My Favorite Cookbooks, Part 12, La Technique by Jacques Pepin

 

 

 

This book is a favorite among the old school crowd.  One of the best step-by-step cookbooks, La Technique, contains a plethora of black & white photos with very direct, concise directions.  I love my copy and refer to it often when doing a preparation I haven't tackled in a while.  It really helps me set my mise en place.  It also contains some interesting gems with napkin folding, paper pastry bag folding, freezing bottles of liquor in ice, and a few of the more rare ways of butchery... like my personal favorite, boning out a trout through the belly and removing the spine so you can stuff the tail through the mouth.  I've done it with petite rouget before, and I'll tell you, it makes for quite the show.

 

The cover of the book also inspired my first culinary-themed tattoo.  I figured everybody's been getting pig tats lately.  I opted for the lobster to define that I am not a simple pig cook (just ask my wife, I ain't no cheap date).  After the number I've killed, hopefully the lobster gods will take pity on my soul once they've seen the respect I've given them thus far.

 

 

 



My Favorite Cookbooks, Pt. 6

This book both comforts & kills in the same breath.  While a fascinating read, it almost gives away too much detail when it comes to cooking, which contrary to popular belief is quite simple.  And after understanding the basics of food science, even a beginner has ammunition against the old guard.  That is if they keep from making simple mistakes.  But that's the issue with On Food & Cooking.  Knowing the "why's" lets the novice feel more comfortable and dispels some of the mystery.  Couple this with any detail focused fine dining cookbook, and it becomes easy copy a master. 

That might be the issue with the latest generation of cooks.  Books like this let them learn too much too fast.  There's something to be said about paying your dues.

Confessions of a Knife

I think my old chef's knife misses me.  After this story, you may just agree.  But first a little background pertaining to the blade in question.  I used to run Deerpath Inn's kitchen (about 7 years ago?) for an adulterous chef that I'll call Johnny Tomahawk.  He was never there (mentally or physically) and I was responsible for the menu and training of the staff, one of whom was excelling quite well considering that he'd had no prior training in the kitchen.  Good kid for the most part, except he couldn't see past the money. 

I bought the guy a Henckel chef's knife, all together heavy & solid, a general tank of a blade.  It held an edge and the point never seemed to tip out.  It cost a little over $75.  The cook finally couldn't deal with the station and walked out on a Saturday night about 2 weeks after I gifted him the knife.  He left it in the kitchen and I'm pretty sure he left to persue janitorial work at the local hospital for a few bucks more a hour.  Fucking waste.

Anyways, she came back.  The knife I mean.  Been in my kit through some killer kitchens, and personally helped end the life of thousands of lobsters.  I've referred to her as the "Lobster Killer" for a few years now.  The tip never bends out.  I think people think I'm lying when I talk about how many crustaceans I've personally sent to crustacean heaven.  I'm not.  Stone cold.  What are they anyway, but giant sea bugs?  Giant, delicious, buttery sea bugs.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Lobster



The strange thing is, I never considered the knife mine.  I'd bought it for another cook and gifted it away.  He left it to Fate, and I picked it up, never meaning to add it to my kit.  So when a promising intern was talking about buying a new knife, I gave it to him.

Well, yesterday the new kid on the line gets the shock treatment from our boss.  He gets a case of the nerves and after service, dropped the knife by accident.  It pierced his boot tip first and stabbed his foot.  He ended up getting 3 stitches.

I sanitized the knife and he isn't back yet.  Lil Lobster Killer is back in my kit, at least temporarily.  I think she missed me. 

My Favorite Cookbooks, Pt. 4.5

I kinda plugged Foie Gras, A Passion the other day.  So more accurately this is My Favorite Cookbooks, Pt. 4.5.  To anyone who knows me well, they'd know I'm doing more sausage work than I've done recently, especially with dried salumis and their ilk.  With way more of an Italian focus than before.  So I started picking up a few of my older cookbooks, began blowing off the dust, and rereading them for technique & details I may've forgotten.  It's been fun.  So today I'm reviewing, Great Sausages and Meat Curing, by Rytek Kutas.

This book reads more like a person's trade notebook than a cookbook.  In fact, the author self published it originally in 1976.  As you read the book you'll realize that Rytek liked to do everything himself.  Seems like he could've given MacGuyver a run for his money after seeing how he shows different ways to jury rig home & professional smokers.  Almost every detail needed to set up an independent sausage shop is within it's pages.

