Play With Your Food

    Whats up world? I apologize for my delayed absence from my command post. It will never happen again (yes it will)...I have been stockpiling photos and epic stories for you guys but until I can really sit down and regurgitate everything I will fill the void with photos of the food we get to play with in Product Knowledge...all in the name of research I assure you.

It's important to always play with your food

Beets: standard red (sweet), golden (savory), and I am holding a beet called "candy stripe"

baby carrots

celery root

salsify

watermelon radishes

"Purple Top" turnip

Chinese long-bean

edamame beans, boiled in salt water and just pop em in your mouth. So delish

  

     Nothing special here, I'll admit this is more of a filler post until I can plan out how I want to explain some of the big events that have unfolded in the past few weeks. You have no idea how long it takes for some of these posts to go from raw data to life altering reads ...what you think I'm funny off the top of my head?? It has been an exciting time lately being me so here are a couple of posts you devoted followers can look forward to in the near (I promise near) future:

• My trip with friends to 11 Madison Park (EMP) aka the best meal of my life
• Bocuse d'or USA competition held on our campus (basically the Olympics of culinary competitions minus the fact that there actually are cooking competitions in the Olympics)
• New batch of classes--the last week of Culinary Fundamentals before meat/fish fabrication
• Culinary job hunt and externship preparation
• A bunch of other random things my crazy brain finds interesting

    Peace, be good people! 

More Gore

"I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."
 ~Benjamin Button

    Alright so I'm a big skier, and its probably the sole reason why I am one of the few people on Earth that actually loves winter. Now I'm not talking Christmas and "the first snowfall" Hallmark type stuff that everyone loves. Don't get me wrong I love all that too, but I'm talkin' gray snow piled up on the side of the road, subzero temperatures that leave a stinging feel deep in your bones. I'm talkin' dead center of winter where most start to go stir crazy with cabin fever. I'm talkin' bundling up to walk down the driveway to grab the mail. I love that stuff, and I think its because I love skiing so damn much. Its a sickness. Day after day, driving up to Gore regardless of the conditions to get a couple hours worth of runs in (I can probably ski blindfolded on that mountain). Your out there with nature, sometimes its soft and you glide atop the snow like your floating, and sometimes its gritty; where "loose granular" and man made snow crunch under your skis. Sometimes its loud with wind whipping down narrow trails and atop the summit, vacationers from Long Island and Jersey scraping around and yelling to keep their group of 15 together on the mountain. Sometimes its eerily quiet, windless and empty late in the day with the sun setting behind the mountains.
    I love being in all of that. Usually I enjoy doing things with people, but skiing is one of the few exceptions where I am completely at ease with others or shredding the slopes alone. Its my sanctuary up there. Some have meditation or long walks, I have mountains to play on. Its a lot like cooking in a way, and I know I've made that same comparison with hiking but its true; there are more comparisons than one would think. Its physical: hours of continuous ware and tear on the body; constantly leaning into hard turns barreling down trails at high speeds. Pushing and digging with poles to traverse along flat ground. All these things will ware you down (especially early on in the season). Its extremely mental: sometimes you can ski down a trail without a thought in the world, but most of the time your scanning for black ice, and novice riders; or plotting your next turn and where it will take you. When you run into moguls you have to think about a path to meander around and sometimes up and over giant mounds of snow. For most people this last one will not apply but its also deeply emotional and spiritual: there are times when I take a long smooth turn just right or pop over a hill straight into a steep downhill and I just burst out laughing. There are no words to describe what I mean, its just a feeling I get when subtle little intricacies of the mountain come together harmoniously in my favor. I don't expect you to know what I mean, because I don't really know what I mean. Its just beautiful.
    A kitchen functions on these very same principles: its physical--on your feet for long hours (often too long), thirsty as hell, running back and forth from the dish station to the line. Chopping, dicing, pounding, lifting, carrying all day long. Its mental--setting up your mise en place and doing all your prep to plan your day and be prepared for the inevitable shit storm coming your way...and your in the eye of it baby! Its also emotional/spiritual--when that shit storm finally arrives and your understaffed and overwhelmed, you want to cry, or curl up in a ball and make it all go away, or flee and never look back. But the highs are so high, taking an extra second to admire a nicely plated dish, or a perfectly executed and cooked piece of meat is a wonderful thing. This post is less about food and more about the crazy parallels I place on the things in my life in attempts to justify and to some extend understand the things that I do and why I do them. 
   
