You think you got what it takes?

Aside from cooking, another thing I also love to do is teaching. I love being able to educate people especially if they're really into it. Now I'm not talking about teaching math or science (I'm not that type of Asian) and I'm not talking about just cooking. I'm talking about the whole business.

Recently, I had a conversation with my friend's dad's friend. He's an older gentleman, about 50 years old. We had started a conversation about cooking and my career and he tells me his son is thinking about going to school for culinary arts. As gung ho as he was about his son going into culinary, I gave him my card and told him to tell his son to give me a call before he applies for school.

I've had this conversation with a lot of people and I've given the same speech over and over again. It's not that I don't want people to aspire to become chefs, I just want them to know what they're getting themselves into. A lot of people who go to culinary schools and such really don't know what the life of a chef is. I read an article about a group of culinary school students who are suing their school because they were "mislead" by statements made by the school. I also blame it on the media and these TV shows (though I love Top Chef). They see these TV chefs and they think they live these lavish lives with the traveling and white coats and nice aprons...and they do. But how do you think they got there? They didn't wake up one day and say, "Hey, I'm going to open up 4 restaurants and they're going to be successful!" That's not how it works. When you open up a restaurant it's a guarantee you won't see any kind of profit for the first 5 years. There's so much stress involved because of food waste, trusting employees, and just the job itself. But opening a restaurant is for another blog.

Quite frankly the life of a chef is really shitty. Our hours are shitty (70-80 hour weeks), we get paid shitty, we work weekends, we work holidays, your days off are when everybody else works, and if you're working in an a la carte restaurant, chances are you probably don't have any benefits. Sure they'll take care of you if you get hurt at work but what if you get into a car accident? Get outside insurance? How are you going to afford health insurance making $10/hour?

From the time you step into work till the time you leave, it's nonstop work. Starting with the trucks that come in the morning to deliver your food...you have to check for quality, date each item so you know when it came in, put all the food away properly. After that, you still have to prep your station for service. Most of the time you only have about 2 or 3 hours to prep which seems like a lot but it's really not when everything has to be made from scratch everyday. After that, it's time to get your ass kicked during service. That's about 5-6 hours of nonstop someone yelling at you, orders coming back because it's not what the customer wanted, potential running out of food, 100 degree heat from the ovens, grill, and stoves, and of course stress. AND THEN you have to clean up which is about another hour or two and by the time you know it, it's almost midnight. After a night of service all you want to do is go home and sleep. But when you go home you realize you did absolutely nothing all day except work because you wake up later in the day so you can be rested for service. So you get home and you feel like you have to do something because nobody wants a wasted day. You might drink a couple beers, order some take-out, pop in a movie. And finally you get to sleep about 3-4am. Next morning you wake up around 9-10am to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.

Why would ANYBODY want to become a chef then?

Some people just really love food, some like being creative, and there some sick people out there that like being on the line during the dinner rush. For me, it's about the customer's satisfaction and knowing someone loves your food. When I see a plate come back clean, that's a reward all in it's own. I believe that chefs are a different breed of people. I mean, just reading from above who wants to stress and get yelled at in that kind of heat every single day? WE DO. Though I knew I wanted to cook from a young age there are people out there that went through regular college and worked corporate America. I know people who've made over $100k/year sitting at a desk with a computer in a suit, traveling every other week and now they're not even making a fraction of what they used to make. And I ask all of them, why would you give up that life? They all give me the same answer, "I couldn't take it anymore, it just got boring." We need some sort of an adventure everyday and that's what you get in a kitchen. Some may be good some may be bad, but whatever the case may be it's still something different happening everyday. I could never become a "paper pusher"...sorry to all the paper pushers in the world hahaha.

I love what I do. I love cooking, I love food, but most importantly I love making people happy. I will always cook for someone else before I cook for myself. Though the job is very stressful and there are days when I want to just shut down, I do it for myself. This is me and this is what I love to do and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm one of the few people in this world that can say "I love my job."

It's called fast food for a reason

When people discover that I am a chef, I am attacked with a barrage of questions. What's your specialty? Do you really use the food off the ground? What do you like to eat the most? I think everybody has a pre-set answer in their mind of what I'm going say with most of these questions. But the one question I get a lot and people are most surprised with the answer is, "Any girl who dates you must be a lucky girl huh?" Answer: FALSE. Well not in the sense that I'm a bad boyfriend but everybody thinks that dating a chef is best thing in the world. They think we'll cook dinner every night and that our significant other will always eat the best food ever!