Criticisms I've heard and respected make the case that Rytek didn't know much or at least detail specific ethnic sausages well.  His soppresata wouldn't match the ones from Italy for instance.  He also was a huge fan of dried spices and was phasing out any nondried, nonmeat ingredients out of sheer fear of contamination, when if treated professionally should not be an issue.  I can both agree and disagree depending upon who you're selling to and in what quantities.



One of the best things about his book is that he scales out his recipes for both 10 & 25 pound batches in the same page, making it easy for conversion.  He also gives the best ways to safely and hygenically make sausage both for production and the home.  If you want rediscover some of these techniques, and delve into Instacures and casings, I highly recommend this book.  It's a great way to get a foot in the door.

Culinary Musings, Kitchen Knives

I love a good sharp knife.  Hopefully I don't sound too psychotic here, but knives are a big part of what I do.  Just ask any of my friends at Northwest Cutlery off of Lake in Chi-town.  http://www.nwcutlery.com/  They'll tell you the extent of my obsession, although they only see a slice of it (pun intended).

I'm a big fan of Globals.  Japanese craftsmanship, western design influences.  And while they can be pricey, they still don't get anywhere near as expensive as some of the other professional brands.  In other words, I won't usually go into psycho chef rage if one goes missing or damaged.  Their home site is http://www.global-knife.com/.  I've bought the same 30 cm. chef's knife from them four times (don't ask why, it still hurts inside).  Usually runs about $135 or so after professional discounts.

Messermeister bought out Suncraft knives and these have been awesome to have the last few years.  The bamboo handled "Mu" knife kicks ass, and their paring knife is the best I've ever owned.  Hands down.  http://www.messermeister.com/Mu-Knife-Bamboo/

Mac knives deserve a mention as being cheap and lightweight, but I find they dent and rust easily.  So if someone borrows one, beware.

Forschners seem to come with any culinary school kit.  They don't keep their edge long, but sharpen easily and are the cheapest, useful knives I currently know of.  They're awesome boning knives have usually been a well respected part of my kit.

Wustoffs and Henckels are great for having a knife to bash around a bit.  Their chef knives are great lobster killers since they don't tip out easily.

I do not like Shun Knives.  Expensive, with shitty handles.  Feels like I'm holding an egg instead of a knife.  Whatever they claim, they are not ergonomic.  Once you get as expensive as Shun, or worse, you better be prepared for theft, denting, and any matter of kitchen hijinks that could cause you to have a heart attack.  Buyer beware.

I used to work for a butcher in Arizona at the resort.  He was old school, worked two jobs up until he retired, and did all the butchery for the property in three days of the week.  He was fast.  He also showed me how to take care of my knives, and sold me a pair after he showed me how to use the whetstone.  Every morning he sharpened his knives on the tristone and he never used a kitchen knife to open boxes or plastic.  For that he used a box cutter. 

"No sense dulling your blade on anything but meat."

-Butch

As for using a whetstone, the trick is getting your wrist to align at the proper angle. 18 to 20 degrees for a European style knife, and slightly sharper an angle for the eastern designed.  If you use a stone, remember that once you use oil on it, you always have to continue using oil.  If you start with water instead, no worries.  That's what I do so I don't have to carry around mineral oil.  If you know me, I can demo and sharpen your knives if you can catch me.  It's fun and fast.

Remember, if you do hurt yourself, a clean sharp knife will always leave an easier healing wound.  When a knife is dull, you're adding blunt trauma to the laceration.  So you're going to bruise and heal slower.  That sucks.

That's it for now.  I'm sure I'll post some more knife related stories in the future.

Arizona Stories, The day I lost all my facial hair...

I ended up taking a lot of 3rd shift work at the resort during the end of my externship.  Part of my contract specified that if a manager got a hold of me personally or via phone and asked me to work a shift, that I couldn't decline... even if I'd already worked a 16 hour day.  I'm not saying that I hated this, but since the night shift had the most no-call-no-shows or other bullshit excuses, I often found myself working with little sleep and having to strain stocks at 4 in the morning.

The best part about night shift was the lack of supervision and the freedom to do things in any order I thought would be the most efficient.  I was always looking for ways to get done faster, especially if room service was picking up due to high occupancy.  The night shift person was responsible for staff meal for about 35 people, mainly security, night cleaners, and over night bakers/pastry cooks.  You had to strain and cool all stocks, prep anything the executive sous dropped onto your plate, handle room service, grind meat for the butcher, and set up breakfast for the 175 seat dining room. 