    That being said, I did eat food today, like always. 

    Lunch: banana and an energy bar.

    Dinner: shredded turkey and gravy on a French baguette with swiss. Not the most elegant looking thing I've ever eaten but after a long day of skiing you just want something that tastes good and will fill ya up, ya know? Not to mention that it was easily as hell to make.

• can of turkey gravy (no I didn't have time to make my own, it was a spur of the moment type thing)
• leftover white meat turkey
• 8 inches of French baguette sliced lengthwise
• 2 slices swiss cheese
• dab of mayo 

    Just simmer the gravy in a pot and add the shredded or diced turkey to heat it back up. Stir to incorporate and ladle on top of the baguette with a slotted spoon. Turned out pretty good. Maybe it was because I was starving and even the bread of the lord in church tastes pretty good when your starving. Nonetheless it did the job. 

The Belly of the Beast Part I

    I was in town yesterday running a few errands and I decided to stop in Price Chopper (our depressingly bad supermarket...someone build a whole foods damn it!) to pick up a few things for dinner. Risotto was fresh on my mind from Wednesday's class so I thought I'd make a batch for the family. "Time to go home and be a family man" I suppose...

The best taunt ever made thanks to Street Fighter

     I had no grocery list, no plan really. I just knew I wanted to make a risotto of some kind. In class we just made a basic risotto with onion, and Parmesan cheese so there wasn't a whole lotta flavor going on there. I walked down the produce isle in ghetto-chopper looking for things to incorporate into my risotto and brussel sprouts caught my eye.
Side Note: The price chopper in town in universally accepted as "ghetto-chopper" because its small, and well....ghetto? I don't know how else to describe it other than its a townie thing (drives away, puts town in rearview). Sorry I'm in a particularly quote-friendly mood today, that last one was from "The Town", great flick. Saw it in theaters with my college bros and after quoting that line from the trailer a million times, we all burst out laughing when Ben Affleck delivered one of the most unintentionally funny lines in movie history. No youu ahh!

    Brussel sprouts, right. Ok, so I grabbed some brussel sprouts and thought to myself, what goes well with these, and immediately bacon came to mind. I didn't want to have "bacon" in my risotto so I decided on pork belly instead and drove home with a smile on my face

"Is that pork belly? ohhhh......"

    I'm sitting in a giant comfy chair in the dark with headphones on listening to "meditation music" on spotify to help channel my inner creativity and all I got so far is pictures of Ben Affleck and the joker... (strokes imaginary kung fu beard)

     I started off by dicing the pork belly and sauteeing till crispy in a little bit of clarified butter (well melted butter really, what you think I have all day to melt butter? I'm a hunter and gatherer for chris'sake, I don't stay put for very long. Ask anyone in my family). Instead of roasting the brussel sprouts right after I deglazed the pan with some white wine then added the sprouts to the liquid. In hindsight I should've deglazed after the sprouts were roasted because the sprouts just kinda simmered and didn't get a good color on them. Damn. Still good though. I put the sprouts and pork on a plate lined with paper towel and set aside while I made the risotto.
    I added the risotto rice (Arborio--a short grain rice with high starch content so it can absorb a ton of liquid..well not an actual ton...shut up, you know what I mean) right into the deglazing liquid so all the pork fat, butter, and pan drippings could get absorbed right into the rice. That's how you build flavors. Final product pictures and actual recipe after the jump.

