Prix Fixe

It takes a nation of Sherpa's to hold us back...

Something that I quickly learned (after getting out of school mind you..) is that you can't waste motion or extra steps. There's no time. From the minute you walk in the door for your shift, the clock is ticking. 

Learn to carry as much as you can in one trip, again the clock is ticking and you can ill afford to go back and get something you forgot or otherwise. I've become pretty adept at carrying a large cutting board, while balancing things like mixing bowls, deli containers - because once I get to my station - the plan is not to move as much as possible and hammer out my prep. 

I learned this quickly during my externship, you see: the Carlyle (R.I.P.) kitchen was the size of a football field (or at least that's what it felt like), as it was built in what was a  now obviously re-purposed warehouse (dining room was tiny, you could park a semi in the kitchen and still move about freely) on the outer rim of the Pearl district. 

To make the trek from the line to dry storage or the dish pit, on had to hire a Sherpa to cross the massive expanse between the two.  Trevor, who worked Pantry most days - was constantly riding my ass about this. Drilling into my brain to start thinking farther a head than I had ever been accustom to. Some days (and I'll be honest here), it grated on my very last nerve. But in the long run and hind sight being all that...I get it now.

The thing is though - it's been so ingrained into what I would guess is a re-coding of my positronic neural net, even at home I'm mapping out in my head where I'm going and do I need more than one thing from that same part of the house?

If we're being real here, (and I love keeping real yo.....are the kids still saying keepin' it real, yo?) I owe a great deal of that to Trevor, who was always telling me to "think" and "don't waste fuckin' steps".

Wasting steps, is wasting time. 

Time you really didn't have in the first place, like in football you need good clock management in the fourth quarter - bend the clock to your will - not the other way around. 

This was going to be a part of Notes From The Line, but decided it warranted it's own post. I'll also give you bonus points if you can guess what song I'm playing off of in the title.

Work In Progress.

While this is the digital world, there are things I do solely analogue - namely things like you see above, I'm a moleskine addict. I currently rock 4 at any given time, and all four have their designations.

1.  mind.dump. : this is my catch all for ideas, things I need to remember and so on.
2. expo. : my to-do lists resided here. 
3. workbook. : This is more or less my culinary brain, recipes I've developed and the like.
4. inventing. room. : ode to Willy Wonka, what doesn't fit in the concept of #3 goes here, biz ideas, menu's, r&d type stuff.

I have to do it this way, or I forget. I'm an information junkie, and like it or not sometimes I get info overload. The new info coming in is pushing out the older stuff, you know like when you've got a ton of shit on your DVR and you keep recording and it's starts to dump all those old shows you hadn't gotten to yet?

It's like that, only going on inside my head.

Kneady Children?

This would be some of mothers offspring.

Though chef and I noticed that she's transforming and becoming and will take on a new life, as we set about getting a fresh mother started.

Cooks Without Knives

Just like every baseball player needs a glove, every cook/chef needs his knives. Recently a fire swept through the kitchen of one of Spain's top restaurants. 

Here's the details from John Sconzo over @ Docsonz:

Early on Monday February 15th, fire severely damaged the kitchens at Mugaritz, the world-famous restaurant in Spain's Basque Country. Luckily, no-one was hurt. For the management and staff of Mugaritz, the destruction of their workplace was a tragedy. But for three other young people, this was also a calamity. 

Stagières are unpaid apprentices, usually young, without whom no top restaurant can function. Driven by a common passion to learn from the world's best chefs, they travel from all corners of the globe to train at world-class restaurants. When the dust settled on Mugaritz after last Monday's inflagration, Mattias from Sweden, Diego from Guatemala and Greg from the US found themselves without their most valued possessions. Their precious knife sets, not covered by the restaurant's insurance, had been incinerated.

John has taken the lead and set up a fund to help the young stages with replacing there knives. More information can be found here about donating to a well worth it cause and help these guys out. I can tell you, I treasure my knives and would be lost without them - I'm betting these guys feel the same way.

You can also click on the widget in the side bar of this here blog to donate as well.

Mother...

