toys

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 10:20:18 -0700

sundays are a mixed bag. more than a few decent restaurants in this city are closed on sunday/monday, leaving brio to take on all comers. after having just dealt with friday/saturday, the team is exhausted, battling both long working hours and shorter than short sleeping sessions. i’m not too sure if i’m willing to call what i’ve been doing “sleeping”, because i’ve been having the worst kind of work nightmares, the ones that are entirely mundane and believable. that being said, this set of sunday and monday was some kind of peace offering from the kitchen gods/dark lords of gastronomical hell. things were mellow, and everyone did well. things went well enough that i couldn’t trust it. there’s usually a once-a-night occurrence of shit hitting the fan, when customers erupt rather than arrive. i’ve come to expect this, and now i can’t relax and enjoy a mellow service; instead i’m even more on edge than usual.

aside from the gift of a mellow service, sunday brought the opportunity to butcher a whole albacore tuna. with a sword. chef bought a knife (sword) designed specifically for dealing with larger fish like tuna. my speculation is that he really wanted one of these things, so he put tuna on the menu and started bringing in these beasts. i was given a diagram and a 10 minute verbal tutorial on saturday night, 11 hours before i arrived to start my shift the next day. the sword is a terrifying 3.5 foot long piece of wood and steel, and requires confidence and a thoughtful approach. the size of the blade allows for single smooth incisions, which lead to smooth and intact loins. the flesh is mushy and does not take kindly to pressure, so big sharp knives are the only knives to use. i watched a video of this operation on the internet from a japanese fish market, and the guy had a garbage can full of water just for dunking and cleaning his knife; my setup was less calculated and decidedly more rudimentary, but it worked. despite this, i did a good job on that fish.

i called this post “toys” because of all of the wonderful stuff we get to use in the brio kitchen. first and foremost, i’ve never seen a more immense and amazing collection of knives than my boss has, and everyone else is doing their best to follow suit. i’m the biggest copycat/sucker, because i’m the one who buys most of the bossman’s used knives when the new ones arrive. now i’ve got a heavy vegetable knife (usuba), a slicer (yanagiba), a whopping fish knife (deba) and a new fancy chef’s blade (wa gyuto), just from munn’s box of gently used japanese knives. they’re all carbon steel, meaning they are both high performance and high maintenance. there is nothing like cutting with a razor sharp blade.

after all of that steel comes equipment, and the brio kitchen has its share of high level stuff. we may not have a functional proofer, or well-working ice cream machine, but we’ve got a chamber sealing vacuum machine, an immersion circulator, and a vita-mix blender. the chamber sealer is the newest and therefore most exciting addition to the kitchen, primarily because it broadens the spectrum of things that we can do with our immersion circulator. our previous rig wouldn’t work with liquids, and was pretty limiting. now it’s full speed ahead, and we’re able to pickle something in thirty seconds (see: pickled watermelon rind). compression is pretty cool too, but i’m mostly excited about the marination/flavouring/slow cooking of meats.

under pressure (thomas keller) is no longer science fiction.

beergaritas

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 01:19:46 -0700

gather:
one can of limeade concentrate
a bottle of beer
4 shots of tequila (or whatever is lying around)
some ice

blend it --> drink it --> *party montage* --> “nap” --> tylenol.

i was appalled the first time i even heard mention of this concoction, but a tall glass changed my mind forever. it’s sour and isn’t too sweet if you do it properly. the ice/beer foam collects at the top, giving the appearance of actual beer. it’s a white trash masterpiece, created for porch drinking, best paired with chips and hotdogs. i’m hoping there’ll be another hot day soon so i can put my blender back to work.

best enjoyed with friends under the sun, whilst not pregnant.

hot dog days and heart attack nights

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:23:36 -0700

last week i had the opportunity to have a hot dog for lunch, two days in a row. as gentlemen are known to do, i accepted. first dog, the superior dog, was found at lully’s on broughton. it’s imported from coney island, served on a pretzel bun, and piled high with a variety of toppings of your choosing. if you’re like me, you’ll go with saurkraut, fried onions, and dijon. that was a very well behaved dog. six bucks and i’d do it again. i also noticed a $20 montreal smoked meat sandwich. apparently there’s a customer who requested a full pound of meat on a regular portion of bread (respect), and the owner thought such a beast belonged on the menu. i’m going back with a doctor and a camera crew.

dog number two came from pig, and was dubbed the “pig dog”. an all beef hot dog topped with pulled pork and a bunch of sauce. the dog itself tasted like it was cooked yesterday, no snap to it, if you know what i mean. redemption came in the form of all that juicy pork on top. i washed it down with a bowl of chili, and have yet to experience any form of regret.