K-16 aka "The Ex Girlfriend"

    I don't wanna toot my own horn or anything here but I think I created the most accurate analogy ever. The teaching kitchens on campus (not our bakery/restaurants) are responsible for producing the meals for our student meal plan and they include (but are not limited to): cuisines of the Americas--upstairs/downstairs, cuisines of Asia--upstairs/downstairs, cuisines of the Mediterranean (Meds)--upstairs/downstairs, and the infamous K-16 production kitchen. Every kitchen has the potential to be hit or miss depending on whether its open for lunch or dinner, which chef is running the kitchen, what menu they are running that day and a variety of other minute factors like ordering a burger from a kid who is clearly in the weeds, is being bitched out by the chef and looks like he is about to cry or shit himself (there is no way that burger is coming out medium rare, just except it). Typically though, some kitchens operate better than others (Meds has been the gold standard for consistency recently) and those ones are always picked clean, so get there early...as in 30-45 minutes before they even open. No joke. What, you think those braised short ribs are still going to be available by the time they get to your section of the line? forget it. Your eating the vegetarian option today, sucka (not necessarily a bad thing).
    The reality of it all is that your eating food cleaned, prepped, cooked, and plated by STUDENTS. There are times when you will eat something so good you'll momentarily forget where you are (snaps fingers in front of eyes, no response) and there are times...well lets just say that the kid who barely passed fish fabrication is the same kid who prepared your salmon lunch. Even when its bad, its not THAT bad, we're all just spoiled with the best ingredients on a daily basis.
    My favorite kitchen to talk about is K-16--the high production kitchen right next to our main dining hall. Most of the kitchens will push 60-80 plates a day but K-16 is open from breakfast till dinner and they pump out 300-500 plates on any given day. Since they are such a high volume kitchen and move at lightning pace, the quality of the food takes a dip (especially when a new class comes in). The advantage is that they're always open (mostly) and the disadvantage is that the food is lacking a bit. You still with me? Good.
    I came up with the analogy that K-16 is like an ex-girlfriend in that nothing good can come out of going there. You refuse and say you've moved on, but its raining, your drunk, and the Asian, American, and Mediterranean girls (kitchens) are all taken...what's a guy to do, ya know?

students in K-16 plating wraps viewable from the window in the main hallway

DISCLAIMER: I would like to point out at this time that this post is a harmless joke amongst my friends and I. It in no way reflects my real feelings about past relationships or women in general. All the girls in my life both past and present (you know who you are) have helped make me the person I am today. I love you all and hold a special place in my heart for each one of you. Cheers to all the beautiful women in my life.

Sympathy For the Devil

"Just call me lucifer
Cause I'm in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste"

 ~ Stones

     

    Today my friend Zeth and I hiked one of the best hikes ever had by man. I did some research the night before, looking on the Catskills hiking website for a good day hike. What we found, was more epic than either of us could have imagined. The day started out sluggish, with me lying in bed a good half hour after my alarm had startled me awake; contemplating if I actually wanted to hike or not (sleeping in ridiculously late on the weekends is always tempting). I texted Zeth, and when he said he still wanted to hike I figured I might as well get up and start movin'. I take a quick shower (one shower = 2 cups of coffee, I'm convinced) and pack a bag full of the following: towel, jersey, windbreaker, phone, emergency portable phone charger + extra batteries, water bottle. I'm out the door by 10am...a tad late seeing as we will have a 1.5 to 2 hour drive ahead of us. 

    On the way we stop at a gas station, and fill up on water, redbull, energy bar, etc. I also ate a cold, dry gas station turkey sandwich...which was as good as those components can possibly be together. We get to the town and after a few moments of second guessing ourselves...and a loopy GPS we find a lady with 3 awesome mountain scaling dogs at the trail head. I ask if we are where we think we are and she laughs (she will be pleasantly surprised in our hiking ability later). The woman asked if we had snow shoes or cliffhanger boots with us to which we reply: "the forecast said nothing about snow". She looks at us like we are absolute beginners even though Zeth was a military scout and I have done a fair share of hikes. We were just a little under prepared, but we decide to roll with it. 