Breakfast prep for the dining room entailed breaking down a few cases of eggs for omelets, dicing and par-steaming potatoes, setting up bacon, sausage links, and patties, cooking steelcut Irish oatmeal, clarifying butter, and getting all of the ovens, flattops, etc. hot for morning service.

One morning I had gotten towards the end of my shift at 7 am, when I went to light the old school flattop on the line.  It was an old model, and the pilot was about eight inches to a foot under the griddle.  You'd light a wooden skewer to light the pilot, and turn the gas to light the damned thing.  This morning was different.  As I got on my knees and lit the skewer, I reached under the griddle and triggered and enormous blast of flame that engulfed my head briefly.  I immediately shut my eyes and hit the ground.

Apparently, one of the nightcleaners had used the stove as a ladder to reach the hoods earlier that morning and had turned the gas on slightly with their boot, much to my dismay.  I lost a few eyelashes, curled my eyebrows, and burnt off part of my sideburns.  To this day I have difficulty growing hair where my ears meet my beard.  I also looked sunburnt for about a week. 

So the first cook comes in, an old asian dude that rocked the omelet station as if he was twenty years younger.  With one look at me, all he says is,

"That's why I don't light the pilot anymore."

Go figure.  Now I always let someone else deal with pilots and gas first until I'm comfortable with the machine or conduit in question.  I saw a chef friend of mine once light an easy release hose on his fryer on an open burner by accident on his line.  He set his sleeve on fire and it looked like a flame thrower until the grill cook closed the release valve.  Scary, scary stuff to see.

Arizona Stories, Best Kitchen Mispelling

Manually keyed into Micros by a server for a special:

Frog Raaaaa!

At the time, I didn't get it until I said it out loud.  For the longest time I had the ticket taped to an old notebook, now missing.

Arizona Stories, Sammy the Grill Cook

Sammy was awesome.  I first learned a busy grill station from him as an intern in Phoenix and he was quite the character.  He originally moved to Arizona from Texas after getting into some gang problems in Dallas.  He was shot a few times in the knee and ended up getting his right leg amputated.  You wouldn't know it except for his limp, and it wasn't the first thing he'd run up and tell you.  This led to some interesting stories... mainly because Sammy had a warped sense of humor.

He used to play box with the saute cook, Kenneth.  Kenny used to draw pictures of Sammy in permanent marker on the line, and repeatedly hit it with things while muttering, "Can you feel that?!  Can you feel that Sammy?"  I had to work the middle and set up plates for them during service when I first started, which honed my trash talk a lot better than my cooking skills for a brief period of time.

One day Sammy decided to play box with a newer cook, and the two of them were having a great time.  It was the beginning of our shift, and the newer cook hadn't buttoned his jacket up all the way yet.  Sammy grabbed a small Braun stick blender from a bain marie and started to "fence" with it.  It was still plugged in, and tore into the skin on the new cook's chest.  While it wasn't a deep cut, the new cook looked down with disbelief before he was rushed off to emergency care.  Neither were fired, but Chef J had an hour long reprimand waiting for them both about goofing off at work.

Now, in Phoenix, the bars close super early in comparison to Chicago, so it leads to more and more house parties & socialization after work.  At one party, Sammy had been drinking quite heavily, and was getting more and more angry at a rich girl that wouldn't stop talking about all of the skiing equipment she'd just bought and how great of a time she was going to have in Colorado when the snow fell.  She was sitting next to him on the couch, when he hopped up, threw off his leg, and stated drunkenly...

"I'll never hit the damned slopes again!"

He then proceeded to hop to the kitchen to pour another rum & coke.  His "friend" screamed and ran out of the party, proceeding to ditch her boyfriend taking the only car.  He was about to start a fight with Sammy until our friends broke them up, and some samaritan gave the unhappy man a ride home. 

I couldn't stop laughing.

Arizona Stories, A Request

An old Chef of mine (I'll call him Monroe) from Phoenix wanted to hear a story about our old Executive Chef J.  Now Monroe really wasn't too keen on J's rules and general Boy Scoutedness.  There's a few key things for you to know about Chef J to make this post make sense.  So let me give you some background.

Chef J (and our head steward) used to search the employee housing weekly (where I lived) to ensure the interns and/or current residents were living to code.  Heck, we weren't allowed to have food in our rooms, all meals were supposed to be eaten at the resort or somewhere on the town.  Which sucked.  One day he stole the vanilla wafer cookies I had hidden in my sock drawer.  Swear to God.  Never got written up for it, but the empty package was in the trash...  With no cookies! 