Every loaf of bread that comes out of the oven at Scratch comes from Mom. She's a spry 4 months old and this fine lady is starting to turn out some very tasty offspring. 

Nothing like producing bread in house. It's not regular practice by any means but we have been known to sell a loaf now and then to customers who really like it.

Is it March 20th yet?

I'm really starting to get impatient, why you ask? Because the PSU Farmers Market opens on March 20th, which also happens to be the first day of spring. From what I've read the PSU market is expanding in size, which was already pretty big, is going to even allow for more farms and vendors.

Some of the farms I've missed:

1. Misty Mountain Mushrooms: I get all my wild mushrooms, ramps and truffles from Misty Mountain. 
2. Veridian Farms: They've got the hook up with Padron Peppers and the like.
3. Rogue Creamery: If you haven't had the Caveman Blue, you must must try.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but still - I'm soo giddy it's going to be hard to contain myself for the next month or so before the Market gets underway.

Pictured above is flowering kale.

Reading Rainbow..

The other night our Pantry Cook (which both Chef and I went to school with) asked what she should be reading as far as cooking goes and we started to ramble off a list of books. So I figured, I'd provide a list of books that I would recommend to both the home cook and cooks just getting started in the industry.

For the home cook, there are a couple on the list that are a bit daunting and you might never cook from them - but yet they'll provide a reference point and be a source of inspiration. This by no means is an end all/be all list - but should give you a solid foundation from which to work from. 

The French Laundry & Bouchon

Chef Thomas Keller is known the world over and holds several Michelin Stars for both TFL and Per Se in New York, which makes him the only American chef to do so. He's also a cookbook author (duh), though some would say that they aren't 'cookbooks' so to speak because of the time involved for most of the dishes put forward in his books.

Though he states right off the bat, that the recipes contained within the books aren't really meant for the home cook. But you can give it a go anyways, though you might not be as successful as TK. Which is fine, then again I do this professionally and love a challenge. But the story's within the book's are well worth the read. 

Think Like a Chef

Chef Tom Colicchico is known to most as the head judge on Bravo TV's "Top Chef". Colicchico is also one hell of a chef and restaurateur. This book was recommended to me when I was doing my externship at Carlyle (which is into it's last week of operation) I asked the same question of executive chef Jake Martin, and this was the first book that he suggested to me. 

He's all about great ingredients, simple preparation to bring out the most in what he's cooking. Here he'll give you lessons on stock making, sauces and the like. So for the home cook who's just starting out with tackling the home kitchen - this is a great book for laying a foundation from which to build and experiment.

Beets

This is a special we ran for a while. Micro Beet,Beet Powder, Chevre, Pickled Beet, Manchego Crisps, Candied Bacon.

#preplistproject: The beginning.

I live and die by my prep list. 
Usually I do the list up the night before after we close it down. Sit at the bar regale in the nights events and to form a battle plan for the next days service. I'm also facinated with them, and other peoples..(sounds a bit creepy now that I read that line back to myself.) any way the point is - if you have one show me. 
I want to see other peoples preplist's it's always fun to see how they're written up. So if you're in the industry or not, I would love for you to send me a pic of you're preplist, and I'll post them here as part of the #preplistproject. 
So send me an email at preplistproj [at] prixfixe-online [dot] com.

In regards to elBulli

Yesterday at the Madrid Fusion conference Chef Ferran Adria made the announcement that elBulli would close it's doors to the public. No the restaurant isn't closing down for good, but Chef Adria has decided that he needs to take a step back as it were, look at where elBulli has been and where it's going moving forward. The restaurant itself is working on it's 50th year in operation -  Adria has been at the helm for 30 of those years.

According to the presser we could get a elBulli encyclopedia, which would be the first ever complete 'bible' of avant garde cuisine from Adria. He's released several books, but this would be even bigger (bigger than the Fat Duck Cookbook - that Heston Blumenthal put out) which is many levels of kick ass.

My first thought was "Good for him", time to take stock in where he's been and where he wants the restaurant to go. Not many chefs can close down their restaurant for two years and get away with it - Adria can. Guys like Heston Blumenthal and Grant Achatz both did stages under Adria.