    The mountain is called Twin Mountain, because you guessed it..its a twin...."ANDD ANDD TWINNNS". The best part of the mountain is the section at the top that crosses into "Devil's Path", a grueling 24 mile horizontal trail that goes up and down 4 major peaks. We only had to do a mile of it but the part we did was pretty close to vertical at times. Imagine sections where you have to physically climb up rock sections covered by a frozen waterfall. If you fall back, your brain's fertilizing the land. Naturally we took this part very seriously. When the hard part had ended we bumped into the woman and her 3 dogs (I have no clue how the dogs made it past some of these parts) on their way down. She stops and we chat for a while, mostly about the fact she thought we were going to die (we looked unprepared, but handled the mountain just fine). I mention that we are CIA students and her face turns to a warm smile. Apparently she knows a lot of restaurants in the area and loves CIA students/graduates. She gave us the name of a great restaurant called "Global Palate" and told us to check it out, before we parted our separate ways. Navigating up frozen rivers, through tight spaced corridors we arrive at the top to one of the best views I have ever seen. These pictures don't do the view any justice what so ever. The mountains in the background looked like blue silk! 

Here's a link talking about "Devil's Path", the most difficult trail in the East:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Path_%28hiking_trail%29

Zeth about to scale the beginning of our "Devil's Path" crossing

A man at the top showing me what lurked in the distance. Cool dude.

The "Silky Way", everything in the distance was a soft blue/white. Looked like silk y'all

The money shot aka my new background

     Come on, that's screen saver quality right there! Remarkable.

Zeth putting on new socks...and killin' it

Cool blue mountain

Zeth in the captain's chair

Your rulers back

    On the way down, the trail takes long, side-winding switchbacks and in one area Zeth spotted something, so we take a detour off the trail a few feet. This is what we found. Man-made thrones of stone. There were a bunch of them, but this was clearly the kings seat because it looked right out into a range of mountains with the sun slowly setting in the distance. Words cant describe the view from this seat. I could spend hrs looking into the distance but it was cold and my battery was dying. We explore a bit before we head back onto the trail and notice its not just a few man-made seats, its a whole stone metropolis. Someone had built rooms with entrance ways, there was a arched area where someone had grilled/cooked with fire.It blew my mind to fathom how people got these stones up this far (this was about a mile hike up from the base of the mt) seeing as how most would take at least 4-6 people to carry and the path was too crazy an steep to drive a vehicle up it. I donno, my mind is completely blown. It was a long day of driving, hiking, climbing a path crafted by the devil, and beaver dams...Oh yeah, we saw a frozen lake plugged up by a huge beaver dam (all the trees in the area were gnawed down)

I miss childhood. Its a cartoon....about beavers. Yup.

EATS

(Besides that dry-ass turkey sandwich...it didn't even have cheese)

Power bar at the summit, nothing like it

    I'm not into those uber power bars where your knee deep in chocolate and peanut butter, loaded with sugar, fat, calories, etc because I don't do steroids. Gimme a simple snack with peanuts, honey, an other natural goodies.

  

• Courtside Salad to-go: lettuce, craisans, julienne of carrot, shredded cheese, beets, chick peas, spicy Asian-style chicken, balsamic

   No meal swipes on the weekends so you have to get your own groceries or pay at Courtside Cafe (thanks to culinary cash) I was in the mood for a good salad, not a gigantic burger that would knock me out in minutes. Don't be fooled, however, this salad was less a salad and more chicken with veggies and leaves. filled me up right.

    We are about to get slammed this week with finals, midterms and practicals at CIA so this epic hike was the perfect start to a mentally and physically taxing school week. This will probably be my last post for the night but I'll be working on a few drafts I have going so I'll still be here in spirit. Goodnight planet Earth!

