Prix Fixe

Foodportunity, tonight at the Heathman.

Thought I'd drop a quick note, that tonights the night for Foodportunity Oregon at the Heathman Hotel downtown. A lot of great restaurants are going to be in attendance and serving up some of their best dishes. There's networking opportunities, and just a whole lot of fun.

You can get tickets through Brown Paper Tickets and most likely at that door.

If you can't tell, I'm pretty jazzed about tonight. I'll be handling on the video and picture taking for the restaurant, whilst we serve up our famous radish dish and a chicken liver pate that is just off the charts. What's great (for me anyways) is that I can network all round. Not only with the cooks and chefs but with the food writing community in PDX. I'd really like to see a good turnout so we can do this again next year.

Most likely I'll be live tweeting the event, from both accounts (@PrixFixeOnline & @ScratchFoods). Not to mention I'll be taking a ton of pictures and video of the festivities.

Hopefully I'll have a full re-cap tomorrow, or at the latest Wednesday.

House Keeping

It was time for some needed house keeping.

I've added a disclaimer page, and also a creative common's license as well. These where things I had been meaning to for sometime now, and was able to kill two birds with one (fictional and digital) stone. I also added a search function, so you can now search the contents of Prix Fixe Online.

I return you to your regularly scheduled program.

Adjustment.

As of today, it's time to adjust to a new schedule. 

You can ask anyone - I'm not that much of a morning person, only thing that gets me through is a butt load of coffee (and yes, "butt load" is a culinary term, a type of measurement if you will...look it up.). Today we add lunch service, so for three hours (11a-2p) we'll be doing what we do, lunch style.

We will then close until 5p, when we'll fire things back up for dinner service. While I know I can adjust to new wake up times and what not - I'm not sure what it means for PFO yet. I know that my publishing schedule is bound to change somewhat as I adjust to waking up earlier, etc. etc. etc.

It might be a rocky week or two as I get adjusted, but once I find a balance - it's all good. I'm excited, this is like a new part to the adventure. 

As of today the restaurant has been open for 8 months, can you believe it? 8 months, it's still going to take a bit for that to sink in.

Blogversary 1.0

I'm pretty sure that "Blogversary" isn't a real word, well at least the spell check in Google Chrome is showing that it is incorrectly spelled and upon further review isn't an actual word. But, who cares right? But I'm pretty sure that it gets the point across.

It's the one year anniversary of Prix Fixe. I started this thing a year ago on this date, not sure in exactly what direction I was going to take the blog. Only knowing (at the time) I was starting in on my externship and was finally on my way out of culinary school - after ditching a career in radio.

At this point I can happily say, I love what I do. I get to go into work and cook everyday, rain or shine - good mood or bad (though the bad goes away once in the kitchen, angry cook=angry food).

So, a year ago today I posted this:

I guess I should take a moment to introduce myself, now of course over to the left hand side you can see my about me. I'm a 13 year radio veteran that decided to get out of the biz and take a new direction in my life, and in my mid-30's to boot. I enrolled at Western Culinary Institute, in Portland Oregon. I am on my final leg of schooling, my externship.

I started a blog a while back that I had full intention to use as a way to journal a change from the radio industry to the culinary industry. Things like life, and being a member of our schools ACF Junior Hot Food competition team, time was short and it was just hard to keep up - not to mention I'm a sports blogger as well, even that suffered.

But now with more time and renewed vigor, I thought I'd give it a go (again). This is going to be different, started I guess I should take a moment to introduce myself, now of course over to the left hand side you can see my about me. I'm a 13 year radio veteran that decided to get out of the biz and take a new direction in my life, and in my mid-30's to boot. I enrolled at Western Culinary Institute, in Portland Oregon. I am on my final leg of schooling, my externship.

I started a blog a while back that I had full intention to use as a way to journal a change from the radio industry to the culinary industry. Things like life, and being a member of our schools ACF Junior Hot Food competition team, time was short and it was just hard to keep up - not to mention I'm a sports blogger as well, even that suffered.

But now with more time and renewed vigor, I thought I'd give it a go (again). This is going to be different, started Prix Fixe on TumblrPrix Fixe on Tumblr - posting quotes, pic's and culinary randomness that will remain (and feel free to add me if you're on tumblr). Here not only will I write about food, recipes and the like I will also chronical my six week externship at  - posting quotes, pic's and culinary randomness that will remain (and feel free to add me if you're on tumblr). Here not only will I write about food, recipes and the like I will also chronical my six week externship at Carlyle in Portland.

If you're wondering what in the hell a externship is, it's basically like a internship. Some places you get paid, some you don't. I would fall into the latter category, but really that makes no difference to me. My "pay" will be in what I learn from Executive Chef Jake Martin. The man is amazing, I got to see him work when I did my "stage" - my "try out" to see if they really wanted to take a 'change of career' guy into their kitchen.

So how'd that do for a intro? I'm not very good at them - so honestly I never know how they go over. We'll get this place jumpn' here very soon, just working out a publishing schedule that's going to fit in with my externship and things. in Portland.

If you're wondering what in the hell a externship is, it's basically like a internship. Some places you get paid, some you don't. I would fall into the latter category, but really that makes no difference to me. My "pay" will be in what I learn from Executive Chef Jake Martin. The man is amazing, I got to see him work when I did my "stage" - my "try out" to see if they really wanted to take a 'change of career' guy into their kitchen.

So how'd that do for a intro? I'm not very good at them - so honestly I never know how they go over. We'll get this place jumpn' here very soon, just working out a publishing schedule that's going to fit in with my externship and things.