Do mechanics want to go home and work on their cars? Do IT techs want to go home and fix computers? Do hairstylists want to go home and cut hair? I can't really speak for them so I'm going to say probably not. The last thing I want to do after I walk in the door is to pick up a pan. Very rarely do I cook for myself. The closest thing I'll cook for myself without having second thoughts is Cup Noodle. I mean I do it all day for 9-10 hours and when you're working with food for so long it's no longer something you yearn to consume but something that you work with. Along with eating it (I don't really eat my own food) you have to either wash it, cut it, cook it, or make sure it tastes good or even all 4. And if you're not in semi-shape it can put a good amount of stress on the body with the lifting, the carrying, the cutting, and the cleaning. But I believe it gives a greater amount of mental stress. Do I have all the ingredients? Do I have enough time to cook? When should I start cooking? I hope it tastes good. Do I have enough food? Does it look right? Questions and thoughts that run through a cook's head everyday. Over the years it can put a strain on one's mind. That's why cooking is amongst the highest suicidal ranked jobs. Honestly though, I don't mind cooking at home. The only thing I do mind is doing dishes. I hate doing dishes. ATTENTION anybody that would like for me to cook for them. No matter the occasion. If I cook I do not do dishes. 

Don't get me wrong I do cook at home sometimes. I mean some of my previous blogs are food I did cook at home. So it's not like I NEVER cook at home. But why waste the time and energy when you can just go to McDonalds or Burger King or my favorite...TACO BELL!! I LOVE TACO BELL. Yes, I love fast food. It's called fast food for a reason. I cook food all day and I get to people as fast as I can and they usually don't wait that long. So why would I want to wait for a "good meal" at a nice restaurant when I can get a "good meal" at taco bell. I love tacos by the way. LOVE LOVE LOVE tacos. Please don't misunderstand I do go to "fancy" restaurants, not often, but I do to experience new foods and to remind myself why I paid 24k to go to culinary school. But it gets expensive after awhile. I definitely NEVER go to chain restaurants. Applebees, Friday's, PF Changs...they all have something in common. MICROWAVE! When I first moved to Maryland in 2006 I got a job at Friday's as a server. I was supposed to train for 12 days but they decided I was good enough to be on my own after 3 days. During the 3 weeks that I was occupied at Friday's, I made probably a total of $350. On saturday nights (the busiest night of the week) I would make about $50-$60 when other servers were walking about with $300. But this blog isn't about me sucking as a server. The vegetables served were frozen and microwaved, the sauces came from a bag and microwaved, and some of the meats were microwaved as well.  Items on the menu were duplicated in other sections to make the menu look bigger and I couldn't take it anymore. Yes I know, fast food joints are considered "chain restaurants" as well but they don't "cook to order" which is fine with me. I'd rather eat a burger that has borderline fake meat in it then real chicken that's been cooked at 3pm and then reheated in a microwaved and served at 9:30pm.

So let's consolidate all this information.  

1. Having a chef as a significant other doesn't mean you can stop watching the food network.
2. I rarely cook for myself.
3. I hate doing dishes.
4. I love Taco Bell.
5. Chain Restaurants suck.
6. I sucked as a server.

 bien manger

-cwis

All Stocked Up!

Today we venture into the area of food that is often overlooked: Stocks. They are always expected to be on the line in the kitchen. It's part of the mise en place that you don't even have to think about because it's so important. They're almost as important as salt and pepper on the line. Yes, that important.

Why are these flavored liquids so important to the production of good food? First let me say that stocks can always be replaced with water but what does water taste like? NOTHING, exactly, moving along now. A lot of people ask me, "What's the difference between stock and broth?" Simple. Stocks are made with the carcasses/bones of the animal and broths are made mostly with meat. I believe stocks contain more flavor than broths because of 2 things; cooking time and cartilage. What? You don't know what cartilage is? Have you ever eaten fried chicken and at the end of the bone is that white, hard looking stuff? That's cartilage. It's the hard connective tissue in joints that hold animal (and our) bones together. You will get most of your flavor from the cartilage because it's protein. Normally it takes about an hour to make a broth because chances are the meat you're using to make the broth is going to be meat you use in a dish so even though you're cooking it for a long time in water it will still come out dry. In professional kitchens stocks are usually made with items that you can't eat but still have loads of flavor such as the roots of celery stalks and carrot peels and bones of animals after deboning or filleting. A lot of recipes will say to cook stocks for about 4-5 hours. I say cook it for 8 hours! And the best way to know if you've succeeded in making your stock is when it cools down it looks like jello, literally. While the stock has been cooking the cartilage breaks down and turns into gelatin (jello is made of gelatin). So it literally MELTS into the liquid. Stocks can be used for numerous things; making sauces, thinning out a sauce that's too thick, making soups or glazing.