Freddy B

    Freddy B aka chef Fredrick Bash is our chef for the class Product Knowledge, for which I have on Thursday mornings at 10 (getting to sleep in till 8 or 9 is glorious). I don't just call him Freddy B because I'm a smart ass or something (I called my 4th grade band teacher "Tony" instead of his last name...man was peeved) that's what he goes by. He has articles  in the weekly school paper: La Papillote that say "by Freddy B", and is even addressed as Freddy B by Tim Ryan, the president of our school. Now that that's outta the way, let me just say that Freddy B is the man. He refers to all of us as "chefs of the future" (although that's not gonna happen for everyone...just sayin') and has a true passion for ingredients that is infectious. Plus the man looks like Steve Jobs...to a T. The only real crime about his class is that it is only one day a week. Even culinary math and food safety are twice a week.
    Each week we talk about something new. Last week was salad greens/cooking greens, and this week was cabbage. Imagine an entire class period dedicated to just cabbage. If you love food the way I do, this ROCKS! I secretly snagged a few photos in class for your viewing pleasure (don't worry it was during down time)

We like to play with our food here

    



   




Clearly they're twins....






    One day a few friends and I stayed after class to ask if he had any good restaurant suggestions in the area. We waited in his office, then he came in and chatted with us for a while. Since he commutes from Connecticut everyday he doesn't know tons of places, but he still took the time to write down the places he had been to in the area and liked (Palace Dumpling is on the list).

The list he gave us

    Funny story, Freddy B says if he has a class real early in the morning the next day, he'll call his wife and crash on another chef's couch for the night.

Friday Night Eats: Cinnamon (Tigers Hate This Place)

  

 Sorry, I had to include this part from the hangover so that the title of this post made sense...mainly. See! Tigers hate Cinnamon, I'm not crazy...mainly.


    This "Friday Night Lights Eats" establishment is a place I have been to before but forgot to get photos/blog about it, which was disappointing because Cinnamon is a really nice Indian place with terrific food. Mom and pop owned Indian places always seem to be the best. I was all set to give up on a Cinnamon post until Jack from "Lost" reminded me to never give up.
   

    Your right Jack, WE HAVE TO GO BACCCKK. I neeeeeddd photos. Last night Leah, Eric, Brad, Anthony, Zeth, Jackie (last minute addition...reeled her in "reel" good....damn I suck) and I embarked on the epic quest to return to the island but our compasses were acting loopy and directed us to Cinnamon restaurant instead...go figure. Whats a post without a good "lost" joke from time to time, am I right? Sorry I'm not sorry.
    The 7 of us ordered a veggie platter and a meat platter ("I got your meat platter right here" *grabs junk*) for the table and a couple orders of naan (Indian bread, but you already knew that). We sipped some wine, except Jackie shes only 18. She gets carded in church for the blood of the lord....ohhh snap! Underage AND church joke all mixed in one!?!? (jersey ignites, becomes "on fire") Alright alright, time for some food and pictures, you guys don't actually read this stuff do you (except from my mom, she emails me from her Ipad after every post)?

Pronounced "pee-not noy-yer" for effect...

Leah...on the Food Network

Assorted rice and fried veggies

   

Good quality food > poor quality picture

    This last picture is the rack of lamb dish I ordered last night. I tried looking up a menu online so I could post exactly what was in it, because I'm a food nerd, but alas they don't have a website. That's okay we roll with the punches here. The dish came with grilled mixed veggies of carrots, cauliflower, etc, and a spicy ginger sauce with fresh lemon. I was hoping I wouldn't cut into the lamb and find a dry, overcooked center like some places tend to do but no, perfect medium rare. We all sat for a while an talked shop aka about our kitchen class before we could realize we were the only customers left in the restaurant.
   
    As a little note, its always nice to be able to eat at a place later at night and not get that feeling they're trying to hurry you out of there to close. I mean I understand its late and you want to go home. I get it. I do the same exact thing as you, and feel the same exact way most of the time when I'm at work, but its your job. People are always scared to go to a restaurant if they're closing soon because they don't want to piss anyone off or get the dreaded "spit in the food" (people don't do that by the way, so don't be afraid to send things back...but don't be an asshole). I too am one of those people, but sometimes you gotta think, who cares if they're closing in 20 minutes?? I'm hungry, and I'm paying for their service until they're no longer required to accept my money. Screw them, its their job. I'll allow comedian Louis C.K. take it from here....goodnight people, and thank you to the family/staff at Cinnamon Indian restaurant for making my group and I feel welcome right up to the last minute. Well be back again soon.