Thursday, October 22, 2009
So in light of having taken over fresh pasta-making duties at work, I decided to spring for one of these bad boys…
I won’t lie, I feel like a jumpy, excited little schoolboy waiting for this chrome-plated beauty to arrive on my doorstep.
If you haven’t had the opportunity to try fresh pasta before…well, my heart goes out to you. Haha. I can guarantee that once you’ve tried it fresh, you won’t go back to the dried stuff. Unless of course, we’re talking about sheer effort/time consumption, but, like I always say, good food takes time.
Anyway, I’ll (hopefully) follow up with an entry once she arrives…first on my list? Gonna try my hand at some short rib agnolotti.
It always feels like I’m apologizing for our lack of updates…well at least I have a legitimate excuse this time. I am now (for better or worse) no longer unemployed. What does this mean? Less time for updates…but on the flip side…more money to go out to eat! So if my lazy ass doesn’t get in my way, we can hope for some more updates. Now without further delay…
I’ve never been much of a Bobby Flay fan. Not since this whole debacle. (Namely, 3:30) Apparently he excels equally at both Southwestern cuisine and general douchebaggery. Sure sure, it was years ago and he may very well be a different man now. But I mean, seeing that, do we really still need to wonder why the rest of the world thinks of Americans as the rude, brash, annoying, uncouth nouveau riche? This is a grim picture of America’s cultural ambassadorship.
Well, if he’s good for one thing, it’s for leading me into this entry. See, as any of you Food TV’ers out there know, Bobby’s now doing a show called Throwdown, where he goes throughout the country, challenging people to various dish specific cook-offs. As it turns out, Phil’s Fish Market, near Monterey, CA, is the site of Bobby’s cioppino battle, going toe-to-toe against owner Phil DiGirolamo himself. (Incidentally, I caught an episode where Bobby battles previously reviewed Mama Testa’s owner Cesar Gonzalez. Cesar wins.) I don’t actually remember who wins the challenge, but this was all the context I had while visiting Phil’s Fish Market myself a few weeks ago.
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For the Top Chef fans in the house…if you haven’t seen the commercials already, apparently Bravo’s releasing a new series:
Top Chef Masters
I’ll be honest, I was pretty shocked when I first saw the commercial. So I went looking through Bravotv.com to figure out what this business is about. They’ve got some pretty big names in the culinary realm jumping into this thing. Names like Hubert Keller (Fleur de Lys, SF), John Besh, Rick Bayless, and Wylie Dufrense. (WD-50, NY) I mean, these guys are established chefs, with established and acclaimed restaurants. Needless to say, I’m surprised.
So I guess I’m unofficially plugging for Top Chef Masters…I’m curious to see what’s going to happen.
Ever notice how once life gets in a rhythm..time just seems to fly by? It seemed but only a few days ago that I first donned my PCI whites and strode, a fresh-faced greenhorn, into my first day of stocks and sauces. But after six months of burns, cuts, cussing, pounding red bulls and messing up a hell of a lot…well…I’m still green. But I had the privelage to learn (and struggle) under some amazing instructors, and I can say I understand food a lot better than before. And from that knowledge comes greater admiration and respect for the craft.
But really, to write up my cumulative thoughts on my time in school would require more than a paltry paragraph. (Perhaps another entry.) Heh, but obviously it’s been awhile since we’ve written, so we’ll start out easy just to get the juices flowing. I guess we’ll begin with the end…my final menu.
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So if you’ve known me long enough, chances are you’ve probaby been victim to one of my long tirades about the status of Chinese food in the States…
I’ll spare you guys the speech, but one book (of many) that you may consider reading on the topic is The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee. Incidentally, there’s a video of one of Ms. Lee’s presentations floating on YouTube. Check it out, and by all means, share your thoughts.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Yes, the photo’s a repeat, and no this isn’t the hotpot we had for Xmas.
I’ve a confession to make…the whole Christmas ham thing?
Not a fan.
Christmas dinner always seems to play second fiddle to Thanksgiving. No one’s finished recovering from planning (or eating) that feast, so it seems like Christmas dinner becomes a matter of, “What the heck can I make that won’t require me to prep the whole day before?”
In our house, this has usually meant…the ubiquitous hot pot. Hearty, humid, communal sustenance for the cold winter months. And nothing constitutes family bonding quite like clacking chopsticks, sweaty faces, and fighting your cousin for that last piece of crab.
So the question I pose to you, dear reader, what’s the traditional Christmas dinner in your house? Cause…no one I know really does the whole Christmas ham business anyway…
Hope everyone’s Christmas was pleasant, restful, and fulfilling…and from us here at the Spork, we wish you a happy, safe New Year!
Keep eating folks.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Around the Belmont-San Mateo border, El Camino Real is an interesting mix of mattress vendors, timeworn motels, mom-and-pop stores, and used car dealerships. Not exactly an area where you would stumble upon hamburgers with Meyer Ranch ground beef and shakes with Clover organic milk. Lo and behold, newly opened Jack’s Prime serves up all that sustainable and humanely raised goodies that Bay Area denizens have come to demand and expect.
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I need to take some photo classes…
Ever since I started realizing my preoccupation with cooking, I had always toyed with the idea of going to culinary school. Anyone who knew me in college (and now) would tell you, I spent probably too much time stressing, bemoaning, and being a general complaining sad sack (sorry all) over the whole thing. Anyway, after no small amount of deliberation, I am now part of the Fall 08′ class at the Professional Culinary Institute.
What does that mean for the blog? Well, for those of you that are interested, I’ll be updating periodically on the various trials, funny episodes, and striking new revelations that today’s culinary student faces, in what is becoming a increasingly burgeoning business. Don’t worry, I’ll try to stay away from the whole “Today, I did this…and then that…it was soooooo coool,” business.
So that’s it for now. As always, keep eating folks.
So it’s been a good two months since I’ve gotten back and I’ve had some time to mull over my experiences. And while I’d like to spill them all into writing…I realize (as usual) that it would be just incoherent babble without at least some measured thought. Point is, this is (hopefully) the first of a series of entries I’ll be writing about my experiences in China, and more broadly, about Chinese food in general. In reality, there are few other things that I actually feel strongly about, so I want to mark my words and arguments with at least some degree of articulation. But for the sake of keeping things simple, I’ve decided to tackle a considerably simpler issue for the first entry.
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Ahh, pastrami. I don’t really consider myself much of a sandwich guy, but when I do spring for one, nothing does it like hot pastrami on rye. (Or a monte cristo, but that’s another entry.) Yes, it is one of my most favored of sandwich meats, yet also one of my least understood. Embarrassingly, I didn’t figure out pastrami was actually cured beef until just a few years ago. Anyway, during my time in college, I had always heard stories of this place. This oddly named joint with unrivaled, perhaps even, legendary pastrami sandwiches. I mean, their sandwich is listed under the Wikipedia entry for pastrami, and we all know Wikipedia is pretty much law…so they’ve gotta be somewhat legit right? As fate would have it, I had the opportunity to swing by and see if the product matched the hype.
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