Pork is much adored across the French countryside, and there are many ways it is prepared and cooked. I’ve been reading about France:s regional cuisines, and came across a great recipe for pork loin roasted on top of leeks and tomatoes. The mild oniony flavor of the leeks balances the sweetness of the tomatoes, and [...]
It’s Sunday, it’s March, and it rained all day today. So, it was a particularly slow day at the restaurant, and I was bored. I hate being on the line when it’s slow, because we get one or two tickets at a time, and other than that it’s just standing around and trying to look [...]
Two delicious things come from Colombia: great quality coffee, and a fine spirit called Aguardiente. I recently picked up a bag of whole bean Colombian coffee at one of the coffee shops I like, 9th Street Espresso in Alphabet City (a neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan). It’s very nice coffee, lighter than what [...]
At my first cooking job, a crappy chain restaurant called Damon’s Grill in Northern Virginia, there was a huge brother named Tony C. When I started working there, he had 12 kids, and when I quit there a year and change later, he had 13. This big cool dude used to be deep in the [...]
When I worked at DB Townhouse for just 3 weeks, I discovered an ingredient that was new to me: Austrian pumpkin seed oil. It’s very dark green, almost black, and has the most interesting flavor, like the essence of autumn infused into an oil. It tastes like pumpkin seeds, obviously, but the flavor is concentrated [...]
I’m not sure why I wanted to work in the kitchen. Sometimes it seems to me like it messes up my life. I get home at 3 or 4 in the morning every night and don’t have anything to do. No one to talk to. Most of my close friends work in other industries and [...]
I had a dinner party in my apartment with my roommates last week. It went very well and was much fun. We had 11 people over, so including my roommates I cooked for 13 people. My menu was very eclectic and drew on a bunch of the different influences on my cooking: work, travel, the [...]
I love working in New York City. I quit my old job exactly two weeks ago, and today was my first day at my new job. I’m now working at a cool German restaurant in Brooklyn. The kitchen is beautiful, with a super high ceiling that gives it a very open feel, and a huge [...]
I recently learned to make authentic mole de olla, a hearty, chile-infused Mexican stew, while working at an Italian restaurant here in New York. Wait what? Mexican stew at an Italian restaurant? How does that work? Well, the restaurant kitchen here in New York is mostly a mix of two very different cultures. Guys like [...]
Last month I wrote about my new job at a New American fine dining restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. Since then, a lot has happened, and now I’m no longer working there. The first thing that happened was they changed the schedule, and everyone went from working 60-65 hours a week to only 40 or so. [...]