A few things have changed (obviously), I don't blog baseball anymore and the fact that Carlyle is no longer open, the kitchen staff moving over to Fenouil in the Pearl. I think it's been sometime since I even looked at that tumblr page. Maybe I'll do something with it, maybe I wont. It could come in useful at some point.

Commenting.

I don't mention this stuff, and really the only problem here was TypePad eating comments. So to make it as simple as possible - while you do have to be logged in to comment. You can log into Twitter, Facebook etc. etc. to be able to leave a comment.

I love comments, questions and the like.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. 

FF: In which I fully get my geek on.

(Excuse me whilst I indulge myself for this Foto Friday. )

Me. Wil. Wheaton. 

One and Two in a Google Search.

Talk about rolling a natural 20...

...this kicks frakkin' ass!

#100

Yes, it seems that we've reached a milestone around here. 

We have officially hit the century mark in posts. There are no plans of slowing down - there's a lot of ground to cover. One thing I have noticed working in my new chosen career, is that most chefs, cooks and servers all have another creative outlet. 

Musicians, artists, writers..etc. Mostly I've run across musicians and artists - my boss being both of those. My outlet if you haven't guessed already is writing. I've been doing it for years, and doing it on the internet before I knew what blogging was - it was mostly scifi writing and what not. But it too was a creative outlet and carried me through some tough times, it was an escape - as it's true to this day.

In the last couple of years I've been published twice for my baseball knowledge via Graphical Player a ink and paper publication that comes out every year for those interested in fantasy baseball. When I started blogging it was about baseball and had what I feel was a pretty good blog on the Atlanta Braves. Then I 'retired' from radio, and enrolled in culinary school - that's where things changed.

This is my life now - food, cooking, writing.

I look at this as just the beginning, the number 100 is really just 1 with two zeros tagged on at the end. I'm still trying to find the balance that I want to strike here - pare it down to it's essential ingredients as it were. We're still in shake down cruise mode, workin' out the kinks so to speak.

Hopefully the next 100 will fly right by, I'm sticking to my personal commitment to post at the least once a day, but I am one of those writers who - if I really don't have anything to say, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to publish a post just to make sure I keep up with status quo - in other words I'm not going to force it. I rarely do in fact, but I did find I did fall into the later when I was blogging about baseball. 162 games is a lot to cover, and did so successfully for a couple of years and got burnt.

It wasn't fun anymore and seemed like work as anything else.

Not so with this, I can relate a lot of sports to food, the restaurant etc. etc. so if you see some sports analogy's don't be afraid - I promise it wont take over the blog.

So here's to the next 100....and more!

Foto Friday: 365

Over at Lindsey's Kitchen, she's got a great idea.

My sister gave me the greatest idea. She started a blog where she is determined to take a single picture everyday of 2010. I think it such a great idea. How great will it be to look back at all these pictures and remember everything from the year before. So every Friday until the end of the year I will be posting 7 photos from the week before. It might be pictures of food, Ben, Daphne, just anything in general. Once the year is over I think I might end up scrapbooking my photos. I would love it if some of my readers will do this with me. There are really no rules, just take a picture of whatever you want every day then every friday post your pictures in one blog post.

You can count me on board with this. It will be a great way for me to use my camera more (I already take it pretty much where ever I go) and get better at taking pics. So the first Foto Friday: 365 will be this coming Friday 1/15/10. It will encompass 7 days in one post, I started taking pictures yesterday so we'll be ready to roll this Friday.

I can already tell this is going to be fun!

Is there a support group for this?

I'm an information junkie, just ask those I work with/know/have met once/complete strangers. I can never get enough it seems, though I do have my over-loaded moments, few and far between as they are. Over on the side bar my Delicious link's list is back and is constantly updated - you can also add me to your network if you like.

One thing is for sure, Saturday mornings are a rough one. Not many hours removed from humping it out on the line on a busy Friday night. All you want to do, is not move and drink far more coffee than the human body should allow, and self medicate (not that I condone such things). Plus it's the weekend for some, why not kick back with some Saturday morning reading.

So starting this morning moving forward, Saturday's will before for some reading, maybe some learning while consuming coffee - and hoping the dull ache in your knees and back will fade before you have to head into work and do it all over again (my time in radio spoiled me, I hurt in places I didn't even knew I had.).

All week I'm collecting information, whether I book mark it on Delicious or star it in Google reader. So on Saturdays I will do you a bit of a favor and weed through the crap so you don't have too.

I'd don't have a fancy name for this yet, but I'm sure I'll come up with something (maybe..).

Lets get to the links.

Adios 2009!

That seems like forever ago. Yet only 8 or so months ago.

You don't think I'd pass over one final post in '09 did ya? What a wacky year this has been, from finishing up Culinary School to landing a gig and everything in between. I've seemed to have picked up momentum in the waning moments of 2009. I'm looking forward to use that momentum to plow forward into 2010.

I have at least one project in the works, I can't say what really yet - but it's exciting. Things at the restaurant are happening at a fast pace - and will only prove to get faster after the first of the year.  This is the first time in a very long time that I've looked forward going into the new year.

Excuse me while I try to explain something, in the only other way I know how - baseball.

2009 was a .500 season, good but not great and could be improved upon. I feel already that 2010 could be the season, there have been a few additions and subtractions that can help the ball club (and by ball club, I mean moi). I can't tell you how excited I am about things and doors opening up.

Oh and P.S. - If you have a Kindle you can subscribe to this here blog. The link to the store front is in the sidebar, only took a couple hours for it to be up and running.