With that I decided a prank was in order.

Our fearless cookie thieving leader also had stickers of his face made to put on the tops of the spice rub jars the resort sold and/or gave away as amenities.  With a small distraction from an unnamed intern I was able to lift a roll of the stickers.  Good thing the statute of limitations is over in this epic crime of mine.  Later, I went back to the employee housing and proceeded to hang out with a coworker in their room.  After some drinking, the coworker decided to run some laundry.  I was still in the room, and made it to the restroom.  I quickly turned off the water valve and flushed the toilet to drain the tank.  I then dried off the bowl with a wad of Kleenex and stuck a bunch of stickers (of Chef J's head) to the bottom.  I then turned the water valves back on and walked out of the washroom. 

The epic part of the plan was this was one of the last nights the neighbor was in town.  They ran a shorter internship. 

And after they were gone, the chef had to inspect their room with the head steward. 

Word is the head steward caught the prank only after he'd used the facilities.  And he was the one that had to scrape the stickers off of the basin.

And that's what you get for stealing my cookies, jerks.

Arizona Stories, The Ballad of Lonely Bob

I used to work for a five starred, five Mobile Diamond resort on the west side of Phoenix.  It seems to be the source of most of the stories I retell over and over (much to my wife, family & friend's dismay).  I'd like to share a few of these choice gems that I've been polishing, as most of you won't get the chance to hear them in person.  And if you have heard them in person, well, quit whining.  I'll write about you next.

The property was huge, including three professionally designed golf courses, an incredible spa, a killer pool, over 365 rooms, three high end restaurants led by an ex-White House chef, and had a considerably large area to house workers and interns.  I was one of the latter during my internship from Kendall College.  I worked through every kitchen and station I could over two seasons, eventually working in their four star, four diamond ode to Southwestern cuisine.  We did everything from scratch.  We made our own bread, desserts, butchered only prime meats, and carried the biggest chip on our shoulders for doing this on a day-to-day high volume basis.

I saw an extremely large number of cooks flow though the line over a short period of time though those two seasons.  One of those I shall call "Lonely Bob".  We named him this because there were too many Bob's.  I should know, I was one of them.  My nickname was (still is) Shaky or Shakes.  I drink a lot of caffiene.  Lonely Bob got dumped by his girlfriend for a fellow cook.  Thus the lonely moniker.  Well, to put it kindly, Lonely Bob sucked.  Royally.  The culinary school he'd applied to said that he needed atleast a year's professional experience before they'd let him into their program, and they set him up with us.

Good 'ol Lonely quickly found himself on night shift duty.  It was the consumate bitch shift, 7 pm to 7 am.  The job entailed a few key tasks; to strain and cool the stocks, perform general prep, grind butcher scraps, set up breakfast for the main dining room, and to cook employee meal for the the night cleaners, bakery, & security staff.  Two days in, the night cleaners logged a formal complaint.  He'd marinated chicken in raw white vinegar and then cooked it with peppers, calling it chicken fajitas.  I swear every time a hispanic person walked by him they muttered a death threat under their breath.

The evening before Thanksgiving, Lonely was given the task of cooking turkeys for the next morning.  He was told by the Executive Sous to cook 8 turkeys to 135 degrees, and to set them up in a closed door speed rack with 6 sternos on a sheet pan on the bottom to keep them warm for the next morning, when they'd be brought up to temp before lunch service. 

For those of you who don't know how sternos work, they're the little cans of gelled, napalm heat that are placed under pans on buffet lines.  When lit, they burn blue flame.  They're effing hot.  Well, good old Bobby has never used them before, and interpreting the directions literally, takes the gel out of the cans with a spatula and smears the goo onto the oversized cookie sheet.  He puts it on the bottom, lights the pan, shuts the door, AND WALKS AWAY.  Now usually only a small surface area burns with these things.  He's multiplied this over tenfold. 

Long story short. my friend, a night baker comes out of the pastry shop and sees flames licking the outside of the cart.  Wide eyed, she runs to the dish area, grabs a mop & bucket, uses the butt end of the mop to open the cart's latch, and throws the dirty mop water over the fire frantically. 

All of the turkey's were ruined.  Blackened by Metallica comes to mind.  I remember the smell vividly as I walked into the kitchen for my morning shift.

Lonely had burnt a hole through the sheet pan.  No shit.

We had run to Safeway for more turkeys.  Lonely didn't last much longer after that.