There are so many dishes made with stock that a lot of people aren't aware of. How do you think gravy for Thanksgiving is made or chicken pot pie? It's so easy to make but people are afraid of it. Three ingredients - flour, butter, stock. Make your roux and add stock and BAM! You have gravy. For pot pie you would do the same thing but make it a little thicker and add your veggies and meat and then BAM! You have pot pie. Risotto is also made with chicken stock but that's for another blog :)

The most important thing to keep in the back of your mind about stock is when a recipe calls for it, chances are you're going to get most of your flavor from the stock. So if you're making your own stock, LOAD it up with A LOT of bones! If you decide to buy canned broth you can always enhance the flavor by adding in some mirepoix and some herbs and some meat just to bring in a little more flavor. OR what I like to do, when making stock from scratch instead of using water use the canned stuff. That'll give it A LOT of flavor.

Making stocks are easy really it just takes a really long time. But the reality is, it's not worth it. First, unless you have an actual butcher shop near you, it's going to be hard to find Chicken bones or Veal bones at your local supermarket because no supermarket butchers their own meat in house. All meat comes in frozen. Chicken is a little easier to work with because you can use chicken wings. Not the whole wing but the last part of the wing that nobody eats because there's really no meat on it. Though there's not a lot of meat on them they contain A LOT of cartilage and they're cheap! And unless you have your own garden you will have to buy at least 4 oz of each herb because you can't just buy 1 or 2 sprigs of Thyme or parsley. Same thing with the veggies, it's impossible to buy just 2 or 3 stalks of celery. So unless you plan on making 5 or 6 gallons (which is a lot) then just go with the canned stuff (nothing wrong with it, just remember to make it taste better). But if you really are going to make a couple gallons of stock you can always freeze it!

The next time you see a recipe call for stock/broth just remember to appreciate it and respect it. Make it taste as good as you can make it taste and last but not least, ENJOY IT!

bien manger

-cwis

NaCl

I don't understand what the fuss is about with salt . How come nobody uses it? Because too much of it is bad for you? That's BULLSHIT. Well actually, too much of ANYTHING is bad for you.

Salt's been around for...well I have no idea how long it's been around but it's definitely been around for a LONG time. One thing everybody needs to understand about salt is that it doesn't make food taste salty (unless you oversalt) but makes food taste better. When you go to a "high end" restaurant what do you see on the table? Some silverware, plates, maybe candles, flowers, etc. But you'll never see a salt and pepper shaker. Why? Because the chefs in the kitchen have already properly seasoned your food. Don't believe me? Just check out their reviews, douche.

Ok, so now you're asking "isn't all salt the same?"  Answer: NO and a little bit of yes. Salt does taste like salt but nobody's eating salt by itself. There's a couple different kinds of salt. Table, kosher, baking, flavored, rock, sea, pretzel, popcorn, etc etc. The 3 most common salts you'll probably encounter in your life are Table salt, Kosher salt, and Sea salt.

Table salt is your typical salt in salt shakers, most of the time containing potassium iodide and dextrose (a sugar used to stabilize the iodide) as a dietary supplement to prevent goiter and mental retardation. (yes I just did copy and paste that, but I felt like you needed to know). All table salt contains an anti-caking agent to keep it from clumping when it gets too humid. I try to stay away from that stuff because well, it's just loaded with all this crap. All it's really good for is soaking up oil or spreading onto your steps when it's snowing out. The only thing table salt is really good for is baking because the grains are small enough to dissolve when baking. But again, let's not get me started on baking. Thank You.

Kosher salt (my favorite) is a wonderful thing and is the most common salt used in professional kitchens. Kosher salt is more coarse than table salt making it easier to pick up with finger tips and allowing it to stick to food better. Kosher salt gets it's name from its use in making food kosher in accordance to the Jewish dietary laws. A lot of people (including my sister) argue that Kosher salt is "saltier" than regular table salt. NOT TRUE! Kosher salt dissolves on the tongue faster than table salt (because of all the crap that's in it) making one believe that the flavor of salt is much greater. Kosher salt should be your everyday salt, the only problem is it won't fit in a salt shaker. But you don't need a salt shaker at the dinner table if you season your food correctly anyways.