i hate to blame those puppies, but the services that followed them were not worth remembering. the restaurant is as busy as it has been all year, i’m learning how to walk again, and so is everyone else. struggle is a common theme at brio and therefore it is here too. i’d be lying if i told you that i whole heartedly embrace the trials and tribulations that come with this profession. in the depth of the shit, i want nothing more than to disappear. but i can’t. so i don’t. there’s a tremendous contrast between those moments and the moment when everything seems to be just fine. the sweet relief of escaping the slam unscathed is a drug for me, and is the best part of a busy service. i feel like an avalanche survivor that continues to ski out of bounds. i think that most cooks, the hardcore ones, get their high in the middle of it, but i’m not like that. i work to end the madness, not for the madness.

what’s good: volume two

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:47:46 -0700

strange coincidence: the more i work, the less i write. so here i am, in the depths of summer, barely putting words down because i’ve been really busy feeding the insatiable. the business levels have been gaining in small increments since june, and we’re finally starting to touch the numbers of last summer (100+ sunday thru thursday, 125-150ish on friday and saturday). this is my second summer in the restaurant, so i’m finding myself considerably more prepared than i was last summer. i’m watching other people experience their first summers in the kitchen, and by doing so i’m getting a front row seat of what i must have looked like last year. let’s just say i didn’t make anything look easy. as previously mentioned, struggle is one of my boss’s favourite teaching methods, and i can attest to that from having struggled so severely last year. i’m much better this year. this is not to say that i no longer struggle, it’s just a different kind now, and that’s what the boss wants: never get comfortable/always keep pushing.

we’re cursed and blessed with a menu that changes with the seasons/chef’s whimsy, and i’ve noticed that there’s at least some method to his madness. we’re always rotating stations at brio, eliminating any sort of station based hierarchy. this allows the boss to tailor the menu according to who’s working where, and what they need to work on. for example: i’m on the sauce station, previously worked by the sous chef bruno. my portion of the menu is decidedly less complex than his menu because he’s more experienced than me. now he works on pastries, and the intricacy of that station has increased to match his ability to manage it. this way, no station is a vacation, and nobody ever feels comfortable. which is good because of the constant learning and improvement, but also awful because there’s a sort of tension that goes along with this sort of arrangement.

here’s what’s good right now.

food - pork belly steam buns at foo (7 dollars)
i’ve eaten my way through most of the menu and a good chunk of the recurring features, only to have this beast for the third or fourth time. it was good before, and now it’s better after a few adjustments (primarily to the bun itself). i should’ve had two.

beer - king heffy imperial hefeweizen by howe sound brewing
another stunner in a 1 liter jug, priced at around 8 bucks wherever you can find good beer. bananas and cloves all over the place, 8% alcohol, and limited edition, so you know it’s good.

tunes - beirut
this is the music i would play if i rode into town on an elephant, dressed entirely in gold. it’s pretty grandiose, and entirely amazing.

miscellanea - the breeze
it’s hot in the kitchen when it isn’t 30+ degrees outside, so when it is, it can be excruciating. dried sweat manifests itself all over my face as tiny white crystals that grate into the skin on contact, and that really stings. anyways, there’s a nice breeze outside, it’s my day off, and life is good.

sauce

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:21:03 -0700

about a month ago i found out that i’d be transferring from, well, every other station in the kitchen, to the sauce station. sauce at brio means meat and fish, plus their sauces, calling the bills and keeping time. the meat/fish/sauce part is the easy part of it, and the organization is what causes my forehead to sweat. my boss isn’t so much into training shifts, nor was he concerned about making this transition in the middle of summer. i’ve heard him lamenting about the importance of struggle (his word, not mine), and i’m learning to appreciate this “method” of teaching. i guess i shouldn’t say that he wasn’t concerned, that’s an untruth, primarily because the menu has been modified to suit a beginner.

the banes (yes, plural) of my existence are the little things, namely cornish game hens and pacific saury. the hens are deboned and then rolled up and then poached, only to be fried at service, sliced, and plated. half a bird is a large portion (1 roll) and it’s looking like i’ll be doing about 60 rolls per week. the saury are little fish, about 10 inches long and 1.5 inches wide, not unlike a mackerel in flavour/flesh, and maybe a little larger than herring.

one thing that i’ve always enjoyed about the restaurant is the weekly opportunity to take down whole animals. we receive three lamb per week, and they show up on one of my days off, tuesday. i don’t take the opportunity every week, but yesterday i went in and spent a couple of hours taking them apart into the major cuts (shoulders, shanks, legs, racks, and loins) for use on the ever-changing lamb preparation. it’s on the menu as the “farm feature” if i’m not mistaken, and last week we did a lamb stew (with kidneys, potato, pancetta, and chanterelles) wine marinated leg (grilled), and merguez sausage with braised greens/yellow beans, and topped with garlic bread crumbs. the stew was the starch, and the sauce, and everything looked top shelf.

since i started on this station, there has been a drastic increase in workmares, something i hope will cease as i get comfortable in my new position.