it's not about who you know
or who cooks your food
or who you know who cooks
or if you know who cooks your food.
but
it's important to know
how cool those cooks are
who are cooking food
when they're cooking
for you.
~ photographs by the one and only, mr. fabulous, phil surkis!
today is:
chocolate buttermilk cake
sticky buns
beignets !
sweet potato pie
caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting
a spoonful of the best coconut pastry cream, if I love you
snickerdoodles
chocolate chocolate chip cookies
bacon-scallion-cheddar biscuits
limeade
mint lemonade
strawberry lemonade
lacy yeasted cornmeal waffles with brown sugar butter
creamed corn
warm buttermilk biscuits and local jam
blue bottle coffee
homemade granola
black cast iron skillet baked cornbread
grits
a giant smoker filled with ribs and chicken
perfectly poached eggs
watermelon
real vanilla ice cream
honest iced tea
fresh squozed orange juice
R&B
a dash of hip hop
old school soul
hot cooks
even hotter bakers
corn on the cob
friends
barking
and beautiful
big
explosions of light
and colour
in the broad
grand
mighty
night sky.
happy fourth.
be safe, sane & consensual, and responsible tonight. /please.
just think:
you may even want to remember what you did today, tomorrow. just sayin'
see you soon?
Everyone's doing it.
In the streets.
On the floor.
Mmmmm Porchetta....
Pigs doin it.
People eatin' it.
Cooks butcherin'.
Knives slicin' it.
Twine a wrappin'.
Ovens roastin'.
Juices flowin'.
Belly a renderin'.
Pan juices sizzlin'.
Fingers gettin' a lickin'.
Mouths a waterin'.
Porchetta.
Sounds so succint. Humble. Simple. Regal. Rustic.
Delicious.
And thank g-d it's Friday.
Tonight, {and every Friday},
if you live nearby,
you can get yours
at Sea Salt.
Prepared with love and care,
& a healthy dash of New York humor and irreverence,
by none other than,
Anthony Paone, chef of all days of the week, and the eighth one too.
Sit at the kitchen counter.
Give him hell.
/And then tell him I sent you.
Sea Salt
2512 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, Ca. 94702
510/ 883.1720
Do you know what makes most kitchens really hot?
Freezers. And walk in refrigerators. And lowboys. And reach ins. Ice machines.
You wouldn't think. But it's so.
Kitchens can get really hot.
Let us not forget flat tops. And salamanders. Or grills. And then there's saute, where there might be pans sitting on burners that have been on full blast all day. And cast iron? Shit. I have seen them glow orange. For real. They can get really hot. But there's nothing like cooking a la plancha. O yeah.
What else?
Fryolators are hot. Really hot. Hot radiant heat not to mention a container filled with searing hot oil. We won't leave behind wood burning ovens and, if you're really lucky, reaching up to handle those bars in rotisseries taller than your local basketball star.
Hot.
I'm forgetting something? O, sorry.
Deck ovens are hot. Tandoori ovens are hot. Pulling sugar is hot and so is whisking sabayon for an hour straight. Stock is hot. Plate warmers are hot. So are bread warmers, of course.
Commercial dishwashers are hot. By health code standards they should be, at any rate. The hotter the better: less detergent can be used if heat is what is the sanitizing force. Having to put away hot dishes is hot. A lot of steam exists in the dish pit. A lot.
And steam? Steam is really fucking hot. The burn you get from steam is like being taken advantage of by a child. You never expect it. And then Whoosh! Red streak on flesh and sooner than you can say nanosecond you have a blister.
One could make an argument for the heat of hot ice or liquid nitrogen but they're not commonly found in kitchens unless you're ladling up eye of newt and bat's wing specials.
Hot Kitchens.
Wait, there's more. If you act now --
Cooking and baking with a sunburn is hot. And terrifically unpleasant. After you've fallen asleep on the beach on your only day off in 3 months once, you won't do it again. Take it from me. There's nothing like reaching into a 500F oven when your skin is the color of freshly killed lobsters.
Reducing is hot. So is candying of any sort, especially when you have to boil sugar for hours to get just 2 more degrees on your thermometer. {!}
Roasting is hot. And searing. Even blanching, albeit brief, is hot. Poaching? I guess we could make an argument if we're desperate.
Funny, when you burn yourself, I mean really burn, it feels cold first. Like buried under an avalanche and getting sleepy cold. And then for a tiny moment when your brain hits refresh, it fells hot to your core. By then, hopefully, you're in shock, and so you don't feel much after that except worry that you'll be in the weeds even more. Nothing like grabbing onto something really hot and realizing later that the steam you saw was your own skin evaporating.