Sea salt is usually the most coarse of them all. The grains are huge and you can actually bite into one.  The great thing about Sea salt is that it is ALL NATURAL. They way Sea salt is harvested is pretty much collecting the salt from evaporated salt water. What you see is what you get. Now from there though, depending on what the manufacturer wants to do with it, the salt can be processed several times. Maybe "processed" isn't the word I'm looking for. More like "purified". Some salts such as "sel gris" (gray salt) are not as refined and are a little more moist. It contains traces of clay and other elements from the evaporation process thus making it gray! Sea salt is typically a "finishing" salt, meaning it is sprinkled onto a dish when complete to bring out the last and final flavors. For example, you have a 8oz piece of tenderloin (filet mignon) and you've already cooked it and let it rest. Now you will slice it and lay it nicely on the plate. It's so moist and medium rare. This is when you take your sea salt and sprinkle lightly on the meat that's been sliced. Because before you cooked it you only seasoned the outside. There's no way you can season the inside without cutting into it. The Sea salt with be the finishing touch on the beef, everything is seasoned bringing out the flavor of the beef (inside and out) and the plate is complete and ready to eat.

(OH! Just letting you know, I am not fond of those salt "grinder." All it is, is sea salt in a grinder. For what? You should've just bought Kosher salt to begin with. If you have one, you just wasted your money. Sea salt is meant to be that big.)

How do you know how much salt to use? There's always one quote that sticks in my mind when asked "how much do I put in?" "You can always add but you can't take away." When I was in culinary school I was taught to season every time a new ingredient was introduced to the pan. When you saute onions and garlic add a little bit. Then when you add the tomato add a little bit, etc etc. Of course you're not going to add a tablespoon of salt but literally probably about half a pinch. If you don't think it's enough salt you're adding then you're probably adding just enough. A little bit of salt does go a long way whether you know it or not. And you should always taste as you cook.

Have ever eaten french fries that were sooo awesome? And then you go back and they don't taste the same? Like they haven't been seasoned? Well that's why? The awesomeness that you taste is not salt but the flavor the salt brings out. If you really don't believe me about this whole blog I dare you to test it out. Stone fruit is the best test subject. Stone fruit is anything with a big giant pit such as a nectarine or a plum or a peach. Cut 2 pieces off about 1 inch cubes. Season one with a little bit of salt and leave the other plain. Eat the plain first, chew, swallow, and sip some water. Then repeat with the salted one. Tell me which one tastes better.

Want to look like a pro when seasoning? When you're seasoning anything (raw meat, cooked food, vegetables etc), trying seasoning with height about 6-8 inches above the food (at work my hand will be 12 inches above the food but you don't want salt all over your counter and floor). This way you will see how much salt is coming off your fingers and it will also spread the salt evenly over the surface of the food. Also, when releasing salt from your fingers, rub your fingers. Don't keep the salt in your fingers and "throw" the salt at the food, that just looks dumb. You're not Emeril Lagasse!

I hope you've learned a little bit about salt from this blog and if you didn't that means you need to read it again.

bien manger

-cwis

Recipe for disaster (maybe not the right title)

Let's get this straight people.  I'm a chef.  I love to cook.  I love to make people happy.  I also love to express myself through my food.  You can't do that by cooking another person's dish.  What do I mean that?  RECIPES!  If there's anything that I took with me from culinary school, it's "Don't rely on recipes."  Ok ok, right now all I hear is "But I really don't know how to cook!  I need a recipe!"  Fine, but use the recipe once and throw it away.  After you've made the dish once you sort of know what it's supposed to look like and taste like.  But maybe you don't like those capers in there or you wish there was more heat or "you know what would go really well with this?!"  Make the dish your own dish.  Cooking, for me, is an art and artists express themselves through their work. When I show dishes I've cooked on my blog I always say "a little bit of this" or "some of that" etc etc.  That's because I'M NOT MEASURING.  Everything I do is "eyed out."

Baking is a totally different story.  Don't get me started on baking.

Now if you're owning a business, that's a totally different story.  The reason people come back to restaurants to eat is just not for the good food for but for consistency.  If you eat an awesome dish at a restaurant, come back and get the same dish but it's not the same, chances are you're not going to be happy.

Even though my last blog was an actual recipe, it was MY recipe.  A recipe I tested out myself.  The only reason I did that was because a restaurant I worked for liked my crabcake and wanted to put it on the menu.

So please stop asking me for recipes!  If you want a recipe there's something on the internet called GOOGLE.

bien manger

-cwis