in the kitchen, bumming around the neighbourhood, or on the couch watching tv, a notebook is useful. i’ve lost enough ideas in the recesses of my brain to know that it’s a good idea to jot things down immediately, or at least soon. it’s full of crap, usually, and i don’t ever read over the old words very...
eat this
i went out on the town yesterday with my old friend sugar shane. first we found coffee, then we found sandwiches, then we treated a cookbook store like a library, and then we went to q-go on west broadway near granville. they do ramen, and they do a really nice job of it, to the point where i’m not so thrilled about eating the stuff across the street anymore. it’s fine, but it...
whole foods
it was a freak thing, winding up in whole foods, and though i didn’t like anything about the place, i’m glad i went. i needed the fixings for grilled cheese sandwiches as well as some other odds and ends, and just happened to be in the neighbourhood. the first thing i noticed about the place was the strange concentration of glowing, beautiful people. not like heaven, per se, but more...
sunday equals friday
those are some trophies from when i was an athlete, but the message i’m trying to send is that making it to the weekend is the sweet victory i taste 52 times a year. i haven’t competed at anything other than video games in about a decade. i used to be a hockey player, a long distance runner, and adept at most sports. most of those skills are rusty, like they just might give you...
sometimes cooking means not cooking
my first job out of the dishpit was ideal. from noon till eight i cooked, making soups, cutting meat, and cutting vegetables. i did that five days a week. it was fun, and it that made it a really easy job to show up for. when a cook graduates from the prep kitchen, he or she will quickly find themselves responsible. it’s a swift and severe change, at least it was for me, and i sometimes...
August 2011
6 posts
July 2011
4 posts
June 2011
10 posts
1 tag
1 tag
2 tags
2 tags
playoff fever
a fringe benefit of current my unemployment streak is that the canucks just happen to be 2 wins away from winning their first stanley cup in franchise history. i wandered the streets of downtown vancouver this afternoon, before and after a job interview, and noticed that almost everyone is representing the local sports franchise with either clothing, or face paint. the masses seem unfazed by the...