Kitchens are hot.
And so we tun off our minds. We make jokes. The refrigeration starts to shudder and choke, and then die. The ice machine gets indignant. Someone has to go buy ice. Which is really funny if you think about it. But of course it's not.
You might even have the pleasure of standing on the hot roof and hosing down the condenser for about 8 or 12 hours, until the sun goes down. But only if you're the chef or sous. Yes, you have to be The Chosen One for that job.
Hot.
When it gets hot ovens bake faster. Did you know that? Cakes don't necessarily rise better but everything should be checked on with more frequency. Cold water is warm. Edibles made with yeast should be rushed like you have some place to be yesterday. Proofing the bread? Five hours is 50 minutes. Twenty minutes could be two. Be on your toes, yo, when it's hot.
Cold butter doesn't stay cold.
Sweat evaporates and it could be a few days until you really pee. A relaxing pee that lasts more than a moment. Sound gross?
Cooking is hot business.
I haven't left out anything, have I?
In The South there's a joke about cornstarch/ talcum powder, and the boxer shorts you shouldn't be wearing, but I'll leave that to your imagination.
Hot weather produces violence. In some kitchens it makes people fight. Or go mute. Or fuck.
Because line cooks are hot. Except when they're gross. But there's always a market for gross.
Hot.
Flirtations run high. Patience become a virtue left for the "normies"/ diners/ working stiffs/ waiters. Sexual tension is hot. So is that space between your long sleeved polyester-blend double-buttoned jacket and suffocating skin. Tempers run hot.
Some will say that the best beverage in hot weather is hot liquid. Ice becomes the enemy to truly cooling down your system. Except when dunking your arms in ice water is the only thing you can do to keep from passing out.
Summer is hot. Restaurants with poor ventilation systems are really hot. Restaurants that are free standing buildings in neighborhoods with no trees or taller buildings to create shade are really hot. Restaurants with prep stations in windowless rooms are ferociously hot. 
I remember well "sweat" pouring down the walls at Gramercy Tavern. (In NYC most restaurant kitchens are located in the basement. That pretty open kitchen you're looking into as you lazily munch crudo and sip cocktails? That's for show. Only? Well I'll go on record as saying: mostly.)
Kitchens are hot.
And when kitchens are not hot?
You're not in them.
There's someone in your family who has a problem. Gambling. Drugs. Alcohol. Sex.
It could be any or all of the above. Every family has a secret problem person. And sometimes they're not a secret.
You hate this person. And you love them. And sometimes you feel both things and they are so intertwined you don't even know you're in a forest among trees.
But their addiction maddens you. Frustrates, annoys, tortures.
You think,
"This aunt of mine is so smart. My brother has everything, what is he doing wasting it all? Why can't my mother get her act together? I hate that we have to move every time my father loses all his money from ______. I wish we weren't going to that cousin's house for Thanksgiving, I get so embarrassed when she gets wasted, she's too old to act like that!"
Addiction is a powerful force. Humans are its hosts, and it will stop at nothing to separate you from what and whom you love, as it kills you slowly.
Passion can feel like addiction. Passion, obsession, addiction; they are all closely related although slightly dissimilar.
Some passions can feel like obsessions or addictions because the drive that is within us to pursue our passions stays in our line of vision when red flags are popping up on all sides. Being a visionary, a dreamer, a doer, an entrepreneur, means forging on even when practicalities outweigh the validity of the mirage.
A friend once told me that people who open businesses have to be good business people, of course, to make it stand and walk and live; but moreover they have to have a larger dose of dreamer in them to get such an idea off the ground before wings are formed. A dreamer trusts in something else, some other, deeper part of themselves. A dreamer is a survivor in that she/he knows picking up a broken self and starting all over again might be in the cards.
One has to be prepared for loss when one dreams.
Turning dreams into matter could also be compared to having a child.
It never ceases to amaze me how women I know who have become pregnant, and had children, swear they will be the same person after childbirth. But there is always a transformation. And it seems so obvious after the fact, that they never mention it again. A major calamity, an act bringing on extreme grief, will create transformation as well, but since birth gives and grief takes away, the grieving person has little outward proof of their reason for change.
All these metaphors are related to chefs who open their own restaurants.
