Line Cook

When I was a kid, I helped my parents win many chili cook-offs. When I was 18 and already a line cook for over a year I won the career day cooking contest at my high school with a good ol' apple pie. I think the prize was fifty bucks. Recently I competed in an event called Chocolate Fantasy in which local restaurants have booths set up in the streets and serve samples of food and desserts. People pay about eighty bucks each to sample the free food and drinks, and also submit votes for the best food. With some large parties scheduled that Sturday evening, I was only able to make the food (Potato encrusted salmon with a horseradish/honey/herb glaze and chocolate tiramisu) and send it off to the event with a few workers. We got third place out of about twenty five restaurants. No prize, just some complimentary wine glasses. At a similar event called Food and Wine Under the Stars I got second place with butternut squash ravioli with parsley and nutmeg sauce, goat cheese bruscetta, and tirimisu. Again, no prize, just some wine glasses.

Unibroue is far superior to anything brewed in the U.S. I discovered it at a beer/wine tasting event and now serve it at my restaurant. In my opinion, these are the finest beers available.

Maybe you could do the shrimp ceviche in an opened-faced jalepeno popper style. Take some fresh jalepenos and fire or oven roast them until the skin peels off. Peel them using some latex gloves and cut a slit in one side, remove the seeds and fill with the ceviche.

I don't know if this would be helpful, but I do pancetta wrapped scallops at work using frozen pancetta that I slice on a Hobart slicer. I think the ultra-thin slices are the key. I take the round slice and put a scallop directly in the middle and wrap it up, usually covering most of the scallop. I sear them on all sides in a hot oiled pan until the bacon is crispy(the water in the scallops doesn't seem to keep it from getting crisp either) and finish in a 450 degree oven for a few minutes while I make the sauce in the same pan. Usually I deglaze the pan with some lemon juice or wine and add a little butter and fresh herbs.

I take back what I said about people ordering beef at work. Out of about 160 guests tonight, two people ordered beef. It was all chicken and shrimp, which we had to start thawing in the middle of the dinner rush. I guess the media hype is starting to sink in.

wOrd

Funny thing. We've been selling lots of beef at work lately. People don't seem to be fearful of the mad cow thing here in Southern California. And the prices are dropping, which is nice.

Call it the "impurities" That's what I call it anyways

I second that. Stove Top is a decent product, especially for the busy homemaker pressed for time. I also have no problem serving up some Rice-A-Roni products as a side dish to the fam. Just as long as you are aware that these packaged items are usually far less superior to the homemade versions and you are using these products out of convenience. I prefer cornbread stuffing and will usually use a recipe of Jiffy corn muffin mix to make it. I learned how to make cornbread stuffing from my mom early on and she always used Jiffy cornbread. Cornbread from scratch is rather easy as well, but you can't really beat the thirty-nine cents for a box of Jiffy. One of her dishes that she would make was in fact a pork loin with a pistachio and andouille sausage corn bread stuffing. I thimk she used cognac to deglaze the pan that she seared the stuffed pork in to make the sauce and it was always fantastic. Now that I think about it, I can't believe I've never made it myself.

Shucks, why would you want to do that? I rely heavily on both of those for most of my cooking at home. A nice wok is a pretty righteous cookware item too. If you don't have a wok, get one and a rice steamer and go to town.

"Who cut the cheese?" And I apologize in advance for this one: "Who put out the garbage fire with asparagus piss?"(Walk inside the Yoshinoya Beef Bowl in Los Angeles and you'll know what I'm talkin' about)

It's always a good idea in the professional kitchen to have some chilled aloe leaves. I have a massive aloe plant in the yard and keep a branch of the stuff in the walk-in at all times. A good application of that cold jelly works wonders. Those instant cold-packs are nice to have around too. Recently a fellow worker got burned while squeazing a magic line pastry bag over-filled with piping hot and poorly whipped mashed potatoes. He tried to squeeze out the chunk that was clogging the tip and the bag split, shooting the hot mash into his face. I've been cooking for years and burn myself all the time. Those oil splatters are the worst. But I've also developed some kind of skill that allows me to touch and handle extremely hot items with my finger tips and hands without getting burned.

I'd like to give a shout-out to cheddar cheese.

I've never made cioppino with red wine. It sounds good, but I think I prefer the color that you get with white wine. At my restaurant we use pinot grigio Zuppa di Pesca or "Cioppino":

I will never again... Attempt to blacken steaks in a poorly ventilated apartment. Take a big whiff of my pot of reducing balsamic syrup(or hot wing sauce) Toast nuts without a timer Make a large batch of tapenade or olive pesto in my robotcoup without checking all the olives for pits.