Back to addiction. It's possible that no one in your immediate life has had a struggle with addiction. Although I would find it implausible, especially if you grew up in urban America, as I did. In my own family many people have lived with and through imperiling addictions. Joyous for me, many of those family members have found 12 Step programs and become sober.
But hoping beyond hope, praying every moment of the day for someone's sobriety is a tricky thing.
We think that if said person stops drinking, or buying white powder, or sneaking off with the rent check to basement card games, everything will be normal again. Groovy and just so and perfect and happy.
But what we don't know, right up until that very last drink or prostitute or wager or glassine envelope, is that said person is someone completely unknown to us. That said person without a substance is no person without a reason to live. And we, the other humans in the room, are not reason enough to bring said person back from the edge of the grave or sanity or wherever their self esteem found its last refuge. Person in question can not and will not give up their drug of choice just because we want them to.
The person in our life who can abstain, and therefore halt the deadliest physical side affects of addiction, and replace that black hole with something unrelated to the mortal world, is a stranger, until we take the time to meet them again.
This might seem like a very dark example for the subject at hand, but in my world everything is like a language that is connected by ideas, if not a visually familiar alphabet.
I have maintained in my posts about Opening A Restaurant here on Eggbeater, restaurants are like children, or babies, which non-traditional families make. Non-traditional in that there are usually far more people involved in opening a restaurant than there are needed to have sex and conceive a human child.
We have that spark, it makes us giddy and sleepless, happiness reaches critical mass and we are delirious with ideas and hopes and dreams, we pray there's someone whose feet are planted on the ground who likes math and understands percentages, sometimes we get cravings and/or morning sickness, and pretty soon we are truly sleepless because the restaurant is all mouths and stomach and #2 and there's never enough time or food or energy to satiate the helpless beast infant.
The baby metaphor is like the sober alcoholic family member. See?
Because the chef who is now the owner wanted more than anything to open a restaurant. That was their "Story." Their only story.
I Am Chef. Must Open Restaurant. To Prove I Am Real Chef. Must Have Proof. Restaurant. Must Be Mine.
But didn't know that once restaurant was fed 24 hours a day and
bathed and diapers were changed ad nauseum and tiny nails were clipped and doors
were left open so that even the tiniest whisper of a cry could be
answered immediately, the restaurant turns into someone something else.
Restaurants are run by people, by many many many egos. Even if it is The Chef's Baby.
And something odd happens to the chef whose restaurant is turning into an opinionated child in front of them. The chef must mourn the loss of their dream. Or part of it, at least.
The same way you want your best friend to get sober but when she does she's not the same person anymore and if you want to stay in her life you have to give her a lot of rope, time, patience and empathy, and then you have to re-introduce yourselves. And you might even have to go to therapy or a 12 Step meeting, or 20, to understand your part. It's usually more than you bargained for when all you thought you wanted was for that person to give up the thing which seemed to be making them into a monster.
For better and for worse, and all that murky grey stuff in between, The Restaurant becomes someone you don't recognize and you have to go with the flow, or be left in the dust. And a Restaurant without a leader is a lost soul. Whether there's coup or a closure, restaurants require herding, a forceful, directed lasso and guidance, by someone, into helping them become whomever they are becoming.
Life is a wild and woolly ride. If life is a verb for you, that is. If your passions take hold and don't let go until dreams are conceived and born and let loose to run amok, and create terror and delicious food and and, and, and and and.
Perhaps those of us who know, only work as cogs in massive dream machines. Perhaps those who dream must be brought down to earth every once and while to have a drink with the pragmatists to sober up and see some leaves on some branches and maybe even a tree or two.
I know this. For every hope there is a process and the need for an application of hard internal, as well as the obvious, external work. If you are a chef owner who thinks there is no transformation, whether necessary or possible or inevitable, when leaping over the wall from cook to owner, you have a nest full of chicks in eggs who will hatch wing-less. In an argument about nature vs. nurture you must understand that the restaurant, who it will become with and without your care and presence, is not an either/or situation.
As is with the case of the person whom you love very much, who has just barely escaped a walking or actual death, a re-configuration of your hopes must be assessed and put in order.
For while there is time to stand back and be puzzled and frustrated, and become silent and incommunicative, and feel betrayed that Your Baby is not who you want or think it should be, you do not have all the time in the world, for it will become an anarchistic star, burning out on its own from lack of structure and acceptance. Like a Rock Star.
If you are the chef and the owner, it is your job, and no one else's, to take responsibility for your restaurant's success. And this takes rolling up your sleeves for hard internal work. For the cogs may be able to help you, and give you a portal from which to travel to the Ray Bradbury moon where you can watch your unconscious play leading role in Greek tragedy after Greek tragedy, but they cannot stop the momentum of your actions, or inactions, as they pertain to The Restaurant Baby you have given birth to. For the cogs will come and go, no matter how much they care in the moment.
And if you resist? If you resist transformation, or the knowledge of transformation, or change, or that X-ray vision or anything else that comes along with a life changing experience, I have only one question.
How's that working out for you?
An incredible opportunity is here for you in the USA. You could very well take time off from your current job and get paid to train with Thomas Keller and The French Laundry kitchen for the Bocuse D'Or, a world renowned culinary competition that happens every two years in Lyon, France.
Click on this EaterSF link to read part of the June 12 press release.
THE DEADLINE FOR COMPLETED APPLICATIONS IS
MONDAY JUNE 30TH, 2008.
Send them to the Bocuse D'Or USA organization. Their website, here. (Big music on the website: do not try to click over on the down low...)
Some quotes from the press release:
"Based on these written applications, eight teams (of one chef + one assistant) will be selected to compete in an elimination contest on September 26-27 in Orlando, Florida at the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival. Before a live audience, teams will present fish and meat platters to a panel of celebrity chef judges for evaluation of their excellence in taste, presentation, creativity, and technical execution."
"Bocuse d’Or USA will provide travel and accommodations for the competition in Orlando, training equipment and food supplies, and a $2,000 stipend to cover incidental costs to all of the eight competing teams . In Orlando, the top three placing teams will be awarded additional cash prizes of $15,000 for the first place team, $10,000 for the second place team, and $5,000 for the third place team.
The winning team will also be awarded a paid sabbatical to train for the Bocuse d’Or World Contest from October 1, 2008 – late January, 2009 at the Bocuse d’Or USA Culinary Training Center in Yountville, California, adjacent to the French Laundry... During this period, the chef and commis candidates will be housed in a private residence in Yountville, and will be compensated by Bocuse d’Or USA at a rate equivalent to compensation from their current employers."
Thank you EaterSF for the head's up!
If you are a chef/cook with a blog, please consider posting this information for your colleagues and readers. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, truly.
Good luck & Bonne Chance! Let the games begin!
I have made some adjustments to the recipe based on the challenges of the current kitchen where it is being produced. We are using a still oven that is also the service oven for The Line in the restaurant, during service!
Caramel Cake.
Yes. Nearby, if you live in Northern California. I'm a gonna get me some today...
This was so delicious I might have to share the recipe with you. I'll give you a hint: First I used Food Blog Search. Then I wrote out my standard pastry cream recipe and compared it to Nicole's. I used the basic premise of Baking Bite's recipe,
and then, I finessed like crazy.
It is my belief that white sugar interrupts the subtle flavour of coconut. Now I know coconut is not a shy flavour, but it takes a bit of sweet nothings, patience, and much listening, to get to the root of coconut's true soul. There are few ingredients which do not compete to win when it comes to playing with coconut.
Instead of using all white sugar, I also used raw. I also substituted vanilla sugar for some of the white sugar. (I take dried vanilla beans and their empty brittle sheaths and I break them up in a spice grinder with raw or white sugar until all is pulverized and highly aromatic.)
I didn't have 1/2 & 1/2 so I "made my own" with Manufacturer's cream and whole milk. And although I liked the idea of using whole eggs for pastry cream, (the whites help the custard "set up" a little harder: which is what you need when you're not going to bake the pie again), but I also wanted to enrich the custard with a few extra egg yolks.
Also, I love infusing dairy for pastry cream with whatever flavour I am looking to achieve. So I toasted a bunch of sweetened shredded coconut and did a long infusion. But I passed the liquid through a fine meshed sieve (= chinois) because I didn't want those bits floating around in my smooth custard.
And because this coconut cream pie filling wasn't rich enough yet (ha!), I mounted in some butter at the end, throwing in a dash of browned butter for added kick/ boost.
And of course I seasoned with Kosher salt to taste.
Can you say goddamn?
I have never made coconut cream pie before. But in the last few days I feel I can now say,
I have done this fine American standard, a service.
xo
Psssssssssst,
come over here.
shhhhhhh, I have a secret.
a leetle birdy told me BSK will have coconut cream pie & caramel cake
Friday May 30 & Saturday May 31.
don't tell everyone, keep it to yourself.
x pescado
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